The whole 'Me Before You' thing

Okay, given that I am physically disabled, I’ve been asked about this by a few people, and given that I have a lot of disabled people on my Facebook it’s been a difficult thing for me to get away from. (On a side note I don’t enjoy writing about disability, be it mine or just in general, I don’t find it difficult to talk about or anything, it’s just that the many disabled people I know (went to a special needs school so there are a fair few) seem to constantly complain about only being identified as disabled people, but then talk about nothing else, and I kind of think, if you want to be recognised for other things, then you should show people something else, rather than just complain, I’ll answer questions if they’re asked but it’s not something I like to focus on.)

For those reading who may not know, Me Before You is a drama film based on a novel of the same name, that as far as I can gather is about a disabled guy that falls in love with his caregiver and eventually kills himself rather than live like that and burden her with his care, so it’s basically like Million Dollar Baby but without all the Clint Eastwood and boxing.

For the people who basically want to know my opinion, I don’t really have one, I haven’t seen the film, and I don’t think I will. It just doesn’t seem like the kind of thing I’d enjoy, and after having read some reviews it doesn’t sound like a particularly good version of that kind of thing for those that do, even independent of the controversy (such as it is).

Okay so let’s start with why people are upset, I just gave a brief summary and probably huge oversimplification of the plot, after a bit of research there isn’t that much more to it apart from the minor details that the guy was not born disabled and acquired a spinal injury and with it quadriplegia, and that he’s also rich because if he wasn’t finding him attractive would just be weird wouldn’t it?

Essentially the reason people are upset is because the film allegedly romanticises suicide for the disabled, or at least normalises it, enforcing the idea that a life with a disability is not worth living and that disability and dignity are mutually exclusive, which is far from a new thing in cinema (all while using the hilariously hypocritical tagline “live boldly”, a reference to the character’s last words to his caregiver via a letter) which is mixed messages to say the least (interestingly, apparently in the book he simply asked her to “live well” which is slightly less contradictory, and makes me wonder why they went with the change,) I’ve heard a lot of people call this a “disability snuff film.”

To be absolutely honest my biggest criticism of that premise is not that I find it offensive, I just find it lazy, a cheap shot at trying to get a sad ending in there to make the film more affecting than it has earned the right to be (remembering of course that all of this is conjecture, I’ve not seen the film and probably won’t.) and it hints at a lack of research, I can’t speak to the experience either, as I don’t have quadriplegia, though people seem to think that since I use a wheelchair that’s close enough, It really isn’t.

Again, I don’t have quadriplegia, so I don’t feel in the right to complain about any portrayal of it, I can’t honestly say I wouldn’t consider suicide because I don’t know what it’s like, for someone with Cerebral Palsy I’m actually quite low on the scale of actually being handicapped by it, I use a wheelchair outside, but I could easily get about on my knees without one if it were socially acceptable to do so outside of my house, I was also born with it, so I can’t speak to the shock of suddenly acquiring a disability as I’ve never known anything else. That said, the suicide thing does strike me as a lazy stock ending, this film in my eyes is guiltier of failing to raise my interest than offending me.

The thing that annoys me most about the whole situation surrounding this film, is the bombardment of assumptions that I, along with any other even slightly disabled people, regardless of severity, circumstance or context, must give a shit, I really don’t. As far as I’m concerned this whole debacle has only served to allow an average-to-mediocre film (if the critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes is to be believed) more attention than it deserved to have, which only helps the film, and if anything will probably encourage more like it because controversy is very profitable.

I’m not going to say I can’t see why a lot of disabled people are a bit upset over this film, I’m not even going to say they’re wrong to feel that way, it’s not my place to decide that. If you really want to get into the politics of it I’d say the bigger problem (of which both sides of the argument are guilty) is the grouping together of disabled people as one entity. It’s not a community, I don’t know Stephen Hawking and I resent the assumption that I automatically give a shit about other disabled people, because unless I know them, I probably don’t. (I have this argument with my mother every time she scolds me for not watching the Paralympics because I’m “supposed to be inspired.”)

In summary, in regard to the film, I don’t think it was meant to offend, I’m a big fan of Hanlon’s razor as a principle with these things, never attribute to malice what is more easily explained by carelessness or stupidity. Also, unless you yourself have quadriplegia, I think it’s a bit presumptuous to get offended by the notion of someone with it choosing to end their own life. I don’t know what it’s like, and neither do you, having said that, it does feel like taking the easy way out to end the film that way.

So my conjecture is, the worst thing Me Before You appears guilty of, is getting a lot of attention without necessarily being a compelling enough film to warrant it. I’m more annoyed with the people who assume I’d be offended than I am with the film itself.

Ranking the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Hello all, it’s been a while since I updated this blog, frankly the amount of typing I had to do for uni work was getting me down to the point I didn’t even want to write anything recreationally, but with that all over with, I figured a new blog post was in order. I’ve been going to the cinema a lot lately (it’s one of my favourite things to do, which makes it great that I live so close) and obviously a recent movie to hit theatres has been Captain America: Civil War. Due to having different friends wanting to see it at different times, I’ve seen this one four times so far, and may yet see it again, (this hasn’t happened since Thor: The Dark World) but yeah it’s great, but how does it compare to the rest?

I imagine anyone who sees this with any interest will probably have seen others rank the MCU movies in order of preference, but I like to think (possibly wishfully) that my opinion is unique enough to warrant me doing the same thing here, I’ll be ranking all thirteen of them from worst to best in my personal opinion and explaining as best I can why they fall where they do, (I will also preface this by saying I like all of them, just to deter anyone calling me a hater of this or that.) So without further padding for length, let’s begin. (I’ll try to keep spoilers to a minimum) I’ll also mention that the top eight or so were absolute agony to choose the order.

Number 13: The Incredible Hulk

What can I say about this one? The Hulk as a concept was just never one of my favourites, I appreciate the whole Jekyll and Hyde thing he’s got going on, the struggle to maintain control is done very well here, and this film is a very good depiction of The Hulk as far as I can see, but I just never really got into him as a solo act. What it does, this film does well, but what it does doesn’t interest me all that much. I know the decision to re-cast Edward Norton down the line was made out of necessity and not for artistic reasons, but let’s be honest Norton was pretty generic here as far as protagonists go, he wasn’t bad, but I struggle to remember a single line of dialogue from him here or even most of the plot of the movie even after seeing it multiple times in the past, and that’s never a good sign. This is essentially a monster movie on steroids and it does a perfectly serviceable job of that, Tim Roth is a fun, if a little nonsensical villain, but I think there’s a good reason Hulk hasn’t had a 2^nd solo outing to date.

Number 12: Iron Man 2:

I think most who see this knew that this would be here, Iron Man 2 just doesn’t click the way others do, Jon Favreau is a fantastic director and Robert Downey Jr. is…Robert Downey Jr. enough said, but as services to the overarching narrative go, this is about as close to jogging-in-place as any of these films get. I think Marvel tried to cash-in on the recent career “revival” of Mickey Rourke with all the good press The Wrestler got at the time, but he’s really not that interesting in this. By the end I didn’t even remember what his motivation was, I think he wanted to kill Iron Man because something to do with his dad dying? And Justin Hammer (I forget the actor name) just wants to one-up Tony Stark, who is dying anyway, and because of this saw fit to leave his company to Gwyneth Paltrow, I mean…why? I’m pretty sure that’s it. Don Cheadle turns in a good performance as War Machine and this film gets it’s due for introducing Scarlett Johanson’s Black Widow, but as a standalone, it just doesn’t have much more going for it, I like it, but it’s not great.

Number 11: Iron Man

When writing this list out for the first time, I was as surprised as I imagine you are that I put Iron Man so low, this is the one that started everything, and I love it for that, but as a film, it suffers a bit from being a superhero movie before it was cool. Marvel Studios hadn’t found its groove yet and as a result, what we have here is a basically okay film with some great moments here or there. Nick Fury’s first Avengers teaser didn’t hold much meaning for me at the time, as I wasn’t versed in comic books back then and didn’t know what it meant, but with the benefit of hindsight, I can see the significance. (Especially since I have at various points binge-watched the whole lot with friends.)

The first appearance of the Iron Man suit is instantly iconic, the soundtrack is great (Iron Man’s first flight remains one of the scenes that come to mind to this day when I think of the MCU) and Robert Downey Jr. as we’ve established is, of course, Robert Downey Jr. and therefore fantastic. On the flipside, the villain is almost completely forgettable, (albeit with one memorable line (box of scraps) which is more than Whiplash ever got) the story is all over the map, much like Iron Man himself, who doesn’t seem to have much of a character arc beyond realising “building weapons is bad m’kay?” and of all the people to cast as Pepper Potts they chose Gwyneth Paltrow, I mean… why?

Number 10: Thor: The Dark World

I really wanted to put this one higher on the list, but in the name of being as fair as possible, I just can’t. I love this one, I’m the easiest lay in the world for stuff like this, I love a good high-fantasy setting and Asgard just looks amazing, and the accompanying score is perfect. Anthony Hopkins is a great Odin, Loki is as fun as ever, and it’s got Roy from The IT Crowd in it! This isn’t all the film has going for it either, but narratively, for the most part, this film has some problems I can’t ignore and just feels a bit rushed on the whole, like it’s more about aesthetics than pacing as we’re taken from one lavish set-piece to the next interspersed with the odd scene in London.

This is another one suffering from ‘Forgettable Villain’ syndrome. Christopher Eccleston does what he can, but he’s not in the film all that much, and as well as following him as the villain in Thor he also has to compete with Loki for attention in this one, which is not a challenge any villain would be wise to accept. Loki steals the show to the point that the actual villain of the piece seems all but inconsequential. Also, I was never a fan of the Thor/Jane Foster relationship, it felt forced in the first one, and it’s not much better here, as a device to motivate Thor it does the job I suppose but I kind of think they could’ve just been friends and not much would need to change. A perfectly adequate and entertaining film, but nothing game-changing.

Number 9: Avengers: Age of Ultron

I really hope it doesn’t speak ill of any of these films that thus far they’re so low on the list, I enjoyed this one a lot, but that said, taken as a film I think this is where it belongs. Joss Whedon in all fairness had a lot to do here, this one film had to be its own self-contained story, while also introducing two new characters in Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, setting up for Infinity War, while also setting up for Civil War while also setting up for Thor: Ragnarok, and introducing elements for Black Panther somewhere down the line.

Add to that the responsibility to have some semblance of established character development here as well, and that’s a lot on your plate. I must, therefore, ask the question of why he thought a completely out-of-the-blue romance subplot between Bruce Banner and Black Widow was a good idea. I suppose without it Bruce himself would be a bit of a non-entity. Mark Ruffalo is great (so much better than Edward Norton) and it would be a complete waste for him to simply serve as an angry plot-device like in Avengers.

Having said that, even in that his chemistry and buddy-dynamic with Tony Stark is a stroke of genius, the same would be true here, but with everything else going on, interpersonal chemistry is a rare thing when it has to struggle with such a convoluted plot. That said, in spite of the seemingly sequel-minded narrative, James Spader is morbidly hilarious as Ultron, Jarvis becoming The Vision was handled well in my opinion. Jeremy Renner is great as the down-to-earth one of the group in Hawkeye, which is a definite improvement over spending most of the film brainwashed. Quicksilver is fun for the moments he has, but Scarlett Witch is the most interesting one of the two. Overall it’s a fun way to kill a few hours, but if you’re not up on the continuity so far you may not want to start here.

Number 8: Ant-Man

I really liked Ant-Man, in spite of the famously troubled development of the film, Marvel put together something really solid here, the screenplay retains just enough of former director Edgar Wright to be distinctive, (there are some very Wright-esque scenes such as the exposition flashbacks.) It’s clever, it’s funny, Paul Rudd is instantly believable as the good-intentioned but supremely unlucky and out of his depth protagonist, bringing with him a hilarious supporting-cast of loveable crooks. The decision to retroactively introduce Hank Pym as a previous Ant-Man makes for a much more efficient means of Scott mastering his powers since he can actually be taught rather than figure it out on the fly like we’ve seen so many times. Anthony Mackie gets in a fun cameo, Michael Douglas is great in the role of Hank Pym and his chemistry with Evangeline Lily as Hope is undeniable. While not particularly striking, Corey Stoll makes an unsettlingly callous and unstable Yellowjacket. The action in this one is brilliantly inventive utilizing the Ant-Man’s unique skillset to sometimes hilarious effect. In short, it’s a fun ride, and every bit the comedic undertone of the universe that Iron Man is.

Number 7: Iron Man 3

Speaking of, it really was agony deciding where to put this in relation to the two around it, and yes, Iron Man 3 is my favourite one, (come at me I’ll fight you!) technically positioning itself as a Christmas movie (being set at Christmas, and released in Summer so the DVD would be out at Christmas) this is my go-to suggestion for making those post-Christmas meal family gatherings interesting. It also doesn’t hurt that it’s functionally the best of the three, simultaneously taking a grand scale national crisis plotline and a small-scale personal growth subplot for the man himself, I was never bored at any point watching this one. As usual Robert Downey Jr. is Robert Downey Jr. and hence, brilliant, but I think in hindsight that hasn’t ended up being a point in the favour of the Iron Man series. RDJ’s Tony Stark is so good that he can’t help but steal the show and sort of highlights how unremarkable most of the rest of the cast are, at least in the last two. Don Cheadle is always a reliable second-fiddle and one of the few consistently good things about the supporting cast along with Jon Favreau’s Happy Hogan, who’s always good for comic relief (even though he’s not in this one much.) Now, I can’t really talk about Iron Man 3 without addressing a certain elephant in the room, namely The Mandarin, and the twist surrounding that character. I actually really like that twist, yeah I know it’s not faithful to the comics and basically reduces The Mandarin to a one-note joke, but The Mandarin in his comic book form was, to put it tactfully, RACIST AS FUCK!

A faithful adaptation of The Mandarin would mean creating a caricature that even Mr. Popo would call racially insensitive (look it up if you need to) and such a character would never have made it into a major motion picture, and nor should it. (Besides, Trevor Slattery is hilarious) and I see this as simply acknowledging that we live in the 21^st century, so if you’re butt-hurt about The Mandarin not being a straight-faced racist caricature, you really need to accept that it was never going to happen and get over it. (Yes I am aware of the All Hail the King short that more or less established the existence of an actual Mandarin, but I highly doubt it will ever lead to anything, in fact, I hope it doesn’t)

With that said, if you are going to take away a villain with presence, (and Ben Kingsley gave his Mandarin a lot of that) then you should at least replace it with something, Guy Peirce is fine, and gives a good turn of the villain motivation, “My hero was a dick to me years ago, and now I’m going to destroy him” as good a motivation as any and makes particular sense in relation to Iron Man given the character’s famed arrogance, but again, Killian just comes off as another “villain of the week” which is getting harder and harder to combat the more movies there end up being, also towards the end Tony is saved by Gwyneth Paltrow, I mean…why?

Number 6: Thor

This is a film that is completely unashamed to be what it is, and I love that.  As I mentioned above I’m a very easy lay for a high-fantasy setting, and I love the aesthetic of the Thor films particularly in Asgard, the accompanying soundtrack also being among the better outings on this list. the stuff down on earth is good too, Coulson and S.H.I.E.L.D basically do the job as petty antagonists just getting in the way before Loki sets the destroyer loose, and speaking of, I’d be remiss if I didn’t talk about Loki’s character arc, which, was, Devastating! The most sympathetic villain in the MCU thus far and the only villain that steals every scene he’s in, and that performance here is likely what landed him the role of the big bad in The Avengers. Unfortunately the earth-located parts of the storyline can be a bit hit-and-miss, there are some brilliantly funny moments, and the supporting cast is generally great, but as I said before I found the Thor/Jane Foster relationship kind of forced, again, they could just be friends and the result would be basically the same. A little bit of information here, in Norse Mythology Thor, is married to Sif, who is present in this movie, frankly, if you must shoehorn a romance angle into the movie, why not that? They even referenced it in the sequel. Regardless of that, it’s a nice story with a great cast, plenty of laughs and a genuinely iconic villain.

Number 5: Captain America: The First Avenger

Okay Top 5, and this is the one I expect will surprise a lot of you, there’s just something about this one, it’s old-fashioned, and unashamedly just the right amount of cheesy, I mean old-fashioned in the sense that it put me in mind of the sort of Indiana Jones-esque adventure movie you just don’t see these days, complete with a sense of humour and a healthy level of unabashed sincerity that all come together to form something that is unlike anything else in the MCU. Captain America doesn’t suffer from the overshadowing problems of the Iron Man movies, in fact, if anything it works as an ensemble feature, Cap himself is the obvious lead and Chris Evans plays the slightly dorky but endearingly well-meaning protagonist to a tee. Steve Rogers is simply a nice guy, to have him say with a straight face “I don’t wanna kill anyone, I don’t like bullies,” which in movie terms is a very 80s sentiment, takes a very special kind of confidence.

I mentioned earlier that this movie could be seen as an ensemble piece, this is because unlike Iron Man, Captain America never threatens to overshadow his own movie, this is not to say he’s unremarkable, far from it, Chris Evans does a great job as the genuinely nice guy that is Steve Rogers and the supporting cast get their chance to endear themselves to the audience, in particular, Hayley Atwell’s Agent Carter, who as we know by now, got her own series. Tommy Lee Jones is also very amusing as the General, who, instead of using the old and tired cliché of the hardened army badass, (although he is very much that) also give him a dry and sarcastic sense of humour that contrasts incredibly with Steve’s straight-faced sincerity. Now, onto the other side of this film’s conflict. Something else that puts this film above so many others is its villain, Hugo Weaving’s Red Skull I imagine would be quite a polarising figure, but I think it’s great. His backstory is essentially being too extreme for the Nazis, which is impressive in itself. This is pure comic book cheesiness at its most unabashed, and I couldn’t love it enough for that.

Number 4: Guardians of the Galaxy

Come on, you knew this was going be top 5, as deliberate a B-movie as it gets, this one could be considered the film that encapsulates its own ideals more completely than anything else on this list. What are those ideals? Basically “We’re in space, we’re licensed to use a ton of 80s music, let’s just have a good time.” Largely separate from the rest of the expansive continuity Guardians of the Galaxy is free to just be it’s own thing, Peter ‘Starlord’ Quill, played here brilliantly by Chris Pratt was abducted from earth 30 years ago, nothing that’s been going on there gets his attention. Somehow he still has a Sony Walkman circa 1980 in working order, which, as a device to justify a delightfully 80s soundtrack, does a fantastic job, the tone of this film is very jokey and light-hearted, which suits the characters here right down to the ground, Vin Diesel himself I found a bit wooden (sorry, I had to) in all seriousness, for the one line he has to repeat, he does well. The personality of Groot shines through beautifully, and the credit for that really does have to go to the animation department. Speaking of whom, they also do a stellar job bringing to life Rocket Raccoon, voiced here excellently by Bradley Cooper (though leading up to release I heard rumours H. Jon Benjamin was in the running for the part, and cannot help but wonder what could have been, Cooper was great though so can’t complain.)

Drax the Destroyer is instantly Dave Bautista’s best acting role, (not that that’s saying much) the former wrestler is an instantly believable presence as the musclebound alien with no concept of metaphor, (a catalyst for some hilarious dialogue) and Zoe Saldana might just be the queen of sci-fi right now, her character Gamora could so easily have been just another bog-standard Hollywood ice-cold tough-gal you’ve seen a thousand times, but Saldana plays her part to a tee, and acts out a great script and character arc so well, that she makes the archetype her own in spectacular fashion. Chris Pratt is Chris Pratt, his personality here will not surprise you, he’s endearingly immature, and obsessed with music, using Footloose as an example to convince Gamora of the joys of dancing, citing Kevin Bacon as “A great hero.” I may be simplifying his character a bit, his obsession with 80s music comes from a cassette Walkman he carries around, which is the only thing he has left of his life on Earth (or Terra as they call it in the film.) despite this, for whatever reason, he’s never gone back even though he must’ve had the opportunity at some point, but maybe the fact that his last Earth memory is losing his mother can explain his reluctance.

Establishing four main characters, as well as an antagonist, and their subordinates (particularly when there are as many as there are here) in a two and a half hour runtime is no easy task, but Guardians manages it admirably, I like Ronan the Accuser, he’s appropriately villainous and a believable threat for the most part, but somewhat one-dimensional and still not on the level of Loki, who we now must acknowledge as the yard-stick against which all villains shall be judged. Even so, the film jumps about between characters just enough that it doesn’t really matter without it feeling too forced. The real question is not whether they can beat the big bad, but whether these four different, yet equally difficult individuals can be made to coexist (outside of Groot and Rocket who already do.)

From a world-building perspective, this film is a curious one, it’s almost completely separate from the rest of the continuity, and as such you could quite happily watch this one without having seen any of the others and not feel lost at all. Having said that the Easter Eggs here are all over the place so it rewards franchise knowledge without punishing any lack thereof. It also makes a good first step in establishing the much less grounded and more “out-there” parts of the Marvel universe, creating a precedent for a much more whimsical take on the series in a way that hasn’t really been done before.

I’ve not even mentioned some of the supporting cast but if I don’t wrap this up now I could go on forever, bottom line; Guardians of the Galaxy is probably the most fun you’ll have with any film in the MCU, it doesn’t take itself seriously, yet is confident enough to be straight-faced when it has to, and I would recommend it to the seasoned and uninitiated alike, along with anyone else for that matter.

Number 3: Captain America: Civil War

Good God it was difficult to decide where this went. As mentioned, I’ve seen this four times at time of writing, and it is glorious. Arguably a better follow-up to The Avengers than Age of Ultron was, this film deals with the long-term effects of a team of super-powered individuals running around unchecked by any system of authority, I don’t think it’s a spoiler at this point to say that this is the main cause of conflict within the team. Essentially, the governments of the world are no longer willing to tolerate the (to be fair, massive) collateral damage that The Avengers tend to leave behind in their battles. Based on the 2005 event comic Civil War this sees Captain America and Iron Man, who have had frequent little arguments over ideological differences, finally butt heads over those differences. Essentially those differences boil down to the question “Should the Avengers operate as a government outfit?” Iron Man seems all in favour along with a good deal of the rest of the team, Cap on the other hand is completely opposed. The idea of putting the power of the Avengers in the hands of “people with agendas” doesn’t sit well with him, for fear that their handlers may stop them from doing the right thing, or force them to do something they shouldn’t. Stark on the other hand, weighed down by the guilt of everything, feels that the Avengers are too dangerous to run around unchecked and need to be answerable to someone, saying “we need to be put in check, whatever form that takes, I’m game.”  I find myself ideologically on “team Cap” if you’re wondering, and that has nothing to do with the fact that Iron Man’s movies came lower on this list, or with the fact that, in Iron Man 2 Tony was singing completely the opposite tune about this exact same issue, because believe it or not I don’t see that as hypocritical as some do. A lot’s gone down since Iron Man 2. At that point Stark himself was arguably the only known Avenger, and he had no concept of things like the Chitauri or Asgardians or anything like that, I’d actually be worried if his perspective hadn’t changed. Even so, as I said, I find myself on Team Cap, even while acknowledging both have merits and problems. As I said before Tony and Steve have been butting heads on and off since Avengers (excellent slow-build by the way) over their different approaches. Seeing that come to a head here not only feels natural, but it feels like it was planned pretty far in advance, of course we knew the title of this one was going to be Civil War before Age of Ultron was released, so it probably was to an extent. The other interpersonal relationships here are done very well, with a surprising level of chemistry between Vision and Scarlett Witch, some fun banter between Bucky and Falcon, and Ant-Man fanboying over Captain America is fun. The Black Panther also gets a complete character arc even among so many other characters, to the point that I actually wonder what the first Black Panther movie will be about, since the things I’d expect to happen in that one more or less happen in the background here. Of course I can’t talk about Civil War without mentioning Spider-Man, Tom Holland was great, he didn’t overstay his welcome and established himself as a powerful presence, if a little underdeveloped but that was kind of the point. We weren’t forced to endure his origin story again, which was refreshing, for once a movie studio trusts that we know what happened to a character that was rebooted twice in the last decade or so. This has left me enthused for Spider-Man: Homecoming, which I can only assume was the goal here. I’ve seen a lot of people comparing this to Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice due to their superficially similar premises, but there really is no similarity, (people who have read earlier posts will already know what I think of Batman v. Superman, I was in a bad mood when I wrote that.) but on that note the only comparison I’m going to make is to quote Brentalfloss on his Facebook page, (may 9^th) as his opinion mirrors mine here, he writes “In 2 hours 33 minutes, Batman v. Superman couldn’t convincingly explain why two guys were fighting, Civil War nailed the explanation and execution of twelve people fighting and did it all with six fewer minutes of running time.”

I agree here completely, but it really isn’t fair to compare the two as Civil War sits on a dozen films worth of build-up, and uses it excellently, and more importantly, doesn’t try to mesh several stories together in a haphazard mess masquerading as world-building, therefore I’ll make no further comparisons.

Civil War rests comfortably on the bedrock of continuity the MCU has built up over the years and is very confident with it, the conclusion doesn’t feel very…well…conclusive, but then we always knew there were going to be follow-ups to this story, so that’s not really a problem. The film carries a bit of a mixed-bag ending, for me at least. Parts of this film were difficult to watch (and I’m not just talking about those friggin’ HUGE location titles, jarring as they were) because I’ve been invested in this universe for years, and to see these characters that I have grown attached to, and some younger viewers would have actually grown up with (I can’t believe it’s been eight years since Iron Man) fighting each other, as enjoyable as the fights were, the one at the climax especially carried a real weight with it. I wouldn’t call the ending a downer, as it ends on a somewhat optimistic note in spite of all that’s happened, but on first viewing I left the theatre asking myself “how do I actually feel about that?” there’s certainly a mix of emotions to be felt here.

In summary Captain America: Civil War is great, it is still definitely a Captain America film but it has the rest of the Avengers along for the ride, and none of them feel wasted or overused, and it also manages to develop the relationships between characters and introduce two new characters and their motivations. This is a lot for one film to manage and Marvel Studios pulled it off splendidly. Definitely see this one, but make sure you’re up on the continuity beforehand.

Number 2: The Avengers

The Avengers is where it is on this list for several reasons, its significance as the first multi-franchise crossover of its kind (at least on this scale) can’t be ignored, the payoff to five years of build-up and arguably the biggest event to date in the entire Superhero genre. The big question of whether or not this eclectic gathering of heroes could function in the same narrative was one hovering above the film from the moment it was announced. Joss Whedon, in a stroke of particular genius in my opinion, decided to make that basically the plot of the film, and y’know what? It works, it works like fucking gangbusters. The plot keeps itself simple, Loki has returned from his exile with a magic spear with mind-control powers and an army of aliens waiting to be brought to Earth, the plot? Nick Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D have to assemble the team and stop the bad guy, got it? Good. Okay, let’s get what negatives I do have out of the way, Hawkeye, who spends most of this film as Loki’s puppet, and Black Widow, who is mostly just there, are underdeveloped and don’t give you much reason to care. (Though admittedly this is difficult when they’re already competing with four other main characters.) The Hulk is basically an angry plot device that works when convenient, and the simultaneous mass-destruction of the Chitauri at the end is just a sin of contrived convenience, there, nit-picking done. The area this film really shines is in the character interactions, the contrasting personalities of each hero bounce of each other brilliantly. Particular praise has to go to the buddy dynamic between Tony Stark and Bruce Banner, I said before that Robert Downey Jr. has a habit of overshadowing his own films but he doesn’t do that here, his always-on quick-wittedness contrasts nicely with Mark Ruffalo’s soft-spoken, somewhat nervous demeanour, which offers some middle-ground for the scene that these two share with Captain America, who as usual is the naïve but determined boy-scout of the group.  This scene in particular sticks out in my mind as one of the first real illustrations of how different these characters are. Thor is kind of the odd one out in the interpersonal dynamic but that’s okay because he has Loki to play off who, as ever, chews up and spits out most every scene he’s in like the lovechild of a Shakespearian villain and the concept of sass.

The supporting cast are good too, Samuel L. Jackson is Samuel L. Jackson, which is great, Clark Gregg gives a memorable final performance as Agent Coulson (at least in the movies thus far) and even if you haven’t seen anything leading up to this the characters are all basically established in the story (obviously I had seen what came before, and it definitely helped, but I don’t think it was necessary.)

Then there’s the final battle with the alien army which is basically a firework party thrown in celebration that this film is even happening, but it definitely feels earned, all that build-up amounted to a satisfying payoff, and in short The Avengers is not quite flawless, but it’s a damn near flawless version of exactly what it’s trying to be, it is only by a hair’s breadth that I put this one below number 1.

Number 1: Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Yes, even after Civil War I still feel like this one belongs at number 1, this is the most subversive film of the lot both in plot and in execution, actually switching genres for part two, going from a retro cheese-fest adventure, to a modern spy thriller, albeit with a bit more Frisbee. Subversion remains a common theme throughout this film as midway through, a massive fixture throughout the entire continuity thus far is turned on it’s head, I promised I would be as spoiler-free as possible but let’s just say it makes for quite a coincidence in regards to a recent comic book twist involving Captain America.

This film is at number one because it uses the previous films as a jumping-off point in spectacular fashion, in a way that even Civil War didn’t quite match, Winter Soldier subverts the entire series thus far and takes the thoroughly old-fashioned Captain America and places him firmly in a gritty modern setting, with a dark, grounded, personal story. This is the kind of thing so many studios try to do and fail miserably. The Russo brothers knew exactly what they were doing here, bringing a golden-age character into modern times was always going to be problematic, because he simply wouldn’t fit in with modern ideals, rather than try to make him, they make the fact that he doesn’t a huge part of his character. It just works, I don’t say character arc because Cap really doesn’t have one, he’s every bit the incorruptible good-guy at the end as he is at the start, normally that would be a point to his detriment but here that’s the point, and because of it his character stands out all the more prominently, and mercifully the fish-out-of-water time displacement jokes that could easily have overpowered the tone of the film are kept to a good minimum. Sebastian Stan returns for a good run as The Winter Soldier, even if he’s not in the film a huge amount, but then he’s in it as much as he needs to be. Anthony Mackie is great as The Falcon, Cap’s soon-to-be regular wingman (pun intended) and all-round ace buddy, seriously this is the kind of man you want to have around in a crisis. Scarlett Johansson has the best chemistry she’s had with anyone so far with Chris Evans here, you really get the impression that they’ve been working together for a good while, her constantly ribbing him on his lack of any kind of a love life makes for some great dialogue, and I love the fact that there’s not even the suggestion of a romance there (beyond faking one to throw off pursuers I mean.) It’s almost as if people of the opposite sex can actually be in the same place without the need for a “will they/won’t they?” hanging over everything if you can imagine such an apparently outlandish concept. Sam Jackson is Sam Jackson, all good there, and Robert Redford brings a lot of depth to what could easily have been a one-note bureaucrat character, and it all comes together for just an all-round great cast.

This is the film that, out of all of them on this list I most hesitate to call a Superhero movie, and it also illustrates just how arbitrary a distinction that is. I don’t think it’s been particularly right to call Superhero films a genre for a while now, because they come across a large number of genres, but this is the one for which the distinction feels the most arbitrary, you could easily describe it as a sci-fi spy thriller, there just happens to be comic book characters in it. So many things in this movie on paper should not work, and they make it work, “realistic, dark and gritty” is a popular approach that more often than not just ruins an adaptation in a misguided attempt to be “serious”. Here though, not only does it work, it does so without compromising Captain America as a character. He is comic book goodness incarnate, and contagious to that effect towards the rest of the movie, I’ll say again, this should not work, and yet it does. Subversive really is the operative word here, and it does all of these things in a two-hour runtime that never feels long.

I could gush about this one forever but yeah, that’s why this one sits at number 1.

So, quick recap, the order is

#13 The Incredible Hulk

#12 Iron Man 2

#11 Iron Man

#10 Thor: The Dark World

#9 Avengers: Age of Ultron

#8 Ant-Man

#7 Iron Man 3

#6 Thor

#5 Captain America: The First Avenger

#4 Guardians of the Galaxy

#3: Captain America: Civil War

#2: The Avengers

#1 Captain America: The Winter Soldier

Bloody hell this was an undertaking, I didn’t expect to end up writing so much, anyone who’s shown the patience to have read the whole thing, thank you.

Do you agree with my list? Leave me a comment and let me know how wrong I am and why, although if you’re going to argue I do ask that you actually read why I put these where I did first.

Movie Reviews: Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice.

This first part will be spoiler-free for those who may not have seen it yet, I will warn you when I’m about to talk spoilers.

I know one more review probably won’t change anyone’s opinion on this, but I’m writing one anyway because Jesus Christ this movie is terrible, those who have me on Facebook (who, let’s be honest are the only people likely to read this) may have already seen my status. I did not like Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice. Zack “Oh my fucking god who keeps hiring this man?” Snyder, has had the better part of three years to work on this, during which, he must’ve been aware of the polarising reception to his previous outing, Man of Steel, and no, the fact that he didn’t personally write the screenplay for that or this, is not an excuse, the decision to keep the not one, but two writers from Man of Steel, was, ultimately, his call as Director. Therefore, Snyder bears the responsibility for the incoherent mess that comprised the script he was directing.

With the benefit of three years to finish this film, the end result, perfectly encapsulates everything that is wrong with the state of DC Comics movies. First of all, it seems the only superhero Warner Bros sort of know how to do is Batman, so when Man of Steel rolls around, “ooh, let’s make it all gritty and grim like Batman. When that doesn’t work, because of course it fucking doesn’t, because Superman is not Batman and what works for one will not work for the other, what’s his response? “Oh, I know, I’ll put Batman in the next one!” It was bad enough before when he was trying to make a “grim and gritty” Superman, when that didn’t work, rather than address what may not have worked, he elected to crowbar in as many things as possible to make it work the next time. They say that insanity is doing the same thing over again and expecting different results, well then I cite this latest atrocity as grounds to have Zack Snyder fucking sectioned!

Batman v, Superman stubbornly doubles down on everything that didn’t work about Man of Steel, and jettisons any of the levity or light-heartedness that might have made it work, in favour of an unrelentingly grim, and insufferably self-serious clusterfuck masquerading as a superhero crossover, cramming in as many cameos as possible with all the subtlety and tact one would expect of a sledgehammer. There is a scene, *spoiler alert* in which Wonder Woman, in possession of a hard drive full of hacked security footage, actually plays videos of the eventual cast of the justice league using their powers (or in the case of Cyborg, being turned into a Cyborg) one by one. That is not foreshadowing, and it is certainly not world-building, in fact to call it an in-movie trailer would be too kind. What this is, is a fucking PowerPoint presentation on what movies we’ll be getting in the coming years, that Zack Snyder seemed to honestly think would be a good idea for a scene!

You’ll notice I haven’t mentioned much about the story yet, that’s because there honestly isn’t much to tell. The entire narrative is a complete and utter mess, I don’t even think I could identify a protagonist in this movie, it’s not Superman, because he’s honestly not really in it that much, it’s not Batman because he’s almost completely reactionary and being positioned as an antagonist but doesn’t even manage that because the closest thing to an antagonist is Lex Luthor, played by a lanky twelve-year-old in his dad’s work clothes. Whoever keeps telling those in charge in Hollywood that Jesse Eisenberg is A) a full-grown man, and B) an actor, needs to stop lying to people, as he is clearly neither of those things. The only thing I’ve seen him in wherein his performance did not feel incredibly forced is The Social Network, in which he was playing an unlikeable obnoxious teenager, and thus, required little to no acting. (I think this is where I’m going to start talking spoilers by the way) Almost everything about his take on Lex Luthor is bad, gone is the proud, charismatic and cunning CEO steadfast in his convictions against the idea of humanity relying on an alien saviour. To be replaced with something that more closely resembles a mild teenage version of The Joker than it does Lex Luthor, only without the funny. (At one point in this film, he fills a jar with his own urine and places it on a senator’s desk in reference to an earlier conversation. All of this is played out completely straight-faced and seriously without a hint of self-awareness. I wish I was making that up.)

But I could forgive the liberal take on the character if even after watching the film I had some idea what his motivation was, as it seems to change from scene to scene. In the beginning, his motivation is the closest it gets to Luthor-esque. He wants to create a deterrent against Superman so that the world will not be at his mercy. To be fair. that sounds like exactly the kind of thing Lex Luthor would do, later in the film though, he completely loses sight of that in favour of some weird obsession with religious iconography.

He stops caring about the deterrent soon enough and starts talking about gods and demons with jarringly tangential links to Superman. After that he starts utilizing alien technology, then he gets all grandiose about “God bending to (his) will” when he threatens Martha Kent’s life in an attempt to get Superman to kill Batman. By the end of the film, he’s screaming “They’re coming!” it’s not made clear who he’s talking about. I can’t help but think a few important scenes must’ve been cut (which is alarming when you consider what they left in.) and a lot of context is either lost in the edit or flat-out missing.

Speaking of things that lack context, Batman’s main justification for deciding what he’s going to do, is that he has bad dreams about a potential future (which is essentially, the game Injustice: Gods Among Us coming to pass.) which, as motivations go, is lazy, contrived, and just flat out dumb. Especially when he was actually given quite a strong opening, which saw him running through the streets of Metropolis during the events of the battle in Man of Steel trying to save as many people as he can. Then he catches a glimpse of Superman forcing Zod backwards through a building, this is apparently what leads him to mistrust Superman. Which, depressingly, is just about the best-written part of this film.

Oh and Batman kills people in this by the way, like, a lot of people, so, that pathological fear of death and one rule against killing that he upholds above all else and is a huge and pivotal part of his character? “Screw that, let’s just show him shooting people between working out and hitting a monster truck tire with a sledgehammer bro!” I swear I’m fully expecting a deleted scene wherein Batman goes to Hooters and eats a ton of chicken wings, because “Dude, he’s so fuckin’ MANLY!” Also, he brands criminals now, BRANDS them! With a red-hot Batterang I think, because yeah who doesn’t remember Batman having a fetish for leaving scars?

You’re probably expecting me to round on Ben Affleck next, but I’m actually not going to, Ben Affleck was fine, in his defence, there is no actor in the world that could’ve made this god-awful script any better, I’m confident Ben Affleck could play Batman well, but not in a movie as terribly written as this one.

Also, the plot relies so heavily on convenience that you’d think everyone was a fucking clairvoyant. In preparation for the big match-up, Batman has made a pure Kryptonite spear, he stabs it into the ground inside a random building and leaves it there, later in the fight, he gets thrown into that very building by Superman, and pulls it out. No! there is no possible way he could’ve known the fight would end up going there! That is among the laziest writing ever, and it’s not even the laziest there is in this film.

Anyone want to guess the reason Batman eventually stops wanting to kill Superman and decides to trust him? If you don’t know already you won’t guess it, not because it’s clever or anything, quite the opposite in fact. The thing that stops Batman in his tracks when he has Superman dead to rights, is finding out that Superman also has a mother named Martha. At this point I forgot I was in a public cinema and shouted “WHAT!?” This was the stupidest, most contrived ceasefire I have ever witnessed in fiction. And it amounts to nothing because there’s another big-bad yet to fight in Doomsday, who in this movie is just Zod’s corpse given the Tyrant treatment from Resident Evil with alien tech, but that’s fine Doomsday is Doomsday.

The rest is explosions, Wonder Woman shows up for some screen-time and then a serious down-ending the film has not earned and I can’t take seriously.

In summary, this, unrelentingly dour, boring, over-long-yet-still-horribly-rushed self-aggrandising incomprehensible clusterfuck is the worst film featuring Batman or Superman I've ever been compelled to endure, and I'm counting Batman & Robin, AND Superman Returns.

Career Opportunities (the ones that never knock)

Hello all, this is actually gonna be more of a personal pet-peeve rant about the preconceptions surrounding my field of study, but the opportunity to use Clash lyrics as a title was just too good to pass up. This is just going to be something about my personal experience, which I hope is common enough for people to find relatable, but I won't be offended if you don't.

So I'm currently studying a course that falls under the Art, Design and Humanities faculty, from that alone most of you who are, or have been in that position will probably know exactly where this is going. Everyone who is not familiar with the workings of my choice of education pisses me off and I think that's an entirely reasonable reaction!

Perhaps I should elaborate, the thing that annoys me about being an ADH student (Performing Arts specifically) is the constant assumptions and pre-judgements people make on a daily basis, now I don't think anyone on one of these courses has to read any more than this, they will all be intimately familiar with everything I'm about to bring up, but I'm going to bring it up anyway because it annoys me, and, therefore, I feel entitled to annoy you with it.

okay first let's talk about "the talk" you know the one, the talk I and every other ADH student had with at least one of their parents when their choice in course was made, I can't speak for everyone's experience, but mine went something along the lines of "I'm gonna go ahead and apply for uni"
 "Studying what?"
 "Performing Arts, y'know the thing I studied at BTEC level for 3 years"
 (BTECs after all only seem to exist as a qualification to get one onto a university course, because a year of trying to find employment taught me it's good for absolutely nothing else.) and here's the kicker.

"What job is that gonna get you?"

Well, obviously I had a well-prepared answer for that, after all, who hasn't, upon choosing their course, thoroughly researched and attained omnipotent knowledge of all possible career trajectories and chosen one for themselves? I mean it's not as if finding that stuff out is THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF GOING TO UNIVERSITY or anything. of course I'm a sarcastic and snarky bastard by nature so that talk didn't last long, I eventually told them I was probably going to go into teaching just to shut them up (I actually might, but it was never "the thing" I wanted to do. To this day I'm still not sure what "the thing" I want to do is, I doubt I will ever reach that level of certainty.

Anyway that's just the parents, chances are if you're on a course like mine you'll have that talk multiple times a year, with varying degrees of arguing, Odds are even if your choice of education is different from mine, you probably will have had some version of "the talk" which simply stems from not doing law and/or business/accounting, because as everybody knows, the degree you have will guarantee you a six-figure salary from the off or doom you to wander the dread lands of job seeking for eternity with no middle-ground.

The unfortunate reality is that even with a degree it will be difficult to find employment, I'm sure everyone reading this is familiar with the "experience" problem, requiring experience to be hired, but being unable to attain said experience because nowhere will hire you without experience etc. It is difficult to find employment with a degree, but I've already found it impossible without one, having applied for many in the year between college and uni with no success. (admittedly my disability does make me unsuitable for a fair few entry-level jobs and that can't be helped) It's my understanding most places don't care what your degree is in, only that you have one, (obviously, it's ideal that it would match up with the job, I'm not including things like medical professionals there) I do fully intend to use my degree to find work doing the things I studied in one way or another but whatever the case you'll probably have to start at the bottom anyway, this is just how things are.

As it is with relatives, so too is it with strangers. God forbid you ever interact with someone outside of your field of study at university, the amount of times you'll hear the same old questions repeated ad nauseum, either asking or outright assuming you want to go into teaching, or what use your degree is. Or, if you're lucky you'll run into someone devoid enough of tact to say something along the lines of "ooh you can get a degree in anything now can't you?" I've heard that one a lot, and I don't think the people saying it realise how insulting that is.

I know the thinking behind it, of course, the preconception of most people I've encountered is that a degree in Performing Arts equates to "Let's go into a studio for three years of Jazz-hands and Shakespeare, right that's that done, here's a degree, fuck off!" Yes! I know, this preconception is only annoying to me, and those on similar courses, but damn it! I have spent three years at university and the very notion that any degree course would be that simple is more stupid than I can handle.

I've joked about the subjective and abstract nature of the course before, I think everyone has at some point, as an example, I've been taken aback by the absurdity of John Cage's 4 minutes 33 seconds and even now that I understand and better appreciate the thinking behind it, I still wouldn't have wanted to go and see it, I can imagine the unsuspecting audience for that first run would've been quite annoyed. Nevertheless, I've got to the point that I'm sufficiently proud of the knowledge acquired in my time here that such a casual writing-off of my chosen course by someone I could never reasonably expect to know better, not having studied it, annoys me, and I'm not apologizing for that YOU PHILISTINES!

and the writing off of my course and others like it as useless especially irks me, because it really isn't "well you learn nothing useful" people say, yeah I mean I don't suppose there's much call for confidence, creative thinking, analytical skills, obviously strong commitment or being good at working with people now is there?

State Of The Industry: Professional Wrestling: the struggles of being a fan

I was actually going to do a part 2 to my video-game one, and I still might in the future, but for now, in the name of variety, I thought I'd write about something else, something I'm going to have to be writing about a lot in the very near future anyway as it's my dissertation research focus.

The title is State of the Industry, but I don't know much about the global industry of wrestling, other than the fact that Lucha Underground and New Japan Pro Wrestling are apparently really good, but I haven't seen those yet, also, it's my understanding (and please correct me if I'm wrong) that TNA Wrestling has been continuously circling a drain and losing TV deals since I stopped watching several years ago (when last I watched I think Bubba Ray Dudley (then going by "Bully Ray") was the world champion, and there wasn't really much of an X-Division left to speak of. Which is a shame because I used to love TNA, it was great once upon a time.

The point there is, this particular post will focus on WWE, what with it being the biggest wrestling company there is (at least in the western world, I don't know if certain promotions are bigger elsewhere) and also the one I've been trying to get back into after deciding to write a dissertation on wrestling.

I had fallen out with this particular longstanding man-child vice around when I came to uni, I suddenly found I didn't have the time or patience to watch five-to-eight hours a week of the John Cena show featuring some other guys. (not a fan of John Cena) I still loosely kept up through friends telling me what was happening, and I still watched the Pay-Per-Views since those were the only shows where anything substantial happened. (early last year, or possibly late 2014 I don't remember, I watched one monthly PPV event, and didn't even think about wrestling until the next one, and I honestly didn't feel as if I'd missed anything in the 4 week interim, nothing had happened, everything was where it had been a month before.) 

it was in part due to the youtube show The Mark Remark by youtuber Martin "LittleKuriboh" Bilany. that I eventually got back into it. (if you haven't seen that check it out, even if you don't like wrestling, it's hilarious.) here's a picture of me meeting Martin at Alcon 2015, with me utterly failing to imitate his "Lawler Joke" face that he's doing. 

It didn't get me watching week-to-week again, NXT did that because NXT is great. 

There were other reasons I fell out with it, partly because being a part of Pro Wrestling fandom is exhausting, as much as I appreciate the craft I cannot escape the reality that a large portion of those who share my fondness for it appear to be children and young teenagers (physically or mentally) and the latter of those, the manchildren, let's call them, create an unfortunate image of "the wrestling fan." This image has actually caused me to feel embarrassed that I like the same thing as these people, not only that but in the product itself (at least in WWE which most people had heard of) well how else can I say it? the writing is dumb, welcome to the wonderful world of wrestling where there is no issue to great to settle with a fight, nor any too small to fight over. Not to mention the writers seem to be stuck in the 1980s in terms of cultural awareness. 

Case in point, right now, in 2016, there is a faction of villainous or "heel" wrestlers called the "League of Nations" Consisting of Sheamus, (Irish) Wade Barret (English) Rusev (who is portrayed as Russian despite actually being Bulgarian) and Alberto Del Rio (Mexican.) these men are currently being portrayed as an antagonistic force in WWE programming. Now, all wrestlers and factions have some kind of a gimmick, it's a universal truth of wrestling to the point that not having a gimmick is considered a gimmick in itself. so what is the gimmick of the League of Nations? Well, besides being evil boss Triple H's hired goons, basically...they're foreign...and...that's it...that's basically why they're bad guys...in 2016.

As you might expect, the League of Nations isn't getting a huge amount of traction, for a multitude of reasons, partly because they keep targeting Roman Reigns, who is the company's "pet project" but who really isn't that popular himself. But mostly, I believe, because you need more than just "evil foreigner" to make a compelling villain in 2016, again, might have worked in the 80s, doesn't really work now. 

This is frustrating because these specific people could have so much better reasons for running over everyone and trying to take over the company as a heel faction should (but that they haven't for some reason)

Firstly let's start off with Wade Barret, currently going by King Barret, he is the most recent winner of the "King of the Ring" tournament, a prize that once upon a time, meant something, the winner would receive a World Championship match along with the king gimmick, not so anymore. Wade Barret could easily be upset about being overlooked despite his accomplishments. A classic heel attitude is "I deserve better, if they won't give it to me, I'll just take it" and that, while a little unoriginal, is a very good reason for Wade to be in a heel faction, he did, after all, lead the Nexus, another such faction in 2010, with much the same ideals. 

Then onto Alberto Del Rio, now, this might seem strange considering I just decried the "evil foreigner" route, but militant Mexican might just work for him for one reason, see, in 2014 Alberto was fired from WWE, not as a work but in real life. I don't know all the details but from what I've heard this was due to a physical altercation between him and a backstage employee who allegedly made racist remarks towards him. I know WWE doesn't normally bring stuff like that into storylines, but Del Rio having been fired for, in his mind, standing up for himself, that's the perfect axe to grind with the company. It would mean the League would have to stop being Triple H's lackeys, but that's only a good thing in my opinion. 

Similarly, Rusev, who used to be a much more emphatic onscreen presence, has been essentially demoted and punished for getting engaged to his fiance, because it conflicted with a WWE storyline, might take a bit of tweaking to make that work within kayfabe (storyline), but that's perfectly useable frustration.

Then there's Sheamus, his is simple, in spite of his accomplishments (4 time world champion etc,) all he hears when he hits the ring are chants of "you look stupid" and there we go, fully realised heel faction of people with legitimate gripes with the company or the fans, and I put very little actual thought into that. So how much thought can possibly be going into it now? 

this lazy, often predictable writing is another example of why I stopped watching, I just couldn't bring myself to be compelled by it, I was more in it for the actual wrestling, as a mode of physical storytelling there's just something about a great wrestling match that is innately fascinating. Of course at the best of times, the physicality is backed up by a number of other factors, we've covered the writing, a compelling story can make the drama of the match itself much more palpable. There's also commentary. A good commentary team can keep the audiences focus on the match in such a way that even an hour-long slug-fest doesn't get old. 

Unfortunately, this seems to be a lost art, as the current commentary teams are...just terrible. For some reason there are now three commentators on RAW and it's even worse than two, and none of them help, between talking about everything EXCEPT the match going on in front of them and them just being irritating (I swear to god JBL if you go "Waah waah waah" one more time I will find a way to somehow convince Brock Lesnar to suplex you so hard that your hat becomes a permanent part of your head from landing on it) 

Back in the days of people like Joey Styles or Jim Ross being lead Play-by-Play commentator, well we actually got some play-by-play commentary for a start, now the commentator's job seems to be mostly to distract us from what we're watching, and if we're lucky they might mention a move or two between shilling the WWE Network. talking about parts of the show not currently relevant and JBL workplace-bullying Byron Saxton, this is not a conducive accompaniment to the goings-on in the ring. 

I just noticed I haven't yet mentioned the women's division, and by extension the  rampant sexism inherent in the WWE product. okay, so short version. Female wrestlers tend to be hired by this company for their bodies and not their ability, essentially hiring models and trying to pass them off as athletes, this started with Trish Stratus, now, to be fair to her, Trish learned her craft admirably and became one of the best performers of her time, she is now a retired former 6-time women's champion, in the hall of fame, and deservedly so. Unfortunately, her success appears to have led the WWE to think that they can train anyone to be a good wrestler, this is not true and led to an era of terrible female wrestlers, from which the division is only just now starting to recover. Also, they call them "Divas" which I think is demeaning already, without the "Divas" title belt resembling a fucking butterfly, and this replaced the Women's championship, which looked like an actual wrestling title belt. fortunately, with NXT being great and being the place most new people come from now, this is getting better.

Unfortunately these problems that caused the decline in my interest still persist to this day and that's not even mentioning Roman Reigns (in short, an otherwise decent wrestler is being shoved down our throats over more deserving performers because Vince McMahon who is in charge wants to try to force us to like him as much as he does) but that's not to say there aren't good things, as I mentioned before, NXT is great, the performers are all good (with the exception of Eva Marie, she is the worst, I mean, even worse than Kelly Kelly years ago. I don't remember the last time someone being so bad and yet getting pushed made me so angry.) apart from Eva Marie, there is a phenomenal women's division, and since most of the new talent on RAW these days comes from NXT, that same women's division is slowly migrating to the main roster and fixing that problem. Also, the rest of the roster have on average a much higher performance standard, NXT fits more good wrestling into one hour than Raw often does in three, (I'll just mention apropos of nothing that a solid hour of Raw's three-hour runtime is entirely ads)

The commentary is nothing special, but is basically inoffensive, which is still objectively better than the main show, so they even win there. Basically, it's a sad day when the developmental show is better than the main one, Even though Raw has a lot going for it, The New Day have taken the lackluster gimmick they were saddled with, (black preachers basically) and made it work spectacularly, which is a huge testament to all three of them as performers (Big E steals every segment he's anywhere near) A.J Styles has had great matches with Chris Jericho, and I think they're setting up for one more at Wrestlemania (I don't mind I could watch those two go at it every week)

So in summary, there are a lot of problems with wrestling, and being a fan thereof, the unfortunate association with other fans, and basically the writing being dumb as a bag of hammers with brain damage, and WWE in particular being INCREDIBLY racist and sexist, seriously I've barely touched on that in this post. but it's also a great method of physical theatre in my opinion, and deserves to be appreciated for that, professional wrestlers put their bodies through hell to entertain people, so it makes me sad that so many dismiss it as a "silly fake sport" despite the fact that it's arguably more physically demanding than most "real" sports out there. I think it starts feeling a lot less silly if you stop thinking of wrestling as a sport, because it isn't one, it's physical theatre.

In any case, that's basically just a few thoughts I have on the current state of the largest pro wrestling company in the world, if you disagree on anything I'd love to hear it in comments

Stop telling me to be more confident!

So, here I sit, in a Live Art class at Uni, without much to do, as my eventual performance will be a solo based in part on some of the things I say on this blog, as such I don't have much use at this point in time for a rehearsal space, at least until I have everything worked out.

This entry may be somewhat shorter as I'm writing it on a smartphone, but with that said I have almost 2 hours to kill and am too polite to leave early, so you never know.

At this point in writing I am unsure how this will go down, as I haven't decided what to talk about, so here's instant-more interesting material technique number one: think up something that annoys you and rant about it, fortunately there's no shortage of things that annoy me, so let's think...

Since I'm in a performance space it seems appropriate to talk about something performance-related, speaking of which there is something a lot of people tend to get wrong about me, more specifically about my confidence issues, namely, it's the assumption that I have confidence issues.

Okay I think I've found a subject, so first thing's first, there is NOTHING wrong with my confidence, but for those reading that don't know me perhaps I should explain   why one might think otherwise.

See, I'm what one might call a quiet guy, I tend to sit and listen in group conversations rather than talk a lot, on nights out many take this as a sign that I'm not enjoying myself, I am though, I just like listening.

Anyway, from that the astute among you will probably have gathered that I'm quite an introverted person, I live in my head and don't like to bother people, if you speak to me I will answer you, but I rarely initiate conversation.

This is not however, an issue with confidence, a little more background info, I am a 3rd year university student studying Performing Arts, this is my 8th year studying this subject at one level or another, 9th if you count one year of Expressive Arts in school, and 10th if you're going chronologically since that point (took a year out between college and uni...nothing happened.)

My point is that for a long time, I've been in a line of work that requires confidence by definition, I did indeed struggle with confidence once upon a time, but I have worked very hard to overcome that.

The reason I think people believe I still struggle could be the aforementioned quietness, but I think I have a better idea, see, I do struggle with something, but it isn't confidence, what I struggle with is guilt.

I feel more or less perpetually guilty, about anything I might do, people have cited my reluctance to approach people to ask them to work with me as a confidence problem, but the truth is slightly different.

Over the years as someone physically disabled (though not nearly as limited as others)  I have come to terms with the fact that in a physical environment people find the prospect of having to put together a performance with me quite daunting, understandably so.

There's also the fact that people will just have other people that they would rather work with, which is only natural, but I've become very good over the years at reading faces.

The point here is, for someone who struggles with guilt it is difficult to ask someone to work with you if you already know that they don't want to, and also that people find it harder to say no to me than some others because wheelchair, to be fair my classmates know me well enough by now to know I won't take it personally, but there's always that niggling thought in the back of my mind that anything anyone has ever done for me was motivated by pity, and I hate that, yet I can't stop the thought from occurring.

So there you have it, I do have a problem, but it's not one with confidence, I'm confident enough, I just feel unnecessarily guilty all the damn time. You can all stop telling me I need more confidence now.

Actually that's another thing, stop telling anyone to be more confident, even if they need to. If someone lacks or needs more confidence, they know, they don't need you to tell them. To me, telling a shy person they need more confidence is akin to telling a homeless person they "just need to have a bit more money" or telling a short person "all you need is a bit more height" you may well be right, but they still don't have it. recognition that you need more of something will not help you get it.

So, yeah...stop saying that

State of the industry: Video Games

Hello everyone, figured I'd stoke the flames a bit on this blog thing to get used to writing again in preparation for essays, and dissertation research (or maybe I'm just procrastinating on doing actual work, time will tell.)
I thought a good thing to do would be to take a look at the various entertainment industries one at a time (let's see if I can actually keep this going longer than one post) and just basically offer an opinion on where things currently stand.

With that in mind, I'm going to start with Video Games, because there's a lot to be pissed off about there, but also some good stuff. Just to start us off, a quick continuation. In an earlier post I commented on microtransactions in games, particularly Metal Gear Solid V. I just want to take this opportunity to point out that I was right, the presence of microtransactions did indeed have an effect on the single player game, there was an inordinate amount of real-time waiting, which was only there to excuse the real-time waiting in the online mode that you could pay to get around. You don't, strictly speaking, need to use these transactions, there's enough content to keep you busy while waiting for most of the time, but that doesn't make it okay (and no, the fact that other games do similar things doesn't make it okay either.)

Enough about microtransactions, though, I think my opinion on them was made clear before, because there's another bone to pick, Konami's barefaced attempts to force you to stay online without actually forcing you, I'm talking about the "online inventory" function, 90% of your resources (that's not an exaggeration by the way that is the actual amount) are now automatically moved to your "online inventory" the only function of which is to make it unavailable to offline users and put an artificial cap on their resources, this is to say nothing of the blatant nickel & diming that is going on, with Konami actually selling horse armour (yes you read that right) as well as other costumes for your character.

This would be fine as, to be fair, they are of a much lower price than costumes have been in other games, until you remember we used to get them free, The biggest example of this, is that if you want to put Snake in a tuxedo (a staple bonus item always available in previous installments) you now have to pay for it. £0,79 isn't much, but it's still more than the previous price of "included with the game you spent upwards of £40 on already" (now normally £50 for current-gen games.) I haven't turned the game on for quite some time so it's possible things have got better in my absence, but I honestly doubt it.

I'm railing on Konami right now to serve as an example of how bad things can be, of course, the route of this problem is Downloadable Content let's be honest, ever since consoles could go online and the very concept was introduced, publishers have been abusing it.

for those unfamiliar, (who have literally never played a video game) Downloadable Content (DLC) is a system by which games can hypothetically be improved and built upon after release, in the purest form the system enables publishers to add extra content (new events, levels etc) to a game via a simple download like the expansion packs of old, except you don't have to buy the game again to get them (normally.)

In theory, I think this is a great concept, as little as 12 years ago, if a developer wanted to expand upon a game's lore or content, the only way to do that was to release an entire sequel, Gone are those days.
Nowadays it is entirely possible to add completely new stories to games via a paid download, at least, that was the original idea.

DLC has become something of a dirty word to me these days, as too often publishers have used it, not to enhance a game, by adding new content, but to further monetize a game after the point of sale by withholding content to sell later. Things like alternate costumes, secret characters, and levels, and sometimes even cheat codes. All of which came free with the game in the PS2/Gamecube/Xbox era, and could be unlocked with skill (or a cheat code,) now are kept from the game and unlocked instead with money after the fact. Capcom actually cut the ending from Asura's Wrath, an otherwise entertaining game, to sell as DLC, having the game end inconclusively unless you paid extra.

No other industry gets away with these underhanded practices, imagine if you bought a DVD, only to find that the special features and audio descriptions were each gated off behind a paywall, and you had to go online and pay to access each thing, (don't think this hasn't been talked about in boardrooms either.) This is essentially the equivalent of what DLC amounts to for most triple A games. DVDs would do it too if they thought they could get away with it, some Blu-Rays already have similar Digital Rights Management software implemented. (why else would a Blu Ray player need an update) but video games are a much more expensive, and comparatively less varied pass-time. This coupled with the fact that video games require a large investment in the console and games to begin with (more so if you're a fan of PC games) creates an audience that is already more invested in a product than most others, and as such will, to a point, suck it up and buy anything.

This is not to say DLC is never used in a good way, Bethesda has a good reputation for releasing worthwhile expansions (even if they did originate the "horse armour" thing) they average three expansions per game, all reasonably priced and well worth the money Nintendo are generally very good with DLC particularly for Hyrule Warriors. More recently CD Projekt has been acquitting themselves well with DLC for The Witcher 3, a lot of which has been completely free, which is more generous than I'd expect any company to be. and these are not the only good examples.

But in spite of these examples, and how well they do (deservedly so) the landscape is dominated by nakedly greedy companies openly bleeding their customers for every penny they can, Square Enix had the world eating out of the palm of their hands when they finally announced the much-requested Final Fantasy VII Remake. However they later went on to announce that the game would come in an episodic format, this does not bode well in my eyes, however, it is not automatically a deal breaker.

Episodic games as a format have been proven to work in the past, The principle is the customer pays in smaller installments for parts of a game's story as and when they are completed. Telltale Games have used this model to great success, both critically and commercially with their episodic Walking Dead and Game of Thrones game series' these are examples of this model done well, but then, of course, the bigger companies got a hold of the idea, and Square Enix don't exactly have my utmost faith in regards to their attunement to their fanbase.

Now, I'm not automatically doomsaying, I'm trying to maintain cautious optimism, Final Fantasy VII is a huge game, even by modern standards, which is remarkable when the technological limitations of 1997 are taken into account, (I actually miss those days sometimes, before visuals became so high-end they actually had to try to impress us with compelling gameplay, what happened to that?)

The reason Final Fantasy VII being such a huge game is relevant here is because it actually isn't entirely illogical to release it episodically, there is easily a long enough story there to release over several installments, they could even flesh it out a bit more, but the trade-off there, (and I acknowledge that all of this is just conjecture) is that an episodic format doesn't leave as much room for the free-roaming open world mechanics that made up a fundamental part of Final Fantasy's formula for so long. This is further supported by the fact that Final Fantasy games haven't been particularly open for a while now, (with the exception of FF14: A Realm Reborn, which is much more faithful to the formula most of us old-school fans grew to love, if I had time for MMOs to justify the subscription I'd be on that a lot more.)

This is the main worry I, and I'm sure many others have with Square Enix remaking Final Fantasy VII, the Square Enix of 2016 is not the Squaresoft of 1997, and it's also been confirmed that the turn-based active-time-battle system will not be returning, this is a thing I am in two minds about.
On the one hand, there's nothing wrong with the ATB system of old in my opinion, it worked wonders for the appropriately titled "Bravely Default" and "Lost Oddysey" from last-gen also serves as a shining example of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

With that said, I can't say I'm not intrigued by the thought of real-time combat in the Final Fantasy VII universe, possibly similar to Kingdom Hearts, which would work I think, but I'd like to see a more refined version that maybe isn't dependent on a menu in the corner of the screen. Essentially, if you're going to abandon the ATB system, then abandon it. Don't try to keep token elements of it around, because we'll just end up with a hideous hybrid possessing elements of two modes of combat but failing to be as good as either,

I have to be honest, Square Enix's recent track record is sketchy at best, and I worry that they might put the greedy business practices I've come to expect of large publishers into Final Fantasy VII: and since it's FF7, it will sell well regardless, which may just reinforce the idea that these practices are okay.

I shouldn't worry so much, in the long run, these problems have a habit of correcting themselves eventually, the mass-market is getting wiser to this crap, it won't work forever, or even for much longer, the cracks are already beginning to show. Also, if the last E3 showed the big companies anything, it was that actually giving customers what they want yields positive results. (on a side-note, SO hype for Shenmue III)

Hopefully, this is a lesson they will take to heart, I doubt it, but we can hope.