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Utterly boring. That’s what I saw in the woods and the sky along the expressway when I was driving back after seeing James Cameron’s new 3D movie. Because if there’s one thing about perceiving color in real life, it’s immediately recognizing post-production values that set new records for my eye’s dynamic range. Things initially jostled back and forth: good visuals, or good plot? Strong lead protagonists and flat antagonists, or level-headed characters everywhere? Do I really need 3D, or will normal cinema suffice? Hint: I didn’t prefer the new tech.

But Avatar, a ~161-minute movie with costs higher than the smart-as-wood Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, at least managed to get some of the things I longed for in an adventure-action film correct. Not the majority of points like the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but more than enough to pass a year-end science fiction movie quality test. Want to spoil yourself? Jump, and don’t miss…it’s a long fall from here!
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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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