I need a break from Open Critique Days (they'll return next week), but in the meantime I thought it would be fun to have another Sharing Day! We've talked before about geek moments that got you sad or weepy, but today I wanted to talk about nerd-dom's dark underbelly: rage.
Here’s the deal:
You can ask me any question you like about whatever you like, which I will answer either completely truthfully or not at all (in which case you can ask something else). I say that because, come on, there are some things no one should have to know.
But you can only do so if you answer the following question about yourself (note that you don't have to ask me anything, if you'd rather not, but I'd still be interested in your answer):
What's the angriest you've gotten over a piece of geekery, whether it be an RPG session, computer game, movie, novel, or what have you?
Here's my answer for that one:
I think I've mentioned this before, but to this day I still get angry over "Superman III". It was such a desecration of an institution I love that I could feel my face getting flush, my hands clenching into fists, and an uncontrollable urge to find the producers and punch them in the face. Non-geeky friends sometimes ask me why I'm not planning on seeing a given super-hero movie, and "Superman III" is why. When you love something so much, seeing it done poorly is much more painful than just sitting through a random bad movie.
I'm getting pissed just thinking about it, almost thirty years later! What an awful, putrid, offensive train-wreck of a movie. I think the entire Superman movie franchise still hasn't overcome the unholy stench of that film splashed all over the character. Bastards.
Now it’s your turn -- let the stories of anger spill forth!
(Image at the top available as a T-shirt from TeeNormous.com.)
I agree with you about Superman III. I feel the same way about Shoemacher’s Batman films.
I’ll agree with both of you about the movies. They left a kind of “package of ground beef found in your trunk three hot summer days after getting groceries” smell after watching them.
What usually gets my “nerd rage” going, if my example qualifies, is other peoples’ geekpinions (geek opinions. Yeah, not my best work).
I do not care if you are the most elegant and erudite orator in all of existence, if I can boil your entire argument down to “I don’t like what you like, so you suck,” then I WILL be p***ed off at you.
Kind of along the lines of your story, Jeff, I get really mad when a book I’ve read and love is adapted into a movie that isn’t faithful to the book. The maddest I’ve gotten, I think, was with Prince Caspian. For one thing, The Chronicles of Narnia are some of my favorite books ever, so that makes me even more judgmental than usual of any adaptation. It was bad enough that they had to go and add that random romance between Caspian and Susan, but the absolute worst part was when Lucy is talking to Aslan and asks what would have happened if she had followed him when he first appeared to her. In the book, he says “no one is ever told what would have happened,” but in the movie it’s changed to “no one knows what would have happened.” This seems like a small change, but to me it represents a shift in Aslan from a beloved character representing an all-knowing god whose knowledge would certainly include “what would have happened” to some random talking lion who happens to be immortal. It completely violates the whole point of the character.
I haven’t even watched Dawn Treader and I do not intend to do so until I can borrow a copy from a friend or library, because I heard it was an even bigger departure from the book, and that was probably my favorite book in the series. One of my friends said I might want to strangle the screenwriter, and I don’t want to pay money to find out whether she was right.
I have gotten a little more forgiving over the years, though—I actually liked Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, for example, even though it was completely different from the book, because at least I felt it was faithful to the spirit of the original (though I think with that one it also helped that the book wasn’t the original).
</rant>
No question just now; I’ll ask later.
there was a time that I really wanted to punch a guy in the face over something nerdy. I was in the gym on a excercise bike, and decided to read some GI Joe to kill time while looking stupid bikeing in place. Anyway a guy I know comes up to me and comment that I was reading a GI Joe comic then said. “GI Joe is 25% red lasers,and 25% blue lasers do you know what the other 50% is? Knowing!” This joke despite it being some what funny pissed me off. I hate when people only I dentify GI Joe by that silly cartoon. In the comic they use actualy guns wiht actual bullets and it has a more serious tone to it. at anyrate I was really mad that this dude had the nerve to make fun of GI Joe based on the cartoon.
another thing that annoys me is when people miss quote darth vader with “Luke I am your father” I always correct them by informing them that Vader dosnt say Luke’s name during that sentence. (seriously watch the damn movie if you don’t believe me) My wife annoys me with this on purpose all the time.
The moment that made me truly angry was after seeing the first trailer for Godzilla (the American one). I had been a big fan of Godzilla, even had a huge Godzilla collection (still do in fact). But that made me scream bloody murder! THAT IS NOT GODZILLA!! Godzilla is the rubber suit wearing, blue fire breathing, monster bashing, lovable, hatable, villain, hero, kick-ass monster from Japan. Not that knock-off! Honestly the movie was ok…but not enough monster action. My rage is still festering 13 years later.
I can’t think of a good question this week. Sorry
oh I forgot my question. do you ever get anoyed when someone miss quotes a movie or show that you love? and is there one miss quote that annoys you the most? {such as “Luke I am your father”
Nakiato, I can’t think of a misquote that irritates me like that, no. The only thing that comes close is when people misinterpret “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, using it to say how awesome they are for being a bold, intrepid explorer taking that seldom-used path, when in reality the poem is saying they’re both the same.
MSCat, that movie pissed me off, too. I hate hate hate that they took half an hour right in the middle while a giant fire-breathing lizard is rampaging through the streets of Manhattan to explore a stupid love story.
@Dr. Shrinker – I’m completely with you on all of that plus Superman IV. They didn’t instill the geek rage at full force because I’ve always been more of a Marvel fan although DC has scored a few points in recent years.
The movie that made me the angriest was Starship Troopers. I have long been a fan of Heinlein (among others) and this was my favorite of his books. I read it for the first time not long after graduating from basic training and really connected with the Ricco. The book is a brilliant coming of age story of a selfish young man who becomes an excellent military leader. The tech from the book and some of Heinlein’s commentaries on society were both striking.
The movie, on the other hand, was a crap-fest about bugs and boobs. They didn’t even keep the awesome armor he conceived for the Mobile Infantry. The visual of troops dropping from space in armor with a variety of built in weapons would have been awesome on the big screen. A lot of the armor tech that we geeks take for granted including jump jets on mechs came from the book. If you want to know what that should have looked like, play Section 8. Between ruining the story, leaving out all the cool tech, and the horrible acting (except Michael Ironside), I still see red at the mere mention of the film.
I don’t know if this qualifies, but it really drew a devil out of me. Standing outside the movie theatre for three hours in -15 degrees Celcius to get opening night tickets for LotR TTT and the last god damn tickets went to the two people right in front of me!!! I was ready to commit a murder right then and there… (And to make matters worse my favourite radio chanel started adverticing the movie all the time)
Can’t think of a question, but if I do, I’ll be back…
When Shadowrun went from 3rd to 4th edition. I was pretty torqued off. Sure, the rules in 3rd are not perfect – but then no RPG has perfect rules, if one did we’d all be playing it. But they completely revamped the rules, and changed the setting. IMHO, it was a different game. Shadowrun has long been one of my favorite games, and game settings. So when they changed it so dramatically, I lost it. Sheer nerd rage.
In fact, I’m getting kinda worked up now…..Grrrrr.
I’ve haven’t bought a Shadowrun product since then, unless I found it at a used store for pretty cheap, and then only 3rd edition stuff. IN fact, I’ve given up on all the ‘new’ systems. No D&D4th, no Shadowrun 5th, etc.
My question, and maybe it’s come up before but I do not recall seeing it; Jeff, are you currently playing any Tabletop RPG’s and if so which ones?
logosgal (3) I completely agree! I love what they did with the first movie since they updated the book and flushed out the characters, but with Prince Caspian … grrrr. The part that makes me want to set fire to Disney is that in the beginning of the book the kids do not remember Narina till they return, and this ties into the whole “moral of the story” of if you believe in “Aslan” then everything will be okay. Instead they do remember and perverted the cool headed Peter into a kid who can’t get over the fact he was once king and has to prove himself in the macho way, and made the main focus of the movie based on the fight and battle scenes. C.S. Lewis who idea for the story was traded a “PG-13” rating.
I think that I speak for a number of “Star Wars” fans, alogn with myself, when I say that I got angry at Jar-Jar Binks. He was useless, idiotic, and he was a tool. The only good thing Jar-Jar ever did was initiate the vote to give Palpatine emergency powers, which is why the original movies happened. But in doing that, he buggered the galaxy. So, I hate Jar-Jar with an intensity greater than that of Tatooine’s suns.
There’s also a great video on youtube of Jar-Jar doing his screen test, then getting shot by George Lucas. Look it up and have a laugh.
My Raging Geeky moment: I have many, but one that hits me hardest was when “A Wrinkle in Time” was made into a movie. Not traditional part of the “geek” culture, but it was one of my first introductions to sci-fi and it is a book that is close to my heart.
In the movie added in parts that were not necessary, messed up the “Mrs.” and Meg and Calvin didn’t even kiss, which gave this hopeless romantic a reason to strangle someone! They messed up the movie in soooo many ways! Worst, the character Meg was changed from this geeky teenager who had a hard time fitting in, to this overprotective tom-boy.
I mean, I could handle plot changes if they at least keep the characters they same, that way it is more AU and acceptable, but when they went and messed up my favorite book like that. . . grrr!
Question: Which of the character designs contests has been your favorite so far in terms of results or creativity?
GeneH: No, I live in the middle of nowhere and haven’t had a sit-down table-top RPG session in forever. The last time was, I think, right before I got married when my buddies flew into town and we had an old-fashioned Champions slug-fest. That’d be 13 years ago this coming Monday :-/
I am a massive Spider-Man fan and although this may sound ridiculous to others, what really gets my nerd rage on is when people mis-spell Spider-Man. Its not spiderman, or Spiderman nor SpiderMan or even Spider Man, its Spider-Man! The name was put that way so he couldnt be confuzed with Superman. At least respect that!
Also,everyone and I mean EVERYONE, distroys the most famous of all Spider-Man quotes. Uncle Ben never said ‘With great power comes great responsibility’ what he actually said was ‘With great power there must also come great responsibility’ Get it right!
Highlander 2 – I wouldn’t even clasify it as the same genre as the first movie.
Just one thing? 😉
I’m with Steve M on this one, just saying it sucks is lame. Especially when it comes to the dreaded Prequels. I hate when peoples excuse is “Jar Jar sucks”, and that’s the whole reason to hate Star Wars. Yes, jar Jar is annoying, and he should have been edited down, but in the end, did he really ruin the entire franchise? I have no issue with people who hate Jar Jar, but if you base your intire hatred of the movies on him, that’s when it annoys me. Yes, the prequels have their problems, but so do the originals. “A certain point of view” is the biggest cop out ever, but no one has an issue with it, because it was in the originals. If it had been in the prequels, people would have freaked out. The other big problem people have with the Prequels is Anakin. I know I’m gonna get destroyed for this, but the problem is really James Earl Jones. The way he delivered his lines in the originals made it impossible for another actor to copy him without sounding wooden. It works for him because he has that James Earl Jones voice. Of couse Hayden Christensen wasn’t going to sound the same, but they had to make him at least try to have the same speech pattern. Again, thought, people just say “Hayden sucks.” Give me a reason he sucks, to you, and not just because we are supposed to say he sucks. Ok, let the hate begin.
Wulf (13) please don’t think my last post was directed at you. I didn’t see your post until after I posted mine.
My biggest nerd-rage would have to be soon after the exitement of seeing the Eragon movie wore off and I realized how badly 20th Century Fox screwed that movie up. I won’t go into the details, but there’s a reason there will be no sequel.
Here’s my question: Do you have any advice for working with “simple” character designs? As in not overloading your HM3 pics with accessories? I have a hard time resisting that. Thanks.
Question: What do you think of Rob Granito swiping art and coming up with stories about working with the comic artist greats (yes, I may inspire more nerd rage here).
My rage is something I’m still seething about: I recently joined an RPG group that reformed after some other members quit. The new members weren’t exactly welcoming, and halfway through the second session my character was arbitrarily disarmed and enslaved and I spent over an hour being shouted by another player (not character, player) about it.
But that’s not the rage. The rage comes from the fact that I was dumb enough to go back for a third session. I let the GM know about my frustration, especially since the player who shouted me out wasn’t playing his character’s disadvantages, and figured maybe things would work out. Nope – the GM let that player BS his way out of playing those disadvantages, and left my character as powerless as ever. I tried to walk out halfway through that session, but was verbally browbeaten into staying until the end.
So, yeah, the experience was so bad it turned me off to RPGs for the rest of my life.
Seems I’m in good company here. Many of these posts strike chords of rage in me in varying degrees. We seem to all hate the same things. I may have to stop reading this thread because it’s starting to angry up the blood!
@Dan: I always hated the “certain point of view” line as a cop out on truth and cover a convenient lie. I remember being really pissed off when I heard it even as a teenager. It’s one of those things that just doesn’t fly in the real world.
@Dan (17): …I might love you, guy. Like, for serious. Sometimes I think I’m one of the only people in the world who see Star Wars as a whole rather than six separate movies. I get so sick and tired of the prequel bashing, especially when it doesn’t acknowledge the actual flaws (awful wooden dialogue between Anakin and Padme, for instance, when it had such potential as a screwed up attraction) and instead just jumps on the obvious things. Like the Jar-Jar misstep.
Of course, I also automatically include deleted scenes and story arcs, such as the formation of the Rebellion from RotS, into my mental canon of the films. As well as the EU material that attempts to explain and bridge anything and everything. It saddens me that other people can’t just enjoy the universe properly and get bogged down by the lame parts.
My nerd rage is usually directed at some of my fellow nerds who act like over-priviliged pricks, but I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for, is it? *grin*
When it comes to adaptations, I tend to shrug and mourn for what could have been instead of getting angry. The Seeker? Depressing because it was so boring that a good Dark is Rising movie series will have a hard time getting made. But not a piss-off point because the books are still there, untouched.
I was taken right out of the new Clash of the Titans by the djinn, though. I mean, what the hell were critters from Middle Eastern legend doing in my Greek mythology? And their special thing is…being unfeeling and blowing themselves up if they can’t kill enemies any other way? Really?
My question: What’s your football team? (Geaux Saints!)
A pure moment of Geek-rage? I’m telling this from my own POV (the guy would tell otherwise).
I was playing Ars Magica, and there was a guy that took various different rules and twisted them consistently while ignoring the parts he didn’t like, to make an über-character, all the while disguising it all behind good roleplay which made the GM love what he did.
And what made me mad was what I perceived as total bad faith on his part.
I can understand people misinterpretating things, or trying to optimize. But doing the misinterpretation voluntarily, muddying the waters, all so purely to have a character that can do everything better than the other players? I HATE that.
In the end, we were 3 players to leave a great game because of that guy 🙁
@Dan
No worries. I love “Star Wars”, though mostly the originals. Jar-Jar never gave me reason to hate it, only a reason to frown on the judgement of those in charge of the series. I actually got more angry with the decision to kill off Chewie. I’ve vowed never to read any of the books that take place after that. I’m a purist in some ways. I don’t like the new Disney adaptations of “The Chronicles of Narnia”, for example. For me, the only versions are the BBC ones. Same with the new Bond films: The series ended with “Die Another Day”. I’m weird like that. And while I hate Jar-Jar for his various annoying qualities, there’s always something worse. M. Night Shyma-whatsit’s “The Last Airbender”, for example.
Seeing as I can’t seem to decide which made me madder, I am just going to list my top two nerd rage moments.
Number 1: Robin #183. I spent three months and hundreds of dollars on Robin comic books, reading every single issue becuse I LOVE Tim Drake. He is absolutely FANTASTIC! In the last full storyline of the series, he kind of came into his own as Robin and it was said that Gotham had a new protector (Batman was dead at the time). He even got his own Robin-Signal!!!! Then, because the writer could not seem to end the series on that happy note and because he had to go along with the upcoming Battle for the Cowl, he wrote issue #183 as if the previous storyline never happened. Needless to say, I was so mad that to this day, I do not count #183 as an actual issue, and have convinced myself that the series only ran for 182 issues.
Number 2: The Last Airbender movie. I have watched every episode of the show at least four times and that movie is purely unacceptable. Like before, I do not recognize the existance of this movie, for it is NOWHERE near worthy enough.
the angriest i’ve ever gotten on something nerdy was a game on the playstation and it resulted in me throwing the controller against the wall where it shattered.
*Blush* Amazingly it still worked for a while after.
no question at the moment
Arioch – I hear you. It takes an effective GM to cut through the BS in a case like that and realize cutting one cheater is better than losing three good players.
I hate to say it, but I feel like that kind of thing is more common among older adult players (30+) than teens or younger adults.
I think I was in a constant nerd rage in 96-98. It was a dark time for comic book movie fans as we were hit by disappointment after disappointment. with such gems like Solo, Spawn, Steel, The Crow: City of Angels, Barb wire, and the mother of all bad Batman and Robin.
People may complain that the CGI mask on Green Lantern looks bad, or Thor’s costume looks to plastic, But I just think back and smile at anything that comes out now.
@Violet (22) thank god. I was starting to think I was the only crazy one who tries to make it all fit together. My biggest problem with watching thw movies is trying to not see the flaws, and thinking, “I would have cut that line, or edited that scene diffrent.”
@TheNate (28) Totally agree. These kids just don’t understand. 😉
@Watson Bradshaw (29) It was the 90’s. We were supposed to be angry. Just ask the marketing people.
I started a post about how “Love Never Dies”, the “Phantom of the Opera” sequel, makes me geekrage. But I haven’t seen the reworked version yet, so it would be very bad form for me to complain about it.
So I started a rant about Buffy the Vampire season eight comics, but I stopped reading them awhile back (for my sanity) so, again, I can’t complain about them. Besides, it’s just the same old same old about characters dying and romance never lasting more than a week. Par for the course with You Know Who, so it’s not something to get worked up over. (I hooked my wagon to the Spike/Buffy ship long ago, with the full knowledge I was never going to get what I wanted in canon. And that is fine.)
Maybe I could complain about “The Last Airbender” movie, but it doesn’t exist. Thank God!
How about this: The movie adaption of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Now, I understand condensing a book for time, I understand the differences in mediums calling for different approaches, and I understand that that book in particular had a lot going on.
STILL. Why the long-ass, utterly pointless dragon chase scene? He was already fighting a damn *dragon*! It was already exciting! We could have that, but the super duper awesome and important scene with Fudge denying Voldemort’s return, setting up the entire next book/movie, wasn’t needed? There were plenty of other rage-worthy things from that movie, but I purposefully haven’t seen it in years so my brain has blocked them out. It soured me on the film series until quite recently, so I guess I need to watch five through seven part one soonish.
But never, ever the fourth one again. It makes me get really irritated and nitpicky, which I hate.
Okay, mine is for all the manga freaks out there! My little brother and I have been fans of the Dragonball series as long as we could bother remembering. Know where i’m going with this? yep, “Dragonball:Evolution”.We were psyched about Dragonball:Evolution when we first heard of it……….Then we saw it. The first REAL Dragonball movie was equivalent to psychological rape for us, if you pardon the expression, because of all the things they did not do, but could’ve done. You know the worst thing? I have it on DVD in my room as I speak.
What have YOU been a fan of as long as you could remember, only to watch an adaptation destroy it?
Jeff: What are your top ten favorite words?
Walking out the theater following the assault on my senses and intelligence that was Transformers 2. Brutal. Just f-ing brutal.
One thing that really got me annoyed was a present I got for my last birthday. It was a version of the Star Wars original trilogy DVD set with the theatrical versions on it. But, two things happened. I discovered that the quality of the packaging was rubbish, with bits falling off the boxes. What made me even more upset was when I discovered that the theatrical editions were of a poor quality and the picture was in a small letterbox. It seemed like they just didn’t care about the films. But, what made me properly angry was when I discovered that Sebastian Shaw as Anakin’s ghost had been replaced with Hayden Christensen. It just didn’t seem right and looked out of place.
But, another thing was when the Percy Jackson film came out. My family and I, being fans of the books, went to see it. On the car trip back home we were discussing and complaining about how mch it had been changed from the books. They made it so that everyone already knew that Poseidon is Percy’s father and all sorts of other plot holes that ruined the chance for a decent sequel. The fact that Percy’s father is Poseidon is a very important plot point throughout the series, but no one is shocked. It was exciting and pretty well done, but it just had so many plot holes that it made me upset that they didn’t seem to care about continuity and any future sequels.
I can’t really think of question right now, so I’ll ask later when I think of one.
@Jeff, we know who your least favorive artist is, who your 2nd least favorite? Mine is, was, and also shall be Andy Kubert. But that’s a whole ‘nother rant.
John (34): I actually got through Transformers 2 by yelling out, “Why, Mickey Bay? Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?” during the Sam Whitwicky resurrection. Since I stole the line from Weebl’s revision of Armageddon http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMyVFrc-0HM which had been released just before Transformers 2 hit the theater, all my friends laughed (and I’m sure we got dirty looks because of it), but since then, we’ve been unable to watch a single Michael Bay movie without one of us yelling out the line at an appropriate moment.
MScat (5): You sound like one of my friends who is a diehard Godzilla fan. Like exactly like him.
MMI (16): That sounds more like me.
TheNate (20): If there is justice, there is a special place in Hell reserved for Rob Granito. After all, is “Thou shalt not steal” the 8th of God’s commandments? If you believe in that sort of thing, that is… I’ve had a hard time reconciling my own beliefs.
I was wracking my brain hard on this one, and really, I’m just not getting rage when I think back on all the bad movie adaptations of geek stuff I love. I hated the version of Wade Wilson (I refuse to call him Deadpool) in the X-Men: Wolverine movie. I really hated Uwe Bol’s BloodRayne (and was actually worried that it might cause me to hate the game, but I still play occasionally). There have been a ton of movie sequels or movie adaptations of comics or video games that I really, really did not like, but I’m not sure I raged per say on these, as much as I suffered Nerd Disappointment.
Rob Liefeld’s so-called “art” causing me to axe X-Men from my comic collecting list, and subsequently leading to my eventual cessation of comic collecting through the 90s and better part of the 2000s, on the other hand, still gives me teeth-grinding, foaming-at-the-mouth anger. I have spent countless bytes of digital information dedicated to my hatred of Liefeld’s work on this forum alone, so I will spare us all any further mention today.
Jeff: What are you listening to right now, or most recently? You’ve put up some music related threads in the past, so it’s given us a bit of a look into your musical tastes, so, what’s on iTunes/radio/CD player/whatever at this moment?
My nerd rage comes out when they colossally screw-up comic movies by re-writing them, such as (and there are on the list than just these): Ghost Rider, Spider-Man 2 and 3, Superman Returns, Superman III, the Ra’s al Ghul of Batman Begins, the Joel Schumacher Batman movies, Daredevil and Elektra, and so severely messing up X-Men 3 and X-Men Origins: Wolverine. And then, sort of all by it’s self is the whole X-Men First Class line-up. Whoever made the judgement call that the only original X-Men on the team should be Professor X and Beast should really have their geek card rescinded. Also, why in the holy hell is Cyclops’ brother Havok on the team before the team leader?
Ok. that’s enough venting for now.
So my question is in regard to the debate about Marvel/DC/Image/Dark Horse. Which do you prefer in terms of either teams, individuals, story lines or their universes in general? If that’s not a question you want to answer then, who are your top 3 favorite artists or top 3 favorite writers?
I’ll tell you all of my explanation for my biggest nerd rage before I actually tell you what my biggest nerd rage was: I was completely bat-**** crazy up until the age of about 16 or 17 (for perspective, I’m 19 now). My therapist is dumbfounded and amazed as to how I managed to make it this far with all the craziness both within and outside of myself. Despite the fact that I was speaking at the age of 0, speaking full sentences at 1, counting beyond twenty at 2, reading at 3, adding and subtracting at 4, writing at 5, doing multiplication at 6, and doing division at 7, despite all the intelligence I showed from an incredibly early point in my life, a variety of factors ranging from a tremendously failed education system refusing to challenge me (the only, I repeat, ONLY thing I learned in Elementary School is that life is so easy that I would never have to expend any effort. Oh, how wrong and unfortunate that lesson was…), to several avalanches of stress in my life, to my Asperger’s induced social awkwardness (resulting in isolation and harassment as a child and adolescent), to my upbringing that told me to believe in things that make no sense, to my addictions to video games and food (which STILL haven’t been fixed), to a myriad of other things, caused me to be, in retrospect, clinically insane. How and why I managed to survive those brutal years, how and why I went under the radar and didn’t receive help for my ailments at a much earlier age, all is a mystery. And thus concludes my explanation for an act that I regret to this day. It can only be explained, and not defended or excused, for I see no honor in trying to defend or excuse what I did.
My biggest nerd rage moment isn’t my biggest because it is the most violent, or the most explosive… It was my longest and most shameful. For at least two years, I had harassed another fellow geek over a difference as petty as which video games we preferred. I called him names, badgered him endlessly, tried to convert him through force and coercion, all because I liked Final Fantasy, and he didn’t. I repeatedly called him “dumpus,” drew many unflattering pictures of him, tried to set one of our mutual friends against him, constantly bothered him with what can only be described as “real-life spam…” I consider myself lucky that he was good enough to forgive me for the pain I put him through.
I seem to have forgotten my question… I’ll ask it later.
I could talk about the movies that have disappointed (Highlander 2, Alien 3, Matrix 2, Star Wars Prequels, X-men 3, The Last Airbender, Superman Returns, and so on) but my sadness overpowers my rage. By the time I get to the end of a bad movie I have been drained of my energy and there is nothing left to rage with.
On the other hand, a fairly recent television event struck me at the height of my excitement and there was fuel to feed my nerd rage. And rage I did…
Imagine a lad watching a little show called Lost that had captured his imagination with excellent characterization and fascinating mythology. I had watched the show religiously from the beginning and was about to complete my experience with the final episode. Now I knew that not all the questions would be answered but I did hope the “parallel” worlds (on-island reality and off-island reality) of the final season would be tied together in a satisfying way. As the last episode marched towards the end, I was not disappointed and I felt like I was getting glimpses of the answer. As the characters “awakened” to the existence of their other selves on the island, I was saying to myself things like “Awesome! Now Sun really knows how much her husband loves her and their lives will be enriched a hundred-fold in the off-island reality”. I thought I was witnessing an awesome happy ending to a show that had assailed the viewer with tragedy and mayhem from the very beginning. Lost would end with a feel-good vibe and it wouldn’t feel cheap and contrived. I was amazed at the genius…
…until the last moments when they revealed what really was going on. Instead of tying it all together, those last minutes made me feel like the wonderful mixture of character and story that had come before didn’t even matter. FRAK YOU!!!!!! I ranted and raged for an hour to my wife. Sorry, honey!
I think my rage was so great because I actually thought things were going great until the big reveal hit me out of nowhere. I didn’t even have time to prepare for the big suck. I thought the ending in my own mind was a far better solution to what they actually did.
Jeff. Have you ever looked at something you raged at with a critical eye and come up with a fix that would have made it awesome (or at least tolerable)?
Okay, I’ve come up with my question, I hope it hasn’t been asked before.
Jeff, what is your opinion of the Star Wars special editions, and what is your favourite version of the original trilogy (unaltered, ’97 etc.)?
unknownblackpaper (14): I don’t know that I can pick a favorite, but the one I find myself thinking of more often than any other was actually Character Contest 31 – Weapon, where you had to come up with a weapon design instead of a humanoid. Some of the designs were just outstanding and it showed an amazing amount of creativity. I think about Spidercow2010’s “Burler” (bear catapult) a lot for some reason. It was a nice break from the usual.
Tuldabar (20) asked:
My advice there is the same as for writing — for every bit you add, ask yourself, “Is this absolutely critical to the concept I am trying to deliver?” If the answer is no, cut it. You ought to be in physical pain as you self-edit. If it doesn’t advance the story of the character, if it doesn’t MEAN something in some way visually, then it should go.
TheNate (21) asked:
I think it’s a really crappy move by a scummy con artist. I feel bad for the truly creative and hard-working people whose hard work he swiped, and to the fans he swindled, who will never have their hard-earned money returned.
I don’t want to get people worked up into a froth over it to the point where the guy’s in danger of physical violence or anything, but he needs to be banned from anything comics related forever, and conventions have GOT to do a better job screening presenters and guests. This is as much of an embarrassment to the convention scene organizers as anyone else, an utter farce that calls into question their credentials at every level.
On the other hand, it was hilarious and fascinating to watch unravel, so on that score it’s way ahead of at least three major broadcast television networks.
x-Stacy (24) asked:
I do love love love the NFL (Sunday Ticket FTW!), and probably would say my loyalties are divided between the Saints (I spent the first 18 years of my life in Louisiana and suffered through the Aints) and the Cowboys (I spent the next 22 years of my life in Texas). For some reason I have a soft spot for the Chargers, though … I bet it’s because the lightning bolts remind me of The Flash. How lame is THAT?!
Violet (32): I really enjoyed the entire Harry Potter series of novels, but I couldn’t make it through even the first movie. Just soooooo long and kind of dreary and dull. I started the second one once, but bailed not too long after it started.
I don’t quite understand why adapters hew so closely to the source material for long stretches which, quite frankly, are not well suited to a visual storytelling medium, then add in new made-up stuff that’s just weird and doesn’t really advance the spirit of the story.
Having said that, I try not to let my experience with one medium (the written word) interfere with my enjoyment of the same story in a different medium (film). They’re different for a reason, with vastly different tools of vastly different effectiveness in their arsenal. You can’t get the deep, introspective monologues from a book into a movie, but movies can tell visual stories like nothing else.
So I try to enjoy the project (or not) on its own merits as a standalone thing rather than trying to measure them against each other.
That was really hard with the LOTR movies because I knew the source material so well. With Harry Potter, I liked the stories but wasn’t super emotionally invested in them, so I was able to take the movie (the one I managed to sit through) on its own merits. Which, frankly, sucked as a movie.
Like with “Superman Returns”. I love Superman as a character and have enjoyed the comics for years. But I tried to judge the movie just on its own merits. And I couldn’t help but think “This is boring as hell — this guy can fly and shoot laser beams out of his eyeballs, why am I watching him deal with his bastard child instead of catching more airplanes falling out of the sky?”
Compare that to the two “Iron Man” movies. Iron Man was probably my favorite Marvel character growing up, and I really like the whole combination of story and character that’s developed over the years. But the movie managed to distill the essence of the character, and do it better than the comics ever did. That’s because Favreau was willing to chuck out whatever didn’t work as a visual storytelling device, and add stuff in that was true to the essence while still being good on-screen. He understood that getting the soul of the story right was way more important than a literal panel-by-panel translation (a la “300”). Movies and comics are different, and you have to walk that line between honoring the source material AND the medium in which you’re storytelling.
Man, that was long — sorry folks!
Joe (33) asked:
I’d have to still go with Superman III and IV. Although I can’t say they “destroyed” it because, come on, the originals are still there and the comics still went on.
Violet (34) asked:
Ha! I can’t say I have ever thought about that before, but here goes:
• Turgid
• Cornucopia
• Hirsute
• Bangladeshi
• Torpid
• Antidisestablishmentarianism
• Exsanguinated
• Vorpal
• Quotidian
• The (I use it every day!)
How about you?
Dan (37) asked:
Andy Kubert, hunh? I’ll have to hear your rant on that! I can see it though — the distorted, long & lean female characters, the overly corded neck muscles. I dunno, though, for some reason he never bothered me all that much.
As for my second-least-favorite, that’s tough. I tend to be fairly oblivious as to who specific creators are (ironic, I know), and only the best of the best tend to penetrate my absorption into the stories to stick with me on a name basis.
If I have to pick one, though, I’ll go with Joe Madureira, the artist on Ultimates 3. He took arguably the best comic both in writing and in visuals of the 2000s and shit all over it. I couldn’t get past his second issue. The storytelling was horrific, to the point where I literally could not tell what was going on in several scenes. The anatomy was only barely human, the characters all looked like they were in the throes of some bone-eating alien infestation, and the entire product looked like it had been dipped in India ink. I hate, hate, hated the entire look of the thing.
The craptacular writing didn’t help any, of course, but it was the art that made me want to shoot myself in the face. I rarely have that visceral reaction to a comic, so I guess that qualifies Joe Madureira as my second-least-favorite artist of all time.
Myro (38) asked:
I’m such a musical barbarian it isn’t even funny. Literally at this moment playing on iTunes here is this ridiculous Joan Baez “Diamonds and Rust” song from a “70’s Feelings” album. It’s so bad … sometimes songs come on and I’m like, “What kind of crack was I smoking to put that on my iPod on purpose?!”
Mostly I listen to country music, but I also love rockabilly/swing and anything that makes me laugh. Kevin Fowler is a Texas country artist who writes songs that are both really good and really funny. “Beer, Bait, and Ammo” is a classic.
Jadebrain (40): Wow, thanks for sharing that. I feel for you … I wonder how much of the “geek” phenomenon comes about at the intersection of “lack of challenge” and social awkwardness inherent in our public school system? A lot, I’d bet … Glad it sounds like things are starting to get better for you.
@Jeff: You got me listening to Lemon Demon’s “Word Dissociation” again…
1. Rapscallion
2. Flounce
3. Caveat
4. Finagle
5. Risque
6. Calliope
7. Veranda
8. Copacetic
9. Bourgeoisie
10. Fuck (I use it every day!)
Anybody else?
dblade (41) asked:
Yes — George Lucas should have hired a director other than himself for every “Star Wars” film after the first. Someone needed to be there to direct the actual humans in these movies, and clearly Lucas was not interested in that aspect of the job. The first two prequels were good stories, but my God, the awful directing was just crippling. You have to believe these people believe what they’re doing, and that falls on the director. From actor interviews, they were all apparently just thrown to the wolves. That one factor sucked the soul and heart out of a lot of those movies.
Oh Violet, I was this close to having your Number 10 on my list, too 🙂
Trekkie (42) asked:
I actually agree with George Lucas that whatever version of “Star Wars” was being released while you were “of a certain age” is the “best” Star Wars, and everything else sucks. For my generation, it’s the original trilogy and the rest is crap. For the next generation after, the prequels were the shiznit and the original trilogy fairly inferior. For kids today it’s the “Clone Wars” cartoons.
So you have to factor that into any “Which Star Wars is best” discussion. Typically, I think the first two prequels were not great films, mostly for the wooden acting and completely missing human direction. Lucas fell way too in love with the tools of storytelling and forgot that it’s the story itself that’s the most important thing.
The most telling moment for me in the entire prequel trilogy to illustrate that point is the off-handed, completely casual “mitochlorian” explanation Qigon gives. It took one of the coolest, most compelling aspects of the entire first trilogy and just threw them out, literally for no gain.
I swear, if it weren’t for Ewan Macgregor’s outstanding acting in the face of almost overwhelming greenscreening, I’d have probably bailed on the last two movies of the prequels. But I will say that the last one was very enjoyable, especially the climactic battle in the lava flows.
And throughout, the fights were outstanding. I just wanted more fully-realized human characters (whether homo sapiens or alien) fleshing out the special effects.
But that wasn’t really your question, was it?! Ha, sorry! And I don’t mean to totally trash the prequels, there were a lot of fun moments and I can totally understand how people love them.
For my money, I prefer the original trilogy with the updated special effects, except with Han shooting first. That was such a crappy decision and almost ruined my favorite character in the whole six movie arc. Throw that out and keep the cool stuff (like the awesome Tattoine exteriors) that juiced up the limited special effects of the theatrical releases and I’m happy.
Yep. Lucas a mediocre director, and while his ideas can be great, he does make some big mistakes (I’m looking at you Suck Suck…er…Jar Jar.)
Everyone points to Jar Jar (and yes, he was awful), but just as frustrating for me was the whole Anakin love story. I just did not buy that these two were honestly in love. I didn’t see it acted out on screen, I didn’t get it from the dialog, and I certainly didn’t get it from anything other than directorial fiat. And yet, that’s the most human heart of the story. Without that being believable, nothing else really makes sense. And yet, Lucas treated it more like an irritant that he had to include when what he’d rather be doing is designing yet another CGI robot.
Everything else aside, the prequels are about how love can make you do terrible, horrible, evil things. And yet I never for an instant believed that these two characters were actually in love. And it’s not like Natalie Portman can’t act — she can, very much so! What she can’t do is direct herself. Ewan McGregor could, but he’s brilliant. Liam Neeson couldn’t.
At least Jar Jar had an actual personality. It was an irritating, grating, racially charged, thoroughly obnoxious personality, but it was there!
See, now you people have gotten me all frothed up with nerd spittle. Never a good thing on a Friday.
dblade, that Jar Jar comment just reminded me of a Deadpool moment. Look at it in it’s entirety. AWESOME!!!!
http://www.toplessrobot.com/tumblr_kvwud6J7An1qa1oa7.jpg
That’s funny, McKnight!
Jeff (58): Hey, you started this thread, so you reap what you sow. Besides, I think I gave myself a stress headache when I was typing out my entry because I had clenched my jaw so hard in anger.
Violet (53): That sounds like a challenge. Let me see what I can come up with.
Top 10 favourite words? Just ten, there are so many to choose from! Well, lets see;
1. Canadian
2. Ka (admittedly of Egyptian origin rather than english)
3. Definition
4. Healthy
5. Hungry
6. Splendid
7. Hubris
8. Flabbergasted
9. Anal-retentive
10. Sex (Fuck was already taken)
@Jeff(58): I personally felt that they were setting up this ill-fated, whirlwind romance that was fueled by past feelings, the impending uncertainty of war, and general bad decision making on the part of an otherwise level-headed and accomplished politician…but had no idea how to accomplish the not too creepy/not too schmaltzy balance. And they had the whole twins thing that HAD to happen, so maybe they felt pressured to make it feel more like an epic romance than it should have been.
Now, I’ve heard the complaints of “How could Padme have fallen for such a whiny, creepy little sociopath?” Well, why does anyone? Why did your best friend stay with that asshole for ten years before divorcing him? Why did you date that one person for six months before realizing you had nothing in common? People are human. Yes, it’s true! Even fictional people. Surely she had those private moments with him that cemented her adoration, the quiet snatches of mundane they got in their crazy lives.
If RotS hadn’t gone down like it did (his fall, the bundles of Jedi joy, etc), their marriage was already under enough stress with the secrecy, her position, and his temper/issues that I don’t see it having lasted. I mean, I dunno about Nubian divorce opinions, but they couldn’t have gone on like that. Something had to give.
Again, folks: Fanfiction makes everything better. Everything. Except Boba Fett banging Mary-Sues. They don’t fix anything. 🙁
Okay, got it! In no particular order:
1. Portmanteau
2. Preponderance
3. Smite
4. Incandescent
5. Quorum
6. Negligent
7. Imbecilic
8. Capitulation
9. Coitus
10. Boom (sometimes a word doesn’t have to be complicated, it just has to be fun to say).
I’m still pissed about One More Day. Kinda self explanatory.
Also, at my school, all the ghetto kids wear comic-themed shirts. And that really pisses me off. These kids have never read a comic in their life! Often times, they wouldn’t be able to name several of the characters on their shirts! Or recognize that the image on there shirt is from X Comic, issue X, drawn by Jack Kirby or John Romita!!!! It pisses me off! It makes me look like I’m trying to be ghetto when I just want to wear a green lantern shirt or whatever. Grrr.
I was totally blown away on how horrid The Green Hornet movie was. I loved the the tv series, but the movie was pathetic!
woops, forgot my question. Jeff, what is your favorite TV show/Movie (take your pick) of all time?
The most nerd rage I ever had was listening to a book on CD I had received for christmas. The book was “Here there be Dragons”. To me, the story seemed to be a frankinstine of many of my personal favorite stories, cobbled together into a hidious abomonation. This story is only good if you listen to it intending to MST3000 it or play drinking games to it. As an example of the levels of sucky this book contains, (spoiler) there is a part in the story where the major enemy has the prodagonist and his party at his mercy. At this point the major bad guy demands an item of great importance from the hero. The hero hands the item over wraped in a leather cloth. The bad guy (who at this point has displayed no levels of stupidity) DOES NOT UNWRAP THE LEATHER CLOTH TO CONFIRM THE CONTENTS!!! THE HERO AND HIS PARTY KEEP THE ITEM!!! (End spoiler). The whole book is like this, and both the heros and villans are guilty of it. Conflict is created and resolved through stupidity… sorry for the rant. I still rage over this.
I also think Nicholas Cage should never have been Ghost Rider. He is puny.
@punkjay: what did you not like about the Green Hornet movie? I thought it was alright. Sure it had a few flaws, but I was pretty entertained. Plus, it introduced a classic hero to a new generation, which was pretty cool.
@remy(65): Hell, my brother and I were pissed about OMD and we don’t even read Spiderman. Lazy writing and out of character actions just to get to a massive retcon gone about in such an offensive way, all to ruin pretty much the one good thing that darling Peter Parker had in his miserable life, well…there’s no excuse. There really isn’t. And there are so few honestly happy, lasting marriages in comics to begin with. (I don’t think I should count Sue and Reed…)
The angriest I get is when random kids have super hero t shirts and dont know who is on their shirt.
whoops remy said that too! I guess great minds hate alike
“Great minds hate alike” is now going on my family crest. Awesome.
Remy (67) asked:
That’s a really hard question. In terms of geeky shows, probably “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
But, true confession time, I’m a huge “Columbo” fan. Yes, that show with Peter Falk where he’s the seemingly bumbling, but actually brilliant, LA detective with any number of quirky mannerisms. The stories are all told such that you see the crime happen, so you know who the murderer is all along. Often Columbo himself doesn’t make an appearance until a good half hour into the show. The joy is in watching him figure it out, even though you know already whodunnit.
I actually own all of the Columbo original series episodes on DVD.
And that may be the geekiest thing I have ever admitted to here ::blush::.
Violet (63): See, I disagree. To me, the movie has to stand on its own. If you have to read a bunch of supplemental material from another medium for it to be good or make sense, it’s a failure as a movie.
I do understand where you’re coming from, though, in that something like Star Wars is not just a set of six discreet movies, but this enormous, sprawling creation that spans multiple media and decades. Still, to me the movies have to stand on their own as either good or bad, without having to resort to all the other stuff to support it. But I’m old-school that way.
Jeff: You are welcome to game with me, should we ever meet. Although, it would be lesser known systems–like those I write, or friends write.
Ajw: I’ve made sure kids of my friends know who is on their posters/shirts/whatever. No kids of my own though. I recently had to lend my nephew a Thor trade from way back, so he would know who who Beta Ray Bill was originally (He appears in the cartoon for Planet Hulk.)
Anyway. I don’t get into a lot of rage things anymore. I sigh and go on. I guess it just my life (and good medications. *LOL*)
@Jeff (76): No, you are *sane* that way. My view only makes sense that one way (all-encompassing and gleeful), so I understand that as far as the average (or simply not enthusiastically obsessive) person is concerned, it is ridiculous to expect them not to see it as “good movie, bad movie”.
Seeing things the way that I do, with a blending of adaptions, makes it really difficult to get people into stuff I think they’ll enjoy. Like, say, Phantom of the Opera, which requires at the very least reading the (confusing) original book, the (difficult to obtain) favored backstory novel, and watching a (very hammy) movie musical before gaining a real understanding of how many different things it can be seen as.
So, yeah, I totally agree with you on not agreeing with me. While seeing the Watchmen movie, my mom wanted to know all the little background tidbits they were showing but not explaining (she ended up reading the comic afterward), but my dad just wanted to watch the damn movie and if it didn’t tell him anything then he didn’t need to know it.
Hey Jeff, I’ve been away all day, and I actually thought of two questions for you. Your choice as two which you would prefer to answer.
1) If given the chance, what would be the one comic you would like to work on the most, be it as artist, writer, etc.?
or
2) We all here know how good an illustrator you are. However, we are all our own worst critics. What do you feel is the artistic area you need the most work/practice? Mine is I need to just practice drawing. :/
I was having a particularly bad day… no week. Our D&D party was breaking into an abandoned keep. Being the thief, I went to scale the wall then open the mammoth gates from the inside.
Not only did I fail my 85%-chance climbing rolls three times in a row, but another character made his with less than 5%-chance. The paladin in FULL PLATE ARMOR was able to scale a 70-foot high tower…
I was so frustrated that I threw the percentile dice so hard that they both split. Granted, I threw them against the brick mantle of a fireplace.
@Violet(32): I’ve never read Harry Potter or seen the movies. Funny though because “chasing the dragon” is slang for shooting heroin.
@Jeff: If your friends were an hour late to pick you up for a birthday party, would you be pissed too?
Atomic Punk (79): I don’t think there’s a person out there that’s put in any significant time with D&D that doesn’t have at least one of those stories. One of my favorites us from the other side of it, where we were expecting our party’s barbarian to open a barred gate for us, dude had a Strength of 19, and my friend couldn’t roll for crap that day. Finally, because i thought it would be funny, I.had my Elven wizard with a strength of 8 take a crack at it, rolled just enough to beat the check, and I sqid, “Oh, you must have loosened it for me.” I’m pretty sure my friend was about to hit me in the face.
Also yes, I’d be hugely pissed at my no-show friends.
Myro(80): I have exactly one dice rolling story from my days playing D&D during high school, back when 3.0 was the latest thing. We mostly just goofed around and never accomplished anything, aside from the occasional dungeon or brief task. This was goofing around at its finest.
My best friend had a fighter or a rogue, I don’t remember which, but at any rate the character had a sword. All of our characters were hanging around a barn on the outskirts of a town, probably because we had been kicked out of the tavern. (Things tended to explode when we were around.) My friend’s character was having an argument with another character about fighting skills and was told “You couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn with that thing!”
Well, that challenge was not going to go unmet! She strode very purposefully to the nearby barn, swung her sword…and utterly failed her roll. It was something like a two and her sword went straight into the dirt. We all thought this was hysterical, especially her boyfriend the DM, but she was certain she could do it on a second try. I mean, we had been fighting crap all day and she had killed stuff! It was the freaking side of a huge barn!
…She rolled a one, her sword went flying out of her hands across the barnyard, and we never let her live it down.
The Atomic Punk(79): …And now we know what drug they were doing while writing the screenplay adaptation! Brilliant!
The talk of Star Wars reminded me of my nerd rage getting the best of me. I was so irritated after watching the Phantom Menace I went on some Star Wars forums looking to share my misery and find like-minded haters. There were people talking about how they enjoyed the movie and I jumped in about how much it sucked—paraphrasing of course, I’m sure I was more eloquent in my choice of words. 🙂 A wise forumite posted a gentle rebuke asking me why I was doing this in a place where people obviously liked the movie and were just sharing that enthusiasm. I realized I had become a shameful troll that day. While I enjoy a good hate rant as much as the next guy I also didn’t want to ruin someone else’s enjoyment especially in their own “house”. There were other places where it would be appropriate and appreciated.
@76 I also think movies should stand on their own, and that’s why I’m the least enthusiastic person I know when it comes to Abrams’s Star Trek (which is to say I mostly enjoyed it in the theater, I’m glad I saw it, and I never need to see it again). Reading the prequel comic filled in what had previously been massive plot holes, but it really bugged me I had to read it to get those missing plot pieces.
Steve M (78): I’d most want to work on …
Well, I’ll answer the second one instead. I need to work on almost everything. My anatomy is crap a lot of the time, I rely too much on reference, I’ve forgotten how to use a pencil, I can’t ink worth a crap most days and don’t really know what I am doing even on the good days, environments take me forever and bore me, I don’t know how to tell a good story in visuals, folds of clothing still vex me … is that enough? Seriously, we could open the door on some epic level self-nerd-rage on THAT question.
Atomic Punk (79): Sure, I’d be a little pissed. But since I hate birthdays anyway, it’d probably be a welcome excuse to split early 🙂
X-stacy (84): I have to say, I really enjoyed the Abrams Trek movie. In fact, I just re-watched it (third time, I think) a couple of days ago. I thought it was a ton of fun. I do wish he hadn’t been quite so hung up on belaboring the “this starts an alternate timeline” stuff to placate the hardcore fans, but I guess I can see where he’d want to cover himself with protective layers of Internet flame-guard.
What backstory stuff were you missing that needed to be filled in? I’m so familiar with the whole Star Trek universe that I probably mentally filled them in on my own automatically, to the point where I didn’t even notice there were holes in the first place.
Can’t recall specifics, as I only saw the movie once and read the prequel comics once, but it was the direct backstory of the movie (particularly about the super-super-nova thing) rather than universal background.
I’m a sucker for detective stories, and Columbo sounds really interesting. Netflix has the whole series available for instant play. I know what I’ll be doing this weekend.
I was really angry when I saw Deadpool in X-Men Origins: Wolverine movie. Because, well, that wasn’t Deadpool I know and love, instead it was just some zombie without a mouth.
Say Jeff, what do you think of a thing that is very popular now – the stories about the end of the world 21 December 2012?
Malfar, you do realize the worst part of the Mayan Calendar’s doomsday timeline, right? No Christmas or New Year’s celebrations! Personally I’m more bummed about New Year’s Eve celebrations being cancelled.
Malfar (91): I think they’re just as real and scary as the other 10,000 doomsday prophecies that preceded it and now lie forgotten in the dustbin of history 🙂
I mean, the movies and such based on it are fine — I’m always happy to grant any fantasy type show the benefit of suspending disbelief for at least one major plot premise, and catastrophe stories are a staple — but in terms of reality, no, not so much.
@Violet (78), see what we started?
@Jeff (50), I hate Andy’s art for all the reasons you mentioned, but the worst is the way he does faces. His basically draws two emotions, sadness and screaming rage. here’s a link to one of his early X-Men covers.http://www.comicvine.com/x-men-x-cutioners-song-part-3-fingers-on-the-trigger/37-106566/
What the hell is going on with Apocalypse face? And he’s trying to do his best Liefeld impression with Rogue. The biggest problem I had with him was he wouldn’t go away. At a time in the 90’s when people were leaving books all the time, I got stuck with him on X-Men for 5 years. And this was after he did a run on Ghost Rider. Then after X-Men, he goes on to Captain America. I couldn’t get away from him. So I got five years of Cyclops screaming everytime he used his powers. Here’s one where he destroys two of my favorite characters on one cover.http://www.comicvine.com/x-men-bloodties-part-ii-civil-disobedience/37-65727/
What the blue blazes is happening to Cap? Is he giving birth to an alien? These are just two examples of his art, and these were the covers, just imagine how bad the inside was.
Ugh, those ARE pretty bad, Dan. I’ll have to go back and reevaluate my opinion of him, I think …
Dan(94): are you SURE that is not a Liefeld cover? I didnt know anyone else was capable to stooping to his level.
X-stacy(89): That is the only Star Trek movie I have ever seen (I know, I know, please don’t give me grief about that), but I understood it just fine without any kind of back story.
I don’t know if you are still answering questions today, Jeff, but I wanted to ask you who your favorite arist is. Mine is Francis Manapaul. I love his work on The Flash and his style is instantly recognizeable (I wish I had spell check).
Oh, and to all of you who keep complaining about the Narnia movies, I love and have read all of the books at least three times and I love the movies to death. Yes, the last two were nowhere near as good as the first, but Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe was the best book of them all. Some of the other books were just plain old boring at times, like the Dawn Treader. As Jeff has been saying for a while now, books and movies are two completely different mediums and some changes have to be made in order to create something that will be entertaining to watch. For example, at the end of Prince Caspian (the book), C.S. Lewis (whose real name is “Clive Staples Lewis” for those who were wondering) spends a lot of time describing the feast they have after the battle instead of describing the battle itself. I don’t know about you, but I would not like to go to a movie that is nothing more than some kids eating a meal with a talking lion. I apologize for my bluntness, but the world isn’t all smiles, puppies and rainbows, and I HATE when writers and directors alike pretend that it is.
My rage is actually directed at people who would label me a nerd or geek simply because I don’t like the same things they do. I mean, why is one hobby or genre of entertainment considered socially acceptable while another isn’t? Who decides? Why is a guy that dresses up in his homemade Storm Trooper costume a weirdo while the guy that puts on makeup and a clown wig before he goes to a footbal game just a fan supporting his team? God forbid someone wants to use their imagination instead of wallow in the banality of pop music and reality television…wow, I have issues.
Sutter_Kaine, you don’t have issues. The people you describe are the ones who have issues.
ps: the only people who consider reality television quality entertainment have never a.) read a comic book, b.) watched ANY good movies (i.e. Star Wars, Teriminator, The Dark Knight, etc., etc.), or c.) READ A BOOK!
I know I have been talking (or typing) a lot lately, but I just wanted to point out one thing no one seems to mention about the Batman and Robin movie: George Clooney.
if (Batman = badass && George_Clooney != badass){
George_Clooney != Batman;
}
Sorry to all of you non-programmers, I am working on a project in Java and thought it would be appreciated here 🙂
It’s not that I didn’t understand it, zaheelee–it’s that I didn’t buy it. Trek science is wonky at the best of times, but when you’re talking about a supernova as if it’s a danger to the entire galaxy…well, it’s pretty laughable unless there’s some explanation for why this supernova is so different from any of the other supernovas that have happened in the galaxy.
@Sutter_Kaine: If you like, tell the sports fanatics that fantasy sports leagues are Dungeons & Dragons for people who beat up the people who played Dungeons & Dragons. For the record, I am a huge NFL fan but never dressed like a brain dead moron for a game. If I am going to surrender what I loosely call dignity for something it must rise above a football game.
@zaheelee: It is by convention that we do not discuss Clooney as Batman along with everything else that is involved in the mercifully final Joel Schumacher Batman film. It is truly regrettable that Bob Kane lived to see the film. Perhaps he died of a broken heart after seeing the this abomination.
Zaheelee (96): Strange as it is to believe, in the 90s, almost everyone was stoopong to Liefeld’s level. It reminds me of a conversation I had with my friend IRL, while I was going off on Liefeld again, and he made the ignorant comment, “He can’t be that bad, or else why would comic publishers keep him employed?” To which I replied, “That’s just it! Not only was he able to remain employed as a comic book artist, at the height of the 90s, Liefeld was the most popular comic book artist in the industry! He was pulling in six or seven figures a year by some accounts! The only explanation was that we were living in Bizarro World.” So, given that Liefeld was a freaking rock star in the industry at that point, it makes sense that other artists were mimicking his style. Which is why the 90s are referred to as The Dark Ages of comic books.
zaheelee (100): I don’t program in Java, but as much as I enjoyed the logic of the statement you presented, and as much as I will agree with your premises, the fact is that George Clooney+Batman=ridiculous. Logically, it makes as much sense as:
Gin=repulsive
Tonic water=repulsive
Gin+tonic water=Magically delicious
Both statements are equally preposterous and equally true.
Also, I’m avoiding my profile page right now.
X-Stacy(101): I see your point, and it makes a lot of sense. Do you happen to know if supernovas are big enough to destroy a whole galaxy? And wouldn’t a black hole that is big enough to destroy said supernova be big enough to destroy the whole galaxy, too? So many questions!
zaheelee (100) I’m sorry but I think oyu broke my brain with George_Clooney != badass
Really where I playing a word association game. Badass is one of the last phrases I would think of to associate with George Clooney.
Yeah, that was my other big problem now that you mention it, zaheelee–in what way would replacing the supernova with a black hole be “helpful” to people nearby? Well, that, and wondering how exactly a mining ship became such an unstoppable force of destruction.
In actual science, there is no known way that a supernova could destroy the galaxy. But, even though I can’t remember what it was, there is an explanation for it in the prequel comic. Also revealed in the comic is that the Romulan ship got souped up with Borg-derived tech in the future.
And that was my point–it irritates me that they have explanations for these things, but can’t be bothered to include them in the film itself.
Thanks for the clarification, X-stacy. Super-novae do put out a tremendous amount of energy in one big huge explosion, that would wipe out any planets in the system, but they’re not a galaxy-level threat by any stretch. We’ve witnessed several over the decades since modern astronomy came into being and we’re all still here.
I didn’t take it as the super nova was going to destroy the whole galaxy at all (it couldn’t have, or else the mining ship wouldn’t have been able to arm up and go back in time), just that it was going to destroy the home world of one of the key players in galactic civilization. A “local” catastrophe, but still an urgent one affecting billions of Romulans. If the pre-comic tries to make the case that this was threatening the galaxy then I’m really glad I didn’t read it, as the death of Romulus was plenty urgent enough for me in the movie.
I figured the upstream Federation figured the Romulan sun was a goner no matter what, so to destroy it via a black hole would at least keep it from wiping out the entire solar system in one big fwoosh, killing everyone instantly. I don’t think a one-star black hole would have enough gravitational pull to suck in the planets, at least not for quite a long while, so I assumed it was all a play for time to try to get everyone evacuated off the planet or something.
Anyway, it was one of those things in a fantastic-fiction movie that I sort of grant as necessary for the plot to advance — they needed to stop the planet form being destroyed, they failed, whatever, the exact mechanisms can be hand-waved aside mostly.
What DID bug me was how a mining ship could get to be that incredibly effective, even with weapons from the future. I mean, you put missiles on an oil tanker, it’s still not going to have the armor and shields and structural integrity of a battleship. And I also never figured out how they were able to make rips in time, or if they just stumbled across this anomaly.
zaheelee (96): I’m an old-school guy, so I’d have to say Gil Kane is probably my favorite comics artist. Of the current guys, I like Mark Schultz (“Cadillacs and Dinosaurs”) and Brian Hitch (especially his “Ultimates” run).
You have to admit that just setting aside everything else, George Clooney is way more of a badass than Michael Keaton. And yet Keaton was a way better Batman. That tells me the problem isn’t really the actor, but the director (and script). It’s hard for anyone to pull off a good performance when running around with his nipples exposed in a bizarre S&M fetish flick.
MMI(105): != means “not equals”
Yeah, I had no problem with Clooney as Batman. I had a big problem with bad writing, bad direction, and poor casting choice of Arnold Schwarzenmuscles as Mr. Freeze. Truly horrendous.
I think it kinda made The Green Hornet look like a moron. He reminded me more of Duddly More’s Arthor than Green Hornet
dblade(111), I agree Mr. Freeze should have been someone wimpier looking than Arnold. Also Uma Therman as Ivy was a bad idea too. Gillian Anderson in her X-files day would have been better.
Okay, there are two things I get my geek rage on about–one directly related to “Star Trek Online (@sirannataan if you want to add me) and one overlaps with the game.
What gets me in a tiff in-game is when folks just name their toons inconsistent with their species. I mean, you’re gonna have the bozos who name their toon Captain Hello Kitty, and you can’t do much about that. But naming giving your Vulcan a first, middle, and last name, or naming your Trill John Smith, or your human Aoiho’aqe ca’Wragaw Gewq-bwionba burns me. Have some respect for the franchise.
The other thing that boils my blood is the all-around misuse and abuse of Ferengi. Okay, let’s get this straight: The Ferengi were originally designed to be the biggest bad*&%%es in Star Trek. Then they toned down the make-up design to be all rounded-off and cutesy. Then they suffered, as all characters and species did, under Season 1 writing, and folks during TNG never bothered to clean it up. DS9 helped to turn around matters some by making them one of the main species in the series, and thus necessitating making things a bit more serious. They still made some cringe-worthy “comedic” Ferengi episodes, but then you have a serious character like Nog (one of my all-time fave ST characters), and even a usually played-for-jokes character like Quark gets one of the cooler speeches in the franchise, in Season 1 when he and Sisko are captured by the Founders and Quark lectures him on Humans looking down on the Ferengi, a species who’d never had things like slavery or holocaust. There are admirable traits to the Ferengi: they’re hardworking, don’t discriminate against other species, and look down on conspicuous consumption as being wasteful. But, in so many fans’ minds, the Ferengi are this joke species, thanks to being weighed down by jokey episodes and early bad writing.
So, you would think that the good folks of Atari and Cryptic, who are labouring under these big, detailed contracts with CBS to get Star Trek Online as “right” as possible would give one of the more important species in the franchise some proper treatment. No such luck. First off, what’s with the names they’ve given some of the Ferengi NPCs? “Garlianto”? That’s not a Ferengi name, that’s something I order in an Italian restaurant. And the Ferengi they had in the “Cloaked Intentions” series are built EXACTLY like Cabbage Patch Kids.
Okay, now for my question–have you ever got into MMOs?
Whit: HUGE World of Warcraft player, off and on. Male Night Elf Druid was my first 70 (when that was the limit). But the endgame wasn’t for me — raiding is too much time, too “other-dependent”, and too boring. So I kept running alt after alt up in level until I got tired of it.
Great game, though. Sadly now I am on satellite internet and can’t play online games any more due to the inherent lag of sending a signal to space and back.
@Jeff(115): I personally love DC Universe Online, but there never seems to be anyone on, and it is REALLY hard to beat some of the dps bosses when your dps is sucky because you made the choice to be a healer (don’t get me wrong, being a healer is great and usually gets you picked for groups and raids, but the damage output sucks). Anyway, I really like the game and I am trying to get more people to play it, so you should give it a shot!
Thanks for the recommendation, Zaheelee, but unfortunately I can’t really play any MMOs due to the high latency built in to satellite internet access. It sucks, but there’s not much we can do about it at this point.
Hey–anyone who watches Batman: Brave and the Bold! Did Bulletman get a cameo when his enemy the Weeper teamed up with the Joker for the Vile and the Villainous episode?
Harley Quinn.
Zaheelee: I play DCUO, but all the people I know playing vanished. I mostly sit and poke at the same missions with different alts. (I’ve got a 30, but no “gear” because I’m a bad player apparently.)
MMO’s are a huge time sink (sadly) for me.
Tim Kirk: I remember when it first came out and all of the servers were so full that you had to wait 30 min before you could play. Then, once you got in, there were so many players that you only had to take out one in every twenty enemies. *sigh* I miss those days 🙁