’Til All Are OneFreedom is the right of all sentient beings |
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Two different tests, one same outcome. Things that make you go hmmmm…
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LotD: Transformers: The Game
"Freedom is the right of all sentient beings." — Optimus Prime
This one throwaway line in the new Transformers film is in fact homage to the original Transformers series. As observant readers of this blog may have noticed, I am quite a fan of the Transformers multiverse, particularly of the 1986 animated film (amongst other things, it has an awesome soundtrack and some great vocal work). Optimus Prime was a childhood hero of mine, so this motto has always struck a chord with me.
It also makes me wonder, if the Autobots are such strong advocates of freedom, are they themselves programmed with Free Software? Conversely, are the Decepticons proprietary?
What do you do when you’re in the city and need to kill some time? Watching a film sounded like a fair option to me. The cinematic masterpiece (!), ‘Epic Movie‘, caught my eye. I wasn’t expecting much from it at all, so I placed myself into Low Expectations Mode™, gritted my teeth, and went in. It went according to plan, with the LEM buffering me somewhat from almost-certain disappointment.
One thing struck me, however. I was sitting through the closing credits, and I noticed an attribution to a character named ‘Steve Irwin‘. That’s strange, I thought. I didn’t remember a Steve Irwin character. The closing credits were punctuated by short video clips, each followed by a change in music as the standard credits scrolling returned. A minute later, the screen flickered for a split-second, the credits returned, and the music suddenly changed. Did they cut something out? At the end, there was still no sign of Steve.
Was the Steve Irwin scene removed somewhere between the film studio and Hoyts? It could not have been done by the studio - the cut was far too amateurish for that (although I might be giving them too much credit, given the mediocre quality of the film). While I understand that Steve Irwin died not too long ago, in my opinion that is no excuse for anyone to tell me what I can and cannot watch. The cinema probably calculated that the risk of public backlash from maintaining the scene would be greater than the opposition to censorship. If so, they were probably right. That still doesn’t change the fact that I paid money to view a title that has been rendered incomplete at the (likely perceived) behest of extremists.
Censorship has its place in society, but this is going too far. Within reason, a free and open flow of information is the hallmark of a healthy democracy. Of course, the perceptions of what exactly ‘reason‘ is is debatable, and that’s what lies at the heart of such debates. I prefer to err on the side of openness, in the same vein as ‘innocent until proven guilty‘. I don’t like being told what to think, and what I can view. If I wanted that, I’d be using Windows Vista with all of its Digital Restrictions Management nonsense.
There’s always the chance that I’m completely off the mark with my accusations. I’d appreciate it if someone could verify/dispel my claims.
Are you aware of the condition known as Service Support Termination Trauma (SSTT)? View this Novell Public Service Announcement to find out more.
Klepas pointed us on IRC to a brilliantly-done film explaining the concept of Trustworthy Computing. It concisely and clearly demonstrates why so many of us in the FLOSS world prefer to call it Treacherous Computing.
Unfortunately, the producers decided to make the film available as a Sorenson-encoded Quicktime file. I find it amusing that people who oppose digital restrictions are using such a highly-proprietary video format. Fortunately for us, there is a DivX/MP3 version (still not as good as Theora or even XviD, but it’ll do) available at Google Video.
Once you have finished viewing it, head on over to Against-TCPA for more information.
A must-see film for anyone who grew up in the ’80s.
More info here. It’s a shame that the official site requires Flash 8 to run. That locks us GNU/Linux users out 
Whenever most people go ice skating, they usually begin by clinging onto the barrier going around the edge of the rink. I am no exception, but considering that I hadn’t skated in close to ten years, I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to skate away from the barrier after only about ten minutes on the edge. I was able to build up some reasonable speed, and I didn’t even fall over once.
Despite the cold, I worked up a sweat, and I must have had a considerable workout since my hamstrings felt tender for the next couple of days.
After that, we went to see Superman Returns. The intro had me wrapped: it was essentially an updated version of the intro in the first movie. Unfortunately, I feel they borrowed too much from the original four films. Unlike Batman Begins (which I loved), Superman Returns, as its name implies, is a continuation and not a reboot. Lex Luthor was darker, but still felt like a bumbling buffoon surrounded by even greater buffoons. He played a minimal role in the film, with a large chunk of time going to Lois Lane. Lois, I feel, was very poorly written for and casted. What happened to the sassy reporter that offset the goody-goody Clark Kent so well? This Lois was like a wet blanket on the whole plot.
Superman himself was pretty darn good. The problem with Superman, though, is that he’s too darn powerful. Lex Luthor is a powerful adversary with his evil genius, but if you want a character to match Superman in raw power you’d have to look towards the likes of Darkseid or Doomsday. For the movie franchise to survive, I think they will have to branch away from Luthor, but hopefully not as badly as was done in Superman III.
I must nominate Hotel Rwanda as my Movie of the Year. I know that it was officially released last year, but it only came to Australia this year. I rank it right up there with two of my other favourite movies, The Killing Fields and Hotaru no haka (Grave of the Fireflies).
These movies deal with incredibly disturbing subject matter: the effects of war on a civilian population. Each movie took its own approach to the topic, but they all masterfully captured the despair and suffering that people go through. What I also like about these films is that they have dealt with incidents which were either ignored or forgotten by people in other countries. Hotel Rwanda covers the Rwandan genocide of 1994, The Killing Fields is set in the Khmer Rouge dominated Cambodia of the 1970s, and Grave of the Fireflies is about Japan during World War II.
Hotel Rwanda and The Killing Fields both deal with civil war. Who cares about that? After all, it’s not in my backyard. Most of the countries in Africa are in some sort of war, yet the West currently seems more concerned with Pope John Paul II’s funeral or Prince Charles’s wedding. In the case of Cambodia, Vietnam (with diplomatic support from the USSR) turned out to be the Good Guys (funnily enough), invading the country and deposing the Khmer Rouge with popular support (despite their misgivings about the Vietnamese). The USA, Thailand and China actively worked to support the Khmer Rouge. Did we hear about any of this on television? Is it in any school history books? Nope, it’s as (self) censored as the Japanese occupation of Korea is in Japan.
The Rwandan genocide was yet another shameful event in world history. The United Nations and economically developed countries had the power to intervene and halt the bloodshed, yet they didn’t. The US had been in Somalia only a couple of years prior, but I guess Rwanda wasn’t important since it it didn’t lie on any major shipping lanes. The UN itself, France and other countries also deserve much of the blame.
Grave of the Fireflies is somewhat different, yet the same. Firstly, it is animated. This is no children’s movie, however, even if the two protagonists are children. I don’t think more impact could have been achieved if it were a live action film. Grave of the Fireflies covers yet another ignored event in world history: the effects of World War II on the Japanese population. It is natural to ignore the aggressors (or even applaud their suffering), particularly ones as brutal as the Japanese in WWII, but it is important to remember that they are just as human as everyone else. Many Germans consider the Allied firebombing of Dresden as a war crime, but did you know that the firebombing of Tokyo caused more damage and loss of life than the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which BTW were dropped on non-industrial residential areas)? I won’t get into the debate over whether such attacks were truly necessary (it was a war, after all), but we shouldn’t forget the human suffering which took place as a result, regardless of whom it is.
Yesterday I watched the new Kino version of Metropolis. No, I’m not talking about the anime (which I must see sometime since I’m a huge anime fan), but the 1927 Fritz Lang cinematic masterpiece. The movie is silent and in black and white, and for the time it was very cutting-edge in terms of technology, plot, budget and overall size. Unfortunately, the original 1927 version no longer exists, but this Kino version is the most complete to date, including the excellent Gottfried Huppertz orchestral score (re-recorded to make it sound better). The score was clearly written for the movie; orchestral sounds substitute very well for the lack of speech and sound effects.
The last time I had seen Metropolis was when I was a child. Although I didn’t understand much, I was freaked out by the plot and the silent nature of the movie. I recall having a few nightmares about robots and I could not even look at the video cover (which featured a picture of the Machine-Man robot) after that.
The plot itself was very interesting. It’s amazing what can be done without any speech (there was some ’speech’, but it was just text on the screen). Having been released during the height of the capitalist/communist struggle for political supremacy in Europe, this movie was universally panned by both sides for supposedly supporting one side or the other.
The main theme of the movie is a single phrase: "The mediator between head and hands is the heart." You’ll need to see the movie in its entirety to understand what that means. It is a very powerful theme, as is the imagery employed: mechanical machinery; a small army of uniformed, undifferentiated workers; clocks and watches; and many others.
All-in-all, I loved this movie. It’s a shame that the original no longer exists, but Kino expertly crafted the most ‘complete’ version they could. Missing scenes were summarised on the screen in text.
I saw X-Men 2 a few weeks ago. I’ve always been a fan of the comics, so I am rather sensitive to any ‘changes’ that are made just for the movie. However, I do realise that it is near-impossible to squeeze the entire X-Men universe into a 2-hour movie. I must conclude that they did an excellent job here. As in the first movie, the ‘changes’ were done very well.
There were a few little easter eggs hidden in there as well. In the first movie, you get a quick glimpse of Jubilee (the comic book character whom Rogue replaced in the movie), and just like in Spider Man (another fantastic movie) there is a short cameo by Stan Lee (This man is a GOD! If you don’t know who he is, stop reading right now for you have offended me.). In the second movie you hear Jubilee being called by name (by Storm), and on a television set you see a man with the caption "Dr Henry McCoy" beneath his face. The man appears as a normal (non-mutant) human being, but this man later becomes Beast. I think there were a few other easter eggs, but I don’t remember them.
Speaking of The X-Men, I found a great fan-comic, The Uncanny X-Sprites. Quite funny. I also stumbled across Wolverine’s real name. It’s not Logan, it’s James Howlett. It’s all explained in Marvel’s Origin series, which was released last year. There was also a Paradise X series which contradicts some of the fundamental aspects of Origin, but I wouldn’t take it seriously. Both of these (among others) are explained in vivid detail (beautifully illustrated, too!) at the Lost Soul Wolverine site. I spent hours reading all the stuff there; I was so riveted.
Last Sunday I saw The Matrix Reloaded. I am not going to compare it to X-Men 2, but I will say that this is another excellent film. The CGI was amazing. There were a few little flaws, but with all the action going on they were easy to overlook. I love Hong Kong martial arts movies (Jackie Chan and Jet Li are DEITIES!), and this movie satisifed my desire for some well-choreographed fight scenes. On the negative side, there is less continuity between the plot and the fights when compared to the original movie. Also, some parts were slow and unnecessary. I don’t want to see a bunch of Zionists (I assume that’s what the inhabitants of Zion call themselves?) dancing, and I don’t want to see Neo making love to Trinity. There’s enough pr0n on the Internet, thank-you-very-much.
Like the first movie (and the third, which arrives in November), The Matrix Reloaded was mostly filmed in my home town of Sydney. It’s weird to watch scenes from a movie and think, "hey, I was at that place only yesterday!" It also makes me wonder if I really am in the Matrix. Kooky.
The absolute coolest thing, however, was Trinity’s cracking of the electricity grid. She uses Nmap to scan for open ports and finds that port 22 is open. Port 22 is typically used by SSH, and sure enough Trinity uses a known SSH v. 1 exploit to gain access to the server! As her root password, she uses Z1ON1010. Not only does this make her 1337, it is also another easter egg - 1010 is the number 5 in binary (or so I’m told), and if you’ve seen the movie (spoiler alert) you know that Zion in the movie is in its fifth incarnation. More on this at The Register and Slashdot, and there’s a nice screenshot at Insecure.org, the home of Nmap.
Of course, what’s a movie these days without merchandising? Samsung has a ‘limited edition’ version of one of the phones used in the movie. To me it looks like a forgotten prop from Star Trek: The Original Series. It looks hideous, the ergonomics are all wrong, and the screen is too small to do anything useful. That won’t stop Samsung from charging a premium for it, or people from buying it. I feel sorry for those people. They obviously have some sort of psychological problem that has them convinced that they will only have friends if they have the latest mobile telephone. If it’s movie-themed and a ‘limited edition’, even better. They may even purchase a black trenchcoat to go with it. That will alleviate the symptioms of their inferiority complex for a little while, after which they will feel compelled to jump onto the next fad. Over-consumerism should be treated as a mental illness.
