Micro changes in air density, my ass.

Ridley Scott has one of the most impressive Science Fiction pedigrees of any living director.  Blade Runner and Alien are absolute gems and seminal works of the genre.  When I learned that he was returning to the Alien universe with a prequel, I was extremely conflicted.  While I have incredible faith in his ability to provide me with exciting and inspiring visuals, I've been burned so hard by other directors I once had faith in returning to their science fiction franchises I couldn't shake a lingering feeling of dread.

But with every teaser and trailer I saw I grew more hopeful.  It looked beautiful.  It looked scary.  It looked interesting.  Prometheus was easily one of my most anticipated films of 2012, and there was no way to temper my expectations.  And then I watched it, and I once again felt the sting of disappointment and the fall of an icon.

Explanation and analysis of Prometheus to follow.  *Massive* spoilers ahead (seriously I will ruin this movie for you if you haven't seen it.)

First things first, don't think I'm legitimately comparing this film to the Star Wars prequels, or the 4th Indiana Jones movie (that doesn't exist...) Prometheus is not the same epic failure on all levels that those movies were, but the fact that it had moments of true greatness make many of its epic shortcomings all the more difficult to accept.

The film starts out BEAUTIFULLY.  We get some sweeping vistas, and are treated to a scene with a totally ripped albino alien looking man doing something that will not make sense until later in the movie, but sets up an interesting stage.  Then we get my absolute favorite moments of the entire movie.  A slow, steady, cerebral, and classic Science Fiction scene where a man (who we can pretty easily guess is an android) is shuffling about a ship full of people in some kind of suspended animation.  He plays basketball, rides a bike, watches Lawrence of Arabia, and imitates Peter O'Toole.  It's a wonderful set of scenes that got me really into the feeling of the universe.  And then the crew wakes up, and the film quickly begins to stumble and eventually falls on its face.

We are introduced to our intrepid crew in a mission description carried out by main scientist woman A and main scientist man B.  I use letters because I honestly can't recall their names, and don't feel a strong compulsion to look it up.  This introduction tells us that the mission they're on was kept a secret from most of the crew.  Why was it kept a secret?  We don't really know, and there is never a compelling reason provided, but lets just say it's because this mission was funded by a mega-zillionaire who believes everything should be kept secret for no good reason (more on that later.)

We also learn that different cultures of humans all have cave paintings that point to a giant race of humanoids (who A&B like to call The Engineers) pointing them towards a set of 5 stars, and this clearly means they want us to come and visit, and these giant humanoids are the beings that created us!

At this point, one of the crew members who currently seems reasonable asks them what evidence they have for their conclusions and the response is essentially "because?"  And now they've started to lose me. Somehow these two scientists convince a bazillionaire to spend a trillion dollars on a mission that spans multiple years and trillions of miles, and they don't have a single convincing argument for why this mission is more than a waste of time and money.  This scene actually gives us a glimpse into just how little the screenwriter actually respects/understands scientists, and ends up undermining a movie predicated around a science mission to an alien planet.  Any mediocre scientist could go on for HOURS about something they were passionate about, but all these two can drum up is "Well, I mean, look at these pictures, right?"

Moving forward, we land on the alien planet (or moon? I wasn't entirely clear on that point) which they told us was capable of supporting life, to discover it is mostly inhospitable to human life (and from what we see while trekking around the surface...inhospitable to any life.) And now the movie really loses me.  They find what they're looking for.  A dead Engineer that was apparently decapitated by a door that had poor safety features.  At this point, one of the characters (who I had previously assumed was some manner of security personnel based on his behavior leading up to this point) begins screaming about how he's a geologist who loves rocks and didn't sign up to deal with dead things.  And then the biologist also decides that he's horrified of dealing with a dead alien species, and they're both going to run away.  So once again, we're able to conclude that this trillion dollar mission also hired the ABSOLUTE WORST SCIENTISTS ON THE ENTIRE PLANET EARTH.  We've got a geologist who has shown zero interest in geological features of an alien world, and a biologist who is terrified at the thought of interacting with a deceased alien life-form.

The geologist (who was acting as the team tracker using his "pups" previously) manages to get them hopelessly lost in the tunnels so that they get left behind. (How does a guy in radio contact w/ the ship that has a 3D map and constant updates on their positions get lost?)  And while they're lost and running away from basically anything that might be a dead body or a creepy sound they end up in the room from before, and they encounter a creepy alien cobra (slash penis vagina snake).  And the biologist who previously shit his pants at the mere sight of a clearly dead alien, suddenly decides that this creature is beautiful and friendly and he wants to touch it.  You can pretty easily guess how that ends for him, and I just have to wonder if this movie was written by a series of different people who didn't read what the others had written.  His behavior in that scene is the complete antithesis of everything he has done previously in this movie.  It happened PURELY as a means to move the plot forward, because obviously the audience wants to see some monsters killing people.

And that's just par for the course.  Nobody acts in a manner that makes any sense, characters are not characters, they're shells that move around and give a reason to show off another beautiful set piece.  Scientist B goes from starry-eyed hopeful scientist to alcoholic cry-baby within a few hours of arriving on an alien planet and discovering an alien species that may have been responsible for the creation of life on Earth. He is inconsolably sad and only wants to drink because the ones they found were dead and now he can't ask them to tell him the meaning of life (or whatever his burning questions for them were.)  As a scientist who had spent his life learning things about ancient human civilizations who were all long dead you'd think he would have understood that you can still learn things from the dead (especially ultra advanced civilizations that he knows had holographic recording devices because he SAW A HOLOGRAM RECORDING.)  David the android could have easily been the best part of the entire movie (thanks in part to a PHENOMENAL performance from Michael Fassbender) but his actions don't make any sense.  He infects scientist B with some black goop that turns him into...something, and also causes him to impregnate scientist A with a squid monster, but David also seems interested in helping, but he's also maybe interested in everyone getting killed, but he'd like to help scientist A at the end of the movie.

And speaking of being impregnated by a squid monster, after finding out she has a squid monster inside of her, David and the other scientists try to sedate her and put her back in cryo sleep, but she hits them in the face with something heavy, runs away, tricks the surgery machine into thinking she's a dude so it will essentially give her a C-section...and then NOBODY EVER SPEAKS OF IT AGAIN.  Nobody wants to know why she's limping around with surgical staples in her stomach, or why she's covered in blood, or why she hit them in the face earlier, and she doesn't think it's relevant to tell anyone that there's a squid monster she cut out of herself in the escape pod.

No, we are moving on from that, to the exciting new reveal that eccentric bazillionaire has secretly been on the ship the WHOLE TIME.  Why was this kept a secret?  Why does it matter?  Would anyone on the ship have been upset to find out that the dude who paid for the journey tagged along for the ride?  It was honestly somewhat satisfying when they woke up the still living Engineer and he just killed everyone, because it signaled that the movie must be ending soon.

In the end, I'm left feeling as empty as the characters in this movie, and Ridley Scott has made it clear to me that while he has great skill with visual style (seriously, this movie is AWESOME to look at.) he is incapable of overcoming, and possibly even incapable of recognizing a poorly written movie.  Nobody behaves in a way that makes sense, characters frequently behave in ways completely opposite to how they had previously, and many of the scenes feel like they've been played out of order, or belonged to a different version of the film (it was like reading a "Choose Your Own Adventure" book straight through.)  I can forgive some of the bad science in the film, but if you're going to have bad science, at least have some internal consistency.  The very premise of the movie is that humanity was led to this planet because The Engineers left our ancient civilizations those maps.  But then we learn that this planet (moon?) is some kind of weapons depot where they created black goop that makes heads explode/squid vagina monsters/chestbursters/whatever the fuck else.  So...why were they leaving humans a map to this place?

I think the most disappointing part is they had a chance to delve into some REALLY interesting territory with the whole creator/createe relationship.  We get a small taste of it when David is first introduced, and his "father" talks about how he doesn't have a soul, and then they touch on it once more when David is chatting with scientist B who says humans created David "Because they could".  They could have really gotten into the parallels between the relationship between the humans and David and the relationship between the humans and The Engineers, but they just threw it away on those two scenes and never came back to it.  Instead it seemed more interesting in tackling every deep question it could think of, but handles them all clumsily and halfheartedly.  They tried to say something about faith with Scientist A's religion, but again it was handled so poorly as to be more of a distraction than of any aid to the film.  There was opportunity here, by having Scientist A go through a crisis of faith after discovering the Engineers they could have said something about faith, and how it affects us on personal levels and what it takes to maintain it in light of things that can shatter it (and not just religious faith either, it could have touched on the very roots of humanities' need to believe in things and how we respond when that belief is shaken.)  But they don't, they just have a woman who believes in the Christian God, continues to do so after learning humanity may have been created by an advanced alien race, and essentially never even wavers in the face of learning that their creators intended to wipe them out via giant vagina squid monsters. 

Prometheus showed promise, and had some themes that could have really been great with some proper handling and expansion, but empty characters and undeveloped ideas brought it down to a level that I simply could not enjoy.  I don't know if I'll be able to keep myself from watching Ridley Scott's new Blade Runner project, but my expectations have been dropped incredibly low after Prometheus.

I've been looking forward to this for a long time

And I'm back, after a very brief (almost 3 year) hiatus. I'd like to say I've spent the time off doing something meaningful and interesting with my life, but the reality is that I was just too lazy to actually take the time to drum up enough motivation to articulate my feelings on any specific subject.

But the wait is over, my (2? 3?) loyal readers! Something has happened that I am passionate enough about to bring me out of my blogging lapse. Star Wars! As some of you are certainly aware, The Phantom Menace has been re-released upon the hapless masses (now in the THIRD DIMENSION). This event has given George Lucas another opportunity to say stupid shit in interviews, and his latest gem is that he never intended Han Solo to shoot first. This is troublesome (extreme rage and aneurysm inducing) to me for multiple reasons, which I am more than happy to elaborate on.

The most obvious qualm I have is that this is almost assuredly bullshit. In the original cantina scene there is only one gunshot, one explosion as the shot blasts through the table, and one dead bounty hunter. If it was always intended that Han shot first, then the editors, sound engineers, and special effects people all fucked up (and if that was what happened, shouldn't the director be able to step in and fix it)? Of course, if it was intended that Han shoot first, I'm sure the script would reflect that. Let's see what it has to say.

HAN: Even I get boarded sometimes. Do you think I had a choice?

Han Solo slowly reaches for his gun under the table.

GREEDO: You can tell that to Jabba. He may only take your ship.

HAN: Over my dead body.

GREEDO: That's the idea. I've been looking forward to killing you for a long time.

HAN: Yes, I'll bet you have.

Suddenly the slimy alien disappears in a blinding flash of light. Han pulls his smoking gun from beneath the table as the other patron look on in bemused amazement. Han gets up and starts out of the cantina, flipping the bartender some coins as he leaves.

HAN: Sorry about the mess.

Looks pretty cut and dried to me. If the intention was that Han Solo shoots first in this scene, then that portion of the script is not well written, and Lucas must have done a TERRIBLE job directing the scene. (I will admit, I cannot verify the accuracy of that script, but it's been on the internet long enough I'm willing to give it the benefit of the doubt).

Another reason this is a (mind-numbingly) stupid alteration (or original intent if you don't think George Lucas is full of shit) is you are forced to believe that either Han Solo has such super-human speed and reflexes that he can dodge a blaster from 3 feet away while seated in a booth, or that Greedo is such an epically poor shot that he could actually MISS a stationary human-sized target from 3 feet away (a target that he had been pointing his gun at for an entire conversation no less). Neither of these are actually plausible, and it is difficult for an audience to make that kind of suspension of disbelief (even in a movie with laser swords and space ships). You can try this one out for yourself. Sit across the table from someone with a laser pointer, point it at their chest, and then randomly turn it on and off. You wouldn't miss from that range (with a laser pointer that is probably harder to aim than a handgun), and your job description very probably does not include killing people and bringing their corpses to crime lords! (and if it does, I find your interest in my blog surprising/terrifying).

However, far and away the worst part of this change is the impact is has on the character of Han Solo. The characters in this movie are what made Star Wars the lasting iconic movie that it is (was?). We loved and love those movies because we cared about the inhabitants of the galaxy (far far away) they had created, and we were invested in their adventures. But we grew attached to them not because they were space rebels, but because each of them had depth and a meaningful character arc that we cared about. If you don't provide interesting character development then you don't create a connection that lasts for generations and create fans who are devoted enough to convince themselves that the Star Wars Prequels weren't some of the worst movies ever made. With his assertion that Greedo was always supposed to shoot first, George Lucas is admitting to us that he has absolutely no comprehension of character development, and he never did. While I have already stated that I'm convinced this assertion of his is an outright lie (or potentially insanity...I won't rule that out either) I do think his grasp of characters and dialogue has always been tenuous (Harrison Ford's famous "You can write this stuff George, but you can't make me say it" line comes to mind).

It may seem like I am overreacting to a change as small as Greedo firing his blaster a fraction of a second before Han Solo does, but that change actually does have a very significant effect on how the audience perceives him as a character. (Over/under on me using the word "character" in the rest of this paragraph?) Our first introduction to Han Solo sets the tone for what we understand of who he is as a person. We can deduce he cares about himself, his ship, and money (in that order). He has no qualms about killing someone who is in a position to do him harm, and he feels no remorse for doing so. This sets the tone for the rest of the movie. When he gets his reward money and leaves Luke and Leia on the Yavin moon base we all believe that he's the kind of person who would do that, and it makes his sudden appearance during the Death Star attack all the more surprising and exciting, because this is character growth and depth, and definitely not something we would have expected from the Han Solo we met in the cantina.

If you change the events in our introduction to Han Solo, however, then we are forced to draw different conclusions about him. If we are now to believe that Han Solo is the kind of person who, when confronted by a bounty hunter who is pointing a gun at him and has literally just told him he is about to shoot him, waits until said bounty hunter takes the first shot before retaliating then our perception of Han Solo is not the same. He's clearly not just in this for himself and money if he puts enough of a value on the lives of random bounty hunters out to kill him that he would put himself in mortal danger by giving them the first shot. He shows less growth and development in returning to save Luke in the Death Star attack because that kind of character was there from the beginning.

Yes, this is kind of nit-picky, but I really think it's important. George Lucas is taking art that has been a part of the collective public consciousness for over four decades and altering it. This is not different from a resurrected Leonardo da Vinci touching up the Mona Lisa because he really didn't give her as much cleavage as he had originally intended. Is it within his right to do so as the original artist? Yes. Is it the right thing to do? No. I'll close this with a quote from George Lucas himself, spoken in front of members of the United States Senate in 1988:

"My name is George Lucas. I am a writer, director, and producer of motion pictures and Chairman of the Board of Lucasfilm Ltd., a multi-faceted entertainment corporation.

I am not here today as a writer-director, or as a producer, or as the chairman of a corporation. I've come as a citizen of what I believe to be a great society that is in need of a moral anchor to help define and protect its intellectual and cultural heritage. It is not being protected. The destruction of our film heritage, which is the focus of concern today, is only the tip of the iceberg.

American law does not protect our painters, sculptors, recording artists, authors, or filmmakers from having their lifework distorted, and their reputation ruined. If something is not done now to clearly state the moral rights of artists, current and future technologies will alter, mutilate, and destroy for future generations the subtle human truths and highest human feeling that talented individuals within our society have created.

A copyright is held in trust by its owner until it ultimately reverts to public domain. American works of art belong to the American public; they are part of our cultural history. People who alter or destroy works of art and our cultural heritage for profit or as an exercise of power are barbarians, and if the laws of the United States continue to condone this behavior, history will surely classify us as a barbaric society. The preservation of our cultural heritage may not seem to be as politically sensitive an issue as "when life begins" or "when it should be appropriately terminated," but it is important because it goes to the heart of what sets mankind apart.

Creative expression is at the core of our humanness. Art is a distinctly human endeavor. We must have respect for it if we are to have any respect for the human race. These current defacements are just the beginning. Today, engineers with their computers can add color to black-and-white movies, change the soundtrack, speed up the pace, and add or subtract material to the philosophical tastes of the copyright holder. Tomorrow, more advanced technology will be able to replace actors with "fresher faces," or alter dialogue and change the movement of the actor's lips to match. It will soon be possible to create a new "original" negative with whatever changes or alterations the copyright holder of the moment desires. The copyright holders, so far, have not been completely diligent in preserving the original negatives of films they control. In order to reconstruct old negatives, many archivists have had to go to Eastern bloc countries where American films have been better preserved.

In the future it will become even easier for old negatives to become lost and be "replaced" by new altered negatives. This would be a great loss to our society. Our cultural history must not be allowed to be rewritten. There is nothing to stop American films, records, books, and paintings from being sold to a foreign entity or egotistical gangsters and having them change our cultural heritage to suit their personal taste. I accuse the companies and groups, who say that American law is sufficient, of misleading the Congress and the People for their own economic self-interest. I accuse the corporations, who oppose the moral rights of the artist, of being dishonest and insensitive to American cultural heritage and of being interested only in their quarterly bottom line, and not in the long-term interest of the Nation. The public's interest is ultimately dominant over all other interests. And the proof of that is that even a copyright law only permits the creators and their estate a limited amount of time to enjoy the economic fruits of that work.

There are those who say American law is sufficient. That's an outrage! It's not sufficient! If it were sufficient, why would I be here? Why would John Houston have been so studiously ignored when he protested the colorization of "The Maltese Falcon?" Why are films cut up and butchered? Attention should be paid to this question of our soul, and not simply to accounting procedures. Attention should be paid to the interest of those who are yet unborn, who should be able to see this generation as it saw itself, and the past generation as it saw itself. I hope you have the courage to lead America in acknowledging the importance of American art to the human race, and accord the proper protection for the creators of that art--as it is accorded them in much of the rest of the world communities."

There are three flowers in a vase...

I know this news will come as a shock to anyone reading this blog, but I am something of a Joss Whedon fanboy. Anyone who interacted with me last summer assuredly dealt with my incessant ramblings about Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog in my own personal attempt to aid Joss Whedon's project.

I do so again.

This time I am not shilling for Dr. Horrible or Captain Hammer, but for Echo, Topher, Boyd, Ballard, and even Miss DeWitt. I am attempting to rally everyone I can around Dollhouse, another brilliant Whedon creation that Fox is poised and ready to terminate before it's time.

Those following me on Twitter have seen my nonstop series of tweets about Dollhouse, and will continue to see them for the rest of this week, because the Internet has unofficially declared this week Watch Dollhouse Week. I know all of my attempts are likely futile and have almost no hope of actually swaying the Fox executives one way or the other, but I will continue to try my best and utilize what is available to me to at least try to help.

So help me in the fight. Watch Dollhouse, preorder the first season DVDs, tell your friends, loved ones, neighbors, strangers on the bus to do the same. The rallying cry of the faithful was enough to resurrect the Firefly 'verse in movie form, perhaps we can save Dollhouse.

If I wanted schooling, I'd-a gone to school

It's over. It's finally over.

After 20 years, my scholastic career is finally at an end. No longer, when asked what I am doing with my evening will I respond "homework", and I am sure all of my friends are particularly glad to never have to hear me respond "thesis" (or listen to my incessant whining about said thesis).

I would like to thank every single person who ever offered me words of encouragement this semester. I am honestly not certain if I would have been able to finish my thesis without all of your support, and I know that I was constantly grateful that I've managed to surround myself with such wonderfully badass peoples.

I would also like to congratulate my good friend James, who has also achieved this auspicious milestone.

While I know it may sound somewhat out of character for me to say nice things (especially about people I actually do like), I realize that it is on occasion important for me to remind everyone I care about that I really do care, and I really do value your friendships. Without you I would both literally and figuratively not be where I am today, and I can never truly thank you all enough.

(I know it is unlikely that anyone much cares, but I will likely be posting up my entire thesis sometime soon, so if it strikes your fancy you too can learn about Ambient Environments and Agile Software Metrics)

My food is problematic

Sure has been awhile since I've done one of these...

So it's been over three months since my transition into the pescetarian lifestyle, and I have some updates and confessions to make.

About a month or so ago I had terriyaki chicken from Kyoto Terriyaki in Boulder, then the next day I had a hamburger from Thunderbird Burgers, and the day after that I had steak in my Pho.  These slips in my moral fiber have actually been quite beneficial.  I have discovered that I've lost my taste for chicken enough that it no longer outweighs the feeling of guilt I have over eating it.  I felt terrible after dinner at Kyoto.

I have also learned that red meat is TOTALLY FUCKING WORTH THE GUILT.  I can't help it, and maybe it speaks poorly to my moral constitution, but hamburgers and steak are seriously so damned good I can barely stand it.  I have therefore somewhat revised my dietary description.  While I suppose it is still somewhat valid to call myself pescetarian, I just don't think I can fully eliminate red meat from my diet for the time being, and will thusly be occassionally indulging in a steak or a hamburger, though only once or twice a month at most.

I also recently discovered the amazingness that is Morningstar Farms.  While there are a lot of meat replacements that are worse than not eating meat, Morningstar Farms so far has failed to let me down.  Their Corndogs, veggie dogs, and buffalo chik'n are what I've tried so far, and they're all amazing.  Honestly, I recommend all of you give them a try and see how you feel about em.

My spoon is too big

The end is in sight!

Today marks my successful completion of my project for my Animation course this semester, which is the last thing I needed to complete to have no more work until next semester starts.  This news isFREAKING AWESOME if I do say so myself.  

I am now one semester away from recieving my Master of Science Degree in Computer Science, with my entire next semester devoted to work on my thesis.  

Here is my animation for anyone interested, youtube compressed the hell out of it so it doesn't look as good as it does on my computer but I still think it is pretty ok.  

I am a nice shark, not a mindless eating machine.

I feel that an apology is necessary.

To anyone I have ever known who is or was a vegetarian, and who I may have mocked, derided, or belittled, I am sorry.  It was a mockery born of ignorance and intolerance, and one which I am genuinely remorseful for.  This apology has been a long time coming, it has been years since I recognized the error of my ways and determined that not only were the dietary habits of others something that was none of my business, but the choice to intentionally reduce the amount of death and suffering you levy against other living creatures is an admirable trait.  So again, I am sorry.

I was reminded of this long overdue apology because I have recently made the decision to alter my diet in the direction of vegetarianism.  First stop: Pescetarian.

The transition has not been easy.  It hasn't even been two full weeks and there are times when I see someone else eating some chicken or beef and it's all I can do not to snatch it from their plate and devour it in one giant carnivorous bite.  I imagine (hope hope hope) I will eventually get to the point where that is no longer a major issue because I don't know if I have enough will power to resist that kind of impulse for the rest of my life.

The first question anyone asks when learning of my new eating habits is "why?" so I may as well try to get it in writing.  I find that I can no longer morally justify the death of other living creatures in order to satiate my personal dietary whims.  I am of the opine that if I can find the appropriate sustenance from plants that have no capacity for pain or suffering then that is preferable to sustaining myself with the death of creatures that can suffer.

The question that follows is generally why I will still eat the fishies.  As I mentioned early in the blog I do have an end-goal of vegetarianism in mind, so I hope to eventually exempt fish from my plates.  I am keeping fish because the last few times I tried to go vegetarian and eliminated all meat straight away it didn't last, and I think it was partly just too big a transition.  Being a pescetarian will allow me to ease my way into the lifestyle, and get my digestive system more accustomed to the reduced meat and increased plant life it is seeing.  Additionally, fish are less cognitively capable of experiencing pain and suffering, which is my primary guidance in the switch to vegetarianism.  (Were scientists able to reach a consensus and determine that fish do not experience pain in any negative way other than 'pressure there probably means I'm getting eaten by a bigger fish...swim awayyyyy' I could conceivably stick with pescetarianism forever).  There obviously has to be some manner of cutoff where I decide it is acceptable for something to die for me to live, so I believe it is something of a moral balancing act.

I've also faced the "Will you ever go vegan?" question a few times, and I cannot answer that one, because I really don't know.  I can, however, answer that if I ever (seriously) declare moral superiority over those who have chosen to continue eating meat I would like someone to punch me.  Maybe kick me a little as well.  I think vegetarianism is a gray moral area, and therefore cannot assume that my personal interpretation of the situation is intrinsically more valid than anyone else, but I would be more than glad to have a discussion about it with others.  (I have discovered it is somewhat difficult to properly express via text conversations, so an in person conversation would probably be easier...but I'll gladly discuss over IM too).