X3: The Last Stand

2006.05.29 - Monday

It was a big weekend for the third X-Men film, which I went to see yesterday. I really wasn't expecting much after all of the negative press the film has been getting on and off of the geek sites. Most of the AICN crew hated it, and even a good deal of the mainstream reviewers didn't seem particularly captivated. I thought it was pretty good. Not quite as good as X2, but about the same as the first movie.

There were still problems. Halle Berry is an awful Storm, just as she was in the previous installments. Some of the wire work is horrible. The movie is too short. Phoenix wasn't bad, but the character still felt like a wasted opportunity. It's not that Phoenix wasn't cool, just that she could have been much cooler. The "bad" mutants are all dressed like teenage goth losers, as if we didn't get the metaphor. Yes, they represent misunderstood youth and any number of other minorities, we get it, thank you for cramming it down my throat. Some of the character deaths were handled well and some weren't, but on the whole it was pretty positive.

Thankfully the ridiculous shooting schedule didn't lead to any bad visual effects. A lot of it was fairly standard, but well done and nothing worth complaining about. The most impressive sequence was definitely the young Xavier and Magneto scene at the beginning of the film. Taking place twenty years ago, Patrick Stewart ends up looking almost exactly like he did in the first episode of "The Next Generation", while the digital manipulation of Ian McKellan is even more drastic. It's completely believable, and I'm sure we'll end up seeing similar flashback sequence in other films for years to come.

I'd recommend X3. Despite being directed by Brett Ratner and not Bryan Singer, the film feels like it belongs with the first two in what I'm sure will be a special trilogy DVD set. It's a solid superhero action movie, so I don't know what the big fuss is about with some of these reviewers. Still, Bryan Singer's "Superman Returns" is going to be on a completely different level, I can feel it.

Family Guy Trek

2006.05.21 - Sunday

That's Not Lemonade!

Hilarious deleted scene from Family Guy. They've done quite a few Trek jokes, and they're all classics.

The Real Threat to Western Civilization

2006.05.18 - Thursday

A textbook case of failure

The decline and fall of Western civilization, if it happens at all, is less likely to be caused by climate change, war, or terrorism, than by the erosion of our education system. Indeed, the seemingly recent trend in our schools towards political, or in the United States, religious correctness at the expense of reality could turn out to be more dangerous than any geopolitical crisis. If you think a civilization can't collapse or move backwards, think again, or go ask the Arabs.

Deep Sea 3D

2006.05.15 - Monday

I saw "Deep Sea 3D" on Saturday, which is one of the newer Imax films playing at Canada Place these days. It was pretty good, although the title isn't really appropriate, considering most of the film covers reef life and other creatures which live in relatively shallow water. I don't know if "Deep Sea 3D" represents modern day 3D technology, but if it does, I wouldn't hold my breath for a big stereoscopic explosion anytime soon.

Recently, directors like James Cameron and George Lucas have been talking about pushing 3D into the mainstream. They want to try and make it the default way films are seen in a theatre, to give people "something they can't get at home". First of all, this assumes that the problems the US film industry is facing at the moment are entirely caused by other forms of entertainment, and maybe that's true. Still, it's hard to deny that most of the movies made today are bad, and that's probably still the main reason for a stagnant box office.

The 3D stuff in "Deep Sea" wasn't bad, it's just still too weird to look at. The effect only works well in a sort of "tunnel vision" kind of way, where everything directly in front of you is clear, but the image starts to blur and distort at the edges. Objects have to be kept at an ideal distance, it seems, otherwise the 3D effect falls apart and trying to make sense of what you're seeing becomes difficult. This is especially noticeable with things that are very close to the camera, and your eyes keep trying to refocus on them as if you were holding a finger in front of your face, only you can't bring it into focus, no matter what you do. It's very unsettling and completely ruins the illusion. On the other hand, some of the more static shots of rolling waves and calm reefs worked very well, perhaps because you're never looking at single objects or creatures in those types of shots, although I do wonder how well some of them would have worked without the extremely high Imax resolution and screen size. People also look incredibly foolish wearing the huge 3D glasses the theatre provides, and I imagine it would really help if the "lenses" wrapped around the head, covering the peripheral vision, instead of leaving huge gaps at the edges.

It is a strange sensation to perceive depth while watching a film, but certainly something I'd love to see more of, if it can be made to work properly. The great thing about modern film techniques is that the image can look almost as clear as reality, and that clarity is going to have to be maintained in any jump to 3D projection if the masses are going to accept it. I don't know if there are better 3D technologies out there aside from the 3D glasses variety, but if that's all they've got, Cameron and Lucas had better focus on trying to make good films instead of good looking ones, if they want to keep working in this medium.

Nintendo Wii

2006.05.12 - Friday

Nintendo's E3 press conference was pretty good on Tuesday. It could have been better, but I was happy enough with their showing. Over the last few days more news has come out of the expo regarding the new system, and the games that are on display. The new Zelda, "Twilight Princess", is going to be a launch title for the system. This is great news, but not very much of a surprise since the game was supposed to be out on Gamecube months ago. The news that "Metroid Prime 3: Corruption" would also be a Wii launch game was a surprise however; a very welcome one. I'm going to have to plan for some time off just to make sure I can cover all of these games. Nintendo didn't reveal a firm launch date or price, which was a big disappointment, but everyone who's anyone says it will be in November of this year, and will cost either $199 US or $249 US. Certainly a far cry from Sony's $599 US Playstation 3.

Some of the graphics on the Wii demo games are also a bit of a let down. Zelda and Metroid look nice, but "Wii Sports" and other titles are downright simple. In most cases I'm sure it's because these games are really just technology demos, and nowhere near the level they need to be at for retail. Also, it seems as though most of the developers working on Wii have been using Gamecube development kits until very recently, which would help explain why almost none of the games look any better than the average Gamecube title. Although Wii is only two to three times as powerful as the Cube, that's still a jump I would expect to see reflected on the screen. Both "Red Steel" and "Super Mario Galaxy" looked much further along in the graphics department, so there's certainly hope.

What interests me most, however, are the written impressions and videos of people using the controller. So far it seems like the general feelings are very positive. Some users had issues with the apparent extreme sensitivity of the remote, while others experienced rare instances of the remote not registering a movement. I imagine the sensitivity is either configurable, at the very least by the developer. As for it not responding occasionally, I can't believe Nintendo would base the entire future of their company on a device that wasn't properly tested and investigated. Maybe the remote can run into problems when being used in the immediate presence of dozens of other remotes, in an environment completely saturated with Bluetooth and cell phone, as well as wireless internet connections. Obviously a situation that wouldn't be replicated in your own home.

Especially surprising about the remote controller was the revelation of a speaker, which would pump out localized sounds during gameplay. Bow strings being pulled and released, gun blasts or reloading noises, any number of noises can be heard coming from the remote during the game, offering an interesting "depth of sound" as Nintendo calls it. Great idea!

This year's E3 has done nothing but get me extremely excited about Wii, and what it will offer. It's not going to be perfect; personally I wish it at least output HD resolution, even with simpler graphics. Still, Nintendo has something that may very well change the way people play games, if they can pull it off on the software side. What am I saying? "If"? Ridiculous, we're talking about "the big N" here. Of course they'll pull it off. I can't wait.

E3 Begins

2006.05.09 - Tuesday

This week in LA, E3 is providing us with more than the usual amount of gaming news. While the expo hasn't officially started yet, the pre-E3 press conferences have. In just a couple of hours Nintendo will get their turn, while Sony kicked things off yesterday. I was going to post about Nintendo's awful name for their new console. It's called the Wii, pronounced "we", and is probably one of the worst product names in the history of our civilization. All of the goodwill Nintendo had built up over the last year or two was washed away in the time it takes to read one three letter word. After seeing Sony's conference, however, I couldn't care less about Nintendo's foolish name choice.

First of all, Sony's presentation was incredibly boring. Where's the showmanship? Where's the excitement? They're introducing what they think is the future of human entertainment and it sounded more like an income tax conference. I get more excited watching the infomercial for "Oxy Clean". The games they had on display, the ones that looked like they were running in real-time, weren't very impressive. They looked nice, certainly as good or a bit better than the Xbox 360, but not some grand new dimension in graphic realism. If Sony can meet its promise of having games run at 1920x1080p, they'll have a good product on their hands. So far, the only game they claimed was running at that resolution was an juiced up version of Grand Turismo 4, a Playstation 2 game. Boring.

After all of the video presentations, all of the lame tech demos with the Eye Toy (I'll admit the EA demo was interesting, finally having characters plant their feet and shift weight instead of turning instantly as if they were floating), Ken Kutaragi came out and presented the final Playstation 3 controller. It looks like a silver PS2 controller, but, surprise! The controller is tilt and movement sensitive. What a bunch of hacks, completely copying Nintendo's idea for game control. Does anyone at Sony have an original idea, or are all of their products just simple "paint by numbers" copies of cool ideas other people have come up with? Not only did they copy Nintendo's basic idea, they were arrogant and cocky enough to stand in front of a room full of video game journalists and professionals, and claim that this is "another great innovation from Sony" and something that will "change the way we play games forever". Unbelievable!

Thankfully, on further analysis, Sony's motion sensitive controller can sense only tilting and acceleration, not it's position in 3D space like the Nintendo device. Sony's controller can't be used as a gun, pointing at the screen with perfect accuracy. Sony's controller can't be used as a sword, golf club, or tennis racket. Sony's controller can't be used to "throw" a virtual ball, either. Nintendo still has the truly revolutionary device, since controllers like Sony's have been out for PC's for years, and are never used.

Other, more exciting news, according to Eurogamer, Lucasarts is developing a new Star Wars game for the Wii, and with Nintendo's controller, we'll finally be able to control a Lightsabre the way it was meant to be controlled. I can't wait, it should be a lot of fun. Just an hour and a half until Nintendo's conference. At least I know it will be more entertaining.