But mark your calendars anyway – June 6-8, 2014, Tacoma Convention Center….

candybowl

So finally got a chance to see Ender’s Game at The Crest last night. I haven’t read the book in some time, but reread it last year (I think?) in anticipation of this movie coming out.

Likes:

All the actors are well cast. Many are not given very much to do save a few lines or scenes, but even with big-name actors such as Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley in the movie, it balances out well.

The special effects are also well done and convincing – it’s always a bit of a crapshoot with zero-grav stuff in movies (to me, anyway), even with the CGI you now see (as opposed to hidden wires used in the past). It can look too fake (e.g. all the stupid CGI guys running around in Attack of the Clones) or a bit too forced – but here it looks good and doesn’t overpower the plot trying to be ‘amazing’ or anything. By contrast with the recent Gravity, in which nearly the whole movie is in a zero-G environment (and done very, very well) – this movie still holds its own.

I was also glad they didn’t go out of their way to overdo the Formics (‘Buggers’) like was done in Starship Troopers several years ago. While I have quite a number of gripes (unrelated to CGI) about that movie, they really went overboard with bugs, bugs everywhere and making them as horrific and never-ending as possible. Here, they show them only briefly, mostly in spaceships and then the Hive Queen in a few scenes, and she/it is portrayed as a sympathetic figure, just like in the book.

Nitpicks and critical (incl. some spoilers, be forewarned)

OK, on with the usual complaining 🙂

1) They really took out too much of the book, despite Orson Scott Card being heavily involved in the movie’s production, writing, etc. You miss out on most of the alienation and isolation that leads to Ender acting out – you just see a few scenes or dialog that sets it up and then boom, he’s acting out. I also missed the extensive Battle School zero-G drills and wars that the book details at length, and his brother Peter only has one scene here (in the book, he’s not a major character so much as he’s a major influence throughout Ender’s experience, but you surely see a lot more of him there). And even his sister Valentine only has a few scenes herself, and she is arguably a bigger influence on Ender than Peter? And the “mind game” Ender plays on the tablet is much more detailed and longer in the book, and serves as an important backdrop for how the Hive Queen makes mental contact with him and gains his trust. They pay lip service to it here but treat it much more like a dream that he sees several times and then follows in the real world, and that doesn’t quite cut it.

2) They don’t discuss the whole issue of Ender being a Third (in the future, people must obtain permission to have kids, and almost nobody ever goes beyond a second kid, so Ender being a Third makes him stand out – not in a positive way – from the beginning of his life). It is mentioned once at dinner and that’s about it, and never really explained

3) The whole side plot of Valentine and Peter using their skill at debate over the world networks to influence society at large (and ultimately build Peter up into becoming The Hegemon, the world’s ruler) isn’t in this movie at all. Yet it plays a notable role in the book – I think at least a few minutes here and there could have helped add it?

It’s true that were you to include much of what I mention above as missing, you’d likely add at least an hour to the movie at minimum. But I think the story suffers here because of these omissions, and I’m hoping the moviemakers pulled a Peter Jackson and filmed extra footage that can be included on the DVD when released soon. The comparison I’m thinking of here was the second Lord of the Rings movie – The Two Towers. I didn’t like that movie near as much in the theater, because most of it was spent watching people run over mountains, run across meadows, run run run! When the DVD came out, the extended version included almost 40 min. more of plot and scenes that broke all that up much better and rounded out the story much nicer. I could see a similar result with Ender’s Game, provided they made that extra footage while filming the movie.

All in all, I liked the movie and think they did a good job, but it could have been great instead of just good had they included more. Maybe the DVD….?

candybowl

So the summer movie-going season kind of hit a wall in mid-July due to work and other commitments, sadly. But that’s why the DVD was invented, rightl? 🙂 So I finally saw Pacific Rim this afternoon on DVD. While I’m sure the effect of mecha-robots and kaiju slugging it out was diminished somewhat by watching it at home – it was still entertaining.

Likes: – the way the soundtrack draws you in when the battles intensify (this was done well IMHO in other recent movies, notably The Avengers);

– The robots are pretty cool, even if not that original (we’ve seen them all pretty much a zillion times before if you have seen Transformers or any anime mecha from Gundam onward through Evangelion) although I was a bit disappointed the majority of the battles occur at sea rather than on land – gotta smash up those buildings and stomp the people and cars! One of the mecha uses an actual ship as a bat at one point, so that’s pretty cool, too, even if I think they have a bit of a comparative scale issue on that point;

– The actors are all fairly unknown (to me, at least) save Idris Elba, who seems to be really hitting the big time of late. Charlie Day also resembles Sam Rockwell more than a little bit – I was surprised it wasn’t the latter. I’m glad they did it that way and not just have a bunch of big names who demand more money and more screen time – stories like this are about kaiju and the men/women who waste them with huge robots, first and foremost!

– the fact that the robots didn’t just win the war at first go and that the kaiju kept coming back, meaner and more vicious.

And, then the inevitable gripes and spoilers (alert!)

– it’s been pointed out many times over that building big robots to take out big monsters wouldn’t work. Godzilla proved that with Mechagodzilla, and that was guys in rubber suits (and arguably, both characters were bad guys anyway)! Suffice it to say that with mecha, you just have to disbelieve from the word go, or you can’t enjoy it;

– why, oh why don’t the robots simply RIP OFF THE MONSTERS’ HEADS when they fight them? It’s obvious from the start of every fight that trying to punch them out (especially when half submerged in water) DOES NOT WORK. Nor does throwing them around, on the few times they try it. And when you have pilots trained in martial arts and that have flexible swords mounted in the back of the mecha, using those skills and weapons more than as an afterthought *might* make sense – who knew? Again, a boxing match works best on land, and more likely between guys in rubber suits who don’t have the benefit of CGI weapons. 🙂

– the whole thing of the monster shorting out all the mecha in one of the later battles excepting the Gypsy Danger because they were ‘digital’ and it is ‘analog’ is completely bogus. Do you really think that shorting out wires and hardware depends on whether there’s a CPU? The answer is NO. Fried wires and computers are fried, period, guys. Ask any Cylon, old or new.

– there are a few too many ‘fight to the last man’ cliches here, but at least the movie doesn’t drag them out, so they don’t distract *too* much.

– I don’t care how many helicopters you use – there is no way they could lift a mecha like that? But barring some other plot device (like how the Autobots could fly when the plot suited it), not sure how you resolve that one….?

All in all, an entertaining ride, even if not seen on the big screen. Next up, catching Elysium and Oblivion on DVD to finish out summer movies …. three months late!

A final word – throughout this movie I was constantly saying to myself – Gojira would have kicked ALL their a**es! Thankfully we only have to wait until the start of next summer to see it happen……muhhahhah!

candybowl

So over the past few years I’ve seen an increasing trend (news to nobody I’m sure) of retro art inspired by previous art. That is, you have ‘fake’ movie posters or wholly new ‘ads’ for TV series re-imagined, like the book imaged below, which I saw in a Barnes & Noble recently (and was able to resist buying it, even!).

I’m sure the myriad of artists on Etsy have long been in this game, came across some cool recent examples there, too:

The Geekerie

Sci fi movie pulp covers

Star Trek: The Art of Juan Ortiz

(a few more pics)

candybowl

Gotta get this book!

candybowl

So we went camping with relatives last weekend, what a great time! And during part of that time, I finally had the chance to start reading the recent Steve Jobs bio from Walter Isaacson that I got for christmas last year. This was an interesting read, if you like biographies, but I had mixed reactions to it, for the following reasons.

1) Much of the story was already familiar to me, as I grew up with those original Macs (and Amigas, and PCs, etc.) and have used most of them along the way at some point or another (I have an older Mac Pro at present, among my other bazillion computers at home). I am not a zealous Mac fanboy by any means, they serve their purpose and definitely do it well. My notable Mac gripes are beyond the scope of this review, so I’ll leave those out. I am glad they are still around, as much to keep Micro$oft honest (because Windows still sucks for the most part) as to point out what you can really do when you push hard for design and integration in a consumer OS, even when you arguably don’t have to.

2) While reading the book, it’s obvious Isaacson has made strong efforts to be balanced, even though it’s just as clear he’s a big Jobs fanboy from the very start. So while he is happy to show many (because sadly there are many) instances of Jobs being a huge jerk, Jobs being irresponsible, Jobs lording it over everyone around him, etc. – there are just as many triumphs along the way, and those are put on equal display. Some of them I think are a little overblown or hyped in a way that I would more expect to see in a press release, but this is definitely not a book that avoids showing the bad side of Jobs, and that’s a good thing.

3) One factor here I am not sure is brought out as much as it could have been is the luck factor. Like so many successful business types, regardless of industry, to hear them tell it, you’d think they planned their ridiculous success from the minute they were born and it was simply fate that led them to the pinnacle. But anyone paying actual attention knows that LUCK plays a huge part in these stories as well.

It’s true that highly focused, smart people like Jobs and similar are often the best-equipped to take overwhelming advantage of chances that come their way – and in Jobs’ case, his ‘reality distortion field’ often permitted him in many cases (but not in the end with cancer, certainly) to push his way through obstacles to create the reality he wanted and believed in. In some ways, he was both the Immovable Object or the Irresistible Force no matter what he did, because the guy simply didn’t budge. Period. But he was also very, very lucky – you can argue both sides of many of his successes that he was the key driver – but he was also just as much riding on the success of the team(s) that supported him. And (noted in the book somewhat too) if it wasn’t for the iPod (and to a lesser degree, iTunes), the second coming of Apple might have turned out very differently (because they would have ended up as part of Oracle or Sun, most likely, and possibly not even around anymore). The iPod gave them the crazy money and breathing room to really aim for the stars again, even with the Mac OS X reboot beforehand. That would never have been enough on its own.

4) One of the more interesting aspects to me about this story is of course the contrast between Bill Gates and Jobs, which isn’t the focus of the book but certainly comes up several times. And if you’ve ever watched Pirates of Silicon Valley, you’ve seen this scenario play out – arguably not really exaggerated for effect even in the movie – where Jobs gets karma put right back in his face by Gates in a direct, undeniable way. Possibly one of the few times it really happened, when you consider the book and story as a whole. Here Gates is painted a bit more nice than Jobs – but I’d wager he was just as hard to deal with and just as ‘cornholio’ in his own way – ask the crushed and discarded Micro$oft ‘partners’ or early computer companies along the way that were run over by far worse business practices than Apple ever came up with. There’s plenty of abusive behavior to go around when these kinds of stakes are at issue, and it’s certainly not confined to the tech industry, either. Ask the banks, for example.

So do I admire Steve Jobs? I admire several of his character traits – the drive, the focus, the willingness to sacrifice so much to stick to his vision in many cases, the willingness to be the lone voice even in his NeXT years, where he literally *was* the lone voice for his beliefs. And I am glad he played a central role in bringing us Pixar, a story I knew only a little about beforehand but the book tells in great detail.

But I have seen SJ’s hyper-abusive management style at work even in my own career, and it greatly tempers my admiration for his success in the end. No one has to behave that way to be successful, and there are plenty of examples out there that prove my point. It’s truly sad that so many leaders in Corporate America believe otherwise. But as SJ found out, karma is real, guys – change your ways while you still can!

And I’m not completely convinced that designing cool consumer devices (computers or otherwise) is ‘changing the world’ the way Jobs constantly evangelizes. Because changing or enriching consumer behavior is one thing – but really changing society for the better is quite another, and I’m not convinced that (just) building cool technology is a necessary means to that end. I think that it is a uniquely *American* viewpoint to believe and centralize that perspective, but the era of ‘what’s good for GM is good for America’ is long, long since past, and the same applies for Apple.

A great read and great fodder for beer-table debate, to be sure. Especially if you have an Apple or Micro$oft (yes, somehow they too exist) fanboy in your midst. 🙂

candybowl

candybowl

I wonder if either of these guys’ names is Gee-Off? 🙂

candybowl

So, first up, (was) the new Star Trek movie this past weekend. In a nutshell – Very good!

Likes:
– Villain, (Benedict Cumberbatch, the next Alan Rickman);
– special effects (the new ‘warp’ light effect is very cool);
– the interplay between the main characters;
– Spock (simply kicks a**)
– Karl Urban as McCoy
– definitely good to see Peter Weller in anything, it’s been too long!

Nerdy Nits to pick:
– The need to turn every stressful scene into The Poseidon Adventure;
– The underlying, unstated (but must exist?) competition between Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams to one-up each other with these movies (See my Avengers commentary from last summer, and of course now that JJ Abrams is doing at least one (likely more) Star Wars movie, the gamesmanship may never end;
– a few plot holes I won’t spoil for you (we can argue about them over beer later)
– the lack of much for McCoy to do in this one vs. the last one
– Transwarp beaming? It was bulls*** in the last one, still a plot dodge bigger than a galaxy full of Holodecks (thankfully not in either movie);
– Chris Pine still looks too young to be Captain Kirk, although he does a great job in the role generally – maybe some Dippity-Do in the hair area would make him look older?

Go see it! Next up, Oblivion, Iron Man 3, Elysium, Pacific Rim, and several others…exxxxxxxxxxcellent!

candybowl