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Friday, June 3, 2011
She Wants Revenge.
So I'm off to see a band I barely know. I'm seeing She Wants Revenge.
X-Men: The First Class
Last night, at 11:15ish, I picked up one John, one of the writers for this site for his birthday. We went to catch the midnight viewing of the new X-Men movie. Now, this was kind of cool - catching a new Marvel movie at midnight. I did that with Thor. I loved Thor. I did that with the Iron Man movies too. I loved them. I did that with the Spider-Man movies... I was confused if I liked them. I did that with the other X-Men movies (except for Wolverine). I liked the first one, and from there it was rolling away from me.
Now, I understand the plot of this movie was mainly to show the rift between Charlies and Erik; regarding their opinions of how non-mutants should be treated by the homo-superior. Professor X believed that humans and mutants can get along while Magneto believed that mankind would enslave and exterminate the mutants for being different. Professor X lived a great life; wealth and a nice mansion while Magneto suffered at the hands of the Nazis. His mother was killed right in front of him.
Ok, I get it, directors need to rewrite and rework the regular X-Men universe to work for a movie. Not every movie viewer cares about the source material. The fact that things were changed doesn't take away from the fact that the movie was a good action film. The fact is that they had a Justin Bieber version of Banshee (played by Caleb Landry Jones) kind of was amusing. But the movie felt rushed. It barely touched the creation of the X-Men and the Brotherhood (of Evil Mutants).
Friday, May 27, 2011
We're Back...
It's been about a solid two months of me really being quiet. It's been two months of good and bad times alike. I got to witness The Airborne Toxic Event, starting to finally get my Back Ups! product line fleshed out, witness Castiel defy Dean and Heaven, and some other cool moments as well as some bad moments. Those being what I hope to call trivial. Look out for a new Ghostbusting.net this June!
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Monday, May 23, 2011
Apocalyptic Musings
May 21 has come and gone. There was no worldwide earthquake. The planet remains intact, with no amount of its billions of faithful having been called from its surface to receive the beauty immortal. What must one find, looking now upon a spring morning, if one was expecting the Rapture to have occurred two days ago? The sun shining horribly. The trees swaying in mute oblivion of the tumult that did not come, murmuring in a breeze that is oppressively free of ash and fire. The birds' songs offensive, mocking, laughing that nothing has been destroyed. They continue to live and breed and flit about in hateful glee that no sinners' tombs have opened and that no godless dead are to be seen lying upon the earth. How awful that we must persist to walk on this vulgar soil, under skies unmarred by pillars of smoke, in the ugly prison of the flesh. We have been denied the bliss of utter ruin, and we are left here in the tyranny of life's continuity.
Self-made prophet Harold Camping said of the apocalypse, "I am utterly absolutely, absolutely convinced it's going to happen." His certainty proved infectious; some believers left their homes and families and burned away their savings to spread Camping's message. It didn't matter if they had nothing, they might have reasoned, because they were soon going to a place where they would have everything. In an attempt to display their disdain for the physical realm, to show that they had no need of worldly things, they liquidated every asset. They cast their every possession away as utterly without purpose any longer, but I wonder, now, how their views may have changed. Now that they have no money, I wonder how unnecessary their worldly possessions seem. I wonder how negligible their family bonds appear now that they have cut them all in anticipation of joining a better family in a better place.
I wonder if they can see how selfish they have been.
No, the world did not end. It will not end in October, and it will not end in 2012, nor should we be so cavalier as to rejoice that it might. Should we be swayed by the fervor of those who hope for calamity? Surely, the masses who pray even now for the universe to meet its end in a holy inferno must remain far from the rational centers of our societies - if such things can be said to exist. Surely we must not heed them even to mock them; for, ostracized and ridiculed, they become martyrs in their own minds. Some people, when given a voice, have nothing to say but doomsday prophesies and bilious rhetoric, and, while I don't support gagging these bloodthirsty people, I do think that we should be more discerning about whose voices and opinions we might grant equivalence in public discourse.
Self-made prophet Harold Camping said of the apocalypse, "I am utterly absolutely, absolutely convinced it's going to happen." His certainty proved infectious; some believers left their homes and families and burned away their savings to spread Camping's message. It didn't matter if they had nothing, they might have reasoned, because they were soon going to a place where they would have everything. In an attempt to display their disdain for the physical realm, to show that they had no need of worldly things, they liquidated every asset. They cast their every possession away as utterly without purpose any longer, but I wonder, now, how their views may have changed. Now that they have no money, I wonder how unnecessary their worldly possessions seem. I wonder how negligible their family bonds appear now that they have cut them all in anticipation of joining a better family in a better place.
I wonder if they can see how selfish they have been.
No, the world did not end. It will not end in October, and it will not end in 2012, nor should we be so cavalier as to rejoice that it might. Should we be swayed by the fervor of those who hope for calamity? Surely, the masses who pray even now for the universe to meet its end in a holy inferno must remain far from the rational centers of our societies - if such things can be said to exist. Surely we must not heed them even to mock them; for, ostracized and ridiculed, they become martyrs in their own minds. Some people, when given a voice, have nothing to say but doomsday prophesies and bilious rhetoric, and, while I don't support gagging these bloodthirsty people, I do think that we should be more discerning about whose voices and opinions we might grant equivalence in public discourse.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Armored Core For Answer
So, a couple weeks ago I picked up a game that was a mech game, cause you know how much nerds like us love mech smash em' up games, especially growing up on the gundam series as well as other shows. The game being Armored Core for Answer, and damn, was it good! You pretty much start out with a low powered mech, buil it up and in time also fighter harder mechs and missions. The designs are awesome, as are some of the mechs. Laser swords, mechs that have fast dashes and speed to make you miss. A lot of customization options, build a fast, lightweight mech built to run circles around your enemy while you decimate them, build a medium or heavyweight craft, with more armor instead of speed, to bulk up against the enemy, even have four legs! You can also have a tank base for legs! Definitely a great game, good replay value, as after you beat it the first time, you have to complete the storyline playing from the other side of the story. This game series has also been around for a while, they are getting ready to release Armored Core 5, and I'm already looking forward to buy it when it comes out.
Thinking Inside the Box
I recently saw this comic on 9gag. It's intended to be inspirational, and many commenters found it to be so.
"Totally blown away by this post," says one, "Haven't seen anything so inspiring in a long time. I'm not an artist, but I am a musician. I can quite easily relate to this."
I tend to disagree that a musician is not an artist, but that's neither here nor there. Another commenter writes:
"You can overcome anything if you believe in what you're doing, and if you believe in art, there surely are no borders at all."
This is a popular sentiment, and I can understand why. To some who have been successful, it must feel as though their determination paid off. They must look back at the road they have taken and conclude that it was the choice to continue following their dreams that lead them to success and happiness. But surely they cannot feel this way all the time. Surely they must sometimes look back upon things that they have not achieved despite their skill, hope, and drive. And are they correct in their assumption? For every man who has achieved his dream of becoming a professional artist, there are at two men with equal or greater talent who clean convenience stores for a living. If all it took to become a professional artist was faith in yourself and the courage to follow your dreams, then there would likely be no one grinding stumps or cleaning elevator shafts.
It's nice to think that anything is possible - that there are no borders, or that borders are illusions. At the risk of sounding heartless and pragmatic, it is actually more conducive to success to see our limitations and to have a realistic understanding of which we can push beyond and which are likely to constrain us despite our best efforts. A prudent person sees the borders and is honest about them. In the comic, a parent says: "It is very hard to make it as an artist, and talent isn't always enough. You need luck. You should consider other options, too." This is sound, rational advice, yet the comic tosses it aside. The artist urges us to draw outside the box, as if reason and critical thinking are as oppressive a barrier as The Berlin Wall. It makes an enemy, or at least an obstacle, out of good advice, promoting instead instead the belief that we must ignore anyone who says anything that does not play into our fantasy.
Encouragement is bad when it is overindulgent. Excessive admiration, especially when not balanced with realistic feedback, is misleading and may help to insulate a person against the reality of his or her own inadequacy. Some people who succeed will have less skill than you do. Some will have less drive. Some talented artists will toil forever in obscurity for one reason or another. If you aim for the moon, you may not necessarily land among the stars - you may fail utterly to even get off the ground. The bottom line is this:
Borders are real. Do not ignore them, do not be paralyzed by them. Wisdom and compassion are nobler goals than renown or financial success, and a wise person seeks first to learn which walls can be broken down or circumnavigated, which must be scaled, and which it would be a waste of time to attempt to bypass in the first place.
"Totally blown away by this post," says one, "Haven't seen anything so inspiring in a long time. I'm not an artist, but I am a musician. I can quite easily relate to this."
I tend to disagree that a musician is not an artist, but that's neither here nor there. Another commenter writes:
"You can overcome anything if you believe in what you're doing, and if you believe in art, there surely are no borders at all."
This is a popular sentiment, and I can understand why. To some who have been successful, it must feel as though their determination paid off. They must look back at the road they have taken and conclude that it was the choice to continue following their dreams that lead them to success and happiness. But surely they cannot feel this way all the time. Surely they must sometimes look back upon things that they have not achieved despite their skill, hope, and drive. And are they correct in their assumption? For every man who has achieved his dream of becoming a professional artist, there are at two men with equal or greater talent who clean convenience stores for a living. If all it took to become a professional artist was faith in yourself and the courage to follow your dreams, then there would likely be no one grinding stumps or cleaning elevator shafts.
It's nice to think that anything is possible - that there are no borders, or that borders are illusions. At the risk of sounding heartless and pragmatic, it is actually more conducive to success to see our limitations and to have a realistic understanding of which we can push beyond and which are likely to constrain us despite our best efforts. A prudent person sees the borders and is honest about them. In the comic, a parent says: "It is very hard to make it as an artist, and talent isn't always enough. You need luck. You should consider other options, too." This is sound, rational advice, yet the comic tosses it aside. The artist urges us to draw outside the box, as if reason and critical thinking are as oppressive a barrier as The Berlin Wall. It makes an enemy, or at least an obstacle, out of good advice, promoting instead instead the belief that we must ignore anyone who says anything that does not play into our fantasy.
Encouragement is bad when it is overindulgent. Excessive admiration, especially when not balanced with realistic feedback, is misleading and may help to insulate a person against the reality of his or her own inadequacy. Some people who succeed will have less skill than you do. Some will have less drive. Some talented artists will toil forever in obscurity for one reason or another. If you aim for the moon, you may not necessarily land among the stars - you may fail utterly to even get off the ground. The bottom line is this:
Borders are real. Do not ignore them, do not be paralyzed by them. Wisdom and compassion are nobler goals than renown or financial success, and a wise person seeks first to learn which walls can be broken down or circumnavigated, which must be scaled, and which it would be a waste of time to attempt to bypass in the first place.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
'cause the sign said RUN
Remember the time you sold your soul to save the world? Well it looks like you're going to need to do more than that. Get me the afterburners because things are going to get heated soon.
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Tuesday, May 10, 2011
The Self-Sinking Ship
Mother's Day has come and gone, and I did nothing more than leave a message on my mom's Facebook wall to commemorate it. I am, in general, uncomfortable with holidays; love, friendship, and kindness should never be compulsory, but trying to break from the tradition of celebrating holidays like Mother's Day is pretty difficult. Holidays are symbolic, and institutionalized symbolism soon strips the celebrated referent of any connection to its image, leaving future observers going through the mindless motions of ceremony ignorant of the ultimate reason for their actions. This kind of subservience to tradition has always left a bad taste in my mouth.
Mother's Day has its roots in feminism. Julia Ward Howe wrote "The Mother's Day Proclamation" in 1870 as a response to the Civil War. It called for women to take a more active role in directing society, which is noble and right. By 1920, the efforts of Mothers' Day Work Clubs had brought the holiday well into the public arena, and with that came commercialization which should have been inevitable. But maybe we were more innocent then. Maybe we trusted that integrity could endure even the mad scramble to convince fools with guilty consciences and issues with pathological mother-worship to part with their money. How long it took for Howe to be forgotten, I have no idea. Ann Jarvis is, perhaps, even less-remembered, but without her it is likely that Mother's Day would not have grown into the institution it is today.
And that is my point. Mother's Day is an institution. If I want to honor my mother, I can do it any day of the year. The responsibility of women to act to change society for the better is lost beneath empty tradition. Today, Mother's Day challenges no stereotypes. It does not challenge anyone or anything. It has become just another day on which we are expected to buy certain things. This is what I hate about holidays - they are meaningless, and they should have meaning. They are excessive and exploitative, and we should respond with a call to reject them but for one sad fact: that call for change would eventually become as pointless a symbol as Mother's Day is now.
Honor your mother as she deserves to be honored; and if she does not deserve it, then honor someone who is truly worthy. No one deserves love and respect simply because they fit into a certain marketing demographic. Tradition devalues itself over time. Take the initiative to make your world, if not the world at large, a place in which, even if our innocence is lost, we can still do what is best for ourselves.
Mother's Day has its roots in feminism. Julia Ward Howe wrote "The Mother's Day Proclamation" in 1870 as a response to the Civil War. It called for women to take a more active role in directing society, which is noble and right. By 1920, the efforts of Mothers' Day Work Clubs had brought the holiday well into the public arena, and with that came commercialization which should have been inevitable. But maybe we were more innocent then. Maybe we trusted that integrity could endure even the mad scramble to convince fools with guilty consciences and issues with pathological mother-worship to part with their money. How long it took for Howe to be forgotten, I have no idea. Ann Jarvis is, perhaps, even less-remembered, but without her it is likely that Mother's Day would not have grown into the institution it is today.
And that is my point. Mother's Day is an institution. If I want to honor my mother, I can do it any day of the year. The responsibility of women to act to change society for the better is lost beneath empty tradition. Today, Mother's Day challenges no stereotypes. It does not challenge anyone or anything. It has become just another day on which we are expected to buy certain things. This is what I hate about holidays - they are meaningless, and they should have meaning. They are excessive and exploitative, and we should respond with a call to reject them but for one sad fact: that call for change would eventually become as pointless a symbol as Mother's Day is now.
Honor your mother as she deserves to be honored; and if she does not deserve it, then honor someone who is truly worthy. No one deserves love and respect simply because they fit into a certain marketing demographic. Tradition devalues itself over time. Take the initiative to make your world, if not the world at large, a place in which, even if our innocence is lost, we can still do what is best for ourselves.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
The War of Ideals
Well, after 10 years, Osama bin Laden is dead. As we've all heard by now, he was killed in a US military raid on his palatial compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Spontaneous celebration broke out in many places across the country. Twitter lit up with doubts, praise, and gallows humor. But a question remains in my mind: what, precisely, have we destroyed?
I have no head for politics. I've always been suspicious of the will to power, though I understand that people need leaders. It is a rule without exception that power corrupts; we can only hope to put in power those who are less corruptible than others. No one is incorruptible. All that said, layperson that I am, I cannot begin to try and predict what might be ahead for us now. Are we in less danger? Are we freer? Have we banished a darkness? At the risk of sounding like a pessimist, it doesn't feel like it.
Long have we been at war. Our foes are immaterial, ideals more than people; perhaps I can't be as ecstatic about bin Laden's death as some seem to be because, though he masterminded the largest attack on US soil, he was more effective as a symbol than he really was as a man. And we all know that symbols don't die - they simply shift from one person to the next.
I don't know what's to come. Maybe there will be a huge backlash. Maybe there will be no backlash at all. The War of Ideals is not fought on a battleground; there are no front lines. President Obama has repeatedly stated that we are not at war with Islam. In the speech he gave just two nights ago, in which he announced bin Laden's death, he insisted that Osama was not a Muslim leader. In light of that, I'd like to point out that bin Laden was given a Muslim burial. He was a Sunni, and the founder of al-Qaeda, a militant Islamist group. I submit, while not intending to mount any kind of pulpit here, that Mr. Obama may have worried about how it might sound to the "Massacre those who insult Islam" crowd if he were to openly declare war on their religion. Whatever happens, I can promise that "Islam" will continue to reside on the lips of the concerned, even as those very mouths move to deny that ideology has anything to do with the current conflicts.
We have killed a man. Have we achieved our revenge? The beliefs that make us capable of killing people en masse, the mandates that we believe make us responsible for saving our own from metaphysical corruption - or from imagined persecution - will persist in spite of the destruction of one of their purveyors. The War of Ideals is unaffected by the limited resources of the combatants. After all, when it comes to division and violent xenophobia, our resources are very nearly boundless.
I have no head for politics. I've always been suspicious of the will to power, though I understand that people need leaders. It is a rule without exception that power corrupts; we can only hope to put in power those who are less corruptible than others. No one is incorruptible. All that said, layperson that I am, I cannot begin to try and predict what might be ahead for us now. Are we in less danger? Are we freer? Have we banished a darkness? At the risk of sounding like a pessimist, it doesn't feel like it.
Long have we been at war. Our foes are immaterial, ideals more than people; perhaps I can't be as ecstatic about bin Laden's death as some seem to be because, though he masterminded the largest attack on US soil, he was more effective as a symbol than he really was as a man. And we all know that symbols don't die - they simply shift from one person to the next.
I don't know what's to come. Maybe there will be a huge backlash. Maybe there will be no backlash at all. The War of Ideals is not fought on a battleground; there are no front lines. President Obama has repeatedly stated that we are not at war with Islam. In the speech he gave just two nights ago, in which he announced bin Laden's death, he insisted that Osama was not a Muslim leader. In light of that, I'd like to point out that bin Laden was given a Muslim burial. He was a Sunni, and the founder of al-Qaeda, a militant Islamist group. I submit, while not intending to mount any kind of pulpit here, that Mr. Obama may have worried about how it might sound to the "Massacre those who insult Islam" crowd if he were to openly declare war on their religion. Whatever happens, I can promise that "Islam" will continue to reside on the lips of the concerned, even as those very mouths move to deny that ideology has anything to do with the current conflicts.
We have killed a man. Have we achieved our revenge? The beliefs that make us capable of killing people en masse, the mandates that we believe make us responsible for saving our own from metaphysical corruption - or from imagined persecution - will persist in spite of the destruction of one of their purveyors. The War of Ideals is unaffected by the limited resources of the combatants. After all, when it comes to division and violent xenophobia, our resources are very nearly boundless.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Friday Night Freak Out?
According to Wikipedia, tonight's Supernatural should be great...
If you somehow miss it, check it out here: http://www.iwatchsupernatural.com/.
| 123 | 19 | "Mommy Dearest" | John Showalter | Adam Glass | April 29, 2011 | 3X6069 | |
| Sam, Dean, Bobby and Castiel track Eve to a small town in Oregon. The guys discover the townspeople have been converted to monsters and hybrids, but surprisingly, some of them appear to be dying. When they finally do meet Eve, she decides to torture the brothers by taking the form of their late mother, Mary Winchester. | |||||||
If you somehow miss it, check it out here: http://www.iwatchsupernatural.com/.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Role Models
I am 31 years old and I play with action figures. Last night, I caught myself staring at my Primus figure's planet mode trying to imagine all the little roads and cities on its surface that I couldn't see. Yes, it's a toy. No, the features I was imagining are not there; but for a long moment it was almost as if I could really believe that they were - could really see where towers and plazas would be if I were able to get closer to the planet's surface. I could imagine Tyger Pax, Altihex, Kalis, the Rust Sea...here might be Vos and here Tarn or Polyhex, here might be Darkmount. I searched for the Sonic Canyons, and I wondered where inside I might find Vector Sigma.
I've been passionate about toys, especially Transformers toys, since before I had any idea that they might be kept in a collection. As I child, I had He-Man, GI Joe, and Dino-Riders figures as well. I even had a My Little Pony! (My parents were kind of progressive.) I also had MASK toys, which I loved, and they were the first toys that I really had an interest in collecting. I watched and loved cartoons like Silverhawks and Thundercats, but it wasn't only animation that I was interested in. This was the 80s, and MTV was a fledgling network. Though my family had doubts about some of the content of the videos, I saw my fair share of artists breaking the mold and forging a new path for music on television. Considering the types of show that MTV now airs, it's funny to think that my parents were worried about Madonna being a bad influence back then!
"Influence" is precisely what I'm going on about here. For many years, there has been talk about Barbie dolls and how they affect little girls. "Is Barbie a good role model?" I once heard someone ask that on the radio. Her proportions are unrealistic; we all know this. What does Barbie tell young women about how they should value themselves?
What role is Barbie playing? What role is she modeling? Mother? Wife? Woman? Can we look at Barbie and say what her values are, what her parenting style is, or whether or not she might get a bonus this quarter? If a child sees Barbie as a role model, he or she must be making a judgment about her. What judgments can we make about her, and, perhaps more importantly, how do we learn to make those judgments?
Barbie has no character to judge. She is not a person. Yes, her proportions are unrealistic - this is a common problem with women who are not real women but dolls made of plastics and paint. I'm not a sociologist. I don't know anything about the neuroscience of self-esteem. I can only speak from my own perspective. I never once looked to my toys as role models. My toys were not playing roles extrinsic from my imagination; they were my toys, and they played whatever role I wanted them to. Skeletor never beat He-Man, but if I wanted to make him kick He-Man off a cliff into a pit full of Decepticons and Inhumanoids, I could easily make that happen. I didn't look at He-Man as any example of what I should look like; He-Man lived on another planet and said things like, "We've got to stop Merman." He-Man wasn't real. I knew that. Somehow, between the point at which I was a toothless imp knowing only that my toys were things I could gnaw on and the point at which I was capable of appreciating the value of a toy as a conduit for my imagination, I learned to distinguish reality from fantasy. I never imagined that Optimus Prime's "role" was anything I should attempt to emulate. Though I deeply admired the character and totally bought the G1 series with all its flaws, I never interpreted Optimus Prime literally. Prime reminded me of my actual role model, my father.
See, unlike the character I saw in cartoons or the musicians I saw gyrating suggestively on MTV, my dad was with me from the moment I woke up until the moment I fell asleep. He made the rules of the house. He brought home food, he bought my toys, he cared for me. He watched Transformers with me. Dad is a real person with a set of clear roles to play, and he was there when I turned off the TV. I could call him right now if I wanted, and he would have all kinds of things to say about being a real person in the real world. Is Barbie a good role model? Are He-Man's proportions realistic? Of course not. I am a layman, and this is not an opinion that is informed by any science that I can cite, but I suspect that our best role models - if not our ONLY role models - are our family and our friends. These are the people who are really there in the physical world with us, interacting with us, playing roles distinct from our whims. A toy can be whatever you want it to be. The people on television are representatives of someone else's limited vision. While the media can have a powerful affect on how a child develops, in the end it is not the images, the icons, but the people in your life who should teach you how to think about yourself, how to treat others, and how you might expect others to treat you.
I've been passionate about toys, especially Transformers toys, since before I had any idea that they might be kept in a collection. As I child, I had He-Man, GI Joe, and Dino-Riders figures as well. I even had a My Little Pony! (My parents were kind of progressive.) I also had MASK toys, which I loved, and they were the first toys that I really had an interest in collecting. I watched and loved cartoons like Silverhawks and Thundercats, but it wasn't only animation that I was interested in. This was the 80s, and MTV was a fledgling network. Though my family had doubts about some of the content of the videos, I saw my fair share of artists breaking the mold and forging a new path for music on television. Considering the types of show that MTV now airs, it's funny to think that my parents were worried about Madonna being a bad influence back then!
"Influence" is precisely what I'm going on about here. For many years, there has been talk about Barbie dolls and how they affect little girls. "Is Barbie a good role model?" I once heard someone ask that on the radio. Her proportions are unrealistic; we all know this. What does Barbie tell young women about how they should value themselves?
What role is Barbie playing? What role is she modeling? Mother? Wife? Woman? Can we look at Barbie and say what her values are, what her parenting style is, or whether or not she might get a bonus this quarter? If a child sees Barbie as a role model, he or she must be making a judgment about her. What judgments can we make about her, and, perhaps more importantly, how do we learn to make those judgments?
Barbie has no character to judge. She is not a person. Yes, her proportions are unrealistic - this is a common problem with women who are not real women but dolls made of plastics and paint. I'm not a sociologist. I don't know anything about the neuroscience of self-esteem. I can only speak from my own perspective. I never once looked to my toys as role models. My toys were not playing roles extrinsic from my imagination; they were my toys, and they played whatever role I wanted them to. Skeletor never beat He-Man, but if I wanted to make him kick He-Man off a cliff into a pit full of Decepticons and Inhumanoids, I could easily make that happen. I didn't look at He-Man as any example of what I should look like; He-Man lived on another planet and said things like, "We've got to stop Merman." He-Man wasn't real. I knew that. Somehow, between the point at which I was a toothless imp knowing only that my toys were things I could gnaw on and the point at which I was capable of appreciating the value of a toy as a conduit for my imagination, I learned to distinguish reality from fantasy. I never imagined that Optimus Prime's "role" was anything I should attempt to emulate. Though I deeply admired the character and totally bought the G1 series with all its flaws, I never interpreted Optimus Prime literally. Prime reminded me of my actual role model, my father.
See, unlike the character I saw in cartoons or the musicians I saw gyrating suggestively on MTV, my dad was with me from the moment I woke up until the moment I fell asleep. He made the rules of the house. He brought home food, he bought my toys, he cared for me. He watched Transformers with me. Dad is a real person with a set of clear roles to play, and he was there when I turned off the TV. I could call him right now if I wanted, and he would have all kinds of things to say about being a real person in the real world. Is Barbie a good role model? Are He-Man's proportions realistic? Of course not. I am a layman, and this is not an opinion that is informed by any science that I can cite, but I suspect that our best role models - if not our ONLY role models - are our family and our friends. These are the people who are really there in the physical world with us, interacting with us, playing roles distinct from our whims. A toy can be whatever you want it to be. The people on television are representatives of someone else's limited vision. While the media can have a powerful affect on how a child develops, in the end it is not the images, the icons, but the people in your life who should teach you how to think about yourself, how to treat others, and how you might expect others to treat you.
Monday, April 18, 2011
The Evolution of a Franchise
Of late, I've been thinking a lot about morality. I have spent the past few months reading and watching lectures and debates about objective morality as it relates to questions about god and religion, and I've learned much about the tantalizing idea that science can have meaningful things to say about moral thought and the well-being of conscious creatures. I've listened to such scientists and philosophers as Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Francis Collins, Rick Warren, and William Lane Craig give answers both inspiring and ludicrous for why we are good and what it means that we are, and I think I've got at least one blog in me on the subject. All that said, I've decided today to talk about Transformers.
Transformers Dark of the Moon is scheduled to be released on July 1 of this year. It will be, purportedly, director Michael Bay's last contribution to the long-running Transformers franchise, but I doubt that we will see Transformers fade from the market once the film has come and gone. Transformers: Prime, the latest TF animated show, is still on the air in most markets. The toyline is going strong, having a greater presence in stores now that it has in the last 10 or so years. The Prime line is soon to be announced; add to this the existing line of repaints and re-imaginings and the third movie line, and there are bound to be more than enough Cybertronian robots on the aisle to keep oblivious parents staring for minutes on end (before, inevitably, picking up the nearest pegwarmer). My point is that this should be a great time to be a Transformers fan. The mythology is rich and constantly developing. Supply answers increasing demand - be it from the retail sector or from the body of consumers itself. But there is a question in my mind. I ask this of Transformers 3 and I ask it of Ghostbusters 3. I asked it of Tron Legacy, which I thought was great. The question is this:
Is there a core to this mythology?
Many were excited to learn that Peter Cullen would be voicing Optimus Prime for Bay's Transformers films. Just as many were disappointed that Frank Welker would not be voicing Megatron, but not a word was spoken, of praise or of disdain, about the fact that the leaders of the rival factions would be named Optimus Prime and Megatron. We needn't have commented on that because it was understood. None of us expected to see a complete revision of the Transformers story - one in which familiar names and themes were abandoned utterly. We know, deep in our hearts (or sparks) that there is a core mythology from which all others branch or borrow; there is a grain of what has made this franchise great in every Transformers property developed. But to what degree has Michael Bay acted as Dark Energon, corrupting the Cybertron that is the franchise's core concepts? To what degree is Bay simply a cog in a massive marketing machine?
I waver. I go back and forth between vilifying Bay, vilifying Hasbro, and pretending with all of my being that I'm not a G1 slave. Ultimately, the truth is that Transformers cannot be corrupted by bad writing, thin characters, insane plots, or mindless fanservice. G1 had its share of those things, more or less! (B.O.T, anyone?) I will go see Dark of the Moon, and I will complain about liberties taken with themes and characters who saw their genesis in my beloved G1, but I cannot overlook the glaring truth:
Like William Lane Craig arguing that there can be no morality without a supernatural being, it is empty and pointless to say that there can be no Transformers without G1. Transformers has grown and changed and spawned many creative properties. It has diversified, as organisms' morphology diversifies with increased reproductive success, and it doesn't matter whether Michael Bay's next TF film succeeds or not. The franchise has an engine behind it that has been successfully marketing these remarkable toys and the disparate storylines that make them so interesting for more than 25 years.
So tell yourself not to worry. Sit back, enjoy Michael Bay's vision for Cybertron in whatever way you can, and if you can only grit your teeth over curse words and complaints about changes to a particular character's established personality, then perhaps you might find solace in the fact that there will always be more to see and to learn on the road ahead - and that you can always revisit G1 on DVD.
Transformers Dark of the Moon is scheduled to be released on July 1 of this year. It will be, purportedly, director Michael Bay's last contribution to the long-running Transformers franchise, but I doubt that we will see Transformers fade from the market once the film has come and gone. Transformers: Prime, the latest TF animated show, is still on the air in most markets. The toyline is going strong, having a greater presence in stores now that it has in the last 10 or so years. The Prime line is soon to be announced; add to this the existing line of repaints and re-imaginings and the third movie line, and there are bound to be more than enough Cybertronian robots on the aisle to keep oblivious parents staring for minutes on end (before, inevitably, picking up the nearest pegwarmer). My point is that this should be a great time to be a Transformers fan. The mythology is rich and constantly developing. Supply answers increasing demand - be it from the retail sector or from the body of consumers itself. But there is a question in my mind. I ask this of Transformers 3 and I ask it of Ghostbusters 3. I asked it of Tron Legacy, which I thought was great. The question is this:
Is there a core to this mythology?
Many were excited to learn that Peter Cullen would be voicing Optimus Prime for Bay's Transformers films. Just as many were disappointed that Frank Welker would not be voicing Megatron, but not a word was spoken, of praise or of disdain, about the fact that the leaders of the rival factions would be named Optimus Prime and Megatron. We needn't have commented on that because it was understood. None of us expected to see a complete revision of the Transformers story - one in which familiar names and themes were abandoned utterly. We know, deep in our hearts (or sparks) that there is a core mythology from which all others branch or borrow; there is a grain of what has made this franchise great in every Transformers property developed. But to what degree has Michael Bay acted as Dark Energon, corrupting the Cybertron that is the franchise's core concepts? To what degree is Bay simply a cog in a massive marketing machine?
I waver. I go back and forth between vilifying Bay, vilifying Hasbro, and pretending with all of my being that I'm not a G1 slave. Ultimately, the truth is that Transformers cannot be corrupted by bad writing, thin characters, insane plots, or mindless fanservice. G1 had its share of those things, more or less! (B.O.T, anyone?) I will go see Dark of the Moon, and I will complain about liberties taken with themes and characters who saw their genesis in my beloved G1, but I cannot overlook the glaring truth:
Like William Lane Craig arguing that there can be no morality without a supernatural being, it is empty and pointless to say that there can be no Transformers without G1. Transformers has grown and changed and spawned many creative properties. It has diversified, as organisms' morphology diversifies with increased reproductive success, and it doesn't matter whether Michael Bay's next TF film succeeds or not. The franchise has an engine behind it that has been successfully marketing these remarkable toys and the disparate storylines that make them so interesting for more than 25 years.
So tell yourself not to worry. Sit back, enjoy Michael Bay's vision for Cybertron in whatever way you can, and if you can only grit your teeth over curse words and complaints about changes to a particular character's established personality, then perhaps you might find solace in the fact that there will always be more to see and to learn on the road ahead - and that you can always revisit G1 on DVD.
Sunday, April 17, 2011
Sunday's TV Pick: Game of Thrones
So tonight, HBO launches Game of Thrones. The series is an American medieval fantasy tv series created by HBO's David Benioff and Dan Weiss that is based on George R. R. Martin's best selling A Song of Ice and Fire novel series. It's about the struggles of noble families trying to control the Iron Throne of Westeros. That much I learned from Wikipedia. I haven't read the book series but the series is on tonight!
New Twisted Metal
Twisted Metal is set to return in October to the PS3. Here is the most recent trailer.
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