Kaio-Ken!

In this one class I took, our discussion leader asked us to draw what we thought violence was. We went around the table, and people were rather gory. Blood, guns, stabbings, beheadings… it was pretty bad for people. I was last (just my luck, really) and I was already embarassed by then, so I made up a reason that was something about the portrayal of violence in animated mediums (I’m a very good speaker when I’m put on the spot), but everyone still gave me looks like I was the idiot. It actually kind of annoyed me since their drawings were far more insulting. Ah well. Either way, the punching is in fact a reference to Rock Lee, in case you were wondering. And why did I make a reference to DBZ? Because for my study breaks, I read a couple of chapters of manga online. I’m currently reading Dragonball, since I’ve only really watched the anime. My study breaks are not very well thought out.

~Tirumari

Why Hollywood Sucks

Did anyone see the Wolverine: Origins movie by any chance? Show of hands here.

Okay, now out of these people here, who was deeply offended by how BADLY they botched Wolverine and, more importantly, Deadpool!?

I mean SERIOUSLY!? Adamantium swords coming out of his hands? Cyclops EYE BEAMS!? And worst of ALL, no witty comments at the end of the movie!? Sorry, but that’s CLEARLY not the Merc with a Mouth that I know and love.

Now I asked myself: why on earth would Hollywood bastardize possibly one of the most beloved cult heroes in the Marvel universe like that?

The sad truth is, money is what killed my beloved Deadpool.

Money is what drives Hollywood, not, unfortunately, a drive to entertain the masses. As such, Hollywood tends to produce stuff that they KNOW will sell, despite how horrible it is. Take horror movies for instance. When was the last time a genuinely good horror movie came out? Years ago? And yet year after year Tinsel Town sees fit to spew out at least a dozen of these movies year after year. Same can be said for campy comedy flicks, and sometimes, movies based on people’s favorite comics and books.

However, this is not to say that it is necessarily a bad thing when they do so: I have to give credit to Hollywood for doing an amazing job on Iron Man and, to a slightly lesser extent, the Incredible Hulk. These outrages that I speak of only occur and become a problem when they rush production to make a quick, rather than a well-earned buck that we end up with atrocities like Wolverine: Origins, Fantastic Four: The Rise of The Silver Surfer, the whole Saw franchise after the first one, and (ah, this post IS related to T.J.’s :P) the upcoming Dragonball Z movie that just looks so horribly bad, even in the trailers and only in the remotest of senses looks like the anime.

People, when Hollywood sees fit to cast Zac Efron as Light from Death Note, we have a problem.

The solution? To be honest, I’m not really sure there is one, except maybe to read and watch the originals so that although Hollywood may distort the soul of the characters, shows, books, and whatever else we love for the sake of making a buck off the ignorant masses, we, at the very least, will always remember how great they were.

Not much of consolation, I know, but unless Bollywood and Hong Kong take over us as the dominant feeders of our bored little minds (I’m not exactly sure if that’s really such a good alternative anyway…), we’re pretty much stuck with what we got.

Independent film festivals anyone?

~Darren