Brian Hoover's Blog

Quite a funny ditty. Well done.

So I had the last week off work. I had to work New Years day which was tediously boring, even though there was an active Known Issue alert which affected only West Australian customers which had to do with WA no longer observing Daylight Savings Time. The code works fine if you’re north of the equator or if you always observe DST, but since WA is south and we only trialled DST for three years we found there’s a bug when you change calendar years.

But it was all a non-event and I came through unscathed so after catching the train back to Mandurah we drove down to Dunsborough to visit my parents. Natalie and Dave were there which was cool too. Some of the highlights were playing golf at Simmo’s, and watching Star Trek on the large theatre screen. I doubt mum has ever seen TNG or DS9. She remembers the old series so seeing the familiar characters was a kick for her. My old nemesis Eric Bana was even in it. At Simmo’s we played a round of mini golf. Somehow Suzanne managed to beat me, but Jett had the best score of all, managing to pull off triple figures! Then we all had ice creams. We didn’t tell the kids that  we had a banana split at Simmo’s while they were out at the movies the day before with my mum watching Alvin and the Chipmunks.

The rest of the time down there was a mix of walking the dogs, hunting for golf balls, swimming down at the beaches at Dunsborough, Yallingup and Meelup. For some reason we didn’t get many photos while we were away.

But, like all good things it came to an end and we had to come home. On Thursday we visited Abingdon Miniature Village which is near us on Pinjarra Road. The grass was manicured to within an inch of it’s life and looked fantastic. It’s quite a surprising little place. I had my reservations about going and seeing some crappy little model houses, but there’s more to it than this. Besides the model houses, there’s a model railway with tunnels and bridges and waterfalls, there’s a nice hedge maze to get lost in, and a smaller “running maze” with no walls for the kids to play on. There was mini golf, a big sand-pit play area, an old heritage Tea Room (way overpriced, so we had McDonalds) and a little boutique. I had a better time than I thought I would have.

On the Friday we had some old-ish new-ish friends for dinner. “Old-ish new-ish?” I hear you ask? They’re kinda old for me and kinda new for Suzanne. I used to go to Church with Adam and Elissa many years ago, but lost touch. I found Adam on facebook a while ago, and our nosey wives also managed to communicate and make friends with each other. They’re on vacation here from their home over east and so we had arranged to meet up mostly so that Suzanne and Elissa could commiserate and comfort each other about having such nerdy, quirky husbands.

Explaining my relationship with Adam is strange… He was (and always has been, funny that) a couple years younger than me so I can’t really remember have that much to do with him in Church when I was young. I do remember, though, that he was into Star Wars when I was also into Star Wars. I can’t remember who invited who, but  I remember attending some Star Wars fan club meeting with him at some school. I think it was in Maylands…? There was munchies and a quiz and talk of collecting and rumours of new movies; I’m pretty sure it was before Return of the Jedi. I remember Elissa and my sister Natalie hit some kind of jackpot one afternoon when they made a call from a public payphone near our Church meeting house in Greenmount. They dropped their coin in and the whole coin box opened up spilling 20s everywhere. I lost contact with both of them for the longest time until about 6 months ago. I remember hearing rumours that he was a Bishop or a Secret Agent or something like that. Adam joined in on a couple of my idiotic facebook status updates, Elissa and Suzanne compared notes on which of us was nerdier.

Anyhow, I was happy to have them and their family over for dinner and take them crabbing. I appreciate that they took a night out of their valuable holiday time to catch up with some guy they haven’t seen or heard from in twenty years and meet his family. Their kids are cool and seemed to be alright playing with mine. Their oldest can even quote Lord of the Rings which ain’t bad. I think they all enjoyed crabbing, which was strictly catch-and-release only. I’d be glad to have them over again so we can compare collections in more detail.

This is one movie release I’m desperately anticipating. Enjoy this 2997 x 1163 wallpaper for your dual screens.

Suzanne and I went to see Avatar on the Boxing Day public holiday. I hadn’t heard anything about this movie until about 3-4 months ago when the sci-fi forums I frequent were abuzz with chatter about James Cameron’s newest offering. Some were talking about it as if it was going to be the greatest movie in the history of celluloid, others were ‘meh’, another over hyped movie from a director who hasn’t worked in 15 years. Some friends of mine were in one camp, some friends in the other. So I decided I’d keep an open mind about this movie and do a bit of research before I went to see it.

After it opened, various articles appeared in blogs and newspapers. This one said the movie was “vomit inducing”, but in a nice way. This article from Wired is one of the better ones, and makes it sound like Avatar is the culmination of a 30 year quest for James Cameron to prove he has a bigger wang than George Lucas. He was pretty much trying to out-Lucas what George did with Star Wars in 1977.

In 1977, a 22-year-old truck driver named James Cameron went to see Star Wars with a pal. [snip] Now he was facing a deflating reality: He had been daydreaming about the kind of world that Lucas had just brought to life. Star Wars was the film he should have made.

But it’s apples and oranges. Here’s the thing; George Lucas was a young director, was working with 70’s technology and worked to a budget of about $8M and managed to produce the magic we call Star Wars. Cameron, as of 2009, has had 25 years of experience working with the latest digital and robotic technology, and with movies budgeted in the tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. Don’t get me wrong; Terminator, Abyss, T2, True Lies and Titanic (at least the second half) are among my favourite movies but they don’t hold a candle to what George created. Star Wars changed science fiction and movie history and 30+ years later the franchise and fanbase is still going strong. Sure, a lot of fans complain that George stole their childhood from them and destroyed Star Wars with The Phantom Menace, but compare James Cameron’s Aliens to the original Ridley Scott masterpiece, Alien. One is a dark, moody science fiction horror, the other is a hoo-rah shoot-em up exercise in Marine flagwaving, which is one of the lowest common denominators in cinema.

Which leads me to the theme and storyline of Avatar. I had heard it described as “Dances with Wolves” in space, and this description is pretty much on the money. I guess it’s true that in 2009 there are no more original stories, so most movies nowadays sell the way the story is told and not the story itself. Selling the sizzle rather than the steak. In this case, the story is told in a fantasy world with state of the art 3-D digital technology.

All in all, the movie was great. It was a familiar story, well told. The 3-D effects were a good novelty. The only other 3-D I’ve seen was a docco on the International Space Station when I was in San Francisco in 2002. But the digital world Cameron created was fantastic; the level of detail was breathtaking, and because it was all digitally filmed the physics and movement seemed to be very realistic. Often with CGI and live action mixed you can see where one starts and one ends, and sometimes the interaction of the characters and the sets don’t seem to work well together, with visual mis-cues confusing the viewer and detracting from the overall effect. But Avatar was pretty seamless. From dust and smoke in the atmosphere, to the physics of a foot (or hoof) impacting on the ground… it was hard to fault. You can certainly see where $300M went. The only thing nobody has been able to do well so far in CGI is full sunlight. Even with Avatar, you knew that it wasn’t real because it still looked a little dark like it was an overcast day. If the jungle scenes can look like a natural environment like Apocalypto or something, then I think anything will be possible.

Some cute images I found on the interwebs. I like that the Emperor is pretty much unedited in Episode 3, Revenge of the Zombies. From Wikipedia: “A zombie is a creature that appears in folklore and popular culture typically as a reanimated corpse or a mindless human being. Stories of zombies originated in the Afro-Caribbean spiritual belief system of Vodou, which told of the people being controlled as laborers by a powerful sorcerer. Zombies became a popular device in modern horror fiction, largely because of the success of George A. Romero’s 1968 film Night of the Living Dead.”

Click “Read More” to, uh, read more.

Read more…

These made me LOL when I saved them a while ago. These images are from some eBay auctions from a few months ago. I just stumbled upon them again today when looking for something completely unrelated. Realistically, Vader would kick the Predator’s ass but they’re still pretty funny.

…plus some other movies.

I don’t get what it is with Eric Bana. I just don’t understand why he is such a star. This ignorance may be contributing to my paranoia, for he seems to stalk me wherever I go.

Even though I never watched these shows, I remember he was in the likes of Comedy Company or Full Frontal. These were very low quality, low brow comedy shows even for Australian standards. Yep, you understand correctly. I don’t think there’s any good Australian comedy shows. It all went down hill after “Hey Dad” left our screens. I only remember Bana from the promos you’d see advertising next weeks episode of whatever pathetic show he was on. I never watched them because I valued my brain and didn’t want it turned to mush.

Then 2000 happened, and he played the part of Dr James Wright’s nephew in “Chopper”. And he was pretty good too. He put on a stack of weight, and must have studied footage of Chopper Read or met him because he had a lot of Read’s mannerisms and idiosyncrasies down pat. I enjoyed the character and enjoyed the movie. Two thumbs up, as they say. And “Good for him”, I thought. He’s done something better than “Poiter” and the other idiotic characters. Chopper is essentially a caricature in much the same way his Full Frontal characters were so it wasn’t a big leap to for Bana to play him, but still. Not bad. Yeah, yeah, Bana had a bit part in “The Castle” but Chopper was his first lead role as far as I can remember.

But the next thing I see is he’s in this “Black Hawk Down” movie with the likes of Josh Hartnett, Ewan McGregor and Tom Sizemore. Bana played some mysterious, baddass CIA agent and it was weird as hell listening to his American accent. But it was still weirder seeing him in a huge Hollywood Blockbuster. I couldn’t, and still can’t, get past his work on Full Frontal. This can’t be the same dude.

Since then, he’s popped up when I least expect it. The Hulk? Good grief. How did he get that gig? Did the casting agent think it’d be a good joke to get Bana to play Banner? And he played Hector in Troy? Where did this come from? I was down at my parents’ place last year and late one night we were looking for something to watch on Foxtel. My sister suggested some random arty Australian movie called “Romulus, My Father” and who should be lead? You got it.

I seem to notice him in magazines, in TV ads, in radio and such, partly because people I know usually point it out and say “There’s Bana for you, Brian!” but partly because I believe I may have wronged him in a previous life and he is somehow stalking me.

Last week, I watched the live telecast of the AFL Grand Final, and who’s mug appears front and centre dressed in St Kilda garb? Eric bloody Bana! It was almost worth it at the end seeing him teary eyed when his team lost. I watched the Norm Smith medal ceremony then left the TV room to get some sushi and flick through the TV magazine from the newspaper to see what else was on that day. And who had a feature article in the TV mag? G’wan, guess. It’s like this all the time!

So after last years disaster of mdwebhosting.com.au losing all my SQL databases, and therefore destroying my existing web sites, I have finally got my replacement up and running. I’ve called it DarthVaderFigures.com, and I’ll be adding two or three items to it every week until it’s all done.

Rather than a gallery, it’s in the form of a blog. You can get the RSS feeds, “Follow” on Twitter and everything! When Google Wave is out of Beta, I’ll see how I can use it because it looks very exciting.

DarthVaderFigures.com is run by an international group of Star Wars collectors who’s focus and passion is Darth Vader action figures. Their collections include regular garden-variety carded figures, as well as foreign carded figures, exclusives, signed figures, prototype and custom figures. If you enjoy collecting Darth Vader action figures and have something to contribute then please let us know.

Anyone who knows me at all knows that I like science fiction. And anybody knows me well knows that I believe Blade Runner to be the best science fiction film ever made and that if you believe otherwise you’re exposing your own mental, moral and genetic shortcomings.

I first saw it at the cinema when I was young, mostly because Harrison Ford was in it. I mean, he was Han Solo in Star Wars and The Empire Strikes Back, and he was Indiana Jones. Couldn’t be all that bad, huh?

I was luke warm on it when I first saw it, and I put this down to the fact I was a young immature 13 year old at the time and wasn’t able to fully appreciate the story or the characters. Like any young teen, I liked explosions, car chases and the occasional boobies. But I do distinctly remember at the time thinking to myself that there was probably more to this movie than I understood, and I wanted to know more. Remember, this was in the days before the Interwebs and before the VHS/Beta wars had been fought so the only information around was in dodgy pulp sci-fi fan mags.

It wasn’t until a few years later when I was able to hire and buy a VHS copy of it that I could fully comprehend the depth and the sheer genius of this movie.

Blade Runner explores a number of themes, the foremost being “What does it mean to be human?”. I’m not going to go into the awesome set designs, the brilliant special effects and the soul stirring music. I just want to touch on two things which touched me the most as I watched Blade Runner.

Eyes. The eyes are the window to the soul. The first scene past the opening crawl introducing the storyline is a giant, all seeing eye. It is reflecting the hellish scene of 2019 Los Angeles. You can’t escape the gaze of this eye and it makes you feel naked and uneasy. If the eye belongs to Roy Batty, is he observing and even examining humanity? The fiery reflections could be external explosions of fire in the landscape, or an internal conflict Roy feels about returning home. More on Roy later.

Roy and Leon visits Chew’s Eye World. It doesn’t take long for it to dawn on Chew who they actually are, and he takes credit for designing Roy’s eyes. “If only you could see what I’ve seen with your eyes”. This still sends shivers down my spine when I watch it today.

At JF Sebastian’s apartment, Pris and Roy reveal to him their identities. Roy breaks the tension by using some prop eyes on himself, manipulating the simple JF into getting him in to “meet his maker”. Before the fight scene, Pris paints her eyes racoon-style, disguising herself as a toy. Which she actually is, being your ”basic pleasure model”.

Roy takes JF’s code to enter the Tyrell building and confront Tyrell, showing his brilliant analytic and strategic powers by completing the chess game, and check mating Tyrell in more ways than one. After Tyrell explains that he cannot give Roy more life, Roy kisses him. Is this an assertion of power? Or a fond farewell to his creator? He crushes Tyrell’s skull, sticking his thumbs through his eyes taking first his power of sight and ultimately his life.

In the final scene, Roy declares he has “seen things you people wouldn’t believe”, with emphasis on “seen”. His eyes are his power, his link to his humanity, the source of his experience… but ultimately this power, experience and humanity are borrowed and are ending.

Roy Batty. He’s one of my all time favourite characters of any genre. He has superhuman strength, genius-level intellect and is the natural leader of the renegade Nexus 6’s who’ve made their way back to earth. But beyond that, Roy is a most complex character and can be interpreted many ways: hero or villain, mindless killing machine or compassionate humanitarian, perpetrator or victim. Batty is flawed. Right up to the end he is full of surprises, showing compassion and saving the one sent to kill him.

I love Roy because he is perfect. Indeed, JF Sebastian can’t stop starting at he and Pris because they’re “So different. So perfect”. When Roy confronts his maker, Tyrell declares, “You were made as well as we could make you”.

“But not to last”, is Roy’s response. His perfection is flawed. He knows it, and wants more life, as anyone of us would. Nobody wants to die. In a moment of reflection while being comforted by Tyrell, he becomes resigned to the fact that there is no hope for him and confesses to Tyrell, “I’ve done…. questionable things”. He’s at his lowest point. All hope is gone, and he’s returned to his father asking forgiveness.

Indeed, Tyrell’s next lines of comfort are explicitly describing him as the Prodigal Son. “The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, and you have burned so very very brightly Roy.  Look at you.  You’re the prodigal son.  You’re quite a prize”

It’s at this point that we see that Roy has progressed outside the parameters of the emotional conditions imposed upon him at creation and is learning from his mistakes and forming his own morality. He realises Tyrell is not the loving father he’d hoped for but is instead a greedy mad scientist willing to use any excuse to avoid responsibility for the pain he has inflicted on others. Roy crushes his skull and leaves. In the elevator ride on the way down and out of the building the stars are falling upwards, providing a metaphor for Roy “falling” as the archangel in Paradise Lost.

Roy confronts Deckard, playing a cat and mouse game. He shows his superior physical abilities by dodging bullets, running through walls. He taunts Deckard and corners him on top of the building, dangling precariously above the street hanging only by his fingers. In todays common language, he PWNS him.

But instead of letting Deckard fall to his death, he saves Deckard’s life as the last act of his own. The voiceover explains, “Maybe in those last moments he loved life more than he ever had before. Not just his life. Anybody’s life. My life”. This is a fair, but Hollywood-style analysis. I’d like to think that in his death, Roy had finally become what he’d been designed to be: perfect. He’d overcome his hatred, found fogiveness and compassion, and saved the life of a man sent to kill him when he could have done nothing and let him die. He needed to witness to Deckard that his makers need to not make them at all or deal with them as Human Beings. Finally it’s, “Time to die”.

A lot can be learned from Roy.

Now that I think about it, a lot of my favourite characters are not humans, wanting to attain or regain humanity. I’ll have to reflect on this and find out why:

Another time, perhaps.