#'All those ideas... lost to time. Like practical effects... in CGI... time to die.'

[diloph]

[primadonna-girl-yeah]

The Top 5 Reasons We Love Retro Gaming

1. Games Were Simpler Back In The Day

Computer games have undeniably gotten progressively aggressive and amazing as of late. At the point when you take a gander at any semblance of The Last Of Us, it's difficult to exaggerate exactly how far computer games have come since individuals were playing Pong forty-odd years prior. Be that as it may, for every one of the advancements inside the medium, and for all the brand new thoughts and progressively expand control conspires, there's undeniable value in the amount all the more straight forward things were in the games we played as children.

Gaming today can be hard for individuals without the muscle memory that originates from long periods of committed gaming. Give your mum or father a PS4 controller and in the event that they're in any way similar to mine, they'll invest a large portion of the energy playing the game looking down, endeavoring futile to recollect where every one of the catches is. Utilize the left simple stick to walk, hold X to run, or tap X to run. L2 is point and R2 is shoot, yet R1 becomes shoot in case you're driving on the grounds that in a vehicle R2 is the quickening agent. R3 (that is the point at which you click in the correct simple stick) allows you to look behind you, and to open the menu you have to hold down the touch cushion. Furthermore, that is simply part of the control conspire for Grand Theft Auto 5, extraordinary compared to other selling games, time.

In any event, for prepared veterans, the expanding multifaceted nature of games can turn into a mood killer. Super Mario World is still as instinctive as it returns in 1990 on the grounds that the innately basic structure and get and play nature of the game made it ageless. You can give a child who's never played a Mario game the controller and inside seconds they'll have turned out how to play. This effortlessness is an alluring idea, which is a very likely a piece of the explanation that retro games like Shovel Knight and Axiom Verge are so mainstream today. The more straightforward a game is to play, the more comprehensive and quick the good times. Retro gaming possesses a great deal of that, and that is the explanation despite everything I'm playing Super Mario World twenty-six years after discharge.

2. Retro Games Have Better Music

As gaming generation esteems have expanded throughout the years, we've seen the medium change from numerous points of view. We made the bounce to 3D, we presently have voice acting, and expand cut-scenes recount to muddled stories that adversary those found in TV or on the big screen. Games today include completely organized scores or soundtracks highlighting mainstream music that are just as great as what we'd see in different mediums, yet it feels like we've lost something en route, as well.

I can in any case murmur the signature music to Treasure Island Dizzy on the Commodore 64. I was playing that game about thirty years prior and I haven't played it from that point forward (I've still never beaten it, damn it) however I can even now recollect the signature music that plays out of sight completely. I messed around a week ago and I couldn't let you know whether they had music by any means.

As a result of the straightforwardness of early games, and without voice acting to recount to a story, the music must be great. Other than a couple of terrible audio effects, the music of the game was the main aural incitement that the games gave. There are as yet incredible game soundtracks today, yet they appear to be rare when contrasted with the rounds of my childhood. Uber Man, Castlevania, the early Final Fantasy games, and notorious titles like Zelda, Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog - these all included exceptionally essential tunes that stick with us long after the last time we played them. Regardless I recollect how the music for Commodore 64 exemplary Prince Clumsy changes when you spare the princess toward the finish of the game like I was playing it yesterday. We can't generally say that regarding Shadow of Mordor, can we?

3. Games Used to Work Right Out of the Box

One thing that games from days of old irrefutably showed improvement over the rounds of today is that they, well, worked. You'd imagine that it ought to be an entirely principal part of any item discharged to the market, yet it's genuinely amazing what number of games in 2016 ship broken, requiring either days or long stretches of server changes to get the multiplayer working, or gigantic the very first moment patches to fix the entirety of the bugs that made it onto the circle. Today, on the off chance that you don't have an OK Internet association in your home, a few games are really unplayable, and numerous others seriously hampered.

Road Fighter V discharged recently, with Capcom promising that the single-player Arcade Mode, a staple of the arrangement, would be accessible to download in July. Consider the possibility that you don't have an Internet association. All things considered, at that point, you have a large portion of a game. That is not an issue we confronted when Street Fighter II discharged on the SNES in 1991. In those days, we had no Internet going about as a wellbeing net for engineers. Games needed to work directly out of the crate.

Returning and playing Global Gladiators today is as straightforward as popping the cartridge into your Genesis and turning on the power. It works now as it did at that point; precisely as it should, and with no object. This is a numerous extraordinary aspect concerning retro gaming; in the event that you have the game and the equipment, you're practically great to go. You don't have to download drivers, or updates, or fixes. You put in the game, and afterward you play. Much the same as you should.

4. Games Used to Be More of a Challenge

Today, anyone who stays up with the latest with the most recent patterns in gaming will probably know about Dark Souls and Bloodborne, and the notoriety these games have for rebuffing trouble. Gamers rushed to the Souls arrangement in large numbers, eager to play a title that tested them and would not hold their hands. There are no all-inclusive instructional exercise segments. There's little in the method for help. You can't delay it. What's more, every foe can make mincemeat out of you except if you gain proficiency with their assault examples and act in like manner. It's energizing for a game to furnish us with a daunting task this way, however, at that point, I'm mature enough to recall when each game was this way. What's more, more terrible.

Present-day games tend to illuminate things to the player, regularly to a practically offending degree. Popping a plate into a PS4 in 2016 methods hanging tight for the introduce, at that point the very first-moment fix, and afterward when you at long last get a controller in your grasp you go through the following two hours being strolled through the beginning periods of the game like a child on his first day of school. Everyone prefers a touch of help from time to time, yet there's undeniable value in simply being tossed in at the profound end and being advised to do or die.

5. Sentimentality

Sentimentality may appear to be a cop-out the answer; all things considered, thinking back on the past with rose-tinted displays is frequently what enthusiasts of anything retro is scrutinized with. It's anything but difficult to reject sentimentality as a method for advocating the conclusion that everything was simply much better in your day, yet truly wistfulness is a colossally amazing specialist and it shouldn't be overlooked.

Today, we watch refuse motion pictures and weep over the utilization of evident CGI, however, we'll joyfully endure Raiders of the Lost Ark and not try referencing that the liquefying Nazi toward the end resembles he's made out of plasticine. We tune in to the shocking popular music of our young people with an intelligent grin on our countenances while looking down on Justin Bieber's most recent video. What's more, we'll talk about Final Fantasy VII just as it was second happening to Christ, totally overlooking the entirety of the blemishes in the game that we'd hang an advanced game out to dry for. Sentimentality is a sufficient impact to cause us to accept that Sonic the Hedgehog was very great. Presently, that is not kidding.

The explanation a great deal of us like playing old games is essentially a result of the inclination we get playing them. I've played hundreds, if not a large number of games in my time as a gamer. What's more, I'm sufficiently keen to realize that in that time computer games have improved in pretty much every manner. In any case, that doesn't change the way that on the off chance that I load up Street Fighter II I recollect the times of playing it during the school summer occasions with every one of my companions. I recollect the day I finished Toejam and Earl with my sibling each time I hear the initial barely any bars of its ludicrously astounding signature music. Furthermore, I recall the overjoyed rushes we got when we initially got the fatalities chipping away at Mortal Kombat II.

Playing old games, similarly likewise with watching old films or tuning in to old collections, transports us to a period in the past that we like to recall. Regardless of whether its recollections of old companions, friends, and family, individuals we may see each day or might have put some distance between, each old game we load up is a window to the past and that is unique. The most recent Call of Duty is never going to rival that.

[the-desolated-quill]

Quill’s Swill - The Worst Of 2018

Congratulations dear reader. You survived 2018. And you know what that means. It’s time for another best of/worst of list. Welcome to Quill’s Swill 2018. A giant septic tank for the various shit the entertainment industry produced over the course of the year. The films, games, TV shows and various other media that got on my bad side. As always please bear in mind that this is only my subjective opinion (if you happen to like any of the things on this list, good for you. I’m glad someone did) and that obviously I haven’t seen everything 2018 has to offer for one reason or another. In other words, sorry that Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes Of Grindelwald isn’t on here. I’m sure it is as terrible as some have been suggesting. I just never got around to watching it.

Okay everyone. Grab your breathing masks and put on your rubber gloves. Let’s dive into this shit pile.

Hold The Sunset

The news that John Cleese would be returning to the world of BBC sitcoms was incredibly exciting, being a massive Fawlty Towers fan and all. Unfortunately Hold The Sunset was not quite what I had in mind. It’s one of those rare breed of situation comedies that chooses to offer no actual comedy. It’s not a sitcom. It’s a sit. Like Scrubs or The Big Bang Theory.

An elderly couple plan to elope abroad only for Alison Steadman’s son to barge in, having left his wife, and forcing them to put their plans on hold. Hence the title ‘Hold The Sunset.’ It’s like a cross between As Time Goes By and Sorry, but if all the humour and relatability were surgically removed by a deadpan mortician. The characters are weak, the plots are thin on the ground and the humour (hat little of it there is) feel incredibly dated. The middle aged mummy’s boy is something that hasn’t been funny since the 90s. It’s an utter waste of great talent and what hurts even more is that this tripe is actually getting a second series. I can only assume the people watching this are comatose. Either that or there’s an epidemic of people in Britain who have lost the remote.

Avengers: Infinity War

Yes this is one of the worst movies of 2018 and no I don’t regret saying that one little bit. Avengers: Infinity War was fucking terrible. Period. There were too many plots and characters going on, which made the film hard to follow (and what staggers me is that the so called ‘professional’ critics have condemned movies for having too many characters and plots before. Spider-Man 3, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Batman vs Superman: Dawn Of Justice and even Deadpool 2. But because this is an MCU movie, it gets a free pass. Fuck off). The characterisation was weak due to sheer number of characters they try to juggle, resulting in characters coming off as one dimensional caricatures of themselves and scenes where characters such as Iron Man, Doctor Strange and Star-Lord sound completely interchangeable. The villain, Thanos, is a stupidly and poorly written villain, but that’s hardly surprising considering what a shit job Marvel have done building him up over the course of these 20+ movies. And let’s not forget that pisstake ending. A bunch of prominent Marvel characters die and it’s all very, very sad... except all these characters just so happen to have sequels planned, which makes this ending fucking pointless and have less impact than a feather on a bouncy castle.

I don’t know which is more shocking. That Marvel and Disney think their audience are that stupid and gullible, or that their audience are actually validating their view. Fuck you Disney.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery

I’ve always wanted a Harry Potter RPG, where you could customise your character, choose your house and actually live a full school life at Hogwarts. This year, Warner Bros and Jam City gave us just that.

That was a mistake.

Harry Potter: Hogwarts Mystery is the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the mobile gaming market right now. The gameplay is boring and involving where you just tap images on a screen until a progress bar fills up. Wizard duels are little more than rock-paper-scissors challenges that require no kind of skill. Bonding with friends and caring for magical creatures just consist of pathetically simple pop quizzes and yet more boring tapping. Oh and of course you only get a certain amount of energy to complete these tedious tasks. If you run out of energy, you wait for it to fill up... or pay up for the privilege. So determined are they to extract your hard earned cash from your wallet, there’s actually a bit where Devil’s Snare strangles your eleven year old avatar and the game effectively tries to guilt trip you into paying micro-transactions to save them. It’s sleazy, gross and manipulative. Honestly, you’re better off just playing Candy Crush.

Agony

When the developers of this game said they wanted to give the player a trip through Hell, they had no idea how true that statement really was. Agony is dreadful on a number of levels. The design for Hell itself, while visually interesting at times, is often not very practical and gets quite dull and repetitive after a while. The stealth mechanics are a joke and the AI of your demonic enemies are pitiful. All of this alone would have been enough to put this game on the list, but then we also have the casual misogyny. Agony is a gorefest trying desperately to shock the player. We see men and woman get tortured, but it’s the women that often get the extreme end. The violence inflicted on them is often sexual in nature and the game seems to go out of its way to degrade and dehumanise women at every turn. The orgasmic cries of ‘pull it out’ quickly become a staple of the game’s experience as we see naked women raped, tortured and murdered, all for the purposes of ‘entertainment.’

I would call Agony sexist, but honestly that would be giving it too much credit. Agony is like a little child trying desperately to be all dark and edgy in a pathetic attempt to impress everyone around him, and we should treat it as such. Go to your room Agony. No ice cream for you.

Peter Rabbit

If you listen closely, you can hear the sound of Beatrix Potter rotating in her grave.

Yes we have yet another live action/CGI hybrid, but instead of something innocuous like the Smurfs or Alvin and the Chipmunks, Sony instead decides to adapt Peter Rabbit, with James Corden in the title role.

It’s about as bad as you’d expect.

Their attempts to modernise the story are painful to say the least with pop culture references, inappropriate adult humour and twerking rabbits. Plus rather than the gentle, but slightly mischievous character we got in the source material, here Peter is a sociopathic delinquent who seems to revel in making the farmer’s life a living hell. He’s unlikable and unwatchable as far as I’m concerned and the film doesn’t in anyway earn the emotional moments it tries so desperately to sell to the audience. And the worst part is it’s getting a sequel.

Wait. Do you hear that sound? That’s the sound of Beatrix Potter tearing out of the ground, ready to kill whatever idiot came up with this shit.

Fallout 76

I was excited for Fallout 76. A MMORPG where players band together to rebuild society after a nuclear apocalypse. Could have been great. Pity it wasn’t.

Fallout 76 is a dreadful game. Not only is it a buggy, glitchy mess that requires a constant online connection to play, which could result in you losing hours of progress if your WiFi went down, it’s also unbelievably tedious, and that’s because there’s nothing to do in the game. There’s no other characters to interact with, the various robots and computers you come across are really little more than quest givers, there’s no actual plot so to speak, and because of the sheer size of the world and the number of players allowed on a server, the chances of you actually meeting any actual players is remote. And let’s not forget all the behind the scenes drama. Bethesda falsely advertising Fallout themed canvas bags and players getting shitty nylon ones. Bethesda accidentally releasing the account information of various players trying to get a refund for said bag. Bethesda failing to program the year 2019 into the game code, meaning that the game’s nukes don’t work.

Maybe there’s a chance that Bethesda could pull a No Man’s Sky and fix everything over the coming years with various patches and DLCs, but the damage has already been done. It’s incredibly disappointing. The Elder Scrolls 6 is going to have be fucking incredible to win everyone back.

Mama Mia!: Here We Go Again

I can’t stand jukebox musicals anyway, but Mamma Mia was always one of the worst. Its boring, meandering story with its one note, obnoxious cast of characters screeching out ABBA songs like they’re at some drunken karaoke session at some poor sod’s hen party has always grated on my nerves. So imagine my delight when they announced we were getting a sequel. Ever wondered how Meryl Streep met her three lovers and founded her hotel? No? Well tough shit, we’re going to tell you anyway.

Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again is basically just Mamma Mia again. The actors still can’t sing, the characters are still annoying and story is still boring and meandering, completely at the mercy of the chosen songs rather than the filmmakers using the songs to compliment the story (you know? Like proper musicals do?).

How can I resist you? Very easily as it turns out. Gimme, gimme, gimme a fucking gun so I can end my misery.

The Cloverfield Paradox

A lot of people were unhappy about the direction Cloverfield was going. They wanted a continuation of the found footage, kaiju movie from 2008, not an anthology series. I was personally all in favour. Partially because I thought the first Cloverfield was a tad overrated, but mostly because I thought it would be a great opportunity for more experimental film projects and could be a great launchpad for new writers and filmmakers. 10 Cloverfield Lane was a great start. Then The Cloverfield Paradox happened.

The Cloverfield Paradox is basically JJ Abrams trying to have his cake and eat it too. Maintaining the anthology format whilst connecting everything together in a ‘shared universe’ (yes, yet another shared universe). The result was a cliched, poorly edited and idiotic mess of a film that actually took away from the previous two films rather than added to them. Everyone hated it and, as a result, 2018′s Overlord, which was totes going to be part of the Cloververse, was made its own standalone film and Abrams double pinky promised to make a true sequel to the original Cloverfield. A complete and total disaster. No wonder it was a straight-to-Netflix film.

The Handmaid’s Tale - Season 2

This is probably going to be the most controversial entry on the list, but please hear me out because I’m not the only one who has a problem with this season.

I was reluctant to watch The Handmaid’s Tale simply because of how gruesome the original book was, but I forced myself to watch the first season and I thought it was pretty good. It remained faithful to the source material for the most part and included some nice additions that helped to expand the story and mythos. If it was just a one off mini-series, everything would have been fine. But then they made the same mistake as The Man In The High Castle and Under The Dome did where they commissioned another season and attempted to tell a story that goes beyond the book.

There’s a reason why the original story ended where it did. The Handmaid’s Tale isn’t meant to be an empowering story about women sticking it to the patriarchy. It’s a cautionary tale about how fragile our civil rights truly are and how easily they can be taken away from us. It’s designed to shock, not to satisfy. So seeing a handmaid blow herself up in a suicide bombing feels very incongruous and just a little bit silly. It would be like doing a TV adaptation of George Orwell’s 1984 where the first season followed the source material and then the second season turned Winston Smith into this heroic freedom fighter trying to overthrow Big Brother. It would represent a fundamental misunderstanding of what the book was about in the first place.

And then of course there’s the increased level of violence in Season 2, which many have complained about. In Season 1 and the original source material, the violence was justified. In Season 2, the motivation behind the violence has gone from ‘how can we effectively demonstrate how easily a fascist patriarchy can happen in the West?’ to ‘what brutal act can we inflict upon Ofglen to shock the audience this week?’ It’s purely for shock and nothing more. And with the showrunner (who I feel I should mention is a man) announcing that he has planned ten seasons of this, it seems that The Handmaid’s Tale is going to go even further with this depravity until it effectively becomes the equivalent of a Saw film.

The Handmaid’s Tale exists as a way of shining light on and critiquing misogyny in its most extreme form. Season 2 however demonstrates that there is a serious risk of it becoming the very thing it’s criticising in the first place.

The Predator

I love the Predator franchise, but The Predator is the worst.

People thought that this would be good because director Shane Black had actually starred in the first Predator movie back in 1987. Instead we got this bloated, confusing, obnoxious and insulting mess of a film that seems to go out of its way to ruin everything that makes Predator so good. There’s no tension. No suspense. No intrigue. Just a bunch of gore, explosions and shitty one liners from annoying and lifeless characters. They essentially took this big alien game hunter from outer space and turned him into a generic monster from a bad summer blockbuster. It no longer hunts for sport. It wants to take over the world and splice our DNA with theirs. But don’t worry, a rogue Predator doesn’t want to kill humans (even though he himself kills a bunch of humans), so he gives us a Predator Iron Man suit to set up a sequel that will probably never happen because this movie was a box office bomb and it fucking SUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCKKKKKKKEEEEEDDDD!!!

This film also has a very nasty streak towards those with disabilities. There’s a lot of jokes at the expense of a character with Tourette’s and it has an extremely ignorant and patronising view of autism, portraying the main character’s kid as being a super genius who can decipher the Predator language and even going so far as to say that he represents ‘the next stage of human evolution.’ Presumably the Predators want social communication difficulties because apparently it helps them hunt somehow.

What with Disney acquiring 20th Century Fox, the future of both the Alien and Predator franchises were very much in question. This film needed to be a success in order to make a case for Disney to keep making more of them. It wasn’t. Congratulations Shane Black. You might have just killed off this franchise for good. Thanks arsehole! :D

So those were my least favourite stories from 2018. Join me on Wednesday where we shall discuss something more positive. Yes, it’s awards season. Who shall win the coveted Quill Seal Of Approval? Watch this space...

Or don’t. It’s up to you. I don’t want to force you or anything. It’s a free country.

[spryfilm]

“Blade Runner 2049” (2017)

Sci-Fi

Running Time: 163 minutes

Written by: Hampton Fancher and Michael Green

Directed by: Denis Villeneuve

Featuring:  Ryan Gosling, Harrison Ford, Ana de Armas, Sylvia Hoeks, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Carla Juri, Lennie James, Dave Bautista, and Jared Leto

Niander Wallace: “Humanity cannot survive. Replicants are the future of the species. But I can only make so many.”

Was anyone actually waiting for a sequel to “Blade Runner” (1982) the (now) seminal piece of Sci-Fi directed by Ridley Scott who at the time was coming off his masterpiece “Alien” (1979). At the time “Blade Runner” was considered a major disappointment, which was compounded by the disaster that was “Legend” (1985), Scott’s follow-up. It actually appeared at the time that “Alien” may have been a fluke, sure Scott was one the great stylists but could he tell a story? This is a pertinent question as this is something that probably has not been answered to anyone’s satisfaction. After his relative unsuccessful go at revisiting his ‘Alien’ origins I was not looking forward to a Scott directed “Blade Runner” sequel, but because of timing he is a producer here, the director is French Canadian auteur Denis Villeneuve.

The good news for people wanting a film that was able to capture the originals look and feel is that Villeneuve has the skills to make this happen. Whilst he is no slouch in the visual department it is his story telling ability as well his attention to detail that is needed to not make this a carbon copy (albeit a generation removed) of the original – a ‘replicant’ if you will. If you need a taster before you watch this new film, there are three prequel shorts that have been created; “Nexus Dawn”, “2048” and “Blade Runner: Black Out 2022”. These shorts will give a bit of background as well as little more understanding to this new movie, they act as a small bridge, each one progressively moving backwards to the end of the orginal “Blade Runner”.

This new film follows a newly appointed blade runner, Officer K (Ryan Gosling) of the LAPD, discovers a dark secret that could bring an end to humanity. The discovery leads him to Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford), a former blade runner who had disappeared 30 years earlier.

This really is all you really need to know about the film itself, if you have seen the trailers then you will have a pretty good idea about the story, as well as the main players the pepper the narrative. So there is no need to go to deep with any revelations, but this is a movie that will be enjoyed by those who have a love for the original, but want to keep an eye on the future. This movie is all about the humanity repeating the mistakes of the past while trying to forge ahead on new worlds.

Villeneuve as a director really is an original, he has tackled high concept dramas as well as extremely high concept science fiction so for him to be involved in this film seems obvious. He places, like Christopher Nolan, a high importance of in camera special effects, trying not to rely on CGI as much as possible. Of course with the canvas he has to paint on here there is going to be a heavy dose of special effects. What he has done is to have master shots that have a depth of field not normally associated with this kind of movie, where you are able to see physical, practical props and facades. The production designers have their work cut out as well as I imagine a huge budget that pays off when viewed on a large screen.

To give the film a really decent chance of looking different as well as original, at the same time the original Villeneuve has recruited his usual cinematographer, the legendary Roger Deakins (who surely must finally win his Oscar for his work here). Deakins has not just replicated Jordan Cronenweth’s stellar work from the original, instead he has used that as a base and has created his own palate over several different locations so as to almost offer separate lighting and camera set ups depending on the mood and stage of the story – it looks amazing, if there is one thing Deakins was born to do and that is to make his director look very good, this he does like a pro.

What is surprising is that the story constructed by original writer Hampton Fancher and newcomer (to the franchise that is) Michael Green is like the first film, noir inspired, which of course helped to inspire an entire Sci-Fi noir sub genre that obviously is alive and well today. Now I wouldn’t say that this story is the most original, nor does it push any real boundaries within the genre, but it does serve a purpose, that is to frame the movie with something that is not only interesting but makes logical sense. The original themes of the first film are present here, what does it mean to be human? Who is humanity to judge life? What is the purpose of a soul? Is any kind of slavery just? What does it mean to create? Are corporations going to govern more than people? Will populations be told what and how to think? There is more but I think you get the general idea. Does the film answer any of those questions? Of course it doesn’t, it leaves conclusions up to the viewer, it is up to the filmmakers to ensure that points are made as well as remembered. The narrative is fairly straight forward, with Gosling as a detective hunting down clues to mysteries that he didn’t even know existed, with the film eschewing big action showdowns for a satisfying personal touch that is what the original was all about.

Like the first movie casting is of paramount importance, in saying that it is pretty great that Harrison Ford has returned to the role of Deckard, however it is also a treat to see Edward James Olmos return as Gaff, surely one of the more memorable characters from the original. Make no mistake the main character here is ‘K’ played with noirish ease by Ryan Gosling who slinks through the movie making a mark wherever he turns his gaze. The rest of the cast is led by Jared Leto, as Niander Wallace, who seems to be trying to get the “Suicide Squad” (2016) out of his mouth (and ours), playing a Tyrrell clone for want of a better description. There are appearances by character actors Lennie James, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, Dave Bautista and many others. As per the marketing Harrison Ford is back as Deckard who looks great, here at ease not needing to play the lead just to show up and do what he does best.

The music by Hans Zimmer is well suited, here he echoes the “Blade Runner” score by Vangelis, but makes it his own. At times it was easy just to relax into the score, sometimes just forgetting about music. This would be a great watch sans dialogue with the music just playing to the action. This has to be one the best scores of the year, as well as one of Zimmers best, and thats saying something as he is one of the greatest composers working in film today.

There are no two ways about it this is a great movie, definitely one of the best of the year so far. In saying that it is not without its faults, it is too long at least by half an hour, it is also a little too in love with not only being a sequel to one of the best science fiction films, but it also wants you to know two things; one, this is an important film, and two, this is its own film, standing apart from the Scott masterpiece. One of the great moments of “Blade Runner” was the last fifteen minutes with the face off against Deckard (Harrison Ford) and Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), as well the incredible dialogue, “I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time… like tears in rain… Time to die.” It is unfortunate then that this movie lacks anything that will be remembered like that or have at least two actors in their prime, both Ford and Hauer who could match anyone, anytime.

In saying all that this a movie that should be seen in cinemas, it could also be rewatched rather easily thanks to good actors, a decent script and one heck of a great director. Villeneuve is the MVP of this film, he had the audacious task to not only direct a sequel to one amaing movie, but had to marshal everyone to be on the same page at the same time. Just wonderful. I would recommend  this to anyone that loves mysteries, science fiction or both, you will not be disappointed!

“Blade Runner 2049” is out now on DVD & Blu-ray.

DVD & Blu-ray review: “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) “Blade Runner 2049” (2017) Sci-Fi Running Time: 163 minutes Written by: Hampton Fancher and Michael Green…

[iharrup]

Thoughts on “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice”

It’s the opening weekend of the biggest DC event since 2013’s “Man of Steel,” a spectacle in the making since Frank Miller first pitted America’s most legendary heroes against each other in a 1986 comic book. It’s something we’ve been hyping over since 2014’s first reveals, receiving trailer after trailer ever since then. It opens this weekend with no secrets left, and yet after all the hype and Internet debate it still remains a mystery: just what was this film trying to be? And what do films like this say about the people who make them as well as the people who receive them? Without giving away too many spoilers (an effort worthy of Superman himself), “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” is one of the most convoluted tentpole films this viewer has seen since 2007’s “Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End,” and this wasn’t even a threequel. Storyline after plot thread after sequel hint after dream sequence after twist after reveal after “gotcha!” moment are thrown together in a manner that is difficult to follow or make sense of. A story that includes Batman and Superman is ponderous enough, but including Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, Doomsday, and the future Justice League is enough to make the 2 1/2 hour running time feel thin and stretched, butter scraped across too much bread… wrong movie, but the metaphor applies. As far as technical aspects go, this film is as top-notch as they get; the camerawork is stylistic (whether you like or not, it is a style of its own), the acting is good considering the material, and the visual effects are top-notch (I was happy to notice Weta Digital in the credits). However, the writing and direction suffer in this film; plot takes precedence over story in this film, and the muddied nature of the end product is enough to show that Zack Snyder probably couldn’t make much sense of the script either. The concept of pitting favorite heroes against one another is so childish it’s practically banal; Lex Luthor is right to call this match a gladiator fight because it’s all about the spectacle, about which hero the children admire would emerge on top of the other. To watch this film is to forget about everything that these heroes truly stand for; their scowls in the trailers are enough to let us know this is a grudge match, not about who stands for justice. However, this film sabotages itself by serving the contestants up as loose cannons manipulated into aiming at each other. While it’s no secret that the women in Superman’s life are his true Achilles’ Heel (and therefore his ultimate motivation), Batman is motivated by vendetta and an unlikely force in the form of a character reveal. The film begins on the concept of Superman’s collateral damage, and that since he is a supreme being he cannot be trusted to have humanity’s ultimate interests in mind (it would divide his loyalty to do so). The world wants him to answer for what he is done; however, one conniving boy-billionaire is more interested in toppling his image as a savior. It’s never really explained; Lex Luthor’s vitriol against Superman is shaky since they have no personal history together, but given Lex’s constant dialogue equating Superman with God it seems more that his effort is to shake his fist at the heavens. If heroes are defined by their villains, this film suffers for lack of lack of a well-defined, clearly purposeful one; his actions seem more like mania than mission. Never mind Jesse Eisenberg’s neurotic portrayal, the fault lies with the weak concept of the character; the inclusion of Doomsday (forced and awkward enough) goes to show that from a fundamental level Lex couldn’t carry this film on his own. Batman has a good reason to be mistrustful of Superman’s goodness simply because he was caught in the middle of the Metropolis battle in “Man of Steel” (that’s no secret, it was in the trailer); he has spent his life fighting freaks dressed like clowns, and now in his eyes the greatest freak of them all is held up as a savior of the world. To him, this is true injustice, for since he is unaware of Superman’s motives he can only assume that Murphy’s Law applies to him. However, it is his dream about a world dominated by Superman, as well as the guess-who character reveal, that ultimately sets him in motion. In a way, this mirrors every governmental preemptive strike policy, to defeat the enemy before he gets a chance to misbehave; however, Batman’s motivation ultimately has no strength because it melts away in the space of a minute when our heroes find they need to work together (again, not a spoiler). Superman, meanwhile, gets this fixation on exposing Batman as a fraud vigilante; Clark Kent pursues this as a news story, even though there is honestly no reason for it. Perhaps he wants to throw dust on his own trail? This motivation is unclear throughout; the better storyline is that of his dilemma over his own goodness, because he is perfectly aware that people die when he intervenes. He wants to do good and yet people still hate him for it. This is a time-honored challenge for anyone burdened with awesome power, but instead of receiving a true revelation about power and responsibility the film offers a disappointing answer: he will basically act any time Lois Lane is in trouble, and therefore he is not only predictable but is not truly responsible with his godlike power. This film is troubling from a Christian perspective because it functions without any baseline of faith; gods and religions are nothing more than human constructs, and since the fallible Superman is presented as a parable of the Messiah it really only goes to say that faith in a supreme being is not only groundless but foolish since he can’t be trusted with humanity’s safety. After all, when applied to faith the same question facing Superman is brought up concerning God: why does he allow evil to happen when he is capable of stopping it? For all its philosophical questions, however, it is not true goodness that wins the day but merely a combination of roller coaster fighting and the unlikely (and nearly pointless) intervention of Wonder Woman. The film dodges making any specific statements about the fallibility of faith by resorting to mindless combat before anyone might notice; it asks cynical questions but remains too scared to answer them. After all, it needs the box office. Reliance on popcorn villains, incomprehensible CGI fights, and endless sequel hints are not a good recipe for a film, much less ill-defined characters fulfilling every immature fanboy’s dream to see heroes knock each other about for no real reason. We will see this same  concept in a couple of months with “Captain America: Civil War,” in which the concept will likely be more intelligent but no less an insult to the foundation of the characters. The whole idea of superheroes, and our trust in them as characters to look up to, is that they are able to recognize good from evil and act on good’s behalf; films that throw heroes against each other for fanservice offer the notion that the heroes have lost sight of their judgment since they see each other as villains. As much as twenty-first century filmmaking seeks to reduce good and evil to yin and yang, the concept of heroes and villains has always been black and white; to reduce them to shades of gray is to betray their foundation and make them no better than the villains they take down. All we have now to tell us who to root for in these films is who is played by good-looking, bankable A-list actors; we can no longer enter the theater counting on good to vanquish evil, all we come to see now is one gladiator spilling his opponent’s blood. It no longer matters to be on good’s side, it’s now a flip of the coin. The DC Cinematic Universe will likely have a prosperous future thanks to this film, even though so far its offerings are honestly dumb films in the end. Marvel managed to craft its best films into sociopolitical commentaries; perhaps one day a DC film will come along that recaptures the excellence Christopher Nolan gave us with his Dark Knight films. In further honesty, the ill-conceived inclusion of Wonder Woman is no knock against her as a character; she fascinates with what little screen time she receives, and this viewer walked out of the theater looking forward to her impending film with interest and hope. The mystery of what this film set out to be is disappointing in the end because it’s ultimately convoluted fanservice, lazy screenwriting and shoddy directing capitalizing on the 21st century mass market of virtual blood sport. It’s insulting that Hollywood thinks this is what the people want; it’s terrifying to discover that their conceit is true. Hundreds of millions of dollars will pump into this film, despite what the dissatisfied reviewers say; a year from now it will fade into obscurity, the doom of all inconsequential films such as this. The zeitgeist of the moment, the event that captures the attention of the film-going world, will die like a gladiator: cheered on until glorious death, then forgotten because he didn’t truly matter to the spectators. This should be a call to arms for those of us who want to tell meaningful stories that capture the imagination and leave a lasting impression; films like “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” do nothing of the sort, so the time has come for those films to step aside and make room for something better.