#One on the left is base on the crystal skulls from Indiana Jones

[blueey-jayzilla]

catching up

[the-firebird69]

Freya Ridings - Castles (Live At The Barbican)

He said the mask is 80 miles long and it's the base and I said what is this no one's ever said that I said you've never seen the movie mission to Mars I feel it was sent back and I said oh and it's 2015 not 98 when it happened and I said wow this is clever stuff well it sucks mush for me it starts you can see it right in the movie I don't want to ruin it you'll get it right away and what happens to them is kind of weird they might be in Brazil already and it might cost Star wars and it's in a saucer in Indiana Jones Kingdom of the crystal skulls and it's recoverable problem with the machine does it and she says this is insanity it's not really the form of petrification and it happens sometimes to mummies and if you're cohabitating with a mutated deep sea creature theoretically it's not that impossible and she got a little angry and said I don't understand him but this is weird s*** it might be real I said well it's not too hard to imagine why that would be important and they can't understand it at all said no my friend my clan please check some people so I left that I felt related a little better I started checking into it and they said the mask is gigantic and they have signal emission and I'm checking it and saying the same thing a lot we're stranded here so I looked at a smile that I said it's probably them and they're telling me who they are and I said this is crazy so now there's a group and I'm okay how's calling for help and he's saying all this weird s*** and then he says you know what I think I should look into what you're talking about but it came from Justin cuz he went down to the cap he went down to the buffet and people are now seeing it just no use for him no you're wrong you're very wrong and he's saying these two castles that people look for now are for a symbolism and it's about Jupiter and Elysium with machete tonight was insanity I can't stand it anymore I don't talk like she does he says but he remembers me and I get it it's not calling someone that but really it's like girls don't usually say it and yeah I'm a hippie so I'm pretty pleased with house turned out I can't wait to get him back

Freya ridings

We are talking about these castles and there is one of the West for myself and they're saying it's Michelle audette and we're saying no but they're saying it's their rulership castle and they are big enough to rule over Jupiter and maybe a little bit larger than we would be about 35 ft tall and Higgins armory is his side and that would be without the floors in the middle and the arms would be on the sides and it came around no nobody spoke about it and they said they had to check and they figured out something this place is very evil and they felt afraid and it was the Giants domicile and they did not want to be there and they kept saying it to themselves secretly they tried to find people to take the job over you should see how people really react they are in fear and we're not saying they shouldn't be now I've located a few of mine and he said this isn't going to be that hard that's where I was going a lot of the times and one of them is the international Fair it's like all those buildings and the other one is the science center in LA and it had the body Wells and he said oh great if this is ours I'm going to be thinking of these bodies to your side and I'm saying let's gross and as far as something I would do but yeah it's a little bit worse than when you're thinking about it it's a little different oh gross they got Preston out of it and it's an analogy possibly it's a zigzag and it is he says I'll stay in there Frozen and this is helping a lot and the program is moving and it's great

Hera

I cannot say thank you enough it says well we're in a pickle here things are not going it's like living in a pond so anything can think of that it would work without causing a problem and I'm going to get to it the guys are saying if they get you something they attack it and it's good and we see with the second ebike and it's good. And he appreciates it I said I'm going to start working on it

Zig

We're going at this now and we're going to work at we're going to show people what we're made of. This woman is someone that I work with and do things with and we're getting her business going and she is getting dimensions off the buildings to replicate them and taking lots of pictures and scans to see how they're built answer replicated exactly how they're built in the same fashion the same size for the same roof structure it's going to be intense okay this woman is intense and people are going to want these all over the world and she is going to start construction on one of them tomorrow and she wants to know how it will go if it's cursed or if she can get away with it and people are saying it we need to see it and we need to see what it's like and it's going to be intense these structures are huge and he wants to make one in Las Vegas and she says would this be big enough and he says of course the hallway is the corridors in the rooms are about 40 to 45 ft and there's the main area and it's probably 80 ft and that's exactly what you wanted it'll be a hotel casino and that's what they make but that'll be New Vegas and that hasn't happened and it won't for a bit and she's laughing and she says I'll need plans and what we can do is draw plans and send them over and they'll fight over it and very harshly and try and put it at now and eventually they'll be a New Vegas and she says good I like that so we're going to head now with this

Freya

In closing I'm going to say shut up you son of a b**** next to my husband cuz he forgot what he was doing and it sounded like more than sure he says and it sounded like more than her and I get that and that happens I have a we're moving on we're going to get those places and stick them together eventually this sounds like a great idea and to do it on Earth

Hera

Olympus he said at first I have to write letters and that's fun

[a-tale-never-told]

A Speilburg fan huh? Then have you seen Schafrillias' video ranking all his movies? If so, what are your thoughts on it?

//I've seen it before, and I do believe he made some pretty valid points and criticisms regarding Spielberg's notoriously filmography, considering that ranking all of Steven Spielberg's movies would' honestly be an in-depth analysis within of itself, and I'm already starting to feel fatigued after watching and spending an endless amount of time watching these movies, so that's an analysis which will be created sometime in the possible future.

//While I mostly agree with Schafrillas's judgment about the films and his astute reasoning as to why they're ranked in the positions that they are located in, and Schindler's List wholeheartedly deserved to be placed as the greatest and finest work Speilberg's ever made in his entire career as a director and producer, I disagreed with him when it came to his reviewing of the Indiana Jones franchise, as well as some other particular entries on his list, but I'll mainly focus on reviewing his beliefs on Indiana Jones for tonight because I'm feeling drained out due to typing the story chapter.

//Don't get my intentions wrong, I'd mostly agree with him in terms of the rankings of these movies and why they're placed at the ranking, to begin with. However, his reasoning and explanatory statements about why these films have problematic issues are rather baffling and downright bizarre at the worst opportunity of times.

//For example, during his review of Indiana Jones And The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, he states that the majority of the first half of the film was pretty spectacular in the sense that it brought back a feeling of nostalgia for Indiana Jones fans who wanted to experience that feeling once the original trilogy had concluded, and I surely cannot disagree with that.

//However, when he mentioned that the opening scene of the film was a strong part that hooked us into the story, I frowned in dismay, because I realized that he left out on one of the more significant issues in this movie and that the entirety of the open act plainly doesn't make sense when you're given the full, detailed, and reasonable context of how this scene plays.

//Given that almost half of my followers don't understand much historical knowledge, allow me to elaborate on that statement. Since the setting is based on the backdrop of the Cold War, the high-intensity, mutually embittered hatred, conflict between The United States and Soviet Russia, the notion of Irina Spalko and her troops infiltrating a US Army base in Nevada, disguised as US servicemen to obtain and capture Indiana, was absolutely nonsensical to me.

//Any plausible believably for the story was automatically lost for me once I watched that particular scene. If this occurred in a more grounded, realistic setting, World War 3 would've almost certainly happened, and, likely, the entirety of the storyline for this movie wouldn't have happened, as they'd all just get bombarded by the sheer amount of shockwaves and radium coming from the nuclear arsenal of both the Soviet Union and the USA, respectively.

//I'd promptly like to remind an entire portion of you that both America and the Soviets have unlimited resources and endless access to nuclear weaponry and technology, and it's very plausible that they would've eliminated each other within seconds if information regarding this blatant disregard of international law was breached. Yet the opening scene somehow ignores the political consequences and ramifications that could result from a situation like this, and instead forsakes realism for the sake of creating an awesome opening.

//It's not that you're unable to write this scene and let it transition intentionally the way you want it to function, but there's gotta be a sense of realistic writing and certainly a clear understanding of the extending consequences and problems that might arise from situations to make a scene like this work, which this film obviously didn't learn, and I felt weirdly confused as to why Schafrillas left that gigantic plot point out of the review.

//Another key issue I have is with his criticisms of Raiders Of the Lost Ark, and his statements that the film wasn't as character-motivated or directly driven towards fleshing out their characterization. Now, I'm not one of those blind, Raiders fanboys who constantly dismiss any valid critiques of the movie as "heresy, because I've watched the movie, and while I do think that it's an undisputed classic that's worth a rewatch, I strongly have a belief that objectively speaking, Last Crusade is the overall more compelling Indiana Jones film to me.

//Schafrillas, unfortunately, seems to neglect the amount of character depth Raiders made within an hour's worth of runtime. While I solemnly believe that compared to the Last Crusade, Raider's methods of handling characterization were a bit underwhelming, considering that Indy's portrayal in Raiders does come off as generally simplistic, but what he honestly failed to realize is that Raiders had a fair share of character depth, despite it not being that relevant.

//In the first act of the film, we'd got to establish the character's personalities and their motivations for wanting to discover the Ark Of The Covenant, though I felt it should've been executed a little better than what we ended up with. Indy and Marion's motivations for recovering the Ark could be interpreted as trying to preserve such a sacred, holy, artifact from falling into the hands of the Nazis, but also wanting to avenge the death of Abner Ravenwood, Marion's father, whom the Nazis presumably killed once they got all of the valuable information from him.

//And Belloq's motivations for wanting to obtain the Ark for himself and only aligning himself with the Nazis simply because they'd already started searching for the Ark, and Belloq needed them for knowledge on how to locate it can be perfectly seen as a believable motivation for his actions, though I sadly wished they'd flesh him out more as a three-dimensional character than they did in the actual film, aside from a few scenes where he truly establishes himself with some iconic one-liners and great scenes.

//I do agree with Schafrilla's assessment that compared to the Last Crusade, Raider's characterization and in-depth writing of the characters and complex motivations of the antagonists don't feel as narratively impactful to me as Last Crusade was, but he neglected crucial scenes that depict some fair amount of character writing when it's shown, like with Indy and Marion's tumultuous relationship or Belloq and Indy conversating with each other over their mutual interest in archeology.

//I'm not saying that Raiders is an objectively weak movie because it's quite the opposite of what I'm trying to say here, but compared to the absolute near-masterpiece that was Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade, it could've done better in regards to handling it's characterization and character writing, aside from Sallah, who's the character with the most enjoyable writing in the film^^

[doodleimprovement]

I have a few more: This time based on songs from my playlist.

Love Trial

Whispers in the Dark

Karma

I’ve Become so Numb

Love Trial

Wait, you have to do *what* to court someone in Pearl Clan??

This is ... excessive.

Rei has been tasked with assisting Iscan in the needlessly complicated and highly dangerous Pearl Clan courting ritual. It's all supposed to be "ceremonial", but some of these trials involve some dangerous stuff!

But love is pretty strong... And so is Iscan, apparently! The muscles aren't just for show, you know ;)

Whispers In the Dark

One of the reasons that Wayward Cave is called such, is because of the ease at which you can get lost. And when you hear the voices, and follow them... the odds of you every coming back out are slim to none

But that doesn't mean that Ingo isn't going to try

Akari is lured into and gets hopelessly lost in wayward cave by a voice imitating her mother, and Melli's deliberate act of sabatoge

Ingo refuses to leave her in there, and forces Melli along with him to fix this, and apologize for putting the girl in danger.

What neither of them suspect is the Spiritomb lurking deep within the caves, who is hungry for new souls, and is quite ready to play a very, very cruel game

Karma

Volo truly, genuinely thought he'd gotten away with it.

He was wrong

Oh, by the almighty Arceus, he was so, so wrong

Ever seen the end of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull? What happened to the villain in that movie? Yeah. That.

He shouldn't have messed with Arceus' favorite, because it certainly wasn't Volo that was getting it's blessing. Instead, Arceus called upon Palkia and Dialga's own dsciples to teach him a lesson

Featuring a Protag death fake-out (or resurrection, its left a little ambiguous)

I’ve Become so Numb

Rei stopped talking after the Red Sky.

He seemed fine otherwise, but he just... didn't talk.

Everyone is stumped... well, everyone but Kamado

After all, when you felt like no one listened to you, why would you ever want to speak again?

A Post-Red Sky fic with Rei internalizing his traumatic experience. Not really a Kamado redemption fic, though he's certainly ambiguous. Focuses on everyone trying to offer themselves as someone that Rei can lean on, and failing.

He ends up leaning on two people, Ingo, and Palina, surprisingly enough - with Lord Arcanine essentially offering to be a therapy dog, in a sense. Rei does get better, but much patience is needed

[smokeybrand]

Smokey brand Movie Reviews: She Got Pants Now or Why Is All the Rum Gone

It’s the last day of July which means we have the last movie to be dropped under the Disney dual release strategy; Jungle Cruise. Now, i don’t know much about this flick outside of it being another one of these movies based on a ride from the parks. Apparently, the Jungle Cruise ride is pretty infamous because of the racism so I'm curious how this thing got the green light. Regardless, i love Emily Blunt and i usually enjoy The Rock, so why the f*ck not? I don’t have to leave my house, i have a computer with a 4K monitor, and a set of wireless earphones that kicks out Dolby quality sound. It ain’t the theater but since the black horse still rides, it’s a decent replacement for that sit in experience. Let’s go!

The Good

Disney did a great job of softening a lot of the more offensive aspects of the ride when they adapted it to film. I love what they did to Trader Sam because that motherf*cker was infuriating. Hopefully, they’ll give the ride, itself, an overhaul because this movie will go a long way to rehabbing that problematic as experience back as The Magical Kingdom.

Dwayne Johnson is as charismatic as ever. Dude has kind of settled into just playing himself over and over but that’s fine. He’s very good at playing himself and his Frank "Skipper" Wolff is one of the best versions of himself on film. The Rock doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel, but if you like what he does, you won’t be disappointfed.

Emily Bunt is as adorable as ever and really leans into what they gave her for Dr. Lily Houghton with gusto. I think the writing went a little too far to make her seem like the strongest woman ever but Blunt does her best to reel that unhinged zeal in a bit. Her character is witty, intelligent, and can throw a mean jab.

The draw of this film, the heart of it all, lies in the chemistry between The Rock and Blunt. Their scenes together feel natural as f*ck, like they’ve been doing this sh*t together for years. They've just settled a level of comfort between each other that you rarely see outside of old married couples. It’s cute to see and really helps keep you engaged when things stop being so engaging.

Paul Giamatti is in this. Weird.

Jungle Cruise is a pretty good looking film. They used every bit of that two hundred million dollar budget. Most of the time. The Amazon has a natural beauty that lends itself to the eye but it’s kind of it’s own, unique, thing. If you’re not accustomed to earth tones, you’re going to have a real hard time focusing on this flick.

The set pieces are nice. They can give some of the more elaborate Indiana Jones sequences a run for their money. Like, this is, maybe, Temple of Doom or Crystal Skull levels of stunt work. Probably more Crystal Skull because there is a ton of CG work. Like, s much. Like, TOO much.

I’m hearing a lot of people compare this to a female Indiana Jones or a Tomb Raider movie but it’s definitely not that. This is more akin to those campy Mummy films starring Brendan Fraser. Seriously, Frank is Rick, Lily is Evie, and they also share an effeminate brother character. It’s the same f*cking formula. The cursed Conquistadors can even double as mummy abominations.

Speaking of formulaic, this thing definitely started it’s life as a Pirates of the Caribbean script. If it didn’t, I'd be thoroughly surprised. That's not bad, mind you, just something i noticed about half way through. If it is, it would have made a great Jack Sparrow adventure. Jungle Cruise would have been one of the best Pirates film if it was to be made as one. I don't know what that means about the quality of the overall franchise but I said what I said.

Definitely a theater experience. I was fortunate enough to have the ability to approximate that with the media i have on hand at home, but i highly recommend seeing this in the multiplex. Only if you feel brave enough to engage with the wild public, though. Jungle Cruise is definitely built for that big screen presentation.

The Bad

The CG can be real bad a t times. Like, amateurish. I mentioned they used every bit of that budget before, right? Well a good chunk must have gone to the lead salaries because they definitely could have made another pass in Adobe After Effects. That sh*t get real obvious as time goes on. It's like that horse meme!

I also mentioned that Lily is f*cking superwoman and that's not handled with any semblance of nuance. She routinely makes men, just men, look like clowns. Now, I don't care about that type of stuff, it was entertaining and in service to the plot, but that calls into question the plot, I think. If your character can only be strengthened by weakening another, then you've written a poor character. However, most people won't see it like that and just get offended because of Lily is a f*cking Mary Sue. That offends the lesser males out in the interwbs and they'll f*cking tell you about. Loudly. From their mother's basements. With real tiny weenus energy. I hate that I have to constantly put this specific thing in the Bad section of my reviews because it never has to be. F*cking write better female characters, Hollywood! Goddamn!

The pacing is really uneven. There is about a thirty minute lull at the beginning of the second act. This sh*t stops in it’s tracks and, if not for Blunt and Johnson, you’d abandon this sh*t right here because there is still an hour of movie left after that. Yes, this thing is two hours long. No, it definitely didn't need to be that long. There is a lot of fat on this rind and it really bogs down the pace.

The plot is derivative of the genre. Like, you’ve seen this movie before and it’s not executed in any redefining way. Jungle Cruise is disposable in that way. Fun but inconsequential and ultimately, forgettable.

There is kind of a queer bait in this thing. It feels like Mickey wanted to really go for it but they refuse to go all the way. Still, what little of that queer sh*t we did get is worth noting, even if it should have much stronger.

I was bored at times. The movie, itself, isn’t boring, but being at home with sh*t that i can do to distract myself, it was hard not to just get on my phone when the thing starts to drag. Another reason to see this thing in theater; You’re a hostage audience. You have to watch what is presented or you get kicked out. Helps to keep you engaged when the film, itself, doesn’t seem like it even wants to be.

The Verdict

Jungle Cruise is a lot. It’s loud, frantic, thrilling at times, but an utter bore at others. It’s entertaining overall but there are definitely holes in the formula. I really enjoyed The Rock and Emily Blunt. They are excellent in their roles and the chemistry between them really drives this film, even when it’s sputtering to keep your attention. The thing is shot beautifully and does it’s best to circumvent the more problematic aspect of the ride which inspired it, Trader Sam getting that retool was brilliant, but falls short of rehabbing the more problematic aspects of this narrative. The writing is definitely groan inducing at times and the LBGTQ stuff is a mixed bag but the ridiculously heavy handed identify politics is the most glaring issue. I get it, she’s a strong woman that don’t need no man. Anything you can do she can do better. I understand, now stop beating that horse. It’s been dead for a long time. Just like this movie. Two hours is WAY too much time to tell this story. All in all, it’s an enjoyable diversion that should definitely be seen in a theater. I didn't hate Jungle Cruise and i think it is one of the better Disney Theme Park Ride movies but i won’t lose sleep if i never see it again.

[kookitykook]

No Jokes (Jungkook x Reader)

Listen after watching Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull for the 87th time this just ... happened. I regret nothing.

Based off the prompt: “I love you!” “WHAT?” Just kidding, I just needed to distract you. Sorry about this!”

~genre: adventure! fluff! humor! sfw! yeehaw!

~word count: 3.2k 

~summary: You can't believe you let Jeon Jungkook drag you into this. A few weeks ago you were working on your thesis like a normal postgrad, and today you're stealing crystal skulls, shooting at people, jumping out of vehicles, losing your shoe, and kicking bad guys in the face. Just another average day working with Jeon Jungkook.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Did we lose them?” Jungkook shouted, violently swerving the Jeep to avoid running into a stump. 

“Hey!” You shouted back at him as you fell in a heap in the open Jeep bed at the movement. “I’m holding a gun here, maybe give me a warning if you’re about to — oof! Jungkook!”

“Sorry about that!” Your partner shouted back at you, and you were glad that your hat had fallen in your face as you fell yet again, because if you’d had to see his shit-eating grin you would’ve attacked him. “You didn’t answer my question though!”

Standing to your feet with a huff and trying to balance as Jungkook drove like a maniac through the jungle, you peered through the blurring trees.

“I think we lost them,” you yelled up to him. “Can’t be sure though. But there’s definitely not any sign of—”

You screamed as a bullet whizzed past your ear, scrambling get into the passenger seat beside Jungkook. 

“I don’t think we lost them,” he remarked with an annoyingly casual voice considering they were being shot at yet again. 

“Yeah no shit, Kook!” You flinched as bullets dinged the side of the truck. “Drive faster!”

“I’m driving as fast as I can without sending us headfirst into a jungle tree, Y/N! Why don’t you use that gun and shoot back at them!”

“I will!”

Not needing any more prompting, you leaning out of the Jeep and popping off rounds at the three vehicles tailing you and Jungkook through the jungle. Your eyes widened when you saw Namjoon’s vehicle catching up to yours quickly. 

You aimed your gun right at his head and pulled the trigger.

Click.

Shit. Out of ammo. 

Namjoon only grinned, his eyes flitting between you and the jungle he was driving through. 

“I want that skull back!” Namjoon shouted, pulling his vehicle up right next to you and Jungkook, tree limbs whipping past as you sped through the overgrowth. “Hand it over now and nobody has to get hurt!”

“If we hand it over now, far more people than just us are going to get hurt!” Jungkook shouted, one hand on the wheel and one hand clutching the burlap sack with the crystal skull. “Forget it, Namjoon!”

For a brief second, the only sound was the vehicles careening over the brush. 

“Fine,” Namjoon spat loud enough for the two of you to hear him. “So be it.”

You screamed as Namjoon jerked the wheel hard, sending his vehicle hurtling against yours. Jungkook grunted, fighting to maintain control of the Jeep as Namjoon did it again. On your right was Namjoon, and on your left was a tree line that the Jeep couldn’t fit through. And if you stopped or slowed down Namjoon’s henchmen Hoseok and Yoongi would capture you both and the crystal skull. 

You and Jungkook were well and truly trapped. 

You glanced at Jungkook out of the corner of your eye.

“Don’t you dare.”

“Get that skull as far away from here as you can.”

“I said don’t!”

You paid Jungkook no mind, hurtling yourself out of the Jeep and into Namjoon’s vehicle as he collided against you. Namjoon shouted as you latched onto him, raking your nails down his face as your legs dangled precariously from his vehicle. You held on as tightly as you could, knowing that if you fell now then Yoongi and Hoseok’s cars were surely going to squish you like a bug. 

“Y/N!” You heard Jungkook screaming, but his voice was growing distant as Namjoon lost control of his vehicle thanks to you, turning the opposite direction as Jungkook continued to drive straight.

Get that damn skull out of here, Kook, you thought as hard as you could.

“You bitch!” Namjoon shouted, grabbing you by the back of your shirt and hauling you into his vehicle, and you ended up sprawled out halfway in his lap and halfway in the passenger seat. “You and that idiot have no idea the power you’re messing with!” 

“Oh shut up!” You screamed, hiking up your leg and kicking Namjoon square in the jaw. 

The hit had him jerking the wheel yet again, and you took the opportunity to reach for the passenger door handle and fling yourself out. 

You knew it was going to hurt, but you didn’t know just how much. 

You rolled for what felt like forever, branches tearing at your shirt and scratching your face until you finally came to a stop against a tree. 

“Owwww,” you moaned, feeling blood dripping down the side of your face and you were pretty sure you were missing a shoe. 

You wiped the blood out of your eye to see that by kicking Namjoon, you had sent him crashing into Hoseok’s vehicle. They were both scrambling out, shouting at one another about seventy yards away from where you lay. You laughed to yourself, head falling backwards to rest in the jungle undergrowth. 

The pain was worth it. That had been totally awesome and definitely gave Jungkook enough time to get away with the skull.

“Yeah,” you muttered to yourself. “Definitely worth it.”

You laid there for a few more seconds, focusing on the buzzing of the jungle and the ringing in your ears instead of Namjoon’s far away voice screaming at Yoongi and Hoseok to get in their one remaining vehicle so that the three of them could get after Jungkook. It looked like they assumed you were dead or were leaving you to die. That figured. 

You were just about to let yourself fall asleep when suddenly —

“There he is! Get that son of a bitch!”

You snapped your head up, wincing at the throbbing pain the movement produced. 

Oh no … oh no, no, no … you thought to yourself, knowing good and well that there was only one person besides yourself that could make Kim Namjoon so shrieky. 

And sure enough. There was Jungkook. Running towards you like a bat out of hell. 

Wait … running? What the …

“Get up!” He was screaming, still toting the crystal skull in the burlap sack. “Aish, Y/N you idiot, get up!” 

You groaned as you pushed yourself to your feet and — yepp, you were definitely missing a shoe. 

“Run, running, running now, we gotta run!” Jungkook yelled breathlessly, finally reaching you and grasping your arm, tugging you with him decidedly away from where Namjoon and his thugs were currently maneuvering their last vehicle into position. 

“Where is the Jeep?” You shouted, the sudden adrenaline shooting through you and making you forget about your pain. “Kook what the—”

“Ran out of gas!” He shouted, ducking as a bullet flew by the two of you. He was breathing in gasps, holding both you and the skull as you picked up speed, adjusting to the feeling of just one shoe. 

Gah, what a mess we are, you thought, taking in his dirty, sweaty and disheveled appearance next to you, who had literally just thrown yourself from a moving vehicle in a jungle. 

“Where are we running?” You screamed, picking up the pace as much as you could when you heard the revving of Namjoon’s vehicle. 

“Away!”

“Oh well that helps, Kook!”

Three more bullets whizzed by. 

“How the hell did you talk me into this stupid job?!”

“Me?!” Jungkook screamed, leaping over a fallen tree. “You’re the one that told me about this stupid skull!”

“And you’re the one who said we ought to go steal it!”

“It’s not stealing if we’re saving innocent people!”

“It’s definitely stealing if it means Kim Namjoon is going to kill us over it!”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all!”

“Oh like you ever make sense! You could have warned me that—”

“Look out!”

Jungkook grabbed you by the elbow and hauled you back as quickly as he could, the both of you skidding across the dirt and falling backwards just inches from the ravine you had almost ran right into. 

You fought to catch your breath, clutching onto Jungkook just as tightly as he was clutching onto you. The two of you helped each other stand, looking over the edge of the ravine into the churning waters of the river. 

Jungkook glanced back at the rapidly approaching vehicle holding Namjoon, Yoongi, and Hoseok. You couldn’t take your eyes off of the water though. The way that the opposite side of the ravine was positioned, you couldn’t see that the chasm was even there until you were right on it. 

“How high do you think it is?” 

“Uhhh, fifty meters give or take a few,” Jungkook mumbled, running his hands through his hair. 

“Can we survive a jump that high?”

“Uhhh, not sure.”

“You keep answering with ‘uhhh,’ and it’s not making me feel any better.”

You could hear Namjoon getting closer, but they weren’t shooting anymore which meant they had probably run out of bullets too. At least there was that. 

“Y/N.” 

Jungkook stuffed the skull into his knapsack, securing the straps tightly, then grabbed you by the shoulders. You could hear Namjoon more clearly, there were probably going to run you and Jungkook over in about fifteen seconds. At least the skull would be destroyed, too.

“Y/N, listen to me.”

You didn’t listen. 

“Y/N, I love you!”

You finally snapped back to reality. 

“What?!”

“Just kidding, I just needed to distract you for a second. Sorry about this!”

Before you could even think to scream, Jungkook wrapped his arms around you and sent the two of you careening over the edge of the ravine. 

**

You dragged yourself up onto the river bank with coughs that racked your whole body. Mud seeped through your linen pants, and your dripping wet hair was definitely going to give you pneumonia if you didn’t get warm soon. 

Your lungs expelled the nasty river water violently, bringing up some bile with it too. As soon as you could breathe, you pushed past the pain all over your body and looked around you. 

“Jungkook?” you croaked, your voice hoarse from all of the coughing. You were alone on the riverbank. “Jungkook!”

Shit, shit, shit. 

You were getting frantic now, your pain the last thing on your mind as you scrambled to your feet and looking all around the riverbank. 

“Jeon Jungkook!” You screamed. 

And then you saw it. A familiar, stupidly round head bobbing in the river just ahead of you. 

“Kook!” 

You flung yourself back into the icy waters without a moment of hesitation, swimming the ten or so meters out to wear his body was. 

You grabbed him around the waist, noting but not caring that his knapsack with the crystal skull was still safely secured to his person. 

You miraculously managed to keep his and your head above water as you swam back to the riverbank, unceremoniously dropping his body to the muddy bank, his long legs still in the water.

“Oh no,” you murmured, hands shaking as you hovered them over Jungkook’s chest. 

He wasn’t breathing. His head was flopped to the side away from you, wet hair sticking to his forehead. 

“No, no, no.” You put your head to his chest, but the ringing in your ears had you completely useless. “Kook, no, you can’t … no, no!”

Thinking back to the one CPR class you took back in college when you and Jungkook met, you pried open his mouth and began blowing air into it.

“Chest compressions, chest compressions,” you muttered to yourself, sitting up on your knees and leaning your whole body weight into the motions. 

Jungkook remained still. 

You knew you were crying because the river water still dripping from you was ice cold, whereas your teas streamed hot down your face. 

“You son of a bitch!” You screamed, hitting his still chest. “You drag me on this crazy adventure, get me shot at, have me run through a damn jungle without one of my shoes! I jumped out of a car for you! Then you throw me off of a cliff?!” You’re hysterical, your nose running as you cry over Jungkook’s still form. “And then you tell me you love only to follow it up with ‘just kidding?!’ I hate you!”

On pure instinct you slam your fist into Jungkook’s chest, which led to you promptly screaming as his body convulsed, river water shooting out of his mouth as he began coughing and inhaling deep, wet breaths. 

“Holy shit!” You reach out and help him sit up, leaning his body into yours and hitting him on the back to help expel the water from his lungs. “Jungkook, oh my — I thought you were dead!” 

“I think I was,” he gasped out, taking in a deep breath as he looked up at you. “Hey, did you just hit me?”

Well that dried up your tears. 

You huffed, letting him go and standing up quickly, which led to him falling sideways further into the mud. You stomped into the water, shivering as you splashed water on your face to clean your runny nose and teary eyes. 

“Yes, I hit you!” You shouted, whirling back around him but then spluttering as your wet hair slapped you in the face. “And I saved your life too, you’re welcome for that by the way! I’d think you’d be using your first words back from the dead to say, oh I don’t know, thank you?! Or perhaps something along the lines of ‘I’m sorry I threw you off a cliff?’”

“It wasn’t a cliff, it was a ravine.”

You could only stare slack-jawed as Jungkook pushed himself up with a grunt, coughing a few more times as he pushed his wet hair back from his face and shrugged off his knapsack and brown leather jacket.. Any other time you might have been ogling his muscles that were clearly on display beneath his wet white shirt, but at that moment you were primarily focused on not tossing him back into the stupid river.

“And I saved your life first, so really you should be the one thanking me,” he continued, grinning like an idiot as he checked his knapsack and saw that the crystal skull was still safe. 

“M-Me?” You spluttered. “Me — thank you, I — are you joking?!”

“Not at all. Hey, where’s your other shoe?”

“I lost it! When I jumped out of Namjoon’s vehicle after jumping out of your vehicle to save your life the first time! So I will not be thanking you, no siree, nuh-uh.”

“You jumped out of Namjoon’s vehicle?” he asked casually, stuffing the skull pack into his knapsack and taking a few casual steps towards you. 

“I — yes, I did!” You shouted, fury dancing across your features as he nodded as if you had just commented on the weather or something else equally boring. “And it was awesome, thanks for asking. I was willing to die for you to get away with the skull and how do you repay me? How, Jeon Jungkook? Oh I remember! You ran out of gas.” 

“I didn’t really run out of gas, I just said that so you wouldn’t waste time yelling at me for coming back for you.”

It was the wave of his hand in your direction along with those words that did you in. With a gutteral scream you marched into his space, fully prepared to sock him in the jaw, only to be met with his strong hands pinning your arms to your side and pulling your body flush against his. 

“Jeon Jungkook I swear I’m going to—”

You were silenced as his cold lips descended upon yours, kissing you with such an intensity it made your already woozy head spin even more. Your eyes fluttered shut and you wished you could have blamed your injuries for the way you positively melted against him, but you knew deep down it was because it was him. 

Jungkook’s lips parted yours with a shaky breath, his hands moving up to cradle your face when he realized that you weren’t planning on attacking him anymore. You were both shivering, but both reluctant to pull away. The only sounds were the river gurgling behind you and your heavy breathing as he continued to kiss you until you saw stars.

Finally, just as you were starting to feel warm all over, Jungkook pulled away with a deep gasp. He didn’t go far though, and you could feel every inch of him pressed against you. Your body was still trembling, but now it wasn’t from the cold. 

“I …” You gulped, licking your lips as you fought for breath. You elected to ignore the smug grin on Jungkook’s now swollen lips as you looked up at him. “I thought you said you were just kidding.”

“Oh I was,” he said simply. 

Your eyes bugged out of your head and you suddenly wished you hadn’t pulled him out of the river. 

“At least then I was,” he clarified, not perturbed at all at your expression. In fact, he just grinned and kissed the tip of your nose. “But then I saw that you were still alive and that you had saved me—”

“Twice.”

“That you had saved me twice, and I … I realized that I’ll take getting shot at and jumping off cliffs—”

“Ravines.”

“—Ravines, if it means that you’re alive. I’ll take on any adventure as long as it’s with you.”

Tears were welling up in your eyes again, but this time you didn’t mind. 

“I love you, Y/N. No jokes this time.”

“Throwing me off of a ravine is not a joke.”

“Maybe not a good one. But hey, it’s a hell of a first date, you gotta admit.”

You grinned up at him. “I love you too, you insane man.”

Just as Jungkook was leaning down to kiss you once more, both of you smiling like idiots and covered in river water, mud, and blood, a voice cut across the ravine.

“Jeon Jungkook! Y/N!”

The two of you turned, still clutching onto one another as you looked up to the opposite side of the ravine where Kim Namjoon stood, Yoongi and Hoseok flanking him. He was covered in dirt and there was a nasty gash on his arm, and his two goons were in equally rough shape.

“That crystal skull is mine! You won’t get away a second time! I’m going to make you wish you—”

“Oh shut up!” You shouted back across the ravine. 

Hoseok laughed as Namjoon froze, clearly surprised, which led to Yoongi elbowing Hoseok hard enough to make him stumble and lurch backwards away from the edge, falling on his ass in the process. 

Jungkook looked down at you and laughed with abandon, and you smiled at him widely. His laugh was the best sound in the world, especially after the insane day you’d had. 

“I love you,” you murmured. 

“And I love you. No jokes.”

“No jokes,” you affirmed, pressing your lips to his firmly. “Alright, we gotta go. Making out with you is great and all, but I’m missing a shoe and we still have to get that skull out of here.”

“I love it when you talk dirty to me.”

[doisneau]

i was talking to my brother about things from our childhoods that messed us up and it's kinda funny, so here are some:

- that scene in alice in wonderland (the creepy 1988 animation bc that's the dvd i owned) where that woman is cooking and keeps shouting "more pepper"

- the blue meanies on a play we saw based on the yellow submarine movie (we left after that bc i was crying).

- that scene in dumbo where he gets drunk (????) and sees those pink elephants. i had nightmares for years

- watching indiana jones and the kingdom of the the crystal skull for the first time (this one really fucked me up)

- this one time we went to a planetarium and my brother started crying a lot so we all had to leave

- the robot dog on that wallace and gromit film. yikes

- when my cousin made me watch the dark crystal (my brother was too young. lucky him)

- when we watched cars at the theater and my brother started to cry during the very first scene, so my dad left with him and i had to watch it alone (i was 6 and it was scary lol)

[classywastelandbread-blog]

Honored Spirits Bonus Chapter - Intelligence

Not my best work by far - this is just something incredibly stupid that I wrote out today because I got frustrated when I found so many movies with stupid science. It was also something I wanted to toy around with a bit but will obviously be going about this in a different way....later. 

Sorry in advance for all the errors.

There was widespread debate throughout the base regarding the intelligence of the Shimada dragons.

On one hand, they were clearly smart, though if they were smarter than a young child or perhaps a particularly clever cat or dog remained to be seen and proven. The Shimadas claimed that the dragons spoke, though in a way that was beyond what the rest of the team could hear – directly to their minds, in a form of telekinesis.

It certainly explained a lot as without this theory it would seem that short of actually being in combat (or combat practice) both brothers had extremely short attention spans – a very drastic change that would otherwise be considered extremely out of character.

However, this theory could not be proven short of brain scans and the base currently did not have such sophisticated equipment. The brothers, of course, would consent to no such thing regardless.

Another theory for the apparent “speech” of the dragons and the brothers’ translations was simply the reading of body language. After all, most of the queries are very simple and could have been derived from the careful observation of the direction of the dragons’ eyes and the subtle gestures that formed their expressions.

This was the current working theory of Winston and, surprisingly, Soldier 76.

There was, after all, only so far their suspension of disbelief could take them. For their part, most of the team seemed to accept the vague explanations given to them regarding the speech and intelligence of the dragons.

During a rare moment when they found the dragons separate from their masters, Soldier 76 and Winston decided to perform a little test. First was calling them by name and requesting something specific to test their language comprehension.

Soldier 76 called for Udon and asked it to pass him the sugar off the table; staring straight into his mask as if it could see right through it, Udon kicked the small tin jar off the table and ambled away. When Winston decided to conduct his test, he asked Ramen to bring him the jar of peanut butter and a banana; the dragon glanced at him, then at the requested items, and decided to ignore him. Repeated requests to Ramen and the other dragons received similar results.

Their next attempt was a simpler test of comprehension. They created small shapes from colored pieces of paper from the ubiquitous craft bin and laid them out in front of the dragons. Or rather, laid them out on the table and spent an hour trying to catch just one of them to subject it to their comprehension test. By the time they did, they returned to the table to find that Ana had cleaned up the paper, annoyed that it had been left out. Udon, clearly unhappy with the way it was being held, bit Winston hard enough to make him let it go and disappeared into a cloud of mist that quickly dissipated.

Hanzo firmly asked them that night at dinner to not torture their dragons as it was making them very upset. Unsurprisingly, McCree backed up his request as he was quite attached to the blue dragons (and their owner). Perhaps most surprising was the rest of the team’s agreement with the request – they were all attached to the dragons as well and strangely enough no one (not even Dr. Zeigler or Mei, who were both scientists) questioned the brothers’ claims that the dragons could speak.

They agreed to cease…for the moment.

It was days before anyone saw the dragons again and in that time, Winston and Soldier 76 realized the extent that they had upset them. Even when they began wandering the base again, they skittered away from the two of them and refused outright to be in the same room with them without at least one other witness.

Surprisingly…it stung. Especially to Winston who could sympathize. But the dragons’ fear (or distaste) of them was ignored for one event that they clearly seemed to enjoy: team movie night.

Team movie night had started, surprisingly, with the Shimadas. It of course spread to McCree (who everyone, save perhaps a certain Shimada brother, could tell was sweet on the archer) and gradually expanded. Everyone that could make it did and they piled into the largest of the rec rooms to watch and drink together.

Movies were picked well in advance by one person attached to a rotating schedule - it prevented hours of discussion and argument over the movie choice and let things move much smoother in that regard. Unfortunately it made for some interesting choices of movie but no one had argued too hard against it (yet)...at least in a voice that the rest of the team could hear.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

To everyone’s surprise, McCree’s selection wasn’t a Western, but in fact...well, it wasn’t much better in anyone’s opinion.

Udon especially didn’t like it, but Udon didn’t seem to like a lot of things anyway. It grumbled and bobbed its head where it and Soba were tangled in the joined laps of Hanzo and McCree. That is impossible, it said loftily and Hanzo sighed, taking a deep drink from his beer.

To McCree’s surprise, even Soba seemed agitated. If the contents of the box are highly magnetized, then why is nothing else affected?

Trying to sooth them, he scratched gently at Soba’s chin. It bobbed its head at him but leaned ever so slightly into his caresses. Though its mood clearly didn’t dissipate, it at least stopped digging its talons into McCree’s leg and fell more still. Its head still bobbed and it kept flicking its tongue out as if it could lick up the faint mist of floating gunpowder on the screen. In Hanzo’s lap, Udon’s whiskers and tail flicked like an agitated cat’s.

“This is dumb,” Hana complained. “Why isn’t anything else in the warehouse affected by the magnets?”

“Shush, you,” McCree said with a laugh. “It’s only a movie.”

Soba tossed its head. She’s right! Everything should be feeling the effects! It must be a strong magnetic force to make gunpowder behave that way. Also, some gunpowders do not contain metal compounds that would be attracted or repelled by a magnet!

Also, Udon grumbled, flicking its tongue out in agitation. How strong is this magnetic force that all the way across the warehouse it can so strongly attract probably-not-actually-metal particles?

The dragons tossed their head though Soba quieted when McCree shushed it gently. “What’s gotten into you, darlin’?”

I’m not a “darlin’”, Soba grumbled but subsided slightly. I just do not appreciate the scientific inaccuracies in this movie.

McCree glanced at Hanzo. “It has some concerns about the science,” the archer said simply, taking another long sip of his beer. When the dragons had settled in for the movie, their chosen perches had planned ahead and kept a small cooler of beer on the floor in front of them.

“I wonder what kind of magnetic force is being exerted on the rest of the warehouse,” Winston wondered from his spot in the corner. “And if the magnetic force is so strong, then perhaps those that were in charge of this storage facility would have insulated the crate so it wouldn’t affect anything that was potentially sensitive.”

Soba bobbed its head seemingly in agreement. Not to mention, Udon added with a trace of a growl in its voice. The soldier that allowed the caravan to break because he wanted to race the civilians. I would have killed him, myself. He clearly cannot follow orders or proper protocol.

Snorting, Hanzo took another sip of his beer. “Are we doing a drinking game with the noodles?” Lucio asked with a laugh, clearly guessing that Hanzo’s drinking was for that reason. “Drink every time they have a snide comment? Or do they like the movie?”

“You’d die,” Hanzo said shortly. “They’re not happy with some of the science in it.”

As Hanzo spoke, McCree thought he heard a whisper - we are not noodles. We are not to be eaten - but brushed it off as wishful thinking. He took a sip of his beer and stuck his tongue out at Soba when it glanced up at him. The dragon tried to smile it seemed and then stuck its long tongue out at McCree.

“This movie is set a long time ago,” Soldier 76 said gruffly from the corner he had backed himself into. He slouched further into his chair when everyone glanced at him. “Back when they were using only projectile-based weaponry. However, having metal projectiles doesn’t mean that they were all magnetic.”

McCree grunted in agreement. “Peacekeeper’s bullets have brass and aluminum casing, neither of which are magnetic. The gunpowder might be a little magnetic but I’m pretty sure it’s not.

Traces of tin are slightly paramagnetic but the bismuth in it is diamagnetic, he thought he heard someone say. Looking around, he found that no one but Soba was meeting his eyes and he smiled, rubbing his knuckles along the dragon’s jaw. It closed its eyes and leaned into his caresses.

The discussion ended and they continued to watch the movie. Udon’s twitching tail slapped McCree in the shoulder until Soba’s head snapped out and bit it; the dragons hissed at each other and then the movie.

Those soldiers should all be shot, Udon snarled as Indiana Jones ran across the rafters. How terrible their aim is!

Hanzo drank deeply from his beer and McCree obligingly reached down for another. Seeing what he was doing, Soba twisted and did so, picking up the new bottle by the cap held gently in its jaws. McCree scratched Soba’s nuchal crest in thanks, popped the cap off with his metal thumb. As he was handing the beer to Hanzo, he caught sight of Winston and Soldier 76 peering at him curiously.

Or rather, Soba.

Seeming to sense the stare as well, Soba twisted its head and hissed inaudibly. It tucked its head under McCree’s serape with a grumble that he could almost hear. “It’s alright,” he said to it softly as Udon and Hanzo glanced over. “I gotcha.” After a long moment of cuddling with McCree and purring beneath his gentle petting, it wiggled its head back out to watch the movie.

They all watched as Indiana Jones climbed into a lead-lined fridge, rode a nuclear shockwave, and emerged (relatively) unharmed. Unsurprisingly, everyone immediately protested and with a laugh, McCree paused the movie so they wouldn’t miss any other ridiculousness.

NO! Udon boomed and McCree twitched.

THAT IS NOT HOW THAT HAPPENS, Soba agreed.

“The probability of anyone surviving a nuclear blast at such close range is ridiculous!” Winston said.

The dragons shook their heads violently enough that McCree and Hanzo had to lean back or spill their beers. When his hand was free, Hanzo began chugging his beer and McCree’s brows rose in awe.

(He tried not to focus on the gentle bob of the man’s Adam’s apple but...he was a weak, weak man for Hanzo.)

Around them, the discussion (audible and inaudible) continued.

“There is no padding on the inside of the fridge,” Angela pointed out. “The forces exerted on his body would have crushed every bone!”

Mei nodded. “There is also the fact that the refrigerator is intact,” she pointed out. “The forces to lift it fully airborne and propel it at the front of the shockwave would likely be so immense that it was crushed.”

“Look at the houses,” Soldier 76 pointed out, to everyone’s surprise. “They immediately crumpled and everyone’s faces burned off, even if they were mannequins. What kind of heat would be needed to do that?”

Udon threw its head around, very clearly agitated. Lead has a melting point of 327.46 degrees Celsius, it grumbled.

It boils at 1749 degrees Celsius, Soba added, bobbing its head as well. Even thermite reactions well exceed that, much less a nuclear explosion!

Hanzo continued to drink and wordlessly, McCree bent to grab him another bottle; Soba scrambled to drape itself over and around his neck and shoulders and used its new perch to express its disapproval with my head bobbing, its dewlap extended.

The temperature of the explosion can reach the temperatures found in the interior of the sun, Udon snarled. It would more than simply melt the refrigerator!

“I believe something like 50% of deaths at the atomic bombing in Hiroshima was caused by burns,” Angela added. “Second degree burns on over 30% of the body could lead to serious shock and will be fatal unless immediate and specialized medical care is provided.”

Yes! Udon agreed with a snarl. A small detonation of a nuclear weapon can cause third-degree burns as close as five miles away. How close is this “Indiana Jones” to “site zero” of the explosion? What is the size of the explosion? If it is more than a single megaton then there is absolutely no way that he walks out of it alive!

Hanzo traded the full beer for his empty bottle with a muttered word of thanks. “Talkative?” McCree asked, holding very still as Soba continued to perch and bob its head on his shoulders.

“Very...opinionated,” Hanzo replied, glancing down at the bottle but thankfully not drinking.

SCIENCE IS NOT AN OPINION, McCree thought he heard someone say but the only ones with a voice like that, Winston and Soldier 76, were arguing about the shockwave and flashblindness that would have occurred to the soldiers trying to escape the blast.

Hanzo winced as if he could hear the voice too. He leaned into McCree’s shoulder with a tired sigh.

If the refrigerator was apparently so safe, then why aren’t there more flying around? Soba demanded. And there are no latches on the inside of the door - how did he keep it shut? What about the radiation he is now bathed in?

Udon threw its head around. I can’t take this anymore, it grumbled and disappeared. McCree, who had been watching, was interested to note that the tattoo on Hanzo’s arm did not glow or fill in with color. Perhaps it needed both to do so?

“You gonna stick around?” McCree asked Soba who butted its head into McCree’s hand. It clambered down his front and tucked its head under the edge of McCree’s serape. “Does it hurt you?” McCree asked Hanzo who was looking at Soba and McCree with an odd look on his face. “If one returns but the other doesn’t?”

The archer shook his head. “Not really,” he said simply and left it at that. He tapped his beer against McCree’s and they both took a sip while the scientists argued around them. Soba’s tail continued to twitch.

In the end, it took nearly five hours to watch the entire movie because all of the scientists - and “science-sensitive” as McCree mentally called Soldier 76 - couldn’t stop arguing about the elements of the movie.

Jurassic Park

The choice of Jurassic Park was most likely done as a nod to the dragons, considering how similar to large lizards they appeared to be. They seemed into it as well, bobbing their heads in a way that Hanzo explained was in excitement.

That is...until the group took the tour that explained how the dinosaurs were created.

Hanzo wordlessly reached for his beer.

THE DNA IS TOO OLD FOR THIS! Udon boomed.

Ramen’s claws skittered across the table as it scrambled toward the blue dragons. Perhaps not, it argued. The mosquito is preserved in amber.

That doesn’t stop the natural process of decay, Soba argued. In theory yes, the blood itself is preserved but the enzymes in the DNA that would lead to the cloning process would simply be too old to be usable.

Udon bobbed its head, twisting to look around at Soba. I had not realized that DNA decayed.

Smugly, Soba bobbed its head. Yes! There is also the idea of how old dinosaurs are in human time. To any of us, their concept of “a long time” - in this case over 65 million years ago would be nothing but to the decay of DNA it is far too long! DNA and organic matter have - compared to rocks and many other inorganic minerals and crystals - a very short half-life.

So by that logic the DNA, whatever had been viable in the mosquito when it was fossilized in amber, has decreased by half until the amount is negligible, Udon concluded.

Precisely, Soba agreed. I heard that this film is actually based on a book - Hanzo! Can we get the book?

All three of the dragons twisted around to look at the archer, bobbing their heads excitedly. “Very well,” Hanzo said tiredly, reaching for his phone to order it. “They want to read the book as well,” he explained to McCree and Hana, who watched the dragons’ excitement.

Why did dinosaurs go extinct? Ramen asked curiously. I don’t think I ever learned that.

Perhaps you weren’t paying attention, Udon grumbled. You and Genji had never been particularly studious.

Ramen bobbed its head with an almost smug look. You were the most studious of all of us and yet you don’t know either!

I know that! Soba exclaimed. They went extinct because of what is called the K-T, or Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction event! It’s also sometimes called the Cretaceous-Paleogene event but I think K-T sounds better. It’s named for the boundary in geologic time where an unusually thick layer of the element iridum is found.

Udon tipped its head to the side. Iridium? What’s so special about that?

It’s not commonly found in the crust, Soba explained. In fact, many would say that it doesn’t occur naturally at all on Earth but that’s not necessarily true. There are only two naturally-occurring isotopes, but it is produced albeit in very small quantities - relatively, of course.

Curious, Genji leaned closer which drew the attention of the rest of the room. “What’s so special about the iridium?”

Since it is very rarely produced by the crust, geologists weren’t sure why there was such a thick layer of it, Soba explained. It also occurred - for the most part - worldwide at the same boundaries between geologic time: at the end of the Cretaceous period. Which led two scientists named Alvarez to wonder why. They proposed a theory that the iridium was left behind as a result of an impact of a cosmic body.

“There’s no iridium in here,” Winston said curiously as Soba was speaking. “But they are talking about DNA that should have become obsolete in the time period between the death of the dinosaurs and the events of the movie.”

“No,” Hanzo explained. “Soba is talking about the extinction of the dinosaurs and what killed them.”

Winston frowned. “Well, I’d like to know,” McCree said before the scientist could say anything. “I was always told it was a meteor.”

“Yes,” Mei agreed shyly from her corner. “Suddenly the comment about the iridium makes sense! Some of the very old ice cores have traces of iridium very deep down in the ice. It’s rare to find in the Earth’s crust but it’s highly abundant in celestial bodies. If there is a particularly large impact, then the iridium will be present - usually only locally to the impact site - in high enough concentrations and thick enough layers to prove it.”

McCree scratched his head thoughtfully as Hanzo took a deep drink from his beer. “So the dinosaurs were killed by a meteor,” he said. “Must’ve been a really big one.”

“Not so large,” Mei said immediately and paused, looking at the dragons. “But...I guess I should let Soba explain, right?” She smiled nervously at the creature who bobbed its head cheerfully at her. McCree wondered if she knew what its expression meant.

He wondered what it said that he could.

The Chicxulub crater in the Gulf of Mexico is about 180-kilometers wide, Soba said as Genji translated. The impact threw up debris into the sky which altered the climate worldwide - days grew darker and it had a cascading effect as it killed plants then the herbivores that ate them, and so on. This is highly thought to be the primary reason for the extinction event, but the climate change was also likely helped along by other factors such as volcanic eruptions or sea level change - potentially even both.

McCree noticed the prominent frown on Winston’s face but said nothing - it was thoughtful but not annoyed and he hoped that this proof of intelligence was enough to get him to stop hunting the dragons to prove or disprove it.

There were a few other questions but they were all once more distracted by the movie. They rewound to catch up with the parts they missed and the dragons returned to their chosen perches: Soba to McCree’s lap, Udon to Hanzo’s, and Ramen to where it was draped over and around Hana’s shoulders.

Leaning down carefully so he wouldn’t dislodge Soba, McCree reached for another beer for himself and Hanzo. The dragon batted his hand away and chose the bottles itself and was rewarded with scritches. When the bottle caps were pried off by his mechanical hand, McCree gave them to Soba who toyed with them in its awkward claws. They weren’t too good for grasping things like a hand was, but they were malleable enough to hold and manipulate larger things.

Lately Soba had been trying to flip a coin over its talons the way it had seen McCree do and it was adorable to watch it try to flip the bottle cap in such a way. He stole back the second one and used his metal hand to flatten the sides to make it easier; Soba leaned up and nudged him in the chin in thanks with its blunt nose.

At their side, McCree noted Hanzo’s gentle flush but didn’t say anything to the other man to preserve his dignity - so he told himself.

Later on as the credits roll he thinks he hears someone say, the science may be wrong but it was a very good movie. I think the book would be a good read too. There was no one else awake save Soldier 76, McCree, and the dragons - even Hanzo was asleep - and the voice definitely wasn’t the old veteran.

The Core

“They seem to have a lot to say about it,” McCree whispered to Hanzo, leaning just a little more into the archer’s space.

Hanzo snorted into his beer. “Don’t ask,” he said dryly and McCree tried not to be distracted the way Hanzo’s lips wrapped around his beer. From the wicked gleam in Hanzo’s eyes, he noticed. When he was sure that no one was noticing, Hanzo dropped the hand between them to very gently brush the palm of McCree’s flesh hand.

“Yer killin’ me,” McCree muttered and Hanzo’s coquettish smile dropped in favor of a real one. He leaned against McCree’s side, tucking himself further under the cowboy’s serape.

If their fingers tangled together between them, then no one but the two of them (and the dragons, most likely) needed to know.

Here, have a few interesting articles about nuclear explosions, dinosaur DNA, (and Indiana Jones):

Burns

Fireball

Thermal Radiation

How Indiana Jones may die in the stupid fridge scene

Can extinct animals be “brought back to life”?

Bringing dinosaurs back to life and the other issues with reconstructing dino-DNA

Inspired by Those Engineering Friends I have that always need to Science the Heck out of things...I’m one to talk because once you start talking about rocks I get excited. 

[dweemeister]

War of the Worlds (2005)

Shortly after California told its residents to stay at home a few weeks ago because of the COVID-19 outbreak, the first films I watched as my home state grinded to a halt were Ousmane Sembène’s Emitaï (1971, Senegal) and Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds. Emitaï, in its patient beauty, lambasts colonialism in its depiction of a tribe resisting French forces from imposing a rice tax. War of the Worlds, the subject of this review, is one of the first post-9/11 disaster films that have a noticeable difference in tone and approach to those released before the attacks. I definitely know how to calm myself down with a nice relaxing movie (so thank goodness I watched and reviewed 2011′s Contagion years ago). The lightheartedness and star-spangled romps that are Independence Day (1996) and Armageddon (1998) this is not. War of the Worlds, loosely based on H.G. Wells’ classic science-fiction novel of the same name, is closer in spirit to 2006’s United 93 and World Trade Center than those late ‘90s films.

Spielberg’s film is a tale of two halves. A stellar opening hour capturing the initial desperation and unknown threat of the alien attack gives way to incomplete character arcs, inexplicable decisions, and an incoherent resolution that fails to achieve the catharsis it wants. The filmmakers may not be entirely intentional in their portrayal of a (mostly) faceless threat wreaking destruction. Along with The Day After Tomorrow (2004), War of the Worlds set the mood for disaster films long after becoming faded memories in retail bargain baskets, cluttered DVD shelves, and the non-curated hellscape of premium cable and streaming services. The bleakness of these post-9/11 films hew closer to Wells’ motivations when his book was first published in 1898 rather than the jolly arrogance of the 1990s disaster films. As such, War of the Worlds – an afterthought in Spielberg’s filmography and something I paid little attention to upon its release – may just yet outlast the entertaining, unquestioning disaster films it is so often compared to.

Ray Ferrier (Tom Cruise) is a divorced longshoreman who commutes from Bayonne, New Jersey to the docks in Brooklyn. His house sits near a looming overpass; American flags are being flown on the front porches of the entire street. This would be a Norman Rockwell illustration if the neighborhood was less blue-collar. It is his weekend to look after teenage son Robbie (Justin Chatwin) and younger daughter Rachel (Dakota Fanning). Robbie and Rachel favor Ray’s ex-wife Mary Ann (Miranda Otto) and her current boyfriend Tim (David Alan Basche). Mary Ann and Tim drive to Boston to visit her parents, and Ray – again – fails to form a connection with Robbie, who insists on calling his biological father by his first name. Rachel, timid and claustrophobic, is not nearly as rebellious, but it is clear she would rather be elsewhere. Soon after, an anomalous electrical storm spawns activates “tripods” buried beneath the Earth’s surface. These alien tripods disintegrate items and people instantly with a blinding white energy beam, which Ray witnesses with a crowd after running off and telling his children to shelter in place. Returning home, Ray barks orders, without explanation, to his two frightened children to pack their belongings and food for a sudden trip to their mother’s place.

Others of note appearing in this adaptation of War of the Worlds are the traumatized Harlan Ogilvy (Tim Robbins); Ray’s friends Vincent and Julio (Rick Gonzalez and Yul Vázquez); and the children’s grandparents (Gene Barry and Ann Robinson, who played the leads in the original 1953 film adaptation). Morgan Freeman narrates the opening and closing seconds of the film.

Spielberg and screenwriters Josh Friedman (1996’s Chain Reaction, 2019’s Terminator: Dark Fate) and David Koepp (the first two Jurassic Park films, 2008’s Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull) are conflicted about whether their adaptation of War of the Worlds is about a father’s redemption or, like Wells’ novel and the 1953 film adaptation, a broad metaphor of nationalistic hubris. There is nothing preventing them from attempting both, but the film, not without considerable effort, falls short at both. Spielberg’s War of the Worlds is a character-driven piece where Wells’ novel (only one human protagonist is named, and he relates what he has witnessed to an unnamed narrator) are the 1953 film (two lead characters thinly developed beyond their professional duties) are not. Wells’ work and disaster film/invasion literature does not completely resist personalized narratives, but the grand scope of their stories makes personalization tougher because of the thematic juggling they require.

For those keeping score of father figures in Spielberg films, War of the Worlds positions Ray in a story that progresses towards paternal redemption. Ray is a terrible communicator to his children; he never comes to terms or improves on those skills. He is an inadequate provider for his children and has little knowledge of their inner lives, dismissing those failures and oversights as legacies from his divorce and his fatiguing job. The disrespect between Ray and Robbie across War of the Worlds generates turmoil throughout, but a decision that Ray must make about his oldest child – who is spiteful, reckless, and more childish than he would like to think – neuters the screenplay’s advances towards Ray’s paternal redemption. With Robbie’s aborted character development and decisions coming out of left field, this is where the film derails, never again reaching the heights of the technical and aesthetic mastery of its opening hour. Most of the Jurassic Park-esque final third with Tim Robbins’ Ogilvy forgets Ray’s character development, preferring to emphasize Ogilvy’s disturbed mentality. The handful of exchanges between Ray and Rachel as they stay with Ogilvy have the best examples of acting in the film. Though Ray’s efforts to tend to Rachel are flawed as he contends with Ogilvy’s deteriorating mindset, he succeeds. Rachel, in the grimy darkness of these scenes, now looks and trusts Ray to protect her. As vindicating as this is, the preposterous closing scene that discloses Robbie’s fate of War of the Worlds undermines the writers’ intentions.*

War of the Worlds is Spielberg’s attempt at allegorizing the terrorist attacks of four years prior and the United States’ response to them. Certain images of this film are references to the sights that announced that America was indeed pregnable. Ray’s detritus-covered silence after returning from the first attack in Bayonne harken to the scenes of survivors and first responders finding their way in the dust clouds after the Twin Towers’ collapse. A downed Boeing 747’s fuselage is ripped open, with belongings strewn to the side, evoking United Airlines Flight 93. A lengthy board of the pictures of missing loved ones – with messages of love and sorrow written on these notices – might be familiar to those in the greater New York City area. For Americans of a certain age – namely, those old enough to remember the attacks and their aftermath – these scenes are loaded, a reminder of a dreadful day.

Spielberg, Friedman, and Koepp’s appropriation of these images for War of the Worlds never teeters on the exploitative, but their evocations feel empty. The rubble covering the bodies of Ground Zero survivors and responders became symbolic of their mental trauma and the physical health effects that have delayed their deaths at the hands of terrorists. When we see Ray sitting in his kitchen, barely able to muster a word to his children about what he has witnessed, his reaction seems realistic but the imagery is off-putting. The wreck of a 747 is a hollow reference to United 93 and the desperate passenger rebellion that ensued onboard; the wreck’s presence in War of the Worlds, given that we hear but never see the crash, feels like a contrivance by Friedman and Koepp to bolster the drama – Ray and the kids were THAT close to being rammed by a commercial plane. Given the speed and lethality of the tripod invasion, who has time to assemble a wall of missing persons in short order?

This version of War of the Worlds, like any artwork, is a snapshot of a culture or cinematic trends at a point in time. By 2005, the United States’ War on Terror included wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These conflicts, presented as actions of moral clarity and relative ease for the American military, proved anything but. Spielberg’s War of the Worlds superficially touches upon themes H.G. Wells might find familiar: the overwhelming military force of the world’s superpower brought to a foreign nation, with little consultation from that nation’s residents to understand their interests. Here, the United States’ military might is associated with the alien tripods. But the opposite can also be true. At times, this War of the Worlds associates the United States’ enemies as the invaders, with the American military as the defending force (as they are literally portrayed). In this interpretation, gone is the allegory berating imperialism; in its place, a rather hollow inquisition about how the Pax Americana has failed to live up to its ideals. In two separate instances, Robbie and Rachel ask if the destructive force that their father is trying to save them from are, “terrorists.” Whether or not a viewer sees one of these interpretations as more valid than the other, Spielberg presents a United States with a scrambled understanding of its place in the world. Whether or not a viewer sees one of these interpretations as more valid than the other, Spielberg presents a United States with a scrambled understanding of its place in the world, the morality that it attempts – or, for the most cynical among us, claims – to uphold.

Compared to previous Spielberg movies with aliens at their center, War of the Worlds is devoid of the optimism in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982). There are no friendly aliens to be found. The aliens’ motivational ambiguity has thematic parallels to the uncertainty found in most of Close Encounters. It should be no surprise, then, that John Williams’ score to War of the Worlds adopts much of the disorienting atonalism that defines Close Encounters’ first half. One always anticipates a recognizable, hummable motif with Williams, but it never appears. Often, like in “The Ferry Scene”, Williams provides an uncharacteristic atonalism – delivered by ascending rhythmic lines that refuse to resolve to the tonic, blaring brass, and distorted synthetic elements (a musician would probably say that it would be more personally rewarding to play Close Encounters than this). War of the Worlds is a film premised in confusion and wrath. Williams has composed a complex, harsh score appropriate for that premise, even if this means the cues for this film are difficult to listen to outside the film’s context.

As much as I find the paternal redemption unsatisfying, Spielberg based Ray’s character arc on his own reconciliation with his father. Spielberg had incorrectly blamed his father for divorcing his mother, continuing to do so even after he learned the truth. After years of portraying absentee or workaholic fathers (Close Encounters, E.T., 1989’s Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, 1991’s Hook, etc.), War of the Worlds marks an increasing forgiveness in how Spielberg handles fathers – culminating with Daniel Day-Lewis in Lincoln (2012), which portrays the sixteenth President of the United States as a master politician (not exactly Honest Abe, as it includes a bold lie to Congress in order to keep peace negotiations secret) who tries to make time for his two surviving sons. This is a fascinating development in Spielberg’s maturation as a person and storyteller, however blemished this is.

The 2010s saw many action/superhero films defined by their nihilistic violence and gloom. War of the Worlds – with its propulsive action and intriguing style – is not uniquely responsible for those attitudes, but it began, in earnest, a procession of films examining the role and responsibilities of post-9/11 America through parable. Few of those films have been eloquent in their commentaries; War of the Worlds certainly attempts to do so, but it is inconsistent. Released near the beginning of that national reckoning, the film is all the more interesting because of that precocious timing, its status in Spielberg’s filmography still undetermined.

My rating: 6.5/10

^ Based on my personal imdb rating. Half-points are always rounded down. My interpretation of that ratings system can be found here.

*This should not be construed to be a criticism of how the alien invasion of Earth concludes. Spielberg, like Byron Haskin when he directed the 1953 version, keeps Wells’ original ending – often pilloried, but one that I find naturally poetic.

[robedisimo]

Blade Runner 2049 [SPOILER-FREE REVIEW]

[Disclaimer: this review is based on the Italian dub of the film. As such, all opinions on the quality of dialogues and acting are subjective and partial.]

I’ve seen things – not many, but a few – you people wouldn’t believe. One of them is an empty theatre at the premiere of a Blade Runner sequel. All things considered, it’s not hard to understand why audiences, all hope beaten out of them by fifteen years of prequels, sequels, remakes and reboots, would initially shy away from this obvious candidate for disaster.

Yet we few, we happy few, who dared to sit down in a darkened theatre hall with low expectations and a hole in our wallets came out three hours later with the most unexpected of feelings: that of just having seen one of the best films in 2017, and possibly in quite a longer while than that. Thirty-five years in the making and likely one of the most warily anticipated films in our collective lifespans, Blade Runner 2049 is a small modern miracle. The ways it could’ve gone wrong were almost innumerable – two of them, Harrison Ford and Jared Leto, are right there on the poster – but, somehow, it managed to push through it all.

There’s very little I can say about this film without spoiling its plot, so let me get a few technical evaluations out of the way before getting to the true meat of the matter. Blade Runner 2049 is, first and foremost, a gorgeous piece of cinema. Denis Villeneuve (Arrival) once again proves to be one of the most prominent rising stars in contemporary filmmaking, elevating this sequel – and the blockbuster genre as a whole – to pure cinematic art. It doesn’t hurt that Villeneuve is probably more in touch with the description of “arthouse director” than Ridley Scott was at the beginning of his career, either; still, the bulk of the praise must go to director of cinematography Roger Deakins, whose now-inevitable fourteenth Academy Award nomination could result in civil war if this film doesn’t get finally get him a damn Oscar.

There’s little point in my describing the film’s visual feel: you have to see it for yourself. I’ll just say that the use of light in its scenes is some of the most arrestingly beautiful I’ve ever had the pleasure to see in a movie, and that the number of shots worthy of being framed and put on exhibit far exceeds my ability to recall at the moment. This is a supremely good-looking film, expanding and building upon the original’s seminal aesthetic in ways that update the franchise for a 2010s audience while staying true to the first film’s retro, neo-noir vibe.

The world 2049 creates is a deeply immersive one, believable and tactile in its concreteness. Everything that made Blade Runner’s cyberpunk design memorable is remarkably echoed and scaled up, resulting in often monumental sets of majestic dystopian grace. A great deal of credit for that also goes to Hans Zimmer and Benjamin Wallfisch’s score, booming and rumbling with ominous tones and never quite content to simply recycle Vangelis’s iconic original soundtrack. Add a few legimately good ideas about the (near and far) future of consumer technology, and this Blade Runner sequel comes out an extremely poignant example of sci-fi entertainment packaged within a rounded, cohesive audio-visual experience. If you were worried the earlier release date of Ghost in the Shell – itself a Blade Runner-inspired franchise – would end up stealing 2049′s stylistic thunder, you can rest easy: this is a whole other level of spectacle.

Narrative-wise, the film moves assuredly on the strength of a solid plot and compelling characters, supported by generally valid performances. Villeneuve and screenwriter Hampton Fancher allow the film a relaxed, contemplative pace – not dissimilarly from its predecessor – but, thanks to a suitably expanded runtime, can devote time enough both to the setting and its atmosphere and to character development. Ryan Gosling’s protagonist – an alternately steely and emotional character reminiscent of his visceral role in 2011′s Drive, aided by a fantastically compelling turn by co-star Ana de Amas – is one we get to know deeply and personally, unlike the original film’s Deckard. Ironically, it’s in 2049 itself that we finally start knowing Harrison Ford’s enigmatic eponymous character as a man, outside of his professional detective persona.

For his part, Ford does his job to satisfying results, topping both his return in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (by roughly a cinematic light year) and his more recent revival in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. There’s something about the fact that these legacy sequels seem to get proportionally better the less screentime Ford gets in them, but I get the feeling that’s something best left unsaid. Meanwhile, Jared Leto and Syliva Hoeks work okay as the film’s eerie antagonists, but their characters’ motivations are, in fairness, the least explored, leading to their coming off as slightly more cartoony and melodramatic than the rest of the cast.

As to complaints, my only gripe would be that 2049 feels a bit like one film and a half, and not just because of its runtime. Clocking in at over 160 minutes, there’s a feeling at some points in its third and final act that the Blade Runner sequel we sat down to watch ended at the two-hour mark, and that the film’s climax is in fact a heavily condensed version of what could’ve just as easily been a third chapter in the franchise. Still, the movie ramps up to a tense and – ultimately – meaningful finale, and most remarkably one that manages to tie into the original’s while resisting the temptation to ape its ever-quotable monologue.

All that should do it for a critique of the film’s substance, but it’s its role in modern cinema that still deserves a fair deal of discussion. To begin with, Blade Runner 2049 is already being talked about as one of the best sequels ever produced, although we probably shouldn’t fool ourselves into thinking Hollywood will now know how to get sequels right: 2049 is less a messiah ushering in a new era and more a happy exception to a well-established rule. On the contrary: its mind-bending importance isn’t aimed forwards – despite the fact that everyone attempting a sci-fi thriller from now on will have to hold it as an inescapable measuring stick – but rather backwards, rippling all the way back to the original.

When I first became interested in cinema, Blade Runner was already a piece of film history. After all, Ridley Scott definitely had a sizeable role in shaping the concept of contemporary blockbuster filmmaking between the inception of this very franchise and his debut with Alien a few years prior. 2049 can’t touch that status, no matter how hard it tries; instead, it subtly works to change what its forefather was about, and how the two instalments relate to each other. Amazingly, brazenly bold in their narrative scope, 2049′s plot developments are of such pivotal magnitude in its world’s history that the original Blade Runner’s story becomes positioned as set-up to what we didn’t know was coming.

In more than a way, 2049 eschews the performance anxiety so common among sequels by completely refusing to act as a narrative appendix to its predecessor, instead actively working to turn the first film into a prologue to this new chapter’s much bigger, much more momentous events. Even more than that, it could be argued that 2049 consumes its final act of defiance by treating Blade Runner as somewhat unnecessary viewing, though that’s entirely unintentional. Make no mistakes, this sequel treats its predecessor with nothing but the utmost reverence; it just happens to be assembled so competently that all you need to know about the first film’s role in the latter’s plot is conveyed, with grace and effectiveness, within the sequel itself, with very little need for the viewer to have actually seen the original.

Thus 2049 finds itself in an extremely eccentric position: that of being one of those few fabled sequels that manage to vastly improve upon the original – The Empire Strikes Back, The Godfather Part II, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes being the most readily available examples – but, unlike most direct follow-ups, being so remote from the first film in terms of chronological separation that its status as the superior product can’t be acknowledged without an impressive measure of awkwardness. Blade Runner is simply too iconic to be knocked off its pedestal, and yet 2049 is, plainly speaking, the better product... even if a lot of what’s so great about it owes a vast creative debt to the original’s groundbreaking nature. Like a snake eating its own tail, it’s very likely we’ll never hear the end of this debate in the coming decades of academic film critique.

In conclusion, Blade Runner 2049 is the closest thing to a masterpiece I’ve witnessed in quite a while. As science fiction, as a sequel, and as a film unto itself, it’s a prime example of something done very, very right. Could the minds behind it choose to tempt fate once more and dare to go for a threequel? Who can tell. As I type this, 2049 is headed for what could very well be a way more contained opening-weekend box office than projected, poetically joining its iconic parent film in the ranks of critically-acclaimed commercial failures. Perhaps, in modern Hollywood’s sea of cinematic replicants, the only thing viewers can no longer stomach is a film with a soul.

[Verdict: VERY POSITIVE]

[ramajmedia]

Indiana Jones: 10 Things From Raiders Of The Lost Ark That Haven't Aged Well

Steven Spielberg is quite possibly the most imaginative and diverse director of his generation, and this is best seen in his blockbuster legend Raiders of the Lost Ark. Indiana Jones’ (Harrison Ford) cinematic debut has him fighting Nazis around the world in a breathtaking adventure movie that only Spielberg could make. Since then, action movies followed Raiders’ example and Indy’s presence was never forgotten.

But like the serial adventures that inspired Spielberg and George Lucas to create Indy, some parts of Raiders of the Lost Ark didn’t age well. None of these detract from the movie’s cultural impact and its entertainment value, but they cast some harsh light on what is normally seen as an adventurous and light-hearted throwback. Here are 10 things from Raiders of the Lost Ark that didn’t age well.

10 The Prologue

Raiders of the Lost Ark overflows with iconic moments, with its prologue being one of the best opening acts in cinematic history. Here, Indy braves a trap-filled temple to get his hands on an ancient artifact. Because of how effective this sequence was, it became the subject of parody ever since it was first seen in cinemas.

RELATED: The 10 Most Memorable Steven Spielberg Characters, Ranked

From Weird Al Yankovic’s UHF to The Simpsons to even Disaster Movie, imitating Indy’s action-packed introduction is practically a cottage industry. Chicken Little took this to the extreme by literally showing the scene before the boulder rolled in.

9 World War 2 In General

While it takes place a few years before global war broke out, Raiders of the Lost Ark was still made with World War II firmly lodged in its mind. As if the Nazis didn’t make things obvious enough, Indy and his friends represent the Allied Forces that would later team up to end the war.

The aesthetic can make for fun period pieces, but World War II itself has become a cliché. Today, setting a story during the war is seen as a shortcut to gaining audience sympathy since the genre’s simplistic morals are basically premade.

8 Funny Nazis and the Mystic Arts

Cartoonishly evil Nazis are practically a tradition of heightened World War II fiction, with Raiders of the Lost Ark featuring its famously occult-obsessed members of the Third Reich. As delightfully villainous as Major Toht and company may be, their characterizations still ignored the inhuman ideals that real-world Nazis believed.

RELATED: The 10 Best Movies Of All Time, According To IMDB

Spielberg seemingly acknowledged this as proven by his Holocaust drama Schindler’s List and the works that followed. No longer were Nazis depicted as silly bad guys for someone to beat up. Instead, they were shown in all of their monstrosity and inhumanity.

7 Destructive Archeology

A common joke about Indiana Jones is how much he sucks at being an archeologist. He may know everything about ancient cultures and their histories, but he habitually destroys their places of worship every time he drops by.

In reality, archeologists take great pains to keep their dig sites as intact as possible. Indy, on the other hand, demolishes a Peruvian and Egyptian place of worship over the course of Raiders of the Lost Ark. Sure, he had to escape certain death hence the collateral damage but he’s still terrible at preserving ancient structures for future generations’ benefit.

6 Indy Is A Graverobber

The field of archeology has come under scrutiny today thanks to hindsight, with many nations calling out former colonial powers for stealing their ancient culture’s artifacts in the name of insensitive academic pursuit that disregards countries’ histories.

A good example of this in Raiders of the Lost Ark is the prologue where Indy steals an idol from an indigenous tribe because his museum probably needed a new attraction. Even the Ark of the Covenant wasn’t spared, which by the end is just stashed somewhere in Area 51 despite it being a literal Biblical superweapon.

5 Old-Timey Racism

Raiders of the Lost Ark and the rest of Indy’s adventures were inspired by the pulp serial that Spielberg and Lucas enjoyed as kids, which explains the movies’ many anachronistic elements such as unintentional racism.

Simply put, people of non-Western nationalities are shown as exotic caricatures at best and non-white bad guys at worst. The Hovitos tribe, Toht’s Nepalese gunmen, and the Egyptians only exist to hinder or help Indy, having little to no agency to speak of. While their depictions are a product of the archaic adventurer genre’s trappings, the racially insensitive subtext can’t be ignored.

4 Sallah

One of Indy’s best friends is Sallah, a fellow archeologist and excavator who’s known for his jovial attitude. He’s also an Egyptian who’s portrayed by the Welsh actor John Rhys-Davies in both Raiders of the Lost Ark and The Last Crusade.

To the filmmakers’ credit, Sallah is a fun and well-written supporting character who was expertly brought to life by Davis. Still, this doesn’t excuse the casting of a Welshman for a character clearly written as an Egyptian. The fact that Davis actually spent majority of his youth in Tanzania because his father was a colonial officer doesn’t help matters.

3 Indiana Jones

Since he’s based on the likes of Doc Savage, it shouldn’t be surprising to say that Indiana Jones is an outdated archetype. This isn’t just because explorers aren’t famous, but because of his attitude and mannerisms.

RELATED: Everything We Know (So Far) About Indiana Jones 5

Indy is a stereotypical man’s man, someone who’s so manly that even as an academic his forte is punching people. Because he’s the hero, he gets away with casual misogyny, violence, and has to heroically dodge women’s affection (ex. One of his students). This doesn’t make him terrible, but his example is better left in the confines of cinema and mythmaking.

2 Marion Ravenwood

Like many female leads in action movies of the period, Marion Ravenwood is a proactive woman capable of fighting but still needs a man. A man who, in Indy’s case, she’s constantly irritated by and has legitimate reason to hate him.

When she’s not fighting, Marion is often stuck with people who want to take advantage of her. Pirate captain Katanga even saves her life by claiming she’s a sex slave to be sold. To be fair, Marion is the series’ best female lead but given her role in Raiders of the Lost Ark, the bar’s set pretty low.

1 Indy and Marion’s Relationship

Indy and Marion’s love is considered to be the true romance of the Indiana Jones series. Too bad its origins are creepy.

When they first meet in Raiders of the Lost Ark, Marion yells at Indy for taking advantage of her when she was “a child.” She was being literal, as the novelization confirms that she was 15 when she slept with Indy – who was in his ‘20s. Legally speaking, that's a huge no-no. Worsening this is the revelation that Indy left her on their wedding before Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, further sullying Indy’s reputation among fans.

NEXT: The 10 Best Harrison Ford Movies, According To IMDB

source https://screenrant.com/things-from-raiders-of-the-lost-ark-that-havent-aged-well/

[janikbesendorf-blog]

Iguazú Falls sits right at the border of Brazil and Argentina with both countries claiming to provide the best Iguazú experience. So, which country delivers? Enchanting Travels provides the lowdown for your trip to South America. 

The Brazilian side provides a more stunning panorama, but the Argentine side has more vantage points from where you can actually get up close and personal with the falls.

Marvel at rainbows that appear alongside the magnificent falls

The Iguazú Falls are heralded as the most dramatic and among the most monumental waterfalls in the world, tumbling over the cliffs on the border with the Argentine province of Misiones and Brazilian state of Paraná. Voted as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, the Iguazú Falls are undoubtedly the most visited place in Misiones and one of the most imposing natural attractions in the world.

Did you know? On her first sight of the tremendous Iguazú Falls, former First Lady of the USA Eleanor Roosevelt exclaimed, “Poor Niagara!”

When you think of waterfalls, the first names that automatically come to mind are of the dramatic Niagara Falls and the magnificent Victoria Falls.

Now, the Niagara Falls are undoubtedly the world’s most famous, the Victoria Falls are surely the world’s largest, but the Iguazú Falls are unhesitatingly the most impressive and exquisite! During a trip to Argentina, it’s something you just cannot miss!

The name Iguazú translates to ‘Great Waters’ and one look at the falls and you’ll know why.

Also known as the Iguassu Falls and the Iguaçu Falls, the term Iguazú means ‘great waters’ in Tupi and Guarani language.

Ancient Brazilian tribes always knew about these tumultuous thunderous falls, but it was little known worldwide until it was officially discovered by the European explorer and Spanish Conquistador Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1541. Today, the falls are owned by the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites – the Iguazú National Park in Argentina and the Iguaçu National Park in Brazil.

Taller than Niagara and wider than Victoria, the Iguazú Falls are the result of a volcanic eruption that left a large crack in the earth. The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7 km (1.67 miles) of the Iguazú River.

The thundering Iguazú falls

At an 80 meter canyon in the fierce foaming cauldron of the Devil’s Throat, the water produces a thundering sound. Here, several falls join together hurtling down a sheer drop, then draining into the Paraná river.

Make a trip to Argentina during the spring and fall for the best views of the falls.

So which is the better side to view the Iguazú? – The Argentine or Brazilian side?

Both sides are simply wonderful, and it’s definitely worth seeing from both places. It all depends on what you want to see and how you want to do so – on ground or aerial.

Iguazu: Birds’ eye view

Two thirds of the falls are within the Argentine territory. If you wish to see and ‘feel’ the falls from a height, then that’s best done from the Argentine side.

The Argentine side has two basic viewing circuits – an upper path and a lower path. The upper path offers exhilarating panoramic vistas and dizzying views from a footbridge/catwalk vantage point – truly an unforgettable experience! There may be some occasional mist.

Walk along the bridge for spectacular views of the falls

An aerial view lets you experience the sheer power and enormity of the falls. On the lower path leading to the base of the falls, the spray happily moistens you. This circuit also offers a boat trip to Isla San Martín. The Argentine side is ideal for seeing radiant poly-chromatic single or double rainbows.

360° views

Brazil offers an astounding multi-dimensional panorama! If its picture-perfect views and flawless shutter exposures you want, then head on over to experience the falls from the Brazilian side.

The Brazilian side offers a 360° view.

Consisting of a network of 275 waterfalls spanning an area of nearly 3 km wide, incredible vistas of the falls from virtually every angle in a 360° view takes your breath away! If you wish to enjoy a helicopter ride, then the Brazilian side is the place to do it.

“One’s destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things” ~ Henry Miller

The verdict?

The Argentine side trumps with just that wee bit more to offer.

Although the Brazilian side may have fantastic views and give ideal photographic opportunities, the Argentine side trumps with just that wee bit more to offer – variety of vantage viewing points, easy travel trails and a choice of activities.

The mist rising as the waters crash onto the rocks

The Iguazú Falls has earned such a reputation, that they have been featured in movies like – Mr. Magoo and Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Read more about the top 10 waterfalls in exotic destinations that you need to visit.

At Enchanting Travels, we help you spark an adventure and make memories all over the world – Iguazú Falls is just one such! Don’t just be a tourist, be a traveler!

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Explore the captivating metropolises of Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro during your tour to Brazil and Argentina. Discover the natural wonder of the world that unites these two countries – the magnificent Iguazú Falls.

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Simply Brazil: Highlights & Beach

14 Days: $ 4,100 / person

Discover the highlights, diversity and natural beauty of Brazil on this private tour. Beginning Sao Paolo – the largest city of Brazil, travel to magnificent Iguazu Falls set on the border with Argentina.

Details Inquire

The post Iguazú Falls – The World’s Largest Waterfalls appeared first on Enchanting Travels.

[cebeavers]

Japan 2017 Day 13

September 22, 2017 Tokyo DisneySea DisneySea Photos

Because of the weather we had to push the two Disney parks to the end of the trip. This was less than optimal because once the weekend hits, these rather busy parks become extremely busy. But other parks and attractions were affected by weather and Friday & Saturday called for rain, which I knew wouldn't affect Disney nearly as much.  On Friday morning, we slept a little later than planned.  It was a much needed rest, but eventually we made our way to the Tokyo Disney Resort by around 11am to spend the day at Tokyo DisneySea.  It meant taking a train to Hanieda airport where we had lunch, then a bus directly to the Disneyland resort.

I was afraid since we'd let the morning get away from us, and it was a Friday, that wait times would be unbearable at DisneySea but we actually lucked out for the day.  We headed from Ispiari, their version of a Disneyfied shopping district, to the ticket booth at DisneySea, then into the entry plaza.  Once we passed under Hotel Miracosta, I was just in awe of the entire place.  The entrance was nothing like I’d seen at a Disney park, but once inside everything is just so… amazing.  A high level of detail goes in to everything.  It is absolutely astounding.

Our first destination was Port Discovery as we headed over to our first ride, Aquatopia.  This ride uses RFID pucks to guide water based vehicles around in a very shallow pool (6 inches deep or less) spinning, stopping, and swinging around rocks, waterfalls, and whirlpools.  I anticipated a multi hour long wait, but it was only 25 minutes, so we got in line.  Aquatopia was really a lot of fun!

After our ride, we noticed that the park's newest attraction, a re-themed Nemo themed simulator, had a fairly long line so we got a fast pass for later.  Then we headed into the inner part of Mt. Prometheus, into the Mysterious Island.  This faux volcano houses several attractions, restaurants, shops, and serves as the centerpiece of the park (the 'castle' if you will).  The whole park is amazingly themed and one you enter the crater lake in the middle of the mountain structure where you have plenty of entertainment options.  We eventually made it into a cave and got in line for Journey to the Center of the Earth, the park's signature attraction, in the volcano.  It only had an hour or so wait, which wasn't bad, and the queue was immensely themed.

Journey to the Center of the Earth-First, the queue.  You wind around the cave seeing offices and labs from the explorers that went on the adventure.  Then you end up at the elevator shafts that are the start of the attraction.  The ‘terravator’ is your way down deep into the caves, a ‘half mile down’, where you then queue for your ride vehicles.  We had to wait an extra moment since we were the tall Americans in line to sit in the front so that we could fit in the vehicles.

Once boarded you basically follow the notes left by the explorers in the Jules Verne themed attraction, seeing the giant crystal caves, giant mushroom caverns, waterfalls, odd creatures, and more.  There’s an earthquake and a cave-in where you’re diverted and around to the side of the volcano, then back in where eventually a gigantic animatronic subterranean lava monster attacks, before catapulting outside, up, down, and around then inside of the mountain.  While not an extreme thrill ride, it is a lot of fun, and of the three rides based on this technology, this is thus far my favorite.

After that we noticed that 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea had a 25 minute wait, so we went to that next.  The queue is a spiral down to the water in the crater where you then enter a cavern and the queue for the ride.  

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea-This dark ride is basically an inverted monorail that goes thru a lot of ‘underwater’ scenes that make you feel as though you've dived underwater with effects in the 'ships' windows that bubble up and make it look like you're diving down in the ocean.  You come across some different creatures, including mer-people, and electric squid, and Atlantis (I assume.)… The effects were really good and I love a good dark ride.

We had lunch at Volcania, the restaurant in the volcano.  Very good food.  Then we walked around the main lagoon, where a Villains Show was about to begin.  Isaac went in search of a restroom. There were at least 3-4000 people all sitting so quietly around the lagoon waiting for the show to begin.  It was so quiet that it was almost eerie.  When the show began, the show barges just happened to emerge from underneath the bridge I was standing on.  After a few moments of the show, we decided to press on.

At this point, the mist was turning in to rain.  I was under the impression that the main adult coaster at this park was themed to Indiana Jones, so we went in search of that, finding the large Mayan Pyramid in the Lost River Delta section of the park.  The wait was over an hour, but once we entered the massive outside queue we noticed a single rider line.  This would prove to be another win for us.  You get to go thru the entire queue (which, again, was amazingly themed and massive inside and out) as the single rider & fast pass queue are the same until nearly the end where they scan fast pass tickets all while single riders diverge into another line that goes down some stairs and directly into the station.  Our wait was less than the time it took to traverse the queue!  Then I realized that this was like the Indiana Jones ride at Disneyland, and not a roller coaster (the coaster is in Paris)  This was a nice surprise, especially since this one is different.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of the Crystal Skull-The one in California is one of my favorite rides ever, but this one I thought was even better.  In SoCal the ride is themed to India, whereas in Tokyo the ride is themed to Mexico.  You’re still in a jeep, and the physical ride may not be different (I’m not sure), but the theming was amazing as was the storyline (In Japanese!).  I could follow bits and pieces of the story, and that was enough.  There are parts of the first hall that are borrowed from the three rooms in the SoCal version.  Then you’re faced with the crystal skull.  One room has an amazing tornado effect that you go around.  There were several times you're attacked by beams coming out of the eye of the crystal skull and the ride was just really well done.  I enjoyed it, and since the wait was so short, we decided to come back later and try again.

When we emerged it was pouring rain outside, and neither of us thought to bring our umbrellas.  Once the rain subsided just a bit we looked at the wait time for Raging Spirits, the coaster at this park, saw that it was only a 10 minute wait (if that) and decided to get in line.  The queue shows the ride off, and again, the theming is just impeccable.

Raging Spirits-I'd hear some very bad things regarding the comfort level of this ride.  I will say that the OTSRs weren't great, and came down tighter during the ride, but the ride was not rough in any way.  It was highly themed, going up a lift, dropping, hitting the loop, then going thru several more drops and turns.  This is, if I recall correctly, a modified Pinfari Loop layout (the Paris version copies the layout more-so).  I enjoyed it overall.  The rain caused the fog pumped out onto the ride to linger, which was great.

The rain had pretty much set in for a while at this point.  We headed over to see the Arabian Coast section and went by the Little Mermaid section, though we never made it inside.  We did, however, ride the kiddie coaster, Flounder's Flying Fish Coaster, a Togo in really good condition if nothing to write home about.

So by this point we had most of the major attractions as well as both roller coasters done.  The next signature ride that we didn't have a fast pass for was Tower of Terror so we walked across the park to the American Waterfront next.  This Tower is different as it was the first not to be themed to The Twilight Zone.  The line was long and felt like it barely moved.  It was well over 90 minutes.  Most of the queue is outdoors, but once you’re indoors the lobby, though different, was familiar to the other two Towers of Terror I’d ridden in the States.


Tower of Terror-Situated in the American Waterfront section of the park, the Hotel Hightower has its own backstory of an eccentric millionaire and the stuff he found on his adventures.  There's a statue that causes the problems here.  At the end of the winding queue you enter a room with your group where a host or hostess makes some announcements about the back story.  Once that is over, you enter the pre-show room.  Of course, this time there is no Twilight Zone on the television.  Instead, you’re played a gramophone recording of Mr. Hightower’s final press conference about Shiriki, the statue that sits on a pedestal in front of you.  The stained glass window the transforms, Shiriki comes alive (via projection mapping), then he disappears as the lights come back on.  Next, you’re led to the large elevator boarding room, themed to different artifacts Hightower collected, before you finally board the elevator.  The bare bones of the ride are the same as the (now rethemed) former California tower, just differently themed.  The ride itself is, as all of them have been, really great.  Way too much airtime (if that's even a thing), views of the park, and a highly themed queue. Overall wait time was 90 minutes.  I guess it could have been worse.

We walked around for a bit to find an umbrella for Isaac and poncho for me.  While in line for Tower of Terror, a very nice lady gave us 'My First Visit' stickers, which, when seen by other cast members always got us some extra attention which was nice.  I eventually put mine on my poncho.  Soon it was time for our fast passes on Nemo & Friends Searider, a newly re-themed simulator ride.  The preshow was cute with the shrinking sub display, and the overall simulator was well done.  I'm glad we did it, even happier we didn't wait for it.  The story is that you are in a fish themed ‘sub’ that is shrunk down to Nemo size and go on an adventure with Nemo & Friends before blowing back up to real size.  The theater moves somewhat, and the ride was quite fun.

Aquatopia had basically no wait so we got in line for the other side, which was a lot of fun yet again.  We were both hungry and tired.  We looked at options around the American Waterfront area, eventually getting in line for the Sailing Day buffet which ended up being a good 45 minute line.  They give you a full 90 minutes to eat, though, ha-ha.  We barely took up 30 minutes.  I will say that the food was really good and worth the price for an all you can eat at a Disney park.

We rode the Electric Railway back to Port Discover and the walked around the back of the park again and took advantage of Indy's single rider line yet again while back there.  This time, though, we walked through the Lost River Delta section.  From Indy we headed over to the Arabian Coast section and rode the carousel's upper deck.  Then we rode the park's answer to 'it's a small world', Sinbad's Storybook Voyage, a much superior version of the ride.  I loved the song, it was really well done, and the ride itself was very cute.

At that point we were pretty much done and the park was closing soon so we made our way up to the front gate.  I took lots of night shots along the way.  Tokyo DisneySea and the Tokyo Disney Resort have a real metro monorail (that you have to pay to ride) so we got our tickets (not knowing we could have used our Pasimo cards to get on) and hopped around to the station to get our next train back to Yokohama.  DisneySea is everything I'd heard and more.  It was really amazing, intricately detailed, and I'd love to spend a full, non-rainy day there some time in the future.  I hate that we didn’t get a chance to explore more, especially the Lost River Delta section, the Arabian section, the Toy Story area, and so many other things that looked amazing.  The train rides back were long and I was tired, my feet aching.  We considered another Onsen, but decided we were too tired.

Day 14

[tstcman]

A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick

AFTER FANBOYING OUT OVER HIS BOOKS AND TAKING A FEW SELFIES INTERVIEW:

I grew up outside of Chicago and studied English in college. I went off to grad school thinking I was going to be an English professor, but after getting my master’s, I took a year off and tended bar. One night a friend of mine said she’d met the managing editor of Outside magazine and that she thought I should apply for their internship program. Working for a magazine had never really occurred to me; it seemed like something people did in the movies.

In 2009, I was working as an editor at National Geographic Adventure magazine and realized I was seeing pictures of Machu Picchu everywhere—on the cover of the magazine, in the office hallways, in the materials we sent out to potential advertisers. At that time Machu Picchu had roughly the same status for travel magazines as pre-scandal Tiger Woods did for Golf Digest. You could put it on the cover again and again and again and people didn’t care. They’d buy it every time because it was on their wish list.

Another important thing to remember is that Plato was writing about Atlantis when written history was a new technology. For more than 2,000 years everyone assumed that The Odyssey and The Iliad were made up stories, but now many experts believe that they were based on real events. So the question is, how much of the Atlantis story that Plato tells did he intend to be fictional and how much of it did he intend to be taken at face value?

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

He may be telling stories for purposes we don’t fully understand. The Atlantis story, at least the first part, comes at the beginning of the work called Timaeus, which is Plato’s attempt to explain the nature of the cosmos, to explain how the universe worked, arguably the most important topic that could possibly be discussed. A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick it at the beginning of what may have been his most ambitious work strikes me, at the very least, as a little weird.

Since people can’t go to Atlantis like they can Machu Picchu, this book is much less a travel book than the other. What do you want people to take away from this story?

Well, that raises the question of what a travel book is. Hemingway’s novels in Spain? In Patagonia? A Rick Steves book? The Viking Cruises catalog? The thing I always tell people when they ask me how I became a travel writer is that I never became a travel writer—I just became a writer, or to use a term that is overused these days, a storyteller. Everything I write is a nonfiction story with plot development and characters that change in some way during the events conveyed; many of those stories just happen to take place in interesting locales.

WHAT ARE YOUR THREE PIECES OF ADVICE

My grandmother was very into Atlantis, Ancient Aliens, crystal skulls, and the like so when I was younger she would always talk about them with me. Having grown up with an intense fascination with this stuff, I found the science and research behind proving/disproving the myth fascinating (my take: I think Atlantis existed as an advanced society by contemporary standards in Spain). Mark is a captivating writer and both his books were delights to read. Next year, I’m heading to Peru and plan to visit some of the off the beaten path Inca sites mentioned in his book. Time to put on my own Indiana Jones hat!

Put your phone down

Portrait Studio and using

Will be impressed

You travel, and if you

Opportunity to explore

He may be telling stories for purposes we don’t fully understand. The Atlantis story, at least the first part, comes at the beginning of the work called Timaeus, which is Plato’s attempt to explain the nature of the cosmos, to explain how the universe worked, arguably the most important topic that could possibly be discussed.

WHAT ARE YOUR THREE PIECES OF ADVICE

A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick it at the beginning of what may have been his most ambitious work strikes me, at the very least, as a little weird. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, lacus eu erat integer bibendum rutrum, sed arcu molestie, in quis ornare, rhoncus sceleris nam feugiat nibh leo. Ac suspendisse turpis posuere, cursus fames eu eget dolorem sapien. Eget cras urna nam, ultricies proin interdum facilisis arcu, eget sed quam enim nam, sit pede nonummy viverra dolor sed orci, nec feugiat donec phasellus

Lommodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis que penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes lorem, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla onsequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo fringilla vel aliquet nec vulputate eget. Lorem ispum dolore siamet ipsum dolor. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumquer nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere. At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus quilor.

Bell’s Christmas Trees A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick…

[janikbesendorf-blog]

Iguazú Falls sits right at the border of Brazil and Argentina with both countries claiming to provide the best Iguazú experience. So, which country delivers? Enchanting Travels provides the lowdown for your trip to South America. 

The Brazilian side provides a more stunning panorama, but the Argentine side has more vantage points from where you can actually get up close and personal with the falls.

Marvel at rainbows that appear alongside the magnificent falls

The Iguazú Falls are heralded as the most dramatic and among the most monumental waterfalls in the world, tumbling over the cliffs on the border with the Argentine province of Misiones and Brazilian state of Paraná. Voted as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World, the Iguazú Falls are undoubtedly the most visited place in Misiones and one of the most imposing natural attractions in the world.

Did you know? On her first sight of the tremendous Iguazú Falls, former First Lady of the USA Eleanor Roosevelt exclaimed, “Poor Niagara!”

When you think of waterfalls, the first names that automatically come to mind are of the dramatic Niagara Falls and the magnificent Victoria Falls.

Now, the Niagara Falls are undoubtedly the world’s most famous, the Victoria Falls are surely the world’s largest, but the Iguazú Falls are unhesitatingly the most impressive and exquisite! During a trip to Argentina, it’s something you just cannot miss!

The name Iguazú translates to ‘Great Waters’ and one look at the falls and you’ll know why.

Also known as the Iguassu Falls and the Iguaçu Falls, the term Iguazú means ‘great waters’ in Tupi and Guarani language.

Ancient Brazilian tribes always knew about these tumultuous thunderous falls, but it was little known worldwide until it was officially discovered by the European explorer and Spanish Conquistador Alvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca in 1541. Today, the falls are owned by the two UNESCO World Heritage Sites – the Iguazú National Park in Argentina and the Iguaçu National Park in Brazil.

Taller than Niagara and wider than Victoria, the Iguazú Falls are the result of a volcanic eruption that left a large crack in the earth. The waterfall system consists of 275 falls along 2.7 km (1.67 miles) of the Iguazú River.

The thundering Iguazú falls

At an 80 meter canyon in the fierce foaming cauldron of the Devil’s Throat, the water produces a thundering sound. Here, several falls join together hurtling down a sheer drop, then draining into the Paraná river.

Make a trip to Argentina during the spring and fall for the best views of the falls.

So which is the better side to view the Iguazú? – The Argentine or Brazilian side?

Both sides are simply wonderful, and it’s definitely worth seeing from both places. It all depends on what you want to see and how you want to do so – on ground or aerial.

Iguazu: Birds’ eye view

Two thirds of the falls are within the Argentine territory. If you wish to see and ‘feel’ the falls from a height, then that’s best done from the Argentine side.

The Argentine side has two basic viewing circuits – an upper path and a lower path. The upper path offers exhilarating panoramic vistas and dizzying views from a footbridge/catwalk vantage point – truly an unforgettable experience! There may be some occasional mist.

Walk along the bridge for spectacular views of the falls

An aerial view lets you experience the sheer power and enormity of the falls. On the lower path leading to the base of the falls, the spray happily moistens you. This circuit also offers a boat trip to Isla San Martín. The Argentine side is ideal for seeing radiant poly-chromatic single or double rainbows.

360° views

Brazil offers an astounding multi-dimensional panorama! If its picture-perfect views and flawless shutter exposures you want, then head on over to experience the falls from the Brazilian side.

The Brazilian side offers a 360° view.

Consisting of a network of 275 waterfalls spanning an area of nearly 3 km wide, incredible vistas of the falls from virtually every angle in a 360° view takes your breath away! If you wish to enjoy a helicopter ride, then the Brazilian side is the place to do it.

“One’s destination is never a place but a new way of seeing things” ~ Henry Miller

The verdict?

The Argentine side trumps with just that wee bit more to offer.

Although the Brazilian side may have fantastic views and give ideal photographic opportunities, the Argentine side trumps with just that wee bit more to offer – variety of vantage viewing points, easy travel trails and a choice of activities.

The mist rising as the waters crash onto the rocks

The Iguazú Falls has earned such a reputation, that they have been featured in movies like – Mr. Magoo and Indiana Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

Read more about the top 10 waterfalls in exotic destinations that you need to visit.

At Enchanting Travels, we help you spark an adventure and make memories all over the world – Iguazú Falls is just one such! Don’t just be a tourist, be a traveler!

CREATE MY ARGENTINA & BRAZIL TOURS

Glaciers, Wildlife and Waterfalls in Argentina

13 Days: $ 8,895 / person

This is the ideal vacation for discovering the most memorable landscapes of Argentina. Begin amid the bustling lanes and colorful Latin American lifestyle of Buenos Aires and make your way to way to the majestic Perito Moreno glacier.

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Argentina and Brazil: Classic Cities and Falls

9 Days: $ 3,335 / person

Explore the captivating metropolises of Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro during your tour to Brazil and Argentina. Discover the natural wonder of the world that unites these two countries – the magnificent Iguazú Falls.

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Simply Brazil: Highlights & Beach

14 Days: $ 4,100 / person

Discover the highlights, diversity and natural beauty of Brazil on this private tour. Beginning Sao Paolo – the largest city of Brazil, travel to magnificent Iguazu Falls set on the border with Argentina.

Details Inquire

The post Iguazú Falls – The World’s Largest Waterfalls appeared first on Enchanting Travels.

[tstcman]

A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick

AFTER FANBOYING OUT OVER HIS BOOKS AND TAKING A FEW SELFIES INTERVIEW:

I grew up outside of Chicago and studied English in college. I went off to grad school thinking I was going to be an English professor, but after getting my master’s, I took a year off and tended bar. One night a friend of mine said she’d met the managing editor of Outside magazine and that she thought I should apply for their internship program. Working for a magazine had never really occurred to me; it seemed like something people did in the movies.

In 2009, I was working as an editor at National Geographic Adventure magazine and realized I was seeing pictures of Machu Picchu everywhere—on the cover of the magazine, in the office hallways, in the materials we sent out to potential advertisers. At that time Machu Picchu had roughly the same status for travel magazines as pre-scandal Tiger Woods did for Golf Digest. You could put it on the cover again and again and again and people didn’t care. They’d buy it every time because it was on their wish list.

Another important thing to remember is that Plato was writing about Atlantis when written history was a new technology. For more than 2,000 years everyone assumed that The Odyssey and The Iliad were made up stories, but now many experts believe that they were based on real events. So the question is, how much of the Atlantis story that Plato tells did he intend to be fictional and how much of it did he intend to be taken at face value?

#gallery-0-5 { margin: auto; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 50%; } #gallery-0-5 img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } #gallery-0-5 .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; } /* see gallery_shortcode() in wp-includes/media.php */

He may be telling stories for purposes we don’t fully understand. The Atlantis story, at least the first part, comes at the beginning of the work called Timaeus, which is Plato’s attempt to explain the nature of the cosmos, to explain how the universe worked, arguably the most important topic that could possibly be discussed. A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick it at the beginning of what may have been his most ambitious work strikes me, at the very least, as a little weird.

Since people can’t go to Atlantis like they can Machu Picchu, this book is much less a travel book than the other. What do you want people to take away from this story?

Well, that raises the question of what a travel book is. Hemingway’s novels in Spain? In Patagonia? A Rick Steves book? The Viking Cruises catalog? The thing I always tell people when they ask me how I became a travel writer is that I never became a travel writer—I just became a writer, or to use a term that is overused these days, a storyteller. Everything I write is a nonfiction story with plot development and characters that change in some way during the events conveyed; many of those stories just happen to take place in interesting locales.

WHAT ARE YOUR THREE PIECES OF ADVICE

My grandmother was very into Atlantis, Ancient Aliens, crystal skulls, and the like so when I was younger she would always talk about them with me. Having grown up with an intense fascination with this stuff, I found the science and research behind proving/disproving the myth fascinating (my take: I think Atlantis existed as an advanced society by contemporary standards in Spain). Mark is a captivating writer and both his books were delights to read. Next year, I’m heading to Peru and plan to visit some of the off the beaten path Inca sites mentioned in his book. Time to put on my own Indiana Jones hat!

Put your phone down

Portrait Studio and using

Will be impressed

You travel, and if you

Opportunity to explore

He may be telling stories for purposes we don’t fully understand. The Atlantis story, at least the first part, comes at the beginning of the work called Timaeus, which is Plato’s attempt to explain the nature of the cosmos, to explain how the universe worked, arguably the most important topic that could possibly be discussed.

WHAT ARE YOUR THREE PIECES OF ADVICE

A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick it at the beginning of what may have been his most ambitious work strikes me, at the very least, as a little weird. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, lacus eu erat integer bibendum rutrum, sed arcu molestie, in quis ornare, rhoncus sceleris nam feugiat nibh leo. Ac suspendisse turpis posuere, cursus fames eu eget dolorem sapien. Eget cras urna nam, ultricies proin interdum facilisis arcu, eget sed quam enim nam, sit pede nonummy viverra dolor sed orci, nec feugiat donec phasellus

Lommodo ligula eget dolor. Aenean massa. Cum sociis que penatibus et magnis dis parturient montes lorem, nascetur ridiculus mus. Donec quam felis, ultricies nec, pellentesque eu, pretium quis, sem. Nulla onsequat massa quis enim. Donec pede justo fringilla vel aliquet nec vulputate eget. Lorem ispum dolore siamet ipsum dolor. Et harum quidem rerum facilis est et expedita distinctio. Nam libero tempore, cum soluta nobis est eligendi optio cumquer nihil impedit quo minus id quod maxime placeat facere. At vero eos et accusamus et iusto odio dignissimos ducimus quilor.

The Best Places In Berlin A lot of eminent historians and archaeologists insist that Plato invented Atlantis completely, but the explanation that the most important philosopher of all time would just make up this elaborate story about a sunken city and stick…