Has Superman really returned?

When they said that Superman was going to be filmed I was pretty speculative about it all. It wasn't because of the fact that I kept up with Superman Movie talks, the handovers, the passovers, the dozens of script rewrites and whatever God awful rumours would make any nominal geek's blood turn cold. It was because like everyone else in the world, this was Superman. This is the comic book movie project. You cannot fuck this up. I'm not implying that you can't possibly fuck this up no matter how badly you do say for instance...Doctor Who, but it's clear that it's a rule that in all your ability, you will never ever let this movie be fucked up. This isn't Daredevil, and Electra isn't even 1/16th of what Superman is in terms of stature. There is no second try. This needs to be a home-run hit, not for the hometeam, but for the game itself. If any validation of comic book movies was ever needed, it would be with Superman Returns.

As more information came out, along came the doubts, the speculation, even the backlash before the movie was even released. The costume, the actors, the ideas, the perceived possiblity that bastardization might come along. Me personally, hearing Bryan Singer was directing did not encourage my enthusiasim for the film. [i]That's[/i] how big the film is, that even a director who made possibly two of the best comic book films in film history didn't even change my mindto the possiblity that the franchise is in good hands. He was there to steer a Titanic in which I hope would not sink.

I didn't invest into it as some people might have either as a movie goer or a comic book fan. I didn't anticipate with the fury that the promotional campaign should have done, but clearly did not. If anything I was one of the most indifferent people to the film on the board without going into "I don't give a shit" territory. However I'm not entirely without emotion. There were slight information tidbits that piqued my interest. Brandon Routh most of all, the costume, the idea of Kevin Spacey and even the age difference between Luthor and Superman which should be actually quite small. The Gene Hackman take on Luthor shown in the trailer made my skin crawl and my minimal expecation for a good film almost crumbled. Even the references to Superman Returns being a sequel to Superman 2 boggled my mind.

And after watching it what could I possibly say? How about I just use the other comic book blockbuster of the summer X3 for a reference?

Great Caeser's Ghost > Oh my stars and garters

Yes...we have a homerun.

If Superman 1 and 2 was about showing Superman, his ability as a superhuman, showcasing his super powers and showing the people around him; then Superman Returns is a film where we don't just see Superman being the comic book character through action...we see him as a hero.

I had my doubts. The start of the film still didn't feel like Superman to me. It didn't even feel like a comic book movie at the time. But when the time came, when you see Lois and Supes have their first real talk it was like magic. Suddenly all the doubts, all the speculation, all the geek stupidity melted away and you saw Superman. You don't care that it's Brandon Routh who could have been mistaken for the 100 Justin Timberlake clones out there or that his hair is parted on the wrong side. The costume was right, the character was right and the hero appeared. Then you begin to realise that this is a film, this isn't an adaption. This wasn't a showcase-of-superpowers-just-to-fill-in-action-movie-quota #26, this was a film about Superman and even though it might not follow the comic 100%, sure Perry didn't feel like Perry. Jimmy was a tad more generic than the last time around. But it was a film that was adapted with the spirit of it's source material and directed with the quality of a legitimate piece of cinema.

Everything in here just shows much more style, much more substance than X3. It actually showed direction instead of the decaptiated chicken, film all you can feeling of X3. Don't believe me? When Lois was in serious danger for the second time, you actually felt that danger. Even with the knowledge that Superman will come, you are barely containing the urger to scream out, "SAVE HER SUPERMAN!" by the social graces not to disturb the person beside you. How will he come? When will he come? You even begin to question whether or not he will arrive or not.

It's that ability to illicit emotion from the audience that shows the power of the directing. When Jean basically AHVB'd Charles into next Wednesday, I didn't feel anything. In fact I was pretty much sighing as to when it will end. Even the comedy was better than most of X3 because it didn't feel like it was pandered to us, it was snuck in with grace.

It is a great film. It is a film to see, to enjoy and in the end it's a damn fine comic book movie. I wouldn't say the best, I definately wouldn't say my favorite, but I can clearly see how it can easily be a favorite of many who believe in Superman.

*****/***** stars despite some minor flaws, it deserves it after rising to the occasion so greatly.

What Square could have been...

As shown at our MKZ site, The piano composer Frederic Chopin is going to star in an RPG called Trusty Bell: Chopin's Dream. This is a game that has caught my serious attention, especially in a gaming world where you could hardly go one paragraph or even through 1/8th of a gamers top games list without hitting the Final Fantasy series. Along with Dragon Quest/Dragon Warrior, they basically set the idea that RPG fantasy must be medieval and even more apparent, setting the standards of how most VG cinemas must be.

Even after the technical demo of what FF7 would look on had it been done on PS3, there is still much speculation that a FF7 Remake is on the horizon, being secretly done and created. Me personally I don't have any enthusiasm to see a FF7 remake. Granted many people say that it's a game that has not aged well graphically, this leads to a problem to what can it be? To me a video game remake as always been along the lines of:

An entire revamp of the story/content much like Castlevania 4 (Super Castlevania).

The same content in the origin game but with extras i.e. FF-GBA versions, Tales of Phantasia, Resident Evil 1, etc.

To me the entire concept of a FF7 seems to be a doomed propect from the beginning. It's like trying to remake an classicly reknowned film ever where there is no reason at all to do a remake. This reminds me of an article on the now defunct Whatever-Dude website, lambasting of then power couple Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck's plans of doing a Casablanca remake with themselves playing the main characters. Refrain from laughing please. It was quite a strong rumour at the time, bordering on rumbling to be true. Had it not been for the complete meltdown of their relationship in front of every tabloid reader's and magazine program viewer's eyes, Casablanca could have easily been the spiritual sequel to Gigli.

Granted FF7 is in good hands. It's by no ways able to be totally fucked up by some hack (or hacks) like say...Electronic Arts, Midway or 3D Realms. Now I don't consider FF7 to be perfect, not as widely acceepted as the beforementioned cinematic acheivement I've referenced. It could be the fact that I ruined most of the game by already knowing the worst kept secret in video game history, that I've played through most of the game with a gamefaq in hand (all 100+ pages printed out at the time), or like most haters of F7 I just jumped the bandwagon because it is cool to hate. My apprehension for the game aside, what I do recgonize is the impact that FF7 had on the gaming industry. Most importantly that to most gamers, new gamers, first time rpg-players; to them FF7 is perfect, it is their Casablanca.

And therein lies the rub. Why would we want to have lightening strike twice? From the remake methods I've mentioned, if you try to change the story as a reimagining of the story such as method 1, you are basically tampering with a great storyline and thus piss off a lot of fans. If you take the route of method 2, then all you are really left is a neater looking FF7, with a playable FF7: Advent Children part and some slight bonuses. I suppose the most obvious one is the ability to revive Aeris, where in fact it would just go back to method 1 and piss off a lot of fans. Hardly worth spending millions of dollars for a blatent amount of fanservice, much of which is already being used towards a gaming collection called Compilation of Final Fantasy VII. IMHO, Advent Children is the FF7 remake that a lot of people were waiting for. In some form though, Square Enix has pidgeon holed themselves into a very bad situation.

If a FF7 remake were to surface, I imagine that Square Enix will have to produce the game with Advent Children quality graphics. Great. Just what we need. Another foray of hyper realism into a gaming industry. I'm not entirely against realism in gaming, but it gets to a point where when a character's belt buckle has more polygons than the previous generation's entire character model, does it matter so much when all I still see is a yellow square on someone's pants? When for all the effort put into this design actually doesn't improve on either atmosphere or animation of the character who's probably using the same animation it was 5 years ago. When you can boast about the amount of pores on a character's CG rendered face where in just gaming reality you probably will never see that detail aside from 3 scant seconds of some intro movie? Basically said, why make something real over making something fun?

I've always thought that it isn't FF7 who needs a remake, but FF6, heck FF4 - FF6 because unlike FF7, there is something that can be tampered with. This isn't because I'm some old school purist who wants a FF6 remake to be made because I love it. But because as great as those stories are, they do have the leeway to be reimagined unlike FF7's beloved storyline. Basically said there is more that can be improved upon the games other than just a graphical facelift. When Kefka killed General Leo in FF6, had it not been for the glaring red screen we would have never known that a murder took place instead of a Brokeback moment. Then again with anal ruptures, who's to say the red isn't so specific only to murder? But just imagine that Sqaure-Enix could really challenge how games look graphically. That games could even look much like Amano's artwork. Instead of hard anatomically correct polygons, we can possibly get artful even wispy looking characters and design.

However I am getting to a point here. For once I am excited about a game. Not by the fact that it looks great, but by the fact that it is different and in some ways it does push the idea of design beyond what we've seen before. Much like Mother or Xenogears (not to be confused with the Would you like some game with your movie snorefest Xenosaga) Trusty Bell is appealing to me because it looks different and even acts different from RPGs. And even though I'm not exactly a graphics whore, there is something to the attention to detail that can't help but bring it out in me:


Exquisitely detailed clothing


Interiors look better than most houses.


Scenary that doesn't make me feel like I'm cowed into having to go through.


Check out the piano detail

Literature put in its place

Although I had a clear opinion on what I think about Dan Brown's The DaVinci Code, I was more curious in reading his prequel book Angels and Demons. It's just as bad if not worst than The DaVinci Code. The same slow and melodramatic pacing and revelation of plot points continue constantly in this book, but there is a less of a presence of flashbacks that The Davinci Code had, which IMHO bogged it down greatly.

As if my hands realized and even recognized the proverbial crappy book that I was reading (it wasn't hard, it's probably the first paperback novel I've read that was actually taller than most standard paperbacks) they promptly lost all motor control as I hovered above a toilet. My entertainment for the stay fell right into the water with a resounding plop, splashing up onto the seat and causing me to curse it. The first thing that came to mind wasn't that if I've ruined the book, but how abosrbent the pages were, nearly doubling the weight of the book for being in the water for a scant 3 seconds. After a moment of reflection and embarassment, I realized I shouldn't be surprised that shitty books would gravitate to where it rightfully belongs.

The Top 10 Greatest Video Game Movie Moments Ever

Rated from best to worst....depending on your tastes and preferences:

1. Double Dragon: Allyssa Milano's Fine Ass® shown going into a ventilation shaft: Doing the only correct thing EVER in the entirety of the film; Billy and Jimmy fight for on point position to follow the Power Corps Chief Marian into the corps' hideout of spunky fun loving children. It's like Oliver Twist meets The Little Rascals...BUT SHITTIER!


2. Mortal Kombat Annihilaiton: Lord Rayden comes out of the closet!: Surprisingly enough having a Swiss raised-turned French actor-turned Hollywood actor-playing a Scottish character-turned Chinese Lightening God did not entirely suck ass as one would think in MK1. Yet when Lambert was replaced with a even worst C-Lister in Hollywood, well people can't just wound a character beyond recovery. They have to destroy it.

When Rayden, played by James Remar, comes out of the cave, in a leather vest no less, he openly proclaims, "Hey guys...I'm human!" you wonder how could Viscant possibly lose out on a Oscar nomination for costume design on MK:A. Sadly they could have easily saved the movie, making it a gay pride staple for decades to come, had they just only provided a small musical homage to previous year's most epic "coming out" scene in cinematic history in Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy. Sadly, it only serves as a curse on the SRK community to have one of our members adopt the vest permanently.


3. Super Mario Bros: 3 Marios...1 Luigi?: Like the caramel in a Caramilk bar, the actual state that Springfield resides, and could Gill have survived a Raging Demon, it was a hardly spoken secret of what Mario's and Luigi's last names were. Sure the characters' inception was back in the day when most video game characters didn't have names...at least Real Names. Space guy, the Galaga Ship, Arthur, etc. were basically the Princes and Chers back in the day. But as Mario and Luigi survived the early days of gaming, you come to realize that before they got transported to the Mushroom Kingdom, they were actually plumbers with real lives pre-save the Princess in another castle. But as the Mario Bros. were about to be put into jail to be dino-raped we are given this scene of wit dialogue at play:

Desk Sergeant: Name.
Mario: Mario.
Desk Sergeant: Last name.
Mario: Mario.
Desk Sergeant: And you?
Luigi: Luigi.
Desk Sergeant: Luigi Luigi?
Luigi: No, Luigi Mario.
Desk Sergeant: Okay how many Marios are there between the two of you?
Luigi: Three: Mario Mario and Luigi Mario.

Well fuck me.

It did make complete sense. It was the Mario Brothers afterall. And yet in some weird twisted way like how Pizza Hut was to TMNT, Little Ceaser must've had input as to how to express Mario's name like their toga wearing mascot.


4. Double Dragon: Robert Patrick's (aka Shadow Boss) Hair: Seriously....have you seen his hair?. I mean have you really seen his hair?


5. Mortal Kombat Annihilation: How to cure toomanycharacteritus by stuffing them all into a 5 minute scene: By the time MK:A rolled out there were enough Ninjas to rival the character roster in MK1. Seeing how they can't exactly put Noob Saibot or Smoke on the film crew you have to wonder what director John R. Leonetti and writer Lawrence Kasanoff had to do in order to fullfill some geek requirement to have all availble characters appear on screen. So what better way to incorporate about 5-6 different characters into one scene than to just refer to some only by name and have others become glorfied extras?

Rain: My squads have already claimed thousands of innocent souls on Earth.
Motaro: And I will claim billions.
Sheeva: By now you'd be behind bars on display in a zoo.
Motaro: If those bars could keep me away from you, Sheeva, I would welcome them!
Shao Kahn: Silence! What is your report?
Rain: Two of earth's best warriors have already been taken. Kabal and Stryker.
Shao Kahn: Tell me, did you make them beg for the lives before you destroyed them?
Rain: But, Master, I thought if I let them live...
Shao Kahn: I have no use for excuses! Rain, this will never happen again.
Rain: It will never happen again.
Shao Kahn proceeds to bitch slap Rain across the room *past* Ermac lurking in the BG and into a pit of acid as Rain screams in pain.

Thank the Lord for multi tasking.


6. House of the Dead: Cheating at Bullet Time and forgetting consistency: It seems that Uwe Boll had a misconception about more being better. It usually is good; only if it's DONE RIGHT. Now I like the camera circling antics of bullet time as much as anyone else, but when Uwe Boll decided to use it, instead of actually using SLR cameras, he decided to have the actors stand completely still on a podium as a camera spins around them on the bottom. From what I gather Boll actually created this rig specifically for this purpose. Does it even feature the actors in a cool pose at all? No...it's them holding a gun or weapon straight out. Sure it might have twice as many bullet time shots than the Matrix, but shame on you Boll for trying to fool us.

Inconsistency reigns in the movie as we come upon the graveyard scene as our heroes plummit head first into a swarm of zombies. During the scene it seems that every person that gets killed manages to get a wonderful red screen of death tribute fading them out during their death sequence. Suddenly, just as we are getting a pattern set, we suddenly come upon our hero who can't seem to use his gun correctly.

I forget what happened, but it was a malfunction that should have easily been rectified. And so we see our pony-tailed Asian girl bite the dust, instead of a red screen of death we've come to expect, instead we see our main character grimace in pain and disappointment. Was it from not being able to save the cause of his yellow fever? Or did it dawn upon him that Uwe Boll wasn't going to make him a superstar after than midnight blowjob in the alleyway? We may never know.


7. Doom: We learn John Codenamed: Reaper's last name: Following a (or preceding I forget) an awkward moment of mistaken incest Eomer...er I mean John gets ragged upon by his sister, Samantha Grimm, upon his assigned codename.

Samantha Grimm: So, "Reaper"? As in "Grim"?
John Grimm: They're Marines, Sam, not poets.

Someone was wearing the clever pants that day.


8. The Wizard: The Line™: Who'd thought that a 90 minute commercial for Super Mario Bros. 3 would instead result in the most popular, even most famous quote in video game history for one of the most failed Nintendo peripherals ever? The only way they could possibly top the line "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad." is if they had a sequel with a Virtual Boy user saying "I love the Virtual Boy. It's so fly."

And yet who knew that somehow this single scene would permeate through video game culture so greatly that 17 years later, we end up seeing the full extent of it's effect. Researchers are still speculating but this is the most agreed upon timeline upon The Wizard Sonic Effect.

March 1989: The Wizard begins film production. Fred Savage takes a break from his coke habit to join the cast.

Early July 1989: Nintendo of America reads the script and proclaim it to be the greatest marketing tool ever. It will not only be the launch pad for Super Mario Bros. 3, but single handedly restart the failing US economy by Power Glove sales alone. Universal pictures being pressured by investors decides to never release it to Japan. Car company investors fear that if released in Japan an similiar effect might happen and revitalize Japan's economy thus increasing an already growing presence in the import car market on US soil.

Late July 1989: Nintendo of Japan reads script and influences the Japanese gov't to close borders to any import of material relating or mentioning The Wizard film. Fears of The Wizard single handedly destroying the video game market by showing a gaijin weilding the power glove with such prowress thus collapsing all of society and sending it back 700 years keeps this legislation on for a minimum of 50 years.

October 1989: Todd Holland upon learning about the the secret of the whistles in SMB3 by an insider at Nintendo of America, he requests for a reshoot of the intended ending of Jimmy Woods being transported into a Nintendo Console by mastering the might of the Power Glove, obtaining the Triforce, weilding the Ice Beam and using the magic of a 1-up mushroom thus leaving Corey with a sense of happiness that Jimmy is in a better place; instead the current ending was what was shown. The original intended ending is now locked on planet Zebes.

November 9th 1989: Berlin Wall starts being torn down. Coincidence? I think not. Those East Germaners want to fucking see The Wizard.

December 15th 1989: Millions of children get exposed to mullets and The Line™. The Video gaming world is never the same.

Early 2000: Miyamoto while smoking opium in a Hong Kong brothel for inspiration as to how to proceed with the gamecube Zelda game; stumbles outside into a bootlegger's kiosk. As the middle aged man yells at him, he appologizes profusely but tells him that his friend Navi will pay for the damages and set things right. Upon trying to reorganize all the bootleg items, he happens upon an American 80's movie. Seeing how he was contemplaing naming his GC Zelda project from two titles narrowed down from dozens: The Wind Waker or Wizard Wanker. He mistakes this bootleg film as a documentary on wizards, so he proceeds to buy it for research purposes.

The Next day: Miyamoto's brain is blown away as saw The Wizard. He then proceeds to design the Wii controller.

The rest is history: Miyamoto decides Wizard Wanker is a stupid name for a game, but strictly decides on the name the Wii.

9. Wing Commander: Bullet Time Crimes Part Deux.: In possibly the most worthless and inane use of True Bullet Time, we feast upon Matthew Lillard's Character 'Maniac' prepping for a space jump by jumping from his cafeteria chair and spilling food in the process...FROM ALL DIFFERENT ANGLES. Now granted Wing Commander is a PC game series, but I think this should at least get special mention. Sure spend God knows how much money on this Jim Carey Lite for that effect to probably only answer a busboy's question on how cool it would be to see some waiter falling down freeze mid-air.


10. The Wizard: Jimmy Finding the Secret Whistles: Possibly the worst case of video game tourney cheating ever recorded, Jimmy Woods actually finds the secret whistles in which transports him to Giant World (level 4?) and wins him the tourney. This information being so secretive I imagine only developers would know when and where to find this secret item. It's like MvC2 being released on the first day for a tourney and someone learning about AHVBx3 right off the bat or performing Sent's unfly.


11. *HOUSE OF THE DEAD BONUS ROUND: UWE BOLL DVD EXTRA: It's bad enough that for a feature, Uwe Boll decides to surprise the actresses by going into their hotel rooms and waking them up...pre-make up. Say what you will about celebs, but make up does make them look decent enough. Upon the exiting the hotel, they decide to do some...training. Lo and behold they play a HOTD arcade game for a bit. For more wonderful Bolly antics we are introduced with the acteress in semi-full Paint ball gear (just the protection) and their quest to take out some zombies.

It was nice enough to see the extras in actual zombie make-up, we are going for realism afterall. What isn't real is how the extras themselves have NO PROTECTION AT ALL, thus resulting in the actresses unleashing hell upon the zombies and zombies in return peculiary shielding their fucking faces from the impending barrage of paintballs aimed at their unprotected bodies and head.