Monday, July 23, 2012

Media Bits

No, I'm not posting bits of media. I have a YouTube account, but I hardly think anyone needs to see me sitting there poorly delivering a speech on like why I got dreads or a tour of my house or anything like that. I need a platform, I have a blog. Seriously, I don't even journal because why get hand cramps when I can share my thoughts with all of you?

Even if there are no readers, this is much easier.

But no, the media bits in question are bits of media that I am going to mention/rant about.

The first is the new Underworld movie, that being Underworld: Awakening. Now, I liked Underworld in the past. I've had a thing for vampire/werewolf stuff, long before Twilight. I think it might have been partially the Van Helsig movie, which while unimpressive, at least had some fun lore to it. Then I read The Historian, a historically-based book on attempting to find Dracula, with many of the actual history about the man known as Vlad Tepes, aka Vlad the Impaler. He was a jerk. But somewhere before Twilight, I think it was (or before I got into it), I saw Underworld. A little on the gory side, but entertaining and the plot wasn't bad and we got a good view of the vampires and werewolves. It starts off with werewolves being the enemy, but the true enemy is a vampire.

Later, Underworld 3, Rise of the Lycans, came out, so I decided to catch up and watch Underworld 2. Don't do that. Aside from the gratuitous nudity, it strays quite a bit from anything really interesting with vampires or werewolves and instead deals with "hybrids" that aren't one or the other, but they're pretty ugly. I can't remember anything particularly interesting about the plot, either. Lots of running and getting chased.

Underworld 3 wasn't bad. It is set back in time from the first two and deals with one of the characters from Underworld 1 and how he got to where he was and how he was all for vampire and werewolf peace. He was a decent werewolf, even had the hots for a vampire girl. Result is that lycans (werewolves) are more humanized and they aren't as bad as the vampires that have been the trouble for the last two movies.

Underworld 4, Awakening. Granted, I wasn't expecting much. I was at least hoping for some nicely-colored frames in dark tones. I suppose it had some of that. And I was pleasantly hopeful with the movie starting with the humans figuring out about the existence of vampires and werewolves and purging them. I'm thinking, "cool, and angle that hasn't been done yet. Maybe now the werewolves and the vampires will team up and try and survive."

Fast forward twelve years where Selene has been frozen in ice in a lab and now has a child who is a hybrid, just like her lover was. Selene wakes up and spends her time trying to protect and then trying to get back her child. They thought it was the humans, but the lycans keep showing up and eventually they figure out that some humans are protecting the lycans and the people at the lab are actually all lycans and think it's like some kind of better steroid.

So basically, in the end, LYCANS are still the problem and lycans are still the enemy. REALLY? Humans eliminate almost all of your species and somehow you make it into lycans are the problem? The past three movies have made lycans more reasonable and more human and have had vampires as the bad guys and now you're going to go down the road of "all lycans suck?"

Not to mention the plot didn't flow very well, Selene spends a lot of time looking confused and her daughter a lot of time looking distraught. Michael Corvin, Selene's hybrid boytoy has a cameo of about two minutes. And as far as discontinuity goes, in the first movie, Selene tells Michael that getting bit by both species equals death. Nobody can survive two bites. But then Michael proves her wrong by being a snazzy hybrid and all that, but in the fourth movie, a regular vampire gets bit by a werewolf and ends up with nothing but a little discomfort. I'd complain about the ability of vampires to have babies, but that at least is sticking to continuity. They established that one in the first movie.

So overall rated: Meh: Mildly Entertaining.

I was going to talk a little bit about my favorite band, but judging by the length of this post already, I think I'll save it.