Remember, remember...

Ok after a two weeks I'm finally posting again. There are various reasons for this delay; chief among them being that I am very lazy. Anyway, on with the rant.

As a chronic movie goer I have been lost for the last five months; (kind of like Jesus, but I'm not the son of god; to my knowledge) I was forced to exist on moves like Aeon Flux and Ultraviolet which made far more money than they deserved. But then finally, I was saved a movie that was actually good came out! Not only was it good, it was really good.

V for Vendetta is a story that is based in England in the not to distant future. A conservative (socially) party has taken control and slowly whittled away the citizens' rights under the pretext of national security (sounds familiar, doesn't it?). The title character is initially bent on revenge against the government which had used him as a subject in their germ/chemical warfare. He hides his presumably disfigured face behind a Guy Fawkes mask and in the end, he even learns a lesson. There were rainbows and pink bunny rabbits, I swear.

The situation, and the intended message of V, ring true considering the current political situation in the United States; perhaps a little too true. As a person who has not read the original comic I cannot comment on how faithful the movie was to the source material. However, it seems to me that the global political climate in the early 1980's would provide communism, rather than religious extremism, as the most likely cause for heightened security. The use of
germ/chemical warfare also seems suspect; while it is not a particularly new idea, I don't think that it would be at the front of people's minds at that time.

Since the film was brought to us by the Wachowski brothers, the 'minds' behind the Matrix trilogy, action is expected to be at the forefront of V; and it is. The film, much like it's 'hero', hides behind a mask; if you look at it casually you may just see another movie filled with big explosions and serial killings. However, for those who care to look beyond the veneer there is a plethora of unanswered questions and a message that should not be missed. This message can be best summed up with this quote "Those who trade in their freedom for security deserve neither" (I'm too lazy to find the person who said it first, but it wasn't me. Also, that may not be an exact quote; meh.).

In the end I suggest that everybody go to see this movie and draw their own conclusions. The story is revealed in such a way that the events of this world before and after the bits we are shown are left ambiguous; leaving the viewer to decide what they feel happened. This allows the message to exist almost separate from the story. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and believe that you do as well, my only fear is that people will attend the movie not expecting to think and therefore refuse to do so. Do not let the message of this move disappear like so many others have.

So, yeah

It's official, being sick sucks, especially when you start feeling ok when you go to sleep and then feel like shit again when you wake up. Due to this I don't have a real rant to post, but I want to keep this as at least a weekly thing and if I start slacking on week 2; well, that's just bad. So I have for you a short discussion on the term 'otaku.'

Otaku(or お宅) literally means 'house,' but the inherent implication (in Japanese) when calling a person otaku is that they never (or rarely) leave their house. An otaku has little to no social life and probably doesn't have any friends except for other otaku. The equivalent idea in America is something like the 35 year-old Star Trek nerd who still lives in his parents’ basement.

However, in the American lexicon the term has taken on a different meaning. Fans of anime have taken to calling themselves otaku because they don’t understand the negative connotations of the word. These fans range from slightly more than casual fans to actual otaku (in the Japanese sense of the word). People wear it around like a badge of honor and, honestly, that bothers me. If I told them that pendejo (for those of you who don’t speak Spanish, pendejo literally means pubic hair, but is used more like 'asshole') means the same thing would they start calling themselves that?

Let's face it how many people would refer to themselves as 'geek' or 'nerd' (unless they are trying to beat others to the punch). Admittedly, those terms have become less derogatory lately because the increased use of computers has led to an increase of our numbers (yes I said our, I can't really deny it since I'm a programmer). Yet, some of the very same people who would feel insulted if you call them nerd refer to themselves as otaku. It defies all logic.

I have accepted the fact that this unlikely to change, hell we still call bell peppers 'peppers' even though they are really chilies. I even accept the fact that in the English language we like to steal words from other languages and change their meanings. But it still makes me disappointed to see people accept a nickname without knowing what it truly means.

OK, it only took about 4 months to get a post but here it is: Chibigodzilla's first official rant (please forgive any spelling/grammar errors)


Serenity:
At the outset, I would like to say that I love Firefly and I saw Serenity at least seven times (I lost count).
I saw it at a midnight showing, and again on the next day. I even paid for it one time when I WAS GOING TO SEE ANOTHER MOVIE.
Yet, every time I left the theater I felt slightly disappointed. Maybe it was the fact that I am a sucker for Shakespearian style tragedies i.e. everybody dies at the end. Maybe I was upset at the killing of two of my favorite characters.

But after a few viewings I figured it out; the movie just isn't epic enough.
Stop and think; Firefly, the TV series, had 10 main characters:
Mal
Zoë
Wash
Jayne
Kaylee
Inara
Shepard Book
Simon
River
And, of course, Serenity itself

Serenity represents one, whole person, while each member of the crew foils Mal in as much as they represent a portion of Mal that was lost long ago.
Kaylee is the soul, Book is wisdom, Inara is sophistication, Wash is humor, Simon is intelligence, Jayne is brutality, Zoë is tactics, etc…. In the end all that is left for Mal is to make decisions.

So, in the move we separate Inara & Book from the crew; this causes Serenity to seem incomplete. Which makes the move seem, even more so, that it is punishing our characters, which it does.
At this pint we have established enough background to explore the issues (as I see them) with the movie.
And these are in order, with 1 being the most detrimental
1) a movie is not enough to focus on each character so we just had the focus on Mal & River
2) the ending seems tacked on and contrary to the tone that the rest of the movie sets.
3) Removing Book & Inara heightens the effect problem #1

SPOILER!!
4) The death of Book is no only devoid of impact, it also destroys mush of the mystique of the character (as it takes away much of the possibility of learning about his past)

And finally,
5) by actually showing reavers it takes away much of the fear, it does mitigate this by only showing them briefly.

The final conclusion that I come to is that, the movie is too 'small' to continue the story properly and that a second TV series or perhaps a direct to DVD, effort would have been a better Idea.