Sequels and Reboots

Recently, the word sequel has become more and more relevant, with almost every movie being released today being a sequel of a movie or a reboot of an old movie. But does making a sequel to a good movie help or hurt the series as a whole.

In today’s era of movie making, it seems like almost every movies that comes out is either a follow up to a successful movie or a reboot to a classic film. But it seems like the sequel always fairs much worse than its predecessor, with it almost always getting a lower score from fans and critics alike. The only reason company’s release a sequel or pre sequel is because the first movie was well received and the producers wanted to cash in on hopeful movie goers. This plan works well too often, with the sequels often bringing in a lot of profit, which just starts the cycle over again. Unfortunately, the producers are not the ones to blame; they are just trying to make a profit, it is the consumers that pay to go see these sequels that are the ones at fault.

Now I’m not saying that every sequel made was a failure, with the Lord of the Rings sequels actually getting better than the last. I’m just saying that companies that cash in on a successful movie just for a quick buck is bad. This also occurs to some extent with reboots of movies. Reboots are becoming more and more popular, with many newer versions of classics such as Robo Cop and Total Recall. These aren’t given the same treatment as the “cash in while still popular” sequels are, these can sometimes be very good. But instead of sticking to what made the original movie so good, they tend to deviate from the path and try to change source material long standing fans have cherished and loved. Although sometimes this strategy pays off, most of the time this flops with fans and critics alike.

My outcry is not aimed at movie producers or directors, but at you, the movie goer. You are the reason that these company’s keep producing these movies. If you never went and saw these terrible movies, they wouldn’t make any money off of them, and they would stop being produced. So the next time you see a movie coming out that looks even little questionable, read a review and save yourself the 10$.

Flappy bird

Apps are becoming the most popular video games available on the market today, with the ease of accessibility for anyone with a Smartphone, to their much less then retail costs. But one app has risen from its competitors to become the next smash hit.  This app is known as Flappy bird and it has become an over the night sensation with it gaining hundreds of thousands of downloads and reviews.

Flappy bird is a simple game with a simple concept. You control a bird in its journey to flap its way to victory by going through many pipes. Unfortunately for him, it seems that he can never reach his destination, with no end in sight. Every time you tap on him, he jumps upward abruptly, and you have to guide him through until you inevitably hit an obstacle and fall to the ground. Your score is recorded and then you start again. And again. And again.  Somehow this simple concept has captivated millions of people including me with is simplistic yet addicting game play. Normally I would talk about its story or great cast of characters, but this is the entire game, just you vs. all of your friends to see who can get through the most pipes.

Now you wouldn’t think that a game this simple would gain so much popularity in such a short time. Well you like many other people would be wrong. While I did say that the game was addicting I did not say it was fun, because honestly I don’t find it that enjoyable. There are 2 types of people when it comes to flappy bird, those who excel at the game, and those who don’t. If you can get the right rhythm you can get through upwards of 100 pipes without even breaking a sweat.  But as soon as you learn the pattern, the game becomes repetitive, with you finishing each game with an incredibly low score below 10, or finishing where you almost always finish. Sure you may be able to get one or two higher than before but does it really matter? Then there are the people who are never able to get that rhythm down and always seem to never make it past 20. If you fall into this category, there’s a high chance that you have lobbed your phone across the room in anger after losing.  But fear not, you’re not alone in this craze. There have been multiple videos of people throwing, breaking, or even smashing their phones with a hammer because of this game.

But like every good story, the flappy bird tale has come to a bitter end. With the creator of the game recieivng many death threats and horrible things written to him, he decided to stay away from the drama and close the game. As of now you can no longer get flappy birds, and you can only play it if u have already downloaded it.

Terraria review

I reviewed a game called Minecraft, which I can’t praise enough.  But there is another game that falls into the same category, and I figure it was about time for me to give it the down low. This time around the game is called Terraria, and while it may seem akin to Minecraft, I can assure you that both are very unique and very fun to play.

                Terraria was released on pc in 2011 by the developer Re-Logic. The game is a 2d platformer of sorts, with you being put in control of your character. When you load up your world, you are put in a randomly generated world that nobody will or has ever seen before. You are then paired up with a guide who teaches you some basic facts or crafting recipes about how to survive in this new world.  You are then to do as you please. You can dig into the earth and harvest dozens of materials to make better equipment, make a bow and go hunt down the creatures that plague your land, or make a house out of dirt and start a bunny farm. There are no set goals for what you need to accomplish, although you will need to kill a few bosses to unlock some of the later material. This is what I like about these types of games, the freedom of being able to do whatever you like, whenever you like.  This makes the gameplay not feel too rushed and really lets me enjoy the game.

                Now unlike Minecraft, Terraria has some achievements you can stride for, whether it be kill a gigantic eyeball in the hopes it drops the item you need so you can craft a weapon and fight the next boss. After you kill 3-4 bosses, you can descend to hell and fight a moving wall of flesh. If you manage to emerge victoriously, the game drastically changes, with hundreds of new enemies to fight and treasure to discover. This is one major advantage this game has over Minecraft. Even if you have beaten the game, there are still hundreds of hours of content left for you to discover. I personally have spent 126 hours in Terraria and I’m still discovering new enemies or finding new items. This alone makes the game feel compelling to play through and makes this game that much better.

                But as always this game has its issues. Playing with your friends is one of the best things you can do with this type of game. But unfortunately, it is excruciatingly hard to set up a server to play with your friends. The game also has a fair amount of glitches in it as well, with some major ones that can corrupt your save data and delete your world and all of your items in it. This alone shows signs of concern, as the game isn’t being as rapidly patched as I hoped.

                Terraria came in the time of other smash hits like Minecraft and Rust. You would think that it would fade into nonexistence after being compared to other games. But Terraria stuck out and carved its own place in the very saturated video game empire, a spot it won’t give up anytim

Are Cellphones Becoming our 3rd Limb?

Are cellphone playing too large of a role in teenager’s lives? With new technology constantly popping up in the market, cellphones keep getting better and better, with a single device replacing an mp3 player, game system, watch, and alarm clock just to name a few. But with all of this new technology available to teenagers these days, when will we see that cellphones are just a device, not another limb.

         

   As a teenager I am almost constantly on my phone, with it filling almost all of the down time at school throughout the day. I use it to text, play games, as a clock, watch a movie, and to do about anything I could think of. It keeps me linked to the world and updated on any recent events. It can start or finish a chapter in my life with a single button press, and is almost a 3^rd arm for me and almost any other teenager. Just to think that 20 years ago, id need at least 4 different things in my pocket just to do the same things my IPhone does. But when is your dependence on your cellphone enough?

         

   Now personally I don’t have this issue, but I know people who spend an extreme amount of time on their cellphones. Many people will almost neglect their lives outside of their cellphones, with the cellphone almost becoming their real life for them. They will get lost in a world of twitter and Facebook, so much so that they will not pay attention to anything, and will have a negative impact on their lives as a whole.

Many teenagers now also put too much into their cell phones. So much so that if you managed to lose yours, you could lose a lot of valuable information to anyone who just manages to find it or pick it up. Sure you might have a lock on it, but if they were determined enough, they could find a way to unlock it for themselves. Then if they manage to get the phone unlocked, they have access to everything, including all of your pictures, texts, contacts, etc. These can get really personal and can lead to a fate similar to identity theft. Most teenagers think that a simple lock will keep their phone safe from falling into the wrong hands, so they will gladly store valuable information on it.

Modern cellphones were meant to be a luxury, something that allows you to do many things on without having to switch devices or carry around 30 things in your pocket. But now more than ever, cellphones are becoming less of a luxury and more of a necessity. 

Ronin 47

Why are time honored actors constantly creating worse and worse box office hits, such as Ronin 47 and Arnolds new movie, The Last Stand?

It has been awhile since I have seen my last movie, so I thought that I should venture to the movie theater and see what’s new.  I had seen trailers advertising the new Keanu reeves movie, 47 ronin recently, so I thought that I should go and watch it. But how does this stack up to his older movies that were oh so good?

The movie is loosely based on an old Japanese story about a king who was shamed by another ruler, and forced to kill himself to redeem his honor.  When the king died, his samurais became ronin which kind of make them freelance samurais. They all banded together and took revenge on the “bad” king to reclaim their honor. And this is where the similarities end with the original tale and the movie. Keanu plays Kai, an outcast born of white descent that was found in a forest by the king Ashono and taken back to his land. There, he was raised like his son, although he was always treated differently by the villagers because of his race.

Fast forwarding to his adult years, Kai still lives as an outcast of society, living in the outskirts of town. He is perked up by the fact that the famous shogun is coming to his village to host a tournament between samurai against villages.   Panic strikes as Kai has to don the samurai gear, while breaking his code, because the fighter for his village was bewitched by Lord Kiras mistress. Lord Kira is the leader of an opposing town and wants to win the tournament and steal the heart of Ashonos daughter. Kai fights well, but is beaten by his opponent, who also knocks off his mask to reveal his face. He is brutally beaten, while lord Kira reigns victorious. Later that same night he sends his mistress once again to bewitch the king into thinking that Kira was attacking his daughter. He runs into his room and almost kills him before the guards find them. Ashono is punished by having to kill himself, and the kingdom falls into ruins by lord Kiras hand.

This is where I’m going to stop the review so I don’t spoil it for any of you. I enjoyed the movie greatly and hope that you will as well. The actors take their roles quite seriously, and it shows with great performances.  The story is action packed and seems to always have something interesting going on. The CG is pretty good, with it being used in many scenes to really make them stand out.  Overall I think that Reeves shines in his role and that this movie is a definite must see.

Evil Apples

Can converting a family board game loved by all to a dirty hilarious copy pay off?

I’m sure that everyone has played the popular game known as apples to apples. For a quick summary of the game, you and 3 friends each get an assortment of cards with a random word or person on them, ranging from anything from George Washington to your boss. The judge then picks from a special pile of cards that have a defining word on them such as annoying or really funny. The players then choose a card from their hand and put it down. The winner is whoever put down the card that the judge picks as the funniest or cleverest.

Now evil apples are like apples to apples dirty cousin who lives in a bad part of town and is constantly in and out of jail. Evil apples are only available on the app store, and are not available in stores like apples to apples. Unlike the family friendly version before, evil apples changes it style to appeal to a more adult/teenager crowd. The premise of the games are similar, with evil apples throwing out the one defining word cards, and changing to a sentence format, such as “The mad scientist knew his creation was a monster, but foolishly hoped________would one day be accepted and loved by man”. There the players would pick from their cards what they think would be the best and submit them. Like before, the judge would pick his or her favorite card, points would be rewarded, and then the next round gets underway.

Now as I said before, evil apples is different in that it’s aimed at a more mature crowd, with it including more mature words such as “All the prostitutes in Detriot” or “Ronald McDonalds nipple”.  Now I can’t speak for any of you who are over the age of 30, but my friends and I find this highly enjoyable.  Yes it’s immature and petty, but it can lead to some seriously funny moments between you and your friends. And it’s not just limited to people you know. When you host a game, anybody can join it and play with you, so you don’t have to wait long for your games to fill up.

Although this app has good upsides, it has its downsides. You need to be connected to wifi while playing this game; otherwise it will drain your battery like no tomorrow. I have had the wifi drop and switch to 3g before, and my phone would lose 10% of its battery in 15 minutes of me playing the game. Another downside with this game is its difficulty locating your friends to play with. The game uses twitter and Facebook to send out messages to people you want to play with. This method isn’t as useful as you would think, with people receiving the messages way to late or not even getting one at all.

                Evil apples quite a fun game to play with your friends, with its entertaining game play for you and your friends to all get involved with.

Rick and Morty

Are animated T.V shows slowly starting to take the crown off of live actions shows head?

Rick and Morty is the first show to come from Dan Harmon in a long time. It has been airing on Adult Swim recently, and the hype is here, but is Rick and Morty worth getting excited about. With most of the games or shows that I review, something about this makes it stick out above the rest, which Rick and Morty do excellenty.

The story revolves around the mad scientist Rick who brings his companion in his adventures along with him, who just so happens to be his grandson Morty an awkward teenager who is bullied by Rick into coming with him in his outlandish endeavour with the constant promise of a hot girl or something really cool. It seems that Morty online comes on these adventure because Rick appears to be his only friend. His relations with his family are good, although his family’s relationship with each other is strained. Jerry, his dad, got his mother Beth pregnant at 17, something that his mother regrets. He also has a older sister who goes to his same school. Unlike the awkward Morty, Summer fits right in as a typical American girl, with her incessant texting, talking to friends, and dating. Rick and Morty’ s relationship is definitely strange, but it’s enjoyable  to watch and gets many laughs.

Rick and morty has a very eye catching art style, boasting a clean, simple style reminiscent of shows like adventure time. The episodes are always interesting, like the episode where Rick and Morty are running through customs in a different universe, dodging alien travelers and gun wielding bugs. Each episode has many plots going about at all times, and in the end, they all meet up together to make each story feel unique and interesting. No two episodes feel alike, each with its own unique cast of characters and wacky scenarios. For example one episode takes place inside a hobo’s body, where rick has built a theme park based on the body, while the next focuses on Rick and Morty incepting into his teachers dreams to give Morty an A in math.

Rick and Morty comes about in the time of the other legends such as Family guy and The Simpsons. And for it to stand out among them takes a great amount of effort and uniqueness that only this show can pull off. It is written so perfectly, that they can switch from funny or crazy topics and events to much more serious issues such as rape and death of a loved one. Most shows today can’t pull these off because they don’t have enough seriousness to, while rick and morty plays the perfect balance to pull off both sides of the spectrum.

Rick and morty is leading the charge to become the next hit such as Family guy and The Simpsons. With its witty and funny dialogue, fun visuals, and great storytelling, I predict that Rick and Morty are here to stay. I highly suggest you give the show a watch.