GeekReads

I didn’t know this until after I met Jenny, but apparently boxing day movies are a tradition. In previous years you could pretty much rely on there being a blockbuster the day after Christmas, and for many years geeky fare has played a dominant role: The Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Narnia and Harry Potter. This year continues the tradition with the penultimate instalment of J.K. Rowling’s books and the third (fourth?) of C.S. Lewis’s.

The neon is back!

Another sequel joins the ranks this year, although Tron: Legacy has been much longer in the making – it’s a sequel to a Disney cult classic from 1982. Don’t beat yourself up if your recollection’s somewhat vague – you’re not the only one, and it’s not old age. The neon may have burned itself into your subconscious but the plot wasn’t so bright. In a nutshell, former ENCOM employee, arcade owner and hacker Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) is searching for evidence that his ex-employer stole games that he created, but gets digitised by the company’s Master Control Program and fights for both his life, and control of cyberspace.

The sequel hits the ground running. As the master of this digital domain, Flynn creates a digital clone of himself called Clu to assist with the task of perfecting this new world. In a move that should surprise nobody, the doppelganger turns evil and his pure motives are misinterpreted and twisted into a megalomaniacal scheme that threatens reality, trapping Flynn in cyberspace. The burden then falls upon the shoulders of Flynn’s son, Sam, to discover the truth about why his father went missing, and to thwart the digital dictator’s plans.

In other words, Disney chose not to stray far from the Hollywood blockbuster formula of applying an extremely large budget to a relatively average story in the hope that by creating an eye-popping experience people will forgive the story. And to be fair, they largely succeed.

Oooh, light bikes

The computer generated graphics and special effects are impressive, being strongly reminiscent of the old while giving it a thorough modern makeover. I don’t think anybody could fairly complain that the designers did not create a deferential homage to the original. The neon suits, grid, light cycles and disc wars are back with bells on, brought to you in brain melting 3D (although for the record, most of the early parts of the movie set outside cyberspace are actually in 2D).

What did surprise me was the ham-fisted attempt at Christian allegory. There’s a total facepalm moment where Clu has this whole monologue about how the Creator (Flynn) is trying to keep the Programs from the truth.

Let me put it like this: Tron: Legacy is not going to win Best Movie, Best Screenplay, Best Actor (male or female) or most other awards. However, it is definitely a contender for Best Visual Effects, so my recommendation: check your cynicism at the door, sit back, and watch the fireworks.

Not the most exciting poster ever...

As a species, we’re remarkably preoccupied with issues of life and death. That’s all that matters, isn’t it? The Burden of Being. Religion, philosophy and art are only barely enough to contain our collective existential angst. We hardly need help in that area, yet our natural curiosity pushes us ever onwards in exploring the outer fringes of reality through various media.

There are bound to be comparisons between Inception and The Matrix, the two most notable examples of such works in recent memory, so let’s get it out of the way first. Both movies depend on the concept of layered reality – that is, what we perceive to be real may actually be a dream or a computer simulation, respectively, and other layers exist that sit above or below what we mistakenly believe to be singular. They both also rely on the notion of shared reality, where many people are able to simultaneously participate in the same dream or illusion.

So even though the plot, style and pretty much everything else is completely different, their philosophical underpinnings are pretty similar. Both movies lead us, the audience, to question the nature of reality and what we believe to be real. Yes, Inception is deeply intellectual so don’t go into it without your thinking hats on, lest you end up falling asleep and dream about the movie instead (or was your dream the real movie?)

Jamiroquai, eat your heart out!

Dominic “Dom” Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is an Extractor – a thoughts thief if you will, who has the ability to hack peoples’ minds to steal information. He’s also trying to clear his name from the murder of his wife so that he can see his kids again. A powerful and influential businessman, Saito (Ken Watanabe), offers Dom redemption in return for successfully implanting an idea into the mind of competitor Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy) – an inception. However, this impossible task is made even moreso by Dom’s inner demons.

Many people who’ve seen Inception think it’s the best thing ever. Based on the strength of the story alone, it definitely is, but like a lot of reviews that I’ve read, the movie seems to lack a certain… something. For me, it’s the casting.

Why so serious?

Leo. Not much needs to be said here. The guy’s a great actor, and I’m sure some of the ladies find him very attractive, but as usual his performance carries with it too much gravitas. It makes the emotional experience of watching movies with him in it a lot like trying to swim through jelly. Then there’s Ellen Page (Juno, Whip It). While I adore her, her appearance in Inception was an odd casting choice. Alongside the other older (and taller) members of the ensemble, the combination of her mature demeanour and her impish youthfulness makes her appear as a little gnome. A different casting choice might have allowed for a more nuanced interpretation of Dom’s relationships, although I can see why Nolan might have deliberately wanted to avoid that, given that there’s plenty enough for the audience to keep track of without adding even more layers.

What does it mean?

Last but no means least, the ending. Don’t worry, I won’t spoil it for you, but debates rage on as to the relevance of the final scene. Personally, I think that focusing on it takes away from what I believe is the real question that the movie is asking – why aren’t we satisfied with our own reality?

The "coming soon" cover with Cybertron in the background looked cooler. Oh well...

I don’t know when or why, but I took a wrong turn somewhere on my gaming journey and fell out of line with the First Person Shooter – a genre that I had sacrificed many a sleepness night to, at LAN parties not all that long ago (or so it seems). I just can’t play FPS games any more – my last attempt was Half Life 2, and I dry-retched my way through the entire game as my brain fought back the waves of nausea brought on by motion sickness. As a result, I’ve passed on some of the biggest gaming franchises in recent times such as Call of Duty, Gears of War, and their brethren.

Hence it was with great sadness that I discovered that Transformers: War For Cybertron was an FPS, because Transformers is one of the things that I love (to the point where I fought the bureaucracy to import a Megatron toy that is classified as a restricted firearm). To rub salt into the wound, the Intarwebs reported that WFC was more more than just a competent welding together of the Transformers lore with the war gaming mechanics, it was actually a decent game. So it is with great thanks to the Contagious Network that I’m able to give the game a go in spite of the fact I would never have purchased it for myself for fear of the barf monster.

When you first hear Peter Cullen say "Cybertron..." in the game's intro, you know it's gonna be good

Since I’ve divulged my shame, I won’t pretend familiarity in talking about the gameplay. All I can say is that using the Sixaxis controller to run-and-gun is more difficult than I thought it’d be. Flying in particular, is a brain-melting exercise in hand-eye co-ordination. This is also the first game I’ve played where you see the character that you’re playing in 3rd person, but they’re off to one side so as not to obscure the action, which leaves me with a “lopsided” feeling after playing, like I’ve been craning my neck to see over somebody’s shoulder the entire time. Surprisingly though, I’m not getting motion sickness from playing, huzzah!

Anyway enough whining – this is the good stuff. War For Cybertron positions itself as a sort-of-prequel to G1 (for the uninitiated, that’s the original Generation 1 cartoon from the 80′s), so in the Decepticon single-player campaign we get to see when Megatron and Starscream first meet, and why there exists the thinly veiled animosity between them. On the Autobot side, we have the story of how Optimus takes on his role as leader of the Autobots after the death of their leader, Zeta Prime.

At one point, Megatron goes "Ooh a car, I'm scared!"

The voice acting is superb, with the inimitable Peter Cullen again providing his mellifluous tones as Optimus. The dialogue is snappy, obviously written with great care by folks who know and understand the franchise. I LOL’d at this little exchange between the Seekers:

Starscream: These guys are as dumb as Skywarp!
Skywarp: I’ll show you dumb, Starscream!
Starscream: You always do, Skywarp.

While you couldn’t mistake this for G1, being that all of the characters appear in their Cybertronian modes, they still carry a very strong G1 vibe about them. My only criticism is that because both the characters and the environments are metal or metallic, everything tends to blend in and makes things hard to see*, especially when the action gets frenetic.

Speaking of which, the multiplayer action is supposed to be where this game is at. The game is able to create matchups locally or globally, and even in the late evening, there were still around 1600+ people online, so it was pretty easy to find a game to join. The good old Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch modes are there, plus a plethora of options that I don’t claim to understand, which probably involve some other tactical manoeuvring that I’m not yet brave enough to try (I’ve come last in every match I’ve played so far; pity the poor sods who ended up with me on their team).

Not everybody will like the aesthetic, but many agree that it's better than the live-action movies.

Sadly, the PS3 version of the game suffers from bugginess. I’ve fallen through the floor for no reason a few times, and the game occasionally crashes the system (requiring a hard reset). Hopefully, commercial success means that patches will be quickly forthcoming – even as I write the first patch has already been released, taking it to version 1.01.

Seriously, I could go on all day. I haven’t even mentioned character classes, weapons, unlockables, G1 homages, etc. – there’s a LOT here for die-hard fans and newcomers alike, and considering that the launch price at JB is $59, you’d be hard pressed to find better value for money.

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* Take a look at the thumbnail pictures of the game here and tell me you wouldn’t use the word “dark”.

The (large) cast of Summer Wars

How many movies do you remember seeing where the audience clapped at the end? Not many, right? It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed by Summer Wars, an ambitious movie that presents a rich tapestry of themes, rather than the loosely connected string of ideas going from start to finish that I’ve become accustomed to expect lately. I’m not quite sure what I would say is the main theme of the movie, but it could easily be any or all of these (and more):

• the dangers of the receding boundary between digital and analogue;
• the role of families and communities in modern society
• a restoration of pride in Japanese identity, history and culture

All this is told through the eyes of the Jinnouchi family, as they come together to celebrate the 90th birthday of their matriarch. There’s a a grab-bag of stereotypes: the wise-old grandmother, the quiet kid, the black sheep (an adopted son), the loud uncle, the gossiping aunts, and the uncontrollable kids, but because they each play a critical role in the story, and the very real and warm way in which they’re portrayed, made them seem to me like the most compellingly realistic fictional family in recent memory. This is one of the things that I love most about anime – how they often depict “humanity” even better than live action dramas.

This, of course, is set up against the virtual world of OZ – an idealised representation of the Internet. A lot of geeks might cringe and groan at some of the representations, but the makers did a good job of ensuring that things never gets so technical that ordinary people wouldn’t be able to follow. My measure of this as usual, is my wife Jenny. She had no difficulty understanding the comments that the story was making about issues that we face as the digital world continues to encroach into the real world.

Being anime, there were still some unfortunate genre conventions that were sadly obeyed, one of which is the obligatory nudity of a young female character – I really don’t see why when every other character’s digital presence was some kind of cartoon animal, the girl’s avatar turns out to be … a girl. Who gets (partly) naked.

Be that as it may, it’s a minor quibble to an otherwise excellent movie. If you enjoyed The Girl Who Leapt Through Time – or less likely, the Digimon movie – by the same director (Mamoru Hosoda), then you’ll love Summer Wars.

Now if only I could get a round of applause at the end of my reviews :-)

Oh no! A space-time rift has opened up and an editorial piece has crossed over from the another continuum!

Tonight* was the night that being a geek finally became sexy, as the hearts of millions everywhere leapt at exactly the same time as Amy Pond jumped the Doctor. What’s the big deal you ask, considering that gettin’ yo’ geek on has already happened in shows like The IT Crowd and Big Bang Theory?

But see, it’s simply de rigueur for Americans to drape sex onto anything and everything. Doctor Who is a show where up until now the female lead has – against all laws of nature – never had any interest in the Doctor, and where the character of Amy Pond – played by Karen Gillan – was introduced as a “kiss-o-gram” (were it made states-side, she’d almost certainly have been a stripper).

Karen Gillan as Amy Pond, in her "kiss-o-gram" policeman's uniform

For the uninitiated, Doctor Who is a long-running British sci-fi series centred around a time-travelling, wise-cracking alien being known only enigmatically as “The Doctor”. I myself only recently started watching, from the beginning of the current season when Matt Smith became the 11th person to play the title role.

While I agree with Sir Terry that it’s ludicrous how every episode thus far has relied on one or more deus ex machina devices to resolve a plot point, the show has still featured some of the most imaginative and complex themes that I’ve come across in a while. (Although, seeing as I don’t watch very much TV, evidenced by the fact that this is the first ever GeekReads post about anything that’s been on television, that’s not saying much. Being available on ABC’s iView helps greatly, since it means not being a slave to programming schedules – without resorting to downloading anyway.) Anyhow, Jenny loves it too.

Now the show is upping the ante on the romantic side of things, since because the Doctor had whisked Amy away the night before her wedding, she’s been able to forget about her cold feet. Maybe falling for the Doctor is the cause of the time rift? Dun dun duuuuuuuuuuuun! We wait with bated breath for the next episode…

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* Or a week ago if you live in England.