Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Being so hooked up on video games my whole life, this was like the ultimate film for me. It starts out from the beginning introducing existing games such as Zelda etc. The opening to the film where usually you see the universal logo  was done in old bit text, form that moment I think pretty much all of us where going to enjoy this. Though my doubts about video game inspired films are always there because we’ve seen it so many times where they screw it up. Basically it’s about  Scott and he has this new girlfriend who he really doesn’t want to be his girlfriend, he starts to take more interest in this other girl who keeps appearing in his dreams eventually meeting her in real, the thing is to date her he must first defeat all her ‘evil exes’, 7 of them to be exact. This leads to them appearing just about anywhere and everywhere out of the blue and Scott must beat each one in a combat battle, but the way it is simulated is exact to that of a video game style of play, how could it not be anymore cool and awesome?

When Scott beats one of these ’evil exes’ they explode and thousands to millions of coins scatter everywhere indicating a sort of arcade style of winning, something that similarly reminds me of winning on a slot machine and it paying out like crazy, makes sense though! There was all these little things in there they had taken from gaming, like when Scott goes to the bathroom and the ‘pee bar’ appears and it decreases as he ‘uses the bathroom’. There’s one scene where Scott gains an extra life as it were, from that moment it stuck in my mind because I thought “Scott is going to get killed later on and his 1up will bring him back” and it did! I just knew it, when you’ve been play games as long as I have it’s so obvious that’s why they give him it. The battle of the bands thing during the film was kind of a cliché, we’ve seen it so many times in the movies etc and the main characters always seem to win, but one thing I liked about he name of the band was that it was inspired by a Mario character or enemy, the band name: ‘Sex Bo-omb’ I noticed the ‘-omb’ part and knew that’s where it was taken from straight away, quite clever if I say so.

The scenes and graphics used in the film was spot on, I think they really captured the atmosphere of gaming with all the bright colours and what not, that’s what gaming in the old days was all about they took the feeling of that retro style and put it in there, which to me is the core of gaming, it’s the start and beginning of where it all started, and I just love the old classics more than anything. That’s all gone now, it’s all about trying to be as realistic as possible with a billion different colours to use which I don’t see ever happening, it brings you back to the roots of gaming through film format... really? We needed a film to that?  Too many people forget about the old ones, it’s all about Call of Duty and Halo etc and to be honest I’m fed up with hearing it, I complain too much, maybe I should actually play it and see what it’s all about.

The one scene I remember the most was were Scott is using the bathroom however and the music is a remix version of a song from the Legend of Zelda, it actually sounds better than the original and as soon as it came on I clicked what it was from, they mentioned Zelda quite a few times in the film. I think it sort of portrays what it may have been like being a teenager (or a young person in Scott’s case)in the 1980’s where video games were at their peak, because to me it shows that in scenes like the battle of the bands etc.

It don’t think it’s the best film I’ve seen, but it’s definitely one I’d watch over again and again because it’s quite odd to see how a film director making a video game style movie actually got it right, or at least for me they got it right.

Sky Blue

What can you say...? I really didn’t like this, it’s an anime so it has its limitations but to be honest, but I’m not going to be fair on this at all, it was awful. Some anime is okay and the Japanese sometimes do good films but this just wasn’t up there at all. It’s apparently about some guy who works for a company but they get rid of him after he hacks into their databases without permission to do so or something and then 10 years later he comes back and also gets back into a love triangle with some girl and another guy apparently...

I didn’t even get what was going on half the time, I understood that the company which is called ‘Ecoban’ is the cause of the clouds blocking out the clear sky. ‘Ecoban’ would make sense since they are polluting the world and not being eco friendly so it’s ‘Ecoban’ would be logical? Anyway it’s set in the year 2142, which I think is a bit of a cliche just because it’s asking us all the question of how many times we’ve seen some anime set in the future with robots and flying transport etc, it’s annoying and I just don’t care because it’s all the same. When I realised it was a Japanese anime, I was praying to god that it was going to be good, some parts of it were okay and funny, but most times there was just so many pointless scenes like there’s one with a small boy and girl and they are looking up at the sky and smiling as if amazed by it, I mean the story is about this company and the world being dark and gloomy all the time but it was a bit exaggerated. The title of this film in Korea is called: ‘Wonderful Days’ what’s that all about? Really?! They sure don’t seem like wonderful days to me.

In the end there’s this one memorable scene that everyone pretty much remembers. All three from this so called love triangle are in the company and all floating around with no gravity, it’s very strange but the biggest laugh of this is one of the characters just float up and you don’t see him, but then he floats back down behind one of the characters standing in the fore ground, but he’s upside down! He’s like done some sort of flip in the air then comes down in the style of Spider Man not only that but it’s like a scene out of Spider Man the way it was shot.

Not much else to say really, I guess all these Japanese anime films and shows always try to be emotional about everything which is okay but they do it a little too often. It’s set in the future, but the thing about films set in the future to me is that once that time comes the film becomes a present day film and once that year passes it becomes a film of the past so it has the ability to change over time, but I think everyone will pretty much forgotten about this by the time 2142 comes.

The Thing

When I first saw the title of the film ‘The Thing’ I thought “this is going to be one of them cliché horror movies” and I was kind of dreading watching the rest of it. Set in the 1980’s however it was pretty good for its time. It’s all about an alien like creature that attacks a bunch of guys at a research institution in Antarctica. It starts actually attacking a dog that the team decides to keep at first, they manage to kill it and analyse it. They don’t know what it is however, which I think is where the title comes from because it is just a ‘thing’. They know however that it can imitate anything, in which adds a lot of suspense to the film because anyone of them at anytime could be the ‘thing’. So basically they are all against each other not knowing who to trust. They find out that the blood of the creature reacts with heat/fire in which it leads to them all carrying out a test with everyone’s blood samples. Apparently the creature was dug out of the ice after who knows how long, maybe suggesting they have been fused with the ice in some way because to me it only makes logical sense that heat would make the blood jump... right? Anyway they go on to literally tie everyone to a chair as they are carrying out this so they can kill them straight away if it is proven they are the ‘thing’. It’s done in such a funny way, they are all so nervous of each other and more tension and suspense is built up to each point they get the result. It’s one of them that makes you feel nervous with them and makes you think how you would react if you was in this situation. They know however that they must kill this thing before its gets out to outside world and takes over the globe and killing everyone and everything in the process.

It a funny film throughout which to me is good to have because I don’t really like films which are always serious about everything, I don’t think there is a film that doesn’t have a funny moment in it, but it’s better to see it more often than not because it gives you something to smile about and to me keeps the viewer (such as me, interested!). It’s basically about a bunch of guys running around an institute in the middle of nowhere trying to get rid of some ‘thing’ threatening to take over the world, it’s basically up to them to save the world. I like those movies and programs on TV where the concept of it the entire time is based in one place, it makes it more fun in my opinion and we get to see more of each character as no new ones are thrown in. This to me now makes me try to remember seeing any women in this film... I don’t recall seeing one and if there was then I certainly don’t remember it, think this is the only movie were there wasn’t one woman in it, this to me adds to the funniness of the film more because it’s a bunch of guys in the middle of nowhere trying to kill something that they don’t have any knowledge of but they must get rid of it before the situation becomes worse, but with no women in there, so there’s no one to make peace and to tell them what idiots they are acting like at certain points of the movie.

Some of the props and creature designs in the movie were good for the time of the 1980’s, there’s that one scene where the doctor shoves in hand into the creature to pull out its organs and see what’s inside so they can analyse the ‘thing’, it’s very gory and makes you want to throw up but it’s makes this ‘thing’ more creepy and scary making the funniness of the overall film better. There’s that one memorable scene where the alien head is trying to get away and it uses its tongue to escape after its body was just incinerated by a flamethrower, after it tries to get away it grows legs, transforming into a spider like creature, which says to me they took bugs as an inspiration to the design of this ‘thing’. We’re always being told that nicking other people’s ideas is a great way to producing our own thing and I think that was a clear yet great example. To me I thought it was a lot more funny than scary and I would actually regard it as one of the best movies I’ve seen.

Blade Runner

Never really understood what was going on in this film. From what I know it’s about some guy whose retired but comes out of retirement to catch these things known as ‘replicants’ which are illegal to create. Basically the ‘replicants’ are clones of humans but they don’t live forever, I guess this is because they could become dangerous and start destroying stuff so they have a fixed lifespan to counter that potential danger. I thought this was a more new film from the 21^st century, I didn’t think it was from the 1980’s at all, I guess its just the new digital age we live in able to re-master everything to look new.

It’s one of those movies I’d never go to see if I’m honest, but it’s the same with games, there’s certain ones I’d never touch. Everyone would probably say that how could I not like a film like this being a Game Art student. Its science fiction set in the future with robots etc. Well set in the future with all kinds of technological robots and stuff, sounds a lot like Halo is? You know all those wars going and fighting going on and blah blah blah... Its funny how when I look at the poster for the movie I think of that kid of thing and would automatically think “this isn’t for me” and “I won’t enjoy this”. And didn’t really, we can’t like every film we see and the same is for games.

I think that there’s too many game and movies that are similar, not saying they are bad but it’s like just repeating an idea that’s already been done over and over in different variations of it, I don’t want to see it over and over again one is enough for me, and that’s what I’m like with films and games now-a-days, I watch or play a game and don’t come back to watch or play it again or at least for a few years. Maybe getting a bit off topic here but that’s just the way it is, if I was around in the 1980’s when this movie was out ad I was offered to go see it, I would decline straight away, but it’s like living in the modern age of gaming, if someone offered to buy me Call of Duty or Halo or whatever, I’d decline straight away, if the ask me why I’d probably say that I’ve already played Grand Theft Auto and it’s basically the same thing and enough for me.

Everything I feel is just a repeat of Pac-Man which is funny because we discussed this not long ago how a game like Halo is basically a modified version of Pac-Man. Another important factor in this film is that it’s one of them dark gloomy looking films throughout, which I’m not a fan off at all. They are some certain instances when I don’t mind these kinds of setting but in film definitely not, in game a bit more likely because in game you control what’s going on, and interactivity is what makes gaming better for me rather than just having to sitting there for ages watching a film. I know I ramble on about this a lot but that’s just me really.

We did talk about the elements of environments within games not long ago, I sort of said that everything in a game or movie or whatever is created to try and make an impact on the person viewing or playing, for me though, as soon as I see the front cover a game, I’ll automatically think this is or isn’t something I’d play, I really shouldn’t judge books by covers as they say but for me that’s just the way it’s gone and is now, just like with this movie.

The ending to the movie is something of which I don’t forget but it's about as much as I can remember, I think it all comes down to the main character having to kill the last remaining replicate and it’s so close to killing the main character but doesn’t! The main character is hanging off a ledge and the robot thing doesn’t kill him! WHY?! They never take the chance, they always mess around and then they are the ones who are killed. The same thing is games though, can’t say I’ve seen this done a few times, but for me games have an excuse to end good, because you’ve actually got someone playing through the game and they aren’t going to be rewarded at the end if the character gets killed are they? But in films... well you can’t exactly be rewarded for sitting there and watching can you? Maybe that’s why they invented interactive DVD’s to compete with gaming more, you know if you beat a quiz and it shows you extra scenes? It’s just doesn’t work for me though. I find that maybe games and films take stuff from each other and that some games are inspired by movies and vice versa, they all can have different directions and everyone has different likes and dislikes, it’s just what you like really. We talked about clichés not long ago and I thought that maybe this movie and ending to it was a lot like seeing manga on Deviant Art really...

I am Cyborg, But That's OK

I am Cyborg, but that’s OK... the title itself it very weird, it’s something you would here being said in a sentence, obviously not in real life but in a fantasy movie maybe, but not a title of a movie. Seems we’ve been watching a lot of foreign films lately, this one being Korean made me wonder what we were in for. I’d never seen a Korean film before so this was a change. The title of it sort of suggests it’s going to be a comedy, being funny and quirky. If it was just called: ‘I am Cyborg’ I would think this to be something more like iRobot (a bit more seriousness to it). That is only talking about the title...

The actual plot is about a girl who believes she is a cyborg. At first she is working in a factory and attempts to recharge herself by cutting her wrist and connecting it to a power outlet. This is what would replace food as for a human. She then is taken to a metal institute because of what was seen as an attempted suicide and then wants revenge on the people that had taken her away.

While there, there is this other guy that is just as crazy as she is. He wears rabbit masks and starts to brush his teeth. Later he tries to help the girl (young-goon) because she won’t eat, which is obvious because she thinks she’s a robot. The doctors or men in white as they are described give her shock treatment; I think that must indicate they don’t know how she got in there in the first lace and the fact that she would take that as being recharged. She starts to hallucinate and have reoccurring dreams, which for some reason she doesn’t work out that a cyborg cannot have dreams?  (If I’m not mistaken).

The guy in all this however tries to help her by making what they call a ‘rice-megatron’ convincing her it’s a device that converts real food into electrical energy, very funny, this is just one of many jokes they have throughout the movie, it was quite like watching one of them Asian game shows where they have to complete physical challenges, some parts of the film the characters were going crazy in similar ways to these game shows. Some examples where they are running riot around the institution various times and other complete random acts that they did, reminds me so much of Takeshi's castle. One part of the film Young-Goon is shooting at everyone in the institute, it looked like something out of the Terminator, and in fact I think it could have been inspired by that, but the female version of it?

At the end of the film Young-Goon is told that she’s a bomb by her grandmother in which she tries to blow herself up I’m guessing by sitting out in a thunderstorm, but however the guy stops this from happening by putting a cork on the end of the lightning rod they are using, which means he doesn’t want her to die because he has become so attached to her. I never knew that this film was in fact a romantic comedy until after finding out more about it, it was though hard to understand, its foreign meaning you want to watch the acting but to understand more of what going on you have to watch the subtitles. I find this really distracting, because it’s a comedy meaning you want to enjoy the funniness of it but I missed so many parts of it and struggled to understand the main story a lot.

It was a good film but I’d have to watch it over and over again to fully understand it. Oh and she does actually manage to eat something in the end and is applauded for it...

Animation & Deadliest Artist Lectures

When we had the animation lecture I didn’t really think we’d benefit from it being Art students but the guy who came in, actually worked on things like Star Wars Clone Wars is a big thing. He said things about designing characters and what not. He said things like when you’re designing character the limbs of them must be good to animate and he took us all through the process of how to go about animating which at the time I thought was very beneficial until the Gladiator project came along just a few months ago and we had to rig it.

I really struggled with the gladiator project; the rigging I thought was hard to do. Basically it’s about making the skeleton limbs all touch the necessary vertexes of the asset you’ve created. I honesty and truly don’t see a point in this, isn’t this what animators are for? I mean I’ve been told that it makes the animators job easier etc and it checks to make sure that the vertexes are moving correctly as they should but I still think the animators should do this, it should be there job, I mean trying not to complain or anything but I had hard enough time trying to design the geometry and texture the damn thing without this as well... I really don’t enjoy designing characters as anyone could tell.

Hope mine doesn't go this bad next time.

In the deadliest Artist lecture, well it was the Artists from Blitz just showing some their work and everyone just voting for who thought whose was cooler. It was interesting though, it taught us a lot about the importance of fine Art and traditional work. They showed us a lot of sculptures and works of other that they liked, and were inspired by. I remember one girl shouting: “No one really cares about fine Art! Everyone just wants to create cool stuff!” or something like that, I wouldn’t have liked to have been her after the lecturers and one of our tutors hearing that...

But anyway I thought that it was good and some of the works they showed us were just bizarre. I feel that you must first become a professional Artist before you can start producing things that almost make no sense but are seen as great? What I mean is, is that I’ve seen all different kinds of Art work like sculptures, traditional paintings, digital etc but some of it makes no sense to me as in 1998 an Artist called Chris Ofili won the turner prize by painting an image but making it out of elephant dung... I mean really?

Dung Anyone?

There’s lots of Art out there, but so much of it I just don’t understand, I guess things like that do have meaning but you’ve really got to look into it to understand. I remember being in college and thinking about painting I was studying at the time and thinking what they mean, such as The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali which is an image I’m obsessed with, people say there’s meaning behind everything in that image but is there really? Some people say that Dali could have just done it because he wanted to, but no one really knows... I think that’s why I like it so much but there’s questions there of what I think still to be answered. It’s kind of like gaming really, all the questions about it haven’t been answered yet and that possibly why I love it so much?

The Persistence Of Memory - Salvador Dali - 1931

Y1 S2 T7 - Presentation – Personal Game Review

One series of games I like is none other than FIFA. What I like about these games is that there’s always a new one out every year and it keeps you interested with all the new stuff they add into it.

FIFA 11 (2010)

First of all it’s based around football, so it’s a pretty simple concept; they have to look into how about game the game better and better each year by adding new stuff into it. Basically they know that each year a new football season start so they would go about it my planning out what they have made the previous year and what they can add into it the next year for example in FIFA 2005 the game was pretty simple, there is a career mode which allows the player to play and manage a given team of their choice, this compared to FIFA 11 (the newest game in the series) is a lot different for the fact that they have now scraped the idea of only letting the user start off with a set number of different teams to chose and now they can start off with any tam the wish just to give you more option really. But it’s little things like that, that make up the game itself.

When people think of a football game I personally feel like they think “it’s just football how is the newest one any different to the rest?” well yes the idea of it is the same as any other FIFA game or football series but with that in mind it keeps the games simple and gives the creators and designers a big challenge every year simply because they need to build something better each passing year, but because the idea is just the same every time it allows them to take the all the elements of game and then think about how can we improve this. Some people could argue and say “well it’s going to get to the point where there’s going to be no way to further develop it” but it’s a good challenge.

If you compare FIFA 08 to FIFA 09 you’ll find that there are over 250 improvements in FIFA 09 as stated by the producer David Rutter. There’s so many people out there that have their own ideas for the games, so many that people make videos on YouTube about what to improve next and FIFA themselves even have their own forum that allows people to post idea themselves which the designers and creators listen to themselves.

http://www.fifplay.com/fifa12_ideas/

The game play of it I find very addictive and if you love football then you should love the games, I find that the Xbox 360/PS3 version of the game is the best because the game I would say isn’t as good on the Nintendo DS or PSP simply because of the lower graphics and support from the consoles themselves not making it as good on a handheld device though it’s quite nice to have if you’re out and about. With an Xbox 360 or PlayStation controller you can do so many different tricks whilst on the ball and while not on the ball you can do other things like switch the team between attack, defence or a balanced style of play which is making it a more realistic to how real football in played. Realism is the big key factor here because the creators and designers are trying to make it as to real life as possible. The game play is introduced into every type of mode the game has to offer, for example there is one mode where you can select to play on any team you want, but you only play as just one player of that team taking orders for the team manager as you would playing in reality. For this they use a player camera, meaning that you don’t see the most of the pitch both teams are playing instead to focus it on the one player you are controlling they put the camera into a first person perspective as if this is how you would play in real.

These game are released on the first Friday of October every year (in Europe) this means that after every release they must immediately get working on the next one because they only have a year before its release, but the thing is they have less time then they think... The idea of the game is to keep it updated and so what they do is waiting till the final date for the real world transfer deadline to end so they can update all the teams in the game for their users who play but it ends at the beginning of September meaning they’ve only got a month to finalise everything and ship it out! In which in recent years they have been clever enough to add in a feature which allows users to connect to Xbox Live or the online PlayStation network and update the teams within the game manually as they happen in the real world. This is almost of way of enticing more and more people to buy extra hardware and software for their home consoles in which to update teams within the game that a lot of people could be passionate about. You could say they are trying to make more money by doing this sort of thing but I think it’s just to keep up with other competing titles on the market, because if the game didn’t have online capabilities then it wouldn’t get very far in the new age we’re living in.

Be a Pro mode.

They games go down to the very finest detail now, with just about every different team and league in the world, new modes being added every year, you’re even able to build your own players and customise them. On the Art side of it there a lot architectural design which all these Stadiums and character building to fit into every kit design each team has, so there’s a lot or work when you consider building these things down to a fine detail and a data base of million upon thousands of player out there. It’s one game series I’ll always keep buying.

Until next time...