Tuesday 21 October 2014

Avatar: Aang Vs Korra






Hello everybody! Frist I want to make this post about who is better than who, or am I? Well I want to say that I have seen a lot of things about this two avatars and I want to point it out them for you to understand why do everybody reacts the same in front of this two shows.

I remember when in season 2 of Korra’s saga, the connection with the past avatars is severed and Korra is no longer able to communicate with them, and a friend said that now the show could create its own path instead to be a shadow of Aang but that is not true, the connection with the past lives was part of the great, and after that there still are lots of the old characters running around, so why? Why hope to see Aang and the rest of the gang every episode?



My first point was that everybody loves when a character from the first saga reappears with Korra, I mean people loved when Katara appeared for a couple of seconds in the first episode, or memories about Aang things like that, but why, I mean Korra is OK but the love for the old characters is even bigger, no matter how deep is people into the series, I mean no one cares for Bolin or Mako to do anything, but when Toph appeared in one episode everybody was screaming and super exited, so there should be something there that miss the eye or at least that the creators haven’t noticed.

I would like to see the adventures of this gang.

 On one hand we hand we have Aang his story and how he became the avatar, well the full fleshed avatar, and on the other hand we have Korra who at first has to master air bending and face sociopolitical problems, but why people like more the characters from Aang’s saga than Korra’s? Don’t bring me that hate that I don’t like Korra because she is a female avatar, I loved Kioshi and her very direct approach to problems, but there is something in Korra’s story that doesn’t grab me as much as Aang’s, so let’s see…

Aang had a big problem that solved through the 3 seasons and problems that solved through each season, and little adventures for each episode, Korra have a different problem each season and the repercussions of solving that problems in the next season and also a new problem, so Korras has her own carryover but different.



Aang had way more episodes than Korra that’s why there are some episodes that some people don’t like that much, but even so even a bad episode of Aang was funny and entertain. Korra is a searis of straight to business, there is no time to fool around because we have like 12 episodes per season and there is a new quest every season so we need to know the new evil the new problems and the new characters and their backstory and then deal with the problems get an strategy and fix them in those 12 episodes, straight forward.



So I saw what happened there. With Aang we had time to learn about every character, because we had a ton of time to spend with them, not only on the quest but also on the vacations, we saw Aang swimming, dancing and fooling around, we had a whole episode to present Toph and how her family look at her, we saw Sokka grow into a great warrior, Katara turned into a great water bender, how Aang learned 3 of the elements and run around the world, and so on, but with Korra they had to squeeze the backstory of the characters in the same episodes with the plot and when they are introduced. In other words with Aang we had time to fall in love with the characters, and when they appear with Korra we remember that, even in a subconscious level and that is why we love to see what happened to them, because we care for them, for all the time we spend with them.

So, as I see it, is not that Aang is better than Korra, is just that Aang ended being a fully grown character and Korra has still a long way to walk to have full grown characters.

Is not that Aang is better or Korra, they are two parts of the same story.

Sunday 19 October 2014

Ebola Chan!





Hey! Some of you might wonder “Who or what is Ebola Chan?” and the answer is very simple, she is the mascot of Ebola and the Ebola crisis, so let me explain.

In the internet you can say anything is serious because you’ll get at least 1 person who wants to make fun of it, and why not? To that person that thing you are talking about, that crisis, is the farthest thing in his/her life so can see the fun part on it.



Many can say that Ebola Chan is distasteful or offensive but put in perspective, some people take it way too seriously when is just a drawing, others say that Ebola isn’t real this guys are way more disrespectful than the person who made this little pink haired girl.

Let’s get one or two things straight, there are people who says Ebola is a real danger and a terrible disease and on the other hand there is people that is just a media scam and that there are no sickness, so for the people that say is something very dangerous they have more serious things to worry about than a little cartoon and for the people who says that is a fake disease can’t get upset for making fun of something that they are attacking from the beginning.

Some are more offensive than others but is fun :P

As I see it is a fun way to make something serious go more easy, also Ebola is a problem on the other side of the world, and news are making their fear mongering here to keep the people scared, when is a disease that is quite difficult to get, because is by fluids, to me is a kind way of saying “is not a big deal, just an illness, we can beat this” also when the humor was forbidden from the important things? That is the moment of the jokes, after that would not be in time and everybody would tell you “you miss your time”

Ebola Chan World Tour, soon in a city near to you.
 
 So don’t kiss anyone with Ebola, don’t have any blood transfusion with a person with Ebola, and don’t have sex with a person with Ebola, I know that is a human instinct to interexchange fluids with a person with Ebola but try to resist.

The only thing this blog needed to make less people pass by was to get Ebola, well I thing there is nothing else to do.


Friday 17 October 2014

Interpretation of art or art of interpretation




What do you see? Do you think this is finished? Do you think is upside down? Or maybe sideways? Do you feel is something scary? Or is something pretty? Do you think the colours are right? What do you think the author is trying to say here?

All the answers will be delivered in time, but first let’s see inside ourselves, because every time we make a judgement about something we are using our own experiences as measure so every interpretation we give says more about ourselves than about what are we interpreting. And that is in life, when we think something is offensive is because we would use that to offend people and by the same reason we feel offended because of it, and when we feel aggression is because we would attack someone in that way and for that reason we feel aggravated there is never a objective thought on our lives everything we do, is under subjectivity and judgement,


Name: Self-portrait
Technique: Oil over canvas
Creator: Mortenius

Notes from the author: When I was in college I had to take around 4 elective classes, one of those was Paint, and during the class we learned classic oleo technique, from preparing the canvas to use the shadows and light, this was the final project, a self-portrait, you had to present it with an explanation of why you decided to paint yourself that way. The teacher wanted to know why the colors and the angle, he wasn’t counting on someone using abstraction, well this is the why of this painting.

First wasn’t because I can’t paint to save my life, that has never stopped me from doing a paint or a draw so that was not the reason.

What I thought making this painting was that everybody makes their own impressions of what they see, or read, so why limit them to a painting of my face, and they start thinking “Looks sad” or things like that, so I made my own “Rorschach stain” and presented as my portrait. The teacher never liked or even got the idea of the painting, I think. That for me was almost clever.

When I finish my painting I saw that some people look at it like something scary, others got intrigued, very few liked it, so with that response I was happy, because is the response I have as a first impression, so for me was an accurate self-portrait. I got an 80/100.

And everything in life is like that, no matter how much you think in your objectivity, everything is subjective, (Only math is objective) but that is what gives multiple solutions to a problem, or multiple problems to something that didn’t have it.

By example how a 4 year old can be a racist? Well I know they can be indoctrinated to it, but they really will not get it, so if you see a little girl with a confederate flag on her cap or a little boy in Halloween with a costume wearing “Black Face” can you see them as racist? You are the one with negative connotations trough those things, they don’t they could have seen it in cartoon or in the story and like it. I call a lot of people “Nigga” (Just people I know and consider my friends) but I don’t have that negativity around my mind. A friend told me “I know a couple of names I can call you that will make you want to fight me” Well man, I doubt it because during my life I been called all kind of stuff and never even raise an eyebrow to it, there is no way I can be called by any name and that upsets me, because I know that they are just words.

I always get amazed by how a simple word or image can make a person flip and going in a rant for hours, and how some people center their attention in a line or a piece of the image without looking at the big picture, like ending the line with the  :P means is a joke.

I always try to live by a phrase of wisdom “If we don’t use this beat because we fear of offend somebody, then we will have to go back and check all what we have done, if that offend someone and apologize, and realize that all what have we done is wrong and we will stop doing what we love, for that reason we need to do this” –Graham Chapman.

 
"If nobody feels insulted with your comedy, you are doing it wrong"

So, what do you see? 


Thursday 16 October 2014

Maze Runner: Why Young Adult Novels Make Lousy Movies.




Believe it or not, I read the first 2 books of Maze Runner before even knowing there was going to be a movie, and I kind of like them but the movie not so much, is not like I wanted to be just like the book, but in a similar topic the book makes a little more sense, but the movie clash against itself and leaves you with a lot of questions about the plot, characters and other stuff.

But if you read the title you might have an idea or at least you should be wondering, “If you say the book was better why did you say now that you knew the movie was going to be bad?”

Well that is my point, the book is OK to read, short adventure and an interesting premise, but, there is always a but, it had the same problem that all the Teen fiction or Young Adult novels have. As you might know by now I’ll make a criticism of young adult novels before jumping into the movie, because people needs background to understand the why of things.

Young Adult Novels, ah! The sole name is like a contradiction, it should be call like it is “Teen Fiction” that is what it is, why? Because they are targeted to the teenagers, and if you don’t believe me take a quick look. The heroes are young never after 20 years old, the main protagonist is a stranger in the everyday world is special, so looks of a different world where he/she is also different, but in this world he/she is not only good at it is the best, the one. The main evil are mostly adults is very weird to have another young like the main evil unless that person has raised from the beginning from being a secondary character until he/she becomes the new evil. There is always a romantic interest, which is almost always the first love of both or at least for one of them. There is a character how gets friendzoned but later gets with a sexy secondary character, and so on. But why do I say these novels are bad idea to make them films? Well the devil is on the details, or better said the lack of details, let me explain.

The novels are written explaining the world, the situation, the atmosphere, the looks of everyone and everything can you see what has been left outside? Yep, the psyche of the characters, their back story, what makes them tick! You have some interesting scenarios and situations but you have an empty husk as your main character and point of view. In books like A Game Of Thrones you have a character point of view but they are so fleshed out that you feel like you are beside them and never knowing exactly what else is going on. But when you read a teen fiction novel you know exactly what is on everybody’s mind, because you take over that character and subconsciously you fill all the gaps in personality, backstory, and decisions, you love that character when both have the same idea and hate him/her when there is a lapse of judgement in the character that makes them get into more trouble, you love to get new abilities and after reading it you wonder “what could I do with that ability?”

As you can see teen fiction is the basic model of the videogames, or at least some of them (all the FPS to start) but that is the wonderful of those books, your scape is like the previous version of the “Oculus Rief” the books are fun to read, and not too time consuming, also then you grow out them and discover big people books and you are even more fascinated, because you see fully fleshed characters in problems that they need to think not use new abilities but to came up with a plan.

But then some people thinks that a Teen Fiction is a good idea to make it a movie and you get that the writer (some guy in his 50s) thinks that the characters are not fleshed enough so he puts his magic to work and you end with something that has the same structure and looks that the book had but it is not the same, and most of the time the writer of the screen play is a person that thinks the story will be better different or that is to juvenile or thinks that he is going to tell the fans of the book how it should have been, and ends in something like a bad Fanfick that even the people that liked the book hate the movie.

I know Spiderwick is more like children but gets the same points

This is what happened to Maze Runner, The Mortal Instruments and The Spiderwick Chronicle (I read the 3 stories before watching the movies) and as I said they lose that little extra that you give by reading the books.

So now About Maze Runner, the movie starts almost like the book, the scenery was good and looked like I pictured, but then the story start and all the changes in it made me start thinking that I have read the wrong book, it was similar in some stuff but also changed a lot, and changed for the worst.

Most of the things that happen contradict each other, and why? Because they needed to follow the book but have already said that some things couldn’t happen but in the book had already happen and were important for the plot.

Then I heard that the writer wanted to make something like “Lord of the Flies” what has nothing to do with the book, the book is more about solving problems and tasks to get home, find that no matter how dark the day looks there is always an end or at least a calm place to rest before the next task, but here they forgot everything and make a cliché.

There are so many things that should have been and other that should have never existed, the grievers were nice but the idea that “No one has ever faced one” and then knowing about the sting was a contradiction. The idea of the maze having no roof is dumb because that is the first thing that anyone could try but in the book it had a roof because it was an underground facility and the sun was artificial, so that’s why they could not make a ladder to go over the walls.

The effects were OK but that doesn't make a movie.


So the acting is dull, and the story has more contradictions than the bible, the script feels like a first draft, and the ending lets you thinking “So the story continues, but I don’t care” but the effects are decent.

So if you get intrigued by the story you better read the book is like 250 pages or so a good reader can read it in a afternoon, but if you are like mi it will take you a couple of days.

Don’t watch this movie only if is free or you are watching it on Netflix or something, because is not worthy even the effects, because there are not that many and the acting is worthy of a cheap web series.


If you need to know this movie in my list has :
** 2 stars I didn’t like it and you could watch it if you have nothing to do and is on the TV with nothing else to watch.