Excalibur

Heroes: "Shadowboxing"

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 04:22:14 GMT

So here we are. Shadowboxing. Another episode that I enjoyed quite a bit, though not as much as some previous episodes. This episode felt kinda aimless.

First off, we'll start with the good. Matt and Sylar have kinda bored me this season. While I've enjoyed the performances, and I'm actually loving the role Janice is playing... I dunno, I'm just so sick of Sylar I guess. But here, we see him getting beaten down, by the world's biggest loser no less. The scenes between these two were both tense and hilarious. (Sylar yelling "I'm a cop" over and over again, in particular was a real treat.) I knew Matt wasn't going to die there, but watching him sacrifice himself like that did a lot to earn respect from me. The theme of "Redemption" was really prevalent here... also I really noticed Zachary Quinto's hideous hair this week.

Next up we'll go with the less good, but still cool. Emma. I still really like her. I think the main thing I enjoyed about this plotline is that it involved so little... power. The problem was that a big influx of patients were coming in from a trainwreck, the solution was that Emma had to overcome her guilt to try and treat people again as a doctor. My issues with an unlicensed medical school dropout performing medicine aside, I really liked this plotline. Because really, the focus was on Emma. Peter was the supporting character this week. But that didn't mean Peter didn't get any development. It was really subtle, but it was almost like... by the end of the episode Peter accepted that he didn't need to be special. He didn't say anything, and nothing happened to HIM that'd change his mind about this... but there was something unspoken there. I loved the ending with him pulling down all the newspaper clippings off his wall. Really subtle. REALLY nice. Also, seeing a supporting female character get such a large focus was REALLY, REALLY nice. Shows that she's not JUST there to be Peter's love interest. And I loved the scene where she was just casually playing the piano, still impressed with her power, but not... too impressed. Confident about it.

The weakest plotline this week I felt was Claire's. And that had nothing to do with how much I liked Claire, because I actually REALLY liked her this week. She was sort of sarcastic, kinda nice but sort of dangerous at the same time, and sort of clever... all the things she should be. And I enjoyed her exchanges with Samuel to an extent. I think the actress playing Becky kinda brought this plotline down a bit, she always looks so... odd. Though I did enjoy her backstory. I love those moments when the victim that a character didn't even know about comes back for revenge. Noah's past is playing catch-up with him big time, and I almost wish his plot line last week had been written better to set this up. (oh, and had more to do with him hunting powered people and less to do with him cheating on his wife...) I liked how Samuel seemed sort of confused and impressed at the same time that Claire had managed to play him a bit. Let him be showed up while also letting him continue to be a bad-ass at the same time.

Also I still really like Lydia.

Overall? 7/10 I guess. Average episode, but not without it's charms.

Also, I have to share something with you guys. This week's preview seemed to imply that Samuel had something to do with Coyote Sands. Samuel had a brother. Angela was also kept at Coyote Sands. Angela has a sister. Anyone sensing a connection? I think we haven't seen the last of Alice. And I think we're definitely going to find out more about what happened there next week. Lesse... here's hoping we get to see the return of Stephen Tobolowsky, Malcolm McDowell or Richard Roundtree sometime soon.

Also: I REALLY, REALLY can't wait for Angela and Samuel to cross paths. It will be so epic. Generally I always wind up disappointed when I look forward to something like that, but I have a feeling that this time the Heroes staff isn't going to disappoint me.

Heroes: "Once upon a time in Texas"

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 02:43:08 GMT

I can't really remember the timeline for the Homecoming episode, so I'm not sure how well everything will fit in with that, but overall I REALLY enjoyed this episode.

A few things didn't work for me... but watching Hiro totally emasculate Sylar was just awesome, and shows how far the character has come. I didn't believe the scene really, it wasn't all that powerful, but the context of it was just great.

Overall I didn't really buy Sylar's role in this episode... he and Bennett just seemed royally unnecessary in this plotline. Plus, another week with way too much Sylar. As a villain he just loses his oomph when we see him all the time like this, casually discussing things with people. It just... yeah, I didn't like it. Still really sick of Sylar...

Noah's plotline too seemed totally pointless. There are SO many interesting directions they could have taken this episode. So many things were going on in the background, and we didn't really need a totally incidental romance with HRG and another company agenda... I guess we got enough Founders backstory in "Villains" but honestly, with the improved writing, I'd have loved to have seen a bit more here. But I'm an Angela fanboy, so I'm biased.

Now, the thing that saves all that weak plotting and characterization is two things...

Samuel and Hiro.

I LOVED Hiro in this episode. The character he's developed into is so great. I loved how determined he was to save Charlie, I love how passionate and powerful he was while still retaining that goofy charm that makes him such an endearing character. Charlie too, was just great.

Samuel is turning into one of my favourite characters this year too. THIS is how you write an emotional villain, Heroes writers. Not that Sylar crap you were throwing at us last year. Samuel cares deeply about his family (I loved when he was tearing up because his friend was dying), hell, Samuel cares deeply about anybody with powers it seems. His discussions with Hiro were just great, how he guided him along his path, how he helped him while simultaneously manipulating him into his own hands. A subtlety I haven't seen in a villain (on this show at least) since Angela and Linderman in season 1.

In general I think the reason I enjoy Samuel so much, is because he's just totally unique as far as villains go on this show.

First we had Sylar, who's basically an animal who hunts to grow stronger and more powerful. Linderman, who wants to heal the world, but does so in a cold analytical way, caring little for the people who make it up. Adam was a misanthropic bastard who much like Sylar desired self-importance above all else (though unlike Sylar he didn't seem to care much for power, more for being as righteous as possible). Arthur was pretty much a mix between all four, which resulted in him being kinda all over the place and kind of a weak villain.

But Samuel. He CARES. And he's in over his head, seemingly. But he's so powerful. And he's full of righteous fury and anger, and he's just... such an awesome character. I like everything about him, his family, his power, his ink, his relationship with Lydia, he's so like a little boy and yet not. I can't wait to see what this guy does next.

Oh, and he also killed Mohinder so that he could take his role at the narrator. That much is obvious!

You know...

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 15:19:39 GMT

Reading through my old LJ entries, I used to be so much more upbeat and awesome... and less of a prude. =|

I miss being that way. I must figure out how to provide more BALANCE. Be both happy, responsible and content, and a loud egomaniac with no self-conscious tendencies. I mean it could just be that whole 'growing up' thing. But I don't think growing up means life has to be so damn complicated, if anything it should be so much simpler. Especially with friends...

IT MUST BE DONE.

Also, it seems like I used to be so much more in touch with a lot of people... a lot of people that I MISS DEARLY. You probably know who you are, so let's get BACK IN TOUCH.

From this moment on, I'm going to strive to be more who I was. The enthusiastic energetic (sexy) virile man who has few preconceptions about things and doesn't concern himself with the little things and is only vaguely aware of the big picture.

It's just... it's so much more interesting that way!

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 04:59:17 GMT

Well I managed to make an ass of myself today.

Sweet!

Ever....

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 07:46:24 GMT

Been really tired, needed sleep, it been an appropriate time for sleeping (more than appropriate), but felt like you have things to do still?

Even if none of those things are all that important?

Just feel like I wasted the whole bloody day.

Stupid WarCraft.

I have actual stuff to UPDATE you people on

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 08:16:31 GMT

Should totally be sleeping.

BUT!

Here's the stuff going on in my life right now:

School: Going okay I guess. The thing I'm doing mostly involves finishing units at my own pace. I'm going slow, but it means I'm getting good marks. (Haven't got anything below a 90, really. Never experienced that before.) So yay. Not much else to say.

Al-Team: is back in business! HUZZAH! Right now I'm working on making them into radio plays. As I figure that's more interesting than reading a script. I'm mainly working on it with this guy. We've put together a few voices, but I'm a character whore, so there are still A LOT to fill. (If I go through the cast list in my head... there's about... 6 Al-Team members. About 12 villains, about 6 or 7 important characters around town, and a slew of others.) So if you've got a mic and wanna audition (especially if you're female), then send me a line or leave a comment. Also, I'm writing and editing scripts too. It's amazing how much I've improved as a writer since I last looked at these things (probably about 2 years ago). I'm not sure how that works, as I've barely written anything in the last two years, but there you go. I guess it's all outlook and experience.

Wicked: Also totally in love with the Wicked soundtrack.

Glee: Glee RULES. It's such an awesome show. I love Sue, as the Penguin from Toonzone said, she's a huge scene stealer. And she had an awesome speech in I think week before last episode. That I actually found really inspiring more than anything. Kurt's great too, and Stephen Tobolowsky is a god no matter who he's playing. The show is kinda aimless and the characters are hard to define, but it succeeds hugely at the main thing it sets out to do: spreading the glee.

Code Geass: Friend got me to watch this thing with him. Such a messed up series. The second season was pretty all-over the place, but overall watching it was an enjoyable experience. I loved Cornelia, wound up loving Suzaku despite him being a huge dick (or maybe because of that, he was pretty hot when he was in control), the music was great, most of the voice acting was pretty awesome, Johnny Yong Bosch was kinda weak. He did that weird thing Brad Swaile did as Light where they try to make them epic, and it doesn't really work, and except for the ending, he messed up a lot of the emotional scenes too. Overall he was all right, though. Yuri Lowenthal actually surprised me with how good he got, and Mary Elizabeth McGlynn is awesome no matter who or what she's playing. It's weird, generally speaking, I like villains. Wuya, Ner'zhul, Demona etc. are some of my favourite characters. But if they're monsters, or if they're cruel or sadistic I don't like them. They need to be pragmatic.

But in shows where the heroes are sort of morally questionable, I tend to gravitate towards their more noble but pretty damn edgy adversaries. (Suzaku and Mello) I mean I'll admit a lot of that is that I find them both pretty attractive (Suzaku just OOZES power usually, but is sort of calm and naive at the same time.)

In general over the last few days I've been figuring myself out pretty well and now I pretty much know who I am. Normally I'm one to let guilt and shame control me, but I'm slowly starting to realize that it doesn't matter, and that's good. I'm also trying to be a more proactive and energetic person, which is working out well. Just in general trying to be more in control of myself than I normally am. I know that makes it sound like I'm usually reckless and rude, but it's actually the exact opposite.

So er... yeah, anyway, enough self-reflection. I hope you're all doing well. I'm going to try and post a lot more often, I'm REALLY interested in getting back in touch with everyone who... er... reads this? So if you are, send me a line through whatever channel you want. And keep the invitation to audition for voice acting too if you please. :)

Be happy, because I know I am.

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 01:29:43 GMT

Does House remind anybody else of Hawkeye from MASH? There's something really Alan Alda-y about him.

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 22:29:46 GMT

Had to do it!

List 10 of your favorite characters from different fandoms, and ask people to spot patterns in your choices, and if they're so inclined, to draw conclusions about you based on the patterns they've spotted.

1. Sarah Kerrigan (StarCraft)
2. Wuya (Xiaolin Showdown)
3. Andrea Beaumont (Batman: Mask of the Phantasm)
4. EVA/Big Mama (Metal Gear Solid)
5. Hexidecimal (Reboot, pretty much every character but whatever)
6. Demona (Gargoyles)
7. Ner'zhul (WarCraft)
8. Shayera Hol/Hawkgirl (Justice League)
9. Batman/Bruce Wayne (Batman: The Animated Series, and ONLY Batman: The Animated Series)
10. Green Goblin/? (Spectacular Spider-man)

Gee. I wonder...

Bleh. So predictable.

Two Memes

Wed, 15 Apr 2009 21:40:08 GMT

Two memes for today. One from bayfield and one from runaan . The first is a fandom meme, which involves audience participation! So go wild. And the second one is... another fandom meme... so go wild there too. Hooray.

NAME A FANDOM AND I'LL TELL YOU:

1. The first character I fell in love with
2. The character I never expected to love as much as I do now
3. The character everyone else loves that I don’t
4. The character I love that everyone else hates
5. The character I would shag anytime
6. The character I'd want to be like
7. The character I'm most like
8. The character I'd slap
9. Three pairings that I love
10. Three pairings that I despise
11. Five things I enjoy about the fandom
12. Five that suck about the fandom
13. My three favorite characters
14. My three least favorite characters
15. My deep, dark fandom secret

Directions: Comment and I will give you 5 subjects/thingy-ma-bobs that I associate you with. Then post this in your LJ and elaborate on the subjects given.

Woo hoo. My ones from monsieur Bayfield are as follows:

Spectacular Spider-man: I've pretty much loved Spider-man since the 90's series. And I've always loved animation. So seeing one of the best writer/producers in animation take on a great classic character. Particularly when said writer is known for his attention to detail and continuity, and Spidey is a continuity-heavy property and colour me excited. The show itself has been absolutely amazing, the idea of a "Super-villain" dealer being probably one of the most creative I've seen for a cartoon like this. And said dealers (and buyers) motivations and methods make sense. Tombstone himself is also totally bad-ass and didn't appear nearly enough in season 2. And while season 2 in general was a little on the weak and weird side, I thought it was still a roaringly fun good time. This show is hilarious.

Heroes: I've hated Heroes since episode 1 of season 3 pretty much. Season 2 was kinda weak but at least it was consistent. And there was some interesting characters they introduced who had interesting motivations and powers that weren't just "HAS EVERY POWER IN THE WORLD" like what they tried to pull off in season 3... in the modern world a guy who can make gold out of nothing would be far more dynamic than a guy with telepathy and telekenesis. Or he'd be more dangerous in the long-term. Anyway, things seem to be kinda back to form lately with Bryan Fuller returning as story-editor Claire and Nathan have kinda gone back to being cool and interesting characters rather than being lame, whiny brats every 5 minutes. And the normalcy of family-life has returned (Peter and Nathan spoke about Baseball on Monday! Baseball!). Instead of constant, stupid sci-fi shenanigans. I loved the Founders in season 1, though. Malcolm McDowell was pretty much the reason I watched this show. And then Cristine Rose and several others were why I kept watching it, and it's nice to see that it's worth watching again.

Red Heads: Er... Red Heads are awesome. I love red-haired characters for some reason. Wuya, Wally West, Axel, they're just always self-absorbed bastards who like to have a good time, while being sensible and snide. Who doesn't love that?

DCAU: DCAU is also awesome. Batman: The Animated Series will always be my favourite of the DCAU but JLU and Superman were really good too. (Superman was surprisingly good, considering I don't particularly like Superman.) So many awesome actors and characters, I always loved Clancy Brown's Lex Luthor and the Joker in general. And Hawkgirl was awesome (and another red-head!). So much love for the DCAU.

Gargoyles: I find Gargoyles kinda... hm, well it's a good series. I'm not a big huge fan of the action But a lot of the characters and actors were great. The animation was kinda weak sometimes But the lore of the series was awesome. The Shakespere is great, the science and sociology behind the Gargoyles is great. And that's really all I have to say about that.

Now it's your turn!!! Gimme fandoms, and I'll give you fandoms in return! Woo!

Tue, 14 Apr 2009 02:39:48 GMT

So the Heroes timeline is now really friggin confusing.

...oh well, at least Claire is cool again.

Tue, 24 Mar 2009 21:31:02 GMT

Angela's maiden name is "Shaw". As in Raymond Shaw from the Manchuarian Candidate, the son of Elanor Iselin from the same movie, who was played by Angela Lansbury whom Angela Petrelli is named after and somewhat based off of (er... she's based off of Elanor Iselin that is). Or if you want a simpler explanation, Elanor Shaw was the character's name in the remake. Heroes' Angela is more in-between the two than anything, though really in terms of character.

Anyway, that is officially a really bad-ass maiden name.

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 17:24:55 GMT

Sometimes I think my subconscious is a lot smarter than I am.

And that whenever I say or do anything, he's there in the background rolling his eyes at me.

I do this for I am awesome!

Thu, 08 Jan 2009 11:03:04 GMT

Oh wow, look I haven't updated in 14823q1682367 years. (Though the year is still 10 years in advance so um... salutations from the future? Yee-haw?)

I played that game series Metal Gear Solid (1 through to 4. 2 and 3 on the PS2, 1 and 4 on the PS3, how glorious it was.)

Pretty much fell instantly in love with Raiden, and then even more-so for Eva. Just because Eva rides a motorcycle and kicks ass.

So I'll review them all in the order I played them in, just for er... sequential order's sake? I don't know.

So first off we had 1, I enjoyed 1 I guess. The graphics are really dated, so playing it for the first time NOW it feels really.. out of place or something. I think I'd be more forgiving if I'd actually played it in 1998. But I didn't, so I found the graphics jarring. On the other hand, I found the plot rather uh... rough. It's not super-ultra violent, but it's a very rough plot. The characters all have tragedy in their life, and then there's stuff like Donald Anderson and the ArmsTech president dying from heart attacks, it's grungy and there's nothing nice about it. It doesn't pull it's punches, but it's still got style. Meryl and Solid are both very likable and all the villains are fun, but really, really hammy.

One thing I found a bit jarring was that all the villains were just kind of .... power-hungry assholes. They didn't really have any goals beyond having inferiority complexes and being greedy.

Seriously, every single villain followed pretty much the same formula:

1) Get together an army of soldiers and take over a fortress, while also stealing a metal gear.
2) Make a nuclear threat and demand some sort of ransom.
3) Declare your fortress "Outer Heaven", and then name yourself 'the boss to surpass Big Boss".
4) Be a total asshole for a few hours, while capturing the hero a few times and torturing him.
5) Die 4 or 5 times and then die from something completely unrelated to the boss battles.

Seriously, even Volgin followed that and he was a bad guy well before there was an outer heaven or a Big Boss.

Anyway, Liquid was a lot of fun, and I liked Meryl and Snake's relationship, but never really got the romantic connotations... she's too... young for him or something. She's so innocent and he's so experienced, and it's hard to buy them as equals. I actually liked Snake with Naomi, they seemed to have a lot in common and they also seemed to be kind of on even footing, despite their antagonism towards eachother.

But I digress, the gameplay was somewhat enjoyable, but everything seems to be marred by the dated-ness of the graphics. It's kind of in this middle period, where they started using Computer Graphics, (so they'd gotten rid of the cel-animated stuff, which looked good) but not quite at the point where the computer graphics look really good. So that's kind of a disappointing aspect for me. I wasn't a huge big fan of the ending, but I was laughing too hard over the fact that liquid had survived a bunch of stuff that really should have killed him only to die from something completely unrelated.

Two was obviously an improvement in this regard. The graphics look pretty good, and the gameplay is a lot smoother and less jerky. Especially in regards to walking/running.

The characters were okay, I really missed Naomi and Meryl, but unlike many fans, I liked Raiden. So that kinda balanced out I guess. (Except I actually like female characters usually, and the new girl was... Rose...) Rose was pretty much the absolute bane of my existance. One thing I really hate is when a writer includes a female character solely to inject some romance into the story. Meryl was kinda like that in one, but there were other aspects to her character and her relationship with Snake. She looked up to him, she had her own goals, she wanted to be a soldier, Rose just seems to be a plot device and someone who wants to talk about absolutely nothing except her romance with "Jack". And that's just... pathetic. And the plot-twist with her was just confusing.

But I actually thought the plot was interesting. The game begins by telling you that the story is fictional, and that any similarities to real people you may see in the characters are co-incidences. But what's telling you this? The game is. So the game is telling you it's fictional, so is this message part of that fiction or not? And the game lies to you and tries to confuse you... A LOT. And that's why I think a lot of people don't like this one, the game doesn't handle the player with kid gloves, it doesn't inflate their egos (well I guess 'my' would be more appropriate here.) it pretty much tells you straight-out that we're Raiden. We look up to Snake, we have Snake's name, we want to be Snake, but we're not Snake. We're someone playing a video game, pretending to be Snake.

I loved the Tanker chapter, with Ocelot killing Dolph and Gurlukovitch and commandeering Metal Gear Ray. Just so awesome. And Ray itself had a really cool design.

And then there's a lot of other sociopolitical messages through out. The game likes to play with your sense of reality. (I played the Naked Raiden part at 2am... so... needless to say I was really freaked out.) The game likes to play with the player as much as the character of Raiden, the two of you are almost synonymous until the very end. The game is a CONSTANT roller coaster, every second keeps you guessing, I knew a ton about this game from spoilers and I was surprised repeatedly. Solidus was cool, but kind of a lazy plot on the part of Kojima. He really didn't have to be ANOTHER clone of Big Boss ALSO trying to resist corporate rule and ALSO trying to create Outer Heaven... I mean... seriously. But John Cygan is pretty godly. I loved him as Mandalore and I love him as Solidus.

And now that brings us to 3. I loved 3. The colour palette, the graphics, everything. The Boss was an awesome character, and while at first I found Lori Alan's acting kinda flat, I realized quickly that that's just who the boss is. She's emotionless and cold. She's also really, really tough. I thought Lori Alan was great, she plays her role with a certain sound that sounds... above all the other actors. Not in a condescending way, and she's not chewing the scenary, it's just so... ethereal. She's like the Jesus of the Metal Gear franchise. And... unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it I guess) that's not really that much of an exaggeration. I mean she knowingly sacrificed herself, at the hands of those she loved the most to bring peace to the world. That's just so... powerful.

And of course, I loved Eva and Ocelot as well. Ocelot is such a lovable dork in this game ("SON OF A BITCH!"). And Eva is just... well... bad-ass. She has a lipstick gun and she takes on a metal gear with her motorcycle. What on earth is not cool about that? The motorcycle chase sequence at the end is one of the best things I've ever experienced in a video game. There's so much energy and velocity in these battle sequences that I couldn't help but love it all. Also, it was a welcome change from the Snake/Meryl Romance and the Rose/Jack romance. To see two people, who were not only equals, but also believably fall in love. We get to know Eva and Snake as the story goes along, and we see the moment where they fall in love. It kinda reminds me of Mask of the Phantasm, where Andrea and Bruce not only have instant chemistry, but their similar states of life draw them closer and closer together until there is nobody else for them.

Here, Eva and Snake are the same, their foreign agents in a foreign land. They have qualities that compliment eachother (he's serious, she's light-hearted. He's skilled but hesistant. She's guttsy and wiley. He's honest, she's deceptive but genuine.) but they also have a lot in common as well, they're both agents, they're both skilled, they're both in really difficult situations. (She's a double-agent, he's on a survival mission.) And I found that really appealing, I am actually a big romance fan, but I find it really hard to get behind a lot of the romances in today's stories and environments just because they're so... dull. The characters rarely have chemistry and it always feels tacked on and cheesy. But not the case here.

Also, Volgin was just a ton of fun. I loved Neil Ross' performance, from his first "Kuwabara" to his classic last words 'who's afraid of a little thunder?'. His hamminess is close to Cam Clarke's hamminess. Though not nearly as homoerotic. (Despite being a bisexual sex-addict... jeez, that says a lot about how friggin gay Liquid was.) Plus the fact that he was absolutely terrified of the Boss is just awesome. (There's one moment where she just motions at him, and he flinches.) I think out of all the main villains in all four games, Volgin was my favourite.

This game also had that awesome theme that plays when you fight the boss. And there was that music where Eva was driving away from Groznyj Grad. Hell. The whole soundtrack was just fantastic. And again, Eva was just a bad-ass.

MGS4's story was okay. Acts 3 and 4 were interesting, and the backstory was neat, but on the whole it's a very, very disjointed narrative. There's a lot of REALLY cool stuff (like the Metal Gears fighting, ANOTHER EVA Bike Chase, and of course all the accompanying dialogue.) But there's also a lot of REALLY pointless misdirection. (Why did Ocelot have his arm replaced and THEN go through hypnotherapy to get liquid's personality back? That... makes no sense at all...) I mean I understand why they brought Liquid back, he's the perfect adversary for Snake... but... I dunno, again the narrative was really disjointed. (And as much as I love him saluting the boss, bringing back Big Boss AGAIN was just... lame.) And who the heck puts Mount Rushmore on their gigantic submarine fortress? That's even STUPIDER. And there really... beyond the basic premise of the PMCs there wasn't much of a plot, there was a lot of development on the part of Solid Snake, and we found out a lot about the Patriots, but the story seems to almost be told entirely in action set-pieces and flashbacks and exposition. The Beauty and the Beasts were just pointless other than as plot devices.

And I wasn't a big huge fan of Eva's death. But I guess I wasn't going to be cool with it no matter what almost. Rose was still unbelievably annoying. Like... I mean... just... totally annoying. Even worse than in 2 somehow. And she looked even FREAKIER. I didn't think it was possible. Oh, but I loved the casting of Lee Merriweather. It reminded me of what they did in Heroes with George Takei and Malcolm McDowell. Having old-school actors, who in the 70's would have been playing a young heroic Daniel Linderman and Kaito Nakamura (or played similar iconic roles at the time). Lee Merriweather was Catwoman, so this is Catwoman in the year 2014, it's perfect. And she had a really nice rough quality to her voice, and she just sounds so regal and confident. (Though how many friggin times did they allude to the fact that Big Mama was Eva? I mean seriously. All the Adam and Eve stuff, and then the picture fades into her, and then she hops on a motorbike and has like an orgasm and we're supposed to be surprised when she says 'call me Eva'. Well I guess it's just supposed to confirm what we already know, but still.)

Raiden was cool, but he felt really out of place for some reason. I think it's hard to buy his motivation when his girlfriend is so unbelievably annoying. (And when he so obviously should be paired up with um... I have no idea. He doesn't really interact with anybody but Snake and Rose... and Vamp... and none of those fit so uh... I have no idea.)

But I loved Naomi's role in all this. The fact that they removed her accent was strange (isn't she South African? They DO have English-esque accents there). She was once again the major player, in a world where genes and nano-machines decide everything, she was the gene and nano-machine expert. I just wish her death hadn't been so stupid. "I'm like Vamp, I'm preventing myself from dying using nano-machines! So obviously now I have to commit suicide." Uh... okay, lady, whatever you say. And I didn't really like her with Otacon (or Vamp for that matter, though I liked that he called her 'his queen'). Still, Naomi just rocks.

The acting was just fantastic in general, though. Debi Mae West is great. David Hayter is awesome, Paul Eiding is awesome, Phil La Marr and Quinton Flynn were phenomanal. I can't say enough about this aspect. Jennifer Hale was just great too, I ALWAYS like her. (Except maybe as E.E.... god, don't even get me started!)

I don't really know what else to say. I really didn't talk about the gameplay much at all did I? Well of course that was awesome, and always fun. You have a lot of freedom with what is really very little. There are so many different and interesting ways to dispatch enemies and stay hidden and I appreciate the variety. And I'm interested in seeing what the future holds for Metal Gear in the absence of Solid Snake (though the last game really had very little to do with the actual Metal Gear concept, didn't it?)

Anyway, that's all I have to say I think. If I come up with something more I'll edit this post. Bye for now.

I like your choice... very all-american... we can put him on a poster.

Wed, 10 Dec 2008 08:02:17 GMT

Okay, so finally we get an episode that is 100% pretty much awesome.

We had Villains, which had one VERY strong plotline. One mediocre plotline. And one really, really awful plotline. But this episode had one weird but funny plotline, one strong plotline, and one stronger plotline.

To put aside these silly euphanisms. I am of course talking about Sylar's funny antics, Peter's strong confrontation with his father and Hiro's heartbreaking goodbye with his mother. In that order.

To start off with, let me talk Claire and Hiro's shenanigans in the past. When I first heard that Hiro was going to have his mind reverted back to thinking he's a ten year old I... thought it was a joke. And I still... think it's pretty much the dumbest thing I've ever heard of. But it... worked somehow. It was another one of those things that went on way longer than it should have. But at least it was funny, at least it was interesting. Claire here, was also not annoying. She was (relatively) intelligent and charming rather than bitter and irritating. She actually thought of stuff on the fly and they actually had someone who works for the company do their research and have some knowledge rather than running around blindly. (Honestly, why did Thompson of all people go up to a guy pretending to be an agent for a corporation he HASN'T researched? It's just stupid. Especially for someone who's supposedly supposed to be in control.) And the actress who played Hiro's mother did a phenomonal job, made Ishi into an actual living breathing human being, rather than just... a picture on a gravemarker. Though I kinda wish she didn't have the healing power, just because... well, that was one power that so quinessentially belonged to the character who had it. (Okay, hell I just flat-out thought Linderman was awesome, and that they're kinda stripping him of everything that made him unique, layered and cool and passing it around like a collection plate.)

But I still have to write up my big Linderman essay... so I'll leave that for later.

Next up is Elle and Sylar.

Ugh. More painful Sylar stuff. Why did he kill Elle again? Someone mentioned that it was kind of like Othello, where Sylar killed her because he couldn't trust her, and thought she'd betrayed him. I guess that... sort of makes sense. Honestly, I just didn't like what they did with Elle this season. I liked her when she was just a kinda dark but at the same time very silly character with daddy issues. Someone who wasn't a good agent, but wasn't really a bad agent, she had the skills but was too unfocused and easily distracted to make good use of them. (Which of course paralleled the relationships between herself and Bob with Angela and Peter, Noah and Claire as well as Kaito and Hiro very well.) But in season 3... it was as if some new character also played by Kristen Bell and called Elle (rhyming!) showed up. And really, she seemed to be there more as a representation of Sylar's change in character rather than anything to do with her own perspective or development. In the first season all the character deaths were about the characters who were dying, not about other characters around them or who were killing them. (or it was equally between the two. Whoever the two were.) Heck, even Ishi's death was just as much about her as it was about Hiro and we had just met her. But here... this death, it doesn't feel like the end of Elle's story. This really can't be the way she goes out. It's not even that's dead, I don't mind when characters die, and it's not even that Sylar and Elle's romance is at an end (I... really, really, really hated it anyway). It's more... this is HOW it happens. It doesn't feel right. Not right at all.

And really, this season has been nothing but disappointing character death after disappointing character death for me. I loved Adam, I liked Maury I thought Bob was great, and I liked season 2 Elle. So... all these deaths where people go out like chumps with little build up and are forgotten in about 5 seconds (except for Daphne constantly reminding the audience that Arthur killed Maury... just in case we forgot that he was really, really annoying and could kill almost anybody even if he didn't have a reason.)

Anyway, onto Sylar. Sylar was cool in this episode. Like he was way back when... only problem for me is that I never particularly liked Sylar. I always thought he was kind of a whiny shallow character, and he still hasn't done anything to convince me otherwise. Trying to give him something more this season has been a lesson in futility at best. I don't buy that he has the same power as Peter, so there goes the whole empathy thing out the window. I didn't buy that he was Angela and Arthur's third son (and it's not a matter of believing it or not, it's a matter of it working within the story), and I really didn't buy Sylar being a suicidal guy who was pushed by the company into becoming a killer. (Though I do actually buy that the company had some part in giving him the tools to reach that conclusion... if that makes sense.) So basically I didn't really like Sylar and all their attempts to give him dimensions and make him compelling made me sick to my stomach... (seriously he burns her alive... that's almost text book 'woman in the refrigerator syndrome'.... and we're supposed to feel sorry for HIM. What a crock.) Though I suppose his running around being silly and killing people was funny...?

Next up Peter and the Hatian. An odd team, considering they've... never even met before? Except for that time the Hatian showed up and kicked Peter's ass before wiping his memories and locking him in a shipping box thing... so I'm not sure where all this "I know you, Peter." stuff is coming from in regards to the Hatian. Still, some well-written stuff, if a little misplaced with the Hatian and Peter. I guess in a sense in season 2 the Hatian was trying to protect Peter not only from the company, but from his own responsibilities, and that's what he's doing here too. Trying to protect Peter, the way Angela protected him? I found it interesting anyway, but again, misplaced. The scene between Sylar, Peter, Arthur and the Hatian was neat, though. If only because Sylar is finally confirmed to not be a Petrelli! Yay! (please don't be Angela's son... please....). Arthur's death was actually interesting, if you haven't already, check out the latest graphic novel, it'll really put Arthur's character into perspective I think. He's still no Linderman (or season 1 Angela :D), but at least he... has something of a motive now? Which is more than we can actually say for Maury, though I think I still liked Maury better. If Arthur hadn't been a character brought back to life (which is something I always dislike) and he'd been... I dunno, more of a threat rather than a constant annoying presence? He never felt omnipresent like Linderman and S1 Angela (I'm really starting to hate comparing him to these two... but there's really nobody else) and his random bouts of popping up in people's dreams and the past isn't as calculated and precise like Adam's appearing all over the world.

And now for... uh... is that Nathan? It's hard to recognize him now that the writers have performed horrible awful experiments on him. I'm kidding, kind of. Here he actually made a bit more sense, he's doing exactly what Linderman wanted him to do in season 1, but this time: he's in charge. He's not going to blow up New York, and he's not going to hand out abilities to just anybody, he's just going to give powers to an army so that they can save the world. It's really no better, but there are little things that justify it for Nathan. And again, he's not a pawn (maybe Peter's words sunk in here), that's a big difference for Nathan, he's taking charge, especially now that Arthur is dead. A couple of weeks ago they mentioned that the villain for volume 4 would take his first big step towards that last week. Now they probably meant Sylar... but really, they also could have meant Nathan. I kinda hope it's Nathan just because I'm SO tired of Sylar... but on the other hand if Nathan does become 'the bad guy', then I hope there's a shot at redemption for him.

I still want Nathan's family to come back, though. Maybe Heidi and the boys will be the ones to pull him out of this dark, dark path.

Speaking of villains, what about Tracy? This show has never really had a character who wanted to capatilize on their abilities like this. The closest they came to that was with Bob. And while I don't think they should have actually had Travey and Nathan involved in a romance (dull, dull, dull), their relationship as associates works quite well. Not every man-woman relationship has to be a romance if they're not realted (not that the 'not related' thing matters on this show anyway...) *sigh*. Anyway, I really like Tracy now. She really is Lady MacBeth, she's EVVIILL and she wants power, and it makes sense for her character, she's a publicist and she was sleeping with her boss who was a person of great political power. Though I guess there'd be no Lady Macbeth angle if she weren't romantically linked with Nathan. Anyway, she's the ultimate opportunist. Ali Larter really does play bad guys better than she does good girls. Jessica was always way, way cooler than Niki. Also "I like your choice, very all-american... we can put him on a poster" is the best quote of the night IMHO. They're gonna advertise the formula to army recruits by putting this guy onto a poster. That's just awesome and twisted. This character finally hit her stride.

Uh... what else is there to talk about? In general I like the Mohinder/Tracy/Nathan team. They seem so evil when they're all so well-intentioned. (And I like Mohinder's 'a mistake... one which hopefully this formula will fix' well at least he recognizes that he made a mistake, plus he said it so... viciously but at the same time so amicably, like he actually does have hope, but he's got no patience.) I actually kinda like Arthur now, though he wasn't much of a villain. I even liked Peter and Sylar in this episode (outside of the idiocy of the burning body). It'll be nice to finally get some straight-answers from Angela anyway. Though Sylar really doesn't deserve those answers. And I liked Daphne again. The show really needs to learn to stop making their female characters into self-hating nutcases. The only time I thought that worked was maybe with Eden (protecting Isaac) and definitely with Candice (worrying about Micah, talking about what great man Linderman is, because it was done in a very pro-active sort of authorative way, rather than a whiny and weak way). Otherwise it always just comes across as really... stupid.

Anyway, that's it. Good episode, definitely a step forward, and really it's a question of was the painful, painfully stupid and inconsistent journey worth the bliss that will probably be this episode and the next? That's up to you really.

I think after next week's episode I'm gonna post a little Sylar-rant. Just because. So look forward to that?

Heroes Episode 8 Review

Tue, 11 Nov 2008 11:21:16 GMT

So. This week is the week we've all been waiting for. The one Cristine Rose named her favourite when she was asked about this season. The episode that takes us back to show us what made Sylar and Arthur Petrelli crack. The show where all our first season favourites like Thompson and Linderman show up for some reason.

Anyway, to start off with. Arthur Petrelli... has been a huge sore spot for me. I am personally of the opinion that the most interesting powers on this show are the ones that aren't typical, that you don't expect. Or the powers that are generally omniuseful that are given limits, or that are shown new applications. (Like Mind Reading. Matt was able to take on Jessica and survive because he was a mind reader.) And giving people a 'absorb powers' ability is the epitome of cheap powers. It worked for Sylar in season 1 because he had to rip people's heads off, and it worked for Peter in season 1 because he'd only met so many people, and he couldn't really control his abilities very well. But Peter in season 2 was pretty overpowered and annoying, and this season only seemed to make that worse for both him and Arthur.

Linderman in this episode is a perfect example of what I'm talking about. In this episode, with only using his healing ability ONCE he manages to kill the series 'top bad guy'. Completely and utterly. I almost think the Hatian was unnecessary in this scene. Arthur has not shown any abilities that would allow him to resist poison, and in season 2 Angela showed the ability to resist mind-reading without help. In general this was a pleasant surprise to me, though. I was expecting Angela to come across as a lot more... meek in these scenes, a lot... better. . But I love bitchy Elanor Isline-esque Angela Angela, she's definitely a lot cooler than morally ambiguous 'loves her son Sylar' Angela.

Which actually brings me to Sylar. What a... boring plot-line. The only cool thing about it was Noah, I mean the scene where Elle was praising the emo guy was so ridiculous. I'm laughing just thinking about it now. I mean seriously... what the hell was with that guy's power? Why would anyone even want it? What was Elle's plan? (Oh, I'll piss him off by complimenting this bizarre looking guy.) Anyway, I really didn't like that storyline and other than Noah being cool it didn't really make sense.

Meredith was actually really cool this week. Really fleshed out, again not perfectly logical. (This episode had plotholes you could drive a semi-truck through)... but Meredith was made to be an appealing character, and Flint actually got a bit of development too. And Thompson is just flat-out bad-ass. If again, a little weirdly out of character. Someone made the point that they were making out all the other villains on the show to be a little lighter to make Arthur seem a bit badder, and I kinda have to agree with that. The train scene I actually found really exciting, though.

Also suberviant Linderman for the lose, but he got Arthur back and he mentioned pot-pies, so he ends up coming out on top in my opinion. (His scene with Angela was so... weirdly sexy. Like he was releasing her from the shackles of suburbian life or something. Oh Linderman, you Darnwinist devil you.) Though I really question why the founder and one of the lead shareholders of a multi-national corporation was doing her own grocery shopping... On the other hand Angela had some really great lines. "So Arthur, what am I going to do now... kiss you... or kill you?" It's totally from Reboot, but who cares, and of course "I lied. It wasn't your mother's recipe."

Overall I think one thing this episode would have benefited from was... more focus. More emphasis on the bomb, and why Arthur, Angela and Linderman wanted it so badly, maybe bringing back Charles Devereaux, Maury, Kaito and Bob, and showing what the bulk of the founders thought of it, why they were against it or why they felt it was necessary.They mentioned the explosion, but extrapolating on the bomb and the motivations of the people behind it wouldn't be retreading when Bob never even had a scene with another founder or even talked about the fact that he was one other than mentioning who Maury was. This is something that should have happened a long time ago. Like I honestly can't tell you what Kaito and Arthur thought of eachother. At all. I should be able to, but I can't, because we haven't been told.

Anyway, overall a great episode, Cristine Rose, Robert Forster (even with his unbelievably annoying power) and Malcolm McDowell rocked the house.

Excuse me but...

Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:10:00 GMT

Why the hell did no one tell me about this?

Granted it's an MMO and is probably going to have a terrible, awful story... but still!!

Tue, 28 Oct 2008 02:09:53 GMT

Well Maury's death was so bad-ass and cool, and had so much purpose and I'm so glad they did it and- *sarcasm meter explodes*

Who's next? Elle? That's the only character besides Maya even LEFT from Season 2. Seriously Kring, nobody hated EVERYTHING about season 2.

I also love the fact that nathan didn't mention Heidi... way to carry over an actual INTERESTING plotline for him, guys. Jeez.

Next episode looks awesome, though, and I DO like Arthur, he's just not what I pictured... well he sort of is.

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 02:26:19 GMT

Take one previously established bad-ass villain. (Adam) Introduce new previously mentioned but poorly defined character. (Arthur) have new character utterly annihilate previously established villain. Wait for an hour, and boom, you've got your slightly more bad than the last guy villain.

Not that I didn't like Arthur, Robert Forster was actually pretty great. It just pisses me off how frigging lazy these writers are, and how they don't understand what the heck makes the show great at all anymore. Random pointless twists have never been what made this show great. What made this show great was having people, and having powers that suit those people. The twists just come naturally from that. And having one twist in an episode isn't that bad, you know. Not every episode has to be a roller coaster...

Tue, 21 Oct 2008 01:14:18 GMT

We're only at the opening credits of this episode and already I'm pissed off.

This is not going to be fun.

Tue, 14 Oct 2008 03:17:02 GMT

Well, episode 5 was much better than 4, which was better than 3, which was better than 2, and 1 was just stupid. So now we've discovered that Arthur is alive, and I have some theories about that. But first, we found out what's going on with Linderman. And that was one of my theories, so apparently it doesn't matter that Maury was on Level 5 at the time (did I see him in one of or that Linderman told Nathan that he wasn't a telepath. (Well, lying is easy, so that's not so much of a problem.) And again, I like Knox. He's creepy without being a dick. (Though how the heck Ando is going to survive being stabbed, and the heck Hiro was so willing to do it... I really don't know). Anyway, I still like Daphne, though she didn't get much to do in this episode. We find out how she meets Matt anyway.

Also, they seem to be kinda downplaying other people abilities. Doyle's power makes Eden's power look like nothing. Same goes for Maury and Candice. I guess it's no co-incidence that both Eden and Candice are of the female variety... then there's Angela. I felt sorry for her in this episode, though I do kinda miss her being bitchy and self-righteous rather than mopey and apologetic. Mohinder's storyline was just weird, and though I like the Maya is being smarter and actually using her power. (Though if she uses it again and they pull that 'you don't want to be a killer!' crap again, I'll be pissed off, I mean what was to stop her from running away while Mohinder was incapacitated by her power? Not that running away would stop her from being a frickin victim still.

Also, I love how Nathan's opinion of Mohinder hasn't changed from the beginning of season 1. Makes sense since they haven't seen eachother since. I love the twist that Zimmerman gave him his powers. I wonder how this is going to change his outlook of doing 'god's work'. I really hope they drop that stupid plotline. I both loved Claire in this episode and hated her at the same time. How could she possibly be opposed to Vortex-guy killing Sylar? I can understand her taking a moral high-road... but with Sylar? When she only barely knows this guy? Spare me. Noah was interesting, though.

And Meredith getting captured by Doyle was sort of interesting, that guy looks like a total creep, and this really shows us some of the contrast between the villains. Doyle looks like a sociopath, Vortex-guy accidentily commited a murder, one needed to definitely be locked up, the other didn't. I don't know quite what to make of Knox. Some of his dialogue implies the former, some implies the latter.

And finally we come to Maury and Arthur. Quite the revelation and over-all... I'm... impressed. I liked it. I can believe it, it doesn't feel like they're just bringing back someone from the dead for no reason. My theory on this is that Linderman (the real one) and Angela attempted to kill him, and thought they succeeded, but evidentilly didn't. As for why he'd want Adam: His blood, of course. Healing properties time. Now how him and Maury managed to heal Nathan... I have... no idea. I don't believe that Peter did it. One thing I didn't like was how afraid Maury was of Arthur, that just REEKS of villain grinding. (Trying to show that Arthur is 'the most powerful of them all!" or some crap.) I hate it when shows do that. There should be a cap on 'who's the most powerful bad guy ever'. That's not to say they can't introduce new and different villains. (Like Adam, was he interesting? yes. Was he FAR more powerful than Sylar or Linderman? Not at all. Nobody seemed to mind) Oh well, I actually have a theory about his powers, however. Someone once theorized that because in War Buddies, Arthur was able to win all the card games while they were playing, his ability must be the power to control probability. I think it must be that, and as an extension of that, something similar to the Scarlet Witch's power, where he can alter reality to a degree. I'm not too fond of the idea of him being even MORE powerful than Maury... but, overall I thought this episode was fantastic. Not 'season 1 good!' not 'omg it's worse than season 2.' I thought it was fantastic. Take that for what you will.

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 01:54:37 GMT

[Error: Irreparable invalid markup ('<lj-cut="heroes>') in entry. Owner must fix manually. Raw contents below.]

<lj-cut="Heroes episode 1-3 season 3 spoilers">How does Peter know that Nathan was manipulated by Linderman to blow up New York? I highly doubt Nathan told him in Odessa, so when did he learn that?

And how did Sylar know that Claire was in Costa Verde?

And how did Claire know Peter's cell phone number?

God, I hate it when characters know things they couldn't possibly know. It's so annoying.</lj-cut>

Fri, 26 Sep 2008 04:38:50 GMT

Does anyone on my friend's list play Alliance in World of WarCraft?

Tue, 23 Sep 2008 03:31:51 GMT

Bob got put in the refrigerator...

And he's not even a woman...

Seriously, Victoria Pratt got a better send-off than that. I've never liked Sylar, and this just makes me dislike him even more. Don't even get me started on Gabriel Petrelli. That's just... dumb...

I'm so disappointed in this.

Blech...

Fri, 05 Sep 2008 09:34:55 GMT

I'm probably gonna get crap for this, but why the hell are all of Bioware's playable female characters so friggin uninteresting?

I mean Bastilla was okay... but they're all so... dull.

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:14:57 GMT

And today is my 19th birthday.

For those who are not in the know.