Final Monotony

Final Fantasy. Genre-defining. Gameplay refining. Evoloutionary perfection. It's great, isn't it? No! Seriously, it's the most over-rated game series i've ever seen. I'm not biased or anything, i have played a couple of them, but i just can't see what all the fuss is about.

I've tried sitting through them, honestly i have, but they are the most jarring, annoying and downright monotonous series of games i've ever tried to play- yet the whole world loves them and it's the biggest selling RPG of all time. I just don't get it. What's the appeal of sitting through a long-ass cliched story about stereotype Japanese androgynous emo characters (that all look the same), getting randomly and inadvertently attacked every 3 seconds and then consequently waiting your turn to fight? It's the most irritatingly laborious type of drivel thats ever tried to pass off as "gameplay" that i've ever experienced. Someone please explain what the deal is, as not only is the series so highly revered and popular but why FF7 is constantly regarded as one of the greatest games of all time? And most importantly, someone please tell me where the fun is, as i really don't seem to understand.

I agree that the soundtracks are always outstanding (even if they do sound repetitive at times) and the art/concept design is stunning, as well as the CG cutscenes which are always beautifully rendered, and i see can what fans (especially those crazy cosplayers) dig about it from that perspective. But that doesn't make the game itself any more fun to play. Playing through 50+ hours of random battles of it is just insane!

I just never understood how turn-based battle became accepted as a standard when the whole concept to me is monotonous. They dealt with it in FFXII to an extent, but the point of attacking, waiting your turn, juggling characters around, then attacking agian etc is just too annoying for me to see any sort of satisfaction from. On a side note, i absoloutly adore the Legend of Zelda series. I guess it's the more hands-on, control based scheme. With FF, it's just walking around and adjusting stats. With Zelda, i feel your'e immersing yourself fuller into a world with a character you have more control over.

Stories are all the same too. Considering they are all based around a central theme (Planet is dying, everyone must unite, tragedy will unfold but it will be for a better future) you can only do so much within that field until it gets repetitive and cliche. The central characters are almost always the same, like all stereotypically insane-haired Japanese fictional heroes, but i guess the typical Japanese-ness of it all is the appeal. Usually revolving around the central protaganist (arrogant/brash/angry/innocent but all good-at-heart emos) who are connected to the story in a much bigger way than what first started out (either through relatives or a past/future event), where the other characters are either quiet "strong" hard-asses (Kimhari, Barret, Vincent V or Auron) or annoyingly high-pitched happy happy joy joy cute girlies (Rikku,Tifa, etc) as well as the antagonists/villains (Sephiroth, Seifer, Edea) There's always a tragedy in there to spice things up but everything is mostly resolved by a love story (Rinoa,Aerith, Yuna) to keep everyone happy as the world they live in falls apart and then puts itself back together agian in some way, shape or form. And i'm drawing that quick conclusion having never finished playing any of them and not being a fan, but i think most will agree that's FF in a nutshell. But it is epic fantasy and it's hard to do something original these days when everything has been done before. I don't really have a problem with the stories as much as i have with the actual point of random turn-based combat.

And i don't even want mention the pointless movies, but becuase they were so terrible i'm going to rant on them anyway."Advent Children" was laughably bad, to the point that i just got bored at the pretty visuals before me. The plot is all over the place, broken and non-sensical whilst moving slower than a snail pace, the action is just too random, constant and OTT (not to mention physically defying to the point of ridiculousness), the dialogue was terrible and was full of cliche stereotype anime EMOs we've all seen a hundred times before already. It was nice to look at yes but where's the depth? Where's the plot? Wheres the POINT?

It's clear the makers had no idea how to make a film so why bother? There was no sense of direction, character development or story progression- just one long ass FMV sequence. And people actually wanted it? The film does nothing new to anything, i don't even see the point of it's existence except to showcase fancy graphics, and i can do that on my PS2. It tried to ramble about something important but stumbled at the first hurdle, taking itself so seriously it ended up mumbling nonesense and being shallow and emptier than the very CG it's made from. There's nothing deep about it, despite constant images of wide-eyed, stupid-haired miserable morons looking up the sky and philosophising over making the world a better place. Well boo-hoo. It all seems like an overlong outlet for depressed teenagers half the time. It was a waste of time, just like the other FF movie. Money wasted on fancy graphics.

But the fans seem to love it, so good for them i guess....

Sales & Sell-Outs

So Devil May Cry 4 is out and i've just finished purchasing it online, despite not having a next-gen machine to play it on... yet. I was always going to get a PS3, and rightly so, me having over 100 PS2 games and all. And whilst the next installment of one of my favourite franchises doesn't really look like an imporvement from the last, it is the first next-gen game in the series and i guess something to get excited about. Oh, and the reason i bought the game now instead of waiting and getting it cheaper later on in the year (which it will be no doubt) is becuase it's the Limited Edition version. It was the same price as the normal version and i know how hard it will be to get hold of it later, so better to pick it up now. Agian of course this is a marketing ploy, but who cares? Everything is these days. I'm a fan of the series and it will look good in my collection, having previosly purchasing the Limited Edition version of DMC3; even if it was just a fancy slipcase!

My main arguement however is with Capcom's supposed "betrayal" of fans by releasing the game for the first time ever as a multi-format title.
Yes, Devil May Cry finally comes to Microsoft's playground, much to the dismay of Sony fans who have openly aired their anger directly at the culprits.

360 owners jump in joy as they don't miss out on the series, whilst Sony fanboys frantically write petitions to boycott the game and their alegiance with Capcom. But this whole multi-format announcement was come to be expected anyway, it makes perfect sense as Capcom is no stranger to multi-releases. Initially i was slightly miffed as I bought my PS2 all those years ago specifically for Devil May Cry, and news of number 4 being a Sony exclusive cemented which machine i was going to purchase. But i don't care, I was never going to buy a 360 anyway.

So for all the Sony fanboys out there, just calm down. Capcom is a buisness after all and their main goal is to make money and profit. It's common sense to branch out to other formats for maximum sales. The GC-only Residentl Evil series was a nice idea to help boost the GC as a console and to also showcase the power of said machine (and lets face it REmake, 0 and RE4 are some really stunning looking titles made entirley on the GC hardware).

But look what happened as soon as the GC bit the dust- Capcom released RE4, the supposed "GC-Only title" onto the PS2, amisdt previolsy claiming matter-of-factly that RE4 wasn't possible on the PS2 becuase of hardward limitations, which is why they opted to do it on the GC instead. What a load of garbage. I agree the PS2 version doesn't looks as good as the GC version, but it's still adequate and perfectly playable. Capcom making 360 games is perfectly normal too, the machine being the only next-gen system that has been out the longest.

Dead Rising and Lost Planet were experimental titles to showcase what they can do with next-gen titles, with Dead Rising easliy being a prototype for Resi 5. I wouldn't call it 360-favouritsm either, they had to make games at some point, they couldn't just specifically make games for the PS3 and wait till the machine came out, that's silly and they would lose a lot of money. They practised making games for the machine that was out already, which was the 360. And look how much experience they got from it. Capcom seeing sales of their games do well on the 360 is more than a good enough reason to keep making games for it too, and lets not forget that there are more 360 users currently than there are the PS3, hence it makes perfect sense to release DMC4 as a multi-platform game.

Even though releasing a game which was originally a Sony exclusive series (to me, Devil May Cry is the true eptiome of the Sony PS2, along with Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Gran Turismo and God of War amongest others), they would make hell of a lot more money to release the game on the 360 as well. True, it insulted a lot of Sony fanboys, but at the end of the day who cares- gaming is a buisness after all, and it's a lot of money that Capcom make this way, they would rather upset a few fans than lose out on potentially thousands. Fair point, anyone would rather make extra bucks than to listen to some fanboys cry. And who knows, maybe making games for the 360 is easier than for the PS3, a lot of companies have expressed how fussy it is sometimes making games on the hardware, it being easier on the 360 becuase it is a Microsoft PC after all.

I think we will see a shift in the next year or so, when the PS3 user-base increases and it (hopefully) becomes the next "definitive" next-gen machine, where we will see Capcom make more games for it.

Of course this is going by the speculation that because the 360 is slightly older, it will date quicker and fizzle out, with the PS3 finally becoming the machine it was initially hyped up to be, and taking over the race. However this is hardly the case, the 360 has a fantastic catalogue of games and nothing ive seen on the PS3 so far can even compete in that league...yet.

Why I Hate: "AVP"

I love Aliens. I love Predator. I HATE AVP.

Alien vs Predator (2004). A dream movie that should have been an entertaining, action-filled sci-fi horror with two of sci-fi's (and two of my all time favourite) most iconic monsters. Far from it, really. The result was everything but- a nightmare of epid fail proportions. What a big pile of fucking SHIT!!! Everything about that movie was rubbish. Only good thing was the budget. Sorry, hated it all.

Lets forget about the terrible acting, script, plot, music and unknown Eurotrash actors for a second. I mean, wer'e talking a VS movies- all we should be getting is said monsters kicking the crap out of each other. And we don't even get that. I find it hard how anyone can screw up such a simple premise, escpecially with these two franchises who have had a multitude of spin-off comics and novels, most of them great. All Paul W S Anderson had to was to take one of the comics (preferably the first one called Prey which cleverly combines both creatures together really well) and adapt it for the movie- but he didn't do this. he opted instead not only to write a whole new screenplay, but a screenplay that wasn't even original. It took 90% of the material from the comics and then set it in the Alien universe so to link it with the Alien saga's cannon. Which sucks even more as now we have a yet another rubbish movie with an even more preposterous setting that we have to take as part of the already tainted Alien saga.

He literally mixed up and bastardize the various comic stories and made the film into mess. If you read the original novels, you'll see how good AVP stories can be. Hec, even the AVP2 video game had a better storyline than this peice of shit movie. I hate hate hate hate HATE AVP.

I bought the the 2-disc edition recently for £6, a really cheap price, and only becuase i wanted to see the documentaries to see what excuses they could come up with for their design choices as i'm interested in that prt of film-making. I also i wanted to hear the audio commentary- and it's unbelievable! Anderson, [Sanna] Laathan and [Lance] Henrikson seem to be lapping the movie up, even Henrikson applaudes Anderson and thanks him for making such a great film!? That's just bullshit! Can they not see how bad the film is? They mention no flaws whatsoever, and Anderson seems to love his own work, theyr'e all laughing and joking away, "oh wow that was great" "how cool is that part" "well done Anderson that was a really good film"- it's astonishing to hear these people this way concerning such a sh!tty film.

Iv'e heard loads of commentries where they apologise if something doesn't work or wasn't as good as how they would like, or didn't turn out well. With AVP it takes the cake- apparantly the movie was the PERFECT vision of Anderson's imagination! He doesn't say a bad thing about anything! And Henrikson and Laathan agree!? Seriously, listen to Henrikson next time, you can hear them sucking Anderson's cock, it's insane.

I'm sure the Strause Brothers (directors of the AVP sequel) will be more apologetic, since they have been listening to fan's responses and Colin has guts to show his face on these boards as well as the ones on fansite AVP Galaxy.com.

Anderson hasn't done anything of the sort- has never talked to fans, doesn't show his face in public and has never mentioned anything about AVP except on the DVD where he "claims" to be the biggest fan. Yeah right lol. He has never outright spoken about the film's failure to acheive anything in the same vein as Aliens or the original predator.

I don't care how many Aliens killed Predators or vice versa either, which happens to offend a lot of Predator fans as well as they see it as insulting that the creature wasn't shown in a fair light. To be honest, i don't care, I'm a fan of both franchises although i'm not going to resort to whatever tactics the other fans do to defend the creatures in these movies. I like monsters and i hold both species dear to me, and whatever bias is going on is purely down to bad film-making and idiotic amateur directors. Neither species is "better" than the other, though there will always be an exuse/answer from each party to counter-argue the other's opinion. It's just disheartening to see fans of both franchises stoop so low when trying to have a coherant debate, the arguements here are so nonsensical at times it's beyond silly.

As long as both creatures are doing what they do best, it's fine by me. However, i ddin't even get that in AVP.

I just wanted to see good creature designs and good performances from them. I come to see the monsters, i don't care about anything else. AVP SUCKED with the Predators. Fat obese mutha*bleeps* who don't even have the original sound effects, and the actors inside them just running around not even getting into character!! And then unmasked, it's even more of a joke.

"Because the audeince had come to respect and empathise with [Scar], subtle changes were made to his facial anatomy to make him more heroic" -Alec Gillis and Tom Woddruff, Jr. AVP: The creature Effects of ADI by Titan Books.

"Subtle changes" ?? They made him look like he had special needs Downs Syndrome (No offence). Anderson was to blame on this part too- he wanted the Preds to have an exagerated, comic-book posture to them. But for some reason they turned out to be fat mutha*bleeps*. I guess he doesn't know anything about comic book art either.

Thats why he sucks. He doesn't care for the source material or the fans. The least hecould have done is do some research in what people wanted in the first big-screen AVP movie. He didnt do anything and just "assumed" that this is what we wanted. That is blatant disregard, disrespectful and downright patronising to all of us that admire the series so much. He didn't even give any interviews to AVP fansites, or talked about "in retrospect". Nothing whatsoever. Resident Evil sucked, and i'm so glad that he's got nothing to do with the film adaptation of one of my favourite game franchises ever- Castlevania. His original script for it sucked more than AVP and Resident Evil combined. You know why? He made the main character in his script use a sword instead of THE WHIP. The trademark weapon of the protaganist, and he doesn't give it any justice. Anderson is a fucking idiot, plain and simple.

For what it's worth, AVP had some good Aliens though, and a nice Queen. In AVP-R however, we get a wicked Predator (with extra-special kudos to Ian Whyte for actually studying the character properly, or just watching the original movie for once), but then the Aliens look like trash. Theyr'e not sleek, slender or scary- they just waddle along like idiots, and even the animatronics on them was crap. Even the Predalien was garbage, if you looked closely the guy in the costume didn't even "perform" like a creature, he just wobbled backwards and forwards like the fat bastard he was.

So hey, maybe on the next one they'll be right on both fronts.....next one? Like hell there will be another. AVP was bad and AVP-R was just adding insult to injury. Although i did enjoy the latter a hell of a lot more!

Why I Love: "Labyrinth"

I will forever be grateful to my cousins for showing this film to me. (Thank you, you know who you are!). So here, in short, is my history with the film, and why i hold it so close to me.

I was 8 if i remember correctly, and every summer holiday i went to my cousin's house. This one particular summer in 1992 i went over and amongst all the usual cool stuff they usually show me was this movie. They told me about "this really cool fantasy film" they managed to tape off the TV and started to describe it to me- a Goblin King with very tight pants, a dwarf named Hoggle, a giant creature called Ludo, an incompetent Fox-knight that rode a shaggy Dulux dog, and really cool music. I wasn't to fussed about it to be honest but decided to watch it anyway and as soon as the opening credits rolled i was hooked. I became addicted to it and the entire summer i watched it every day. After the summer hols finished i begged and begged my cousins if i could borrow the tape, and eventually they let me have it.

I took it home and used to watch it every day, showing it to friends who used to come over (but were not really into it as much as me), playing and re-enacting the scenes in the playground (rather sad i know but nothing but cool when you are 8!), writing fan-fiction stories for my creative writing homework in year 6, just loving everything about it. Eventually the tape wore out and finally pretty much got stuck in the VCR machine, and i was never able to get it back as we had to throw the entire machine away. One of my darkest days as it was my soul and my life which was lost; i put so much of myself into the film (the film i daresay reflected a lot about myself too) that losing it meant that a part of myself was also missing...

After mourning over the loss of my favourite film i eventually forgot about it as Jurassic Park was released that same year and became my number 1 favourite film of all time, and Labyrinth sadly got lost and forgotten about as i was "growing up", going through my teenage years in secondary school and eventually Art college. It wasn't until 2000 when the film came back into my life again. My friend had just been shopping and told me he had just bought a film on DVD called "Labyrinth". I knew i had heard the name somewhere and asked him to bring it over when he came round. We watched it and the memories of my childhood started coming back to me- the dialogue which i knew by heart, the music, the characters. I was obsessed again. I asked him if i could borrow it, he agreed and i started watching it every day from there.

I went on the Internet as soon as possible to do research on it and didn't know that there were so many fans of this movie out there who loved and cherished the film as much as i did. I went to HMV and to my surprise saw the CD soundtrack was re-issued, and i bought it instantly. I bought the re-issue VHS as i didn't have a DVD player, but then the following year bought the DVD the day i bought a DVD machine.

Since the year 2000 the popularity of the movie has just grown and i'm seeing it way more than usual everywhere, from bookshops (where i got the Henson Studio book with an extensive chapter on the film), to the re-issue of The Goblins of Labyrinth, the manga, multiple re-releases of the film on DVD, t-shirts and now of course the range of figures from Neca.

Personally it's just a fantastic movie that encompasses everything which a good family and fantasy film should have; awesome visuals, creative character designs, inventive and humorous dialogue, funky music, a great story as well as dealing with themes of friendship, companionship, courage and honesty in a very warm and quirky way. And of course the film is basically a chapter of my childhood being played out. It was also one of the first films that inspired me and got me into fantasy, special effects and film-making, so i will always hold this film with the utmost of respect. A great film and an absolute classic!

So, after watching the film so many times, i had to come to my final conclusion regarding the story:

*SPOILERS*


...was Sarah's experience real, or not?

I never really thought about it to be honest, but it does make an interesting debate.

So after watching it recently, i came to the result that none of it was real, as it kind of detracts what the movie is all about- the journey of a girl becoming a responsible adult. Everything in the film makes so much sense, the world of the Labyrinth is basically the ever-changing world of Sarah, pre-pubescent teenager.



It's perfectly clear that all the creatures, incidents, environments etc reflect what Sarah is personally going through at that exact time in her life. The beauty of the film is that we, as an audience/fantasy lover/teenage female or even psychiatrist can understand in a really fun way what happens to a girl at that age. It's such a deep film it demands to be analysed bit by bit. For that world to be real and to exist regardless of who's experiencing or imagining it would be devoid of the actual point of the whole film, in my opinion.

The ending is great because Sarah has become a different person and we went through that change with her, so there is no reason for that world to exist anymore for anyone else, except when Sarah is a little nostalgic of her childhood days some point in the future. The characters aren't "real" per say, they have no past, presents and futures; they're personifications of people she loathes/loves bought to life in that journey. It's her world, no-one Else's.

To give Jareth, Hoggle et al actual lives outside the imaginary world doesn't make much sense to me, and doesn't really fit in with the closed narrative of the movie.



Now, this can be perceived another way with Jareth's speech at the end: "Just fear me, love me and i will be your slave". He says it in a way that demands to obeyed, that he exists, that the world exists, it's all real and Sarah can be a part of that if she just believes in him and makes him her king.

But for me, i always thought that it was Sarah telling Jareth telling her to believe in him. As in Sarah mis-believing that the characters of her imagination were actually telling themselves that they were real and they demanded a place in the actual reality of the real and/or imaginary world. Sure Jareth is telling her that he wants her to believe in him, but who "created" Jareth? Sarah did.

So basically it's Sarah's creations trying to persuade her that they are not her creations but real people in a real world that she can live in for the rest of her life if she just forgets about reality and starts to believe in her imagination. Which in itself is a trap, as she has become so entwined with her imagination that she's actually believing that her characters are real and speaking out to her.

The whole movie in reality (my interpretation of it anyway) is about trying to stop daydreaming and face the pressures, issues, hardships and every day situations of growing up and real life, not to always have your head in the clouds or believing you're in some dream world of your own creation. In the end Sarah accepts that every now and again it's perfectly normal to need her "characters" to escape, but not to live with them all the time. In this case there is a lot to be learned- always be true to yourself and never forget who you are. Sarah indeed has an active imagination and it is acceptable to feel comfortable around things which you create in order to get through the troubles of life- but there are times when they are needed and times where you must do it alone without their help; but never forget them. From the moment we are born we are alone, and we die alone- so it's all for the better that we have someone by our side, whether they be real or not. To be at peace is all we humans desire, and in Sarah's case it was (in her teenage years at least) her imagination, to live in a fairy tale which will never leave her as long as she stays true to herself. This is moral which the ending is trying to convey, and i think it works perfectly. Indeed a very powerful lesson to learn.



However the ending could be interpreted that everything was in fact real and not fantasy (all the creatures suddenly come into her bedroom- the real world- again) but i think it's purposely derived to be this way IE open ended when it is in fact (in my personal opinion) closed. The recent Manga books are written from the perspective where everything that happened in the movie were in fact real events, that Sarah experienced everything and remembered it all as did Toby (so much so that they are now the official events); but the way i think works better is if it wasn't "real" and that it was all her Sarah's imagination, the ending itself being her talking to herself and confronting herself directly and we as an audience saw it all visually to make it more cinematically effective. The fact that we see all the goblins and creatures which were initially evil and trying to kill/eat her in the end in her bedroom being all nice means that they are all deviations of Sarah's imagination anyway, that in her mind, for the stories sake, they were evil but they are in fact interpretations of things in her subconscious mind that okay their part for the experience but at the end become their common, pure selves agian IE embodiemnts of goodness, as they are from Sarah's (a human with this capabilty as default) mind herself. This is how i see the ending- everything worked out, she had changed, lessons were learnt and mistakes were rectified; everything turned back to how it originally was, all state of consciousness was reverted back to it's original form as the mind experienced thorough levels of reprimand. Therefore everything that indeed posed a threat to her will no more, and so return to their normal pure self of positivity rather than signifying any negative attributes; which is why all the creatures which caused her harm turn up at the end as happy souls ready for a party.



Again these contribute that it was all conjured up by her mind as it all turns back to normal- except of course for Jareth, who was and still is (and always will be) a threat to her. The end of the film explains that her mind is at peace and ease again as all the issues (manifested as creatures) she went through are now no trouble for her as she has overcome her fears and are now all in her room (the most personal and intimate of all places for anyone) happily laughing with her. So what of Jareth? Well as we all know Jareth represented the darkest, dangerous and most important hardship of any man/woman/girl/boy- the idea of love and relationship with another partner. Jareth was Sarah's secret love, and he represented the common and ongoing threat of the life's soulmate, the "perfect" man or woman in which we humans have the constant never-ending desire for. Jareth is therefore the physical manifestation of a human being representing love of another human being. Sarah was in love with him, but also scared of him as he is both dark and dangerous yet capable of fulfilling her dreams. I feel Jim Henson was in fact a genius when he wrote this story as it represents perfectly the idea of real life's ideas. Our partners are our life and soul and when we are in love we would do anything for them and hopefully vice versa, but in essence love is a truly dangerous, harmful thing as well, powerful as it may be it is also predominantly fatal to anyone unaware or inexperienced (or even experienced) with it. It can kill, it can heal, it can bring people together and it can tear them apart. Therefore it's a constant force at war with itself, and to those of us who would let it it can bring us joy and pain- it's never an embodiment of total purity; it is both good and evil, light and dark together, a balance always fighting. We as humans know this, love and relationships are never perfect but we are strong enough to overcome all the barriers to live in a state of harmony with our loved ones, which is what Henson was trying to say. Sarah, as a teenager, knew this or at least had some knowledge of it (due to her past experiences with her mother, father and now her step-mother). And so in the end Jareth, instead of turning into a state of "pure" goodness (as he came from Sarah's mind) and being with her in her room for the party, was still a threat and left shut outside in his less intimidating form of the barn owl. This again shows that right now for Sarah he's not as powerful or terrible and can be dealt with (as seen in the end when he banishes him) and so Sarah is ready for a normal and hopefully healthy relationship with a boyfriend becuase she knows how to deal with the dangers of (in this case forbidden) love. She knows that some day love could still hurt her (as it will always be a ying and yang force) and so Jareth is still left outside, but right now she is contempt with the feelings it could bring and can deal with it. Again Henson was a genius as he knew how to convey human relationships in a surreal yet completely logical and realistic way!



That's what i always thought anyway, if that makes any sense. The film is a deep psychological well that goes beyond lengths of analysis, and i love that it does this. My conclusion is that no matter what extended material may make of it, i thought that the film's events were not real and that everything that happened to Sarah were physical manifestations of what she was going through at that time on her life; the creatures, characters and situations in the Labyrinth were all embodiements of her understanding of the world and the things around her. It was her own unique story; that's what the Labyrinth is. It's a unique and individual world made by the creator, and in this case it was Sarah's world. She could have wished herself to the castle in the centre if she wanted to and if she did she would have got there (just as she wished Toby away and it actually happened becuase she actually wanted it), but she didn't even contemplate to even think about that, becuase she thought the world was real, that rules were in place just becuase people had told her there were (she is constantly reminded of the rules throught, just as people are told to believe things they are told by the media and society), agian her mind "playing tricks" on her, like all people lost or delving into a mind forged on this planet.

Always question the so-called "knowledge", have an opinion and speak out as the world is corrupt and people can easily become prisoners of it if we don't stand up and believe in ourselves, which is what Sarah did at the end of the film where she finally takes control. By the end, she learnt that she can stand her ground and be in control in a world where things are/were all naturally agianst and opposing her (even if it is her mind, which does this all the time anyway) and had overcome this factor or at least come to terms with it to be able to fight it agian in her future years. But she was at the right age, the end of childhood and the begining of adulthood where we all need to come to that threshold- the right time for many people to come to those crossroads. The mind and the world is a wonderously fantastic thing- it can help us and it can destroy us, yet there's still a hell of a lot to learn about it.

The Lost World - - A Lost Opportunity

After watching The Lost World: Jurassic Park agian for the 100th time with a less-than-usual critical eye and a more mature attitude, i came to the same conclusion- it still SUCKS.

Really and truly, it's one of the worst sequels i've ever seen and one of the biggest dissapointments of my life, EVER, and i'm completly honest about that. My love of the first film, my love of dinosaurs, my love of mindless action and my admiration for the Goldblum can't do anything to help save this film from being just plain rubbish.

The first half is great, it feels like a true JP sequel. Adressing the issues of the park, the compensations of the characters, what will happen to Hammond and Ingen, seeing Lex and Tim agian, having Malcolm entwined in the events (and how he deals with idiots day to day who think he's a wacko- case in point the skitso on the train), etc. It's like Spielberg actually took the time to tell us about what happened to finalise things, which is what your'e supposed to do in a direct sequel. But then as soon as the second Tyrannosaur attack happens and from there on in, it goes downhill. Speilberg just threw the whole set up out the window and it became an average monster movie, nothing more. It ceased to be JP anymore and became a sad King Kong knock-off. And in the end, there's no finality, no conclusion- wer'e left with the same ending as in the first movie- that the dinosaurs are still around, and no-one learnt anything, agian. That's it!

Of course, i expcected TLW to be brilliant. One of the other reasons of it being an utter dissapointment was that I read the novel twice over before i went to see it. I had certian expectations, i thought it it would be every bit as good as JP. I was expecting the book to come to life. I had planned all the scenes out in my head. But the adaptation (if you can even call it that) was poor- it didn't even follow the book! They cut whole chunks out of the book as well as signifcantly changing the actual plot. This SUCKS becuase the novel was a best-seller, and everyone knew there was going to be a movie made out of it, so everyone expected the film to be every bit as good as the film- and it wasn't. Why though? Seriously? Why change the book that was so popular anyway? The plot of the film was, well, King Kong! I'll never understand why they did it.

The directing was terrible, even for Spielberg. The action scenes were so-so, but still i expected a lot more. There were plot holes so big it was unbelievable. The music was below-average, which was wierd becuase John Williams is an amazing composer, yet there was nothing inspiring about this score. The acting was horrendous, at times you could see that the stars didn't even want to be there. The characters were just different- Malcom had changed and they didn't even explain why. The casting decisions- what were they thinking? Vanessa Lee-Chester, oh my, what a disaster. They changed the story entirely from the book and that was their biggest mistake. By the time the T-Rex gets to San Diego i put up my hands and surrendered, to my shame.

Not only that but it also became ridiculous, and you don't really want to go down that path when you managed to succesfully make a very plausible and scientifically accetable dinosaur movie first time round. I mean, "Jurassic Park San Diego"? Is there even enough room in that state to house a Brachiosaur, let alone a whole menagerie of dinosaurs? If that could be done then surely Hammond would have built his park there and not lease an entire South American island for it. Speilberg was digging his own grave when he came to the last half of TLW. But people make mistakes and i'm willing to accept that he let his childhood get the better of him. He managed to redeem himself with his other films though, just about.

I know it's a sequel and it can never compare to the original, but really, TLW should have. Everyone who worked on the first worked on th second, it really SHOULDN'T have gone the way it did. I first saw it when i was 14 and even then i couldn't understand why it went so wrong.


Thats why i didn't have too high an expectation for JP3, which i think better than TLW. It was short and sweet, and it didn't outstay it's welcome. It didn't brag about being anything other than it was. TLW wanted to be something so big that it ended up shooting itself in the foot.

I actually think the whole Pteranadon build-up in JP3 was more suspenseful than anything TLW tried to do, including the first T-Rex attack. And the second Rex attack i can't watch without laughing becuase it's so poorly done. And Lee-Chester's acting is horrendous, and she LOOKS INTO THE CAMERA.

QUESTIONS regarding the trash that is TLW:

1)The 2nd T-Rex attack on the camp could have been completely avoided if Sarah just removed/threw away her blood stained coat and lucky pack. I mean come on, why did she not think of this when she's a frickin paleobotanist/zoologist who has spent time in safari?! It seems a little silly to me when she grills Nick for bringing the injured baby Rex to the trailer but she couldn't think of removing any evidence of it's blood which would be the only reason for the Rexs to keep pursuing the camp. She even acknowldeges the fact that it's blood is on her but she still doesn't do anything about it?

2)Why is the puppeteering so bad in this film compared to the first? Just look at when the baby Rex is eating it's dinner when we first see it- it looks like a kid is moving it like a sock puppet. Same with when the raptor is pecking it's way through the cracked window to get to Malcolm.

3)Why does Dieter have to go so far away just to take a piss? He couldn't have done it behind the tree near where the Mexican guy was sitting? It's an island full of scary dinosaurs, it's common sense not to go too far on your own.

4)Why doesn't anyone in the harbour building acknowledge a frickin T-REX walking past them, after it had just smashed it's way out of a crashed ship, chased screaming people away and ROARED several times?

5)Why are the raptors so dumb in this film? Theyr'e fighting and smashing into things like they're drunk and don't give a frick- what happened to the classy sophistication from the first film?

6)Why would Hammond send Malcolm, a chaotican, to the island? He "really hated the man" anyway. Why not Grant?

7)Why are the streets of San Diego completly empty at night, yet there are loads of people in a video store?

8)How come Malcolm is able to magically appear through the waterfall a mere 5 seconds after a T-Rex was there? Rex couldn't have wandered off very far in that short of a time.

9)Kelly Curtis...killing a raptor...with gymnastics. W. T. F

10) Kid finding the Rex in his garden, Rex in the city, the baby Stegosaurs, the last scene with the happy family dinosaurs, i could go on....it's a cocktail of really crappy cliche crap!

I'm not biased, really. I have no reason to be. I love JP, i like Spielberg, i LOVE Williams. TLW is just a rubbish movie. It's just not a well made film, whichever way you look at it.

Subtitle vs Dubbing

I hate dubbing in movies, plain and simple. I can understand why it was done in the 1970s-80s, but for the love of whatever i can't understand why it's still being done now. Granted, it makes old-skool Kung Fu films look retro and funky, and i'm cool with that. Just not NOW, when it's used in contemporary world cinema. Are people still that narrow minded, illiterate and just plain lazy?

Just learn to read faster!! It's not hard! Sure, if they have trouble keeping up, then the text should be enlarged as an optional extra on the DVD.It just looks silly and stupid to see people talking another language when they clearly aren't.

Not only that, but the whole context of the film becomes null and void. Watching a foriegn film where people are dubbed and speaking in American/English accents- it just destroys the notion of the film being foreign! Your'e watching a different culutre, a different way of film-making, you should be watching it in the original language. The language doesn't translate well into English either. For example, the Japanese speak in a certian way where sometimes the pitch will change up or down according to what they are saying. Now, this won't work well when it is translated into English, and honestly speaking, it doesn't. The English voice actors who dub over will simply take the translation at face value, and just say the words how they are said in Japanese- hence the dialogue just sounding off-beat and silly. Watch any Anime, you'll know what i mean.

So anyway, i had just watched a fantastic Studio Ghibli movie called Only Yesterday. This movie wasn't dubbed in English, thankfully, as most Studio Ghibli and anime films are. As i went onto IMDb to rate the movie, i saw most of the message boards regarding the film centred around people asking the public sign a petition to get an English dubbing in place for the film. I'm like: WHAT? This movie is a gem just the way it is, and me watching it in Japanese made it even better! F you and your'e dubbing, you morons.

I don't mean to be rude or anything but dubbing truly destroys a film- especially terrible American voices. I DO NOT ever want to see Only Yesterday dubbed over with American actor's voices, that would just ruin a perfectly wonderful film. I like it just how it is- i'd die if i was watching it hearing Anne Hathaway in it (Studio Ghibli usually get get young popular actors/actresses to dub their movies, with Hathaway being in their previous release), or whoever else they rope into it. Just learn to read subtitles, it's really not that difficult. Leave it alone, please.

I mean, Spirited Away won an acadamy award becuase it was a great film- NOT because of the voice acting. All the awards for that movie were all for "Best Foriegn Language Film", "Best Film" Best Director" and "Best Animated Feature". I'm sure it would have won regardless of it being in English or not. Same with Pan's Labyrinth, they didn't dub that and it won several oscars. And can you imagine them dubbing that? It would just ruin it. To put it simply- iI have nothing against American voices, i just don't like English dubbing, as to me it just doesn't work.

Now, with a film like Only Yesterday, which is a wonderfully Japanese film, having English voices on it would skewer the context. It's set in Japan, it's characters are wonderfully Japanese, it's very traditional of the country of it's origin and is beaming with things that make that culture so great. Now, imagine the characters are speaking English on top of it. And not English English, Americanised English. No, sorry. Fuck off, it doesn't work. Japanese is such a lovely language anyway, it sounds better to have these characters speaking their actual native tongue. Now i know there are a lot of foreign films out there with dubbing and a lot of Japanese anime too, but for Only Yesterday i thought it just worked nicely as it was. Leaving it in Japanese will make it fit comfortably with the whole Japanese flow of it. In my honest opinion it just sounds better without any English, thats all.

Now i noticed that a lot of foriegn films are dubbed for American audiences only, when those same films go to Europe they come in their original langauge versions. However, this does not by any means imply that us Brits are intellectual coolios. Hardly the case. When i was working at a video store i got to see just how narrowminded our fellow film-loving friends can be. Every single foreign mainstream film released in the last year was dissmissed by the average film-goer, simply because it had subtitles! Shameful, really. I told them they were missing out on good films, and they didn't care. I told them "hey, you'll train your brain like Dr Kawashima tells you to, it's good for you!!!" And they still didn't want to listen. Oh well, if they want to watch the usual Hollywood tosh, i'm not going to blame them. No, wait, i am. Morons.

I thought it was just the Americans, but serving the customers in this country you can see that wer'e not that great when it comes to choosing films either. I guess every country has it's majority of idiots.