The Leather-Bound Book

Hurrah! I like the cutter. It's good for cheese.

 

If your here to talk about the PM, I got side-tracked and I just replied to it.

If it's not about that, then nope! What's up?

 

eXistenZ

Gah! There's been too long a gap without a review! Right! Bad Tyro! Bad! Go and get another one out now! Now I say!

[size=+1]eXistenZ[/size]​

A little while ago, JJWCool invited me over, telling me there were lots of really, really weird films that I needed to see and he started me off with Memento which I will get to but before I left to go home, he game me a handful of DVD's. This was one of them and he said that it was "The Canadian Matrix".

I think he's half-right; it is Canadian.

eXistenZ (spelt that way because....they can, I think) is about the idea of virtual reality. But, rather than being the housing unit for the human race, instead it's more like an Xbox 3600 or a PS1,000,000 because we're using these advanced technologies to play computer games.

What makes this cute for me is that we're not really treated to a virtual reality version of Gears of War or Batman: Arkham Asylum, we just get this elevated text adventure nonsense instead. There's not much else here that seems to scream 'Computer Game' at you except the fact that you can only progress by saying the correct thing and NPC's will just stare at you till you do. Also, there's scripted moments where your body will be made to do something to advance the plot. Otherwise, we're watching Jude Law and Jennifer Jason Leigh wonder around and talk.

Anyway, the plot! The only thing they could do to go against The Matrix was to have more levels of reality than a measly two. So, we're at the beta test of a new game system called eXistenZ, in a church some where. A famous game developer called Allegra Geller (Jennifer Jason Leigh) has come along to help guide people who have come along to play with this new game. However before they can begin, anti-game people turn up and start shooting. Christopher Eccleston is killed, irritatingly, and Ted Pikul (Jude Law) is a PR man that becomes Allegra's bodyguard. Him and Allegra escape to a safe location where she asks him to play the game they have with them. They enter the game world where things get weirder and weirder from there.

So, then we pop in and out of levels of reality for a while as some sort of plot unfolds with the vague hint of people being really against the virtual realities and 'The Realists' want to destroy them because they seem to think that humanity will be unable to exit them or something. That's sort of it for a synopsis without twittering on for too long.

Now, what I really like about this film is it's ideas. And my word does it have some mad ones.

Remember in The Matrix that the virtual reality is all done by massive computers and machine hardware? Does that seem a little odd to you that every human got a plug? Like an MP3. Silly, right? Well, eXistenZ thought it would have something that would work much better; organic machinery. Supposedly, all the machines in this film have been grown rather than built but manage to work in exactly the same way as a computer, somehow. The human has something called a 'Bioport' installed into their spine that connects your brain to a Game Pod via a fleshy cord. The Game Pod is skin-coloured and has a few weird bumps on it. It's a bizarre thing to see as it wiggles to the touch. There's even a gun that fires teeth and appears to be made from chicken bones. Man has made even flesh and bone a usable tool. The idea of humanity effectively turning organic matter into something like this is all rather interesting in its own right but is sadly relegated to the back of the plot.

Then there's the world we're thrown into. Well, worlds...

The first one is pretty interesting. We see the obvious dispute over these games and Gas (Willem Dafoe) is strange and welcoming. We do get to see the haters and the massive fans who've been touched by these games. Apparently, Gas' favourite game is the one where he's God. Apparently, it's very funny. I do like the fact that time has been put into the world, if only for a bit, to show how popular the games are as well as to cement the importance of Allegra. More so than shouting that she's a 'demon woman' by The Realists.

Then down a level, we get all the game stuff introduced. Games within games and the idea of talking to NPC's. It's like being in Mass Effect but without the option wheel. The thing which messed with my head was whether the camera cuts were diegetic or not now.

By 'diegetic', I mean whether something is happening within the fictional world I'm looking at or not. If you can clearly see the music playing is coming from a stereo on screen that the characters can see, then it's diegetic. When it's just put over the top of a scene, then it's non-diegetic. It was one exchange from Ted that made me wonder whether they were aware of camera cuts too. Ted remarks about the transition from one reality to another as being very sharp and quick, which was the editing choice too. Then Allegra mentions that there were other transitions too, like wipes or fades. Which are all editing techniques. It may be small but that kept me wondering.

And then further down, we have some sort of fish factory with some sort of espionage thing going on. People are secretive and there's all these plots to prove something or some such to some guy. Ted and Allegra have to kill someone with a tooth gun they make from the bones of some fish and kill their waiter. Some how, this let's them gain Realist street cread but he's actually a spy that got Ted to kill his contact and then the bone gun comes back again and again from no-where. Then there's a revolution, bullets fly. At that point, I barely get it.

Look, there's a massive problem with this film: it's 2012 currently and this means that there is a far better film that exists. This:

​

To be perfectly honest, Inception is a far better film than eXistenZ. Why? While eXistenZ is a far more mind-expanding film, Inception is more coherent. You care about Cobb's mission to get to his children through staging this elaborate ruse. The characters are stylish and well-rounded and cool. You wanted to give this dreaming malarkey ago. I'll be willing to bet a tail that you'll be more interested in Shared Dreaming than the Virtual Reality games of eXistenZ.

But it's not that they didn't try. eXistenZ has too many ideas flying around. It spends a lot of time trying to explain about these game pods and how people are attached to these games, sure, but there's no ultimate point to anything. We're just messing around, there's no clear cut goal. The only excuse or going into the game is just to make sure everything works still. We see very little point in being shown any of the worlds we enter as we progress through the film. Why did we visit the fish factory? It's mentioned that they make game pods there but I doubt it's the actual place. The only use was to spout all that philosophical stuff then vanish till the very end.

Inception has one central idea and seems to centre around a more classic sci-fi premise of "here's a technology of some kind and here's how everything goes wrong while using it". Like The Time Machine, maybe. But you could get behind and understand the motivation of Cobb, that he was a man haunted by guilt, searching for a way back to his family. And the supporting cast are bright, interesting and well-written. You want to see these guys succeed. And we have a singular idea and theme going through everything that's happening. All that stuff about the sub-conscious being dangerous but powerful. That was shown to us in the form of Cobb's wife. How the mind could wreck everything in this world that was created.

eXistenZ never really did that. We didn't see any danger from playing the games except that you might be gunned-down by militant wierdos. Things were too complicated in eXistenZ.

I never really cared about the characters. I never got much of a moment of wanting to like, or root for any of the characters involved as the film carried on talking about the blobs of meat that are central to the story. Inception had things the other way round and was far more engaging. We got a story about how one man gambles everything to get what he dreams of. eXistenZ just feels like a guided tour and isn't half as engaging as Inception. Or it's main rival, The Matrix. There's no arc for these characters and no change in them. Only plot twists and weirdness.

In short: Inception is more worth your money than eXistenZ as it explores the story is far more interesting. But if you looking for something to try and make your head explode, then be my guest. You might make more sense of it than me.

 

Cupcakes

One day Poetic! One day your amazing hat shall be MIIIINE! Ahahahahahahahaaaaaaa!

Anyway, I've been sitting on this one and...well...I haven't put up anything pony related for a while but I also don't have anything else I think is ready to be put up yet. And, well, as far as Fan Fics go, this is rather a big one...So...I, err....Oh dear...Well! Watch and gaze in gazemazement as I coyly skirt around all and anything that'll make the mods descend on me like a ravenous pack of wolves.

I'd probably have to put my opinion into the ring at some point...

And it is a big one...

Everypony should know it...

So, I hear the feed went down for the Nottingham Meet-Up Broadcast? Damn! I was wondering why Foxy or Grey weren't chatting merrily to a laptop all day. Real big shame and all right! I'll stop stalling...

[size=+1]Cupcakes[/size]​

All right...err...Good points, good points...err...Oh buggery...

Well, it's written reasonably well. Occasional grammar and spelling mistakes aside, there is a reasonable amount of sophistication in the language to keep things flowing nicely which was my first shock.

Think about it: a Fan Fiction that's famous for being horrible brings images of the infamous Harry Potter fan-fic My Immortal. You expect a certain level of incompetence and lunacy that make it a joy to read because you could then ridicule it for being a failure. You are allowed to rise above the squalor of the pitiable English and just giggle at how warped everything gets. Arguably the same thing for bad movies or the Twilight books and films. It's a free, easy target and everypony can come and have a go.

Cupcakes, on the other hand, denies you that privilege of laughing at it with the excuse of incompetence by being reasonably well done. It's not Sarah Kane by any stretch of the imagination but it does the job and has healthy amounts of effort put in. The variety of language stops you falling asleep and seems sophisticated enough that not only was the writer - named 'Sergeant Sprinkles' here - able to be coherent but actually score points for being concise too. It's just a shame that you will be unable to manage sleep ever again. On a more basic level, Pinkie does appear to act like Pinkie, up to a point as I'm sure you might be aware of and Rainbow Dash seems realistic right on through the whole of the story. Pinkie makes jokes, spouts inane comments and generally bounces around. Good, plus points there for what is usually looked for in accuracy of English and Character Representation.

And then we have to take all of them away, replacing them with a straight-jacket and rubber wallpaper.

As I'm sure your all too aware, Cupcakes is almost unspeakably gory. It's as gleefully fascinated with the intimate workings of a serial killer as you might be opening Christmas presents. The best I can possibly think of as a comparison for this is the meshing of Silence of the Lambs and Saw, but loosing all the plot from both, leaving you with armed maniacs looking to attack you, specifically. Now, neither of these films glorifies what's going on in it. While one does contain great deals of squalled cruelty and the other is just a series of sadistic torture games both tend to have a punishment for the crimes on display. Arguably, both share elements with this Fan-Fic, except where Pinkie gets caught. This demon in Pinkie's form is treating the whole exercise as a sand pit. The narration is equally revelling in this as it details every action with little regard for some level of self-control.

Think of the trailer for 'The Human Centipede' and the first time you got a glimpse of the film's money shot. The first time you got a look at what the film's nut-job wanted to create, completed and crawling around on screen. I remember what my reaction was.

It was something like rising straight out of my seat and crying: "Jeasus, Inari, Buddha, Celestia, John Clease!" Why? Because it was a grotesque image and that appeared to be the natural, correct reaction. Perhaps I was calling for every deity I could think of in the hope that they'll all team up to destroy what I was watching. Either that or "MY EYES!" but it lacks the sense of occasion...

But that's attention seeking nonsense to grab box-office seats. Some reviewers who have seen it claim it to be just, well, stupid when you look past the initial shock factor. It's style seems closer to porn in how it's endlessly curious about the ins and outs of what this act of cruelty looks like.

Cupcakes is much the same. There's nothing else going on except what we're being shown. No underlying wit or irony or sub-plot. Just lots of puns about internal organs, each more painful than the last. And I've heard enough bad puns to have a twinge of pain when I hear one and I swear I pulled a muscle here. The degradation of this is unfathomable as it debases itself to gross you out, going so far as to have Demon Pinkie make light of the situation as though she's a car mechanic making small talk. A short intense burst of shock factor but that's it. It's shallow and almost childish so the fact that it's relatively short is how it's able to make such a lasting impression. It's super-concentrated nightmare fuel.

It does baffle me that someone would sit down and think this was a good idea. The plot makes me question every decision made here and the usual answer I come up with is "For Attention". It's the Internet; there's tones of Fan Fiction and I can only imagine that the desire to stand out from the rest caused this. I can't help but see it as juvenile.

What I am staggered by is how you appear to be as trapped as Dashie here. You have to hand it to Sprinkles (if that is his real username) that Cupcakes spares no details and doesn't skimp out on it's clarity of voice. And it's doing that to make sure you hate every moment when it seems to giggle at your intended response. Now, Charlie Chaplin once said that "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up". What Cupcakes has a real skill in is dragging the reader right up close and personal with what is going on. We get to see everything without any vale or filter, making you feel utterly revolted. Every action is shown and described and never allowed to show anything else except this grinning psychopath slowly busying herself with her 'work'. It's incredibly effective at being revolting, from Death Pinkie making puns to the total lack of empathy for anything. The narrator just sits and describes, coldly. This is all magnified by the fact that this is set in a world designed to be the very antithesis to this Fan Fiction. Equestria is a place of tranquillity (generally) and prosperity and relative peace and happiness. Cupcakes appears to be finding as many middle-fingers to stick up at the show as it can.

Unfortunately, we can't look away. It's like watching a huge crash. We stand and stare at the article if we have the stomach. This is down to, I hate to say it, well-crafted language that places the POV of the reader right on Hannable Pie's shoulder. The narrative highlights every action performed rather than merely suggests them.

Pacing is reasonably well done and organic to the story. Tiny breaks in the tension are given whenever Rainbow Dash blanks out, allowing for the excitement to level out before ratcheting it back up again. If it was just constant torture (on the reader and Dashie) then things would get silly or boring as we build up a kind of 'resistance' to the tension in the scene. Cupcakes would have to start making ponies explode just to get a reaction while documenting every last entrail. But I will say that adding Applebloom tips it over the edge of stupidity but by that point you don't care. You either read to the end out of a sense of duty or give up. But giving us troughs in the build-up gives up time to rest, time to soften up for the next wave of cruelty. It's done well enough and necessary for Horror to work.

There's a fantastic little line I think is appropriate here: "It's like making a solid gold Virtual Boy. Great job! Why'd you make that out of it?" (Bob "MovieBob" Chipman). It's an excellent use of talent but used to do something ultimately rather shallow. And worrying on many, many levels.

But it is part of the Brony Culture. It's a boogyman, another dark fable in our otherwise bright and happy community. A grinning spectre ushering you over to then show you it's 'bag-pipes'. From this, we ridicule and we build from it. In short, we 'Giggle at the Ghostie'. Chaplin said "Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot." and we make distance from the monsters so that we can laugh at them. We also laugh at each others reactions. This is a shared experience for all of us that have been dared to read it or ventured into the Little Cake Shop of Horrors unwittingly. We are all brought here by shared experience, on which this site is based, and grow closer together as we all explore what we have and all that there is on offer. It's another point of interaction between us all that singles a person out as someone you know you can relate to. It's an in-joke we can all understand and share in. From that we can start to make light of the story, even references (there's one in Valor's Fan-Fic if you look carefully) and potentially gain inspiration from it. Cupcakes takes being an aberrant, distorted narrative to whole new lows that leave marks on all who read it. And we compare each other's scars.

Cupcakes is concentrated gore and it does make you stupendously uncomfortable while reading. If you have to, *ahem*, dissect and learn from this story, it's that Horror is like Vodka: good in small amounts but will kill most of the feeling in your body if you use it excessively. The works that appear to be referenced here have other things going on besides the violence. Silence of the Lambs is a detective story and Saw has the mystery of Jigsaw, after all. They give you breaks from being disgusted by adding more to the experience. There is a sub-plot to follow and give a greater context to things. Cupcakes is just torture with little merit to show for it. I can't see any interesting views or ideas when you take away the events of Cupcakes What's left? Nothing.

I would recommend you read almost anything else. I am unlikely to find anything so putrid for the rest of my life, I hope. Avoid it like the plague.


So, JJ. Beat that.

 

The Epic Adventures of Friendship, Intrigue and Fighting, Courtesy of 51m0nn

Well, after that details the coming of a fox that will take said hat and burn it. That's right after the prophecy that every single Dragon would magically transform into a gigantic, fire-breathing Fluttershy and The Dragonborn would learn a shout that transforms people into chickens.

Right, back to work...

Also, Happy 250th post on Everypony.com to me! Yay!

[size=+1]The Epic Adventures of Friendship, Intrigue and Fighting, Courtesy of 51m0nn[/size]​

Simon has just the right attitude, me thinks, for this: "Why Not?". According to what he told me, Simon hasn't had a huge amount of experience as a writer, only catching the Fan Fic bug when he came here. Simon is capable of coming up with some good ideas for plots and has the patience to realise those ideas to the end. This is all good stuff but I also find plenty of stuff to pick on. Now, I'll have an article the length of a roll of toilet paper if I picked every thing apart, mostly because I could type essays for hours over the most mundane of topics. In the interests of making sure that people don't fall asleep, I'll keep to the bigger brush-strokes and leave the finer details to the proof-reader you mentioned, all right?

Simon's work all has one major problem running throughout: brevity. Every action happens in a blink of an eye. There is a scene where Skylark, our hero, manages to beat up a Pirate despite being tied to a chair. Simon doesn't mess around and tells us what happens in clear English. Bam, he kicks the Pirate, then gets up and smacks him with the chair. Simon tells you what went on, but never how it happened. The speed at which somepony could burn through these three stories is very short due to the fact that Simon has a very small amount of description and imagery in his work. While a paragraph that attempts to describe what's going on would be longer and a little more padded out as a result of the extra sentences and words that give a weight or tone to a certain action, a typical paragraph from Simon in these three examples has nothing but the dialogue and the actions of the characters. Now, forgetting to add the descriptions to the story means little in the way of tone is set. We have little idea of the intentional feel of any one chapter currently so are likely to feel very little towards anything presented. We'd get a context for characters and locations that can open up ways of telling the story indirectly if there was more attention to detail, making your job easier if tad bit more of a pain in the behind, I suppose. You would be writing or longer but I assure you it's worth it.

So, for example, how about when Skylark is captured? A description of the airship's interior could lend us a better idea of what kind of ponies the Pirates are without having them say anything. Is the room messy? Then perhaps they're lazy or simply don't care about keeping order. Is the room tidy? Maybe their quite well-organised and disciplined. It would help explain what Pirates are doing with ID cards, I suppose.

Another, slightly less pressing issue, is with Skylark himself. Who the heck is this guy? There isn't a scrap of information on this guy's former life further than living in Cloudsdale. The colt manages to beat up Spirit Monsters and Pirates with relative ease. Was he a guard? A secret agent? A ring-fighter? A bar-brawler? He's a pony that's capable of dealing with almost any situation and yet it seems as though such skills have come from absorbing pure awesome from the aether. It would also make the character a tad more vibrant too as he's currently just there. Turns up one day and is kicking Pirates in the goolies within a day of unpacking. Skylark is an enigma when this should have been a time to tell everyone all about him.

Now, the big things that bother me about these three stories concern themselves with what isn't there. How about we look at what is there, shall we? Now while these stories feel more like bare bones, there's some solid ideas here that I would consider...*ahem* 'borrowing'....

I've found that if I'm thinking about attempting petty plagiarism, the idea might be something worth noting.

The Shadow Lurker Pirates

Ah! Now that's a title! The name for the villains that have arrived in Ponyville, stealing a pendant of symbolic power from Princess Celestia. Can Skylark and his new friends take the pendant back from the Pirates before they escape with their loot? Of course they can because Skylark appears to be part-Batman. After being captured, Skylark beats up most of the crew and escapes. Then his friends use the Elements of Harmony to beat the pirates back. Skylark manages to stop a pirate from interrupted the Elements by tackling him into the ground. There's a party and a ceremony in his honour, The End.

It's interesting to note that here, Skylark is definitely the main character. Anything of great interest happens to him, as is apparent and the Mane 6 appear to be playing second fiddle here. This is perfectly fine for me. It means we get to see something new done with the same sort of locations or characters that might not happen in the show. Such as taking on a crew of Pirates and winning. It's a straight-forward idea done well enough excusing the universal issues I have that are detailed above.

What else to say? Cannon characters seem close enough although I do wonder whether Rainbow Dash would do as she was told (which was save Twilight and the Pendent while leaving Skylark to deal with the pirates) without more of an argument. She hasn't spent too long with them and this might be a bit of a silly idea. Airships are typically quite slow, they could easily outrun it. Unless the pirates took to the skies themselves...A good element of character building is showing that Skylark isn't invincible. When he does escape, he crashes into trees and has to go on the mend. Vulnerability can get some tension into a scene and lends consequence to actions. It would seem odd if Skylark got through the story unharmed.

There's a whole lot to talk about unless I started getting into the nutty-gritty picky-picky things about language, grammar and spelling which are classic problems for Fan Fiction. Simon's spelling and choice of words are just fine but it's occational lapses in grammar I spottted. An odd one too:

"“Oh no!” Fluttershy said being the caring one. “Look at you!” “You are covered in cuts and have a huge bruise on your face!” She said with much concern. “Come on I am taking you to a doctor!” She said. "

What we have here is where Simon has declared what Fluttershy is doing two too many times as well as forgetting that all sentences that are regarded as speech are encapsulated by only one pair of speech marks rather than one each. An easy fix though.

Skylark and the Spirit Realm

This is my favourite out of the three here. I'm not sure what it is but I enjoy the idea of mythology and spiritual mumbo jumbo. It's my favourite because it makes up for the same problems as the last story. The Mane 6 do very little to affect the overall plot, Skylark still has no back story at all and there's the grammatical errors.

But I've said enough on them. Let's talk about this story in particular. I was rather interested in the curse and the Spirit World. Firstly, well done on coming up with a good cause for action. Yes, it comes from no-where but it's a decent enough reason for the adventure. It's more selfish and debilitating than the pirates, really. And possibly more pressing to be solved.

The plot is; Skylark has become haunted by strange ghosts with swords that drag him to a realm of malevolent spirits and stab him with swords. I'm not making that up and it's a pleasingly over-the-top idea when out of context. It gets better as we infuse this with some Legend of Zelda. Apparently, the best weapon against these stabbing ghosts is to collect objects called The Elements of the Spirit. It's a Pony Fan Fic, it has to be the 'Elements of X' because of unwritten rules in name at least. However, they're actually a set of armour and a sword, representing Courage, Wisdom and Power. Yeah, OK. I will agree there Simon, that a sword and some armour is far more useful than a tattoo on the back of my hand that glows around set locations or people.

Collect the Triforce together and you have a wish for whatever you want. Woopti-do. If fiction has taught us anything, it's that we should be weary of such things. Combine the Elements of Spirit and we get Skylark kicking more tail. A clear improvement.

It's a valiant stab at some magical story that uses the more mythological side of the MLP:FiM source material. You've added Zacora, which is a good move because the show uses her to get a mysterious feel too. Notice how she was wheeled out to tell the story of Nightmare Moon. There's just something about rhyming couplets. We even carry on the idea of Zebras being somewhat more connected with the events of the story. We get the trials for the hero to over come, gaining the qualities to protect himself. Although the test for "Wisdom" seemed more like "Luck" to me. These are deep routed ideas as this appears to be a melding of My Little Pony, Legend of Zelda and a ghost story.

The video game idea is probably apt when we look at the villain briefly who visibly does nothing until the end. Bowser turns up to nick the Princess then vanish to castle 8 for the rest of the game. Took us ages to find the Metal Head Leader in Jak II. Took us a while to find the true villain in Ratchet and Clank 2 for that matter. I'm not sure if this was the intention or not. What it creates is just a lot of time spent talking about him.

Now, Gannon(dorf) pops up every so often in Wind Waker to effect some sort of presence. In Ocarina of Time, we watch him chase after a princess and her bodyguard. We get an idea of the unspeakable cad this man is. Even Robotnik turns up and tries to flatten you with something on wheels with a giant hammer. The most memorable villains exact a lingering presence throughout the story. Baron Praxis and Erol turn up to ruin your day, over an over again. Dr N-Cortex talks to you directly every so often to curse you for foiling his plans.

The strangely named Ghirazelle lets a curse loose and does little else. When Skylark does find the Chestplate of Courage, why doesn't he arrive to try and beat some of that Courage out of him or even his friends? This Ghirazelle guy appears to be arrogant enough to sit in his swamp, safe in the delusion that he'll be fine despite the information from his scouts telling him otherwise. You don't sit tight behind your monsters when the enemy can fire rainbows and have a sword that spells your doom. You go and mess with them. Gain the advantage through intimidation or attacking when they least expect it. Or their most vulnerable.

Getting the baddie out and doing things would give us lots of different boons. Skylark's little collection of magic objects would be perceived to be more powerful if the bad guy is mobilizing to put and end to Skylark. We have more of a reason to cheer the goodies and boo the baddie if he actually does evil things. Currently, it seems more like pest control with a group of ponies waltzing in to eradicate an annoyance.

Make sense?

And we have a bit of a time delay. While, I went off to Nottingham and generally worked on smaller bits and peices, Simon worked on the other half of the next, larger story. While I did write a review for the original, unfinished story, I'm now going to have to look at the whole thing again, checking to see what this new, extended version is like. Right!

Rekindling - Co-written by Nova Glitz

I remember doing something like this once. This think we got to introducing the villain before we gave up and played more Soul Calibur III. Happy days...

When I first got hold of this one, it had only one chapter and 99% was set-up for something that didn't exist yet. It seems waiting for the other half paid off as we now get to see what the lead up went into.

And now, The Shipping Forecast.

We have a strong chance of a jealous ex-girlfriend trying to prise two lovers apart. This cold front takes the form of Twilight sparkle who sees Nova and Firebolt's passion and love and decides to take a piece of that. Sweeping in with magic, the unicorn takes Nova back for herself but get's caught by Firebolt kissing. There is thunder and lightning when the enraged Firebolt explodes then storms off. The Element of Unity has now lost some of that strength, raising the chance of a return of an ill-wind.

Coming in from the left, we have a warm scene to counteract the bitterness with an awkward romance with Applejack. This will spread out over the course of the story, easing to a comfortable rhythm where it could go anywhere. Due to the nature of Skylark with anything that doesn't involve connecting hoof to face in a sharp manner, the decent of this relationship is unlikely to start until half-way through.

And that was the Shipping Forecast. And that would probably be funnier if anyone knew that a 'Shipping Forecast' was a real thing...Moving on...

I believe that the Twilight plot could be entertaining if done right. A Road Runner-eque thing springs to mind where she attempts but fails in humorous fashion to break the pair apart, perhaps. I also would imagine Twilight succeeding then coming clean after a guilt trip because Twilight isn't a heartless cow. However, what actually happens is a sort of soap opera. Firebolt thinks Nova is cheating on her and Twilight was just being an idiot that couldn't keep it in her...err...Anyway, we now have the central problem for the character to solve: get them back together. That makes sense and is easy to follow.

It's a much better move in terms of pacing. Characters have been introduced, its been explained what they're doing together, motivations, blah, blah then the plot begins properly. Good! While Simon's Fast-Forward style is still here he does seem to be trying to kick the habit. Nova, his co-writer, will stick around and describe things to a greater extent but I would ask for a greater amount of detail, if only from a personal stand point. I did giggle at Twilight's feeble excuse for why she was in a bush. Character accuracy seems stronger in the second half of the chapter than the first. A bit of Simon's dialogue seems a tad off, mainly Rainbow Dash being maybe a tad overlly-eager to me. Or I find people that happy to help annoying? Hmm...

I am pleased to see that we finally get the backstory for Skylark. It turns out that he's the formally loyal servant of a gang of thieves who made him into an unstoppable killing machine. All right, that makes some sort of sense and explains where the magic ability to kick rump came from. He has something tragic in his past that could, potentially, come back to haunt him. *hint, hint*

Well, why not? This is a new avenue of development of the character and should be grabbed with both hooves or the character might lack some depth. It might be interesting to see Skylark's former life as a brainwashed tool as well as see him coping now or how he's dealt with the life he's been rescued from. On a technical stand point, I'm going to let you off on the whole "Show, don't tell" rule of storytelling for now as along as we get to see flashbacks to his life as a thief later on in the Fan Fic. It's important information that should be explored, even if it's done in a manner private to all other characters except Skylark. Show those emotional scars. Applejack will probably be all up ons after that.

One problem I have is the fight. I'm all for Skylark throwing ponies around because I revert to a six-year-old in fight scene but muggers turning up seems far-fetched in this universe. I have no doubt they exist but this just seems grossly out of place. There's been next to no crime to be shown in the show and very rarely do we see any shady ponies arrive. I see the point of them and that seems to have been to give Skylark something to do. I'm just wondering if magicking up a few armed thugs was the best solution to allow for a segway into Skylark's past. Why not have it crop up in conversation naturally or have Skylark fight something from the Everfree forest? They don't appear quite as forced.

Now, about Skylark's part ion the story...Err...not a whole lot to say. Its odd that Skylark seems in the background up until this point but I suppose that's mainly because Nova is sorting out the story set-up for the moment, letting Skylark and The Mane 5 That Are Left do what they do normally in the background. The main plot appears to be the re-return of Discord. Nova Glitz helped put him back into stone with the help of The Elements of Peace and The Elements of Harmony which seem roughly the same to me but symbolise other stuff. They both seem to operate in the same way and probably shoot rainbows but the fan-fic doesn't seem to describe their effect. For all I know, they could shoot daisies like high-calibre bullets. Nova feels cut off from Firebolt and so is no longer feeling the Unity vibe, Discord can now escape despite there being about 11 other elements to keep him in place, right?

Skylark ought to have a point to being here at some point and I can only image that he's going to have to either fix the marriage or fight off Discord. Eitherway, I am expecting Skylark to step forwards at some point and take the lead once Nova has finished telling the story.

How about we sum up? What Simon gave me to look at was the beginnings of something good. Bare bones narratives. Just plot and dialogue as far as I could see. What they need now is spit and polish most of all. Good luck, Simon and Nova. I can only say so much more here for fear of two things: 1) boring people and 2) sounding like a git. I've tried to do lots of broad strokes here but the proof reader I heard Simon had found ought to be more useful. He can get into the nitty gritty with you, Simon, to really help elevate the language and quality of storytelling here. From what I can see, Rekindling is still far from complete but should be a good read as the both of you work through it. I wish the both of you the best. I'll be reading. Hopefully. If I remember...

Good luck!

 

Sure thing! Send me a link and I'll look it all over.

 

Avengers Assemble and Battleship

Wow...I've been busy...RP mod, declaring to make an entire game, coursework...

I'm a little behind on this....I know! MOVIE ROUND-UP!

[size=+1]Avengers Assemble[/size]​

Let me put it this way (because it's relatively short): it's remarkably awesome.

It's fun, exciting, well-written and arguably one of the most faithful to the very feeling of a comic book that you are ever likely to experience. Characters play off each other nicely. The action doesn't feel like it doesn't belong or shouldn't be in the places it's in. Loki is a good villain, I thought, even if he's not the main focus of the story. Hulk is awesome. Iron Man has some fantastic bits in this. Captain America becomes an important, if slightly ignored character in the presence of the other, stronger characters. Thor does some pretty cool stuff. Infighting, arguments and Samuel Jackson in an eye-patch....just...because...

If you haven't seen it, then their's always the DVD, I guess. Marvel have managed to bring continuity to a big screen while also doing a pretty bang up job. If you like super-hero movies, your in safe hands. If you have kids that like super-hero movies, your in safe hands. It's not mind-blowing or clever, it's just a whole lot of fun.

[size=+1]Battleship[/size]​

A little bit of research tells me that this hasn't come out yet in the U.S.A but has done over here in the UK. And Japan before that. So, in one part of the world, my review will actually be ahead of time, for once.

Wow...I do believe that's the sound of Beelzebub shovelling snow.

One thing though: this is a film with 'ISN'T THE NAVY WONDERFUL?' emblazoned across the side. Battleship, even more worryingly, has the same glossy look of a Transformers movie. Most of the action is done with special effects, you don't care about the aliens, everything has that really bright colour pallet but is covered in scratches and holes, blah, blah, realism-meets-80's-cartoon-blah-blah. It's got loads of the same beats and flourishes of any Michael Bay Transformer's film which isn't really a good thing...

The plot is simple. Some lazy moron turned Naval Captain (eventually) called Alex Hopper get's trapped on a Destroyer class Navy ship that's trapped within a several mile wide bubble created by aliens, in Hawaii. The Aliens want to take over Earth because their planet sucks... I think...and so uses their more powerful ships to kick the humans out. That's sort of the jist.

How about I sum this up with three questions:

Am I going to enjoy this movie?

Errr...Yes and no.

What I found to be the most respect I had for the film was it's ability to come up with a way of adding an actual game of Battleship to the film that didn't seem overly stupid. A Japanese Captain comes up with the idea to use a grid of buoys that measure the strength of waves and happen to be neatly laid out over the stretch of ocean the alien bubble covers. They use that to track where the alien ships are moving to when their boat get's blown to bits, rendering all their radar devices and the like useless. It was a moment I genuinely didn't expect and was actually impressed.

Everything else? Clichés! Clichés everywhere!

Hopper only get's to a position of power after most of the officers on-board are killed. He then has to rise to the challenge of being a great commander. The veteran soldier trying to over come some disability has his own hero moment, overcoming his disability, inspiringly. The hero wants to marry the Admiral's/General's daughter but doesn't get the chance until he saves the world. An asian man and battle tactics are present in the story, so "The Art of War" must be brought up at some point. The back-story for the aliens is explained in a Mind-Meld-like, memory-montage when the alien touches Hopper. Rihanna - yes, the singer - is playing this character from Aliens:

​

That's the least of the films possible problems. There is this one part where there are no more ships for Hopper and his crew to use, except the USS Missouri. They get the help of the elderly and retired servicemen you see from earlier. They run this antique battleship so that the good guys can blow more things up. On one hand, it's kinda fun to see these old geezers helping out, laughing and joking as they relive past glory and such like.

On the other hand, the film tries so hard to make them look awesome. They get a dramatic reveal and a slow, sweeping shot of these guys just sitting around on the boat like naval Batmen that have arrived from nowhere, with their own swelling orchestral music. The film constantly waves it's little flag as the Disabled vet kicks an alien's behind or we get some inspiring speech or these old men are hero-worshipped through their portrail. All armed forces do good work, I won't disagree, but it always seem really cheesy when the film tries to show these guys as amazing.

The most cheesy part of the whole thing is Hopper's arc. He's this direction-less idiot that get's transformed by the Navy and war. I can't help but feel like I've watched a recruitment film. I liked the explosions and idiocy but I felt like the Navy only let Hasbro and Bluegrass Films borrow and blow up their ships if they were really, really nice to them.


Yeah, but it's it better than Transformers?

Yes.

Most things are better than Transformers films. Punches in the face, ferret bites, shovelling snow in Hell; all better in comparison. Battleships has loads of the same beats but I never found myself getting particularly bored, like I was with Michael Bay. You could see what was going on, for starters. The CGI did look pretty cool and the design for the aliens was different to what you'd be expecting. They still seemed a sort of cutesy, Disney-esque sort of monster where they had big, wide eyes. They don't look right if your trying to make these your bad guys. I can only imagine the time that should have been spent on a tragic back-story that motivates the aliens to invade was spent shooting up Hawaii some more.

Bits of the dialogue pointed towards the idea that you shouldn't take any of this seriously and so jumble up what is usually not overly special back and forth of navel terms. "Just shut up, stuff that pop-corn in your face and watch the fire and pretty lights" says the Film, "It's about a board game, who cares?!"

Transformers was always expected to be more than that base-line explosion festival and place the aliens in the fore-front of the story to then be characterised and shown off so that new fans could be created and old ones could be gratified. That never happened and so garnered the hatred that has sprung forth.

Battleship hasn't got any pre-existing characters because it's a board-game. You can do whatever the hell you like as long as there's ships and they're battling. The film is almost entirely a rip-off of Transformers except we don't care about the aliens and were never expected to. This ultimately works better because we're more inclined to focus on the humans that get most of the screen-time. The aliens are targets so do nothing but advance the plot. It would have been nice to get a little more explanation on what they why they bothered to turn up but by inner 6 year-old is to distracted by all the gun-fire to care. No-one is likely to be up in arms about Battleship which means that it seems to get away with it.

Isn't Avengers Assemble already out?

Well, yes. Go see that instead. Avengers Assemble is superior to Battleship in almost every way. If you have some kids with you and need to keep them entertained for a while, go see Avengers. Battleship is not worth your time. In fact, neither was this review. I doubt you need me to tell you to go see something else when this comes out, American Bronies. Your smarter than that. I only saw it because Liam Neeson's in it. And as a devout Neesonite, I was compelled to see this film.

Robert Downey Jr. in a flying suit of mecha-armour fighting the Norse god of Thunder or a group of people shooting stuff with cannons? No brainer right?

Now, if Hasbro were to put some money towards an Fallout: Equestria film...