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Call me silly after viewing the horror that was Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, but when I heard there was well-paced and intense mecha combat in District 9, it quickly ramped my interest up again. Way up. Because I already heard that the film was pulling in a healthy number of great reviews, but now it has robots! After seeing it tonight, though, it’s one of the good things that I can jot down about what makes a strong science fiction movie. With great lead characters, fluid and very realistic CGI, a smattering of original ideas, and good pacing, it held the plot in without many major leaks. But here’s the kicker: with a mere budget of $30 million, Peter Jackson and Neill Blomkamp have done a marvelous job at producing what was easily the best mature sci-fi film all year long. Take that, RotF and your $200 million black hole!

Don’t leave it to me to spoil the plot for you – go watch it yourself, or at least read what follows alongside the Wikipedia entry. I’ll give a quick rundown of what made the movie great in my eyes, what faltered, comments that fit neither, and overall what I think of this as a Christian film watcher.
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I suppose this is worth a post, because as a mecha gearhead, I saw the movie coming. And oh, did it strut in bombastically…and immediately fall on its face.

Honestly, I thought that the 2007 live-action Transformers movie was pretty good. As in, it had a decent plot, many good characters, amazing computer-generated mechs, and a somewhat-smooth action-to-story pacing. Even despite some bumpy shortcomings (unbalanced favor in humans compared to the robots, some overdone battles at the end, underdeveloped antagonist leads, etc.), it primed my mind, no pun intended, with fun, over-the-top action, and some great nostalgia of what my childhood could’ve been. It got me excited about a potentially-better sequel. It urged me to buy Transformers figurines and to relive the animated cartoon era. Then again, that was a busy summer with an extra class and Otakon, haha.

The eye candy only works once or twice, though. Here, only once. Because the real sequel, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, didn’t meet any of my expectations for a great 2.5-hour movie. Or even a good summer blockbuster half-a-plot over-edited 2.5-hour movie. After seeing it last night under a free Regal Cinemas movie ticket, part of me wanted to undo it all and view a thrilling family film like UP instead. Why? I’ll let all the official negative reviews of RotF do the talking – because they were right. Though I knew the plot and the involved characters beforehand, and even despite spoiling myself completely a week ago (I do that on occasion), it really didn’t flip my skeptical mindset, but reinforced it instead.

Here’s the fun aftermath: I had a nice surge of ideas post-viewing about how to “appropriately” craft a working title for Revenge of the Fallen. Many spoilers abound, so please don’t read unless you’re up to a non-existent revelation of sorts. Comments are in [brackets]. So let’s see…
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That’s what a good number of teachers said when I went to E.N. Peirce Middle School. They told us students to use HotBot, AltaVista, and hey, even Ask Jeeves. They told us that Google wasn’t comprehensive enough, and doesn’t provide in-depth search results. Well let me tell you now, times have certainly changed.

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So…I ended up keeping my word in the previous entry: no updates to this blog during the convention. It turned out there were no free Internet connections at the Baltimore Marriot Waterfront hotel, and even the Wi-Fi access points weren’t strong enough to carry across the bay.

But all that aside, Otakon 2008 overall was a great way to close the summer before I head back to the dirge of classes. And as I’ll mention later, it was actually a good thing that there was no Internet available. With well over 25,000 registered attendees, this was the largest anime convention on the East coast that had become even bigger than last year. Now some may disagree, but it felt significantly less crowded than 2007′s con, likely because the Programming department shaped up and nailed most of the events down on schedule. Of course, with a gathering of this size, there’s the inevitable “There’s so much to do, but so little time!” syndrome: there were a total of six video anime viewings rooms, four panel locations, three workshops, two autograph rooms, an additional high-definition screenings room (changed from the 35mm screen of years past), a multipurpose concert/films hall, and for the first time ever, the usage of Baltimore’s 1st Mariner Arena for the most popular and crowd-drawing events (masquerade, JAM Project concert, and Sunday concerts). Almost all of the viewings and panel tracks were blocked in Friday through Sunday.

In spite of the massive event flood, there weren’t many that I considered going to. Besides, there was always video gaming, the dealers room, Artist Alley, cosplay photography, exploring Baltimore, getting food, socializing and meeting with friends, and so many other continuously-distracting events to attend. Here’s a rundown of what happened all three (four) days. Hit the “Read more” link!

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Two posts within 24 hours of each other? This is sporadic updating at its best…

And here I go again, about to head off to the largest anime convention on the East Coast: Otakon 2008! I’ll make it clear right now, and quit lying to anyone, that picture uploads from my camera are likely not going to occur. Even more so, weblog updates. I’m referring to my sole Otakon 2007 post and the Tekkoshocon 2008 bit, both of which failed in follow-ups. Otakon’s just too involving throughout the three days, so any write-ups will have to occur in the morning or the late evening – assuming I have any energy remaining.

About mecha cosplay at the convention: it won’t happen. Like my previous entry, I thank God that I’m even able to go (considering a hotel’s required this year, since the Jiangs are unavailable to make room at their house). Although money is an issue due to the increased costs, time is a far worse enemy due to the 6-week Summer Session classes eating up any available long-term project space. Ah well…hope there will be a few good mechs there to photograph! This is Otakon’s 10th anniversary at the Baltimore Convention Center and 15th anniversary overall, so I’m expecting some seriously good costumes there.

Just to close things down on Otakon 2007, though, here’s a video (thanks, Firestorm3818) of a hilarious stage light fire that occurred when myself and a number of con-goers went to Tomokazu Seki‘s Q&A panel (he’s the seiyuu of Sousuke Sagara from Full Metal Panic!, one of my favorite light novel and anime series of all time). I’m still laughing on the inside over this, because even Seki was caught off guard when the thing started to spark and flame…