So why was predator 2 so shit?

You know... having the dubious pleasure of being able to watch Predator 2 again I am reminded just why it was so dire. I made my initial opinion with the mind of a child but any hope that I'd view it differently with the mind of an adult didn't last long. I mean... you can see what they intended. But what they intended and what we got, are two very different things.
Observe:

Well firstly... Danny Glover. I have nothing against Danny Glover. But we're coming fresh from a film that saw Ahnold go toe to toe with the Predator and only win because he managed to drop a huge log on the Predator's head. And I mean that literally, he didn't shit on him, he dropped a massive log crushing the Predator's unprotected skull. And even then the Predator was able to activate his self-destruct and laugh as Ahnold fled 'to da choppa!'. Danny Glover wouldn't stand a cat in hell's chance against the Predator. Hell, when Batman fought him (and remember Batman has tons of gadgets and was trained by mountain ninjas) he ended up in a coma for weeks. Ok so that was the comic books and not canon. But still.
Right from the start Danny Glover's character jars with me. His insane car stunt makes no sense. By rights he should have had his face shot off right there. His rulebreaking gets him repeatedly bollocked yet everyone seems to let him get away with it. Even when he enters Keye's trailer at the end Keyes puts up no resistance, letting him in on the whole story immediately. And why didn't the predator just fucking shoot glover in the initial rooftop scene? He's armed and aiming straight at him!
Which brings me on to the Predator's behaviour. What the fuck is he doing in the city? Why is he killing criminals from rival drug gangs, going so far as to target the leader of the Jamaican Voodoo Posse? It makes no sense. Which is why Ahnold refused to reprise his role as Dutch and why we got stuck with Glover. We see the Predator's code of honour again when he spots that Leona is pregnant on his thermal vision. We never find out what all that was about. Apparently it was cut from the film. O_O So why leave the pregnancy reveal in?
It gets worse! Just as things finally start to pick up and Keyes and his men try to trap the Predator by using body insulation and UV light we finally get to see the Predator's other vision modes. Great! Then we see him blast Keyes with his shoulder gun only for Keyes to get back up a short while later and take another shot at him! Now ok, we do know that the Predator cannon can stun as well as kill. It happened in the first film although we're not sure why. But here Predator is killing Keyes' men one by one. Why spare Keyes with a stun blast? Doesn't make sense.
We also see Glover cut off the Predator's arm after he initiates his self destruct which seems to completely nullify its effect. Why? Is the wrist device just a timer? Is the explosive within the body of the Predator itself?
Also, the Predator is clearly able to learn human speech and mimic it in context. In the first film we see him memorize Mac's line "Turn around" which he whispers in Dillon's ear as he's stood behind him. He also memorizes Billy's laugh which he performs after setting his self-destruct. In this film, he utters the line "Shit happens" showing a clear understanding of humour. If learning language is so easy for a Predator then why does this one only have a couple of phrases uttered by the immediate cast? He's been hunting presumably for some time. I forget exactly how long Keyes says they've been tracking him but it's long enough that he should have a bigger selection of language.
And what about the other Preds?! There's like ten more on the ship. What have they been up to this whole time? If there were ten predators in the city surely we would have heard about it.
And the ship!! Why does it have three inches of fog on the floor? In the film Alien that was explained. The alien eggs need cool temperatures and the ship they were on had a cooling system that maintained that floor mist. Surely that is not something the Predators would want! After all, there's an alien skull among their possessions. Clearly they are already hunting them. Giving them a perfect environment to live on on your own ship seems stupid.

Oh and also... why does the Predator save that guy's necklace, only to return it to Glover later? Is that supposed to be significant somehow?

Then there's the shooting. Predator is shot multiple times in the film. Pretty much every shot ricochets off his armour. Expect of course when Glover shoots him near the end, somehow hitting his soft underbelly with each shot. Now in Predator 1, the Pred is new to Earth so his lack of body armour is understandable. But why the second Predator seems to think he can wear chest armour and leave his abdomen exposed is bizarre. I mean, he knows about guns. Even the Predator in the first film recognised guns as a weapon and the second Predator can even differentiate between a real gun and a toy. He has a ship full of equipment. Why no full body armour?

And finally. The (sonic?) chakram. I'm guessing the lights on it and the sound it makes are meant to indicate it has some form of sonic technology. That would certainly explain how it cuts through a handful of animal corpses and the entire body of Gary Busey. But even then I'm struggling to see how Glover has the strength to nearly rend the Predator in twain near the end. Even with one arm the Predator should have dodged and then gutted Glover like a fish.

Oh and with regard to production values in general... Why the obvious green screen on the ship at the end?

Sigh. It was all just so... pants, really. That's the only word I think can fully describe how disappointing the film is. It's pants.

Teen Wolf

Who remembers the film, Teen Wolf? I do. Or at least, I thought I did. I must admit that when I last saw Teen Wolf I was a child, it was the 80s, and I clearly wasn't paying enough attention. Those of us who haven't seen the film since we were children are seemingly out of the loop. Everyone knows but us. It's been all over the internet for some time! Even Family Guy have talked about it! Which is how my brother found out and passed the information on to me.
What information?
Well folks. It turns out that at the end of the film Teen Wolf, as our lycanthropy sufferer M J Fox goes to kiss his girl on the basketball court there is an extra in the background... with his cock out.
I know. You don't believe me, right? Well Pete got hold of a copy of Teen Wolf and we checked it out. It's there. For real.
Here are the 8 seconds in question as found on youtube which take place just after the kiss.


WHAT THE FUCK?

Tuesday Music

One of the many things I hate about summer is how difficult I find it to sleep. I'm tired and kinda bored myself stupid reading about nihilism and the work of the Marquis de Sade. Oh and GG Allin. Probably not the greatest combination of morning reading. Methinks it be time for some videogames.
But, before I abscond. Let's have a sleep deprivation special edition of Tuesday Music! Yes that's right. My three favourite songs about not sleeping. Ready? :)

You'll have to excuse the advert which may or may not appear at the start of this one but I had to embed from Daily Motion as Sony have torn every copy of this video from Youtube, uploaded their own and then disabled embedding. The corporate bastards! Not impressed. Spinefarm leave their embeds on!
Anyways, I love this song. Insomnia by Faithless.

Faithless - Insomnia
Uploaded by djoik. - Music videos, artist interviews, concerts and more.

Well, can Youtube come up trumps for my second choice? It seems so! This track is by the Faders (who kinda faded into obscurity without even making a full album). One of them is the daughter of Midge Ure! Dunno which one though. Still. This is probably my favourite of the three songs I own by them.
No Sleep Tonight by The Faders

Ok, I admit it. The cute redhead Molly is the daughter of Midge Ure. :P

But of course I'm a metalhead at heart. And I must say, thank you Universal Music Group for leaving your videos with an embed code! Certainly making Sony look like miserable bastards today aren't we? :)
Enjoy the classic, Enter Sandman by Metallica.


Mmmm, metally.
See you tomorrow. ;)

Predator

There's something of a generation gap between me and my brother. There's eleven years between us. He missed the 80s entirely. One of the main things about this gap though really manifests itself when we discuss films. Having the luxury of those extra eleven years, when the internet and even CDs didn't exist (well ok the internet 'existed' but nothing like now) I've seen films which I just assume he has too. You know, standard classics of our era, like Terminator. For further example, he only recently got round to watching GhostBusters. Yeah. There are people who haven't seen GhostBusters! As you can see, he has a lot of catching up to do.
Now, there is a third Predator movie. I think my Predator fanboyishness is well known so obviously I decided we would have to watch the first two predator films first, to get Pete up to speed. So last night we watched Predator.
I must say, it hasn't aged even remotely. It's still a fantastic example of how to make a film. the misleading story that sees Dutch and his team think they're entering the jungle to rescue hostages. The reveal that Dillon actually wanted to crush the rebel base and was just using Dutch and his boys. And of course then the grand finale... it's all irrelevant anyway as there is an invisible alien hunter in the jungle! Hooray! And the level of suspense around the Predator's identity is amazing. The layers slowly come away as the film progresses. From unseen threat that only Billy can sense, to 'invisible' monster, to unstealthed, dreadlocked, armoured and armed alien hunter, to the very final showdown where, after waiting and waiting and not realising it's just a mask... the Predator finally reveals *that* face.

And of course, for the real geeks, there's one more layer to come. The chopper pilot who rescues Dutch at the end? One Kevin Peter Hall. The guy who plays the Predator. ^^ Sadly he died of AIDS. Sucks.
(Well ok, he died of pneumonia, AIDS doesn't kill you.)

So, bearing in mind how iconic the first film was. How awesome the Predator was. All the awesome one liners! With all this... surely they can make a Predator film that doesn't suck now, right? Predator 3 will be what we always wanted from Predator 2?
I hope so because I read something that worried me and I wish I could remember where. I read that the Predators in the third film have been stripped of their code of honour, to be portrayed as hunters rather than warriors. I even saw someone dare suggest that the Predator's Code of Honour was just something thrown into the Alien Vs Predator franchise.
NO!
Predator's code of honour is there from the start, re-enforced by two specific moments in the film.
1. Dutch's revelation to Anna that the only reason the Predator hasn't killed her is because she's unarmed.
2. When the Predator has Dutch in his grip and examines his face then steps back and removes his mask to reveal his own for the final punch up.

I really hope they haven't ruined Predator again.

Keep firing, assholes!

And if you can name the movie that quote is from... you get a dragon named after you. ^^

But yes, keep firing indeed. Two of my dragons have hatched. ^^ Aww ain't they cute? But we're not out of the woods yet people. The other eggs still need some... eggtention. ¬¬ And even those little baby dragons still need your help to grow wings. :)

Now, while I go to get my new PC joypad working, enjoy some random information.

A dragon with no front legs is a Wyvern.

Wingless dragons are more common over in China and Japan. Seems we Europeans preferred ours with wings. Some of those wingless ones can still fly though.


Even Slovenia has a dragon statue in its capital. In fact, it has four of them. They sit at the four corners of the Dragon bridge. How awesome is that?!

The internet.

The dragon eggs are starting to crack. :)

Today I want to talk briefly about the internet. It gets a bad rep from time to time. The newspapers take every opportunity to make it seem like Facebook is full of paedophiles and, presumably, children. Unproficient users fear the dreaded 'virus' that can make their computer melt while simultaneously being the ones who forward endless amounts of spam to their friends on the basis of it being 'funny' or warning about spam. The irony. They're also the ones who tend to go hunting for antivirus software from less than reputable sources and in doing so, contract viruses.

But the internet is really a magical and wonderful place. Ok sure, there's B. But if you avoid B then it's a magical and wonderful place. Without the internet I likely wouldn't have friends in America, Canada, Holland, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Egypt, New Zealand and Australia and probably more places that I've forgotten. In fact I probably wouldn't know any of you.
Without the internet I wouldn't be able to order incredibly rare CDs from places such as Germany and Austria (thank you Amazon for making that possible).
Without the internet I wouldn't have the wealth of knowledge (accurate or otherwise) that places such as Wikipedia and IMDB provide. I *could* always go to the library and waste hours and hours looking stuff up. Or I could just type "Mongolian History into Wikipedia and discover in an instant that the Mongolian Empire was founded by Chinggis Khaan in 1206. I *could* go to Blockbuster video and look on the back of every film until I find one with Jason Statham in... or I could just type his name into IMDB and be presented with a chronological list of his every appearance.
Without the internet, the only contact I have with my folks in Greece is a voice conversation over the phone that costs more than it would to visit them. With the internet a live video chat is just a click away and free, thanks to Microsoft.
Without the internet, I'd still be stuck in musical limbo, listening to the same old CDs I've always known, waiting for a friend to play me a song to see if I like the band. With the internet Pandora (now US only) and Last.fm allow me to listen to music I've never heard before, based on the type of music I already like allowing me to broaden my musical horizons beyond my wildest dreams. the internet is literally the world at my fingertips and yes, that means both the good and the bad. It still has its fair share of racism and intolerance, ignorance and simple incorrectness, but no more than the real world. The 38'000 idiots who joined the Raoul Moat Facebook tribute page would still exist and still share that opinion whether the internet existed or not. Those same paedophiles would still be out prowling for children in a more traditional fashion. The internet has not made the world a worse place. Some might argue that it hasn't really made it any better. But it's certainly made it a lot easier, whether you're using it to stalk your next murder victim or simply to send a birthday gift to a foreign friend.
I think it's high time people stopped giving the internet a bad name or taking it for granted and respect it for the tool that it is. A hammer can be used to build or destroy (or even kill) but no one moans about how much nicer the world was before hammers!

So today I want you to think about all the good the internet has brought into your life. All the great things it's done for you. All the ways in which it has made your world better. Today is Love the Internet day.

Tuesday Music

I hope you appreciate how much work went into this. It should be obvious when you see that these are not all youtube videos.

火曜日の音楽
Kayōbi no ongaku

Google reliably informs me that's Tuesday Music in Japanese! It's probably wrong but never mind.

So. The Japanese. Crazy huh? Yeah, it's true, they're a mad old bunch. But that doesn't hinder them in making rather beautiful music sometimes. Especially when they use odd mixes of Japanese and English lyrics. And so today is a Japanese special.

We'll start with two songs by Secret Ocean. I've spent the week setting the top scores on Audiosurf for these two songs and I love them. So much so I'll be buying the album.

This first one is aptly named "Beautiful".

Free music for professional licensing

This second one is called Kokoro no Furyoku which translates as The Buoyancy of a Heart.

Free music for professional licensing

Next one is a song my brother threw my way. It's the opening song to the absurdist anime Excel Saga. The title is Ai Chūseishin. I have no idea what it is or what it's about. Just enjoy the weirdness.



And then something a little upbeat. Heat of the Night by Aikawa Nanase (Or Nanase Aikawa depending on which way you prefer to Anglicize Japanese names. :P).



Don't forget to click the dragons.
Arigato!

Mindreading and dragons.

I know what you're thinking. One or more of the three following things...

1. Where the fuck are you Charon?
2. Huh? Dragons?
3. Man I could go for a sandwich right about now.

Well I can't help you on the sandwich. You'll just have to make it yourself. But I suppose I can explain the other two.

Where am I? At work. I guess that should really be "Where have you been?" although then the answer is still "at work".
Ok let's say "Why haven't you been blogging?!".
Truth is, I needed a break. I've said before there's only so many times I can bust my balls off writing and be faced with a blank comments page. So I've been gaming. After all, my Audiosurf thrones won't defend themselves and Ches is hot on my heels trying to best my highscores. Not to mention Steam's epic summer sale which saw me pick up a few new titles to occupy me.

And that brings me on nicely to... dragons! You may have noticed that in the top left corner of the blog are dragon eggs. Dragon eggs that will eventually hatch into dragons. Dragons that need your help to hatch. :) And you're already helping, whether you want to or not. Simply loading this page means you've helped that little dragon survive. But if you'd rather they hatch than die completely all you have to do is give that egg a click, once per day, no more, no less.

I think you can guess how this game works. I need incentive to blog, you don't fancy leaving comments. Dragons are the glue. If you like my post, all you have to do is click a dragon egg. Your work is then done and I will know you're paying attention as my dragons grow. :) The cycle of life in all its self-perpetuating glory.
It's so exciting. :P