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Showing posts from July, 2013

The Wolverine

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The Wolverine It's a difficult task to condense over thirty years of a characters history and experiences down to a two hour film. Some of the best moments of the character gets glazed over, connections between character and reader also lost in translation. Arguably Wolverines best moments are in the comics and not in the films, but an attempt has been made to connect the audience to the character that is Wolverine. A character that is renown for his savagery in battle and his haphazard disregard for rules, authority, or the chain of command. He's the best at what he does and he does it the best when left alone. The comics deal with his issues and like most comics circulate around the same character defects over and over. For a reader like me that wants to see his characters develop, get past there defects and develop to their potential it becomes difficult to see this recycling in comics, but it happens. The movies are some what forced to it differently. If a character d

How We Perceive Film, TV, Comics, Video Games, Etc.

How We Perceive Film, TV, Comics, Video Games, Etc. Everyone has developed different expectations when it comes to comic book based movies. Some are interested in a 'True-to-the-comic' depiction of the characters or in some cases the plot (if it is derived from a particular arc). Others like to alter the characters or plot to make it fit into a general familiarity of the human condition more or less stripping them of the nuances found in the comics over the years, but sometimes necessary to condense the character down in order for it to fit into a film lasting only a couple of hours. Some care more about the film and how it is presented and how it fits into the classic understanding of film. Finally, there is another group more interested in taking the content and turning it into a film that challenges the boundaries and the average understanding of films, sometimes this doesn't sit well with general audiences until it develops a regular audience, examples; Tim Burton,

San Diego Comic Con!

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San Diego Comic Con! Well, San Diego Comic Con start yesterday 7/18/13, and it's causing me to think back to last year when I went. It is one of the most intense weekends I have had. San Diego Comic Con is the mecca of Comic Cons, unveiling new movie, games and other media related events. Actually to use the word comic when describing these cons is a bit of a misnomer, these events have more then just comics or comic related stuff but rather it should be referred to as a Universal Media Convention. Along with the above mentioned events Celebrities show up to connected with fans, taking photo ops, signing photos, or simply answering fans questions during panel discussions. Outside of these events artists line up to show their work to the industries leading professionals. Companies debut latest designs in software and equipment pertaining to all artists ranging from Painters, Illustrators to 3D Modeling and Practical Creature Creation, these events are for all artists. Last ye

Pacific Rim

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Pacific Rim I saw Pacific Rim in IMAX 3D and unless your a real fan of Monsters or Giant Robots and will watch it no matter what IMAX 3D is my recommended form of watching it. Critics have had some good things to say about it. With all of the films high fantasy positives I can understand that it maybe a bit too much for some people. The films cameras focus in on fast and some times mangled up fights between the robots and monsters, these fights typically take place at night. As rule each shot of an effect shouldn't last more then 30 frames. This helps prevent the eye from recognizing it as an effect. So most directors will stick to this rule and in a slug fests like this it may force some of the sequences to appear blurred or visually over stimulating. There is something else to be said about the results of this technique, when applied correctly the over whelming feeling can lead the the audience to feel the relief of making it through a battle well fought when the heroes re

Gay Spider-man in Movies

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Gay Spider-man in Movies I was reading about how they may make Spider-man gay in the new movies. Commenters wrote how it was wrong on the bases that he was not gay in the comics, which I understand. However this is the second incarnation of Spider-Man in the movies and they didn't make him gay in the first installation. So what does it matter if he is gay the second time around? Recently we have heard about some people arguing against Johnny Depp's interpretation of Tonto in the recent Lone Ranger movie. Producers, Directors and Actors are artists and they experiment with style, content and substance to bring us a unique experience, not a carbon copy of a previous work but sometimes their own impression of the source material however abstract. We relate to these characters in our own way and sometimes because of that we may be a bit deeply involved and so it strikes at ourselves when someone changes them. Hollywood has always been into marketing the

Comics from the Year 2000!

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Comics from the Year 2000! I continued to collect comics very casually, picking up a comic here and there between 97' to around 2002. Nothing really caught my attention that much. Around 2003 I went to my first comic con in Chicago and it was energetic! Burst with the culture of artists. The usual companies were set up like Marvel and DC but also some new companies like Top Cow and Cross-Gen. Filmmakers and Video game creators, I even met Stan Winston! The whole experience was an awesome and amazing experience, it renewed my interest in comics.  So I started collecting again and met some other collectors at a new job I had recently started and we would talk a bit about them. Particularly a comic named House of M this became my new Infinity Gauntlet . The story involved mainly the Avengers and the X-Men but effected the whole of the Marvel world. Scarlett Witch who is crazy like a fox alters reality recreating it to favor mutant-kind with her father Magneto as the King of