Wexistence

A conversation with my best friends and the father of my as yet unconcieved children:

Me: Will my daughter hate me if I give her a Klingon name? I’ll raise her to think it’s cool! B’Elanna Ereñeta Sumo. It works!

Nix: Yes, she’ll hate you. Just like the guy who spoke nothing but Klingon to his kid for the first three years. Please don’t.

Plats: You should also massage her forehead so she develops those identifying marks. It would be like binding feet or clothespins on noses but on the forehead.

Ry: Okay, but only if I can name our son Han Sumo.

Chillin’ with Darth Maul
as the 8th Philippine Toys, Hobbies and Collectibles Convention
June 13, 2009, SM Mega Mall Megatrade Hall 2

Pictures from yesterday’s foray into the sea of nerds here. (I say “nerd” with no trace of condescension. We’re nerds, so it’s okay for us to make fun of other nerds. If we were jocks then that would just be plain mean.)

We were supposed to just look at not buy, but Ry and I went home with one toy each: a Soundwave MP3 player (that actually transforms!) for me, and a Revoltech Rodimus Prime for him. It seems like there was less cool merch this year compared to last year, but it was still interesting to poke around.

The cosplay parade was fun as usual. Lots of really awesome intricately-made costumes. I could’ve done with less of the anime dorks and gothic lolitas though.

“Eostre is Batman… and the bunny is Robin. For a long time they were always together but then Robin decided to leave Batman and joined Teen Titans. Jesus would be like Cyborg. So now, Robin and Cyborg are on a team… like the Easter Bunny and Jesus.” (Overheard at College)

At some point in the dinner conversation, I said “leche” and “lechugas.” My kid sister looked at me reproachfully.
Cookie: Ate, aren’t those curse words?
Me: No, “leche” means milk and “lechugas” means lettuce.
Luigi: I thought “churvaloo” was a kind of breakfast cereal.

Fer: It perplexes me.
Luigi: WTF. I’m not used to you sounding smart. You’re not allowed to use words with more than one syllable.
Fer: Like “exacerbate?” I like that word.
Me: You only like it because it sounds like “masturbate.”
Fer: I’m not like that! I don’t laugh when someone says “butt.”

Fer: My friend’s brother has a Subaru Impreza. It’s got a carbon fiber hood!
Me: What’s so great about a carbon fiber hood?
Luigi: It can’t be detected on dradis!

At Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf in Alabang Town Center
Me: Dude, that guy so looks like Bill Adama. Bill Adama is ordering coffee!
Fer: No, he’s ordering the launch of the alert Vipers. That’s Mr. Gaeta at the counter.
Me: Set condition two throughout the ship!
Fer: Prepare for an FTL jump to emergency coordinates!
Girl sitting next to us: …

While watching Return of the Jedi, during that scene where the Super Star Destroyer crashes into the Death Star
Manol: Dude, that’s stupid. Why didn’t the Super Star Destroyer just float out into space?
Luigi: Because it was drawn in by the gravity of the Death Star.
Manol (confused): …
Luigi: Everything that has mass has gravity.
Manol (appalled): No!

We were on our way to a family Christmas lunch and as we rolled down the car windows to smoke we were blasted by the chilly December air.
Manol: Dude, it’s so cold.
Me: That’s because the Earth is at the farthest point from the sun.
Manol (indignant): Of course not! Pluto is the farthest from the sun!
Luigi: She meant the farthest in our orbit!
Manol (baffled): But Earth is the only planet in our orbit!

For a political economy major and a science fiction aficionado such as myself, this is just too awesome for words. Global governance and Battlestar Galactica. *Nerdgasms*

Edward James Olmos, on his authority as Admiral of the Battlestar Galactica, tells the assembled crowd at the United Nations there is no race but the human race.

“SO SAY WE ALL!”

Take Watchmen off your shelf, watch the pages as you rapidly flip through them with your thumb, and it will almost be like watching the movie: images rushing at you without conveying the full weight of their significance. There are just too many subplots and too many layers of nuance to properly tell the story in a two and half hour movie. I guess Zack Snyder did the best he could given the limitations of the medium, but it was more like a movie based on the Wikipedia entry on Watchmen than a movie based on the actual graphic novel.

We all know that movie adaptations of our favorite books never live up to our expectations. I can accept this particular adaptation for what it is. If you liked the Watchmen movie taken in and of itself, that’s fine. But if you liked it because you thought it was “just like the comics,” you need to stay the hell away from me.

The characters:

• Matthew Goode as Adrian Veidt/Ozymandias – 5/5. I didn’t think he could pull it off. In my mind he was still the cute secret service agent who was chasing Mandy Moore around Europe. He should’ve looked a little bit older but all in all it was a convincing performance.
• Jeffrey Dean Morgan as Edward Blake/The Comedian – 5/5. The Comedian is an amoral, sadistic, cigar-chomping womanizer yet Morgan still managed to portray him as a somewhat sympathetic character. Good job, dead guy from Grey’s Anatomy.
• Jackie Earle Haley as Walter Kovacs/Rorschach – 5/5. Haley got an Oscar nomination for his performance as the town pedophile in Little Children so we knew he had the creepy psycho thing going for him. He did not disappoint. I especially loved the scene where he trashed the shrink’s office and growled, “WHERE’S MY FACE?!?” The only Rorschach moment I didn’t like was the part where he killed the little girl’s kidnapper instead of leaving the knife beside him and setting the house on fire. I don’t see why they felt the need to change that detail. It wasn’t a minor detail – it changes our understanding of Rorschach’s sense of justice.
• Patrick Wilson as Dan Dreiberg/Nite Owl and Malin Akerman as Laurie Juspeczyk/Silk Spectre – 4/5. They look like their respective characters, except they’re both too young and too hot. Dan’s a dumpy middle-aged man. When he’s walking around naked you’re not supposed to want to check him out. Laurie’s in her forties and going through mid-life crisis. They’re both shadows of their former selves. Malin Akerman’s most notable role to date is the wife of the redneck freakshow in Harold and Kumar so we weren’t really expecting much from her, but wow. She’s a terrible actress. At no point does she show that she’s capable of any depth and her emotional breakdown on Mars just seemed contrived.
• Billy Crudup as Jon Osterman/Dr. Manhattan – 3.5/5. Dr. Manhattan experiences time in a non-linear fashion. His perception of the world is radically different from that of ordinary people. Human concerns seem pointless, the morality of human actions escapes him. Over time his emotional capacities decrease. He becomes more and more detached from the world, with Laurie as his only link, until he eventually loses her too. Crudup’s portrayal wasn’t able to demonstrate this great divide between Dr. Manhattan and the rest of humanity. His Dr. Manhattan just seemed kind of clueless. Also, couldn’t they have done something about his voice? Put it through a filter or something. It’s hard to be in awe of someone who sounds like geeky Jake Gyllenhaal. Plats thinks the only reason Crudup was chosen for the role was “because he was the only one willing to expose his peeper.”

Likes:

• Genuine attempt to be true to the original look and feel of the graphic novel, though they were more successful in some parts of the movie than others. Loved the flashbacks especially, very Golden Age.
• Cohesive story. Smooth transition between scenes. You never feel like you’re missing something or confused about how something came about. Of course that meant sacrificing content, but that’s better than trying to cram too much material into a limited amount of time.
• The soundtrack. Paul Simon and Jimi Hendrix! I loved that scene with All Along the Watchtower. I don’t understand why some people are saying that the music was out of place throughout the whole film.
• The scenes where they fought like old time comic heroes — hook-like punches and all. Nothing artistic or graceful about them, just Bam! Kapow! Zokkkk!
• Confrontation between Nite Owl and Ozymandias. This doesn’t happen in the graphic novel. Nite Owl doesn’t challenge what Ozymandias did; he accepts it. The ends justify the means. But in the movie, it is presented as a moral dilemma.

Dislikes:

• No sense of impending doom. The world is on the brink of nuclear destruction but for some reason you don’t feel the direness and urgency of the Cold War-esque situation.
• No crescendo. There’s no build up and no climax. By the middle of the movie I was already bored, and remained so all the way till the end.
• Laurie and Dr. Manhattan’s conversation on Mars. This is actually one of the best parts of the the graphic novel, but it had nowhere near the same impact in the movie. The scene felt awfully weak, partly because they whittled down the dialogue too much, party because the actors weren’t very good.
• Nite Owl and Laurie’s fight scenes in the alley and the prison corridor. Too smooth and too choreographed. It felt too modern, not at all the way I imagined they would fight. I had in mind something much grittier.
• Awkward talkie scenes. There were several in the movie but the first one that comes to mind is the one between Nite Owl and Rorschach in Nite Owl’s lair after Laurie and Dr. Manhattan teleport to Mars. Rorschach’s being a pain in the ass. Dan goes, “Why do you gotta be like that, man?” Rorschach goes, “You’re a good friend, Dan.” Dan goes, “I’m sorry man.” And this whole time they’re just standing awkwardly in front of each other and the camera angle doesn’t change. Is it because in the graphic novel that conversation takes place in only one frame?
• The ending. Some people argue, who cares about the squid? The same effect is achieved: a threat to humanity unites humanity. But I disagree. I think that the fact that the threat to humanity came from humanity should change the outcome. The squid is neutral; Dr. Manhattan is not. The US created Dr. Manhattan. He was their most powerful weapon and he backfired. This resulted in massive destruction and loss of life around the world. Why should their mistake unify the nations of the world? Why would Russia or anyone else be rushing to embrace the US just because they suffered casualties too? I think human beings need to be confronted with something larger than themselves, something completely removed from them and totally beyond their known universe (e.g. aliens) to enable them to rise above their small-mindedness.

Conclusion: I knew it was going to be a let down but it was still worth watching. 3/5 stars.

My Sony Ericsson W760i makes lightsaber sounds when you wave it around. Ry has one too. We can “duel”!

7th Philippine Toys, Hobbies and Collectibles Convention

We managed to survive without buying anything this year, though it was touch and go for a while with the Revoltech action figures and I was really tempted by the Soundwave MP3 player. The cosplay parade was a lot of fun as usual, with some really creative over-the-top costumes. That’s Ryan’s friend Cookie in the enormous Modok costume, which took him 6 weeks and a whole lot of styrofoam to make.

(It was kind of hard taking pictures with the crowd jostling you the whole time and kids threatening to step on your pedicure so some of these are kind of blurry. Click to enlarge.)

Modok and Ryan

+12

Ry and I didn’t stay long, because it was hot and tightly packed and we’ve put a moratorium on buying toys and comics. Also, I need to stop being seen at these things because apparently there’s this rumor among my students that I cosplay. I’ll admit that cosplay appeals to me on some level, but I’ve never done it (Halloween doesn’t count) and I probably never will, because most cosplayers are weird and creepy and I don’t want to be lumped in the same category as them. I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be associated with fat girls in Kool-Aid-colored wigs and revealing outfits eight sizes too small, who’re in character all the time and who, in shrill, high-pitched voices that could shatter glass, blurt out random Japanese phrases while standing in line at McDonald’s. (In the same way that I’m a Star Trek fan but Trekkies freak me out when they converse in Klingon.) I appreciate the effort that goes into cosplaying though, and some of the costumes last Saturday were pretty awesome.

“Bumblechii”
That’s a little girl whose costume was made by her Transformers geek dad.

Iron Man at the food court

What is it with cross-dressers and Sailormoon?
At another con I went to last year this guy dressed as a Sailormoon character got on stage, lifted his skirt and flashed the audience. I’ve been extra wary of Sailormoon fans since.

Overheard at TAGCOM: Uy, tingnan mo o, si Pinocchio.

B1 and B2

Hard Gay – was there ever a name more apt for a visual?
The hotpants that went with that outfit were reminiscent of Bim’s infamous “sexy shorts”.

Bim’s coverage of the event for Comicology here.