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Feminism in Media

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

In modern North American society, feminists have about as bad a rep as a man goosestepping down the street with a Swastika on his shoulder. That’s not to say that everyone necessarily thinks that women should get back into the kitchen and collectively make us a sandwich. Rather, it would seem to me that both men and women are sick of feminists shoving their agenda down the public’s throat. I’m sure there’s a good deal of failed communication which is at the root of this problem (this is a huge generalization but from my observations, feminists don’t bother to explain their views to the uninitiated and get really angry when anyone goes against them). There’s also the issue that many people think that feminism is beating a dead horse – after all, aren’t women equal to men in society now more or less? I’m not exactly versed in women’s studies so I’ll leave that particular question to someone else to handle.

In any case, despite the stigma which is attached to feminists, I do have to say that I have really noticed considerable sexism and misogyny recently in the media I have been viewing. Three 2013 releases have gotten me thinking about the state of feminism in film today: World War Z, Gangster Squad and (to a much lesser extent) Machete Kills. World War Z is what really kick-started this entire article for me. If you saw the movie, then you probably know what I’m talking about – the entire first half hour of the film features Brad Pitt protecting his useless wife and equally useless daughters who seem to be doing their damnedest to get them all killed. I can guarantee that no one walked out of that film thinking “wow, I really liked Gerry’s wife and kids, they were great characters!” Now I’m not saying that the women should have suddenly picked up machine guns and blown away the zombies while making an obtuse point that women are as good as then men (a la 80s action films). Rather, it would have been nice if they had done… I dunno, anything. Sure, Karen can try to keep her children safe, but she can do that by trying to fight off the zombies sometimes. Or maybe she can not call her husband in the middle of an important life-threatening mission (and subsequently getting a lot of people killed). Oh and when Karen and the kids are holed up on the aircraft carrier, maybe they could try to help out? Hell, read up on the original ending of the film – it was supposed to be even more misogynistic than it ended up being.

Clearly the writers only threw the female characters into World War Z to be plot devices. In a movie like World War Z which feels like it was written and directed by committee, it’s clear that the studio didn’t give a damn about how the women were portrayed in the film or that casual misogyny would affect their bottom-line. In fact, I’m surprised by how well it did and was received in spite of this glaring issue. In a lot of ways it reminds me of Chinua Achebe’s essay “An Image of Africa”, where Achebe decries Joseph Conrad for reducing Africans and the continent of Africa in Heart of Darkness to nothing more than a plot device. While I don’t entirely agree with Achebe on his criticisms, he does make a good point, that reducing people and places to plot devices strips their history and identity away, making them little more than a reflection of the male protagonist.

If World War Z kicked off this article, then Gangster Squad sealed the deal that I was going to have to write about it. I was actually very surprised by how Gangster Squad handled women, although considering that it was a rip-off of The Untouchables I probably shouldn’t have been. I’m not really referring to Emma Stone’s character either, the generic femme fatale love interest (and plot device to add some tension for good measure). Instead, I’m referring to basically the only other female character in the film, O’Mara’s wife, Connie. Like World War Z, the women in the film are reduced to plot devices who the male characters don’t seem to actually be all that invested in. The film tries to be uber-macho, with the protagonist O’Mara dealing with organized crime the only way he knows how – by shooting it in the face. Of course, Connie whines to him that he shouldn’t be risking himself because she can’t live without him. Obviously, the point this puts forth is that violence is a man’s realm and passivity is for women… and according to the film and it’s hilariously hamfisted finale, violence is the only thing that gets results. Of course, the whole movie’s a complete fabrication, although you might have figured that out when you saw some of the over the top action in play. Regardless though, it seems that the whole “action gets results” message the film tries to get across is total bunk, making the entire film even stupider in retrospect. That said, I will acknowledge that Connie does get one surprisingly interesting scene where she actually helps O’Mara pick out his “gangster squad”.

Which brings me to Machete Kills. I actually don’t have a huge beef against it in regards to sexism or feminism or anything like that – it’s a tongue-in-cheek exploitation film and therefore it gets a lot more leeway than a mega-blockbuster like World War Z or “historical” film like Gangster Squad. However, it did remind me of a Cracked article in which the authour stated that women rarely get shot in the head on-screen in American cinema. To sum it up, the article states that “the reason that we so rarely see women getting their brains splattered? Masculine violation of, and domination over, a woman occurs on her body and not her head”. Machete Kills actually seems to subvert this idea, since in the opening minutes a female character is shot graphically in the head, on-screen. However, near the ending a pair of women fight and the more physically domineering of the pair shoots the other in the head, but this is left off-screen. The implications there are interesting, since that character’s actions seem to make her androgynous (not that she’s really overtly feminine anyway). I don’t really have any real profound conclusions to give in regards to that, but it’s certainly an interesting observation that’s worth keeping in mind and mulling over.

Before I close, I’d like to mention another example in a video game I played recently, called Lollipop Chainsaw. Again, it’s a tongue-in-cheek exploitation venture so it gets more leeway, not to mention that video games in general have a pretty big sexism issue. However, while I found the game to be quite fun, there was one annoying aspect which I found very grating and more sexist/misogynist than any of the objectification in the game. This aspect was that the enemy dialogue almost always consisted of gendered insults – seriously, nearly every time an enemy yells at you they call the heroine a “slut” or “whore” and, on one particularly colourful occasion, a zombie declares he’s going to “fist his ass with her face”. Ahem. Maybe if it had happened once it would have been shockingly funny, but when the game barrages you with that sort of dialogue over and over it just becomes annoying (at best).

Anyway, hopefully this little write-up has shown that as much as we love to hate them, feminists do have a purpose in society. Equality is still a work in progress, and media still has a way to go before it is truly adequate. Besides, equality doesn’t have to equal hamfisted morals, it can be an epic and subtle action romp like Dredd (seriously, buy the damn movie already!!!).

Quick Fix: “Fat Shaming”

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

I was at work the other day listening to the local rock radio station’s morning program. It was the typical somewhat-raunchy banter you’d expect from morning hosts on a rock station, but it helps get through the day. Anyway, as I was listening the morning hosts mentioned that they had posted a photo on their Facebook page which was causing a bit of controversy. This got me curious and so I went and checked it out:

Apparently this photo has gone viral, and I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s clearly ripe for generating debate… although this being the Internet, that really means people screaming at each other and ignoring everyone else’s perspective. On the one hand, the woman who made the picture is coming across as being rather smug. Considering that her job is to be a physical fitness trainer, it shouldn’t be quite so difficult for her to get ripped in comparison to, say, someone who works 40 hours a week in a cubicle. The radio hosts were mentioning that there were people commenting on the photo claiming that it was an example of “fat shaming”, that the woman is bullying fat people and that she should go jump in front of a bus (again, it’s the Internet).

On the other hand, I kind of agree with the picture. I’m pretty skinny, but I wouldn’t kid myself into thinking I’m in great shape or anything. The picture isn’t shaming fat people, it’s shaming anyone who isn’t fit, which pretty much everyone seems to have ignored. But anyway, what’s my excuse for not having a six-pack? It really does come down to laziness. Sure, I could probably look like that if I put the effort in and reordered my priorities, but I don’t have the motivation to do so. Sure some people may physically be unable to look like that and then okay, you do have an excuse. That said, if you’re like me and (I imagine) 99% of everyone else who the image is directed at, then you need to fess up that maybe you don’t have an excuse beyond laziness. Obesity is becoming a major epidemic (not to mention those of us who just aren’t in shape to begin with) and I’m sure the vast majority of us don’t have some sort of incurable malady to give us a get-out-of-shame-free-card. Honestly, instead of being offended, many of us just need to look at ourselves and take the blame for once instead of deflecting it onto others.

Quick Fix: 2013 in Film (aka Bitching About This Year’s Movies)

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

I’m back! For those who didn’t know, I spent the last week on vacation in Cincinnati and Atlanta and so getting out that last Apes retrospective entry was a bit of an ordeal… that said, I’m back in Canada and good to get back down to business on the blog! Before we get into the rambling meat of this entry, I want to mention that the open beta for Battlefield 4 has been up for almost two weeks now. If you haven’t checked it out yet, then do so ASAP (it’s free)! I’m only able to play it on the PS3 right now (which is extremely inferior compared to the PC beta), but I’m looking forward to playing on PS4 as soon as it launches.

2013 might be the best year for gaming ever. The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite would both be effortlessly Game of the Year winners if they hadn’t come out in the same year as GTA 5 (although I’m still rooting for The Last of Us). However, the same cannot be said for Hollywood, as it seems to me that 2013 is one of the most disappointing years in popular film in recent memory. Now to be clear, I’m talking about “major” films in the public conscience – there’s always good festival fare and indie darlings, but these usually fly under the radar of the general public. It should also be mentioned that we’re just getting into Oscar season, so the big Best Picture candidates are going to be making their way into cinemas quite soon, if they aren’t there already.

Here’s your Big Five winner right here.

Anyway, as you can probably tell I’m a bit of a film buff. Certainly not as much as some people, but I’ll usually see 15-20 new movies each year (not counting the films I then catch up on in the next year, at which point I’ll be closer to 35-45 movies released in any one year). That said, 2013 has been extremely disappointing for me – I’ll usually see any movie which interests me, but it’s now October and I’ve only seen 8 2013 films (Evil Dead, The Purge, Kick-Ass 2, World War Z, Iron Man 3, Oz the Great and Powerful, This Is the End, Red 2 and Gravity). Of these, I’d only say half were in any way decent, with Gravity being the only one which I thought was actually good (seriously, FREAKING SEE IT!!!). Sure I’m missing some high-profile films, but looking through the general consensus of what was “good” this year, I’m basically just missing Star Trek Into Darkness, Side Effects, The Conjuring, The World’s End and Rush. Unfortunately, these are disproportionately outweighed by the disappointing, mediocre or bad films released this year. Among the major disappointments were Gangster Squad (I seriously was predicting Best Picture when I saw the trailer), The Purge (how the hell did they screw it up so badly!?!) and Man of Steel. Legendarily bad films have all seemed to converge on 2013 like a plague: Movie 43, InAPPropriate Comedy, A Good Day to Die Hard, The Host and Scary Movie 5 to name a few. Then there’s the just plain uninspired which was the rule rather than exception during the summer movie season: Jack the Giant Slayer, Olympus Has Fallen, The Hangover Part III, The Lone Ranger. Hell, even high-profile indie films weren’t spared as Nicolas Winding Refn and Ryan Gosling both destroyed their reputations with Only God Forgives. Sure, there’s always more bad than good films in a year, but this year it seems to me like the good stuff is in much lower supply than normal, and the disappointments were far more high-profile.

I don’t have all the answers for why 2013 has been such a disappointing year in film. However, it has gotten me thinking about one particular issue in Hollywood which I’d like to address (and which is a factor in some of this year’s releases). As usual, Hollywood is concerned with making money, but this year they seem to be taking more of a stranglehold on it and compromising their productions in the process. One of these trends which has reemerged recently is taking an R-rated film and editing it down to PG-13, because PG-13 films have the widest prospective audience. Now obviously this is hardly why 2013 has been a bad year for cinema, but it is a contributor in the downfall of at least one high-profile example. World War Z was totally neutered by its forced PG-13 rating. Now I’m not one of those ratings snobs who believes that every movie would be improved with an R-rating and gratuitous violence and nudity (hell, I agree that Robocop wouldn’t be all that much worse if they cut it to PG-13), but some subjects don’t lend themselves to a family-friendly audience. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, but I don’t think that a movie about mass human extinction, cannibalism and visceral violence really would be best served by being PG-13. As a result, then entire film feels compromised, an issue which doesn’t even get fixed by the Unrated cut (the zombies seem to just jump on people, bite them, and then run away). This is a Hollywood trend which has been annoyingly pervasive since at least 2004, with such examples as AVP, Live Free or Die Hard, Terminator Salvation, Priest, Taken and Taken 2. Of course, the upcoming Robocop remake is coming out with a PG-13, which is going to further create backlash against this trend (even if it isn’t as abysmal as everyone is predicting it will be). As someone who loves good movies, I wish that studios would have a bit more faith in their audiences and give their filmmakers a bit more freedom… but that’ll be the day.

On an unrelated note, here’s a picture of some fat cats…

UPDATE: Since posting this I’ve also watched Gangster Squad and Machete Kills, both of which were rather average, held back by disappointing elements (this seems to be the trend with 2013 releases… I’m curious to see what I think about Man of Steel when it comes out on DVD).

Quick Fix: God is Dead?

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

If you listen to rock music on the radio, there’s a good chance you’ve heard Black Sabbath’s lead single off their new album, 13, “God is Dead?”. On my local rock station, you can be pretty much guaranteed to hear it a few times per day as the DJ gleefully declares “I’m loving this new song, it’s ‘GOD IS DEAD’!” When I first heard the song, I thought that it was just another song decrying the complete evils of religion and how God can’t exist. This actually surprised me because I was under the impression that Ozzy Osbourne is actually Christian (or at the very, very least agnostic), so if he was suddenly preaching that God is dead then he must have undergone a drastic, life-changing event of some sort. Basically, I took the song at face value, something which I imagine many more casual listeners would do – both religious (“Bah, the Prince of Darkness praises Satan once again…”) and atheist (“Woo you tell those religious sheeple Ozzy!”). However, there’s a major component of the song which doesn’t carry over to the radio listener and that’s the question mark at the end of the title. That punctuation mark makes all the difference to the meaning of the song. After hearing the song a couple times and actually listening to the lyrics, I began to detect the ambiguity contained within the interplay between declaration (“God is dead”) and questioning (“Is God really dead?”). Ultimately, I think that the song is leaving the decision up to the interpreter to decide.

Despite the doom-and-gloom tone of the song, it’s actually pretty inoffensive… well, unless you consider any attack on religious fanatics indefensible I suppose. In fact, “God is Dead?” is arguably commendable for a theist since it’s a major mainstream song which tackles one of the greatest philosophical religious questions – if God exists, then why do bad things happen? And why do God’s own followers commit atrocities in His name? In any case, I’m glad to see that “God is Dead?” isn’t the aggressively atheistic song that it appears to be at first glance… and as for Ozzy’s stance on this interpretation, it sounds pretty clear to me.

Thinking about “God is Dead?” also makes me think about religious music in general. I’m sure that there are still many religious people who would write off “God is Dead?” even with this interpretation, despite the sense of hope at its core. What defines “Christian” music? If “God is Dead?” was released by, say, Demon Hunter instead of Black Sabbath, would it be accepted? I’m inclined to think that it would. Why do Christian review sites, like the Childcare Action Project, condemn a very pro-faith movie like Signs for “blasphemy” when said blasphemy was part of the hero’s journey to redemption?* Similarly, there’s the issue of Christian musicians in general, which I think is best demonstrated by, of all bands, Korn. Yes, the Korn that’s famous for such songs as “A.D.I.D.A.S.” (aka, “All Day I Dream About Sex”). In 2005, Korn’s lead guitarist, Brian “Head” Welch left the band because he had converted to Christianity and broke his addition to methamphetamines. He then turned to a Christian music career. Meanwhile Reginald “Fieldy” Arvizu, Korn’s bassist, also converted to Christianity but decided that he could reach out to more people if he stayed with the band. This is a very interesting conundrum for Christians in the music industry: Christian music is largely a niche with a very limited reach, mostly concentrated on an already-Christian audience. However, if the artist stays in the mainstream then they risk having their message diluted. It’s a very difficult balancing act and I don’t think there’s a correct approach… but it’s interesting to note that Head’s back with Korn once again (predictably, this has pissed off some uptight Christians who Head soundly trounces on his Facebook page). I’ve never given a shit about a Korn album, but I’m excited to see how The Paradigm Shift turns out and hear if more positive aspects find their way in…

*From their website, they state that “The CAP Analysis Model makes no scoring allowances for trumped-up “messages” to excuse or for manufacturing of justification for aberrant behavior or imagery, or for camouflaging such ignominy with “redeeming” programming. Disguising sinful behavior in a theme plot does not excuse the sinful behavior of either the one who is drawing pleasure or example from the sinful display or the practitioners demonstrating the sinful behavior.” This is just unthinkably stupid. As I showed in my interpretation of “God is Dead?”, context is absolutely everything. This is the sort of inflexibility that makes evangelicals look like total tools…

Quick Fix: Multi-media News

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

Hello fine readers, thanks for coming back for the weekly update! I was going to write on something more… controversial to say the least, but it’s just not coming to me. Maybe I’ll find the words for it next week, but for now it’s on the back-burner. Anyway, that means that we get to talk about the generally less-heavy news in pop culture instead! As most nerds will tell you, San Diego Comic-con just ended and brought with it some major entertainment news. Probably foremost amongst these is the announcement of a Superman vs. Batman movie. Clearly this is DC’s attempt to kickstart a shared universe much like Marvel studios is enjoying now. Of course, this brings with it its own problems… like how Batman could possibly win against Superman… *SPOILER* especially now that he is willing to kill for the greater good. Again, I’m not entirely sure how this is going to get worked out, but it could be potentially monumental if it can all come together.

Next on the agenda are a couple of potential movies that I’ve been following for some time which are looking for support. The first of these is Dredd 2, the proposed sequel to a movie I’ve been gushing about since it came out. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet, do so. It’s amazing, and deserves a sequel. The official news is that DVD and Blu-ray sales of the film have been through the roof and fan support is overwhelmingly high. This means that the likelihood of a sequel being made have skyrocketed. Back around December when I saw the box office figures for Dredd I was aghast – I was certain a sequel would never get made, with a status as a cult classic in a decade or two being the film’s best bet for success. However, it’s now looking quite likely that we’ll see a sequel, maybe 50/50. I just hope the same minds are behind it so we won’t get let down!

The other potential film I’ve been following is a Warhammer 40,000 fan film, The Lord Inquisitor. It was announced shortly after the official 40k movie, Ultramarines was released (to tepid reception) and looks like it will blow it out of the water. The movie’s being made by Erasmus Brosdau, one of the designers at Crytek (a video game studio famous for Crysis and originators of the Far Cry series). The only sad thing about The Lord Inquisitor was that it looked like we were going to be waiting a couple years for a 15 minute short… until now anyway. Brosdau is looking for financial backing to get The Lord Inquisitor turned into a full-length CGI animated movie. I first got into 40k 10 years ago and back then I thought the setting would make for an awesome movie. In fact, I can’t believe it took until 2010 before we saw an official 40k movie… unfortunately that movie, Ultramarines, was a pretty bland representation of the universe. If The Lord Inquisitor receives its backing, it should be a faithful version of what makes the 40k universe so awesome. I’m really looking forward to seeing where this goes in the future.

Finally, the biggest piece of pop culture news all week for me is this picture:

YES. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is well underway and I have little doubt that it is going to be amazing. Matt Reeves directing? YES. Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver are back writing? AWESOME. Andy Serkis is back as Caesar? HELL YES. Hell, even the supporting cast looks good with such big names as Gary Oldman and Kerri Russell. I loved Rise of the Planet of the Apes – hopefully this one will be even better!

Quick Fix: Retrospectives, Youtube and Skepticism

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

Hey, time for another relatively short and scattered post before I get into my next retrospective series – which, for the record, I am planning on starting by this time next week! It’s going to be a rather diverse and progressively overblown series, so be sure to tune in for that! And speaking of retrospectives, the recent release of After Earth has brought back painful memories. I must confess that in high school I really liked M. Night Shyamalan (enough so that I can spell his name without having to look up the spelling to ensure its correct). This was before Lady in the Water of course. The Village was merely mediocre, but still had promise. However, since Lady in the Water, Shyamalan has been in a massive and destructive tailspin that has annihilated his good name. It’s really just too bad because The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs are all fantastic films and every time Shyamalan comes out with something new I’m hoping that he can recapture the magic. Unfortunately, he has just disappointed me over and over again – the man has serious directing chops, he just needs to get better scripts and maybe some tighter oversight. If you want to try to recapture some of the glory days, check out this Shyamalan article (which, by the way, would make for a great retrospective series some day).

RIP The Great M. Night Shyamalan, 1999-2002.

In other news, Youtube has officially rolled out its new design layout for channels. I updated to it last night and fiddled around with my channel somewhat for the new layout. I actually made a new, scale-able banner for the channel too – it scales to fit your resolution, so you get a different version of it whether you view it on a smart phone, tablet, desktop, TV, etc. You can view the new layout here, and/or watch my latest paintball compilation video below.

Finally, a story that popped up on my Facebook news feed recently. I’m somewhat lucky in that most of my friends don’t post stupid things (although one cousin is a stereotypical conservative gun nut), but it was quite odd when someone posted this article about how Angelina Jolie was duped into performing a double-mastectomy. Of course, this story has been all over the news lately and while I haven’t really taken a strong stance on the matter (due to being woefully uninformed on the medical aspects of the story and some general apathy about the doings of celebrities), I thought the article might be interesting. Turns out it kind of was… although, not for the reasons they might have hoped. I could be wrong, but it looks to me like Real Farmacy isn’t really a completely medically-sound website (reiterated by their legal disclaimer). First of all, Real Farmacy screwed up their facts (or perhaps just intentionally misinterpreted them). For one thing, they claimed Angelina had an 87% chance of getting breast cancer. In actuality, she had an 87% higher chance of getting cancer than an average person, which is a pretty significant difference. They also  claim that you have complete control over whether or not you get cancer, and that this is based entirely on diet and lifestyle choices:

So the whole “chance” argument is pure quackery. There is no chance involved in whether you get cancer. It’s all cause and effect. You are either living a pro-cancer lifestyle and therefore growing cancer, or you’re living an anti-cancer lifestyle and keeping cancer in check so that it never becomes a problem. Cause and effect is what results in either the growth of cancer tumors or the prevention of cancer tumors. There is no “luck” involved.
It’s fascinating, isn’t it, that medical doctors don’t believe in luck or voodoo on any topic other than cancer. But when it comes to cancer, they want all women to be suckered into the victim mentality that cancer is purely a matter of “luck” and therefore women have no control over their own health outcomes. How disempowering! How sick! How incredibly exploitive of women!

Is it just me, or does Real Farmacy come across as the real quack here? They’re disregarding communally agreed-upon medical advice in exchange for their own agenda. I haven’t looked into the website too much, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they were selling health food or were sponsored by a major health food corporation. To further call their credibility into question, they seem to think marijuana’s a miracle drug. It’s also worth noting that this article has been copy + pasted across a number of healthy living blogs.

A healthy amount of skepticism is a very good thing to have. I don’t know how much crap I come across on Facebook which I’ve seen people take at face value, but with a 10 second Google search people would find out that it’s total bullshit. Websites like Snopes exist just to stop this sort of stuff. It also really annoys me because people will absorb this information and use it to inform future decisions, which is frighteningly dangerous. Of course, these are also the same people who say that the religious are gullible and simple-minded… *ahem*. Bottom-line: think critically about everything.

Also, who’s going to argue with Angelina Jolie…?

Quick Fix: Pageview Exposion Follow-up and More Updates!

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

Whoa, where did the last week ago? I can hardly believe it’s been 7 days since my last blog post! Anyway, I probably should have anticipated this, but my last post (in which I mentioned that my page views had shot up astronomically) has actually become one of my most popular posts already. It’s currently my 6th-most viewed post and by far my most commented-on. Anyway the referrer site, “topblogstories”, petered out its referrals a couple days after I posted my last update, although it seems that I’m still getting a few views from them every once in a while. For the record, if you get referrals from them, then do not click on their links.

In other news, the XBOX ONE was announced a couple days ago. I’m not going to weigh in what I thought in too much detail because it’s already being done to death, but I do think that Microsoft really bungled things with the new hardware architecture. Of course, the bit about used games and always online is only confirmed by Wired at the moment, so we’ll have to wait until E3 for a clearer picture of what’s going on. That said, if it is true, then Microsoft is going to take a lot of flak. I think Sony definitely has the initiative at the moment in the upcoming console war (disclaimer: I’m a Sony fanboy, but as you will hopefully note, I do my best to remain impartial). Of course, Microsoft also claims that XBOX ONE’s exact features aren’t complete yet, so they may drop the no used games/always online thing entirely. In fact, maybe the Wired article was an intentional “leak” to test the waters and see if they would include it in the final hardware. Of course, now I’m conspiracy theorizing, and I don’t really believe that myself, but it’s an interesting idea nonetheless.

Also, some more current events have harkened back to an older article I wrote in the first couple months of this blog’s life. 3D printers have been in the news a lot lately, which (of course) brings back concerns about 3D printed firearms. In fact, apparently a group has made a gun which is ENTIRELY 3D printed (if you’ll recall, the only part of the gun which was 3D printed was the lower reciever). That said, this new development is really not that much to worry about… well, yet at least. For one thing, this is just the first working 3D printed gun – I’m sure that, over time, there will be better developments in the technology, at which point it may become a full-blown concern. A secondary concern is that, yes, it costs $10,000 to produce a 3D printed gun at the moment, but soon enough the technology will be far cheaper. Finally, this doesn’t address the gun from my previous post – it is a fully-functioning AR-15 and so it won’t just fire one shot and it won’t melt anywhere near as quickly as an exclusively plastic weapon. So 3D printed weapons are still a bit of a concern, but perhaps not an entirely pressing one.

Quick Fix: Page View Explosion and Updates

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

Hey, just a quick post regarding something really odd which is occurring on the blog. About a month ago I noticed that my page views were steadily climbing until it became common for them to get around 300 per day, although this soon stagnated to ~50 per day for quite some time. However, I’ve noticed that this seems to be a common trend, and so page views have peaked and dropped as long as I’ve been running this blog. As a bit of a stats-geek, it has actually been quite interesting and it’s fun to speculate on the causes of the peaks. For example, almost half of my total views have been on my Hulk review, and I believe that this is because The Hulk became very popular after the release of The Avengers – as a result, whenever a Marvel event happens (Avengers on DVD, Iron Man 3 hype, etc), its page views seem to go up. Interestingly, Final Destination 3 has been garnering much attention lately, so much that it has become my 2nd-most viewed post (still about 1/9th of the Hulk post, but still quite substantial all things considered), and Final Destination 5 isn’t far behind. If the trends continue, I predict that they might actually overtake Hulk before the end of the year.

Anyway, enough of that. Over the past 2 days, I’ve noticed that my page views have suddenly skyrocketed. I’ve gotten so many views that nearly 10% of all of my all-time page views have been in the last 48 hours. Holy crap.

If you studied the picture above, you’ll see that some website called “topblogstories” is responsible for most of those redirects. Now I’m not sure why I’m getting redirected to from that website, but it would seem that topblogstories.com is… a porn/escort/probably-phishing site. I probably should have guessed. Oh well, I guess that goes to show that if you want to get noticed, somebody has to get naked!

Whatever the case, that’s enough of that. I think I’ll start the next retrospective in mid-June. I’ve got 2 franchises I’m interested in tackling, although I’m leaning more heavily towards one of those for simplicity’s sake… I’m pretty damn busy at the moment, juggling a work and school (why did I take a bloody biology course? I hate science…), so it’s difficult for me to commit to all of that and then find time to watch a movie and review it more than once a week. Whatever the case, I do my best to commit to my “at least once a week” policy and haven’t broken it yet!

Also, I’m going to be paintballing again in 10 days. It’ll be the 3rd straight year my team and I have attended the D-Day Tippmann Challenge at Commando Paintball, and so there will be more footage uploaded to my Youtube channel shortly thereafter. If you want to view my previous paintball videos, click here or on the Youtube channel button link near the top right of the blog.

Anyway that’s it for this post. I’m curious to see how long this topblogstories thing continues, but I just wanted to share that little update with my readers. Hopefully I didn’t bore anyone to tears.

Quick Fix: Updates

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

I apologize in advance, this is going to be a pretty brief post. I’m right in the middle of final assignments period here, I have at least ~21 pages to write in the next 5 days, so that’s gonna be fun. However, there are a few interesting updates that I want to bring up so feel free to read on.

First of all, I’m paintballing on the 13th of April at the PRZ (Picton Recreational Zone). It’s an amazing field that I’d been wanting to attend for 3 years now – it’s about 2 hours from where I live inside of an abandoned asylum. It’s going to be epic, there’ll be around 400 people all fighting for it, including my team, The Stormrunners, and other affiliated scenario teams, such as Citrus Connection and The Sentinels. I’ll be recording the footage on my Contour HD helmet cam, so if you’re interested, the footage should be uploaded to Youtube around the 20th. You can view my channel here, and don’t forget to like and subscribe!

Secondly, I plan on starting the next retrospective exactly 1 week from now. This gives you a date to look ahead to, and it gives me a deadline. With papers starting to wind down at that point, it should be very do-able for me! Be sure to check them out, this is going to be a very fun series you won’t want to miss.

The last thing to mention is something… disgusting. After writing my post on Project X, I was looking up some more info on the movie when I discovered something horrific. J.B., the useless fat kid who contributed absolutely nothing to the movie, has entered the porn industry. This immediately set off two thoughts in my mind:

  1. I’m surprised that he fell into the industry so quickly, I would have figured that he’d at least get 2 or 3 crappy roles before having to fall back on porn.
  2. The fat kid? Ew. Gross. No. I’m not posting any pictures of that.
WHAT DID I JUST SAY!?!?!
So… umm… yeah. Do your best not to picture that.
Oh God, I can’t not see it now…

Piggy-backing, Marrying Ponies and Remakes

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

Okay then, it’s about that time for my self-instituted weekly blog post. I’ve got a few things to talk about, and I’m not exactly the most eloquent, so I’m just gonna dive right into this one.

First of all, the Hulk review is almost at 1300 views. That’s nuts. I never expected to get that many views in my first couple months, let alone on a single blog posting. I’m guessing this is mostly due to inadvertently piggy-backing off of The Avengers‘ popularity, which makes the most sense. On DeviantArt, I did the same sort of thing with The Gorillaz, although it was intentional that time. I made a deviation which was Gorillaz-related in a flagrant attempt to garner page views and favourites… and it worked like a charm. This was almost 3 years ago and I still get new favourites because of that quite often. That just goes to show you that a quick n’ easy way to get noticed is to tap into a fan base and ride their coattails to victory.

Speaking of tapping into fan bases, I’m planning on starting the next retrospective sometime in April. I’m going to be working on final assignments pretty hardcore until the 10th or so, so after that time period I will likely begin work on that series. Be sure to stop in for them, they’ll be sure to leave you howling.

The only other things of particular note at the moment are a bunch of links I’ve been collecting all week. There has been quite a few interesting things that I’ve read about this week that needed sharing… some for different reasons that others. I’ll just leave that one at that.

Anyway, one of these links was gun control-related. I know I’ve harped about gun control a lot on this blog, and I honestly could have done so even more, but I’ve intentionally refrained from doing so on multiple occasions. For one, ranting about it too much can conflate me as someone who hates guns and wants them eradicated or something, which is definitely not the image I’m trying to foster. For the record, I advocate reasonable levels of gun control and gun owner responsibility, and plan on owning firearms myself someday. As for political issues, I generally will fall on one side or the other, but I like to acknowledge other perspectives when I do so. For that matter, I generally hate all political rhetoric in either case. Anyway, getting back on track, I recently read an article on one of my favourite websites which I felt showed gun politics from a very different (and balanced) angle. I certainly recommend giving it a read as it covers some issues which no one else bothers to mention.

If you’re a longtime reader of this blog (I won’t lie, you probably aren’t), then you might remember my first article about Idris Elba as James Bond. Since then, it has become increasingly unlikely that the man actually will be cast in the part, but there has been a (potential) development. Barbara Brocolli has talked to Elba about a Bond casting… but maybe as the villain in a remake of Live and Let Die. Now if this is true, then it will be quite interesting indeed. It definitely sits better than casting him as Bond (especially since he’ll be too old by the time that Daniel Craig leaves the role), and going back to the novels is certainly a good idea – especially since the original films did not hew too closely to the source texts anyway (with very few exceptions, like On Her Majesty’s Secret Service I am told). Anyway, there’s not much info at the moment about Bond 24, but I’m very intrigued at how this whole rumour pans out…

Hulk, Genital Mutilation and Iran, Oh My! Some Garbled Commentary

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

Hey, it’s been a while since I did a non-movie related post so I figured it was about time for a bit of personal commentary. I’ve actually got a few random things to comment on which occurred part-way through the retrospectives series, but I didn’t want to interrupt the series for them. Hopefully you find them interesting.

First of all, during the Final Destination retrospective, I was checking some of the sites which have apparently been driving pageviews here. I’m really popular with German Google for whatever reason. One refferant in particular seemed very strange since it was a file sharing site with no actual link to I Choose to Stand (from here on out, I pronounce IC2S the official abbreviation). However, some of the “most popular” searches on the site caught my eye: check ’em out.

So, umm… yeah. Totally random. The Internet is a dark place. A very funny, dark place.

On a related note, I’ve recently gotten a pageview EXPLOSION. Normally I average 25-50 pageviews per day, but over the last couple days I’ve been suddenly getting 125+ pageviews. I’m not entirely sure why, but I get the feeling it’s because of my Hulk review. The Hulk review has always been my most-viewed post, it has almost 800 views right now, almost double my next most-popular post (and around 100x more views than most of my posts). I think that the cause of this Hulk exposure is because of Google Images. Recently, IC2S has been anywhere from the #1 to the #3 image when searching for “Hulk Movie 2003”. Hardly an uncommon string of words, so that’s very impressive (and unexpected!):

Hmm… maybe I’ll have to do a review of The Incredible Hulk soon… It seems that movie reviews are basically all that’s giving me exposure, so a bit more focus on that area is probably a good idea. I might spam IMDb with some links to my reviews too.

And speaking of IMDb, next thing of note is a really stupid (and therefore hilarious) post I read on the message board for The Ruins. Check it out here for a good laugh. If you didn’t bother to, then I’ll summarize really quickly: in the unrated cut of The Ruins, one of the characters randomly gives her boyfriend a handjob, to which the first poster asked why she’d do that to him without any lubrication. Then the very first commenter launches into a tirade about circumcision, and it all goes downhill from there as people start quoting totally biased sources… if they even quote sources at all, that is. Most of them just said you were a horrible girlfriend if you preferred mutilated male genitals, and that if male circumcision is fine then we might as well circumcise all the women as well. The degree of ignorance and stupidity in the thread made me laugh for a good ten minutes as I read the comments.

In response to all that silliness, I have a few things to say. First, studies have pretty conclusively shown that circumcision is not bad. However, it’s not vastly superior to non-circumcision either. People throwing around a stat that it does such-and-such are ignoring the big picture, because circumcision and non-circumcision both have their benefits and drawbacks. I read a very interesting article about it, I recommend checking it out. Second, people turn it into a human rights issue. “Let the baby decide!” they’ll argue, which, of course, is just a rhetorical flourish. Prior to the message board posting, I had seen anti-circumcision propaganda thrown about on Facebook which said similar things (I have strange friends-of-friends). To this, I say that babies and children are the wards of their parents, and circumcising a baby is far preferable and easier than doing it later when they’re actually going to remember it. Furthermore, there is evidence which points to circumcision helping to reduce HIV rates, and considering that the spread of HIV actually is a human rights issue, I think they cancel each other out at the very least. Third, male circumcision is in no way comparable to female circumcision. There’s a reason why the World Health Organization has officially dubbed the practice as female genital mutilation – it’s rather perverse. Like I have said, circumcision has health benefits beyond its cultural significance, whereas female circumcision largely takes away a woman’s ability to enjoy sex. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just wrong. If someone wants to decry a practice as barbaric, they should focus on female genital mutilation first and foremost.

On a somewhat related note, I don’t exactly support abortion on a moral level (and had some difficulty keeping it out of the “let the baby choose!” argument), but at the same time, as a male I do not believe I should dictate what a woman may do with/to her body. Oddly enough, it seems to me like the majority of anti-circumcision proponents I’ve seen are female… just an observation and might not even be true of the greater population, but I just wanted to throw that out there. Wow, I didn’t expect to write 3 paragraphs on sticking knives near penises and vaginas. I hope that was more comfortable for you than it was for me.

To bring back the happy thoughts, here’s a picture of my dog. Awwwwwww.

Next, I want to advertise a movement I’ve recently joined on Facebook. Yes, the humanitarian effort I’ve aligned myself with is… a call to make a Dredd sequel. Ok, maybe it’s not that important in the grand scheme of things, but if you’ve read by review of the movie, you’ll know that I loved it. In an age where the shoddiest movie can get a sequel if it made somebody rich, a truly deserving effort shouldn’t be left out. I sincerely doubt that the Facebook group will have any effect, but I’m willing to do whatever I can to see Karl Urban and company come back for a Dredd sequel.

Finally, I was originally going to end this post with the previous paragraph, but a friend of mine on Facebook drew me to this article about a war simulation between Iran and Israel. Suffice to say, it was chilling. I really recommend reading it, it is quite frightening in its realism and intensity.

Anyway, that’s it for this post. Be sure to come back soon – I recently saw a movie that I absolutely hated (yes, more than Noobz) and am looking forward to tearing it apart with brutal glee.

5 Reasons to Prepare for the Inevitable Ape Apocalypse

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

So 2012 has come and gone and it looks like we dodged a close one in regards to the destruction of human civilization. However, I would like to argue that an even more sinister demise is inevitably approaching: that’s right, The Planet of the Apes isn’t (just) one of the best movies ever made, but it and its sequels are also prophetic texts! Need convincing? Well then, check out the evidence and then prepare to bow down to your ape overlords…

5) They Know How to Talk

Did anyone think that it was odd that Maurice (the Orangutan in Rise of the Planet of the Apes) knew how to sign? I mean, we saw Caesar learn how to do this as he grew up, but why would a circus Orangutan know that? Well it’s because, quite simply, this isn’t that uncommon. Here’s a documentary from 1978 of a gorilla, Koko, that has been taught to use ASL, which I believe also inspired the 1980 Michael Crichton novel, Congo. While the legitimacy of Koko’s case is somewhat disputed, there’s others which seem pretty clear-cut to me, such as Kanzi. Need more examples? I’ve found at least 6 high-profile cases.

So what does this mean for humanity? Well I think we should all know the implications. After decolonization, the formerly disparate peoples of Africa and the Caribbean were able to now communicate using a shared tongue (and no, I’m not implying that black people are apes you horrible bastards). A common language means that groups which were separated by geography and culture can now communicate with one another. And what better for subjugated apes talk about but the impending demise of human kind? While it’s (currently) physically impossible for apes to vocalize, honestly they’re only a couple steps away from an Aldo/Caesar situation where one of them decides that enough is enough and he’s had enough of these motherf—ing humans on this motherf—ing planet and goes “NOOOOOO!!!!!”

No word on whether they can sing yet too, but it’s only a matter of time…

4) They Have Political Systems and Culture

What’s that? Did you think that only intelligent beings like humans could come up with something as labyrinthine and bureaucratic as politics? Well hold onto your butts and check out this very cool video:

Granted, that’s a tad less “civilized” than our current representational system, with its checks, balances, attack ads, unilateral lobbying, political parties flinging poo at each other… where was I again? Well to be fair, The Planet of the Apes did show that the apes’ society was somewhat more primitive than ours, although it’s all a matter of progression. And honestly they’re not that far behind us, because anthropologists have found that apes have distinct cultures. It’s interesting that the article focuses on Orangutans as well… that’s right, Dr. Zaius is already real.

“Well,” I can hear you saying, “that’s all fine and dandy, but that hardly means the end is nigh.” Did I neglect to mention that apes totally go to war too? General Ursus from Beneath the Planet of the Apes doesn’t have a monopoly on the whole business, because apes do this sort of thing all the time. Apes also understand the concept of fairness, which probably explains why they will be performing medical experiments on us in a couple centuries when we’re all living out in the forests or in caves.

So let me just sort out the facts – apes are not only capable of organizing, but they’re also willing to go to war as well? It sounds to me like they’re just asking to put their stinkin’ paws on us…

3) We’re Using Them As Pets

On to a high-profile current event in the countdown to the end of days, I’m sure most contemporary readers have heard of Dawin, the “Ikea Monkey”:

Aww just look at the little guy, doesn’t he look cute in his little fluffy coat, with his beady little eyes and cuddly looking face? Don’t you wish you had a little monkey of your own for a pet?

No, you don’t. That’s what the apes want you to think.

Haven’t you ever seen Conquest of the Planet of the Apes? Here’s a quick rundown – people start making apes into household pets. They then realize that they can use these apes as menial labourers for cheap. The apes then get pissed off and conquer the world. Clearly, the laws banning apes from being pets in most countries are not in the interest of public safety or animal cruelty – they’re in place to save the future of humankind. The court case deciding the fate of Darwin, the Ikea Monkey, could hold the fate of humankind in the balance – if Yasmin Nakhuda gets Darwin back, then everyone will be getting apes for pets, and then clearly civilization as we know it will crumble. So thanks a lot for being selfish Yasmin, way to destroy the world because you love your pet… but rest assured, your pet does not love you. Darwin is watching… and waiting. Better keep an eye on your cutlery, because you never know when they’ll turn on you…

2) Caesar Already Existed

Did you hear about the apes movie that came out in 2011 about a chimpanzee who was separated from his mother and raised from birth to be treated like a human being and taught ASL to communicate? No, not Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I’m talking about Project Nim, which was about a real ape from back in the 70s whose story sounds eerily similar to that of Caesar. In fact, I have difficulty believing that it was a mere coincidence – I believe that Caesar’s story is probably at least partially based on that of Nim. How has the world not ended already? Well luckily for us, Nim died of a heart attack in the year 2000 (he must have seen Tim Burton’s remake coming)… but then again, that’s exactly how they thought Caesar died as well, and look where that got ’em!

1) They’re Armed

Ok, so the apes are organized, they’re willing to go to war, and they have their revolutionary figure already. Big deal, we still have guns. I mean, this is the biggest argument that people had about Rise of the Planet of the Apes – how are they supposed to compete with human armies without the untimely arrival of a super-virus? It’s not like apes have weapons or anything like that…

Actually, they totally do.

It’s exactly like that scene in Rise of the Planet of the Apes where they tear apart the fences to make spears. I knew most of the stuff about apes in this article prior to writing this, and even I didn’t know that apes had built spears already. Well at least they don’t have guns yet, thank God…

NO! YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP! DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!

Note that this article is a piece of satire. It is not meant to be taken seriously, unlike this nutcase here.

5 Reasons Why Raiden (Still) Sucks

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

I’m a big fan of the Metal Gear Solid franchise, counting Snake Eater and Guns of the Patriots among my all-time favourite video games. Yes the overarching story is very convoluted and loopy, but the stories in the individual games are amongst the best in gaming. Equally importantly, the gameplay is very fun, free and humorous, giving you the sorts of options that no other game series can get away with.

That said, the series isn’t perfect. There has been much ink and fanboy rage spilled over the issue, but upon the release of Metal Gear Solid 2 there was a lot of criticism leveled at the protagonist, Raiden. The flowing blonde hair, the whiny attitude and annoying girlfriend were all starkly at odds with the series’ regular hero, Solid Snake. Of course, most Raiden apologists have clung to this notion, saying that people simply don’t like him because he is not Solid Snake, and for no other reason than that. As a result of the criticism, series creator Hideo Kojima gave him a major makeover in Metal Gear Solid 4, turning him into a sword-wielding  cyborg ninja. The makeover seemed to work, as many peoples’ opinions turned around and suddenly people wanted to play as Raiden again. That wish is finally coming true soon, as Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance is going to be released in the coming weeks. It looks like Raiden has finally redeemed himself…

…actually, no. He really hasn’t.

Put simply: Raiden still sucks. “Why’s that?” I hear the fanboys crying, demanding blood. Well let me enlighten you through 5 reasonable points…

Note, I unfortunately haven’t played MGS2 in quite some time, although I have played through MGS4 recently. This might affect my views on MGS2 somewhat, although I’ve made sure that my reasoning doesn’t hinge on that game too much. Also MAJOR FREAKING SPOILERS!!!

5) Whiny as all hell

Watch this video. Within the first couple seconds Raiden’s bitching about not having the card key he needs. Then skip to about 0:45 and see how long it takes you to throw up in disgust…

Maybe it’s just me, but it’s not a flattering appraisal when your action hero’s most consistent character trait is that he’s very whiny and angst-ridden. It makes it incredibly difficult for me to empathize with a character who refuses to help himself, but this is basically Raiden’s defining feature. In MGS2 Raiden spends much of the game uncertain of himself, whining about his situation to his girlfriend over the Codec whenever you try to save. Basically the only reason why he gets through the game is because “Iroquois Plisskin” motivates him to do so. In the process Raiden actually begins to develop as a character. By the time he got ahold of the ninja sword near the end, it was time to nut up or shut up, and I actually found myself enjoying Raiden finally. Ok, so they laid the groundwork for the character here, getting the painful origin out of the way so we can have a badass sword-wielding dude in the future…

…except no, this bright future kind of got thrown to the wayside in MGS4. Raiden believes that his girlfriend has a miscarriage and runs away from home because he’s so sad, becoming a cyborg ninja in the process. So clearly Raiden hasn’t learned his lesson – if anything, he’s even whinier and angst-filled than ever. Seriously, half of his dialogue in MGS4 is in the vein of “You wouldn’t understand…” and “I have no future…“. Kojima gave Raiden a ton of power, but Raiden just doesn’t care and it really robs his character of any real essence. I mean, he looks cool when he’s battling a dozen Gekkos, but it’s really a superficial fight – there isn’t a lot of narrative weight behind it because Raiden just doesn’t care. Worst of all, when he reunites with his family at the end of the game, Raiden doesn’t even acknowledge Rosemary – clearly he still wants to run away from his problems, and it’s exceptionally grating.

Now with Revengeance on the way, the question is – is this element going to continue into the future? And if not, is the character still going to feel like Raiden?

4) Revisionism
Remember what I said about the ends of MGS2 and how all Raiden’s character development got thrown away? What are the chances that this is going to happen again in MGR:R? Pretty damn strong I’d say. At the end of MGS4 Raiden became human again, putting aside his cyborg ninja get-up to live with his wife and son. Once again he finally seemed to have some sort of happy future ahead of him, but MGR:R looks like it’s giving Raiden another make-over.

This reminds me of the (terrible) Resident Evil movies. Its main character, Alice, is very badly defined, and in every single movie in the series they have been rewriting her in an attempt to make her interesting. Of course, this creates a jarring tonal shift between each movie, but it’s painfully obvious that their attempts at revisionism are hurting any chance of establishing a character identity for the series’ freaking protagonist (for example, Alice went from an everyday security guard, to experimental warrior, to superhero, to badass bitch and now she’s a Ripley-wannabe). Similarly, the constant revision of Raiden is making the character arcs of the previous game worthless. Ideally, each narrative should build upon the next and give us some development. Despite all my criticism, Raiden has a great backstory which can be mined for material with ease. With any luck, MGR:R will do so and finally give us a consistent story for Raiden.

3) God Mode

When I first saw Raiden destroy a half dozen Gekkos and Vamp in his introduction in MGS4, I almost shit myself in amazement. In the back of my mind there was something niggling me, saying “this is totally ridiculous” but it was also really, really cool. Suddenly everyone wanted to play as Raiden again if he could pull off moves like that. However, it soon becomes apparent that Raiden is retardedly unkillable. He nearly dies from stab wounds from Vamp, but later he gets crushed by a giant battleship and somehow suffers even less damage. Even then he’s able to continue fighting despite missing both of his arms. Unlike Snake, whose death it seems is inevitable and very possible at any given moment, Raiden is basically invulnerable and overpowered in MGS4, making him a rather boring character (and making his whininess even more grating). One of the best moments in MGS2 was when you controlled naked Raiden through Arsenal Gear – he was very vulnerable at this time but it was one of those moments that endeared you to the character.

2) “Badass” to the detriment of the story
This one is related to the previous point. Remember the part about Raiden getting crushed by a battleship? I’m not done with that yet. Just watch this:

While I’ll admit that the ending of that sequence is very sad and incredibly well directed, this is probably my least-favourite sequence in all of Metal Gear. It’s just so stupid and makes absolutely no sense. “Well wait,” you might say, “you’re arguing about sense in Metal Gear? This is a series where psychic connections are made with severed arms (amongst other things)!” While that is the case (and, I might add, most of the retarded plot points in the series come from MGS2…), this one just takes the cake in my opinion. Just watch it again… Raiden somehow stops a massive, speeding battleship… by standing in front of it… on flat ground… which is breaking up (and has had no trouble breaking up until that point I might add)… and somehow stabbing himself in the foot makes the ship stay in place longer… the idiocy of the whole situation is just head-smackingly terrible. It literally is one of the main reasons why MGS4 isn’t my favourite entry in the series. Here, Kojima overcompensated to make people like Raiden, and did so to the detriment of the game (and considering how important story is to any Metal Gear game, that’s pretty bad). If he had died it might have made this a little less criminal, but the fact that he lives with nary a scratch (somehow he lost another arm?) means that this whole sequence was horrendously unnecessary.

1) He’s not Snake

Ok, I made fun of this argument at the start of the article, but in all honesty it really does boil back down to it… although not in the way that a defender of Raiden would hope it to. A Raiden-fanboy would argue that people hate Raiden simply because he is not as badass as Solid Snake is. However, I believe the real case is that Raiden is simply a worse character overall. Look at MGS4 again – Solid Snake is an old war veteran, fighting his last battle and racing against time to kill his arch-nemesis before he dies. He’s frail, beyond his prime, and fighting on anyway. All that matters to him now is completing the mission and ending his father’s legacy. Solid Snake is badass, but it’s because his character has been defined as such, and he earns the distinction. Similarly, Big Boss (Snakes father/genetic progenitor) earns his distinction as a badass through his character development, rather than because he looks like Snake… in fact, Big Boss is easily my favourite character in the entire series simply because he has such a great character arc. Unfortunately, Raiden isn’t nearly as compelling as either character, in part because they insist on rebooting him in each subsequent game.

That said, there’s plenty of room for improvement – as I said earlier, Raiden has a great backstory as a child soldier and the effects this has had on him provide the perfect material for a great character. Sadly it has been wasted thus far, but I can always hope that they actually go somewhere with him in the future.

BONUS: MGS2 Commentary
I, like many MGS fans, was rather disappointed with MGS2… not because of Raiden (I knew about the twist by the time I played), but because of the ridiculously convoluted plot, which was dense and incomprehensible even by Metal Gear standards. In recent times, people have been defending this, saying that Kojima intentionally was creating the first post-modern video game. To that I say… yeah, you’re right. It was damn impressive in that sense. At the same time, I have hated most of the post-modern fiction I have read. I might appreciate them on a technical level, but they typically refuse to be enjoyable. MGS2 suffers from this by having plot twists invalidating plot twists that had been revealed 5 minutes earlier, logic that was tenuous by the series’ standards (the psychic arm…) and confusion piled on top of confusion. In a sense… the story is a total mess, and in a game where the story is as important as the gameplay, that really hurts.

In addition, I have a lot of difficulty going back and playing MGS2 now… I had fun with it when I played the first time (I fondly remember disarming the bombs on the struts still), but now the controls are exceptionally clunky. Compared to MGS3, which struck a balance between complex controls and player freedom (not to mention the free camera in Subsistence, MGS2 feels ancient. I dunno… at some point I’ll try my hand at it again, but I honestly had an easier time going back to MGS (or even the first 2 Metal Gear games for that matter).

Quick Fix: Religion Control…?

~ Barloq ~ Leave a comment

So this morning I was woken up by my radio, and decided to listen to CBC for about a half an hour. They were talking about the Algerian hostage crisis at first, but soon the discussion turned to gun control as someone they were interviewing discussed his own thoughts on it. The pundit seemed to have a rather centrist position on the issue – he hates the NRA, but also seemed to oppose gun control as well, so it’s not like he had an actual concrete opinion/solution on the matter to put forward.

However, the interviewer’s final prompt to the pundit was something I found incredibly odd. They said that the man is an atheist, and wants religion to be done away with, but guns to be unrestricted as well. The pundit said that he believes that guns can be used constructively, but religion has been used to restrict scientific progress, among other things. Understandably, it was at this point that he lost me completely.

I hear often the argument that religion is an outdated institution, the people who practice are stupid and it needs to be eradicated. I believe this is an extremely intolerant and ignorant thing to espouse. Religion has been at the root of many violent conflicts leading into the present day, but it also has done far more good on an individual and global scale. Most of the violent consequences arise from human evil, not the evils of religion itself. To call for the destruction of religion is not only unrealistic, but misguided (not to mention that it could be the root of future violence if the next generations take it to heart and go radical with it).

Furthermore, violence, intolerance and hatred are hardly religiously-exclusive. The Thirty Years War, probably the most destructive religiously-based war, saw only 1/5 of the casualties of the First World War, a distinctly non-religious war (although estimates vary to as much as 1/2 of that number). Similarly, the bloodiest conflict the world has ever seen, World War II, was non-religiously motivated. I can’t back this up with exact numbers, but based on my research, there has been more non-religiously motivated killing in the past century than there has been in the name of religion throughout all of history.

I will say that I believe that religion should be separate from state (and that the Republican party should divorce itself from Protestantism immediately, because it gives it a bad name), but that alone would cover the pundit’s desire… so why call for the eradication of religion entirely? I’ll leave it at that.