The Trailer Ketchup (12/20/2011)

The Dark Knight Rises
I brought you the low quality trailer for “The Dark Knight Rises” a few days ago, but finally Warner Bros has released the HD version online. I seriously cannot wait to see this movie, and hopefully Christopher Nolan can bring the same level of quality as he did for “The Dark Knight”. The only issue I have with this movie so far is the title, I think they should have been able to come up with something better then “The Dark Knight Rises, maybe “The Dark Knight Returns” as a wink to all us nerds out there? Also, I was considering doing a shot by shot trailer breakdown for this, kind of like my “Game of Thrones” ones. With my ridiculous knowledge of Batman mythology, I should be able to bring a cool perspective to this. Let me know if that would be something you’d enjoy, either in the comments below, email or on my Facebook page.

Wrath of the Titans
The sequel to “Clash of the Titans”, and hopefully this one will be much better. It’s not that I didn’t like it’s predecessor, it’s just that I found it kind of boring. Don’t get me wrong, the action sequences were top notch, but the plot didn’t hold my interest for very long. As a fan of Greek mythology I thought they underused a lot of the cool creatures that filled “The Odyssey” and countless Greek tales. Judging from this trailer, however, they realized their mistake and made up for it big time. Also, from what I can see in the trailer, they made this movie a little darker and turned up the epic scale which is always good.

Jack the Giant Killer
I love when studios take classic children’s tales and turn them into action oriented movies. I love a new spin on an old story and from what it looks like, Hollywood is jumping on that bandwagon next year. First we had the amazingly impressive trailer for “Snow White and The Huntsman”, then the much less impressive trailer for “Mirror Mirror” starring Julia Roberts, and now we have “Jack the Giant Killer”. I have high hopes for this one with Bryan Singer at the helm, although he did seem to stumble with “Superman Returns” a few years back he seems to have found his footing again with “Valkyrie”. I’ll keep my eye on this one, but I think word of mouth will decide whether I’ll be there opening day of not.

Casa de mi Padre
Another Will Farrell being totally absurd vehicle, but hey, at least this one isn’t about a sport. I was getting sick of Will Farrell for a while there, it seemed he was the same cocky sports figure in every movie just like Seth Green is a pothead loser in every one of his flicks. Last years “The Other Guys”, a tragically under rated movie in my opinion, made Farrell an actor I could stand to watch again and hopefully, this will continue that trend.

Battleship
Until to day I die I will never understand the logic of Universal Studios paying Hasbro close to $20 million to use the “Battleship” name. It’s not like this movie has anything to do with the actual board game besides the fact there are naval vessels involved. They might as well have called it “Ships Vs. Aliens” and saved all that money. This pretty much looks like “Transformers: Battle at Sea”….a CGI’d, explosion-filled, special effects eye porn for the summer months. This one is directed by Peter Berg, also known as the poor mans Michael Bay, and is the debut of Rihanna in her first acting role. I might go see this just for Rihanna getting out of the water wearing a bikini in slow motion shot. I haven’t seen the movie, but come on! I’ll bet you a million dollars a scene like that is somewhere in this.

The Expandables 2 Poster

Two days ago I brought you “The Expandables 2” trailer and today I bring you the one sheet poster.
In my opinion, posters for movies are a dying art. Any sort of creativity is being replaced with generic photoshopped-looking “floating heads” posters. That is why I love this poster, you can tell someone brainstormed and put actual effort into it. Enjoy.

An Open Letter to Nerds (Call to Arms)

*This is more or less written in the style of a speech, so when you read it picture yourself at a podium at ComicCon.

My Fellow Nerds,

Isn’t it great where we are today? Isn’t it amazing to see how far geek culture has come from just a few years ago? When people think “Nerd” these days, they no longer picture a skinny weakling with horned rimmed glasses who has a lisp and a different pocket protector for every day of the week. They picture Steve Jobs. When you ask them who Tolkien is, they no longer look at you with a black stare but answer you faster then you can imagine.

I want to tell you that we have defeated the empire, that we have finally found our princess. My Avengers, we…have…assembled! We are in control and we have become what they always feared we would. The norm. We have infiltrated pop culture so deeply that now the ones who shunned us are being shunned. We have come so far that even these….oppressors of geekdom have defected, but not all is well in our castle.

Just like anything that has turned from a movement to the status quo, our identities have been usurped, our ideology has been diluted and we have been infiltrated. I look around and I see men and women everywhere wearing Batman shoes, yet they have no idea who Frank Miller and Alan Moore are. Green mushroom T-shirts as far as the eye can see, but the wearer has no idea where to jump to find it. We have been tainted by these impostors attempting to milk at the breast of our accomplishments.

They do this because they are afraid that they will be left behind as we move forward, but fear not, by their nature alone they will never posses the knowledge we do. As we sit and discuss the minute details of “Secret Wars”, they will be left standing silently in the corner with a Spider-man T-shirt on their chest and they will have nothing to add. That knowledge is what makes us, us. In this ocean of pop culture we are all fish, but it is us who are the sharks in these waters. We are not who we are because it’s what others do, but because we have such love for these subjects. Our passion is what drives us to, not popular opinion.
So I say to you, my fellow nerds, my true geeks. My Trekkies and cosplayers……never forget who you are. Never forget that we know what it’s like to have three lives, not just infinite continues.

For this night, and all the nights that come, I am proud to be one of you.

Wally World Classics: Worst Movies of ’09

10. Paul Blart: Mallcop

Ohhh Kevin James, I loved your show “King of Queens” and I thought your stand up “Sweat the Small Stuff” was very funny, then you sold out. Starring in this piece of crap really turned me off to any of your future films. This movie is so bland, so predictable…..”Hey look! It’s a Fat guy trying to do athletic stuff! That’s hilarious!!”. I really think this movie ruined it for “Observe and Report”, I think people saw this horse turd and when they saw the preview for “O&R” they figured it’s another crappy mall cop movie.

9. Adventureland

I figured a movie directed by the guy that did “Superbad” and starring the kid who played Columbus in “Zombieland” would be hilarious…..and I figured wrong. This movie is boring, it’s classified as a comedy but I chuckled once or twice through out the whole 107 minute running time. The only reason I didn’t turn this wreck off in the middle of watching it was because I kept looking forward to any scene with Bill Hader, the only saving grace of this dull-fest.

8. G.I. Joe: Rise of Cobra

When you’re planning on having a movie become a summer blockbuster, you better make sure you get these 3 things: Great looking special effects, charismatic lead actor and an awesome final battle. The 3 things you need are the 3 things that are missing from G.I. Joe. The special effects look like they belong in 2005, and Channing Tatum can be out-acted by a dead monkey. The final piece, the final battle, is terrible, first off, one half of it takes place under water and you can’t even see half the action that goes on. The second half is a ninja battle between Snake Eyes and Shadow Storm, and once again, it embarrassingly bad. Snake Eyes, the ninja that was somersaulting over flipping/exploding cars all the while staying on top of a Cobra assault vehicle not 30 mins ago seems to have forgotten how to jump or pretty much do anything ninja-like. It’s a fight that has been building up since the beginning of the movie, and it’s a total disappointment.

7. Angels & Demons

Yes, you are reading that right. I would rather watch a movie filled with fat jokes, a dull comedy that misplaced all it’s jokes and what looks like a student film with a bigger budget then a movie directed by Ron Howard starring Tom Hanks. Why? I think it’s because I read the book before I saw the movie and it seems like they cut out all the best parts. All the tension that was in the novel is gone, the villain (although pretty cool) is nothing compared to the crazy albino from “The Da Vinci Code”. The plot is riddled with holes, and the puzzles don’t have that “I should have figured that out!” quality to them. For shame, Howard and Hanks, for shame….I expected more from the both of you.

6. Funny People

Up until a while ago, Judd Apatow was a comedy god, thanks to him we have “40 Year Old Virgin”, “Anchorman”, “Knocked Up” and “Superbad”. That was until I saw “Funny People” and it ruined Apatow for me because of how terribly unbalanced and pointless the movie was. All the jokes, and I repeat ALL THE JOKES, fell flat, through out the 120+ minutes of the movie I never laughed, I never chuckled, I never even smiled. At least with the previous entries, there was a set audience, people the movie was meant for. With “Funny People” you have no idea who the audiance for the movie is.

5. Dance Flick

The same thing that happened with Aptow, happened to the Wayans brothers, except where Aptow experimented and failed, the Wayans brothers simply stopped being funny. I remember watch “Don’t Be a Menace” and laughing at sharp, witty humor that filled that movie. Hell, even the first two “Scary Movies” were funny, but then “White Chicks” happen and I felt uneasy. A few years later “Little Man” came out, and I asked myself “Did the Wayne’s Brothers loose it?”, finally that question was answered with “Dance Flick” and it was a huge YES. Their satirical comedy was once on par with “The Naked Gun” series, now it’s just moronic and gross.

4. 2012

How many times can the world be destroyed before audiences finally get sick of it? Apparently never since Ronald Emmerich is still making movies that are making money. 2012 was a hit at the Box Office, but that’s because it was almost an effects reel with some mind numbing dumb story thrown in to glue it all together. In this movie, we’re introduced to characters just to see them die 5 mines later, no character is developed so we never care I they live or die, and seriously, can you get a less charismatic actor then John Cusak? It’s really disappointing that it made so much money since it means we’ll get another end-of-the-world movie from Emmerich in the next few years.

3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine

I saw this movie as soon as it leaked online, and I hated it. Then FOX started claiming that the real version is totally different then the leaked version, so I gave it another shot, and I still hated it…. actually, I hated it even more. The pacing, the characters, the plot, and pretty much everything else in this movie is off, and the worst thing it that it doesn’t even seem to focus on Wolverine. Sure, he’s the main character in the movie, but it’s like Gavin Hood decided to fill this movie wig as many mutants as possible. The cool characters don’t get enough screen time, the lame ones out stay their welcome by a mile and o course, Wolverine cries, because the world toughest, almost-psychopathic mutant has to cry at least in once per movie. (I think it’s in his contract)

2. Dragonball Z: Evolution

I remember watching the final battle of “The Matrix: Revolutions”, Neo and Smith flying around, smashing each other through buildings and I thought “This is Goku vs. Vegeta…this is how it should look.” Finally the announcement: Dragonball Z in theaters in 2009. I was so excited, but then news started leaking: that Goku was a teenager, that it was going to be set in high school, that there was no Krillin. It didn’t look to promising, but I remained hopeful….until I saw it.My fears have been realized, it was terrible, they ruined it by changing the story so much it should have said “inspired by Dragonball Z”. Maybe the casual viewer wasn’t as disappointed by the movie like me, but I was a fan of the original anime, I read all the manga comics, I know how amazing this could have been, instead they turned it into one long episode of Dawson’s Creek with powers.

1. Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen

I’d like to think my sister and I are both movie geeks, very different movie geeks but geeks nonetheless. She loves to watch movies, pretty much any kind as long as she has free time to do so, but where she watches movie for the entertainment, I feel the need to nit pick them with a fine toothed comb. Sometimes I sit back and wish I was the kind of geek she is, were I could watch a movie, a bad movie, and just enjoy the ride but I cannot. She LOVED both Transformers movies, we had a discussion once and she told me she saw their faults, looked past them and enjoyed the spectacle. I, on the other hand, kind of liked the first TF movie, it was dumb mindless action but it was OK, I saw it once on the big screen and I’m never planning on seeing it again. The second one though, ohhhhh….I LOATHED the second TF movie, I can literally say it is the worst movie I have ever seen, and I’ve seen some turd burgers. While the previously mentioned “turd burgers” were so cheesy that they were fun to watch (See: Commando), Transformers 2 thinks it a good movie, but it doesn’t even come close. You can polish and gold plate a piece of crap all you want, but after all, it’s still just a polished, gold plated piece of crap. From the 50 plot holes, to the unorganized action to the blatantly racist robots all the way to the magic white pants that Meghan Fox is wearing that never seem to get dirty, no matter how many explosions she’s in (my sis actually pointed that on out). I really want to get my hands of the script for this movie, because I truly believe there were more words describing explosions then actual characters and dialogue. The movie is terrible, from start to finish; it feels like a job watching it.

2012 Golden Globes Are Wrong (And Why Are Award Show Irrelevant)

This entry won’t be as long as my usual ones are because frankly, I don’t think this topic deserves that much discussion, but I did want to get this off my chest.

My general feeling towards all award shows is, as the Facebook generation would up it, dislike. I don’t see why we need to be told what was the best in the field of movies or TV, I’m pretty sure that is a decision we can make on our own.

What upsets me the most with the Golden Globes, The Oscars and The Grammys is that only the people who are involved in said industry are allowed to vote. The whole award show thing is just everybody in the industry padding themselves on the back and giving each other awards for being awesome in each others opinion.

(I’m going go use the Oscars as an example from here on out because I feel like they are the worst of all.)

Honestly, does anyone really care if someone wins an Oscar for being the best actor that year? Do you find yourself looking at a movie trailer and saying “The only reason that I’m going to see that movie is because that guy won an Oscar last year”? I don’t think you do because hell, I’m a complete movie geek and even I don’t do that. I look at a trailer and if it looks interesting, even if it’s starring a dead monkey, I’ll go see it because I like the premise. Not to mention the fact that just because someone wins an award it doesn’t mean that their work will always be amazing. Look at Nicholas Cage, who won in 1995 for “Leaving Las Vegas”, then look me in the eyes and tell me that his movies since then have been full of riveting performances. You can’t. (Unless you’re a really good liar)

You can also forget about them giving out such honors fairly. The most obvious example of somebody being screwed over and over is Martin Scorsese, the director of such classics as “Taxi Driver”, “Casino”, “Cape Fear” and “The Last Temptation of Jesus Christ”. If you’ve seen them you know that are all incredible movies, but did you know that Scorsese did not win an Oscar for best director until “The Departed”?

That’s not that surprising when you realize how out of touch the Academy is from the general public. If you look back at the history of the winner of “Best Picture” you’ll see that the winner almost never coincides with the popular opinion.
Take “The Dark Knight” as an example, it was an amazing movie with incredible performances and it was very popular with the public raking in almost $1 billion. When it came Oscar time, it wasn’t even nominated because the academy passed it of as just a “superhero” film that didn’t deserve the golden statue.

Listen, I understand if you don’t want to open the voting to the public because that would mean “Transformers” and “Twillight” would win for everything, but you can’t be so close minded that you ignore movies that should have won but didn’t because you and your buddies didn’t think they should.
See, what award ceremonies are is a very small, special clique giving awards to each other for being in that clique and if you don’t pander to their whims, you’ll never win. With any luck, I won’t have to bitch about this much longer since the ratings for the Oscars are dropping every year and studies show that most people under the age of 30 doesn’t care who wins. I hope that by the time I hit 60 all entertainment ceremonies will be gone and we’ll be able to enjoy a performance because we think it good, not because we were told to.

P.S. That was a rant fueled by anger, vengeance, Red Bull and French toast. I’ll try to keep these sort of blog to a minimum but sometimes you just have to let it out.

Is Hip-Hop Really Dying? (And Why It’s Stupid to Say ‘Yes’)

Let me answer the question I posed in the headline right of the bat: No its not. Hip-Hop is music, music is energy, and not to quote The Black Eyed Peas, but energy never dies. As soon as that track is played on your car stereo or your iPod the radio waves are released into the infinite cosmos to bounce around the galaxies for eternity. If you haven’t stopped reading yet, I thank you because that explanation was a little too far into the world of physics.

That’s according to this guy.

Now that I got the straight answer off my chest, I’d like to continue to the justification of my argument, but first I’d like to tell you a little bit about myself and my history with Hip-Hop. I think that if you know where I’m coming from, it’ll be easier for you to see my viewpoint.
I grew up in Poland, and whether it was because of the after effects of Communism or just because I lived in the middle of nowhere, I wasn’t introduced to Hip-Hop until 1996. I can honestly tell you that I wasn’t a big fan at first, and would have preferred to spend my time listening to 1980s rock and roll then to anything Snoop or Puffy put out. As much as it shames me to say, I didn’t even give Hip-Hop a chance and would switch the radio station as soon as it came on.
That all changed when I got my first car, an old rusted out Toyota Corolla without a CD player. I always hated listening to the radio because of the constant commercials, so I searched my house for hours looking for a cassette and the only one I found was Tupac: Greatest Hits. The day I put that tape in the deck, my outlook on music changed instantly. The first track that played was “Unconditional Love”, and suddenly I wasn’t listening to music, I was listening to poetry. From that day forward Hip-Hop became my go to music, and you might think that I’m lying, but to this day I can recite every single song, lyric by lyric, on that whole tape.

Try me

Now that you know how I came into the Hip-Hop fandom, let me proceed with my argument.

You heard it all a million times in the past few years. Is Hip-Hop going to die? Hip-Hop is dead! And all sort of other comments stating that Hip-Hop is no longer with us. I’m here to tell you they are all wrong, Hip-Hop is here forever and it will never die. You might ask yourself: But if Hip-Hop isn’t dying, then why is everyone saying it is? The simple answer is that we’re getting old, and since Hip-Hop is such a young music genre, we as fans have never been thru this. It’s the first time in the history of Hip-Hop that a new generation is taking over the reins of the direction of the music. Our time, the time of die hard fans of Tupac, Biggie, Nas, Eminem and Jay-Z is passing and the time of Lil’ Wayne’s and Rick Ross has begun.

You God Damn Kids! Get off my lawn!!

This sort of change has happened in other sorts of music countless times. We are all familiar with the death of 80s glam rock that was brought on by the new generation and Nirvana. However, if you look at the concert tickets Bon Jovi, one of the prime examples of glam rock, is selling more tickets then the most popular acts today.

Yes. These guys sell out stadiums.

It’s not that Hip-Hop is dying, it’s the fact that your kind of Hip-Hop is not very popular anymore. It’s something that we as fans never had to deal with before, we thought that our Hip-Hop was here forever and it was never going to change. When we hear about The Oldies station on the radio the picture that comes to out mind is Elvis and The Beatles, but I hope you all realize that in the next 30 years the oldies station will be filled with Dr. Dre and DMX. I know that we all thought we’d never get old and that we would be young and in charge forever, but that’s not how it works. Hip-Hop is not dying, it’s just growing and it will do so whether you like it or not.

Throwback Movie Review: AVATAR

Once in a while a movie like “Avatar” comes around. A movie that people will remember for years to come as the movie that brought in a new age of movie making, a new age of cinema. This is the kind of movie you will be watching with your kids 5, 10 or 15 years from now, telling them proudly that you saw it in the theater. This is “Star Wars” of our generation.

(If you’re not really into movies, I suggest you stop reading right now. The above paragraph is all you really need to know)

James Cameron, the director of “Avatar”, does not have a long resume. He’s done less then 6 movies his entire career, which started in 1978; it’s been 12 years since his last movie (a little flick called “Titanic”).

Now, I know what you might be thinking “Why would I want to see a movie by a guy that made the biggest chick flick of all time?”…well, also on Cameron’s resume is Terminator 1 & 2, Aliens and True Lies. You cannot tell me that there’s even one person on there that didn’t enjoy any of those movies. Me, for instance, loved anything Cameron has ever came up with (yes, even “Titanic”) because he makes great movies, with great stories that invest you in the characters. He’s a storyteller at heart, he cares more bout the story then the special effects.

Another minor detail you might not know is that every time Cameron steps behind a camera, he pushes the envelope. The technology to create the special effects in “Terminator” did not exist before Cameron created it, the technology used to create the T-1000 in Terminator 2 did not exist before Cameron invented it…you see where I’m going with this? Take a look at “Titanic”, look at the special effects in that movie and tell me the CGI (Computer Generated Images) does not hold up to movies being released today. They do, and there’s no question that every time Cameron drops a movie, the effects are way ahead of the competition, but with “Avatar” he really brought it to another level.

The story of the movie is simple, and like I said before, the less you know about it the better so I won’t reveal too much here. It’s a story that you’ve seen, heard or read a hundred times before. You pretty much know how the movie ends before you’re 15 minutes in, but I believe that was the point. I truly believe that Cameron chose this story because everybody is so familiar with it, and because we already know of this story, we won’t focus too much on it. If the story had twists and turns that the audience didn’t expect, we’d spend too much time focusing on it instead of the true star of the movie, Pandora, the planet the movie is set on.

One of the attractions in Pandora? Being eaten by a dragon.

Cameron really went beyond anything anyone could have ever imagined on this one. He created another world, a living, breathing planet that seems like it exists just across the Milky Way. When you leave the theater, you’re going to leave disappointed because you can’t book a vacation to Pandora and you know you won’t get to see it in your lifetime. The movie only spends about 20% of its running time with real actors, besides that, everything is CGI, but not like anything you’ve seen before. You know how you felt the first time you saw “Jurassic Park”, when you saw that huge CGI dinosaur and you knew, even if you weren’t a movie geek, that movies are never going to be the same? That’s how you feel when you first see Pandora, a planet of such great imagination and realism that you really have a hard time believing that what’s on screen is not real.

The main characters are mostly the Na’Vi (12 foot tall blue aliens) who expresses emotion just like an actor. Up until now, Golem from “Lord of the Rings”, had the cake for being the most realistic CGI character ever in a movie, but he does not hold a candle to the Na’Vi. Where Golem had pretty much 2 emotions that he could display on his face (normal and Anger), the Na’Vi has hundreds. The way their eyes squint, their lips quiver, their body moves…it’s not that you can just tell whether they’re sad, happy, curious or surprised, but you can tell how sad, curious or surprised they are.

I will tell you this much, you have never seen anything like it, within 20 minutes of watching the movie, I forgot I was watching special effects and I truly started caring whether the Na’Vi live or died. This movie is truly a great experience at the cinema. Although the story is simple, it leaves you to enjoy the beauty that Cameron has created. See it on the biggest screen you can (I’m going back to see it at IMAX 3D, a regular sized 3D screen was good, but you’ll know what I’m talking about once you see it), and that’s another great thing about it, the 3D. The way Cameron uses it here, it’s not a gimmick like it is in so many other movies. You don’t have bullets or arrows flying at you, making you “dodge” them in your seat like you’d think. The 3D is used to bring you into the movie, to make you feel like you’re a part of it.
No matter what I say, word cannot describe the experience, you have to see it for yourself, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. The audience I saw it with gave the movie a standing round of applause when the credits rolled…..I guess I’m not the only one who liked it.

The Trailer Ketchup (12/13/11)

*******UPDATE #4*******

The Dark Knight Rises
This one isn’t the best quality because it hasn’t been officially released, but it’s good enough. This one will be epic.

*********UPDATE #3*********

Ghost Rider 2: Spirit of Vengeance
I hated the first one, but with the guys that made the “Crank” movies behind this one I’ll be there opening weekend.

**********UPDATE #2**********

The Expendables 2
I was going to wait until next weeks Trailer Ketchup to post it, but it’s way too cool to hold off on. I mean, “The Expandables” was already a fun movie and now the sequel is Chuck-ified (or is it Norris-ified?). Not much in this trailer except for quick shots of all of the cast, but what else do we need? An action movie starring Stallone, Norris, Willis, Van Damme and Schwarzenegger is already a fanboys wet dream.

Big ups to my cousin who let me know about this trailer yesterday.

**********UPDATE**********

The Dictator
The new movie by Sacha Baron Cohen, the creator of Borat and Ali G. This trailer is fine, but I doubt the movie will be able to bring back the magic of “Borat”. (I do like the crack about the Kardashians tho)

Hopefully this will be another weekly column I can provide. Click on the title of the movie to view the trailer. Enjoy.

G.I. Joe 2: Retaliation
So it looks like they dumped 99% of the cast from the first one, and the word is Channing Tatum is going to bite it in the first few minutes of this. I already like the feel of this more then the original. I mean The Rock+Bruce Willis+’Splosions=You Can’t Go Wrong.

Rock of Ages
I knew about this flick for a while, but I had no idea it was going to be a musical. I thought it was going to be more biographical, kind of like “Rockstar” with Mark Wahlberg but I guess not. I’m not a big fan of musicals in the first place, especially when they don’t do original material. I’m gonna be skipping this in the theater, but I’ll probably catch it on TV sometime.

Men in Black III
There’s nothing to really say about this movie since its threequel, you already know if you’ll see it or not. I really liked the original but the sequel lost it for me, it just didn’t have the charm of “MIB”. I most definitely won’t be there on opening day, but I might check it out if the word of mouth is good.

Young Adult
I cannot wait to see this. I love Charlize Theron, who is both hot and funny, and on top of that Patton Oswalt is in this. The premise looks great and the writing is just dry enough to make you laugh, but not beat you over the head with the punch line.

The Disappointing Dead

THIS BLOG CONTAINS POSSIBLE SPOILERS WHICH ARE IN A CLEARLY MARKED OFF AND EASILY AVOIDABLE SECTION. THE TV SERIES DEVIATES A LOT FROM THE COMIC BOOK STORYLINE SO THEY MIGHT NOT BE SPOILERS AT ALL. READ THEM AT YOUR OWN RISK.

If you look at the second posting on my page, you’ll see a blog titled “The Things ‘The Walking Dead’ TV Series Got Wrong: Andrea (Part 1)”. It was originally planned to be followed by a part 2 focusing on Rick, part 3 focusing on Carl and a part 4 focusing on Shane.
That was the plan, but as the series went on I felt like I’d need to write a part 5, then a part 6 and a part 7….8….9….and so on and so on. It finally became too much and I decided to abandon the whole thing.
Following shortly after that, I decided to abandon the TV series as well because the things I disliked about it out weighted the things I enjoyed. It became a chore to watch it, and where as before I would look forward to seeing a new episode, by the time we got to the mid-season finale I barely paid attention when it was on.

I knew I’d come into the show already spoiled as I am a huge fan of the comic, but I was still excited about it being adapted for TV. I can honestly tell you the truth and say that I was a big fan of the first season, it was a little over rated in my opinion, but enjoyable TV nonetheless.
It was season two that lost me, because of it incredible knack for drawing out a storyline and it lack of character development. It failed where the comic exceeded and turned a spectacular character journey in a boring one.
The biggest thing that bothers me about the TV show is that it’s characters are so uninteresting. I might be unfairly comparing them to their comic book counterparts but if you knew their potential, you’d do the same thing. I already covered Andrea extensively in my other blog, so I’ll move right one Rick, *Carl, Shane, and briefly, some others.

*The character of Carl is strictly in the spoiler category.

Rick is ruined in the TV show as he does not have that leadership personality trait the he needs to take charge of the group. In the comics, Rick is not afraid to be the bad guy in order to help his group of survivors make it through the day. Comic Rick has no qualms about what he has to do, and it willing to go to some extreme lengths for the greater good.

You know how in the TV show Rick begs Hershel to stay at the farm? In the comics, he tells Hershel “We’re staying!” and Hershel almost got his head blown off. Comic Rick is a survivor, and he’s willing to do some shocking things in order for his family and friends to be safe. It’s what makes him such a compelling character, his survival instinct and his justification for such extreme actions.

Rick is born leader in the comics, and multiple times is even begged to take charge when he doesn’t want to because everybody know he is willing to make the tough calls and won’t hesitate to do so. That is the total opposite of the weak TV Rick but it does sound like someone we know, doesn’t it?

TV Shane is comic book Rick.

That’s what they got wrong with Shane, they made him like Rick is supposed to be. TV Shane is tough, isn’t afraid to make unpopular decisions and has the drive to survive that a leader needs. I’ll be the first to admit that shooting Otis in the leg wasn’t a nice thing to do, but you look at it logically it was the right thing to do. If Shane didn’t do it both him and Otis would die, not to mention Carl who wouldn’t get his medical supplies. Save 2 lives or loose 3? It looks evil from our perspective because humans are naturally good so right now we’re all thinking “There has to be a way to save all 3! There just has to!”…..but what if there isn’t? That’s the call Shane made. He didnt do it because he wanted to, he did it to save himself and Carl.

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It was instances like this that made me dislike the show, they made Shane the guy I root for even though I know he’s going to die.
Thats another reason I dislike about where the TV series went with Shane, it’s the fact that he’s still alive. His death was a big part of the storyline even though he died very early on. Shane was an example of how the zombie outbreak changed people and the stress of living in fear turned them into psychopaths. Shane was Ricks best friend before the outbreak, but he couldn’t cope with what the world became and broke down. It were Shane’s actions at the beginning of the story that taught the group the distrust strangers.

You can’t speak about Shane’s death without talking about Carl. That was the beginning of Carls transformation into the biggest, smallest, ruthless, youngest badass in all of comics. Kick-Ass’s HitGirl held that title before him, but when 11 year old HitGirl is stabbing middle aged drug dealers 10 year old Carl is busy shooting 8 year olds in the head.

Why? Because it had to be done and nobody wanted to do it!

I know it seems cold hearted to say something like that but believe me, there was a just explanation for his undertaking. In the comics, Carl is basically a mini version of Rick turned up to 100. He has a sense of right and wrong, but he’s willing to cross over to the other side if he has to. TV Carl seems like he’ll never get to that point, and even if he does the actor that plays him doesn’t have the chops to pull it off.

On a personal note, and this is just pipe dreams for the comic, I have a dream of where the series should go. I know that Robert Kirkman has the story planned out up untill issue #600, but I’d love if somewhere in the middle of the run there would be a time lapse. Imagine if at issue #301 the story skips 25 years into the future, human society is starting to rise from the ashes and people have learned to live with the threat of zombies. All the characters we know have since passed, except for Carl who is now a middle aged, one eyed cowboy-like figure hardened by surviving in a kill or be killed world for most of his life? How freaking awesome would that be? Alas, it probably not going to happen but I can dream.

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There’s is plenty more wrong I find in the show, with characters like Carol and T-Dwag taking up space and screen time. I mean, has T-Dwag done anything besides getting hurt this past season?
We also have the whole storyline of the show, which moves slower that any other show I have ever seen. What made the comic special was that the story constantly progressed, the characters where never in one place to long. They were always in the move, and even if they weren’t, there was enough dynamic at a particular location to keep me interested. These character have no dynamic, are completely unrealistic in the decisions they make and they’re boring. Aside from Shane, I’m totally uninterested as to what’s happening to any character.
It’s because of all these reasons I never finished the original series of blogs. If I did, I’d have to write about a different thing every other day and I just don’t have the willingness to do that. I love everything about the source material, but unfortunately they missed the mark with the TV series.

At least I still have the comics.

DVDs (12/13/11)

This is the first of the weekly columns about new releases of DVDs. It will include my opinion of the movie/show if I saw it and my recommendation. Enjoy.

Kung-Fu Panda 2

I’m not sure if I can give you an unbiased opinion on this. For one, I’m not a fan of animated movies unless it’s something that connects me to my childhood. I’ll sit back and watch Disney classics like “Lion King” and “Beauty and the Beast” all day, but if it’s something that was released after I turned 16 I usually avoid it. I’m not trying to pass these movies off as something that only kids find entertaining, but I just can’t get involved in the story for whatever reason. Its more of a personal preference than any sort of judgement. I thought “Up” was one of the most over rated movies ever and aside from that I haven’t seen any other Pixar movies except for the “Toy Story” ones. This movie also stars Jack Black and I really don’t like him. I’ll never understand how he got famous because I find his comedy annoying and obnoxious. I realize that it’s only his voice acting in this, but I can’t stand to listen to him for 90 minutes. I’m never going to see this, but if you saw the first one and liked it you already know where you stand.

Rise of the Planet of the Apes

The first recommendation of this column goes to “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, if you haven’t already done so, go see this movie as soon as possible. I saw it in the theater when it first come out and it absolutely blew me away. I went into the theater with low expectations due to the taste Tim Burton’s “Clusterfuck of the Apes” left in my mouth a few years back. This movie is not at all like that one, it is supreme on almost every level. It has a simple, yet interesting storyline, the acting was excellent and the special effects were amazing. The lead ape, Cesar, looked like he was in the room with the human actors and expressed hundreds of subtle emotion just by the way he looked and moved. It was completely mind-blowing and on par with the effects of the Na’vi in “Avatar”. If you’re into collecting DVDs, this is a must have. If not, just make sure this is the next movie you see, be it on Netflix or OnDemand. A must see.

Fright Night

I really like this movie because it was very viewer friendly. The story about a vampire living next door was good, but what pushed it over the top for me was that the characters in the movie knew about vampires. I love that fact that these guys were brought up on movies, TV and comics about the supernatural and, even though they were still shocked at their existence, they knew how to deal with them. There is nothing I find more annoying that a zombie TV show in which the character have never heard the word “zombie” (you know what show I’m talking about). I already saw this and although I don’t belive it’s worth buying on DVD, it definitely a good rental.

!!!BLU-RAY RE-RELEASE OF THE WEEK!!!

City of God

First off, if you haven’t seen “City of God” yet, you’re missing out. It’s an incredible crime drama set in the ghettos of Rio de Janeiro that is absolutely beautifully shot and edited. The story of a group of friends growing up surrounded by crime is heartbreaking as you watch them struggle to make it out. It is an amazing movie and a most definite must buy, especially on Blu-Ray. The HD version of the movie is amazing to look at, especially because of all the color distortion the director used. It would be a great addition to your collection and a movie you’d enjoy for years to come.