gdp's Comments

/Film : Must See: Augment Reality With New Star Trek Website

Tue, 5 May 2009 19:58:37 +0000

This is pretty cool, but to be fair this kind of thing was on the Assassin's Creed 2 promotional website a while ago. http://assassinscreed.uk.ubi.com/assassins-creed-... So the Start Trek website isn't the first. Unless of course it's been around for a while already.

/Film : Alex Proyas\' Knowing and Biblical Prophecy

Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:38:07 +0000

Even though I'm an atheist, I was not bothered by the biblical themes in Knowing, on the contrary. Proyas actually did something rather clever, he took Christian imagery and mythology and explained it in scientifically plausible terms. (Let's not argue about whether or not Proyas knows what he's saying when it comes to science. I'm just saying that he brings down Christian mythology to tangible, empirical facts.) By doing this, he doesn't discredit religion but he doesn't incense it either. What some call 'God' is simply something which we hadn't understood until the aliens came along. "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Thus, God wasn't supernatural, he was just a part of nature we had yet to understand. The discussion about determinism vs randomness is similar. Did the Earth, through a string of coincidences, just happen to position itself at the exact distance from the sun required for life to arise, or was it somehow "determined" long ago? As they are presented by Proyas, these two principles aren't mutually exclusive. To us humans, with our limited perception and understanding, it may seem that the sheer amount of random interactions that have to occur along the way just have to mean that there's someone pulling the strings, but a sufficiently advanced civilization might someday be able to understand and predict this chain of cause and effect, which is how the aliens figured out all the major catastrophes on earth in advance. Here again, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." It's not true that there must be a puppetmaster to explain away all those coincidences. It's just that right now our perception is too limited for us to be able to see the big picture. In the end, I don't think Nick Cage's character actually starts believing in God or the afterlife, I just think that he's come to realize that religion is just an unscientific explanation for something that is just as natural as the law of gravity. His new-found faith isn't "blind" faith. He's aware that there is no "God" like the one in the Bible. Even the "angels" can't shape the string of "random" events, they can just perceive it. I think he also realizes that our limited understanding of the universe means that we're all in the dark somehow, and that clinging on to mythologies (like the Bible) provides a form of hope that shouldn't be neglected. Knowing doesn't tell us there is a God or an afterlife, it just tells us that it isn't so bad to believe in those things as long as you don't do it blindly. So, yeah, that's my interpretation :) As a final thought: isn't it interesting that we've made the Bible (or whatever other text you wish to subscribe to) to provide fictional explanations for all those things we can't understand (beginnings, death, suffering...), and now Proyas makes a movie that provides fictional explanations of why we had to make up the Bible?

/Film : Box Office: Watchmen Down 24% Saturday; Is Word-Of-Mouth "Killing the Masks?”

Mon, 9 Mar 2009 08:14:24 +0000

It has nothing to do with not being able to follow. The people I'm talking about could follow, it's just that they didn't like the movie, period. "Lack of coherence" doesn't imply that you can't follow a movie, just that it's not enjoyable to do so.

/Film : Box Office: Watchmen Down 24% Saturday; Is Word-Of-Mouth "Killing the Masks?”

Sun, 8 Mar 2009 22:27:37 +0000

This isn't a case of "the average movie goer not getting it". Watchmen's flaws run way deeper than that. Even though I mostly enjoyed the movie, I've spoken to some knowledgeable, movie-literate people who genuinely thought the movie was no good. And from a cinematographic perspective, they're probably right. It doesn't matter how deep the themes in the movie go if the audience is frustrated by the lack of coherence and the cheese overload. "Watchmen" was an admirable adaptation, but it's flow was constantly broken by awkward scenes or awkward dialog, meaning the audience is not given time to connect or care. Even I felt that, and I'd read the comic and I wanted to love it. Do not blame the lower ratings on the "average movie goer" who "doesn't get it". Watchmen is very much a flawed movie, and that's the primary reason for the "disappointing" numbers.

/Film : Watchmen - What Did You Think?

Fri, 6 Mar 2009 11:56:34 +0000

Allow me to copy-paste from what I wrote on another site: "I'm torn. I wanted to like "Watchmen", and there certainly is a lot in this movie that is awesome or otherwise admirable... But in the end, Watchmen is a disappointment. The "Watchmen" movie is amazingly faithful to the source material, and that's what makes up all its strengths and all its weaknesses. It has the same thematic depth as the comics, the same psychological depth, and the visual style is even more amazing... But it's also way too long, too painstakingly detailed, too literal and too cheesy... Zack Snyder should have dared to actually "adapt" the comic book for the big screen instead of simply "transcribing" it. Anyway, if you're a Watchmen fan, you will quite probably drool all over this movie. If you're a movie lover, then you'll probably think it's boring and overly pompous. If you're both, you'll be torn between exhilaration and disappointment. 3.5/5" There. That's what I think.