Being an Apologist about Back to the Future II

One of the most celebrated and heavily criticized trilogies in film is the Back to the Future Trilogy. I think this trilogy was probably the first time I thought that the second two films were totally not necessary. It was, after all, supposed to be one film that had an open ending. But after the smash success of the 1985 film, it was only natural that Hollywood would make a cash grab and make two more films. That’s how things worked (and still do). That said, I actually did enjoy parts 2 and 3. They weren’t terrible films, but they are certainly nowhere as good as the first.

 

Not a Plot Hole

Common criticisms of 2 and 3 include:

1. Part 2 didn’t spend enough time in the future, and took us to an era we’d already been (the exact setting of the first movie).
2. The 2015 we see in the film is too advanced.
3. Marty’s sudden aversion to being called a chicken, to the point that he completely loses it whenever he is called one. This was nowhere to be seen in the first film, and it feels so unnatural when they introduce it in the second for a payoff in the third.
4. They couldn’t get all members of the original cast. Marty’s girlfriend Jennifer is played by Elisabeth Shue instead of Claudia Wells, and Crispin Glover, erm, I mean George McFly is played by Jeffrey Weissman.
5. Common time travel plot holes and paradoxes. (It makes no sense that Biff could return to the 2015 he left).
6. Jennifer Parker didn’t do anything in 2 and 3 other than sleep. This was a wasted opportunity.

But are these really problems? Well, story wise, the only ones that are problems that detract from the overall quality of the films are 1,3 and 6. The other problems don’t really disrupt the story, they just bother nitpickers and fridge logicians. Let’s address the first criticism before discussing the logic of time travel.

The criticism that the second movie didn’t spend enough time in the future and took us right back to the setting of the first film is not invalid. It’s been a whole 5 years and we’ve been anticipating going to 2015 ever since the end of the first film! But…

But nothing! We’re going back to 1955 again. Didn’t we already go there? Why are we going back? We just saw this!

I’ll remind you again that the second film came out a whole 5 years after the first. That’s a considerably long time between a film and a sequel.  While it was certainly possible to rent or buy the first film on VHS, the scenes of the first film were likely not as fresh as they would be to the bingewatcher of today. In 1990, the average filmgoer didn’t see the third act of the first film right before seeing the second film.. When I saw part 2 in the theatre in 1990, the first thing I did when I got home was to watch the first film again and see if I could spot Marty from Back to the Future 2 anywhere. Of course I couldn’t, because the filmmakers hadn’t written the plot of Back to the Future 2 when they shot the first film. But the point is, I was very intrigued by this, and I thought it was kind of awesome. Now, to some, it might have been more fun to have gone to the 1960s or 1970s, and while I think that would have also been neat, having Marty 2 solve his own problems while simultaneously trying not to disrupt Marty 1 makes a really awesome story (and jumpstarts deep thought about the logic of time travel in young impressionable viewers.) Therefore, I don’t think this is much of a problem.

Let’s talk about time travel theories already! 

Fair enough. Before we go on, I have to mention where I get most of my understanding of time travel from. I believe in a linear expression of time where everything remains normal from the beginning of time (point A) to the point in history where the first ever journey into the past occurs (point B). Then from the point the time traveler travels back to (point C) and onward replaces the corresponding area in the first timeline completely.

These are the three possible outcomes of time travel. Courtesy mjyoung.net

 

While I did independently think of some of these time travel theories, no one author has summed up my exact thoughts (and taught me more) on the logic of time travel as M. Joseph Young.  There are countless time travel stories where the logic simply makes no sense (examples: Time Cop, Looper, Star Trek: First Contact, Superman etc…). When I found MJ Young’s blog, I felt as if finally I had found someone who felt the same way I did on time travel, and he has succinctly and completely laid out the theories in ways that I never could. So special thanks to MJ Young. It is from him that I learned of logical terms like the N-jump, the infinity loop (or causality loop), and the Sawtooth Snap… and trying to avoid making an infinity loop should be the objective of any traveler who accidentally finds himself in the past. The importance of this exceeds that of “righting the wrongs of history.”

That said, let us return to Back to the Future. I will attempt to address all of the criticisms with time travel explanations when possible.

Since we’ve just discussed the logic of time travel, it is still possible to make a good time travel movie even with faulty logic. For example, in part 1, it makes no sense that Marty’s photograph of him and his siblings can begin to fade from existence once he interrupts his parent’s first meeting. Instead what would have happened is that he he would create an infinity loop wherein he erases his existence, making it impossible to interrupt their first meeting, meaning he would have been born, meaning that he could interrupt their first meeting… When we talk about the common plot holes in time travel stories (as we have above), there are some that we have to suspend our disbelief for (as I mentioned). Had Marty undone the fabric of the universe in this way, the movie would have been cut abruptly short when his dad fell out of the tree and he pushed him out of the way of Grandpa’s car. That doesn’t make a fun movie. The disappearing photograph also makes no sense. Fading Marty doesn’t either. But these neat ideas in the first film that are cute even if illogical.

Get on with it! Come on! We get it! We have to suspend disbelief, but if I want to nitpick, then you can’t simply explain away things by saying it’s to make the movie better. We know that. We want a real explanation…

Is 2015 as portrayed in Back to the Future 2 too advanced? Well, considering that 2015 is now in the rearview mirror and as of this writing we don’t have flying cars, hoverboards, self-lacing shoes, self-drying jackets, dehydrated, rehydratable food and other amazing technology that we see in the film, this sounds like a resounding yes. But we have to consider that from a moviemaking perspective, going to the far off year of 2015 and having it be not that much more advanced than 1985 would have been anticlimactic. We’ve been waiting to see 2015 for five whole years. It would have been a huge letdown to see the actual 2015, though we might have thought the funky smartphone devices were neat.

But there could be an in-universe explanation for the much more advanced technology. We have to consider that this is a time travel film, and it is very possible that the 8 time travelers we see are not the only 8 beings to have ever traveled to the past and influenced the present and future. (Yes there are eight. Einstein, Marty, Doc Brown, Jennifer Parker, Biff Tannen, Clara Clayton, Jules Brown, Vern Brown). Given that in the 2015 presented in the second film it appears that Japan’s bubble economy has continued well into the 2010s and shows no sign of stopping, it is highly likely that a Japanese corporation has also independently discovered or reverse-engineered time travel, possibly traveling forward, plucking pieces of tech from the future and bringing them to the past or present. This would thereby accelerate the rate at which technology develops, meaning that it might be more accurate to say that the 2015 we see in Back to the Future 2 is in fact not advanced enough.

I’ve always felt that once a time machine is built, unless the traveler(s) are extremely secretive, it is as if infinite time machines are built and technological singularity or a broken universe are the only plausible outcomes. But let’s say that this other traveler we haven’t seen is also careful and secretive.. and wants only to avoid the lost decade of the 1990s in Japan. Fine. She may simply have altered the timeline so that technology evolves faster than in our own reality.

Nobody really complains about the level of tech in 2015 though, we knew it was a “quasi futuristic” setting. I want to know why Marty inexplicably can’t stand being called a Chicken.

Alright…Let’s move on to more important charges against the second and third films. Marty suddenly can’t stand being called a chicken in Back to the Future 2 and 3. They invented this tragic character flaw in order to show growth in his character at the end of the third film, but this wasn’t introduced in the first film, so it feels hokey and kind of rushed. I felt like it made no sense the first time I saw it, but again, since this is a time travel movie, there COULD be an in-universe explanation for this.

The Marty we are watching in Back to the Future 2 and 3 is NOT the same Marty from Back to the Future 1. If your recall the ending to the first film, Marty’s parents are more successful because of his actions in 1955. This would mean that Marty would have been raised by these more successful parents rather than the ones we see in the beginning of the film, the office lackey Dad and the alcoholic Mom. Perhaps Marty 2 (we’ll call him Marty 2, but he may in fact be Marty 5 or 6 or 37 depending on how many sawteeth there were) was raised by the George McFly who remembers punching out the bully, and was taught to stand up for himself. THIS is what causes him to throw down whenever anyone calls him names. Perhaps there’s another reason, but the point is that this Marty’s life experiences are vastly different than the Marty who first travelled to the past and experienced the original AB timeline.

Okay, well if this is a different Marty who looks the same, why are we supposed to think that Elisabeth Shue is the same Jennifer who looks different?

To address the next nitpick, while it is unfortunate that Claudia Wells and Crispin Glover could not agree to terms to return to the franchise, it isn’t that detrimental to the story that they are played by different actors. In fact, I don’t think I realized that they were both replaced until years later. (Remember, I was a kid at the time.) But we could make an in-universe explanation for both characters’ altered appearances. Let us first consider Jennifer. She’s played by Claudia Wells in the first film, but in the second she’s played by Elisabeth Shue.

It may be that Jennifer 2 (or 5 or 6 or 37) has a different genetic makeup than Jennifer 1. When we are talking about time travel, it is entirely possible that changing circumstances in the past could change the very genepool in the present or future. If a person’s parents don’t procreate with each other at the exact time in the exact same way that they did in a previous timeline, it is highly likely that their child would be of a different genetic makeup, resulting from their being conceived via a different sperm and different egg. (See the film About Time for more on this). So Elisabeth Shue Jennifer is not the exact same person as Claudia Wells Jennifer. They may not even have the same parents. It’s certainly possible that with all this jumping backward in time that Marty and Doc interrupted the first meeting of Jennifer’s parents. In the best case scenario Claudia Wells Jennifer and Elisabeth Shue Jennifer would be genetic sisters. But since we know that in these stories, the earliest date that travelers have gone to is 1885, it is also possible that these two Jennifers would be distant cousins (as far as DNA is concerned.) How related they are isn’t important though. The point is, they are different people, and their differing appearances can be explained due to time travel.

But Marty didn’t interfere with Jennifer’s parents at all after his first trip to 1955! Claudia Wells is in the ending of the first movie!

Correct. We DO know that Marty’s original trip to 1955 and back did not alter her genetic makeup (or at least not to a great extent) because Claudia Wells is present in the end of Back to the Future 1. This only indicates that the change occurred in a subsequent run-through of the timeline caused by a subsequent trip to the past. Perhaps this was the result of Marty’s second trip to 1955, or maybe Doc’s trip to 1885, or the trip of some other traveler we don’t know about. What we do know is that in the beginning of part 2, we’re not watching the first run-through of the timeline since Marty’s been back from 1955, whereas in part 1 we are (or we are at least watching an earlier run-through, depending on which timeline the DNA change occurred.) This only further corroborates the idea that we could be watching a different Marty in the second film than we were in the first. If time travel can make Claudia Wells turn into Elisabeth Shue, surely it can make Marty’s personality different.

When discussing George McFly, we can apply similar principles to explain why he was played by a different actor. It’s not really that important to do this, though. Besides, the actor had prosthetics applied so that he could look like Glover, and this ended up changing laws about one’s likeness being used in film, so it was very much intended to be Crispin Glover. But if you don’t like that idea, then apply the same explanation and we’ll say that Marty’s interactions with Sheamus McFly in 1885 changed George’s appearance somehow.

Okay then smartypants, explain how it is possible for Biff to go to 1955 to give his younger self the almanac, but still return to the 2015 we are watching. Why weren’t the changes to the timeline instantaneous? 

We’re getting really deep into the nitpicks here, but yes. this is something that has always bothered me about this film. If Biff stole the time machine in 2015 with the intention of going to 1955 and giving his younger self the sports almanac, then it makes absolutely no sense that he could return to the same 2015 we are watching (even though the story demands this so that Marty, Doc and Jennifer can get back into the DeLorean). If Biff’s actions caused (what Doc Brown calls) 1985 A to occur, then he’d have to return to 2015 A. We can only conclude that Biff was unsuccessful in his first run, and changed nothing, if not very little.

Well, but the movie shows that 1985 A happened, so he couldn’t have been unsuccessful.

Yes, it happened, but since Biff was able to deliver the DeLorean back to the 2015 we’re seeing in the film, Biff himself was not successful, but Marty and Doc caused him to be successful somehow during their immediate trip back to 1985 (which happens to be 1985A).

What? Doc and Marty can influence 1955 by going to 1985?

Here’s where it gets complicated. No, they can’t influence 1955 by going to 1985. They would have had to first take a trip to 1955, then forward to 1985.

That didn’t happen in the movie!

Well, we don’t see that happening, but it is certainly possible that they didn’t readjust the time circuits from Biff’s trip and accidentally returned to 1955, inadvertently caused young Biff to get the almanac,  then moved forward to 1985A. We also have to assume this didn’t happen on screen.

Huh?

Alright, I’ll try to lay it out for you. If we have to start with an A-B segment (even though it may be the Y-Z segment considering what happened in the first film) for the purposes of this reconstruction, the A-B segment starts at the beginning of the 2nd movie. (Though logically moving them forward from 1985 means that at least in the first time they go to 2015, their older selves and children shouldn’t be there, unless it’s a subsequent run through of the timeline, but again, for the purposes of this exercise, we’re calling A-B the version of events that we see in the 2nd film.) Keep in mind this is only one possible way to accomplish what we see in the film, and there could be others.

• A-B) Doc returns from 2015 to 1985 to bring Marty and Jennifer forward so they can deal with a problem with their kids. While in 2015, Biff steals the time machine so that he can return to 1955 and give his younger self the almanac.
• C-D) Biff fails for some reason. Either he has a change of heart or he hands the almanac over to young Biff, who loses the it for whatever reason. We don’t see this occur, but Biff returns to 2015 without having changed very much in the past.
• E-F) Doc, Marty and Jennifer return to the past, making the mistake of traveling first to 1955. They may be there for only a few seconds, but as a result of their actions, Biff’s plan from C-D is now successful. (Perhaps Old Biff in 1955 sees the other DeLorean and this causes him to not have a change in heart. Perhaps young Biff sees the DeLorean and now believes what the Old Man had to say. Whatever the reason, Biff becomes rich because of the almanac and it’s Marty and Doc’s fault). Marty and Doc now travel forward to 1985, and it’s 1985A. They realize that the past has been changed and assume that they have to go back to 1955 and get the Almanac.

But wait, if they caused 1985A, then how would there even be a time machine at all? Emmitt Brown is put in a mental hospital in 1985A. Also what happens to 1985A’s Marty, who was said to be in boarding school in Europe? Wouldn’t that erase the entire first movie since a time machine would never have been built in the first place?

In short, yes. The movie is beyond broken if we use the theory we’ve been operating on up to this point. But one way to look at time travel is that it is possible to have experienced something in a previous timeline and have memory of it in a different one. (Or for objects to originate in a previous one and still exist in a subsequent one). If this is an N jump, for example, something you’ve created in AB can still exist in CD even if it wasn’t created in CD. (Though that also means that if it wasn’t created in CD then it couldn’t exist in EF, but the AB version of it could… maybe). We’ll have to agree that this is at least how these films operate. Marty in BTTF 1 is surprised when he comes back from 1955 because his brother and sister and parents are all different and he has a new truck that he didn’t have before. He clearly has memories from AB. So… to answer your question, if in 1985 Doc invents a time machine, then in 1985 A it’s still possible that he has his 1985 time machine. Rather than N Jumping, just lay the segments back to back, (example.. someone born in 1955 who in 1985 travels back to 1955 and “takes the long way” back to 1985 would be 60 years old and have memories of both timelines, having experienced both.)

Okay, but. Time either works one way (your theory) or another (the film’s theory). It can’t be both.

Yes, and that’s where you have to suspend your disbelief for the sake of the film watching experience. Let’s just say that in this instance it works, and the film is able to continue to its conclusion. This would set up Back to the Future 3, which thankfully is much less problematic in terms of how it makes changes to history, because in that film there’s only one jump backwards and one jump forwards (kind of like the first film.)

I still like this trilogy a lot, but have to admit the 2nd one is the weakest of the three. But it’s also the one with the most forward and backward time jumps going on. Perhaps it’s best to keep things simple when we make time travel stories.

And what about Jennifer? Why didn’t they keep her awake? Why didn’t they give her anything important to do? How does it make sense that leaving her on her porch in 1985A, she’ll be on her porch in 1985 at the end of the third film.

I’ll address the third criticism first. Yes, it makes very little sense that leaving her on the porch in 1985A would result in her being on the porch in 1985 at the end of part 3, no matter which theory of time travel we are using. If we use the theory I’ve been operating on, then the entire 1985 timeline would be erased, and it wouldn’t make any difference if you left her on the porch, in a ditch, or on the moon. She wouldn’t be there in 1985 at all, unless you prevented her from making the trip to 2015 in the first place. If we are going by the theory the film uses for 1985A, it only makes sense that she’s immune to changes in the timeline because she was a passenger in the time machine. Now that 1985A is being erased, she logically would be erased with it. The only way this works is that when 1985A is erased, the Marty and Doc who return from 2015 know they have to leave Jennifer on the porch because their predecessors did, but also know they need to prevent 1985A from happening even though it didn’t happen. So let’s just flip a table. It was a mistake to take Jennifer to the future if they weren’t going to do anything with her.

That’s bad writing!
Well, I won’t go so far as to say it is bad writing. You’ve got a smash hit movie and a superstar in Michael J. Fox. We also don’t have the same actor in the role. Elisabeth Shue is nothing to sneeze at, and I probably would have chosen to have her do more than go to sleep and then go to sleep some more. But would having her be more a part of the story have taken away some of the screen time from Doc and Marty? Yeah maybe. But it could have been fun to see Marty and Jennifer working together to solve Marty Jr’s problem, perhaps having a spousal argument about how to proceed even though they aren’t married yet. Maybe it would have been neat to put Jennifer in 1955 also. But for whatever reason, the writers wanted Marty and Doc alone. Part 2 is the weakest of the trilogy, and part 2 has the most Jennifer, so maybe it wasn’t the worst choice ever to take them out of it.

There have been plenty of rumors about Back to the Future 4 happening, and while we probably won’t actually be seeing this film made, EVER, I would postulate that the best way to proceed with that, given Michael J. Fox’ condition, would be to center it around Doc and Jennifer. If one could acquire the services of either Claudia Wells or Elisabeth Shue, go for it. Make up for putting Jennifer to sleep and show us how she’s gonna fix the timeline for once.

Top 10 Asian Characters of my Youth

Media representation matters. Recently there has been a lot of discussion about black media representation, and there have been a lot of recent films that have been commended for making black stories their main narrative. Movies like Hidden Figures, Moonlight, Get Out and Black Panther (and the soon to be released A Wrinkle in Time) are showing that yes, in fact we can make films about black people that don’t reinforce stereotypes, that tell good stories and appeal to everyone. It got me to thinking about why there hasn’t yet been any similar surge in Asian-American narratives and stories.

Asian (and Asian-American) representation in media has been an important issue for me ever since I became politically inclined. While it’s no secret that I am disappointed with how Asians have been portrayed in film and TV over the years, it is fair to say that we are far past Mickey Rooney in yellowface or Asian buffoon characters like Long Duck Dong. The fact that we now have Glen Rhee or Harold and Kumar is a step in the right direction, but in both cases, these roles should not be considered groundbreaking, yet they are. They are groundbreaking for being different from the norm (or at least what the norm was). And what was that norm? Stereotypes. Characters that weren’t created to show us who they were as people, but what perceived racial traits they possessed. That’s how it was when I was growing up. If there was an Asian character in a story I was watching, they were either the villain, a token part of an ensemble, the resident nerd or martial artist or dragon lady, and they generally served to advance the narrative of the (usually white) protagonist.

But wasn’t there anything good among the slogs of awful? That’s what this post is all about. It is an exercise both to flex my nostalgic nerdy muscle, and to illustrate a point, that making a top 10 list of good Asian roles isn’t easy to do. If it were, then maybe there wouldn’t be so much discussion about the lack of good media representation.

While there are certainly other (more popular) blogs like that keep tabs on Asian-American representation, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a top 10 list, so I’ll try to take a stab at it. Before we get to the main list though, I’m going to give you examples of some characters that get disqualified, to kind of illustrate what we are doing here.

10. Glen Rhee (Walking Dead) – Disqualified for being too recent. This is about my youth. We’re going to draw the line at the year 2000.

9. The girl from Captain Planet (Gi) or that guy from M.A.S.K. (Bruce Sato) – Disqualified because they are animated characters voiced by non-Asian voice actors doing accents.

8. Puyi (The Last Emperor) – Disqualified for being a historical figure. I am somewhat on the fence in this regard, but I think I’ll limit it to fictional characters.

7. Ranma Saotome (Ranma 1/2) or Son Goku (Dragon Ball Z) (and every other character in anime)- Disqualified because we’re not talking about Asian characters in Asian media. This also unfortunately means that Trini, Adam and every subsequent Asian Power Ranger are also disqualified because the show is the whitewashed version of a show of Asian origin that actually wasn’t originally made for a western audience.  (Though I can certainly appreciate that there were lots of Asian-American girls who looked up to the first American Yellow Ranger.)

6. Master Splinter (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) – Disqualified for being a rat, not a human.

5. Kato (Green Hornet) and Oddjob (Goldfinger) – Disqualified for being a sidekick or henchman.

4. Mr. Miyagi (Karate Kid) – Disqualified for being the wise mentor to guide the white protagonist. Also for reinforcing the Asians are martial arts experts stereotype.

Edit 2022-01-07 – Over time thoughts change. After having reviewed the source material again, watching The Karate Kid with my son, I admit I had forgotten how much good the writers and Pat Morita put into this role. Though they never explained that Miyagi was in the U.S. Army in WWII in any kind of conversation, nor did they explain what it meant that his family was interned at Manzanar, they did reference it in the film. It would have been a good opportunity to discuss those things through conversation between Daniel-san and Miyagi, with Daniel reacting in shock and horror that this is the first time he’s even hearing about internment. I very much want to include this role in my top 10 now. It would instantly vault to near the top. But unfortunately it’s still disqualified because it did much to reinforce stereotypes. If we can step back and not watch this film as an impressionable politically unaware kid in the 80’s and instead watch it through the eyes of an aware Asian-American adult three decades after it was made, the role becomes instantly un-disqualified. But unfortunately when people saw this and its sequels, Miyagi represents how “they” are different from “us” even though as a U.S. citizen, Miyagi is as much “us” as Daniel-san is. So I will keep it where it is, even though I broke the rules for Tommy Lee in Best of the Best. 

3. Dr. Julius No (Dr. No) – Disqualified for reinforcing the Asians are smart stereotype. Also for personifying yellow peril…. Also for yellowface.

2. Lo Pan (Big Trouble in Little China) – Disqualified for being a villainous amalgamation of orientalist stereotypes.

1. Long Duk Dong (Sixteen Candles) – Disqualified because f you!

And since this is a personal list:

0. That character I didn’t put on this list that you really like (that film or show you remember) – Disqualified because I either didn’t see it or it didn’t have enough of an impact on me so I don’t remember it. This list is a blog post, not an academic study.

Just for giggles, I’m going to name each entry by what I call these characters in conversation, when I don’t have the time to look their names up. It also shows there’s a problem when most people can’t remember the character names. We remember Marty McFly. We remember Sarah Connor. Do you recall the name of James Bond’s CIA contact in a View to a Kill? Of course you don’t.

The character bios are also from my memory, in most cases without any research. So on to the top 10 after the jump!

Is Link from the Zelda games left-handed?

Yes, he is.. except for when he isn’t. In 3D, he has been decidedly left-handed, as he holds his shield in his right hand and sword in his left.

However in 2d incarnations he is left-handed 75 percent of the time, except in Zelda II where he is left-handed 50 percent of the time.

Huh?

The way he is drawn, he holds his shield in his right hand when he is facing up, down, or left. This is reversed when he’s facing right because it was easier to swap the sprites instead of drawing entirely new ones.

In Zelda 2, he is right handed when he faces right and left handed when he faces left.

See this sprite dump from Zelda 1.

Left handed 75 percent of the time.

Batman vs James Bond

via hitfix.com

So on a facebook post that asked who would win between Bond, Bourne, and whoever that guy Tom Cruise is playing from Mission Impossible is, I made the snarky comment that Bond would clean the floor with the other two, because there are 6 of him. Then my friend Rob who really really really LOVES Batman suggested the ultimate matchup. Bond vs. Batman.

Of course there have been more than 6 James Bonds in film if you consider the original Casino Royale film, and there’s no telling what to do with Never Say Never Again, if we are counting that as part of Connery’s take on the role, or if it is a separate role (and therefore a 7th bond). I’ve heard estimates that there have been 9 portrayals of Batman on the big screen, but if we have to narrow it down to 6, then we’ll start with Adam West’s portrayal and go on from there.

So, that answers the question of which Bonds and which Batmen we have going against each other. But how do we match them up. Chronologically? The significance of what they mean to the franchise? There’s some debate to that as well. But let’s just for the sake of argument go with the most obvious matchups and work from there. So find out the matchups and we can debate the results after the break.

*Spoilers* My Episode VII Review

I have Bashically Darsh Vader, but coooler, wish a 7D hiwted lightshaber, and he’s a ninja, and he can kill you with his mind!

Okay so I’m coming out of blogger retirement to talk about this film, and once again, I want to explain that there are spoilers in this review, so go away if you don’t want the film spoiled for you.

Epic Rap Battle?

Roboseyo wrote on his facebook wall:

 

“I want to lock the author of this article
(A Korea Times article written by a Korean who does nothing but generalize foreigners despite meeting so many on a regular basis)

In a room with the author of this article.
(A Korea Observer article written by a white woman who does nothing but generalize Koreans despite living in Korea for 10 years)

they deserve each other”

I then got the idea for an epic rap battle between them and wrote it in the comments.

Eeeeeeepic rap battles of History! Shi-yong the Difference Pointer Outer VS. Laura the Not Russian Prostitute! Begin!

(Shi-yong)
Check it out yall cuz I’m Korean.
I spit about foreign stuff that I been seein’
Ya’ll foreigners drink and you smoke and you cuss
But you ain’t never gonna be as 18 dope like us.

You say we say “Mine mine” but your soldiers are here
Sell your beef, FTA, take our girls, slow-drink beer
Said we got No manners but too much manners in speech
That’s contradictory, and you’re a basic shawty beach-goer

The beauty of the minjok is all I know
I learned this slang from a waeg so GTFO
Yall people need to learn that Korea’s the shit,
Our 5000 year old culture is 2 legit to quit.

(Laura)
Spit a verse? Please, y’all only spit in the street.
And you don’t cover your mouth or your nose when you sneeze.
Let me tell you all about why I hate Korea.
I been here 10 years so I see what you don’t see-a.

Koreans are so rude and Koreans are so selfish.
And you don’t know how to drive, and you’re short like you’re elfish.
You don’t understand a thing about us ppl from the west
Be like, “Critical thiking, pssh why bother? My people are the best!”

Now comes the part where you misspoke.
The minjok is the people’s joke.
Let’s be clear I’m an expert, I’ve lived here 10 years.
Where you observe Hollywood and repeat sayings of your peers.

Roaring Currents is a big letdown, and here’s why.

Okay, so it’s been a while, and I thank the people still subscribed to this blog for their continued attention. Today I am going to review a movie that is breaking box office records here in Korea. It’s called Myeongryang in Korean and Roaring Currents in English. The synopsis: During the Imjin War, (1592-1598), a Japanese fleet of more than 300 ships is invading Korea, and Admiral Yi Sun-shin has 12 ships with which to defend the country. It’s not a spoiler if I tell you that Yi was successful. That would be like saying the Titanic sunk in the film Titanic.  As such, Yi is a revered national hero in Korea, and very respected in Japan for his strategy that defeated the Japanese navy against overwhelming odds.

I love war movies, so I was really excited to see this, especially since it had been getting such rave reviews in the Korean media. Korean films that Korean moviegoers like are generally good films. Some of my favorite Korean war-genre films include Shilmido, Taegukki Brotherhood, and 71: Into The Fire. As far as other war films outside of Korea, I liked Platoon, All’s Quiet on the Western Front, Saving Private Ryan, Joyeux Noel, Full Metal Jacket, and Inglourious Basterds. I’ll get to what it is about these films that I really liked later. At the same time, there are war movies I don’t like.  I won’t name them here, but you can be sure they will appear later in my analysis.

So let’s get into my experience watching the film.
As my wife and I stepped into the theater I was in high anticipation of this film.  The theater was packed.  I had just watched Guardians of the Galaxy a few days earlier, and was fun as that was, I was in the mood for a real serious tension filled historical period film that would really deconstruct what happened centuries ago and let us know the motivations behind a historical hero I had been hearing about since childhood. Remember, this is a guy who has a prominent statue in downtown Seoul.

Remember, this is a guy who has a prominent statue in downtown Seoul.

X: This is the Statue of Liberty of Korea.   Y: Stop saying that Korean things are the Korean version of foreign things.

So the movie starts, and Yi Sun-shin and his advisors are discussing the dire situation ahead of them. There’s one guy in there that looks sneaky and evil just from the way he looks and speaks. Everyone else is really handsome and noble looking, but this guy looks like he’d double cross his mother in a heartbeat. The movie just started, and I don’t know exactly who this person is, so it doesn’t register with me yet.

Then there’s a cut away to the Japanese side. They are discussing strategy. Immediately I burst out laughing.  Want to know why? I’ll explain after the jump.

 

It took me this long to get into Power Rangers?

Pirates are AWESOME!

Why am I writing a post about Power Rangers?  Well, I am married and have nephews and they are really really into Power Rangers, and when they come to visit, that’s what we always put on the TV via VOD or youtube to placate them.  I never really liked Power Rangers when it first came out in the US in the 1990’s.  I’ll tell you why in a bit.  But this past weekend while babysitting my nephew Youn-hyuk, he kept clamoring for Power Rangers Captain Force.  Seeing that via VOD that would cost money to watch, I went on the net and figured out that the Captain Force in Korea is called Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger in its original Japanese, and there were plenty of videos of that on youtube.  But I think this is the first time we actually watched it together.  Oh my gosh.. this is one of the best series ever!  And now this article is going to be all over the place, because as I am thinking about all the things I need to explain…  So if you would like to read more about something extremely geeky, then read on.

I will begin my disclaimer and say that I am a huge nerd.. and when it comes to new nerdy things, be they games, books, movies, TV shows, or comics, I never really just watch something, say it’s cool and be done with it.  If I like it, I have an insatiable thirst for more, becoming obsessed with it.  For example, I watched Professional Wrestling in college, and was hooked on it during the Monday Night Wars, so much that I would go rent videos of previous Wrestling Events.  I’ve probably watched the original 3 Star Wars movies more than 100 times.. each.  I’ve seen every episode of G1 Transformers… after my 30th birthday.  There was a period in high school when I got hooked on Spider-Man comics, in an era that was known as the Clone Saga.  This caused me to waste money on back issues trying to reassemble the whole thing, and then I bought even more back issues after that.  I play pen and paper tabletop roleplaying games in an ongoing campaign once per week.  I am a huge nerd, and if I think something is cool, I will immerse myself in it.  That is because I want to know everything there is to know about it.  Everything.

How do I make Monopoly fun again?

Actually, Monopoly is still fun, for me anyway, but a lot of people complain that it takes too long and nothing ever happens. Well those people simply do not know how to play. Youre supposed to make deals with other players to get a color group and bankrupt everyone else instead of just going around and around paying 22 dollars here and there.

Another problem is the house rules people play by whereupon the Free Parking space gives y $500 and too much money is infused into the game.

So if you eliminate those rules then the game should just go smoothly.

 

But that’s not necessarily fun.

 

If you want to have a different Monopoly experience, try these house rules.

The everyone is rich game…

1. Start with $2000

2. Get 400 for passing go, 800 for landing on it.

3. Free Parking collects fines and taxes and starts with $500 which is replenished when anyone lands there.

Analysis: With this game, you will see for sure that it really does come down to statistics. The reds triumph over all, but having the reds and oranges while your opponent has the entire rest of the board, you will still have a higher chance at winning.

 

The everyone is poor game

1. Start with $1000

2. No salary for passing go

3. Auction all declined properties starting at $1.

4. No free parking

Analysis: The only way that money can be infused into the game is by chance and community chest cards, thereby necessitating that some things get auctioned off cheaply. I got Boardwalk for $35 when I played this way. Railroads become the best properties. The 4th side of the board is practically worthless because nobody has enough money to build anything over there.

The Utilities matter rule

1. If you own one utility you get 5 percent of all rent collected on properties with houses or hotels. (That’s $100 if someone lands on Boardwalk with a hotel.)

2. If you own both utilities, you get 20% of all rent collected on properties with houses or hotels (That’s $400 if someone lands on Boardwalk with a hotel.)

3. If there are no houses or hotels in play, you get the standard utility fee if someone lands on your utility.  If there is a house or hotel in play then landing on utilities is free.

This rule applies even if you land on someone else’s property with houses and hotels, in effect giving you a discount.

Analysis: It might not seem like much for some properties, but you’re basically getting rent for other people’s stuff.

Actually riding the railroads

1. When you land on a railroad, you may travel to another railroad space owned by the same person. You only have to pay the fare for the first railroad, because you are getting off at the second one.

Analysis: This makes the game a lot less about statistics, because people will ride the railroads to get past dangerous monopolies. Purples become huge in this game, especially if Boardwalk and Park Place are developed, because people will go to Reading Railroad to avoid that one.

 

If I think of more I’ll write them.

Fantasy football dominance

Skip this post if you don't care.

I don’t really want to be one of those guys who talks about his fantasy team to people who don’t care.  Nobody cares who you drafted, who you traded for, etc, unless you yourself are a fantasy football owner and usually only if you’re in the same league.  So I’ll cut the post here so people who don’t care about fantasy football, or football in general can skip this post with ease.