Here follows a review of the the Narnia movie: Prince Caspian.
Of course, there will be spoilers… You have been warned! But I seriously doubt that anyone who’s old enough to read this blog could have gotten through life without hearing the plot of most of these books anyway… And if you are, by chance, someone who has never read the Chronicles of Narnia? Shame on you!
Well, I’ve really been going on about how amazing Sunshine is as a movie, and after doing some reading on it like one does when they like something, I’ve come across posts saying how anti-religion it is, or how anti-religion it’s supposed to be and stuff like that… I guess I could see how it could be construed that way, and I want to explain what I believe. Of course, doing that, there will be major spoilers, so I will put that behind a link for those of you who plan on watching. And when I mean “major spoilers”, I mean… I’m going to give away the entire story, so don’t read if you want to be surprised!
I might as well place a spoiler warning here, before letting you read this post. Every comment so far has complained about it, but I really wouldn’t consider what I disclose a major spoiler warning… More like information to encourage you to watch and to give you an idea of what to expect. If you’re already truly planning on watching it, and you want it to be a complete surprise, then don’t read this. But if you still haven’t decided if you want to or not, then go ahead!
Inaugural post in the TV review category! This will be where I put my thoughts on any TV shows I think I want to talk about… I can see me using this to try to introduce off-mainstream shows more than blabbing about something as popular as Heroes or LOST, and this is a prime example! Behold:
Quite possibly one of the most under-rated shows I’ve ever watched. I say this because in all my internet escapades, I have never once seen a mention of this show without specifically looking for it. New(crappy)BSG and other pop-culture shows are plastered all over the place. Clearly they are (somehow) popular. Maybe I just wasn’t paying attention, but the lack of a Wiki for Earth: Final Conflict seems to only help prove my point. It’s not a show people currently watch and it wasn’t memorable enough for them, either.
STORY:
Basically, the story of the series is the arrival of an alien race that carries the promise of helping human kind with any and every problem they have, in exchange for nothing. The aliens, called the Taelons, help humanity out of the goodness of their collective hearts… Or so they want Earth to believe.
The pilot episode drops you in the middle of everything, which I’ve always enjoyed more than having a story unfold from its very boring beginnings. The energy-based Taelons have been on Earth for around 3 years and have cured all manner of diseases, converted deserts into farmland and by their mere presence, stopped all war. Pretty much, the Taelons are perfect and everyone is enthralled.
I won’t spoil anything, but the series begins with the assassination of Jonathon Doors, a human who was about to announce a major corporate alliance with the Taelons, with the plan to help facilitate the spread of Taelon technology to aid Earth. The assassination is pinned on an anti-Taelon movement called “The Resistance”, and, in the wake of Doors’ death, the Taelon Companion of the United States seeks to increase its security by enlisting the aid of William Boone, who was partly in charge of security at the assassination. (Apparently, the security plan Boone suggested was far better than the one actually put in place, and the Companion wanted to give him more authority to get things done properly.)
And by the Indianapolis Colts helmet on Boone’s desk, you can clearly see that he’s the perfect candidate for a series starring character, since has an awesome taste in football teams!
Hmm, let’s see… How can I put the story in a nutshell without spoiling a whole lot? Let’s say that the Taelons aren’t all about helping humanity just because they feel like it. As the series plays on, you start getting the idea that they have a plan… You don’t know what it is, but you know there’s something going on. At one minute, you think the Taelons are amazing, with their technology and aid without asking for anything in return… But then the next minute, they do something so ghastly that you can’t understand why people still support them… That is, you can’t understand until they turn around and do something really incredible again.
The show is very… Political. The core of each episode always somehow revolves around the Taelons manipulating humans for some sort of personal gain, and the characters will discuss the best methods for doing such a thing. Some characters just want the Taelons to leave, some want to profit off of them, some want to ally themselves with them… There’s always some scheme going on that you’re never sure what to think or who to trust, and none of the characters do, either. I guess some people could find that boring, but I think it’s interesting. And while all this is going on, the majority of humans are willingly blinding themselves to the obvious.
I could almost see how this show might not be as huge a hit as it could be… It’s deep and it makes you think, and a lot of things aren’t answered for a very long time, if at all. I would have to say that the majority of people watching TV don’t want to watch something that makes them think… I guess that’s why the trillion reality shows and million sit-coms are regurgitating the same things over and over. So brainless…
SPECIAL EFFECTS:
To me, the story is far more important than visuals, but sometimes visuals can be distracting from the story. I would have to say that E:FC has a stellar story and nominal special effects, with nothing really exceptionally good or exceptionally bad. It’s just good ol’ run of the mill. Especially in the first season. If you can get through the early 90s looking visual effects of the first season, the second season clearly got a higher budget to work with and they almost completely redesigned all the visuals. Taelon mothership, the Taelons themselves… The first season was passable, but the second season seals the deal… Especially for TV shows.
There really wasn’t much to say about the visuals except that. I’ve had some people comment about the old look the pilot episode had. Trust me, it gets a lot better. (Not that visuals are supposed to be that important, mind you!) But come on, there’s something cool about seeing the organic Taelon Embassy built almost in the backyard of the White House:
CHARACTERS AND ACTING:
The acting is amazing. Well, for the most part. The Taelons are awesome. I really can’t explain it… They’re supposed to be these serene, spritual, energy-based beings who think they know everything and they pull it off perfectly.
I would have to say the strongest point of E:FC would be the character development. Sure, there’s an over-arching storyline, but they take every chance to develop characters along the way… Some more than others, but the main characters are definitely propelled along quite nicely. Da’an, the American Taelon Companion is probably the clear example here. His character matures so much through the episodes that by the third season, he’s a far different character than he was in the first season.
I would have to say, though, that my favorite character is a computer entrepreneur/hacker/millionaire who goes by the name of Augur. I don’t think E:FC would quite be as good as it is without him. I really can’t explain him… You’ll just have to watch him. His character goes up and down so much that, while you can’t help but love him, you sometimes have to wonder what he’s ultimately up to… Actually, that goes for just about everyone. Even the showcase “bad guy”, Agent Sandoval. He’s one of those baddies who is somehow really awesome, while, at the same time, is really evil. Or maybe he just lacks emotion and knows what has to be done… I haven’t quite figured that out yet. So far, though, I have to pin him as a bad guy.
Also, according to Wikipedia, E:FC was plagued by regular contract disagreements… Which means that actors didn’t like how much they were getting paid, more or less, and decided to quit. Which means… People die. A lot. Or they go off and don’t quite die, but also aren’t seen again for a long time, if at all. That being said, one of the things that keeps making this series so good is the fact that you are never quite sure who’s going to die and when, simply because you know E:FC had tons of contract problems. On the up side, this adds an element of unpredictability that’s had me on the edge of my seat many a time, sometimes cheering at the outcome, or having a “OH MY GOSH this can’t be happening!!” moment. On the down side, this means that NEW characters are constantly popping up! While, so far, this hasn’t been a real issue, I have finally met a character I don’t think I like… She just doesn’t seem to fit in with the mood of the entire series. I think she’s getting a little better, though… It might have even been the character profile… A sort of haughty “I know exactly what I’m doing so buzz off” character. She’s been blasted into her place a few times lately, and she seems to be fitting into the mood of the series a little better now.
Oh, and even better? Majel Roddenberry is a recurring character throughout the season, but predominantly in the first. I haven’t seen her in the third season, though. But she’s there! I think it’s cool how she plays even a small part in Gene Roddenberry created stuff. I didn’t even recognize her until I heard her voice. (After watching the entire series of Star Trek: Voyager, it wasn’t difficult to go “hey, that’s the Voyager’s computer voice… HEY, THAT’S GENE’S WIFE!”) Also, Marina Sirtis (otherwise known as Deanna Troi in Star Trek) guest starred in an episode in season three. That was also really neat.
MUSIC:
I have to mention the music! Man, the music is great… I managed to get the soundtrack and I listened to it for a few days. The theme and credits music are, by far, the best. The theme is so distinctive and simple, but somehow really nice. The music definitely helps set the mood of the series as being a kind of… sad, yet exciting story. Not many times do I say music stands out in a movie or show, but I think it does in this. Like, say, when you can watch a movie and it impacts you so much that you buy the soundtrack to relive the experience. That’s what it’s like with Earth: Final Conflict.
CONCLUSION:
In conclusion, this is definitely high on my list of favorite TV shows. The story is amazing, the depth and complexity of the plot… The characters and everything. Yeah… This is definitely a personal favorite and I honestly can’t understand why there isn’t more information out there. Even Babylon 5 and Battlestar Galactica have their own high-profile sites for harvesting information! Stargate SG-1 is like… DUH, of course there’s going to be a site. I’m almost tempted to go back and watch each episode of E:FC and make a note of EVERYTHING to put on a Wiki I’ve set up. You know, dumb things like Da’an’s family ties and the Taelon interdimensional technology concepts.
I haven’t even scratched the surface of the storyline, either, by the way. I can’t tell you much because each episode is tied together and it’s extremely easy to spoil a lot of episodes. It is definitely something you don’t want to jump into random re-runs with… You should start at the beginning and watch it IN ORDER. It is imperative that you watch it in order or you’ll either be very, very confused, or very, very spoiled.
And last, but not least, they even had a story about a town the Taelons recovered from a nuclear incident! Originally named “Silent Falls”, the citizens renamed the town “Taelonville” after Da’an led a project to clean up the radioactive fallout. Can you guess which state the town’s in?
Indianapolis Colts on the desk of William Boone, and now Taelonville, Indiana? Someone on the writing team has got some pretty good taste, if you ask me!
So, in a nutshell: You need to watch Earth: Final Conflict.
It was storming lastnight, so I had to prematurely cut short my Elite Force game with TW. DSL works properly now, and as such, it’s far more sensitive to noise than before, which kind of makes sense, but is incredibly annoying. Every flash of lightning strong enough to cause the faintest crackle of static would make it disconnect. So I decided to watch the long overdue obligatory werewolf movie viewing of Blood and Chocolate. (Freaky odd name, yes…) I would have to say… While it isn’t a good movie in and of itself, it IS a very good werewolf movie. (Seeing as how they’re ALL TERRIBLE except this, and the werewolf episode in the new Doctor Who series.)
However, I still can’t help but feel it’s a stereotypical movie. In just about every wolf-centric story, the wolves are either giant evil monsters bent on devouring all of mankind and must be stopped at all costs, or they’re misunderstood creatures who everyone is afraid of for the wrong reasons and must be stopped at all costs and they kill humans in self-defense… In either case, wolves are hunted and they kill humans. Doesn’t seem to matter how glorified they get or how monstrous they get. So I again ask, can there be a GOOD, original werewolf movie? One that doesn’t just rehash everything ever done before? It’s like the fantasy genre! It’s so stagnant… Everything that’s been done is going to be redone over and over. You might have a few stand-outs like Blood and Chocolate or the Doctor Who episode, but not usually!
What I would like to see is a flip-side to the generic werewolf blah-ness… Like, I don’t know, has anyone ever thought that it would be a PRIVILEGE to see one? Hey, if I somehow learned that you could willingly change back and forth between human and wolf form, I’m going to be the last person to ever freak out. In fact, I’d probably give you a big hug. Barring, of course, you didn’t turn out to be a “disease” werewolf that goes insane every full moon and wreaks havoc all night. (Which, I might add, I would prefer NOT to be the werewolf theory… I’d hope for sane wolf shifters who could pass on their powers.)
But back to the movie, I would suggest you at least check it out, especially if you’re a wolf/werewolf buff like me. I thought it was rated R, but it’s only PG-13… For violence (which wasn’t really so bad compared to other PG-13 movies), sexuality (of which I didn’t notice any… I mean, there was a bar scene, but never any… James Bond flagship scenes), and substance abuse…
Substance abuse? Okay… I didn’t see any drugs. At all. The only thing I could EVER think they would be referring to? Probably the drinking of alcoholic beverages. But when has THAT ever been considered substance abuse? Okay, not that… Hmm. Well, there’s the whole silver-thing… Silver is deadly to werewolves! (I think that’s something that should remain stereotypical. Just seems… Somehow… Well, I wouldn’t say NICE, but it seems… Normal.) So some guy threw silver dust in a human-form werewolf’s face. Yep… Substance abuse. Werewolves getting high off silver dust. Then there’s the silver-poisoning antidote… Is THAT substance abuse? If it is, you should stop taking your vitamins. That’s substance abuse.
Needless to say, I think it deserves the PG-13 rating for violence and overall themes, but everything listed is a BIT of a reach… There might have been suggestive themes I didn’t pick up on, but nothing explicit like that sort of description usually defines.
THE WOLF IS NOT SNEEZING!!
Man, I just don’t know where to start on this review… I lie to you not when I say it’s the best game I’ve ever played in my life. The story was amazing… the characters, the plot, the gameplay, the music… it was all spectacular. I bought a PlayStation 2 specifically for this game, and I had extremely high expectations, and it totally blew me away. (In other words, I like this game.) This is definately, without the shadow of a doubt, my new all-time favorite game ever.
Let’s see… well, you probably know that, in the game, you play a wolf. (Which is what caught my eye to begin with, heh.) The wolf is a personification of the sun goddess Amaterasu, who is called back to the mortal world after a mysterious being inadvertantly reawakened an eight-headed dragon named Orochi, who, incidentally, Amaterasu originally helped to get rid of the first time, but was “killed” in the end and slept for 100 years, letting things become neglected in the meantime.
So Orochi is reawakened and he decides to wreck as much of the mortal world as possible, Amaterasu is reawakened to help defeat him again, once and for all, and clean up the mortal world in the process. At the beginning of your journey, you’re joined by a tiny bug-sized guy named Issun, who acts as a sort of guide (and the comic relief), since he’s been travelling the world for some time. He also takes it upon himself to talk to people for you since… well, wolves can’t talk. Which they actually play on a few times, when you have to try to talk to people without him there. Personally, I thought he was very much like me, at least as far as his reactions to things go. I would see something that completely took me off guard, and then Issun pipes up with exactly what I was thinking… and then people in the game would answer him, which would essentially answer me, since I was thinking the same thing! (If you follow.)
So when Amaterasu (or… “Ammy”, as Issun affectionately refers to you as) reawakens, she’s pretty much without any of her former power, since she’s been gone for 100 years. Her power is displayed through the use of what Issun terms the “Celestial Brush”. You directly interact with the world using certain brush strokes that affect different things. There are 13 brush techniques that Ammy used to know, but when she “died”, the powers were scattered and you have to track them down before you confront Orochi.
So (third paragraph to start with “so”, just to point that out), Ammy and Issun embark on a quest to track down the brush techniques and regain her original strength. Of course, along the way, you have many, many, many side quests and an ever thickening main quest. (So many quests, in fact, that I completely missed several of them, and am currently replaying the game at a slower pace so as to find and finish each one!) As you finish these quests, you’ll earn “Praise” from whoever you were doing the quest for, which you can then use to upgrade your stats, like health and ink and a few other things. It’s interesting to note, however, that nobody knows you’re a god. They only see you as a plain white wolf wandering around. (If you run out of ink during insane usage of your Brush, your power will temporarily disappear and you’ll see yourself as everyone else sees you.)
The story is incredibly huge and complex with so many twists and surprises that it constantly kept screwing up my predictions, which was awesome. After hanging around the characters so long, you start getting attached to them. I mean, hey… look at my internet name. I had absolutely no problem getting into the role of playing a canine. Ammy was me, pure and simple. I got very attached to Issun, because he was always helpful and knew when to make jokes and was just an all around awesome character, and Amaterasu got attached to him, also, which made for some pretty emotional moments. I can’t really go into that, though… unless you want spoilers!
Although, speaking of emotional moments, there was a certain dungeon you had to work yourself through to get to the boss at the top. Of course, dungeons are never particularly easy, and this one was no exception. However, they mixed things up a bit for this one. This dungeon had a gate keeper… a little floating piece of paper that watched over the gates to each dungeon level. To pass to another level, you had to race this paper guy through some pretty rough obstacle courses. This paper was sentient, and was very polite and to the point, actually, calling me Sir even (even though I was a goddess, sheesh, mister blind-paper). Issun and I were getting pretty ticked off at Mr Paper, since, all this time, Mr Paper was actually having FUN racing us through this deadly dungeon
Eventually, it got to a point where he just wanted to race to play, and he didn’t care if we won and got to the next level or not… he just wanted to see our amazing abilities in action. (His words, not mine!) At the final gate we passed, Issun and I started gloating over the fact that we won against all odds and that we were going to head up to his leader and teach them a lesson. Rude, I know… but… yeah… we learned our lesson. The paper started talking about how wonderful it was to have known us, and that he was so happy to have seen such a competitive spirit in his life. Issun and I both came to the sudden realization that he was going to die, and I’m serious when I say we both went “What?!” at the same time, heheh. (I’m not joking when I claim Issun said what I was thinking.) But, yes… the floating piece of paper told us that having willingly failed his duty as gatekeeper, he had to forfeit his life, but he told us not to worry about him, since he didn’t regret what he’d done… and then he fluttered to the ground and disappeared in a flash of flowers.
I don’t know exactly WHY… but I was pretty choked up at that. Edrick laughed at me when I told him… but hey! Papers have feelings, too! But, yeah… that totally took the wind out of my sails and I didn’t quite have the energy I had to go and get rid of the boss. I’m telling you… Okami is an awesome game to make me mourn the death of a PIECE OF PAPER!!
Okay… I think I’ve got the point across that the story was really, really good. Especially the end… man… so good. Better than most books or movies. It was perfect. Music, too, was phenomenal. I’m contemplating buying the soundtrack. I don’t do that for most games, but… wow. You can listen to each track and it will flawlessly recreate the emotions from the game. I’ll let someone hear a track because it’s just plain good music, but they don’t get that whole emotional inflection with it.
The graphics are what’s called cel-shading. Nowhere near realistic, but incredibly awesome. The little banner up at the top is what the game looks like. It’s designed to look like something painted on old Japanese scrolls. You can even see the grain of the “paper”. That’s not a compression problem… that’s what it looks like in the game. It’s crazily stylized and… it’s amazing. It’s the kind of game that will make you look at 3D photorealistic games with no story and just laugh at them. Okami proves you don’t need real looking graphics when you have a knock-your-socks-off storyline.
The gameplay style is a lot like Zelda (no, I’m not going to compare the game TO Zelda… but it DOES play LIKE Zelda). Realtime battles with a small amount of moves, but never boring. You can actually skip battles (that aren’t required, like… say, a boss battle) really easily and just go adventuring. Although fighting enemies is your primary way or making money, so while you CAN skip fighting, it’s probably not the best thing to do.
There’s even a button for digging and barking! Both of which are incredibly fun to use. I like to run around and just bark… because it’s fun… I don’t know… shut up… Digging, though, actually has a use in some quests, and for digging up treasure chests.
You know… I guess this isn’t really a review… or… maybe it is. I’ve covered story, music, and gameplay. Oh! I didn’t talk about the Celestial Brush, duhhh… You hold down one of the trigger buttons anytime, anywhere, and the game world turns into a sheet of paper that you can actually draw on. There are so many things you can do with that Brush it ain’t funny. Especially during fights. You can use weapons in the fights, yes, but I guarantee you’ll be using the Brush, too. Hold the trigger, and draw a simple pattern on the paper and then let off the trigger and voila! The brush stroke goes off and does whatever it was you wanted it to do! Sometimes it gets confused with a couple of similar stroke patterns, but nothing really serious.
If I had to score this… it’d be a perfect 10. There’s absolutely no reason NOT to play this. Well, unless you don’t have a PlayStation… or can’t afford it… But I would even say that you should get a cheap used PS2 JUST for this game. It’s so goooood… and I’ve been blabbing about it for days now… and it’s getting late here, so I’m gonna end this.
In closing… get Okami!
(Oh, by the way… I forgot to say that this game is probably around 30 hours standard gameplay time, but you can easily have more time spent on it by hunting and completing all the side quests. I was expecting maybe 15 hours of gameplay time. So I actually reached a boss battle at around 15 hours and thought the game would end there. Silly me, I should have known since I only had about 6 of the 13 brush techniques… but the game was over twice as long as I expected it to be, and I would have been plenty happy if it had ended there. But it didn’t… I think I have 35 clocked hours on my first time through, and I missed lots of quests.)
