Fears and Films

This post will be a bit more personal, because I was on vacation, and didn't see a movie, or have a lot of time to stew about a topic. And yes, I know that I missed out on naming this column Fears and Loathing in Las Vegas, but that probably would've been false advertising, and I must confess I'm not as up on Hunter S. Thompson as I should be.

I like taking off in planes. Flying is fine, and I'm not a fan of all the preparatory work involved in travelling, but taking off is cool. Pressed into your seat, lifting into the sky on mighty wings and plumes of fire, defying the forces of the very universe itself. And other poetic phrases. I enjoy it.

Other people don't. I met a lady on the bus a number of weeks ago whose daughter was getting married in the Bahamas. This would seem like a tremendous occasion, except the lady had to fly there, and she was scared of flying. It's not an uncommon thing to be scared of flying. She told me "I guess I'll have to trust the sky." I told her I had taken an introduction to aerospace engineering course in university, and there are some excellent reasons from physics and fluid dynamics why the plane stays up, regardless of what gravity has to say. "You don't have to trust the sky. Just the science." She told me that made her feel better, so I hope I felt.

Anyway, because a fear of flying is so common, it shows up in pop culture as well. One case is that of Marge Simpson, who had it in an episode called "Fear of Flying" (Duh). Homer gets kicked out of his regular bar for playing a practical joke on Moe. In his quest to discover a new bar, he comes across a parody of Cheers and a Lesbian Bar (he doesn't notice). Finally, he gets to an airport bar, where he's mistaken for a pilot and put in charge of a flight to Chicago (because it's the Simpsons. Duh). He crashes while at a complete stop (don't think that doesn't take talent), and in recompense for the stupid mistake the airline played, they give the family free tickets to a someplace far away. Before they can take off, Marge freaks out due to her titular condition. She goes to a shrink to sort it all out, and it turns out her fear is due to her seeing her father working as a flight attendant, back when they were pretty much all stewardesses. Then some other memories surfaces, like that time she was poked in the eye while her mother tried to feed her via "hear comes the airplane" when she was a baby. And that time she was strafed, a la North by Northwest. (Wow, what repressed memories could my brain manufacture?) Anyway, she gets better, and the family is able to make a trip after all.

The other fear of flying reference that comes to mind is that of John McClane (Link NSFW). He's scared of flying, so his seat neighbour tells him, when he lands, to take off his shoes and socks, find a nice carpet, and make fists with his toes. Sounds like a good idea, regardless of irrational fears or not. He does so, and this leads to the situation where he has to fight terrorists barefoot, and winds up in a gruesome scene where he's picking shards of glass out of the bottom of his feet. See why I keep shoes on all the time? In case I need to fight terrorists.

Of course, adding fears to heroes beyond the usual 'Pain & Death' humanizes them a little bit. Other wise they'd just be superheroes, with no emotions beyond 'Whooo! I just killed a guy!' So we get Indiana Jones' fear of snakes, which he got after falling into a snake pit during a fight, and then having them crawl all over his body for the rest of the fight. Mind you, he got his trademark whip and fedora out of the deal, so while I'm sure he didn't enjoy it too much, we certainly did.

Irrational fears show up in real life too. For instance, I hate driving. Maybe not with a passion, but it's getting close. I hate yellow lights the worst, because I'm never sure if I should speed up or slow down. And so I hate green lights, because I don't know when they might turn yellow. You can usually tell by how many 'Don't Walk' flashes there are for pedestrians, but sometimes that Don't Walk just stays there, not flashing, while the light stays green. I hate driving in snow, because it's slippery. I hate driving in rain, because of visibility issues, and because excess water may cause hydroplaning. I actually like red lights and stop signs, because then I can come to a complete and total stop. Mind you, if there's too much snow, that might be hard to do, but I'll fault the snow for that, not the stop signs. I hate merging, because I'm never sure if cars will leave me enough room, and if I'll be able to stop in time if they don't. I hate passing on two-lane highways because I'm paranoid I'll crash into a car coming the other way. I hate passing semis, even on four lane roads, because I got into an accident trying to do that. I hate going fast, because I'm scared something will go wrong with my car and I'll go careening through traffic, like an artificial comet, weighing over a ton and causing untold damage. I hate hills, because I'm never sure if there'll be enough space to stop at the bottom, particularly if it's snowy out. Basically, I hate every single aspect of driving. Mind you, the only thing I hate more than driving is being a passenger.

Exclusivity and World of Warcraft

There's a debate raging on the World of Warcraft forums right now. Actually, debate is both accurate and generous. It's accurate in that most people involved tend to express their views quite well, and don't resort to using all caps, calling everyone gay, or leaving in a huff after declaring they've won. It's generous because it seems to be a few people against Blizzard, with neither side really willing to admit the validity of the other side's viewpoint. The debate centres on the nerfs to the heroic Dragon Soul raid. If the previous sentence didn't make sense to you, allow me to back up and explain.

World of Warcraft is a Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, which is a mouthful and thus usually shortened to MMORPG. Basically, it's an RPG you can play with a lot of other people. You don't have to, if you don't want to. In fact, you can reach the highest level and get good gear by yourself. The next step up from that is to group with four other people into a Party and tackle a Dungeon. A dungeon has enemies (called mobs) you wouldn't be able to beat normally. It also has bosses that require cooperation and coordination to kill, but they tend to give you much better loot than you could get by yourself. The next step up from parties are Raids. These are composed of 10 or 25 people, the bosses are very complicated, and you really have to know your class (class is the type of character you play, giving you access to different abilities. Warriors have different abilities than Paladins have different abilities than Mages have different abilities than Hunters and so on and so forth) and have some knowledge of other classes as well to kill those bosses. They are the hardest in the game, and thus drop the best loot (when bosses die, they have gear players can have. What gear shows up is somewhat random, but the gear is called loot, and what shows up is what "drops").

Vanilla WoW is what players call World of Warcraft before or without any expansions. It was released in November 2004. The Burning Crusade was released in January of 2007 and is known as TBC or just BC, and can refer to the time the expansion was released, or its contents. Wrath of the Lich King is known as WotLK or Wrath, and was released in November of 2008. Cataclysm is usually known as Cataclysm, although occasionally shortened to Cata, and was released in December, 2010. Mists of Pandaria is an upcoming expansion with no official release date yet, but speculation pegs it sometime in September. It's being talked about as MoP.

Back in Vanilla WoW, raids consisted of 40 people. Players talk about those halcyon days like thus: "Remember back in Vanilla WoW, how awesome raiding was with 40 people?" Let me tell you right now, raiding with 40 people was not awesome. It was more akin to herding cats. I was part of a guild (a group of like-minded people) that periodically but inconsistently raided. What happened was this: I would log on and join the raid. About an hour later, enough other people had joined the raid that we could actually tackle the enemies. We would make our way to the entrance of Molten Core (called MC, one of the less difficult 40 man raids). There, we would do a lot of preparatory spell work, and then get to work killing trash (mobs that aren't part of boss fights). We'd kill one or two bosses, and then someone's internet would go out, and someone else would have to go to school, and a few other people would have to spend time with their families (gasp!) and so the raid would fall apart well short of the final boss (most raids had 5 to 8 bosses. Some only had one, but there were insane quests to even be able to enter it, so those were out).

Most of the time, we couldn't even get 40 people, so we went to Zul'Gurub (a 20 man raid added later. Raids are added in patches, which is nice, because you can use the gear found in previous raids to take down the even harder bosses in later raids). There, we would kill maybe 4 bosses (out of 8) before we had to call it quits.

The last raid in Vanilla WoW was called Naxxramas. It was fairly big, with lots of bosses, and an incredibly tough end boss. He was the hardest in the game way back then. I never set foot in the place, which put me in the firm majority of other players as well. In fact, less than 1% of players even went in there, and only a tiny fraction of them managed to complete it. So Blizzard (the company that makes WoW) got to wondering why they made such awesome content that nobody saw.

In BC, they introduced 10 and 25 player raids. Each raid would either be for 10 or 25 players. For instance, Karazahn (shortened to Kara) only let 10 players in, whereas Serpentshire Caverns (SSC) was for 25 players. This reduction in raid size was said to be the end of WoW by a sizeable fraction of players, but that was to be expected. WoW players are like Facebook users - any change, no matter how small, will be decried. If you tallied up all the changes that World of Warcraft has made, it's been RUINED FOREVER at least 357 billiontimes (according to the playerbase). And if everyone quit when they said they would (and declared that Blizzard would lose customers due to whatever change they were complaining about), World of Warcraft would have about negative 15 million players right now. As it is, WoW continually gets more awesome. There's a reason it's #1, and that's because the people behind it really know what they're doing.

Anyway, BC also opened up another big change to end game content (the game features that are only available once you hit the highest level available - the 'level cap'): Heroic Dungeons. Each dungeon had two difficulties - one for level appropriate players (say, level 62, or level 65 or level 70 players), and one for well-geared level 70 players. Heroics were quite hard, but not as hard as raids. They were intended to be an intermediate step between dungeons and raids, as well as challenging content for players who didn't have the time or inclination to raid. They also occasionally rewarded purples (gear is rated by color, with purple being the best. Well, orange is technically better than that, but is so rare - like, one in a thousand rare - that most people just aim for purples, called Epics. Blue gear is called Rare and is better than everything but purple. Green is called Uncommon and is the next step down. White is common, and grey is junk).

In Wrath of the Lich King, they changed raids so that each of them could be done by 10 and 25 people. So one day you could take in 10, and the next, 25. The 25-man option had better loot, but 10 man was still nothing to sneeze at.

Later on, they also introduced Hard modes for Raids, which were similar to the Heroic modes for Dungeons. Basically, for people that wanted that extra challenge, or that extra gear, they would try the same difficult bosses, only now they would be even harder. The problem is that they included them for 10 and 25 man raids, which culminated in the Trial of the Crusader.

Trial of the Crusader was a raid introduced in patch 3.2. It started of as a good idea (no trash) that consisted of only bosses. The problem was that it was only in one big room, and had 5 bosses all in a row. And so people would run it in 10 man. And then the next day, they would run it as 25 man. And the next day, run it as 10 man hard mode. And then the next day, as 25 man hard mode. All in the same room, against the same bosses, night after night. People burned out really fast, and the complaining reached epic proportions.

For the next (and last) raid of the expansion, Blizzard put limits on raids, which pretty much amounted to once a week. So you had to choose whether you wanted to do 10 or 25 man, and normal or heroic. And while it might seem strange that a company wouldn't want their customers playing as much as possible, Blizzard's actually pretty good about that. They seem to care about their customers more than other companies (*cough* Pop-cap). After a few months of the raid, Blizzard also introduced a Buff.

Buffs are increases to stats. They can be permanent or temporary. For instance, Paladins have an ability call Blessing of Kings that increases any player's main stats by 5% for one hour. Some increase attack power, some increase armor, some just increase health. A debuff is almost the opposite, but it's only temporary. For instance, bosses might have an ability that reduces player armor by 25% for 30 seconds. A nerf is a permanent decrease to stats or abilities. As an example, say Paladins were doing too much damage relative to other classes. Blizzard would nerf one of their main abilities by two or three percent, bringing them more in line with the rest of the playerbase. They call it a Nerf because it makes you feel like your playing with foam weapons instead of the real thing.

Anyway, for the last raid of WotLK, Blizzard introduced a progressive buff. After a few months, player in the raid would get a 5% increase to health and attack power. A few weeks later, they'd get a 10%. It kept increasing until it hit 30%. This meant that guilds (or even just players) that were stuck on a boss (kept dying to that boss, week after week) could finally get past him and try out further content. Players who still wanted the challenge could turn off the buff. What this meant for players is that a whole bunch of them got to fight (and kill) the main enemy of the expansion (the titular Lich King), which had been Blizzards goal all along.

In Cataclysm, raiding was nearly the same. However, instead of players getting buffed, it was bosses getting nerfed. After a few months, bosses would have 5% less health. Then 10%, and so on. The problem with the players is that the last patch introduced an easier form of raiding, called Looking for Raid, or LFR.

LFR is an automatic grouping tool. Basically, you turn it on, and the game matches you with a bunch of other people to do the raid. If you don't use it, you have to hang around, waiting for someone to ask if anyone wants to join a raid, which can take a while, and people aren't too keen on raiding with strangers for tough content. LFR raiding is much easier than normal raiding, due to there being 24 other strangers in there, and coordination is tough even for people that regularly raid together.

So now there are three tiers of raiding: LFR (the easiest), Normal, and Heroic (or Hard). Deathwing is the last boss in the final raid, called the Dragon Soul, and so Heroic Deathwing is supposed to be the hardest fight in the game.

Back in WotLK, Blizzard put Achievements into the game. You could get achievements for a lot of different things ("hug a bunch of animals"), but most of the prestigious achievements had to do with killing raid bosses, since they were the hardest content in the game. You could also show off your achievements to other players, which is important to players that feel the need to do that type of thing. Yes, we could now virtually strut, and strut we did.

Right now, one of the toughest (and therefore best to show off) achievements in the game is the one you get for killing Heroic Deathwing. The problem that's arising is that the nerfs to the bosses mean that more people are getting it. There's a group of hardcore players saying that the nerfs shouldn't apply to Heroic Dragon Soul, and they have a bit of a point.

The original point of nerfs was to get as many players as possible to see the content. But because LFR is allowing people to play through Dragon Soul (albeit on lowered difficulty and therefore lowered loot), the nerfs don't have to apply. If you want a challenge, try normal. And the nerfs apply there too, because there's still a fair bit of prestige in killing Deathwing, even on normal (by the way, I have only killed Deathwing in LFR. By the time I got into raiding in Cataclysm, my guild had become engrossed in Diablo III. Mind you, I had become engrossed in Skyrim. And SWTOR. And Mass Effect 3). But should the nerfs apply to Heroic Dragon Soul? Blizzard argues yes, because they want as many players as they can to get the happy buzz that comes from beating a particularly trying boss. The hardcore players argue no, because beating Deathwing with the nerfs devalues the achievement, and they could do it without the nerf. Which is probably the nub of the problem.

The players want the prestige of beating Heroic Deathwing without the nerf, and they don't want anyone else to get that prestige. It's like they've joined an exclusive little club "Hey, look at how great a player I am" and don't want anyone else to join. It's in Bizzards best interests to have as many players that want to get into that club without it being so easy as to lose its "exclusive" status.

This problem is not just limited to World of Warcraft, or video games in general. People want to get into exclusive clubs. Why wouldn't you? They're exclusive and special. But as soon as they start letting more people in, they lose the exclusion and prestige. Specialness is inversely proportional to population. The more people, the less special. Ideally, you'd want to get into one and then immediately close the door behind you. The problem with that is that because you're the newcomer, there's no chance of becoming part of the even-more-exclusive club-within-the-club. And there's always a club-within-the-club.

Exclusive clubs are why religions can be so popular. "Look, I'm part of something special. Now keep everyone else out." They can have all sorts of rules to exclude almost anyone, so only the truly special people get in. One of the paradoxical tricks Jesus pulled is that Christianity is both open to everyone, while still maintaining the prestige of exclusiveness. In video game terms, it's a very shiny achievement that makes the bearer part of a very special circle, but everyone has it. It's both free and desirable, which is possibly the most incredible feat Jesus managed.

Of course, this exclusiveness can be twisted by those who know what they're doing. The head of the club can simply say "You're not a real member until ..." and the results can be particularly loathsome. "You're not a real Christian unless you hate gays and vote Republican." (of course, they'd rather that 'real Christians' only be Old White Men.) "You're not a real Muslim unless you strap on this vest."

My way of dealing with exclusivity is both silly and genius. I've made a club so exclusive, I'm the only member. Mind you, it's a bit of a bore, and the head's a real jerk.

The Amazing Spiderman

I thought I'd start with that sentiment again because it's how Evan and felt about the previews before the movie this week. We both guessed that the first one would be The Dark Knight Rises, but Evan called it first when it started. I got The Bourne Legacy, Evan got Total Recall, and I got Skyfall (but only because I know that MGM pretty much sticks to Bond and does nothing else). Those were the only previews, and so I reiterate: Shut up and take my money!

Trampling on our conviction and stomping all over our principles, we went to see The Amazing Spiderman. Technically, we were stomping on Evan's principles, because I don't have any. I had to borrow his. We did go to see it on Tuesday (cheap night) without 3D, so as to deprive the filmmakers of any additional revenue. That'll teach 'em.

The movie starts off with a young Peter Parker playing Hide and Seek with his dad, played by Campbell Scott (and if you like him, you can catch him as a reclusive many-multi-millionaire on Royal Pains, which is a really good show, despite the fact that it tends to fall into cliché a bit more than its fellow USA shows Burn Notice or White Collar). Peter goes into his dad's office, and it's all messed up. The Parker's take Peter to Aunt May and Uncle Ben to have him live there for a bit (their lives are in danger or something). And then they disappear as we take a time jump forward to the current year, with Peter in high school, being beaten up by a bully named Flash. Where have we seen that before?

Oh right, in the movie released merely ten years ago. And there are enough similarities that at time it seemed they simply photocopied it. He lives with his aunt and uncle, and gets bitten by a spider that gives him its powers. That's part of the comic origin story, so I can live with those. But how uncle Ben dies? A robber robs a jerk. The jerk had been mean to Peter, so when the jerk asks Peter to stop the robber, Peter refuses and lets the robber escape. Then the robber shoots Uncle Ben. I think that part may have been part of the comics as well, because it was a fairly big deal when they released an issue where Peter finally admitted to Aunt May that he had had the opportunity to stop the robber, but didn't take it, and so Ben's death was partially his fault. By that point in the timeline, Aunt May was probably 150, so it's a testament to her health and hygiene that she didn't have a heart attack.

Other similarities are more movie-centric. Take the villain for instance. A brilliant scientist working for Oscorp, he's in danger of being kicked out. So he injects the serum he's been developing into himself before it's ready for human testing. Besides making himself much stronger, it also causes him to develop a psychopathic split personality. One side is a decent (albeit flawed) but tormented man, and the other side is a dangerous lunatic hell bent on power and destruction. And possibly on defeating Spiderman. It's almost as if the filmmakers liked Willem Dafoe's performance so much, they simply did it again.

What else? Peter has to abandon his first love to keep her safe, even after the funeral of someone they both knew. Because that works out so well in other movies. If they get back together at the end of the sequel after she runs out on her astronaut fiancée at their wedding, I'm going to hit someone. Or complain very loudly. Because I'm quite good at that.

There are a few differences, though. It's less "gee whiz" or "oh boy" and more sarcastic, which I approved of. I'm not big into 60's comic books, so I wasn't big on the "golly gee"-ness of the Sam Raimi films, where Peter Parker could've played Robin on the old Batman TVshow. Andrew Garfield is more of a skater loner instead of a nerd loner (although both of them are very smart). Garfield's hair is more artfully mussed than Tobey Maguire's.

On a different note, it's funny watching Martin Sheen in different things now that we've seen him be President Bartlett for so long. As Uncle Ben, he's supposed to be uneducated but down-to-earth, something he tries to explain to Peter with mixed results. But here was a guy who spoke fluent Latin and had a Nobel Prize in economics. "I"m not very intellectual, not like your father, Peter." Sure.

The effect are very good, but they were very good in the previous movie as well. My question is how did Peter Parker get the spiderman suit? Sure, it's easy to order spandex. But sewing on all those webs? And getting the design perfect? Both movies had an early scene of a handmade mask that wasn't very good. How did that turn into the body-hugging suit of later on? Peter is a high school student. He doesn't have a costume department.

Anyway, I'm not quite sure how to rate this movie. Should I downgrade it for the too-soon unnecessary remake factor? Would that penalty apply to the Total Recall remake as well? I mean, it's technically unnecessary as well, and it's only been 22 years since the original. I think I'll leave it as a theatre movie. Yeah, there's a bit of setup that takes a while, but there's a lot of humour in there to liven it up. The effects are good, the fighting's good, the music's good. And Emma Stone is adorable. So there's that.

Ted

This week, Ted was on the docket. It's the name of a movie, not the name of a guy. We took Evan's labmate with us, because he's a fan (presumably of Seth MacFarlane). We tied the preview game this week, with The BourneLegacy, The Campaign, Premium Rush, and Django Unchained. Or maybe The Campaign was only part of the pre-show show, and there's another one I'm forgetting. Whatever.

Anyway, the movie opens up with Patrick Stewart narrating how a talking teddy bear came to life. He also capitalizes on his previous serious acting roles, much like how Leslie Nielsen (RIP) made Airplane so funny because he had done so much serious stuff beforehand. I think it would be impossible to watch his previous stuff and not laugh. Even for the dramatic roles. Once you go funny, you don't go back. Unless you start funny. Then you can go dramatic (see: Carrey, Jim).

Anyway, we get up to the present day after the opening credits. Look, another man-child. At least he's not living with his parents. This movie could have been produced by Judd Apatow for all of his notes that it hits. Let's see: Funny actor, check; hot chick, check; casual drug use, check; random pop-culture reference, check. Oh, sorry, that last one was on my Seth MacFarlane checklist. Because he wrote, directed, and voiced the eponymous bear. He was heavily involved, and it shows. There are all sorts of gags that are similar to Family Guy, but better. They tend to stand up on their own, and don't rely on cut-aways. Sure, there are a few, but they're really funny. For instance, there was a pastiche of dancing parody scenes that was a flashback of how Mark Wahlberg and Mila Kunis met. Both An Officer and a Gentleman (but not the factory scene) and Saturday Night Fever were sent up. And probably some more that I didn't get.

Anyway, the movie is about Wahlberg trying to grow up so he can be more to his girlfriend than just a boyfriend, but his best friend is really immature and keeps dragging him back into man-childhood. Which is probably bound to happen, as his best friend is a living teddy bear.

Many gags, foul language, and drug use ensues, as well as a surprisingly poignant but also hilarious climax. There's also an extended reference to the 1980's Flash Gordon movie throughout that actually becomes a minor plot point, but what do you expect? It's Seth MacFarlane.

I was really tickled by how far the actors would go for a joke. Wahlberg gets spanked with a TV antenna, and then gets a TV dropped on his groin. Ryan Reynolds appears for maybe 30 seconds, all for a gay joke with Patrick Warburton. Tom Skerrit appears, just for fun. Giovanni Ribisi plays the overly obsessed fan of Ted, and really gets down to "I Think We're Alone Now" in the most hilariously creepy way imaginable. Jessica Barth (little known actor, but did some voices for Family Guy) had a ball, getting to fly off the (crazy) handle at Mila Kunis over an innocent question ("I've had a baby. I can kick your ass!")

It's a theatre movie for me. Yes, it has an overly contrived ending, but that fine. The humour is absolutely hilarious. Maybe not quite up to 21 Jump Street's calibre, but definitely up there. If you're a fan of Family Guy, or really, an biting humour, you'll probably love Ted. It's not for the faint of heart, but (surprising many people) it has an awfully sweet one. You know, for a raunchy comedy.

On an unrelated note, I'm not sure how many more movies we're going to get to see. We might boycott Spiderman, and then we'll have to wait a few weeks to see The Dark Knight Rises. And how do we feel about that movie?

Yeah.