Films – Page 3 – Stephanie Bri

My experiences with Harry Potter and Pokemon

These two pop-culture phenomenons came out around the same time. I was probably 14 or 15 when they were first starting to get popular. Looking back I can see why I never really became that interested in either of these two properties. They just came out at the wrong time.

Still, I have seen movies and video games come out later in life that I was able to enjoy. For example, I am really loving ARMS and I was really into Splatoon, too.

When Harry Potter first came out I was just disinterested. I already was really into Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina the Teenage Witch, so it’s not like these books weren’t in my wheel house. I just never found them that appealing. Maybe it was because the characters on Buffy and Sabrina were closer to my age and I was growing up. This was around the time I was getting out of Power Rangers and Transformers, plus I was also slowly losing interest in comic books. By the time I was 16 I was so involved with wanting to make music that I almost completely got out of video games entirely. Now I still read books around this time, mostly Star Wars books but also other stuff on rare occasions. I just never could bring myself to get into Harry.

A few years ago I was living with a friend of mine who was one of those child at heart men who remained constantly stuck in his childhood. He loved the Harry Potter books, films, games, everything. He was a few years younger than I was so it made sense it would appeal more to him. During the time I was living with him he had a full Harry Potter marathon. I can’t remember for certain but I think the final film in the series had just came out or was about to get released so he was either catching up or watching a full run, either way all I remember were bits and pieces. I didn’t sit and watch them with him, I was stuck on my computer working on my then latest music project. From what I did see, however, I found somewhat curious at the very least. The thing is, I also was not that strongly into the Lord of the Rings movies either, so it seemed to me Harry Potter was just a kids version of that. Maybe not exactly but that was my impression.

As far as Pokemon goes, I don’t have a good excuse for not getting into it to be honest. I discovered other “children’s” targeted Nintendo franchises following it’s release so maybe the whole concept just never appealed to me. I was mildly interested in Digimon and so I know there was also precedent for me to get into Pokemon, plus I am still a huge Kirby fan so I know I can’t really lean on Pokemon was too “cutesy” for me. To be fair, I have tried to get into Pokemon, I have played several of the games, seen a few random episodes of the cartoon, I even helped my younger sister build a collection of the trading cards, and yes I even tried Pokemon Go, so I am familiar enough with the franchise. I still never developed any liking for it, so even to this day I remain disinterested in Pokemon. I also don’t get into Animal Crossing or Pikmin so maybe there is something to it just being too many characters to keep track of at once?

Looking back on it all, I still have no strong desire to invest any significant amount of my time to watching a movie series about a young kid and his magic friends. I guess the time for me to get into Harry Potter has passed and that’s all there is to it.

My G.I. Joe memories

In 2009 Paramount Pictures teamed up with Hasbro to make a live-action G.I. Joe film. It was loosely tied into the Michael Bay live-action Transformers film series. I personally enjoyed the film. I went into is expecting a science fiction action movie based on a cartoon, based on a toy, based on a generic Vietnam War soldier. Yeah, it was a complicated mess. I was never a big G.I. Joe collector. I was, however, very into the Transformers, Hasbro’s other popular action figure line.

This is just going to be me looking back on all of my memories of the G.I. Joe franchise.

As far as I can tell my earliest memories are sometime around 1987. I vaguely remember having a couple of random Joe action figures, to this day I couldn’t tell you any more about them, honestly even if I saw them in a catalog or on a collectors shelf I don’t think I could pick them out. What I do remember is the cartoon. Mostly because, at least where I lived, it aired immediately following the Transformers cartoon. I was such a huge Transformers nut that I didn’t want the show to end. I would keep watching G.I.Joe because it was close enough it almost had that Transformers feel to it. It had a good vs. evil plot, diabolical robots, a futuristic science fiction technology, and most importantly, many of the same voice actors. Even as a kid before IMDb or Wikipedia, I know that Starscream and Cobra Commander were voiced by the same guy. In a lot of ways the two shows were connected.

I continued watching G.I. Joe even after Transformers went off the air. My earliest memories, I think, were around 1987, I would have been 5 years old. I am not talking life memories, just these two shows. I do very distinctly remember watching Transformers episodes with a giant Optimus Prime robot and a little boy, I later learned this would have been the 1987-88 season, around the time the show was cancelled. I used to tune in to he same channel I thought Transformers had come on, never finding it but always looking. I kept watching the Joes in vain hoping that some day the Autobots would return to their war against the Decepticons. I remember watching the 3rd and 4th seasons of the cartoon with Cobra Commander becoming a real snake, then turning back into a man, and them introducing Serpentor, then the show got too weird for me, I didn’t recognize enough of the characters to stay interested, plus this was around the time I discovered the TMNT cartoon. This distracted me from the lack of Transformers, and was a satisfying alternative to G.I Joe: A Real American Hero, to the point I was able to finally stop tuning in. This was also around the time the Disney Afternoon cartoon block became popular so my interests had shifted. At this time I no longer had any connection to the Joes or Cobra. I would continue to pick up random action figures at flea markets, thrift stores and yard sales, always frantically looking for Transformers, or even Go-Bots figures, but I would pick up a Joe or a Cobra from time to time, if I came across them.

I wouldn’t come into full contact with G.I. Joe again until 1993. This was the time when Transformers Generation 2 launched on TV and just like before, Real American Hero was on immediately following. This time I watched the 5-part G.I. Joe: The Movie episodes, bought, or was gifted can’t really remember, one of those multiple puzzle murals featuring depictions of G.I Joe characters. It was one where if you had all 4 puzzles you could take off the edge piece and connect them into a large mural. I never complete the puzzle, let alone the set, but I did work on it day and night for a good couple of weeks or so. It was around this time I came across an original Sgt. Slaughter action figure for sale at a Good Will for like fifty cents or something, it was dirt cheap. I snatched it up, he was one of my favorite characters from the show, and wrestling too, which I was still sorta of into around this time.

Something else happened in 1993. I was introduced to the Mortal Kombat arcade game. I was immediately hooked and began playing that game obsessively for the next 2 decades. Yes I still re-play the original arcade games to this day. Mostly I switch back and forth between MAME and the collection on PS3, plus I also own Midways Arcade Treasures. Anyways, getting off topic. I also got into collecting comic books, trading cards and TMNT figures at this time. Plus I was just starting to get back into Transformers collecting full force with all of the G2 stuff coming out. In the summer of 1994 I started reading Wizard Magazine, and inside there were all of this kitbashed toys where someone would take one action figure and turn it into something else. I was super obsessed with Mortal Kombat. MKII was all the rage and Kung Lao was my favorite character. If you can’t guess where this is going let me assure you toy collectors, yes I kitbashed an original Sgt. Slaughter action figure to look like a Kung Lao action figure. Or at least, I tried. I ended up destroying the toy in the process. The ironic thing is, just months afterwards I was in K-Mart and there on the shelf was an actual MKII Kunk Lao toy, not surprisingly as they were made by Hasbro, they used the same style of figures as G.I.Joe toys, so needless to say I destroyed an 80’s classic trying to turn it into a $3 toy that was available for sale at K-Mart the whole damn time!

I skipped G.I. Joe Extreme or whatever it was called. I had grabbed a few Transformers comics along the way during my comic book collecting days, including some of those Transformers and G.I. Joe cross over comics. By 1997 I was pretty much done buying toys altogether. I lost interest in Transformers once Beast Wars came on the scene, TMNT had fallen into the toilet by this time, and I was never that into G.I. Joe to start off with so I was done with it for the next few years. It wouldn’t be until 2001 with the launch of the Robots in Disguise toy line before I would slowly start to get back into collecting Transformers. I was also discovering retro game collecting at this time, mostly NES, SNES, and SEGA, so my money was spread pretty thin. I 2003 my sister married a guy who told me about his G.I. Joe collecting day when he was a kid and I started to learn more about the toys from him, not much but more than I had ever known. This wasn’t enough to spark any interest in me or desire to collect but it was enough to read up on the newly popular internet about the history of the franchise and how it intersected with Transformers and Star Wars. Since I was already a huge fan of Star Wars also, this knowledge started to pique my curiosity so I began learning more about the history of the toy line.

I didn’t have any further connections or experience with the toys until sometime in 2004 or 2005. I remember buying one of my nephews one of the Joe figures for Christmas. He was kind of excited for it for a while, then, he wasn’t. I did end up picking up a copy of both Transformers: The Movie and G.I. Joe: The Movie, the original cartoons. This was around 2007 I think. This sparked some nostalgia within me and pretty soon I learned about the upcoming film. Since the Transformers movie just released that same year, and I actually enjoyed it quite a bit, in fact I bought an HD-DVD player and a copy of the movie to watch it in HD on my new HDTV in 2008. This was right around the time they announced they were discontinuing the format so I was able to get the player and movie very cheap. Actually free, because a guy bought it for me as payment, or thank you, for fixing his computer.

Then in the summer of 2009 I dragged a few of my unwilling friends to go see this new movie and, I loved it. I shouldn’t have, didn’t have very strong ties to the series, I didn’t have much nostalgia for it, but I thought it was a fun movie. By this time I had also picked up a Blu Ray player so I was able to get the film on Blu Ray when it released. A few years later I watched the mess of a sequel, which I still can’t stand and refuse to re-watch.

Since this time the most I have connected with the series is reading the entire Transformers cross over comics, buying a couple random action figures for nephews over the years, and watching some Angry Video Game Nerd videos where he reviewed the old games based on the cartoon.

My most current tie was about three weeks ago when I picked up a sealed 25th anniversary figure of Storm Shadow, sealed, at a yard sale, for $5. Based on preliminary research on ebay/Amazon/craigslist, this would appear to be a fairly good deal. I am not going to sell the toy, but also I am not going to start a collection either. I just thought it was an interesting piece to add to my collection.

And there you have it, my 30+ year history with the Hasbro/Marvel/Sunbow/Paramount franchise known as G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero.

“You are all my children now.”

In the 1980’s there was a trifecta of different styles all blending together in a perfect storm of outrageous thematic elements that would soon dominate the entire fringe culture, and even cross into mainstream. Going a decade back the roots of this movement were beginning with the rise of the Dungeons and Dragons tabletop RPG game. The theme was medieval fantasy. It had firmly taken hold of video game culture by the middle of the decade with games such as Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy, Ghosts N Goblins, Gauntlet, and even Castlevania taking the horror/fantasy genre to mainstream status. On the music side bands like Alice Cooper, Dio, KISS, and many others, were using D&D, horror, fantasy, and medieval art mixed with Gothic imagery. While Hollywood itself was slow to jump on the bandwagon, indie filmmakers like George Lucas, Stephan Spielberg, Jim Henson, and John Carpenter were all making variations of this theme. And best of all they blended together perfectly. Horror movies would reference D&D usually with a gamer depicted or borrow heavily from medieval mythologies, while having a strong heavy-metal soundtrack, which in turn contained lyrics that referenced D&D either directly or indirectly often as the horror movies would. So if you were a fan of medieval fantasy, Gothic imagery and music that told stories set in these thematic worlds, then the mid-to-late 80’s was your decade.

During this time nothing blended these three elements together better than Wes Craven’s Gothic horror masterpiece “A Nightmare o Elm Street.” While the first film itself doesn’t really contain too much in the way of medieval fantasy, it does have a very strong fantasy component, the music is very fitting for the mood, plus it also contains some of that D&D-esque metal rock sprinkled in to ensure it hit all of the notes. In some ways the movie is a murder mystery, you know almost detective noir-style with Nancy trying to solve the mystery of the masked villain killing her friends one-by-one. It also has a little bit of Gothic horror with Freddy acting as a zombie, a vampire, and a serial killer all while tormenting his victims not with his own dastardly schemes, but using their own fears against them. In some ways it is also a psychological thriller.

The film opens with an abstract scene in the basement of some factory or plant with an unseen man crafting a glove containing sharp razors as extensions of the fingers. Immediately the tone of the film is set, the killer is unseen, hiding in the shadows, nobody knows who, or what, he is or why he is killing these seemingly random teenagers. During the course of the film there are references to Shakespeare, including a quote from Julius Cesar about nightmares, fitting as in the play he dreamed of his demise before it happened, much like the victims in the film.

I won’t spoil the movie for those who haven’t seen it. I am not under the impression that just because it is old everyone knows what takes place, I will say anyone that has any interest in mythology, fantasy, horror, vampires, zombies, the undead, D&D, or heavy metal music should check out the entire franchise. Each film has it’s own strengths and weaknesses.

The sequel, often criticized but still worth watching, goes in a different direction. Instead of a murder mystery where the kids are trying to survive by figuring out who the killer is and how to defeat him, part two, subtitled as “Freddy’s Revenge,” takes on a more haunted house, possession story line. Again it has some moments fans cringe at but it also has a few of the iconic moments that the franchise is well known for. There is even scene that takes place inside of a Gothic night club, further tying the franchise into this whole theme.

Of course if you really want proof the Nightmare films are really D&D-inspired look no further than the third entry. Regarded by many, myself included, as the best in the franchise second only to the original to some, it’s a masterpiece in many ways and proof that a sequel can outdo the original. But there are so many more D&D elements and fantasy themes in this movie. For starters the subtitle is now “The Dream Warriors.” It centers on the survivors of the previous two films, the “Last of the Elm Street teenagers.” something you just have to watch the movies to understand. It also features a kid who prominently plays D&D in the movie, even going so far as having an actual scene depicting, fairly accurately unlike most movies, a portion of game play. In the dream world however things get weirder, this character becomes a wizard with super powers and another character takes on a Gothic/Punk look even meeting Freddy face to face in an alley. There is an Alice in Wonderland feel to the third installment, a D&D type maze/dungeon at the end where they come together as a team, a cleric type, a sage type, a fighter type, and even the silent stealthy bard/thief type, who all have to face the final boss, Freddy, at the end to win the treasure, their right to live, and go back to living normal lives at the end of their mythic quest. It truly is the one film in the series the most similar to an actual game of Dungeons and Dragons, from the very opening scene to the very end credits. It even brings in a fleshed out back story and mythology to the character and his origins are explored in a very medieval Catholic mythology sort of way.

Part four sort of keeps the notion of dream powers, introduces new concepts like the Dream Master, the films subtitle, and ends in a final battle with a new powered up girl in a church where at the end she ends up well I won’t spoil it but it’s very much in line with the theme I been repeating.

Part 5 and 6 are where the franchise takes a turn for the worse. Number 5, the Dream Child, is more of a comic book movie, Freddy is even depicted as a comic book villain and his nemesis is his own mother, resurrected to take him back to hell or something I guess. The movie has a more action movie, comic book vibe and style to it. In some ways that is refreshing, in other ways it can be off putting. Part six is, to put it bluntly, a parody of the franchise. It’s basically a Warner Bros. cartoon making fun of the whole concept, and yes it even features Bugs Bunny and Wizard of Oz references and heavily relies on the 3-D gimmick. It does flesh out the mythology quite well, and features a really great cameo by the dark master himself, Alice Cooper, again really mixing the themes in a way that ensures fans will find something to enjoy. It’s the worst of the films by most accounts but still worth watching for a few things, those cameos and back story plus a surprise I won’t spoil.

Part 7, Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, gets back to the Gothic horror theme by basically putting Freddy into the Hansel and Gretel story. There isn’t much else to say it’s almost a remake/reboot of the original film with a twist but it’s one of the scarier films in the series, still worth checking out. I won’t go into either Freddy Vs. Jason or the 2010 Remake as they both stray so far from the original their best left in their own world. I enjoyed them each, in their own way, but neither of them live up to the source material. Freddy vs. Jason is made for the Playstation crowd and the remake was too dark and had no ties to the fantasy mythology that the original had. Worse of all, it wasn’t even about a child murderer freed on a technicality, it was a sick perverted child molester that had no motive for murdering his victims in their dream world, which also had no fantasy elements at all, instead it was trying too hard to be dark an edgy where it really just ended up being creepy and uncomfortable.

What can I say, I enjoy Gothic music and themes, I play Dungeons and Dragons extensively and I thoroughly enjoy the fantasy-themed horror series of A Nightmare on Elm Street. Netflix recently added the original film to its streaming service, Part 2 and New Nightmare had been there before but they are not the actual best movies, the first and 3rd films are really the two to watch. Part 4 is pretty good, 5 and 6 are laughable but somewhat entertaining and the rest are different degrees of bad or too dark for my taste.

I also really enjoyed the documentary on Netflix “Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy” that really delved deep into the behind the scenes of the movies.

My personal ranking, with scores, best to worst:

A Nightmare On Elm Street 5/5
A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors 5/5
A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master 4.5/5
Freddy vs. Jason 4/5
A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child 3.5/5
A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge 3.5/5
A Nightmare on Elm Street 6: Freddy’s Dead, The Final Nightmare 3.5/5
A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) remake 3.5/5
Wes Craven’s New Nightmare 3/5

Since I consider both New Nightmare and 2010 to be remakes, I prefer the full on reboot over the half-baked soft reboot. I know others will disagree but I just never cared for the breaking the fourth wall and taking Freddy into the “real” world making everything that came before just a movie, inside of a movie, too meta for my tastes.

There you have it, my general thoughts on the Freddy Krueger character and the films he appears in.

Delve into the mind of THE RAT… if you dare.

When I was in the first grade I started signing my school papers with my initials, R.A.T., partly because I had bad hand writing, that is a story for another day, so I was trying to save time but also partly because, well back then I was pretty lazy, and partly because once I discovered my initials spelled out a word I thought it was fun. It didn’t stay fun forever as time went on I became stuck with the name, The Rat, which I currently wish would die out. But who is The Rat? Read on to find out more.

It started in 1997. Up to that point had pretty much stopped signing my name as such and forgot about that silly initial thing. At least until one day, when I was in the 9th grade, I turned in a paper with just my initials, just because I wrote it in a hurry and added my name last second. It was for my science class, didn’t get long well with my science teacher anyways so I figured screw it. Well some of the jackals in my class thought it was funny, and being mostly Spanish speaking they began calling me “la rata” or “the rat” in Spanish.

But it goes just a little deeper than that. Not the name but the underlying “persona” that I would invent as a form of identity shield. When I was much younger I had gotten used to being picked up and bullied in school. As such I developed a dislike for, well, everyone. So I went out of my way to discourage other kids from associating with me because I just wanted to be left alone. During my early days I discovered I had a very strong fascination with the Nightmare on Elm Street movie franchise. I suppose much of this could be tied to my being a kid in the 80’s, which at that time Freddy Krueger pretty much dominated the media scene, from MTV to everything inbetween. In 1996 I heard a song on the radio by a fairly new band called Marylin Manson. At first I was drawn to the music, the song that played on the radio all the time was “The Beautiful People,” to this day one of my favorite’s in the heavy metal genre. Although I learned later Manson wasn’t exactly true heavy metal, I still liked his music. It was dark, thematic and reminded me a lot of those Freddy films I had become so obsessed with. During my high school years I day-dreamed of forming my own shock rock metal band, even going so far as wanting to mimic the long hair, make up and stylish clothing that went along with it. But well I didn’t have it in me to put on that public mask that bands like Manson, Kiss, Twisted Sister, and others, wore. Instead I took a different approach.

I had always been divided between my love of the dark, loud, and angry metal music, with the violent, aggressive, and severely more angry gangsta rap music. My attraction to both forms of music was still a part of that persona, if I was seen listening to loud, offensive, and very violent music I figured it would be a good buffer to keep people away. For the most part, it worked. Decent people noticed quickly that a guy listening to “Natural Born Killers” by Ice Cube and Dr. Dre from the Murder was the Case soundtrack as loud as my speakers could play it, well that was a guy to avoid. I also wore a very angry expression on my face and became used to wearing torn, dirty and very rugged clothing to further cement the persona of not just an out cast, but a dark soul to be feared and avoided. I started to take the persona, or the act, onto the internet off and on. Partly because I was still trying to remain tough and distant but also because I hated confrontation. The problem is, this doesn’t work online, in real life you get the whole picture, the image, the scruffiness and you understand what I was going for. But online I just came off as a jerk, a troll even by most definitions.

After many years of justifying this dual personality/persona, it wasn’t just inspired by rock bands like Manson, it was further justified by the poster child for the image I was going for, the infamous Marshall Mathers, aka Eminem, aka, Slim Shady. His dual persona image in his music fit what I was trying to do perfectly. I wanted to be seen as clean cut and respectable by those who took the time to get to know me, but feared and seen as a pretty mean dude by those I wished to keep my distance from. I had trouble taking this online and I also, eventually, had trouble separating the two in real life as well. Eventually I decided to take it a step further.

The Rat wasn’t getting the point across. So I changed my music persona name to DJ Serial Killa, taken from a Snoop Dogg song from his debut album, Doggystyle. Now as a kid thanks to the graphic, almost pornographic cartoon in the album art, it didn’t take long for me to figure out what “doggystyle” was referring to. Needless to say I figured if the good guy, or rapper, was The Rat, then the DJ, or the mysterious one pulling the puppet strings, had to be worse, thus I took on the name DJ Serial Killa. Of course I also adopted the phrase, or motto, that as a DJ I justified the name as I “murdered the competition, and there was a whole lot of competition.

I will admit as a rapper, I suck. I can, when I put my mind to it, write good poems, and by extension song lyrics. However I never applied this to my rapping, partly because I honestly never took it that seriously, partly because I kind of was “too white” deep down and there was also the matter of my voice, I hated how it sounded so I never put my full honest attention into my rapping. That being said I will freely say, and I can back this up with examples, my DJ’ing ability was pretty good. I didn’t do much of the Jazzy Jeff/Beastie Boys spinning vinyl records, but I could DJ, or disc jockey a party like no body’s business. This I developed through my years of not just making endless supplies of mix tapes, yes literal cassette tapes, but also mix cd’s, and evnetually playlists. I became skilled at telling which songs fit together in a set, or mood, and which songs blended together smoothly. And I can also show examples of music I mixed myself, using a variety of methods ranging from playing samples and keyboards using my own instrumentals, to the famous hip-hop production technique of mixing loops and samples. Still my DJ or production ability was far better than my rapping thus the DJ name had to have a much strong pull to it.

So what is the point? Just sharing a little bit of why I used to let people call me “THE RAT” and why, especially in recent years, I have shifted away from using that name. I am not ashamed of who I am, look I produced 6 underground records, some I put in stores some I only shared with friends, show me your musical works and I will say okay you can talk to me about names, until then, I can say I did something with my life I wanted to do, not everyone can say that. Lately I have been contemplating making a new musical production, or starting up a new venture online. Whatever I end up doing it will always be for the same purpose, sharing my ideas with people who might be interested for one reason or another.

Will I ever go back to being “THE RAT”? No I don’t think so. I know one thing is for sure, I might never get my chance to play in a shock rock metal band, at least I did get a chance to record an almost gangsta rap but not really gangsta rap, hip-hop record. And there is something to be said of a person doing what they want in life and not being bothered by what other people think. I never got to be as “goth” as I wanted, but I did push the boundaries of what I could get away with as much as possible. Looking back, yes I did take some things to far, something I have to live with to this day. I guess that is part of life, we all have skeletons in our closet, I just think if you dig too deep you might not like what you find. And that is okay, because honestly Jesus died on the cross to take away our sins, he made us into a new creation so while The Rat is no more and DJ Serial Killa was always just bad idea for a name, the reality is all the dark and not very Christian things I was either witness to or an accessory to, are all in the past. Going forward life has improved tremendously and I believe things will only ever get better.

The untouchable remake?

Hollywood loves remakes. Video game companies and musicians do covers, remakes, remasters, or remixes all the time. But there is one movie that appears to be remake proof, Star Wars. But is that really the right call?

I love Star Wars as much as the next guy, maybe more than the average guy for that matter, but I think it is a terribly dated, and considerably flawed film in many respects. I know I just pissed off half the internet, but honestly it’s not like enough people in the world read this blog to make that statement so let’s move forward.

I have given this a lot of thought and with Disney now in charge of Star Wars, I think a true remake of the classic trilogy is not only in order, but something they desperately need to get in motion. The plan appears to keep moving forward in the new universe while dabbling in the old with spin off films. They have to recast Han Solo to make a young Han Solo film, this is obvious. Now they just did the highly successful Rogue One, so here is what I think needs to happen. They absolutely need to consider the possibility of casting a new Han Solo, Luke, and Princess Leia for these spin offs, while they are at it why not do the unthinkable and actually REMAKE the classic trilogy? This would end some of the who shot first debate, UOT vs. Special Edition Debate, and it would give fans young and old, an brand new way to experience one of the most iconic film stories in history.

Of course the originals will still exist, and Disney should still find a way to get on top of releasing the ORIGINAL unaltered trilogy onto Blu Ray for the fans that want that, the thing with Star Wars is the franchise is so big and so massive it appeals to so many fans with so many different tastes. I would love it if they could then go back and REMAKE the Prequels also, some would argue that needs to happen before a remake of the classic but I don’t think so. The reason is they ARE moving forward with a Han Solo movie, they HAVE to cast a young Han, why not take this opportunity to remake/reboot the franchise NOW while the getting is good and the new fans will fully embrace it while the stick in the mud fans won’t even matter because they haven’t bought a NEW Star Wars item since 1997 if you believe the internet.

Is Star Wars so untouchable that remaking it would spell absolute disaster? No I don’t think so, in fact I think it not only is the RIGHT thing for Disney to do, I fully expect it will happen sooner, rather than later, as Disney themselves LOVE remaking and re-telling their own stories. Now Star Wars didn’t start out as a Disney story, but hey guess what neither did Peter Pan, Marry Poppins, the Jungle Book, hardly anything they create is original anyways so what’s the difference?

Disney if you ever get a chance to ignore the sticklers and decide to remake the classic trilogy, I will be behind it 100 percent. Just as long as you don’t break the golden rule and do some gender/race swapping because well that’s not necessary but updating the franchise for a new generation, IS.

My DVD collection: Revisited

I have been collecting movies all my life. Up until about 2013 I had a collection of over 1200 movies. I had movies on DVD, VHS, Beta Max, CED, LaserDisc, HD-DVD, Super 8, Blu Ray, Digital (iTunes, DivX, VUDU, Amazon, Sony digital, Playstation store, etc) I even had movies on VCD. I had everything from TV shows, movies, cartoons, animated films, anime movies, Pixar/DreamWorks Animation, I had over 1200 films, not counting TV or made-for-TV stuff. Everything was good until I became desperate for money and sold my entire collection, minus the digital stuff you can’t sell, to fund a road trip to California a couple of years ago. Okay at the time it wasn’t supposed to be a road trip, my plan was to move in with my uncle in Arizona at the time and drive down to L.A. and check out the job scene. Well let’s just say once I got to Hollywood it was not what I expected and so I just turned around and went back to where I was living at the time.

One thing selling a lifetime’s worth of collecting does has taught me to be far more selective this time around. Before I had VHS, Beta Max, movies on FILM STRIPS that required projectors, I mean I had so much movie equipment my bedroom looked like a pawn shop more than a bedroom. One reason for having movies across so many formats was I was a collector. I wanted everything to me if it plays movies I wanted it. I don’t have room for all that junk anymore and now that I am on my own paying my own power bill, I don’t need all that junk either. So from now on I will be sticking just to movies accessible from my Sony Playstation 4 console.

Mostly I will be sticking to DVDs as they are so much cheaper now than ever. I think that for the most part DVDs have a slight advantage over Blu Ray in that the picture quality is fair on my size TV but also often times the special features on the DVD set are better than those on the Blu Ray release. That doesn’t mean I stopped buying Blu Ray’s though. I still do prefer the better picture and sound quality of the HD discs, I just prefer to have a shelf stocked full of movies I will enjoy rather than buying a movie just because it was on the format and I needed something. Most of the movies I had on Beta Max and CED were films I would have never owned but they were all I could find for a reasonable price on the format. I needed something to justify owning the machines. Since I won’t be buying those old players there is no need for me to bother with movies for them.

The other advantage DVD has over Blu Ray is selection. For the most part if I name any movie I can find it on DVD for a fair price, there are of course exceptions, but that is true for Blu Ray as well. I just grew tired of not owning a movie or holding off for an “HD” release when the DVD was perfectly fine. I will still get an HD release, mostly Blu Ray, of movies that are worth it or if the value is good. I picked up Star Wars Episode 7 The Force Awakens on Blu Ray and it happened to come bundled with a DVD and a free digital copy as a bonus. This was a fair deal for me because I wanted this on Blu Ray to match my complete collection, and also because the digital copy is in HD too. I decided to migrate my digital purchases to VUDU as opposed to iTunes. I love my iPod don’t get me wrong but it sucks as a movie player and once the novelty wore off, in 2011, I realized it was more hassle than it was worth. Also with VUDU I can watch my digital purchases on my PS4 instead of streaming to the TV from the Laptop, which is a major hassle.

Part of the fun of collecting anything is the chase, the hunt, tracking down that item you want to add to your collection. With so many titles I want still not on Blu Ray, or the Blu Ray version is more than I wish to pay, I have decided to stick to DVD for the time being. I will slowly upgrade the really worthy titles as I go along. But I would rather grab the 4 film Indiana Jones boxed set on DVD for $10 bucks and at least have the movies to watch than spend three times that much just for the “HD” experience. With cost being such a factor I felt it was time I scaled back anyways. I have been buying a lot more boxed sets, 4 film favorites, combo packs, and the like than before. Sure I had the occasional boxed set before where it was a good value or the packaging was really cool. I still have the Pizza Box TMNT Blu Ray set because damn it is one cool looking set. This time around I have gravitated more to the 4 film favorites and the boxed sets than before because they are cheap. Since I am buying used as buy 2 get 1 free store I can get three 4 film sets containing a total of 12 movies for $10 bucks. That is too good a deal to pass up. The best part is even with 1/4 of my collection now being multi film sets, I still have plenty of single movie sets and plenty more multi film sets that I can buy yet.

As with before I am not buying any digital copies. I will redeem the codes that accompany new discs as I purchase them, but I will not go out of my way to purchase digital copies ever again. I currently have three digital copies I purchased. Mr. Mom, Can’t Hardly Wait, and The Hunger Games. I got Mr. Mom on iTunes the day I picked up my iPod classic in 2007 just to have a movie to put on it. Same with Can’t Hardly Wait for that matter. The Hunger Games I picked up because I asked a girl on a date to see the third film and she would only go if I had seen the previous two. So yeah it was easier for me to purchase it on Amazon for $10 dollars than it was to go to the video store and rent or buy a used copy. I figured why not the movies were supposed to be good. At the time Netflix had part 2 so I only needed to purchase the first one. Well Mr. Mom and Can’t Hardly Wait are films I want on DVD but can’t talk myself into re-buying since I have $10 digital copies I can access only on my Laptop. As for that Hunger Games film, it can sit on my Amazon account collecting digital dust for all I care. I prefer the original with Arnold Schwarzenegger any day.

TV on DVD is another matter entirely. Before I would buy a TV show on DVD even if I had it in my Netflix list. There was a time when I only would buy TV shows not available on Netflix but that time passed when I was stuck at a place where internet streaming was not an option and I wasn’t going to pay for Netflix just to never be able to use it. Now that it, well sucks, I don’t see the point in justifying paying for it anymore so I will be cancelling my subscription shortly and reverting back to just buying shows on DVD. I am going to be a little more selective this time though only getting shows I know I will re-watch instead of buying DVD’s just to have them. That means no Family Matters just because they were on sale at Wal-Mart. It also means I will only be buying seasons I will watch instead of forcing myself to own complete series just because. I that means That 70’s Show is complete now that I own season 1-5, no need to get the terrible 6-8. I might get 6 if I find it for $5 at Hastings brand new never opened, but I won’t waste the shelf space on 7 or 8 this time around.

Cartoons, anime, animated films, etc. Before I was going for everything. The reason I had over 1200 films was because if I found a movie I liked, had a friend or family member liked, or as mentioned above just needed something for my new player, I bought it. I had all the Disney movies at one time, the cartoons and the musicals. The thing is I HATE musicals and I am not that into cartoons. There are three animated films I want to own, Little Nemo Adventures in Slumberland, Transformers: The Movie (1986) and G.I. Joe: The Movie (1987) That is it. No Disney, no Pixar, no terrible Don Bluth garbage. I have the Shrek Films on Blu Ray but that is a relic of the past, I kept them because they were collectible and their not bad movies. I don’t need Toy Story, I never watched it I already know I won’t enjoy it. Anime, yeah give me a break I outgrew that stuff back in the 90’s right around the time I got over Power Rangers. I tried to get into it because it was supposed to be what you did but honestly I never liked that many anime movies or shows to begin with. The only reason I had so many Japanese language films before was in college I was studying Japanese and thought it would help my vocabulary and grammar. It didn’t it only confused me more and I barely passed that class anyways.

There it is, my new, revised movie collecting plan is to stick to DVD first, get Blu Ray only when it is either something really good, or the price difference is negligible. If I can get the Blu Ray for the same price, less than, or only within a dollar or two of the DVD then I will. I won’t be paying a premium just for “HD” anymore when I am watching on such a small screen to begin with.

Summer movie challenge:60 movies in 60 days

Here is the challenge, to watch 60 movies during the month of May and June. I will have considerable downtime beginning with the end of school so I will try to make use of all the dvd’s I have been buying lately. This is not a one movie a day challenge, that would be impossible as I have no time to watch movies on certain days of the week. Instead I will rely on weekends to make up for lost time, possibly fitting in 3 or 4 on each Saturday and Sunday.

The goal is to get through as many of the films in my DVD collection that I have never seen, or have not seen in a very long time, or have only seen once and have forgotten the majority of. I am going to only count the movies I watch on DVD, including Blu Ray, but not streaming so even if I watch a film on Netflix, Hulu, iTunes, Amazon, etc, it will not count towards my goal. Only feature length, live action films count so if I end up watching a Shrek or Pixar film it won’t count towards the challenge. Exception to this is the TMNT film from 2007 as it is part of the live action set, even though it is animated.

I will keep track of the movies I watch and log them in a note book. I will write a brief summary of the film, my impressions of it from the perspective of this challenge weather it was a waste of time or worthy of my viewing. I am planning on getting through all of, or as many of, the films in my collection that I have never seen. Mostly I have movies in those 4 packs or other boxed sets where I have only seen certain movies in the collection but want to get through the ones I have missed, or a few rare instances where I picked up a movie I was told was good but haven’t gotten around to watching it yet. I will avoid things like Star Wars, Ghostbusters, Pirates of the Caribbean, as much as I can considering I watch them so frequently as it is. Also movies I see in the theater will not count towards this challenge, although I do have quite a few I intend to see this summer.

There are a couple exceptions. First as is tradition I will be watching the Friday the 13th films in the month of June as I do every year. Since I finally have a complete Jason collection now I am hoping to view all 12 Jason films including Jason X and the remake. Hopefully between now and then I can come across a decent copy of Sleepaway camp on DVD to add to the collection as I really want to squeeze that into my summer camp slasher collection this year if I can.

What inspired this challenge? Well partially as a film lover I enjoy watching movies. I collect movies on DVD, VHS, LaserDisc, 8mm (film and tape), CED, Beta Max, iTunes, UltraViolet, Blu Ray, HD-DVD, and I subscribe to Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime all for the film catalogs. With work and school these last couple of years keeping me busier than ever I haven’t had the time to do much of anything. Well I have shuffled things around, finished with school for now, and am in a job that is very flexible on the hours. So this is the best time for me to pull something like this off. It won’t be easy as many of my Saturday nights are going to be devoted to school functions for the newspaper, but I am okay with that. Inspiration also comes from being a member of the Blu Ray forum community on the film-fan devoted website Blu-Ray.com where the various users there do these sorts of challenges all the time. But I am also doing this because I want to see how many films I haven’t seen I can get through.

It will not be a literal 60 days, I will begin May 1st and end June 30th. But I will keep track of the films I view for the challenge and write my impressions of them and make a report on my progress as I go along. This is also something for me to do to get inspires to write some stuff for the very neglected blog here. Be sure to check back once in a while to keep up with the progress as I go.

So what happens if I complete the challenge? Aside from getting to watch 60, hopefully good movies, I will also be forcing myself to write content for the blog. This aspect is to get me inspiration so I can start doing more with this thing. Also if I do complete the challenge then I also will have written several movie reviews for the site. If I fail to complete the challenge then it isn’t a big deal to me, I might not have the time to make it work so this is more for fun not that I have anything to prove. Especially if I get busy with living then I won’t have the time to waste watching so many movies.

Michael Bay thoughts

I hear a lot of people on internet discussion forums blame George Lucas for ruining their childhoods because of the things he did to Star Wars over the years. People who had a specific view of what they in their minds thought Star Wars was supposed to be, and along the way they forgot that they were not the creators of the series but only the patrons of the company who was selling them a product.

I know for some people it is difficult to remember Star Wars is just a product, it is not a religion, or even a way of life, it is a media franchise that is designed to sell the brand to consumers who are willing to pay money for the products available. I never had that view, to me George Lucas could always do whatever he wanted with Star Wars, after all he created it who was I to tell him he was wrong?

The reasons I mention Star Wars up front is important because I will come back to that as I go through this. When I was a kid like most members of my generation, I grew up watching Star Wars. When I was a kid it was my all time favorite movie. What did I like most about it? Well let me be honest here that was a long time ago, it could have been any number of things. But what I do remember standing out in my mind quite prominently was it had robots in it and I really liked robots. I watched Space Camp because it had a robot in it for a brief moment. I liked Short Circuit because Johnny Five was a robot. And yes my favorite media franchise of all time, second only to of course Star Wars, is Transformers.

When I was a kid I loved the Transformers they were the best cartoon on TV, the best toys in toy stores, and they even had comic books that I found out about years latter. Growing up I will admit some of my best friends were either Autobots or Decepticons. Sure I would eventually discover other things like video games, comic books, D&D, and somewhere along the lines I started to get into girls too. But I never stopped admiring and appreciating what the Transformers were and represented to me. When I was about 18 I had gotten out of toys and been mostly devoted to trying to get my hip-hop career off the ground, hey it was the 90’s everyone was trying to get their rap careers started. Well one day I walked into a comic book shop that I often frequented looking for some X-Men comics and I decided to check out the other side of the store, the side I never went to and the dealer had a whole glass case filled with classic Transformers action figures. Out of nostalgia I grabbed a couple of the cheaper ones just to take home and re-connect with something from my childhood and from there it all came flooding back. One by one I built up a huge collection of these things, and I didn’t stop with the vintage ones either I even got into the new ones as they were just making a come back. Now this might be contentious but I don’t care, some people argue Beast Wars kept the franchise going, but I disagree mainly because for one Beast Wars wasn’t made by Hasbro is was Kenner, and two, when Hasbro brought Robots In Disguise out the headlines hailed it as a return of the Transformers, nerds could keep any fringe cult franchise going but if it isn’t mainstream then nobody cares and for me their come back was when they returned to the mainstream.

After a couple of years of dedicated collecting the toys became more popular than ever thanks to new cartoons, new comic books, and over all a revived interest in all things 80’s. But after a couple of years Hasbro took on this new practice of going overboard, pretty soon instead of launching one toyline, backing it up with a cartoon and comic and then moving on once it ran it’s course, they were running not two not three but FIVE toylines simultaneously. Each one had to be backed up by it’s own media, mostly comics as you can’t get kids to tune into too many cartoons at once their short attention spans don’t have room. But comics it is easier because they only come once a month and you flip through them much faster and more casually than a television program anyways. Then in 2007 Michael Bay came along and did to Transformers what George Lucas had done to Star Wars, he recreated it for a newer generation. Like Star Wars this caused a split in the fanbase and pretty soon Hasbro was having to launch even more toy lines, comic books, and promotions to try and keep everyone happy.

By about 2005 I had already given up on collecting as it became overwhelming, costly, and frankly I was getting more into video games so I sold my entire collection to this dealer and said good bye to my past. Sure every once in a while I might have an urge to want to go back and start collecting again, but as much material as there was in 2001 things are far out of hand now, I wouldn’t even know where to start anymore! So I realized something, I wasn’t going to do to Michael Bay what the Star Wars fans had done to Lucas, instead I was going to accept that I had *my* Transformers when I was a kid, and today’s youth have *their* Transformers. Thanks to good old Netflix I can go back and watch and old episode of the cartoon, laugh at how bad it is, and move on. But the desire will always be in me to return to collecting at least the vintage toys that I grew up with. As of right now I don’t have neither the time nor the money to even begin investing in a new hobby, or returning to an old one. But as least I can look back on it as a fond time and instead of hating Michael Bay for “ruining” my childhood I will just be thankful that Star Wars was popular enough to force Hasbro to launch a robot themed action figure line in the first place. Stay Cool.