Thursday, June 30, 2011

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Review

I really enjoyed this movie. There was very little in the way of shakey cam (a true blessing) and the majority of the combat sequences were crisp and easy to follow. The movie had some rather interesting lowbrow humor (gay jokes, penis jokes, bathroom sex jokes, etc.) that were actually worth a few chuckles.

Beware spoilers.

Quite a number of Cybertronians lost their lives in this movie. Sentinel Prime (Leonard Nimoy) was a wonderful turncoat villain. Megatron also had his day, but (as I predicted) was downed again. Without the Allspark or some other fancy device (like the Matrix of Leadership) a lot of folk will not be coming back.

Spacebridge. I loved the use of this plot from the G1 show. Alas it looks like Cybertron was sent back from whence it came, or was destroyed. Having any sequels at this point will be rather difficult due to a lack of the standard Decepticon fair without some interesting string pulling. Sure there are more potential villains to draw upon, all the way up to Unicron of course.

While I must salute Michael Bay for doing a good job on this movie, I hope the Transformers movie rights pass to another. I would love to see some War on Cybertron style of movie get made.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Transformers: Dark of the Moon pre-show expectations

Over time I have actually come to rather enjoy the recent Transformers movies in their own right, instead of continually comparing them to their predecessors. As such I am greatly anticipating catching a showing of Dark of the Moon sometime tomorrow.

Yes I know that the movie technically starts today, with 8pm showtimes in various theaters. However I refuse to go and see a 3D movie without a darn good reason. Why? I hate wearing the 3D glasses, they are incredibly uncomfortable on my head, and difficult to wear over my normal glasses. I also greatly dislike playing 4$+ per ticket extra just because a movie is in 3D.

Thus I will be seeing the movie tomorrow sometime in the afternoon on a more normal (digital) screen.

I expect the movie to have wonderful special effects and I am really hoping it has very little shaky cam. Seriously, shaky-cam needs to die. Unless this movie is meant to end the continuity, I expect Megatron to be killed. However I am also prepared in the event the movie ends with a "to be continued" and the Deceptions rule the day.

Not too long now till we will know for sure.

Saturday, June 18, 2011

Green Lantern: Movie Review

Caught a showing of the Green Lantern movie on Friday. I found it to be rather enjoyable all in all. Some elements of the movie were to be expected, as the movie was set in its own sub continuity, apart from the rest of the DC universe. I have always thought it odd when these stand-alone comic book movies are attempted. While the character and the story do need to be able to stand up for themselves well, displacing it all from the established canon is very peculiar. Surely they do not think people would not recognize references to Superman, Batman or the other superheroes, even if they were not appearing in this film?

Ryan Reynolds made for a decent enough Hal Jordan. Hal was always kind of a nut after all, especially true 'back in the day' when he first took up the ring. A good blend of serious and frivolous all in all. I expect his portrayal of Hal will only improve as the other movies in the series are produced.

Mark Strong performed superbly as Sinestro. Very well done. Good choice of actors here as Mr. Strong (heh) has shown in his other movies up until this point. My only complaint, which can truthfully only be addressed by the next movie in the series, is there was nothing to show the reason why Sinestro stole the Yellow Ring at the end of the movie.

For an isolated movie, many of the plot element changes were logical enough ones. Without the existence of much of the rest of the DC universe (save for the spacy Lantern bits) the changes to Paralax and so forth made a bit of sense. I do not think there was quite enough reasoning behind why the Guardians chose to tap into the Yellow power of Fear originally, that part of the movie could have used some beefing up.

An enjoyable movie. I look forward to its inevitable sequels... if it does well enough at the theaters of course.

Monday, June 13, 2011

Mojang/Minecraft Support Fail: Can't change E-Mail Address

Hello world.

Todays blog post is one created while rather upset. I have needed to change the email address associated with my Minecraft account for over a year. Repeated attempts to contact support have failed. The recent update to their support page indicates that they do not allow users to change their email accounts for their own protection.

If one selects the option: Account -> Email ->  I want to change the email address I am using for my account.

The answer you get is: "We apologize but we do not currently support this action, for your protection."

This is a rather terrible problem. I honestly cannot believe I am the only person who has this problem either. As I no longer have any way to access the email account I used for registration, it would be rather easy for someone (assuming they had the proper other credentials) compromise my Minecraft account.

Annoying, neh? This is a hideous support failure and entirely unacceptable.

What makes the problem much worse in my opinion, is that I have been trying to get this matter addressed for approximately a year, with no resolution for the matter. I have e-mailed folk at Mojang, utilized the new support feature on the page, posted tweets to Notch directly about this problem and even attempted to utilize the Get Satisfaction site they setup as well.

Here is an example of an outstanding issue here, reported on that site about six months ago: click me

If you search on this topic on that site (click me) you will see quite a number of support topics about this problem.

Color me crazy if you must, but I think handling account-related problems such as this is just as important as updates to the game itself.

Friday, June 3, 2011

New AMV: Cautionary Evangelion

Recently uploaded my first 'real' AMV. Sure Roads (posted below) was a good effort, but this one I am very proud of. Used footage from Evangelion: 2.0 You Can (Not) Advance​ combined with John Sykes song Cautionary Warning from the Black Heaven Anime.

One of these days I need to get a more powerful computer. Ran into some resource limitations during the editing process with this video. Had some problems with the editor as well, I was unable to eliminate a few snippets that occurred in very small time implements. Ahh well.

Dark Millennium to be at E3 2011

As various sites have reported, Vigil's Dark Millennium MMO will make an apperance this year at E3. It has been so long since there was any news of this project, that I just had to stop thinking about it and paying attention for a while, lets I get burned out. I really hope something good is in store for us at E3 this year.

Interestingly enough, at least two other 40k games will also be getting some attention as well. Space Marine (of course!) as well as the more recently revealed Kill Team. They all look to be fun games. Hopefully these properties are managed well so that a new golden age of 40k gaming can begin!

Of course if Dark Millennium is bungled as badly as WAR was... well expect a lot of Internet rage.