Roger Ward

The entertainment industry is booming, be that the interactive or motion picture and that’s great. Never before have we been offered so much choice in how to be entertained. But, there is a downside to the vast range of choice, and it’s a big one. IMAGINATION, or lack thereof.

Many years ago, movies had imagination. There were a great many films made during the golden age of cinema. For example, War of the Worlds, King Kong, Planet Of The Apes & Psycho were excellent examples of brilliant cinema of their day. These days, imaginative films from the Hollywood of today consist of films like War of the Worlds, King Kong, Planet Of The Apes & Psycho. Oh dear, there is something wrong here isn’t there. The 1950’s classic, The Day The Earth Stood Still was a brilliant example for fine 50’s film making. It was intelligent and had a simple message. It was well acted and excellently directed and stands the test of time.

Due to Hollywood’s lack of imagination, The Day The Earth Stood Still is being re-made for release late this year. This time though, Klaatu will not be played by a classically trained British actor, but by Keanu Reeves!

So no doubt this “remake” will remove any intelligent scriptwriting and add in words to suit someone with Keanu’s acting skills. So expect words like “Woah”, “Awesome”, “Righteous” and “Gnarly”. I’m hearing reports that Keanu will be using a British accent and the film will try to be as respectful to the original as possible. I’m sure Keanu will try his best to do a believable British accent. Right up until he says the word “Dude”.

Apart from actually re-making these films, I think is the biggest problem in remakes is they try to be as close a copy to the original as possible. That’s the biggest mistake, because we’ve seen them before. We KNOW the style of the original. That’s why we enjoyed the originals. If Hollywood is going to waste time by making unoriginal films, at least try to put some originality into these remakes. It’s been done successfully with Ocean’s Eleven, so it can be done.

But it’s not just the film industry that suffers from a lack of originality. The interactive software industry is to blame also. Look at the games industry only a short 15 years ago. Games were fun. They were long and they were above all else ORIGINAL!

Today, it’s much like the movie industry. The most common games are sequels, remakes or just plain and total rubbish. Just with better graphics. The average time it takes to play a game has gone from anywhere 20-40 hours. To generally under 10 hours.

Today games are all about looks over originality. Games like Bioshock for example. Brilliant to look at, but I played it nearly 15 years ago. It was called System Shock. Sure the graphics were crude for the time. But they didn’t have flashy graphics to hide behind, so the game play had to be good. And it keeps on coming. Guitar Hero III. It’s technically proficient, but it is just the same as Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero I, just with different music. Halo 3 is just like any other 3^rd person shooter out there. But because of hype, Halo fans the World over have been tossing themselves off over the game, in turn making it the biggest game of the year Why? It’s just Halo 1 and Halo 2 with a bit of a polish.

Ultimately, the blame must rest on us, the consumer. After all we are the ones that buy and watch all of this crap, just because we seem to accept mediocrity so willingly. After all why see an intelligent movie that requires you to think, when we can just as easily switch off and become robots for 2 hours while we scoff popcorn at some dumb action film with the depth of a paddling pool. Hence, smart movies die a quick cashless death while the mind numbingly tedious rakes in the cash. Games are the same. Ignore a good story and game play in favor of pretty graphics and you’ll make a mint.

But nothing I can say will change the fact the all consumer wants these days is some brightly colored movie/game with all the depth of a spoon. So when we find ourselves one day, bored out of our minds watching Captain Bland’s Monotonous Adventure while playing the game tie in. I want you to know that I told you so!

Hip Punishments

People who know me will attest that I can be quite sarcastic at times. Makes for a weird mix doesn’t it, a sarcastic nerd. One thing that really irks me is political correctness and environmentalism.

Yes I agree that there are some problems in the world when it comes to the environment, but I also think that the issue is also being overblown by the media or people with agendas also. After all, nothing is worth doing in this money orientated World unless there is a profit involved!

Political correctness is the same, it seems to have caused more problems than it’s worth. Sadly, it really has really taken the fun out of everyday lives for a lot of people as it seems you’re meant to feel guilty about driving a car, smoking cigarettes and many other fun activities.

Recently I was reading another example of environmentalism/political correctness trying to ruining our lives. First it was power companies trying pacify lefty greenies by trying to overcharge the average power user into buying “green energy” instead of good old coal fired power. Of course the power companies COULDN’T PROVE the power you get from them isn’t coming off the national grid instead of from big happy wind propellers in fields where cows receive massages from pot smoking hippy communists.

Carbon trading was the next big sucker item to be pushed down our throats, and a lot of companies are on the bandwagon, which obviously means a kick back of some sort as no company does anything for nothing. Now personally I don’t have a problem with companies offering these services to people if they’re gullible enough to pay for this nonsense then so be it. To me it’s kind of like drawing your money out of an ATM machine and then throwing it in the air for all to have for free, but that’s just me.

And it just keeps on coming, Al Gore for example. He’s done a lot of good things for the World, but now it seems that he is the poster boy for the environmental lobby. He even made a global warming film that contains nine proven factual inaccuracies. But they still give him a Nobel peace prize!

Now there’s a new way to dupe money from you by force, this really is a desperate grab for cash in my eyes. Travelers who fly on Virgin Atlantic are being offered carbon offsets alongside alcohol and perfume and other such rubbish to passengers in front of other fellow passengers. If the passenger refuses, then the stewardesses attempt to shame them into buying them. SHAME THEM, How pathetic!

So now when you get on a flight to go on a holiday or business trip, stewardesses are going to try and shame you and make you feel like a greasy sex offender in a child’s room at night in order to get sixty dollars out of you for something that yet again they can’t prove where the money goes. “oh yes we’ll plant a tree with that money” That’s right, my one tree is going to save the World!

Give me a break!

Apparently a spokesperson for the airline has said:

“it had decided on the new policy after noticing low participation in schemes offered by competing airlines where customers were presented with the opportunity to offset the carbon emissions of their flight but declined”

Of course they declined. Thankfully most passengers these days still have a brain unlike the environmentalist idiots. They know they’re being duped. I’m sick of all of this global warming nonsense. It seems the environmental lobby spends its days making up hysterical environmental stories / lies that happened only in the imagination of the hippy after several hits of a bong . . .

Well the day is here for all those Apple nuts and all those sheep who are always into the latest “FAD”. It’s iPhone day everyone, so enjoy.

Me, well I’ll not be jumping onto the truck with the rest of the sheep. I’m going to be original and go into the mobile shop and get something that isn’t an iPhone. Crazy I know!

Speaking of being crazy. Looks like I’m not the only one who thinks the iPhone is a grand waste of money, so does Talk Soup:

iPhone 3G

As expected, the World’s cashed up consumers are going to go into a froth in the next few weeks thanks to the new 3G iPhone.

Initially I was going to one of those people. I’ve always been interested in the iPhone since the first model was released around 12 months ago. But now I’m not too sure.

Come July 11 people the World over are going wait in lines for hours and sign up to long and expensive phone plans for a product that features built in obsolescence. Crazy, I hear you say. Every company in the World makes a product to be replaced eventually, and you’d be right. But when you look at Apple’s history of products, long life isn’t something they build into their products, in fact if a product lasts longer than 2 years it’s a long time in Apple’s eyes!

The new 3G phone when released will sport a classy 3.5 inch screen, 3G browsing speeds, iPod capability for videos and music and according to Apple, “The best web browsing experience available on a phone today”. That sounds all well and good but there’s quite a few things about the iPhone that suck:

• No MMS picture messaging
• Only 2 megapixel
• No video recording
• No turn by turn GPS instructions
• Massive wanker factor

And that’s just for a start. You just know that Apple are already developing a replacement model with better features, after all 2 megapixel cameras have been around in cameras for quite a few years now and the standard is much higher with most other brands. The lack of MMS is stupid, how many times have you been sent funny picture messages or porn? I know I have a lot! Apple use the excuse that emails will replace MMS, but get outside of a highly populated area and most 3G features are rubbish unless you like being extorted by Telstra and their NextG service.

So no iPhone for me for the moment.  I’d rather not piss my money away on a product that is too expensive for the features when I could probably spend it on something better, like strippers and booze!

So I think I’ll spend my money on a practical 3G phone. But which one? Well, seeing as I don’t practice front cranial intrusion, the Samsung is out and because I have an imagination and aren’t boring Nokia is out also.

So that leaves LG, but it’s made by a company who’s staff eat dogs so I guess that leaves me the Sony. Can’t go wrong with a Sony. Can I?

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