Why OnLive won’t work

Now that the euphoria from the OnLive presentation at the GDC has dissipated a bit, there’s been a host of articles today that casts quite a bit of doubt of what OnLive claims it can deliver to what’s physically possible. Here’s a couple of the better ones:

Eurogamer makes three main points in its criticism of OnLive’s technology.

1. OnLive has mastered video compression that outstrips the best that current technologies can achieve by a vast margin. In short, it has outsmarted the smartest compressionists in the world, and not only that, it’s doing it in real-time.
2. OnLive’s unparalleled grasp of psychophysics means that it has all but eliminated the concept of IP lag during its seven years of “stealth development”, succeeding where the best minds in the business have only met with limited success.
3. OnLive has developed a range of affordable PC-compatible super-computers and hardware video encoders that are generations beyond anything on the market at the moment.

Of the three points Eurogamer makes, the most damning one is how to counter the notion of Internet lag. Just because you happen to have a large amount of bandwidth doesn’t make up for the fact that you may be hundreds, maybe thousands of miles away from the OnLive servers. Read more

To Aru Majutsu Final Episode

Episode 24 of To Aru Majutsu no Index was pretty satisfying. Looking back at the anime, I’d give the series probably a B+, with a number of story arcs that would rate much higher. I enjoyed the initial arc best and any story arc that involved Touma fighting magical foes, which fortunately was the bulk of the episodes. The series did have some duds however. I didn’t find the two episode arc starring the Accelerator and the loli Biri Biri that interesting nor did I care much about the one where everyone switched bodies. However, like any good anime series, the series ended on a high note with some of the best coming in the last four episodes. Read more

Maria-sama 4 ep 11

I’ve hesitated blogging about episode 11 of Maria-sama ga Miteru largely because I’ve neglected blogging about episodes 7 through 10. Of the ones I mentioned, episode 7 with the Christmas Party was particularly dramatic and worthy of a blog post all on it’s own. Episode 8 was surprisingly a bit of a let down with the current Yamiyurikai visiting Sachiko’s house for a New Year’s celebration. Episode 9 picks up again with the Yamiyurikai elections, of which Touko is a surprise candidate. Finally, episode 10 focuses on the aftermath of the election, Suguru’s visit to Sachiko concerning Touko, and the planning of a new Valentine’s event featuring the upcoming Roses.

I decided to start blogging about Maria-sama again largely because I have been following the series and because the anime is quickly coming to its dramatic conclusion. I felt that the tensions about Touko had been steadily building since episode 6, culminating with this episode. While I do feel a little bad that I didn’t give the other episodes their just do, I do feel that  as a blogger, you have to focus on what interests you and not slavishly write something just because you feel obligated. The writing that comes out of such obligation tends not to be the best.

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Toradora Episode 24

What the heck happened to this series? As you’ve notice from my posts, I took a small break from blogging about anime lately largely because of some time issues and because there were more interesting things happening on the gaming side. So, I’ve been spending the last couple of days catching up.

So last night, I marathoned episodes 22 through 24, skipping the ski trip that was episode 21. When I left this series, the growing feelings between Taiga and Ryuji was become more apparent, leaving Minorin (and to a lesser extent, Ami) conflicted about their feelings about Ryuji. Read more

Watchmen movie reviewed

So I’ve just come back from a midnight viewing of the Watchmen. I sat through 2 hours and 40 minutes wondering why the film couldn’t be a little shorter. It doesn’t mean I didn’t like the film; I did. However, as someone who isn’t familiar with the original work, the plot was complicated and somewhat overwhelming. It’s the same sort of feeling that you get when you’re offered an extremely expensive and well regarded red wine. You sip it, it swirls around your mouth and you feel somewhat badly that you aren’t immediately impressed by it. You want to like it more, but your own inexperience lets you down. Read more

My predictions for 2009 movies

I’ve written a surprising (for me) amount of stuff about movies on this site. Far more than I would’ve initially anticipated. I think it’s largely due to the fact that there have been so many sci-fi related movies lately announced by Hollywood. I’ve also noticed that Hollywood has amply demonstrated its capacity to use any material, no matter how shallow, as a vehicle for film making…as long as it can turn a buck.

With that trend in mind, I think it has become easier for the average movie consumer to decide pretty quickly what’s going to be schlock and what’s going to be good. A few movie stills or even the initial movie trailer can tell you right off how seriously the movie studio is taking that movie. I think it was pretty obvious to guess, for example, that Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li was going to be bad. I pretty much called it before the movie was released. The trailer looked really bad; nothing like what you imagined that Street Fighter world to look like. Everyone was so dirty, so gritty. And you can probably take that as an over-reaction of the film’s producers to the 1994 Street Fighter film that was so full of camp. It’s unsurprising to me that Street Fighter has a 0% fresh rating from Rotten Tomatoes (as of this writing).

Any sci-fi film has to do two things to ensure it can attract an initial audience. The film has to excite you at a visceral level. This doesn’t mean that the trailer should overwhelm you with lots of overdone special effects. The Star Wars prequels are unfortunately a good example of what happens to a film franchise that emphasizes special effects over a good script and acting. Second, the film has to have the earmarks of a good and serious production effort. That means hiring a good director, a good screenwriter, having notable stars and overall giving off the impression that the original work will be taken seriously and not as a flimsy means to sell movie-related merchandise.

So how do I think the major sci-fi movies of this year are going to do?  Well, here’s my thoughts on them.

Star Trek

This film will do well. Seriously. It will garner good critical reviews and make a killing at the box office. The old franchise needed a reboot and was increasingly going stale. It was a formula that worked with the Batman movie franchise and it will work here. It doesn’t hurt that the film is being helmed by JJ Abrams, who’s no stranger to filming untraditional films (he directed Cloverfield). The trailers look impressive and the combination of drama and the special effects really build anticipation for this movie. I will say that this film will be the runaway blockbuster hit of 2009.

Trailer for Star Trek (this one has Leonard Nimoy in it):

Watchmen

Watchmen will also do well. While it would’ve been easy to make this film campy, the producers are clearly taking this film and its material seriously. One of the biggest mistakes that I’ve seen in superhero films is that they deemphasize the story and focus too much on the special effects and the main character. That’s the wrong approach. Iron Man, for example, was a good story that just happen to involve a super hero. Tony Stark was as interesting outside his armor as he was in it.  The Iron Man movie would still be a good movie even if it only generically involved a rich and spoiled scientist who grows a conscience and uses his technical know-how to fight crime.The film would’ve worked even without the superhero.

The Watchmen will succeed even though the characters are unknown and even though the Watchmen franchise is unfamiliar to most of the viewing audience. There are opinions that certainly disagree with me; however, I stand by my statement.

The story by Alan Moore is a really good one, deconstructing superheroes as much as he builds them up. Further, the movie is rated R, another sign that the producers want to stay true to the material without watering it down.While I don’t think the Watchmen will do as well as Star Trek, I think it will get better critical reviews. It will still be a very profitable film, and deservedly so.

Watchmen trailer:

GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra

This movie will fail. I’ve pretty much have called that here. There’s a number of reasons why, and I talked about most of them in my earlier post about this movie. After watching the trailer, my opinion remains unchanged. Sure, Snake Eyes played by Ray Park is sure to attract his share of fanboys who loved his work in the Phantom Menace and the X-Men series. And I also acknowledge that Sienna Miller looks surprisingly good as the Baroness.

However, the main reason that this movie will fail is that the underlying material is weak. There just isn’t enough in the GI Joe comic books or the 1980s cartoon series to warrant a movie. Further, the world has changed. No one believes that terrorists can be fought using conventional forces like the Joes are in both the comic book and the cartoon. And retconning the Joes into a covert special ops force isn’t going to salvage the film’s credibility.

While this film won’t do as badly as Street Fighter, it won’t make back the gobs of money they’ve spent making and marketing it. I also think the critics won’t be kind.

GI Joe trailer:

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

This film won’t be as good as the first one. Sure, it will make money, but overall, the film will be disappointing on several levels. One of the biggest draws of the first film was seeing how they were going to depict the Transformers. Some of the special effects in the first film were spectacular and largely covered over the fact that the film’s story wasn’t really that good.

Seeing the Transformers for a second time will be passe. Sure, you’re going to be impressed by the special effects, but that wow factor from the first film, where you were dying to see what the Transformers looked like, won’t be there. Megan Fox will be a draw only from the standpoint that she’s attractive eye candy, but don’t expect great acting or even the gratuitous stuff you can see in Maxim magazine. Hopefully, I’m not dashing your hopes for an examination scene involving a captured Megan Fox and a Decepticon with metallic tentacles. Sorry, but that just won’t happen.

Bottom line: the second Transformers will do well in the box office but will not come close to doing as well as the first.

Transformers: The Revenge of the Fallen trailer:

X-Men: Origins

This film is probably the toughest one to call. I think it was a good idea to take the best part of the X-Men film franchise, Wolverine, and insert him into his own film. The origin of Wolverine has received quite of bit of coverage in the comic world the last few years and settles a lot of the questions many fans had about the character. The film looks like they are crossing concepts from the Ultimate X-Men with the Origin comic series.

Now for the bad. This film just doesn’t excite me. Maybe because it’s the fourth film in a franchise that is growing a little tired. There’s also a backlash from the third film where they killed off the Cyclops, Jean Grey and Charles Xavier. If you can so casually kill off three main characters of the comic franchise, chances are you don’t respect the underlying material that much. Mind you that I’m not advocating that you should religiously follow the source material every time, but I do wonder if this film is truly a film about Wolverine or a film that has a character that shares many characteristics of Wolverine but is ultimately just a pretender.

I think the film will do moderately well, largely because the legion of X-Men fans will hope that this film will redeem the major character deaths in the third film. I predict that that they’ll be disappointed.

X-Men: Origins trailer

Conclusion

Why am I so confident in my predictions? Largely because I have confidence in my instinct for such things and Hollywood has made it very easy to tell the difference between a project that loves the underlying material (think Lord of the Rings) and one that doesn’t (think Dungeon Siege).  After these movies have aired, I promise to come back and tally up a scorecard about how I did.

Critics bash Street Fighter movie

Initial reviews of Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li have come out, and as expected, they are scathing. It’s understandable why the film producers decided not to pre screen this movie for critics. The reviews are probably what they expected: universally bad. Read more

EVE Online trial reviewed

An online game trial should show off enough of the enticing features of a game and hook a player’s interest in subscribing. It’s important that the game not only make an effort to help the player learn the game reasonably enough to play but also welcome her to the community of other players. I think EVE Online does a pretty decent job at doing that. I downloaded my trial version about 9 days ago, so I have 5 days left until the game subscription expires. Overall, I had a lot of fun playing; however, I won’t be subscribing (more on that later). Read more

Manga spotlight: Omamori Himari

Omamori Himari is not high art. In some ways it’s a very typical harem anime, featuring a weak but likable male protagonist and a cast of progressively stranger females who form his harem. Omamori is particularly typical in this respect because it has every anime and manga stereotype coming out of the woodwork. Let’s see you have your katana wielding school girl who’s also a cat girl, the flat-chested childhood friend, the loli, the maid and the rich girl rival.  If you’ve read a few manga series and watched enough anime, these character types show up all the time. They’re all formulaic with little variation. Read more

GI Joe trailer - not impressed

So a new trailer for GI Joe: The Rise of Cobra has just been released in time for the Super Bowl.  I’m impressed they’re going for the Zerg marketing blitz and spending so much in airing in what has to be a really expensive commercial time block.  Anyways, I’ve seen the trailer, and it still doesn’t change my original opinion on the movie: it’s going to suck. I died a little bit inside when I saw Marlon Wayans in the movie. Sienna Miller as the Baroness looks good. In fact, that’s the hottest I’ve ever seen her look.  It seems the extra padding they gave her to give her bosom (in interviews, she admits to it) a little more oomph is working…the oomph is impressive in the trailer. But beyond that, that’s all the movie has going for it.

I’m a sucker for sci-fi so I’ll probably go see this movie anyway, but my expectations are low…I mean trench in the Atlantic Ocean low. Anyways, here’s the clip. Judge for yourself.

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