Sunday, May 22, 2005

Star Wipes Episode III

The verdict! (Sans spoilers) (For those who don't speak french/fontspeak, "sans" == without) (For those who don't use C, "==" means equals)

Awesome. Yup yup, it was good. Really good. The reason I'm not over-ecstatic is because firstly, it was very very sad. Secondly, there were a few things that brought it down, which I'll get to later.

But on the whole, it was a brilliant film. No, I don't think it's better than Episodes 4/5/6 simply because "THEY ARE STAR WARS" and will always be better to me. But if you want to look at sheer production values its probably up there with the classics, and is certainly much closer than Episodes 1 and 2.

Like all the Episode 3's of the Big Three Film Sagas (Return of the King and Matrix Revolutions), Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith is about how the world gets totally wrecked down to the point of no hope. It is not surprising that the Episode 3 movies are considered the biggest and most epic.

There isn't really much to spoil in Episode III, because of course we all know Anakin will turn to the dark side and become Darth Vader, and that Padme will be pregnant with the twins Luke and Leia. Some who saw Ep3 were upset that the ending wasn't surprising... err... duh. Anyway, there were some surprises, and many questions answered, and these I will not spoil. They are good to watch tho, and make the story element of Ep3 shine.

It is particularly interesting to see just how you go about turning someone to the Dark Side (in case anyone should wish to know). The whole thing is set up very nicely, and the brilliant schemes of Senator Palpatine/Darth Sidious cause all the elements to align to finally cause Anakin to fall to the darkness. It's a brilliant piece of storytelling but I think most will agree that the scene in which he finally does "turn over" is quite rushed. I'd have expected either a long and gradual transition, or a single "point" where he "snaps" but there is neither. It's sort of unsatisfyingly halfway in between.

I've also heard many complaints about a) Padme's character and b) the dialogue, neither of which I personally had a problem with. In Ep2, Padme was of course the love interest, but she kicked ass at the same time. The chief complaint is that in Ep3, Padme has lost the "hero" side to her character, and she's now just the pregnant damsel-in-distress (DID) who does nothing but weep. And, well, kinda, yeah. That's what she does. But, sorry guys, it's important. The story (and I mean the really big story - the Anakin/Dark Side story) requires her to be the DID. I can't say more without spoilage, but when you see it and then think about it, it really is crucial that she be like that. I hate to sound conservative/sexist, but I've written many stories, and sometimes you just need your female characters to be DIDs. Symbolism!

Now, onto the dialogue. I think the chief complaints I've heard have been about the Anakin/Padme dialogue. Frankly I thought it was worse in Ep2. I just did not have a problem with such lines as "Anakin... you're breaking my heart." What I did have a problem with was Yoda's dialogue, which was highly ungrammatical. Moreso. Now, before people start saying "WELL DUH" I should point out that Yoda's speech has traditionally been largely conformant to the Linguistic typology of "Object-Subject-Verb". You can read the Wiki on it: Object Subject Verb. So Yoda's speech is grammatical - just not in the usual English sense. But in Ep3 I had to cringe several times at lines such as: "A prophecy which, misread could have been." This sentence has simply been placed in a blender. The "correct" OSV form of this sentence is: "Misread this prophecy could have been." ("misread" here being the object of the transitive verb "been"). Now it's very picky to analyse the grammar of this one sentence, but the problem is rife throughout Yoda's dialogue. The only other dialogue I had a problem with was Darth Vader's - with him saying lines like "Is she alright?"... it's a very Anakin thing to say, and not becoming of the man-in-the-black-mask. (I'd have imagined Darth to say "Is she alive?")

Speaking of Darth, err... where was he exactly? Just popped in for a quick hello at the end. His much-lauded return could only be classified a "cameo", for all he really did was walk around and say a few lines (as James Earl Jones). I can't believe they made a special new mask just for that. In the same boat was the wookies and Chewbacca. There was supposed to be an epic battle on the planet Kashyyyk (that's three... count'em, three 'y's), the wookie home planet, but I'm afraid our walking-carpet friends did next to nothing and were simply flashed back-and-forth to for some battle shots. Chewie was there, but you couldn't be sure if it was him or just some other wookie until the very end of the sequence. So, hi Chewie, see you when you have some actual stuff to do. On the flipside, one character who had a very minor role and I'm sure nobody missed was Jar Jar Binks. Kudos to Lucas for listening to fans and their death threats addressed to the blundering blubbering floppy-eared waste of rendering-time.

But the final gripe I have is with the transitions. Lower your head in shame editors. Star Wars has traditionally had wipes. Wipes are good. Wipes give Star Wars some of it's character. Two kinds of wipes: Line wipes, and circle wipes. In Episode III, it felt like a Year Eleven media student had just opened iMovie and had discovered the transitions panel. We had all sorts of crazy over-the-top wipe effects, including clock wipes, all sorts of wierd ones where two separate linear or radial wipes would meet each other in the middle, and most ghastly of all (and unfortunately repeated many times) the dreaded box-wipes, where the whole screen is divided into twelve-or-so boxes and each box has a separate line-wipe applied to it. Fortunately, there *were* no star-wipes but it had to remind Simpsons fans of the time Homer got his hands on an edit-suite and went crazy with star wipes.
(By the way, hence the title of this blogpost).

So that's just about it for me. I'll end on a happy note by saying that the music and visuals were fantastic, as we'd expect. John William's amazing score will once again be in the fans' minds... particularly the awesome "A hero falls" piece heard during the final battle between Anakin and Obi-Wan. (Which, by the way, was very cool). The piece was sort of a cross between the "sadness" theme from the orignial trilogy (which you hear, for example, when Vader is being cremated in Ep6) and the "Duel of the Fates" theme from Ep1 (Obi/Qui-Gonn vs Maul battle music). But err, can you spot the music lifted right out of Return of the Jedi? ;)

So, good. Really good. Must-see. But, flawed slightly.
And, it gave me (finally) the opportunity to say this as I was walking out:
(Walking out of the cinema, past a queue of people going to see "The Empire Strikes Back")
"I can't believe Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father!"
- Homer Simpson

"And star-wipe..."
- Homer Simpson

Wednesday, May 18, 2005

TiddlyWiki!

Back in October last year my good friend Tim (GfxMonk) found this web innovation: TiddlyWiki.

It's a wiki, like Wikipedia, in that it can be edited instantly from within the browser. And it has lots of different pages which all link to one another. But the big difference is that TiddlyWiki is TINY, it's COMPACT, it's PORTABLE, and it's YOURS!

See the TiddlyWiki home page (which is a TiddlyWiki itself).

It's very easy to get your own TiddlyWiki because it's just a HTML/Javascript/CSS file all rolled into one. That's right - the entire TiddlyWiki site is rolled up into one highly portable file. This is a local file - not a server-side deal like Wikipedia. Then you can simply edit it as you wish. Simple!

Problem is, (as you'll probably notice if you link to the above site), it's pretty gosh darn ugly.

So, back in October, Tim made it pretty by modifying the CSS style. Pity that TiddlyWiki has since been vastly improved and Tim's version was getting a little out of date (so out of date that his CSS styles didn't work on the new versions).

So I recreated his style with the new version, and then in a fun-filled back-and-forth team-based edit fest, we both improved that file until it met both of our high personal standards. So we've packaged it all up, added a sample site with instructions and information, and put it on our websites. Hopefully, you'll agree it looks lovely.

So, check out our tiddler and follow the instructions there to download our version and start building your own. Now all you have to do is find a good use for it!
Tim and Matt's TiddlyWiki CSS
"Anything that happens, happens.

Anything that, in happening, causes something else to happen, causes something else to happen.

Anything that, in happening, causes itself to happen again, happens again.

It doesn't necessarily do it in chronological order, though."
- Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless

Tuesday, May 17, 2005

The Force is strong with this one

It's up and coming. Frankly, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was so awesome that it put a dampener on Star Wars III for me, but it will be cool anyhow!

Inspired by Toria's list of Star Wars things, I've come up with my own.

So without further ado, I present:
You know you're a Star Wars nerd when...
  • Your teacher's mind tricks do not work on you, only on the weak-minded.
  • When you approach automatic doors, you wave your hand, pretending to be Forcing them apart.
  • You wave your hand at the tram conductors and say, "you don't need to see my metcard."
  • You have to concentrate to speak normal english... when left to your own devices you speak like Yoda.
  • When you tell stories, you start at chapter four, and eventually get around to telling the beginning. And of course, each chapter begins with "a long time ago in a <insert witty noun here> far far away...."
  • "All riders must wear a helmet." You wonder why nobody else is protecting their heads with a full black mask and breathing apparatus.
  • Naturally, the girl you are after just happens to be your separated-at-birth twin sister, and the guy who is trying to kill you is your separated-at-your-birth father.
  • You brag that you have a higher midichlorian count than all your friends.
  • You will not respond to anyone who doesn't address you as "Jedi Master" or "Darth" (personal preference).
  • You got very upset on the DVD to notice that Han now shoots Greedo four frames earlier than he did in the previous release.
  • You sat watching the DVD with a notepad, taking down all the differences between that version and the previous release, which you knew off by heart.
  • You have a Jar Jar Binks voodoo torture doll.
  • Some day you will be the most powerful Jedi ever. Some day...

Feel free to add your own in comments.

Oh and you have to see this GameSpot video review for Star Wars III the game. It's very funny... although I think partly the guy was upset for having the movie spoilt for him ;)
Click Video Review here
And I quote thusly:
"You know, the one sure fire way to know that your film-to-license products might have become a bit on the stagnant side is when the LEGO version of said license products is a hellavalot more entertaining than the supposedly authentic version."
- Alex Navarro, Associate Editor, Gamespot

Friday, May 06, 2005

Murphy's law

Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.

We've all used this excuse or cited this adage whenever something big is due, it's 1AM the night before and suddenly, Word doesn't open, the printer is out of ink, and the paper is exactly the wrong shade of the colour pink.

Murphy's law is a bit of a joke which generally states that when things are more urgent or important, they are more likely to go wrong.

But if you read the wiki (Murphy's law), you'll find a lot of amusing links at the bottom.

For instance, there's the classic example of Murphy's law: The fact that buttered toast always lands butter-side-down when dropped. The more expensive the carpet, the more likely this is to happen.
Tumbling toast, Murphy's law and the Fundamental Constants

This article follows a serious experiment in 1996 by the author, who claims to have shown that, due to torque and all that physics nonsense, toast dropped from normal table-height has a natural tendency to complete approximately half a revolution during the fall and therefore to more often land butter-side down.

He goes on to explain that tables are made that height for humans' convenience, and that humans' heights are determined by fundamental particles which were determined moments after the Big Bang, so therefore the fact that toast lands butter-side down is a natural property of the universe. (very cute)

There is also a link to an article by a team of "experts" [2] who claim to have found the mathematical rule for Murphy's law:
((U+C+I) x (10-S))/20 x A x 1/(1-sin(F/10))
where U is urgency, C is complexity, I is importance, S is skill, F is frequency, and A is aggravation, a constant set at 0.7.

They claim that you can input all your factors here to find out the risk of falling victim to Murphy's law in any one case.

There is also (on the wiki) the classic joke that if you strap a piece of buttered toast (which always lands buttered-side-down) to a cat's back, buttered-side up (cats known to always land on their feet), and drop the cat out of a window, the cat/butter will fall to the ground then hover there spinning, since both are naturally trying to land with their side down.

Have a read of that page, its a good one.

I'll conclude with Murphy's Ultimate Corollary:
(and hope that the blogger doesn't crash when I click send).
"If it could have gone wrong earlier and it did not, it ultimately would have been beneficial for it to have."
- Murphy's Ultimate Corollary