Let’s Play Doom 3: FNG Reports

Thoughts on the game thus far: Hmph. Not a whole lot to talk about in this installment, really. Pretty uneventful. I will say that I really, really enjoy the building of tension, and litle bits and pieces of information that you can piece together into a quite disturbing narrative before you’ve even gotten your weapon. Its probably just the improved graphics and excellent use of light and shadow, but I do think Doom 3 does an even better job of establishing the initial mood–not story or character, but mood, mind you–than Half-Life does. Then again, the Half-Life universe seems to be a lot more…I dunno…happy is the wrong word, but more hopeful, I guess, than the Doom-verse. Again, maybe its just the lighting, and maybe Valve would have made Black Mesa just as dark and oppressive if they had had the technology, but somehow, I doubt that. Maybe I’m just being biased, but Gordon feels like a real *hero* to me–he may be some poor science schlub who came to work on a very (very) bad day, but he’s doing what he can–not just to survive, but to help others and try to save the facility as well. Doom Marine, from what I remember…well, he just tries to survive. Sure he ends up helping Earth and taking the fight to Hell (something I suspect Gordon won’t have to do), but even so…it feels less like a fight to an objective, and more like a fight to escape and survive. Again, maybe I’m being unfair to D3 (or unfairly biased towards Half-Life), but that’s the impression I get.

I do like the little interactive bits they throw in–the bathroom to explore for example, the shutters on the cafeteria windows, the computer game (complete with original Doom reference) to play…not to mention the briefings and propaganda to watch. It really does flesh out the experience a bit, and give you at least a sense of time, place and setting, if not purpose.

Ahhh…this is also the first time we see Dr. Bertruger up close. What a hoot this guy is. The first time I saw him in the game I literally just burst out laughing. I mean, you have to appreciate a guy who doesn’t even bother to make a pretense of not being a completely immoral and evil son of a bitch. He’s like Kefka, without the subtlety:

I also quite enjoy the way that people just leave their videos, emails and personal messages (with secret access codes!) just lying around where any idiot (aka me) can pick them up. That doesn’t seem like a good idea. I mean, it makes sense AFTER all hell breaks loose, but at this point in the story, its just sloppy! I thought this was a military organization!

That’s about all I got for this episode–like I said, pretty uneventful. Next one will hopefully be a little more interesting in terms of written commentary potential.

I have not abandoned you

No I haven’t given up the ghost…just came down with a nasty cold thanks to this stupid wet weather, and the fact that we held an emergency drill in it the other day. Ugh. So pardon the lack of updates–I’m gonna try to get my thoughts on my latest Doom 3 installment up by tonight, and then get a much more science-oriented (and research-intensive) article up by the end of the weekend. Until then, I just wanted you to know that I’m…

A (shorter) comic book review: Detective Comics #861

So…this review is going to be a little different, and stray from the “story/writing/artwork/etc format, mostly because I’m torn as to how to review this book. That’s the main reason this review is so late in coming…I just don’t quite know what to say about this.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: J.H. Williams is no longer providing the art for Detective Comics. (Greg Rucka is, thankfully, still writing the story though, which is a good thing of course.) As you know if you’ve been reading my other reviews of the book, I’ve been in love with this book, and this artistic team, since I started reading it–in many ways, I give it credit for hooking me on comics in the first place. So it was with more than a little trepidation that I picked up this book, knowing that “my” team had been disassembled.

On opening the book and just flipping through the pages to get an idea of what I was in for, my heart sank a bit. I like Jock’s artwork, don’t get me wrong; but as expected, he’s no J.H. Williams. His drawings are much less detailed and rich than Williams, although I must say it actually fits with the much grittier nature of the story. The real distraction here (and perhaps I’m reading too much into this…) is that Jock seems to be…almost trying to imitate Williams’ style. His page layouts look similar, as does the way he draws the characters. I actually found this the most distracting aspect of all; it kept reminding me of what I was missing, and kept me constantly wondering, “I wonder how Williams would have drawn this.” I’d have much preferred a clean break in styles, personally; it would have made things a lot easier to follow.

Now, that said, the artwork is still very good, and tells the story quite effectively. My favorite image of the book (which I was actually able to find online, amazingly enough!) is easily this one:

I wasn’t a huge fan of the whole parallel story thing, I’ll be honest. I understand what Rucka was trying to do, but with so few pages dedicated to the main story, I’d much rather have the focus be on Batwoman alone. Not that I don’t love me some Batman, don’t get me wrong, but I can get a Batman fix in any one of the zillion books in which he stars. This is the ONLY place I can get Batwoman, so I’d really rather see the focus stay on her, and not the guest star. (Its worth noting that if they just cut the second feature and dedicated the pages to the ACTUAL reason I think most of us are reading this book, it wouldn’t be nearly as big an issue for me.)(Although putting Batman on the actual cover–with no sign of Batwoman to be found–still kind of annoys me.)

Anyway, that said, the page above was an absolute masterpiece–I love the way it draws a perfect bead that simultaneously highlights the similarities and differences in Batman and Batwoman’s M.O.s. Its just very, very cool, and beautifully drawn. I could easily see hanging that in my room if it was ever produced as a poster.

As for the story…as I mentioned before, it was quite good. I have to admit, I quite miss the fantastical nature of the ‘Alice’ storyline, but I need to keep reminding myself this is only the first installment of this story, and I need to give myself time to warm up to it. …Maybe its just the fact that the particular style of violence this villain has is a personal turn-off to me (serial killer..er…maimer…ugh. Especially one who preys on young college students…double ugh. I loathe and despise the Hostel series for a reason.) Oh well. I’ll just have to grit my teeth and bear it, and look forward to Batwoman kicking the everloving shit out of the bastard in the story’s conclusion. (And that had better happen, Rucka, if you’re reading this. If Cutter gets away, or pulls some kind of Se7en-style twist, I quit. I swear I will.)

So…that’s the latest issue of Detective Comics. The word on the street as far as I understand it is that after the next two issues, Batwoman’s tenure in the book will be over (to make room, one assumes, for the return of Bruce Wayne?) However, there has been much scuttlebutt over the idea of Batwoman getting her own book, written and drawn by Rucka and Williams. All I can say is, GOD I HOPE SO! So lets all cross our fingers, spit in our hats (or cowls), and pray that this dream team on a dream book becomes a reality.

Around World Mythology In D&D Minis: the Chimera

Welcome to another edition of Around World Mythology In D&D Minis, in which we use the tabletop role playing game Dungeons & Dragons (perhaps you’ve heard of it?) as a jumping off point to examine the history, mythology and evolution of some of fantasy’s most interesting and iconic creatures. Today’s creature: the chimera.

A chimera, for those who don’t know, is a large beast that is composed (roughly, depending on the source) of part lion, part goat, and part serpent and/or dragon. When someone says “chimera” today, they usually mean something akin to this:

Pretty damn badass looking. And not far-off from D&D’s take on the creature, which looks like this:

According to the Monster Manual (page 34):

“This creature has the hindquarters of a big goat and the forequarters of a great lion. It has dragon wings and three heads: a horned goat, a maneless lion, and a fierce dragon.The chimera is a bizarre predator that hunts on the ground and on the wing. It can defeat even the hardiest opponent with a flurry of claws and fangs. A chimera is about 5 feet tall at the shoulder, nearly 10 feet long, and weighs about 4,000 pounds. A chimera’s dragon head might be black, blue, green, red, or white. Chimeras can speak Draconic but seldom bother to do so, except when toadying to more powerful creatures. A deadly foe, the chimera prefers to surprise prey. It often swoops down from the sky or lies concealed until it charges. The dragon head can loose a breath weapon instead of biting. Several chimeras attack in concert.”

Obviously the chimera mini they produced there has the head of a black dragon (makes sense, since most chimeras are chaotic-evil). No variant-dragon headed chimera minis exist that I’m aware of (although it would be freaking cool if they did. Alas, we’re not that lucky.)

In terms of mythology, D&D actually got it pretty damn close to the source. Like many D&D creatures, chimeras–or more accurately, THE Chimera–originated in Greek mythology. The earliest written reference to such a creature (that we know of) is from Homer’s Illiad, book VI, in which the noble prince Bellerophon slays the creature, which is described thusly:

“…he first commanded Bellerophon to kill that savage monster, the Chimaera, who was not a human being, but a goddess, for she had the head of a lion and the tail of a serpent, while her body was that of a goat, and she breathed forth flames of fire; but Bellerophon slew her, for he was guided by signs from heaven.” *

Not all that far from what Gygax and co ended up with, actually. No reference to dragons in the Greek myth obviously, or wings for that matter, but really, the idea of having the dragon’s head of a D&D chimera be one of the five chromatic dragons (and giving them the matching breath weapon to boot) was a stroke of brilliance, and helped make this interpretation of the creature completely unique to the D&D universe.

Now, Homer wrote his epic somewhere around 8 B.C. and, while his is the first written reference to a chimera, it couldn’t have been the first. Chimeras were appearing on artwork much earlier than that–4 B.C. is our earliest visual reference to such a creature, and it looks something like this:

No dragon parts, as you can see, and frankly the tail doesn’t look all that serpentine (but then I’m in no way shape or form an expert on Ancient Greek and Italian art, so it could very well be that I just don’t know enough to know that its supposed to be a snake of some kind.)

The most interesting thing to note about this representation is that the creature’s body is FULLY leonine–you’ll recall Homer’s chimera (which, remember, came after this) had only the head of a lion, and the full body of a goat.

The most famous ancient representation of a chimera, of course, is the Chimera of Arezzo. Its a bronze sculpture circa 4 B.C. (around the same time Homer wrote the Illiad):

Once again, the body is fully leonine, and the only reference to a goat is the extra goat’s head growing from the creature’s back. The tail is definitely a serpent, although it is worth noting that the original tail of the sculpture was broken off, and the one currently on the statue is an 18th century restoration based on a small tail piece they were able to recover.

The chimera pops up here and there in other Greek myths–some say it was the progeny of Typhon and Echidna (who also gave birth to Cerbeus, the Neman Lion, the Sphinx and the Hydra–talk about a horrible family reunion to attend.)(And yes, she is the namesake of the cute little Australian mammal called the echidna.) This is where things start to get very interesting indeed, because while (according to Homer) the Chimera did NOT have multiple heads (just the head of a lion and the body of a goat) its mother, Echidna, did. Well…sometimes. In most accepted versions of Greek mythology, her lower half is a giant snake, and her upper half is a woman (think Medusa from the original Clash of the Titans.) In SOME versions of the myths, however, she is depicted as having three heads–one of a lion, one of a goat, and one of a dragon. Like I said…interesting. Unfortunately there is no timeline for the evolution of these versions that I could find, so its impossible to tell whether these myths evolved to give the chimera aspects of its mother, or if someone revamped the mother to look more like her famous child. I don’t know enough about art to wager a guess based on the ancient pieces, and, as much as I love studying it, I’m no Ph.D in mythological evolution either. That little mystery will have to remain unsolved for the time being. (I’d love to hear your thoughts on the matter in the comments though!)

D&D wasn’t the last fantasy game to poach this imaginative and visually stunning creature from the Greeks–my first introduction to the chimera family (besides that good old standby, Edith Hamilton’s Greek Mythology) was the original Final Fantasy. I remember dreading this sprite, and the pain it would inevitably bring:

There was also its big brother of course, the green palate-swapped Jimera, which has no relation to mythology whatsoever, and is merely a badly named and/or translated NES NTSC version of a chimera that could use magic. Since the sprite isn’t very big or detailed, here’s an artistic rendering that gives you a much better look:

Its a wee bit hard to tell, but it seems like the FF guys took a little bit from both the Greeks and D&D. Clearly they really liked the winged/multiple heads idea (and I THINK it might have a snake tail…kind of hard to tell though) but interestingly, they left the entire body as a goat (hooves are clearly visible on all four feet.) That would change in later games (even in updates of FF1 itself). While the creature remained mostly the same, it would be given either a half-lion body or sometimes (as in the case of FF3) a fully leonine body like in the ancient artwork.

And then…just like last time…there’s whatever the hell happened in FFX:

…Yeah. Somewhere down the line they confused “chimera” with “minotaur.” No trace of a lion that I can see, either, unless that blue wolf-looking thing is supposed to represent it. Also, they mistook “goat” for “eagle” I guess. They did keep the snake-tail, though, which is cool. Actually, it’s a pretty damn cool looking monster in general…its just nothing resembling any kind of chimera I know of. (Well, at least not the mythological kind.)

And of course, chimeras aren’t limited to Final Fantasy–just about every swords-n-sorcery style RPG will provide its own take on the creature, most of which stay relatively close to either the Greek or D&D source material.

…Which actually brings me to real-life chimeras. Yes, they exist, although not nearly as dramatically as the Greeks imagined. Quite simply, “chimera” is a scientific term (taken from the mythological creature) for a creature that has two sets of DNA that do not match. There are a couple of ways this can happen and I won’t detail them here, but if you’re interested, you can learn more here.

This actually brings me to the last place chimeras crop up that we’re going to discuss today…and that is the anime series Fullmetal Alchemist, of which I’m a huge fan. in the FMA universe, chimeras are usually abominations, two creatures fused together unwillingly through the use of alchemy (which, in FMA, is part science, part magic.) The first introduction to chimeras in the series involves the heroes, Edward and Alphonse, meeting a man who fuses his daughter and pet dog into a sad, terrible creature which seems to retain just enough of its humanity to be pained at its own existence. (And it may be worth noting that this man previously used his wife in one of his experiments too–she was chimerafied as well, and the results were just as ugly.)

So…from Greek mythology to fantasy games to genetics to alchemy…that’s a quick once-over of the rather strange but incredibly cool evolution of the creature known as a chimera. I hope you found it enjoyable and informative!

Supersized LP: HL catchup post!

So I’ve been playing Half-Life and uploading LP videos at a pretty fast pace–so fast I rather neglected to post thoughts on here. (Partly because I was too busy playing to post, and also because I didn’t want to overwhelm the blog with nothing but LP entries.) Those of you who have been looking forward to this, enjoy! Those of you with no interest in LPs or vids, stay tuned, because another installment of “Around World Mythology in D&D Minis” will be coming no later than Friday! But for now, on with the LP:

Part 16: Pwned

Thoughts on the game so far: Not a whole lot to say about this episode, actually–I mostly just had to deal with a big firefight/action sequence, which took…a lot longer than I’d have liked lol. Ah well, at least we’re past it now.

I am curious as to what that (I think) Osprey was doing. It sounded like the place is being bombarded, which makes sense if the bad guys from the government are trying to destroy evidence of the place. I’m not entirely sure–I mean in theory they could have just been doing that to kill me, but that seems like an awful waste; to use all those bombs to take out one person. We’ll have to see.

It was also kind of funny to finally make it to the surface–where we’ve been trying to get for the whole game thus far–and immediately be chased back underground like that. It really gives you the sense that you are, in fact, running for your life and trying to escape. Very, very cool.

Part 17: What the Hell Is a Blast Pit?

Thoughts on the game so far: Ah, so it looks like we’ve been chased underground, to avoid the enemies on the surface. I wonder what this old rail system is actually for–an escape route, perhaps? A transportation system? (An alternate one, anyway, since they do have the trams already.) I’m not sure. The scientist calls it “the old rail system,” so perhaps it was in use before the trams were built.

We also have a new objective–its no longer “reach the surface,” its now “find the guys in Lambda Labs and help them stop the alien incursion.” (Lambda made me smile, too–that is, after all, the symbol on Gordon’s suit, and Lambda is also the symbol that scientists use to represent “half life.” Heh. Clever creators.)

Of course the big reveal (to me anyhow) is the fact that these ‘aliens’ are, in fact, from another dimension, and not simply another far-away planet. This makes sense. Piecing together what I can tell from the story so far, it seems that Black Mesa was trying to build some sort of teleporter, and somehow ripped through to this other dimension (and then couldn’t close it again.) Now I have to wonder if this rip was intentional–were they simply trying to create a Star Trek like transporter that somehow tore through space-time by accident, or were they actually trying to intentionally create a gateway to this place? My money is on the second one, I think; if they were simply trying to create a transporter, they would have been dealing strictly in our dimension, it seems–deconstructing and reconstructing atoms and molecules and such. That’s not to say that some sort of accidental gateway COULDN’T have been opened under those circumstances, but its highly unlikely. I think the Event Horizon scenario is far more plausible–that we stumbled on this dimension by accident (or they stumbled on us), and the experiments were designed to create a permanent gateway between us and them. Why? I don’t know. Perhaps they have resources or technology the government wants to exploit. (Although the place certainly looks inhospitable, if that brief flash we were given in part 3 is in fact the other dimension–which I’m assuming it is, given that the Bullsquid looked quite at home there.) Now that leaves one giant question to be answered…how was this dimension discovered in the first place, and what is its connection to Earth? Its seems very odd indeed that the creatures are so at home here–I mean hell, the headcrabs can interface with the human brain! And our Earth environment obviously supports not just some, but ALL of the creatures. I know that’s obviously necessary for game convention (since we obviously need the alien enemies), but I’m hoping there’s more to it than that too, and we discover exactly WHY the two places seem so closely related. After all, the odds of “accidentally” discovering a PLANET that is exactly parallel to Earth in terms of life support are astronomical, to say nothing of another planet in a whole other dimension!

Part 18: Time to File That OSHA Report

Thoughts on the game so far: Well, also not a whole lot to say about this episode…just a lot of progress made in terms of ground covered, which is good. I AM curious as to where all this radioactive waste is coming from–leaky pipes obviously, but that’s still a HELL of a lot of chemicals (or whatever) being produced. Where is it coming from (or what is it being used for–it may be raw material, not waste; no way to know at this point.)

I’m also VERY curious as to why the Bullsquid seem so attracted to it (and unharmed by it.) Its seems to me they’re somewhat aquatic (they were in water in the brief flash of the other dimension we had back in part 3), and most of their body DOES look a lot like an alligator or a crocodile. Not a coincidence, I think. WHY they seem to love liquid radiation though is a mystery. If they’re reptilian, maybe it gives off heat and they like it? I have to wonder how it is they aren’t hurt by it though.

Watching those two Bullsquid fight, by the way, was absolutely the highlight of the episode. I love how alive this word feels–its like the whole thing would continue to evolve and move on even if you weren’t there to witness it. Awesome.

As for the big and very ominous sounding creature at the end…well I obviously know what it is at this point, since I’m writing this after part 19 is up (see below), but I will tell you that I initially thought on hearing it that it would be a giant fish-like creature of some kind, since it sounded SO much like a whale. (At least those long, deep groans do.) We’ll see what it really is (and my reaction to it) below.

Part 19: Can We Keep Him, Mommy?

Thoughts on the game so far: Well…I was certainly not expecting THIS! Nor was I expecting such a…docile boss. I mean obviously the Tentacle thing attacks (as those poor scientists discovered), but it also looks pretty easy to avoid. I was expecting a giant creature I would have to move quickly to avoid, while firing constantly to kill it. I guess I should know Valve better than that by now, eh?

In the comments of this video, Take3k expressed a bit of surprise that the creature awed and impressed me so much. I think it goes back to, once again, how “alive” it feels. In any other game, the simple scene with it eating the scientist would be enough, and the tentacles could just sit there statically (perhaps swaying a bit to give the illusion of life), and then just attack when they sense the player. That was not nearly good enough for Valve though, oh no–they gave this *thing* a whole set of behaviors, that go on even without the player directly affecting the creature. Its absolutely magnificent. The way it gently taps around to look for prey, the way it rears back and its neck shakes when it gives that deep, low, whale-like call…its just amazing, and a complete and utter pleasure to just sit back and watch. (Especially from that top deck I end the video on. Getting that close to a creature like that and being able to observe it–WITHOUT it attacking or killing you–was, I think, my favorite moment in the game to date.)

This, I think, nails down exactly why I love this game so much, and why its right up my alley: it rewards curiosity, experimentation and observation. In any other FPS, the enemies are pretty static when you are able to observe them before they see you–they might have an animation or two, or some funny lines, but overall, they’re clearly just waiting for the player to show up and blast them. Half-Life, on the other hand, REWARDS a player like me who isn’t the run-n-gun type; who enjoys hiding in the shadows, carefully plotting my next move, and observing the enemies. The humans aren’t that exciting to observe of course–guard and patrolling duty is boring as hell to do, and even more boring to watch, I speak from experience here (they do have some funny lines to overhear though)–but the real treat is in watching the alien creatures. I feel like an amateur anthropologist, trying to figure out exactly what the creatures are, where they came from, and what their survival strategies and ecosystems are like on their home planet. And the creators clearly had people like me in mind when they programed the AI, because there is LOADS to see! I have this whole theory of the alien planet’s ecosystem in fact (which I’m not going to post here because a) I haven’t finished the game yet and more info might be forthcoming and b) its way too long and needs to be a separate post.) Said it before and I’ll say it again: I LOVE THIS GAME!

And with that, are are up to date on Half-Life videos! Stay tuned for more (and for more Doom 3!) as well as more non-LP related articles this week!

Let’s Play Doom 3! So it begins…

Well, I meant to have this up a lot sooner, and then we somehow managed to land one whopper of a storm here in SoCal–such a big one, in fact, that it knocked out all of our power and phone lines (and therefore internet!) until this afternoon. Still looks like a typoon outside, but at least we’re connected again.

Some of you might recall seeing this trailer I am quite proud of up on the site last month. Well, the LP it promised has finally begun.

Thoughts on the game so far: Like I say in the video, this run isn’t quite as blind as my Half Life one is, but it should still be entertaining, especially once we get past this initial part that I played through for the trailer. Still, its actually kind of fun to know this area, since I can sort of take you on a tour–there are lots of little details and nooks and crannies that are fun to find and point out.

Now…the game itself. I spent quite a lot of time in this LP comparing the introduction of this game to the quite similar opening sequence of Half-Life. I think its a fair comparison, since the creators of Doom 3 clearly borrowed quite liberally from it. (As, it must be noted, the HL creators did from the original Doom.)

One thing I want to make a special point about is the whole “silent protagonist” idea. I quite like this convention, especially in FPSes, but the way Doom 3 handles it just does not work for me. In Half-Life, you NEVER leave the first person perspective (I’m assuming if they were going to have a “regular” cut scene, it would have happened already. If the show Gordon at all, I assume it will be at the very end of the game). This really and truly allows you to completely immerse yourself in the character; I honestly find myself talking to myself as I think Gordon would talk, or answering questions in my head the way I think he would. You can do that for Doom Marine too, of course, but every time something happens…there’s a cut scene. A cut scene in which you are removed as the protagonist, and become a spectator. Now granted, it doesn’t seem that Doom Marine talks either, but when you’re WATCHING him and he doesn’t talk, its a totally different experience–you aren’t IMMERSED, you’re wondering why the hell this guy doesn’t talk. You can’t answer “for” him the way you can for Gordon because, when the first person perspective is violated, he is no longer “you.” He becomes “the character.” And having a completely silent “character” is just odd–especially when he ignores direct questions from other characters.

It seems like the guys over at ID learned the exact wrong lesson from Half-Life. They got that a silent protagonist can be good, but they missed the WHY. The sort of sad part is that they could have made it work even WITH cutscenes–just keep the cutscenes in first person perspective. Take control of the camera for a moment, and play the scene out as you normally would. It would have worked, I think, and added quite a bit more immersion to the game. I know the scenes are few and far between, but its one of those small details that really, really add up in the final presentation and feel of the game.

Let’s Play Half Life – Part 15: FOR SCIENCE!

Thoughts on the game thus far: Let’s pause for a moment to appreciate this game’s enemy AI, especially the human soldiers. Now, the alien enemy AI was pretty good, but nothing special. But the human soldiers…shit! They’ve done everything from utilizing cover, to doing flanking maneuvers, to trying to flush me out of hiding with grenades! This is stuff that enemies in recent games like Mass Effect don’t do! It just adds a whole other dimension to the game when it feels like you’re up against something intelligent, and not simply bots that are set up for your killing enjoyment (which is what most FPSes feel like to me, which is one reason I don’t like playing them.) Keep in mind too that I’m playing on the easiest difficulty level–I have no idea if that simply effects the amount of damage dealt and received, or if it dumbs down the AI too. I hope not, because I can’t imagine trying to fight these soldiers on Hard if they get even smarter.

This gets me thinking…just how important IS AI to a game? It has nothing to do with the story or plot or characters…hell, its not even a game mechanic or interface. Yet its a completely vital aspect of gameplay which, if its off, destroys immersion, wrecks difficulty curves, and can render an otherwise acceptable game utterly unplayable. As one who plays far more RPGs than FPSes, I haven’t given much thought to this sort of AI, but it really is amazing to watch it executed this well. I mean the tactics are fairly rudimentary in and of themselves, but for 1998 this must have been groundbreaking–heck, even now, like I said, there are plenty of games that don’t have AI this good. If Valve can do it, why can’t others?

As for the plot…its thickening. It looks like we’ll be heading up to the surface next, which you’d think would mean the end of the game, since the surface is where we’ve been trying to get to thus far. I have this nagging suspicion all won’t be well once we finally get there, though…

Why I love District 9

Some of you may have noticed that District 9 was up for the Best Screenplay Golden Globe lat night. It (spoiler I suppose) didn’t win, which is a real shame (really, does anyone in their right mind honestly think Avatar is a better movie than D9? I certainly don’t.) In honor of of what I hope will be many major award wins, I thought I’d do a quick and personal retrospective on what I firmly believe was the best film of 2009, and quite possibly the entire 2000s decade. Let’s take this one point at a time. (And it should be noted I’, going to assume that you have already seen the movie and have a basic understanding 0f the plot and characters; if you don’t, stop reading now and go see the damn movie! Its fantastic, and really should be seen completely unspoiled.)

The writing: This might be the strongest of the movie’s many strengths (along with the acting, which we’ll get to later). Now, it IS admittedly a bit hard to separate what was written in the screenplay from the (fairly large from what I understand) amount of improvising that the actors, especially Sharlto Copley, did, but I still think its worth discussing the characters and characterizations that allowed the actors to do such great pieces of improv work.

Although there are several important peripheral characters, the film really centers on two characters: Wikus, the white collar MNU employee in charge of relocating the Prawn aliens to District 10, and ‘Christopher Johnson,’ the English name assigned to the main alien character, whose focus is on protecting his son, and finding a way to return to his homeworld.

Wikus is in no way a sci-fi action movie hero. He’s not even a generic everyman from this sort of genre. He’s a very small, rather mousy man who keeps his head down and seems to enjoy his white collar desk job. He is perfectly content to spend his life moving up through the ranks of the MNU corporation, and then (one presumes) collect his pension thereafter. He’s not a chosen one, he’s not a disaffected bad boy/rebel, he doesn’t even HATE the Prawns–he just doesn’t see them as human (which they aren’t) or on the same level as humans (which almost no one else on earth seems to, either.) Basically, the guy is Bill Lumberg from Office Space, and he is your hero.

His character arc is one of the best and most moving I’ve ever seen in a movie, and also one of the most real. He doesn’t go from “evil agent of the corporation” to “alien sympathizer and freedom fighter” like in Avatar, or Dances With Wolves. He doesn’t even become all that friendly with Christopher Johnson or the Prawns beyond what is expedient for him. And most of all, he doesn’t go from paper pushing office worker to super-awesome-badass butkicking hero. While it is true he gets more than a few badass moments (what kind of an action movie would it be if he didn’t, after all?) he remains true to his character the whole time: squeemish, and a bit cowardly. He’s forced into what heroics he accomplishes by his circumstances, and his own self-interest, not some moralistic, overarching sense of righteousness. I find that incredibly refreshing. And, at least to me, that doesn’t take anything away from his heroism–in fact, it makes it all the grander. That this perfectly normal, perfectly unremarkable man could dig inside of himself and find the resources he does to not only continue, but to fight, and triumph, in the face of everything that opposes him, and fight not for (as I said) some high-minded ideal, but simply to return his life back to the way it was…that was very moving to me. It worked.

Christopher Johnson is in the opposite camp–he is one of the aliens that people like Wikus are in charge of containing and controlling. He’s not like the other aliens, though–he’s a father for one thing (and a quite caring and dedicated one at that) and he also thinks. That is, he makes plans that are intricate, require deep preparation and understanding, and demonstrate dedication to something besides basic needs and comforts and the immediate future. None of the other aliens seem to show the slightest inclination towards this sort of metathinking/planning.

Some people actually cite this as a gaffe or oversight on the movie’s part–if, as explained by the movie, all of the aliens on the ship are merely a comparatively stupid prole class of workers used to taking their orders from a higher caste, then how is it that Christoper Johnson–alone among these aliens–has developed the plan and technology that he does? Its a fair question, and one that the movie never explains or even addresses. I have read it theorized that the aliens are semi-akin to insects, and that, in the absence of a ‘leader,’ one will inevitably be born a generation or two later. This makes sense to me, and seems fairly plausible enough. It is not established if Christopher was one of the original aliens rescued, or even what the gestation/youth period is for these aliens, so its not outside the realm of possibility that he is one of a new ‘leader’ class that this isolated population of Prawns is evolving. I have no idea if this satisfies any of the people questioning this aspect of the movie, or if its even close to anything the creators had in mind, but unless we’re provided more details or explanations in the sequel, it works well enough for me.

Direction: No word comes to mind but “brilliant.” This movie looks and feels exactly like a documentary when it needs to, but it also refuses to be limited by that, and doesn’t mind very close, intimate scenes, or big, grand action/effects sequences either. I read that some critics felt the transition between these styles was rather jarring, but I personally did not have this problem (and neither did anyone I saw the movie with.) The transitions are neither telegraphed or explained; they simply change as the scene requires. I think this was the perfect way to handle things, and I can’t think of any scenes I would have shot a different way.

Another point in the plus column of the documentary-style part of the movie is that the director was kind enough not to make use of “shaky-cam” effects, and managed to keep the bobbing to a minimum while still maintaining the rough, documentary feel. Very well done.

Acting: Superb. Not one bad performance in the lot. The only small ding against it would be the complaint that David James, as the MNU Colonel Koobus, was just a hair too mustache-twirlingly evil for the hyperreal feel of the rest of the movie. Had he toned it down a notch or two, and made a slightly more believable (if not sympathetic) villain, it would have made the movie that much better.

Special kudos need to go out to Jason Cope, who not only played Christopher Johnson, but every other alien in the movie as well (with the exception of Christopher’s son.) In my mind, he’s right up there with Andy Serkis as one of the great CGI actors; he not only gave each Prawn an individual personality, he genuinely made me *care* about them. All without speaking a word (of English.) Speaking of which, I don’t know who was responsible for creating and recording the aliens’ clicking language, but holy shit what a wonderful, wonderful job. Its so expressive I think I could have watched the movie and understood most of it even without the subtitles.

Of course, this section would not be complete without a huge, HUGE tip of my hat to Sharlto Copley, who played Wikus Van De Merwe. This man had never studied acting, never improved, never even set foot in front of a camera before…and then he comes out and throws down a performance like this?

I think this gentleman missed his true calling somewhere down the line.

He is absolutely astounding. I’m not going to say much more than that, only because if I get started, I’m going to gush for another 1500 words. I don’t know what he did (if I did I’d be acting in a movie myself right now instead of writing about him), but whatever it was, I was with him–and Wikus–every single step of the way through this movie. The truest example of this is that, when Wikus finally snaps, and cold-cocks Christopher Johnson, rather than being angry at Wikus, I was just sad for him. I didn’t like or endorse what Wikus did there, but I completely understood and sympathized with WHY he did it. That is absolutely unprecedented for me, to really and truly sympathize with a character like his, performing an act like that. Just amazing.

The effects: All I can say is, HOW much did you make this film for again? Not since Sunshine have I seen a film do such great special effects on and indie budget. Everything is absolutely excellent, from the close up creature CGI, to the long, majestic shots of the space ship, to the mech and the weapon effects…it all just WORKS. Nothing stands out, or seems out of place, which is exactly how effects should be–so seamlessly integrated into the world of the movie that you don’t even think of them as “effects”–they’re just there.

Closing thoughts: District 9 is my choice for best movie of 2009, quite possibly my choice for best movie of the decade, and has become one of my personal favorites of all time–I place it right up there alongside such luminaries as Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Alien and The Matrix. Its a movie with a strong moral message that doesn’t get shoved down your throat, but nevertheless stays with you long after the credits have rolled. I can’t wait for the sequel, or to see what all the talented people involved in this project move onto next.

Almost done!

So the room renovation is almost complete. I should be posting regularly again by Friday at the ABSOLUTE latest, and probably before. Just thought you should know!

Magneto – Testament: today I learned that comics can break your heart

This isn’t going to be a review in my regular format, nicely divided up into impressions/story/art/etc. I just can’t do it for this one. Frankly, I wasn’t planning on writing this review at all. My bedroom where I work is completely torn up, and I had to drag the old desktop out of the garage and hook it up (at one in the morning, no less) because I absolutely have to get this out of my system and order my thoughts, or I won’t be able to sleep.

This book was one of many I picked up from my local library a few days ago (the two branches closest to me, bless them, have a pretty decent comics section, and I needed something to keep me entertained while I have limited access to the ‘net.) I pulled it out with a stack of Spiderman, Batman, X-Men–the usual suspects–because, hey, I frigging love Magneto, I love his character, and I especially love what Ian McKellen did with him in the movies (although in complete fairness and full disclosure, I’m an even bigger fan of Sir Ian than I am of Magneto, and that’s saying something.) I was already aware of Magneto’s background by word of mouth, and of course they had that excellent scene in the movie where Magneto discovers or awakens his magnetic powers. So I picked up this book tonight expecting a good deal of Nazi asswhooping (always a nice thing to go to sleep on, right fellow Wolfenstein fans?)

Holy. Fuck. Was I. Ever. Mistaken. I was expecting an adventure in the traditional (if more depressing than usual, thanks to the setting) comic book sense. Instead, I found that someone had stolen my X-Men comic, and replaced it with Maus.

Now, PLEASE don’t interpret this as a condemnation or criticism of the comic; its not. I just wanted to let you know where I’m coming from on this, and why I’m a bit more shaken up than I expected to be after finishing the book. I mean, its not like anything in here should be NEWS to anyone at this point in history (“holy shit, the Nazis were fucking assholes and killed people? You don’t say!”), but even after all the things I’ve read, seen and studied about it, stories like this still get to me (particularly when I’m not expecting them!) I will say too that some of the images in the book are actually *more* disturbing than real photos taken of the camps. Photos are often quite detached and clinical regardless of their subject; they just ARE. They reflect reality and show us what our eyes would see had we been there. Art like that in this comic, though, has…well color, for one thing which helps, but it also has the power to…exaggerate, for lack of a better word. By that I don’t mean making things out to be something its not, I just mean that the artist has the power to use colors and drawings to make an image look like what a character is FEELING, rather than like what they would actually be SEEING. (The abject and quite horrible expressions of pain and fear on many of the corpses in the camps are a good example of this.) This is a WONDERFUL thing (well, actually it feels more like a kick in the balls in this particualr instance, but its supposed to, and it SHOULD.) It speaks to the great skill of artist Carmine DiGiandomenico and colorer Matt Hollingsworth that the visuals in this book are SO damn effective. And they are.

As tragic as a lot of the book is, let me share with you the part that really kicked my butt the most, and let me know that the creators were going in a wildly different direction than I was anticipating. (Semi-major spoiler ahead I guess, if you’re silly like me and expect this to be a superhero story.) At one point, Max (Magneto’s real name) and his family are lined up in front of a pit to be shot and murdered by a group of Nazis. There’s an amazing series of panels with an image of the Nazis as they open fire, Max’s face, and then a really incredible image of the bullets as they travel towards the family–if the scene were animated, you’d imagine that Max was seeing the bullets approach in slow motion, Matrix-style. Over these panels, Max hears an internal monologue that echos the words his grandfather (who is standing beside him) said earlier: “Sometimes you get a moment when everything lines up…when anything is possible…when you can make things happen.”

Now, I don’t know if it was just the Matrix association in my mind, or if it was a deliberate fake-out on the part of the writer, or what, but my immediate reaction on seeing and reading those panels was, “aha! Max is desperate to save his family! No doubt he’ll use his newly-awakened mutant powers to turn the bullets aside and destroy those Nazi fucks!” (Seriously, that panel of the oncoming bullets made it look like that was exactly what was about to happen!)

…Instead, Max’s grandfather jumps in front of him and takes the bullets, and dies like a dog along with the rest of his family. Max gets thrown into the mass grave with their corpses and plays dead until the Nazis leave. He’s weak, freaked out, and I think he actually did get hit by one of the bullets just not fatally, so he’s lost blood and he’s naturally starving. In this condition he’s easy prey for roaming Nazi patrols, who promptly find him and throw him onto one of the cattle cars headed to Auschwitz.

Well FUCK!

Fuck-shit-godamned-sonofabitch!

I literally stared at those last panels where he gets loaded and shipped in the train car for like five minutes before turning the page, just willing the whole damn thing to be different. (Willing history to be different along with it, too, I suppose…sigh. Fuck the Holocaust, dude. Seriously fuck those guys.) I LIKED MY ENDING TO THE CHAPTER BETTER DAMMIT! I KNOW its not cannon and I KNOW Magneto’s family is supposed to die, but at least then I wouldn’t be so damn sad and depressed!

And I haven’t even touched on the part where Max gets the dubious honor of becoming one of the crematorium workers who collects and burns the bodies of the gas victims.

(Have I mentioned “fuck the Holocaust” yet? I know that probably sounds incredibly trite and almost tongue in cheek, but I mean it with every fiber of my being right now. Its the only way to express what I’m thinking without turning this blog from a nice pop-culture site to a maudlin meditation on man’s cruelty to man, and exactly what I would do if I ever got my hands on a time machine and had five minutes with an SS Officer.)

I’ve already mentioned the artwork is absolutely unbelievable. Maybe I just have low standards, or maybe it was the subject matter, but this just blew me away on a visual level. I honestly think I could have followed the story with no dialogue whatsoever, and NOT just because the story itself does admittedly follow the…usual, I guess we could say, Holocaust story script. That does actually bring up one of the less stellar things about the book–its writing. Its not BAD, you understand; in places its actually quite good. The problem is that it DOES follow a something of a…god, I hate to call it a formula since this is based on real events that happened to real people; its not just some storytelling device or crutch. But the fact remains that if you’ve read any other Holocaust fiction, or even read historic accounts, you know the general outline of this story already. Is that a bad thing? Well, yes and no. No, because it is, after all, a TRUE series of historical events, so they can hardly be changed. You can’t gloss over this stuff, nor can you have a different outcome. Its bad, though, in that it doesn’t give the writer a whole hell of a lot of leeway to do his thing; he really is boxed in to a narrow series of beats that need to be hit to get the story told. (That’s a problem with historical fiction in general though, not just this book.) I will say that under the circumstances Greg Pak does a very admirable job–the bits with Magda (Max’s girlfriend) in the camps, and Max trying to secure her escape, did have some nice twists that surprised me. But overall, none of the WORDS of this book can hold a candle to the images–whether its the slow motion bullets I mentioned before, Max holding Magda, or (and this one was really the #1 panel/splash of the whole book for me) Max stumbling on a room filled floor to ceiling with nothing but eyeglasses taken off the gassing victims. *shudder*

Overall, this book is a kick in the gut, in the best and most necessary way. I’m actually shocked they handled it so completely straight–like I said, I was expecting the scene from the movie where Magneto discovers his powers; instead I got a Holocaust drama. That’s not a bad thing though. It never, ever hurts to take a moment and remember what happened, and also, if you didn’t have a lot of sympathy for Magneto and his views before, you will after this. And not just in the kicked puppy “oh that poor abused kid” kind of way; you can genuinely understand why he hates and takes stands against the things he does. I’ve always felt that Magneto is one of the most sympathetic villains in the comic world, and this book further cemented that in my mind. A fantastic and unexpected read. I can’t call this one a pleasure, I don’t think, but it was certainly a journey and an experience.

As long as we’re discussing comics and the Holocaust, I would be remiss not to recommend a series (I mentioned before) called Maus. Its the story of a young man and his father, a Holocaust survivor. Its about their relationship, his fathers’ experiences, how they affected him…it truly a tour de force. The “hook” of the whole thing and the reason a lot of people pick it up (I think) is that all of the characters are anthropomorphized animals–Jews are represented by mice (hence the title) while the Nazis (and all Germans) are represented by cats. (Makes sense, no?) Americans are dogs, Polish are pigs, and so on. In THIS book, the writing is the star of the show–Art Spiegelman is an incredible writer. The art is good too, and quite effective, but its his words that will move you and stay with you. If you get the chance, that is one comic that EVERYONE, not just comic fans, should make time for. Its one of the most moving and incredible pieces of literature you will ever read.