Rocky - Made Famous By Ignorance

I may have said this before, but the Rocky films are some of my favorite films. The story of being given a chance, never backing down, always improving one's self. Honor.

But something that bugs me is why Apollo Creed chose to fight Rocky Balboa. As in the film, it is the bicentennial of the United States of America, and the fight is on July 4th. A good excuse for patriotism, that Apollo takes advantage of by dressing like Uncle Sam at the match.

But why did Apollo pick Rocky? In making his decision, he said, "Who discovered America? An Italian, right? What better way to celebrate its 200th birthday than to get it on with one of his descendants?".

And that is what bothers me. Cause while Columbus did discover America, he never came to the northern continent. Only Latin America/the Caribbean. Heck, the United States has Columbus day in October, to celebrate or memorialize the discovery of America. So why pick on an Italian? Why not pick someone with a British name?

Obviously, for sake of the story you couldn't have the British/English Stallion beating on Apollo Creed, not with it being independence day. But that is meta plot right there.

I just wonder why Apollo himself didn't realize the greater commercialism by picking someone that would be of greater symbolism for July, to react/pay respect to the Revolution.

That is what I don't get, why Apollo decided to pick an Italian just because one discovered America. The United States wasn't founded until nearly 300 years later.

So that is just an oddity in my mind, that Rocky was given his chance and made famous because Apollo Creed, to me, seems ignorant of history and marketing and picked an Italian over and Englishman.

Preparations

As I said before, one of my friends was preparing to win back his girlfriend. In the midst of the preparations we grabbed a camera. This will only be up most likely for a limited time... Or if my friends agree, we'll splice them altogether into one file and keep it on Youtube. So watch the first, which is an introduction, and the second which is the prepared speech.





Oh, and if you want to watch myself make a fool of myself, see here, here and here. We were going to do a music video to Michael Jackson's Just Beat It song, but it didn't pan out. So thus I post the ones with mainly me in them to make fun of myself.

Avatar; the True Power of Love

First off, I am giving a spoiler alert for those of you who have not seen the movie Avatar. I don't know how much I may reveal. So if you want to see the movie first without being spoiled, leave now. If not, continue reading.

If I were to describe Avatar in one sentence, I would say it is an awesome Sci-fi version of Pocahontas where John Smith joins the Native Americans, and with Grandmother Willow, they push the English back to sea.

But awesomeness is not limited to a sentence. It fails to do awesomeness justice. To set the setting, humans have reached another planet that sustains life; Pandora. Like the "new world", this world is used as a mining center, to make a company rich. Probably because the air is toxic to humans, there is never any plans mentioned to colonize the planet, just mine it for all it is worth, serving the stockholder first. However the natives, the Na'vi don't like them mining. They are protective of the plants and worship the planet essentially as a god, being people of the earth, rangers, trackers, at harmony with their environment. So naturally most humans think the Na'vi are tree hugging pagans and thus feel justified in bringing arms to force the Na'vi to move so they can take the resources wanted. Such technology used are mechanical walker suits that remind me of a cross between the firepower in Zion from the Matrix and the mechanical walkers of Starcraft.

Now as for the Na'vi, they're blue humanoids who have biological USB ports at the end of their ponytails. Seriously. The Na'vi, the horse creatures and some sort of large bird creatures, and other creatures too probably, have at the end of their ponytail thing strands of nerves so that when they intertwine, they form a sort of partnership; they become one creature. They can feel the creature's strength, its' heartbeat, and can direct the creature with thoughts. You want to go forward, the creature goes forward.

But not only that, all plant life, particularly the trees, act as nerve cells of the planet. They are literally connected and electricity sort of flows through them, like brain synapses. It is like Sid Mier's Alpha Centauri game, where the planet is literally alive and has a form of intelligence. Or in technology terms, the planet is an archaic network hub that stores memories, feelings, voices. There are "Prayer Trees" that act as the router that the Na'vi can intertwine their ponytail nerves to and can literally hear memories, hear voices, can access somewhat the information stored by Eywa, the name given for the the archaic intelligence that the planet Pandora possesses. Which, as I said above, shows my geekiness in that I am reminded of the game Alpha Centauri by Sid Meir. In that game, the planet is alive, it directs it's animals, everything lives in a balance. There is that similarity that I saw.

And then there is the cgi animation, where everything is believe, awe inspiring and looks like it was shot in an actual jungle. The animation and graphics are awesome and well done. The Na'vi look realistic, not like a Jar-Jar Binks puppet, showing every movement of muscle, every little thing that does not at one instant fail to destroy the illusion.

So the story? Jake Sully is a paralyzed ex-marine who gets an offer; the opportunity to go to Pandora and use an Avatar, a genetically enhanced Na'vi like body custom taylored to the genetic code of a person. Basically uplinking your nervous system and brain patterns to the Avatar, to better study the planet and get to know the Na'vi better. Sully gets this offer because his twin brother, the scientist, died.

So the story is about Jake, how this marine gets to know the Na'vi and has to decide between obeying like a good obedient soldier, or do what's right. Who must sacrifice all he knows for love, or give it up.

Avatar is very well made, well produced and has an excellent story. It is worth seeing a few times, as the imagery, the symbolism, and adventure are all real, vivid and connects with the viewer. You will enjoy this movie, and I for one want to see it again.


Oh, and Alexandria, you may want throw Sam Worthington onto your Monster Hott Guy's list, and maybe onto some other things as well. ;)

Tears, Laughter and Dissapointment.

First off, I am a geek, just so you all know. By that I mean that I am a fan of Lord of the Rings. I know some people here don't appreciate such things, *cough*Bob*cough*, but I feel this should be said, if only to point out my geekiness. I point your attention to the Ents in Lord of the Rings. You know, the walking, talking tree's that went to war? Yeah, them. Well there is a scene where Treebeard tells Merry and Pippen that the Ents have lost the Ent Wives, and told them to look out for them since the Ent Wives would have like the Shire. (Where the Hobbits were from) Until now, I have never thought about what happened to them, and always thought that they would would have been re-united after the mess with the war. It turns out that I was wrong.

I was reading and doing a little research, and even asked the 100 Hour Board, and found out the fate of the the Entwives. From the letters of Tolkien himself, he said:

"I think that in fact the Entwives had disappeared for good, being destroyed with their gardens in the War of the Last Alliance (Second Age 3429-3441) when Sauron pursued a scorched earth policy and burned their land against the advance of the Allies down the Anduin (vol. II p. 79 refers to it). They survived only in the ’agriculture’ transmitted to Men (and Hobbits). Some, of course, may have fled east, or even have become enslaved: tyrants even in such tales must have an economic and agricultural background to their soldiers and metal-workers. If any survived so, they would indeed be far estranged from the Ents, and any rapprochement would be difficult – unless experience of industrialized and militarized agriculture had made them a little more anarchic. I hope so. I don’t know." (Letter #144, Letters of Tolkien)

and,

"As for the Entwives: I do not know...But I think in Vol. II pp. 80-81 it is plain that there would be for Ents no re-union in ’history’ — but Ents and their wives being rational creatures would find some ’earthly paradise’ until the end of this world: beyond which the wisdom neither of Elves nor Ents could see. Though maybe they shared the hope of Aragorn that they were ’not bound for ever to the circles of the world and beyond them is more than memory.’...." (Letter #338, Letters of Tolkien)

So when I read that, that the Entwives were dead, I just started tearing up, because of what happened because I was hoping that they would have found each other. so there is my geekiness for you.

Also, Saturday night I saw Twilight with my roommates and some other friends. I must tell you, it was definitely interesting. One of my roommates who hasn't read the books wants to read them now.
Now I don't like the books, but I think the movie was actually better than the book. I won't go into any extreme details, but suffice to say that not having Bella narrate the whole time or even hear how Edward looks like a sculpture and is the epitome of handsome is a credit to the movie. Second, since it is not from her point of view, the world is more complete, and balances everything out. There is obviously the cheesiness of Bella falling in love with Edward with only knowing that he is a vampire, but hey, at least the movie shows them conversing and getting to know each other which isn't present in the books.
There is also some of the one liners and other humor that gets laughs going. Trust me on this, it probably saves the movie.

So, I was definitely laughing more, and I did like the movie, in fact James was much more believable. I think had Meyers written twilight like the movie presented it, it would have been much better. As for the rest, well there is only so much that a movie can do to improve upon a crappy book. But I suggest seeing it. It's not the best movie around obviously, but for the books it's based off, it did a pretty good job.

And may I say that I am extremely disappointed in the BYU-UofU game Saturday as well. I didn't have that much hope that BYU would win, but I didn't think things would go so badly for the team. I would have preferred that the BYU football team give their all and do their best and lose, then throwing the ball in the waiting arms of a Ute and other stupid turnovers. I must tell you that I don't pity Max Hall though, not a bit. I also shaved my mustache because of the terrible loss, that and it feels weird after dancing.

Anyways, that's it for now. I may be coming down with a sore throat, but lets hope that passes before Thanksgiving. Now I have to get back to homework, 'lest I fail.

Cya all!

Batman

I saw Batman last night. It was Awesome (Yes, with a capital A). And my brother thinks the Joker is supposed to be more funny, more comical, something. I happen to disagree, I think the essence of the Joker was caught. I won't say more, just go see it!