A bunch of things I wanted to say, but have been on a blog hiatus because I've already got so many this month if I were to just write when I felt like it, well, there'd be a bunch more posts than I normally plan for. Also, I was put off because I hadn't taken the time to draw another picture, so I could talk about another one of my own creations. And no, I still haven't done that. If you liked the previous post, with it's drawings, I'll be obliging in the future.
First things first!
"Often passion makes us believe certain things to be much better and more desirable than they are; then, when we have taken much trouble to acquire them, and in the process lost the chance of possessing other more genuine goods, possession of them brings home to us their defects; and thence arise dissatisfaction, regret and remorse. And so the true function of reason is to examine the just value of all the goods whose acquisition seems to depend in some way on our conduct, so that we never fail to devote all our efforts to trying to secure those which are in fact the more desirable...
Often however the passions... represent the goods to which they tend with greater splendour than they deserve, and they make us imagine pleasures to be much greater before we possess them than our subsequent experiences show them to be... But the true function of reason in the conduct of life is to examine and consider without passion the value of all the perfections, both of the body and of the soul, which can be acquired by our conduct, so that since we are commonly obliged to deprive ourselves of some goods in order to acquire others, we shall always choose the better."
(from a letter, Descartes to Elizabeth, Sept 1, 1645)
FINALLY- I've been holding that page in my book for days now so I wouldn't forget to post it here. Now I can keep reading the thing.
The Descartes info was especially useful, it gave me something to talk about with this one guy at a party on Tuesday. He was either really drunk, or just plain hitting on me. Possibly both. He was really barking up the wrong tree on that one. That, and it's hard to take a guy seriously who talks about avoiding commercialism when he looks like he pays for a haircut twice a month.
At the time, the above quote was especially resonant to me because I was going nuts wanting some attention. I was considering jazzing up the look of my blog here and then being a bit more aggressive with telling people about it, but I was weighing that possible gain against the loss of this place as a Fortress of Solitude. Once the genie is out of the bottle you can't put it back in and all that.
Except for the Aladdin movies, he goes back in his bottle all the time there. I'm aware that it's a lamp.
And of course there's the devastating reality to consider, that perhaps even with a concerted effort to get people here, no one would come.
Regardless, that particular crisis was beaten back by a few days where I did some actual socializing for a change.
The above quote is still fantastically timely, what with it being Christmas time and all. The difference between wanting and having, buyers remorse... terrible terrible Christmas staples.
***
Tron: Legacy!!
I've got some things to say about Tron, but first let me post a quote from the boys at Penny Arcade:
"There are several movies here, all of them playing simultaneously on a single screen for some reason, and they're executed at varying levels of sophistication. But you really can have any movie you want to, sitting in that chair, and I travelled through several unique polarities myself. You can be the cultural exemplar, enemy of nostalgia- you can resist its entreaties at every turn, swirl your cape, and not be moved. You can absorb it through every pore, becoming young thereby. You can marvel at some of the cool coats. You can't really lose; at every conceivable juncture, you emerge the victor."- from the main post Monday Dec. 20, 2010
There are certain movies that you almost feel embarassed you haven't seen (come to think of it, that's true of books too, but those are usually embarassments reserved for an entirely different crowd)- I hadn't seen any Tarantino until a few years back for instance... so I saw a bunch at the York library. That's also when I got up to date on the Kevin Smith oeuvre. They're okay.
Anyways, I only just saw the original Tron a few days before seeing Legacy, but it turns out I'm a fan of the series- the first is a movie that, even if you haven't seen it before, you've seen it before. It's been thoroughly absorbed by our collective consciousness, not the least of which is the light cycle bit. The original story is sparse on the details, characterization wise and world building wise, but in effect it always us viewers to take what we're given and expand on it enormously in our own minds. It's a fantasy story. Have you ever heard someone complain that the witch melting in the Wizard of Oz came out of nowhere (I'm talking about the movie, I forget if they set it up in the book or not)? No, I don't think you have. But I bet you can find someone who'll complain about the Master Control Program getting all disrupted by Flynn.
I like the visual cue we're given at the end of each film, or rather that we're not given- we don't see the heroes reconstituted back in the real world. The whole adventure comes off like a dream, or one man's minds eye's vision of what his inputting of commands has resulted in.
The original Tron's effects are fantastic, chiefly because it's rotoscoped, NOT CGI- it holds up really well. Even the stuff that is CGI, that doesn't look so great, is pretty effective.
The thing I keep telling people about Tron: Legacy is that usually if a movie raises questions that to me just don't seem to make senes I'll take a dislike to it- it'll seem like lazy writing. I wasn't so dazzled by the visuals in Legacy that certain story items or extraneous items didn't jump out at me as weird mistakes. When Flynn Sr. starts talking about the spontaneously generated cyber creatures, the isomorphs, that was weird. Tron makes a lot of use of religious figures, with the Users (humans/gods) creating programs- having the isomorphs show us feels like a bit of a mixed metaphor. When we're then immediately told that (almost) all of the isomorphs were then killed off centuries ago (in relative computer time) it's hard to feel like we're not being led in a circle of wrong story.
Those two things were the biggest sources of dissonance to me, but they don't matter at all, because the whole picture still left me with an altogether postive experience. The movie was triumphant, is the best way I can think to put it.
Maybe you realized this on your own while watching the movie... that those weird "glitches" don't really matter in the end. Then Flynn Sr. gives a speech to the bad guy CLU about how the world doesn't have to be perfect, that there's a perfection to be found IN it's imperfection. And if the film makers are saying that, while perfectly aware of the flawed movie they're creating- that's brilliant.
"Brilliant? Isn't that cheesy and obvious?!? And just making excuses for itself?"
Y-yes, but the idealism and enthusiasm in their presentation of that statement sets it far and away apart from any other story that is just making a cop out to blanket over their mistakes.
Now that I think about it, it rather reminds me of the garishly toy commercial based properties of the 80's... an insane mix of cynicism and idealism that has no reason to work at all, but completely does.
Couple of extra notes: Olivia Wilde looks amazing in the film, love her dark askew hair, and wide eyed naivete- they don't especially play up the romance between her and Flynn Jr., it's subtle but really affecting.
And the light cycle fight. While visually fantastic, and still a tense scene because of the disparity in cycle abilities (the good guys are handicapped, naturally) I prefer the original Tron's cycle battle. The original, with it's solid light barrier trailing behind, was more claustrophobic, and it wasn't the case that you could simply "turn off" the wall being created behind you. If you didn't think ahead with your driving you were just as likely to crash into yourself as you were to crash into your enemies. And there was no apparent ability to alter speed either. Just zero to hundred turnturnturn CRASH. That's tense.
In Legacy they could use ramps to jump over the solid light walls, which weren't even all that solid, they could be smashed through. Lame. If I were trapped in a Tron movie, and had to pick which one, give me the new one... I'd last a little longer there.
***
Seeing as how this is Christmas Eve, and I've already discussed the fact that this place is a bit of a Fortress of Solitude (see above)- want to hear a little secret? I think I've only mentioned this to one other person in my life, who has probably long since forgotten it. Maybe there's a second person I'm forgetting... regardless, if you can count on one hand the number of people who could possibly know this, you're doing pretty well.
Since my last Christmas at high school (2003?) I've always bought a toy for donation to Toy Mountain (or wherever it goes through, that hardly matters). I look for some basic super hero figure (nuts to those disc shooting "Arctic-Zone Batman" figures), a Superman, a Spider-Man, a Batman, and before I drop it in I say a quick prayer. I don't do a whole lot of praying these days, but I pray that it will go to some kid that will be inspired by what the figure represents. Whether it's caring, idealism, responsibility, etc etc. just that it'll mean something to them and help them grow. Whether this is lame or not; any grace under fire and good qualities I have, I attribute for the most part to having set up as my role models these kind of idealized figures- it's something to strive for, regardless of attainability. Maybe I've helped some other kids get that for themselves? That's the idea anyways.
I can't say I really remember which figures I've given exactly, or in what order, I seem to recall giving a Green Lantern one year (yeah, willpower! That's a good one) but maybe I'm mixed up. I left it to the last minute this year, and the pickings were slim, either a weird specialized Spider-Man (going against my maxim against "Arctic-Zone Batman" figures) or a selection from Star Wars.
Ironically, the Star Wars figures seem more "terrestrial" than my usual fair, but I went for it. My choices seemed to be Clone Wars era Obi-Wan Kenobi, Dagobah crash landing Luke Skywalker, and Leader of the Forest Moon of Endor strike against the Death Star shield array Han Solo.
I went with Han. In a crazy universe of Jedi and Sith, I'd rather espouse the values of someone who may seem to spout self interest but in fact hides a heart of gold. The Jedi are kinda really preachy.
Also- Padawans? Younglings? These are the names you're going with? Try "Millenium Falcon".
Well, I'd better hurry up and drop this thing at a Toy Mountain place... believe it or not, but EVERY YEAR I have a hard time finding a place to drop it off. I'm always like "oh, where was it last year?" and I either forget, or they've moved it. EVERY YEAR. Man I suck about that. It's actually pretty funny.
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My mistake, it's "At Echo base-fixing-up-the-Falcon Han", the picture on the box is Endor Han.
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