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| Monday, December 20, 2004 03:47 AM |
| Murdered by Pirates Is Good |
 by Fëanor |
Yesterday, four things happened that I want to talk about:- Poppy and I watched this movie I, Robot. First off, we didn't like it. Poppy wanted to give up on it about half way through, but I insisted on sticking through to the end, because I'm like that. It's a rare and terrible film that I walk out on in the middle. I feel like if I haven't seen the entire thing, how can I be justified in my opinion of it, be it good or bad? And how can I add it to the official list of all the movies I've ever seen?
Poppy wanted to see this movie because it had Will Smith in it (whom she likes very much), and because it looked fun. I kind of like Mr. Smith, myself, and find it hard to resist a sci fi movie with crazed robots. Plus, the movie claims to be "suggested by" (I'm glad they didn't dare to say "based on") the work of Isaac Asimov, and I remember enjoying his Robot and Foundation books when I was a teen. Another point in the movie's favor is that it was directed by Alex Proyas, who helmed The Crow and Dark City, which are flawed but nonetheless excellent films full of great ideas and amazing visuals.
But there are two important points against the film that I didn't pay enough attention to before renting it. Those two points are the screenwriters, Jeff Vintar and Akiva Goldsman. Jeff Vintar was responsible for the mediocre, lifeless, bland, and confusing Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. His only other credit (besides I, Robot, of course) is a film I've never heard of.
As for Akiva Goldsman, I think this man should be executed for the good of America.
Well, okay, maybe not executed. He did write A Beautiful Mind, which was quite good. And The Client and A Time to Kill weren't too bad. But then again, they weren't too good, either. In fact, they were pretty corny. And anyway a few good movies can hardly outweigh the unholy trifecta that I am about to mention: this man wrote Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, AND Lost in Space, easily three of the worst films of the '90s. And guess what movie he's writing now? The Da Vinci Code. So if you had some strange, tiny hope, deluded fool that you are, that that might turn out to be a good movie somehow, despite the fact that the book was absolutely unreadable, you can now let that hope die a terrible, painful death. Akiva Goldsman has arrived, and whatever life and interest and imagination you might have thought was in the story will soon be sucked out.
Admittedly, I, Robot is not a terrible movie. It's just not good. Or interesting, or exciting, or believable in any way. It is, in fact, totally ridiculous, and at the same time completely predictable. Everything proceeds along the deep and dull Hollywood rut. The cop is haunted by a dark incident in his past involving robots. He is prejudiced against them. His angry chief warns him about his actions towards robots and says it better not happen again! Which of course it then does, but this time he's not imagining it! But despite that, his chief is forced to take his badge! But he keeps investigating anyway!
Stop me when this sounds familiar, people.
There's also the beautiful scientist at the lab where the crime occurs, and she and the cop hate each other at first, but slowly they warm to each other and learn to work together. And Smith's character learns that robots aren't all bad. And there are gratuitous scenes of both of our main characters taking showers. And Smith throws out catch phrases and put-downs while beating up robots.
Blecch.
And of course the movie is as unbelievable as your average action flick. The bad guys do ridiculously complex things in their attempts to kill Will Smith. I mean, seriously, if you've got his car completely blocked in with two giant trucks, why wouldn't you just crush him with the trucks--something which he couldn't possibly have escaped? Why would you, instead, activate about fifty robots and tell them to jump on his car and try to punch him and stuff? Especially when your immediate goal is for no one to know that the robots can hurt people?
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
And that's all I have to say about that.
- The next item will be a short one. Yesterday, the Eagles not only beat the hated Cowboys, but in the process also guaranteed themselves home field advantage throughout the play-offs. Woo hoo! T.O. got injured, which is not good, but luckily it appears to be nothing more than a sprained ankle. He'll probably be out for the next game (which is now thoroughly meaningless), but I'm sure he'll be back in time for the play-offs. I missed most of the game, unfortunately, but I taped it, and I passed up watching it for something far more important, namely, my next item of discussion:
- Session two of our 2nd edition AD&D Forgotten Realms campaign! I had even more fun this time than the first time, especially since there was far less moral ambiguity and soul-searching. Much thanks to everyone involved for a great time, especially Yagathai for doing an excellent job DMing, and Sarcasmo for hosting. Sarcasmo entered the campaign as a rather sour dwarf woman named Jude, who seems at once self-hating and self-interested. The other members of the party were there, as well, of course--Peccable as Rowan the pretty, well-spoken "swishbuckler," Super Tarzan as Uriah the halfling thief of questionable morals, TrackerNeil as Merry the very nice but surprisingly wily and violent priestess/wizard. And then there's me as Aelyn, the sullen, self-righteous half-elven ranger/cleric.
There was much excitement this time as we fought a hoard of zombies before finally finding our friends in the custody of about 50 very ugly and nasty looking pirates. Said pirates succeeded in capturing us, as well, after nearly murdering us, thanks to Merry's stubborn refusal to surrender against overwhelming odds!! The pirates stripped us, took all of our stuff, and killed our animals (please, shed a tear or two for my poor dog, Wind; his armor class and hit points were better than mine, and he served me well). Then we ended up shipwrecked and nearly dead on a rocky island, and before we even had a chance to rest, had to fight off a giant spider.
So, as you can tell, it was a great night. We all had tons of fun, and ate food that was really bad for us (although admittedly one of the pizzas had fruit on it), killed lots of monsters and took their treasure, and learned important things, like when you roleplay with yourself (as Yagathai was forced to do when two NPCs were talking to each other), it's called "monsterbation" (thanks for that one, TrackerNeil!).
Oh, how I love this game. The only thing that I don't like, and really only because I'm not good at it, is talking to other characters in character--the actual "roleplaying," you might say. I never know what to say. I just kind of giggle stupidly. Luckily, my character has really low charisma and isn't supposed to be good at talking to people. That's what we have Peccable for! And a fine job he does.
- My final item is about poppy: she learned that she doesn't need to take her last final! Which means she has straight A's this semester and is done with all of her classes! She's officially a librarian! Feel free to congratulate her in comments. Yay!
And that's it for me. Try to have a good Monday, everybody. |
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