Have you ever played a video game and had this gut wrenching feeling in your stomach that for everything you did and accomplished, although being extremely fun, brought you closer and closer to the end of it all?

That pretty much sums up my experience with the latest release in the Saints Row series.

And aside from the feeling mentioned above, another very real part of my experience happened to be me occasionally during gameplay saying to myself:

“Is this *really* happening?”  but not with the contempt that line usually carries, but with the biggest smile on my face.

GTA4 free zone!

Yes, i’m going to do the impossible and not compare Saints Row to Grand Theft Auto in this review. Even though i’m twitching like mad because i have many many things to say about GTA4 in comparison with this series.

But i will write a “GTA vs SR” post sooner or later, because i just have too much stuff that needs to be ventilated.

That said though, one thing needs to be clear and that is that Saints Row does not deserve the knockoff or copycat stamp that people, myself included, used to slap onto it.

You don’t see Half-Life, Duke Nukem, Call of Duty or Halo being refereed to as “Doom copycats”. Not only because of the time since Doom’s release compared to those games, but because the First Person Shooter genre is so big that no one raises an eyebrow anymore.

Sandbox crime games do not have that massive library of different titles, and that, i think is why Saints Row got copycat stamped right off the bat.

Oh, and Gary Busey promoted the series… do i need to elaborate?  i think not.

The Trilogy

I’m writing about Saints Row 3 but you seriously don’t need to have played any of the two first games to enjoy this for what it is, that said the story follows somewhat similar themes.

And by themes i mean theft, murder, revenge and absolute batshit insanity.

This game has by far some of the weirdest gameplay elements, weapons, gadgets, vehicles and missions i’ve ever seen in any game ever, and that’s putting it lightly.

You play as the leader of the gang “Third Street Saints” or just “Saints” for short, your character is unnamed and you can pick a gender and voice for that character.

And even though there’s no name and very little backstory for our character, you bond with him/her in a surreal way.

Although there’s no need to play the previous games, you do get a sense of “am i supposed to know anything about these people?” when you first start out, but you’d be surprised how quickly that feeling goes away when you’re busy evading flying tanks while sky diving.

Let’s get the negatives out of the way.

Saints Row 2 (that is, the only previous one i have played) had a very involving story, even going so far as being melancholic and serious at times, which i thought wasn’t a negative, it just gave it more colour.

And while the SR series are absolutely insane, the storylines as well as the gameplay, the inclusion of serious themes in the plot was welcomed by me.

Saints Row: The Third completely throws anything that doesn’t have a big stamp of “goof” or “kaboom” on it, out the window. The story is so insane that there’s no particular need to follow it very intensely.

The story does help set up the missions and city progression fairly well, but it kind of bothers me that its all wacky this time around especially when you have these great main characters.

This sadly also affect side missions and other story characters in the game, becase *nothing* is serious about this installation, and while some people do say thats what it’s all about, i think that a little “down to earth” helps make the wackier things even wackier.

Aside from the story thing, the only real negative things i can think of would count as nitpicking. But i may as well mention those things too since im at it.

Many gameplay mechanics involving gang members and “homies” following your lead can become troublesome because of pathfinding and other really really annoying bits that always occurs when you have NPC’s with you in most games.

There are a few glitches and bugs that can sometimes ruin the odd mission or two and that can make things extremely frustrating.

My final nitpicking would be that certain activities that take alot of effort, dont yield anything but money and respect, which are plentiful in pretty much every other area as well.

(Yes that is a van with the face of a Saints member that has passed away, and yes it has a flamethrower)

The good stuff, and there’s alot of that

The story should be in the good stuff too, not just the negative side.

The Saints have been kicked out of their hometown Stilwater and has to start a fresh in the new city “Steelport”, it follows the main character and his two sidekicks Shaundi and Pierce. You gang up with others along the way but those two are the only ones who appeared in the previous game.

The banter and general “i really hate you all, but i couldn’t live without you” feeling that you get from the dialogue between the Saints is superb, and it makes you want to pay attention to every line being said.

And for that reason i recommend turning on subtitles because otherwise you may miss something hilarious because of a shotgun blast. Preferably to someone elses head.

I also recommend you choose the cockney accented British guy when you pick your character voice, because he just owns it.

The customization in this game is excellent as well, and by that i mean the many ways you can create a unique character with clothing and physical appearance . And if you’re not happy with your first idea of your character, go to a plastic surgeon, more games should have that option.

You want to be a sexy lady gangster with leather and lace? Alright.

Play as a psychotic extremely muscled man with nothing on but a pink thong and a top hat while you do your missions? Um.. sure, i mean enjoy, because you actually can.

The customization still needs some tweaking, but if they make a 4th one, it’ll bound to be much better.

Why’s there a toilet with a machine gun in this picture? Ah yeah, because its a costume you get later on. I’m not shitting you, no pun intended.

The gameplay works like the standard third person shooter, think Gears of War without the horrible cover based mechanic or any Grand Theft Auto from the 3D era.

But unlike most 3rd person shooters i found this game to be extremely controllable on foot.  One of the biggest problems in these games are usually when you’re out of the car and have to do things on your feet, but i dont get that here.

Driving around is also incredibly fun, the physics are ofcourse over the top to make the experience more bizarre, but it just makes things more fun. There are plenty of vehicles to choose from: fast cars, slow cars, motorcycles, helicopters, fighter jets, computerized tanks, flying motorcycles and if i continue here i’ll be writing forever.

Most of the cars are available for customization as well, you take them to a local car fixer shop thingy and change colours, upgrade endurance or plenty of other things. Then as you are done, the car is automatically stored in your overall garage and will stay there at your disposal even if you wreck it out in the world.

Character development

In Saints Row 1 and 2, you earned two things: money and respect. Money was used to buy houses or weapons and respect was used to unlock more story missions.

What this meant though was that you could be a totally badass motherfucker in the game with loads of guns and cash, but you couldn’t advance to the next mission unless you did some driving around in a clown hat… to make an example.

This time around, they really hit the nail on the head.

Respect and money is earned from doing missions and activities, however respect is now used as experience points in an RPG way of upgrading your character. And this is what i have been yearning for, and it works amazingly well.

Earn enough respect to upgrade your health, make you take less damage from falling (for those jumping off buildings naked days) make enemy gangs leave you alone faster, sprint longer. The list just goes on and on, and this truly does make things more dynamic, and it makes you addicted to developing your character.

I’ve always felt that money in these crimegames were unecessary, you could only buy a few houses and weapons and after that you were stuck with this shitload of cash that you couldnt use for anything it all, it felt as though your money and power you earned as a gangster have no purpose.

In SR3, i only came to that point at about 30 hours into the game, thats when i had maxed everything out and there wasnt anything more to buy. I was craving for even more expensive stuff to save up to, but then again going to the end of the game without feeling that what you’re doing is pointless in terms of collecting money is pretty sweet too.

My only complaint is that by the end, some things are just insanely easy. And a lot of these games are about collecting everything and doing every side mission, but when you’re practically invincible, those side missions become pointless.

””

yes, thats a tiger in the back seat of the car.

Side missions and distractions

One thing i do love about the SR series is the amount of effort put into everything outside the main story (this is where i’m itching to discuss another game that i wont mention). Basically anything you do is rewarded in some way or another, many things that you may not think is an activity, is actually in the game for a reason.

If you hop on the top of a car, you’ll get a message saying that if you press Y, you can start a car surfing minigame. The game is filled with little moments like these.

As for the side missions, they are called activities here and they have three different levels each, easy medium and hard.

Some of these are one of my favourites “Insurance Fraud” where you jump in front of cars and earn money depending on how many times you get hit in a row.

“Tiger Escort” where you drive around fast with a fully grown tiger in the passenger seat (im not making this up) that will get angry if you slow down, and he occasionally hits you to make you lose car control.

A racing activity and a whore distributing one are also there among many others that you can spend your time on.

This goes back to my previous complaint, when you completed these kind of things in SR2, you got a permanent bonus to your abilities in the form of damage reduction or driving skills etc. And while those are now found in the respect upgrade system, i do miss getting a little special reward for these mini games even if its just a tiny unique thing.

This is a tank that's made from pixels and shoots pixels.

Final words

This game is violent, *very* violent. But because nothing is taken seriously in this game, you do get a sense of underlying irony and silliness in absolutely everything, including the optional and sometimes very none-optional killings.

Yes this game is offensive, but anyone with a sense of humor will realize that it’s all good in nature, the more over the top everything is, the less you feel like a full blown killing machine. But if that’s the feeling you actually want, then the silliness wont stop you if that makes any sense at all.

All in all, i loved Saints Row 2 and i never thought they’d be able to top it, but i was certainly willing to let them try.

And they did.

This game sucks you in and doesn’t let go until you have to eat or sleep, and i even managed to prioritize SR3 over those needs sometimes.

I even stopped writing this review because i just felt i had one last thing i needed to do.

And it’s been ages since i played a game that made me feel bad for continuing the story because i was afraid of reaching the end.

Fuck it, i’m mentioning it.

If any of you were disappointed by Grand Theft Auto 4 being too boring and sterile, and way too pretentious: Play this game, give it a chance. Don’t dismiss the sandbox shooter until you play Saints Row.

In fact, just play it anyway, i dont care if you’ve never played a GTA or hate sandbox games, play this thing  now.

Or i shall beat you with a purple dildo.

The makers of this game have spoken about a possible 4th game and that it’ll be wackier than its predecessors…

…really?

We’re in for a powerful blow to the insanity spot.

(I just love how absolutely terrified the Alien looks up there, proper homophobe)

I’ve kind of been in an Alien mood lately

With the Prometheus trailer being released and all that jazz leading up to it, so i’ve been watching all the movies (except Alien 3 for some reason) and even Alien vs Predator, and i say “even” because to this day i still dont really know what i think about it.

So today i’m going to be dissecting that movie apart, it’ll be long and tedious, but if you’ve seen this movie and have an opinion about it, you may think about some stuff differently once you read this.

I’ve never actually been a huge fan of the Predator movies, i don’t know why, they’re really good but they just haven’t grabbed a hold of me. The title creature itself is awesome of course, the gadgets and the weapons are very unique and the hunting morale of it is very interesting.

Alien vs Predator was first concieved back in 1989 as a comic book by Dark Horse Comics, and was apparently a big hit and sold much more than comics usually did back then.

When the movie Predator 2 came out in 1990 (just a year after the comic) whether the filmmakers knew about the comic or not, an Alien head was spotted in the predator ship, indicating the creatures had met sometime in the past.

Ever since then, rumors about unfinished scripts and directors interested in doing a full Alien vs Predator movie were circling around in the film world.

When i went to see Alien- The Directors Cut that was released in theatres in 2003 (the first time i had ever seen an Alien movie on the big screen) there was a teaser before that movie, that made me go “no… way…no.. am i seeing this right?…. could it be…?

It was short flashes of slime and metallic figures and it was all shadowy and you couldnt see what it was, but i heard snarls and my mind went wandering… and then you see this flash of text.

At the moment i knew exactly what it was, and my 15 year old heart stopped.

I was excited, *really* excited to finally see a new Alien movie in the theaters (i knew about Alien Resurrection back in 1997 but i was too young and my romance hadn’t fully started yet). I dont think i even cared about the Predators, they were just a bonus.

Summer 2004 hit, and i went to see the movie with a friend of mine, and i remember leaving a bit disappointed. I mean it had Aliens and all that, but it was just enough to wet my appetite, not enough to satisfy it.

Later on as my teenage years passed by, i resented it because of what it had done to my franchise. And i still do not consider it a part of the world that the original series set up.

But times have changed, i’m older and much wis… nevermind. Times have changed, alright?

And as soon as Alien vs Predator: Requiem (the direct sequel to AvP) hit in 2007, i realized that the original wasn’t too bad after all. Then again that may be because AvP:R was such a vomit fest that i dont even dare to write about that.

So on with the review/dissection!

Alien Vs Predator (2004)

***Spoiler Alert!***

Not that there’s much to spoil since uh… the biggest surprise is in the title, two space muppets beating eachother with sticks and spit. But since i’ll be mentioning a lot of specifics, i may as well put this here.

The movie is directed and written by Paul WS Anderson, and by the time this movie was made, i hated this guy because of what he did to Resident Evil (one of my favourite video game series).

But hey, it could have been Uwe Boll…

I do like it when the writers of a movie also directs it, because it gives it a sense of purpose i suppose? i dont know why, i just get more comfortable when i know a director has also written it (James Cameron wrote and directed Aliens, Titanic, Terminator 1 & 2 and Avatar for example).

The intro of the movie is perhaps one of the worst bits in it. its Antarctica 1904, an old whaling station and a hairy man frightened by something running around in the snow.

We see him run into a cabin, get surprised by a Predator and fall to the ground. But just as the predator is going to kill him with his plasma cannon… wtf?

We are supposed to believe and Alien was sitting there in the corner all this time?

Then it cuts to a predator wristblade and then black. And the title is revealed.

It’s just a really really stupid scene, was this the only way they could have shown a Predator and an Alien before the title shows up? It felt really rushed.

However, the bad taste in my mouth is rapidly removed as the first proper shot of the current timeline in the movie is shown.

You think its an Alien Queen, but its actually a satellite, and its a very well crafted scene.

The satellite is owned by Weyland Industries (Later to become Weyland-Yutani, the evil corporation in the Alien series, if we are to put this in the actual timeline) that picks up a heat signature under the ice somewhere in antarctica, where there obviously should be no heat since penguins need to wear mittens over there.

We see some kind of square on a radar which is supposedly that same heat signature

(there are two people looking at the screen through a reflection in the movie, i realized its not very obvious in this screenshot)

Then it cuts to a woman who is climbing on the ice who we are to assume is our main heroine, and i wont mention her actress name because i don’t really care. But the character is called Lex and she is an ice climber and a general cold environment expert guide person thingy. (Amazing sentence, i know)

She is on the phone with this man with a deep voice and a british accent who tells her that a Mr Weyland wants to meet with her and that he will fund her organization for an entire year (Stolen straight outta Jurassic Park) if she simply meets with him.

She says she’s kind of busy being on the ice and all and cant really meet him tomorrow but mr deep voice has solved that by landing his helicopter just above her. And she spots him just as she reaches the top of the ice.

But hold up.

The guy with the deep voice, is played by Colin Salmon and this character is *exactly* the same one that he plays in Resident Evil, same actor, same director.

You just cant tell the characters apart, macho type, wields a gun and is very cocky.

Then we cut to Mexico where the character i hate the most in this movie, is digging up something very rare. Well no, its a bottle cap and he fucking sucks.

Mr deep voice contacts this guy as well and brings him on board, sadly.

Not too long after, a crew is gathered on Weylands ship thats floating about somewhere in the arctic sea, and the man himself makes an appearance to talk to the crew about why they have been assembled… and holy fuck its Bishop the android!

Is it just me or doesn’t he look a little bit like a baby chicken in 1986 on the left?

Basically, Lance Henriksen plays a robot in Aliens from 1986 and the character of Charles Weyland in Alien vs Predator is meant to be the person that the androids in the future were modeled after, which makes sense seeing as Weyland was big in robotics and technology.

I think that’s a brilliant thing in this movie, and i respect Anderson for specifically writing this role for Henriksen.

He tells the crew that his satellites looking for minerals (and vespeyne gas) had spotted a heat signature that turns out to be a massive pyramid under the ice, and also that the structure has an appearance of Cambodian, Egyptian and Aztec pyramids.

…and now Mr annoying gives us the first sign that want to poke his face in with a Nintendo DS stylus (i dont know) by the time this movie is over.

Sebastian immediately  gets up and rants about how this pyramid is the first one ever built and pretends he knows absolutely everything from looking at a satellite image. And it just gets worse from here.

After this there is some character buildup that i don’t really care about and neither do you, so i’m just skipping ahead to when things get interesting.

We see a ominously silent ship looking down on the earth, and we know that this is the Predator ship on its way to our planet. It’s a brilliant scene in my opinion.

And we find out that the predators know about the pyramid and fires a huge energy wave towards our planet.

The crew arrive at the old abandoned whaling station where the pyramid is supposed to be located, or atleast under everything.

Mr annoying finds that there is a huge hole leading down to the pyramid (made by the lazeerrrr up there).

And all i want to do is jump down and slide all the way!

Come on, admit it looks awesome.

They try to figure out what could have made it, and then they look behind them and spots that the thing that made the hole, also cut through the buildings behind it.

If that’s not a warning sign to get the bloody hell out of there, i don’t know what is.

“Whoever cut through this ice is obviously from the sky, but what are the odds that they’ll come down here? or that they’re already down there? lets go!”

…aaaand the people in the sky get ready to massacre.

(WAIT, hold up, look at that predator hand, is that a pinky?)

The crew start climbing down the hole, and Mr Weyland reaches his inner child and does a stage dive backwards to try and slide down before everyone else. Sadly Lex stops his journey with a pick-axe.

The betch.

They finally reach the end of the tunnel and end up in this huge hollow cave, they set up lights and wire some electricity down there. My only question is why the place is hollow to begin with? why isnt the pyramid in thick ice all the way?

And… why is it all lit up? if its 2000 feet below the surface, where is that back light coming from up behind it?

Yes i know it wouldn’t be much of a movie if everything was pitch black, but lets face it, it would be pitch black down there unless they wired everything with lights.

And unless they are standing *very* far away from the pyramid, it looks friggin small doesnt it?

In the picture below as they step into it, its absolutely huge, meaning the distance between them and the pyramid on the picture above has to be like a mile or something.

Yeah those are the crews flashlights that you see on the stairs.

As the crew investigates the pyramid, they find a strange hieroglyph depicting two creatures that arent human.

No ofcourse they arent human, they look like fucking Lego.

One of the guys steps on a plate that mysteriously moves and sends a signal all the way down to the bottom of the pyramid, to a strange room.

Speaking of mysterious plates, how come they never gave any more thought to the fact that there was a heat bloom in the pyramid?

I mean its not like there’s an Alien Queen waking up…

Oh for crying out loud

The scenes with the Queen is what makes this movie for me, I’ve always been a big Alien creature fan and her design by James Cameron is absolutely brilliant.

So if you are following this far, i’m going to sum it up for you.

The Queen is chained to the pyramid, only woken up when humans enter it, and then put back into the freezer when there is no need for her anymore.

The Predators are also signaled by the heat blooms and the Alien Queen because when the pyramid is entered by humans, the hunt can begin.

The only question i have is, why did they dig the hole with the laser? did they do that *for* the humans?

Is that such a smart move? because i’d be friggin terrified of going down there, i wouldnt be thankful if i knew a giant alien laser beam had cut the depth for me.

Either way, upstairs, Sebastian (Mr Annoying) translates some Aztec hieroglyphs written on the pyramid walls.

(Dialogue loosely based off of the script)

While the archaeologists and ice climbers are deciphering Lego down in the pyramid, the Predators land at the whaling station and slays everyone of the crew that remained top side.

And the predators have some kind of holographic projector that lets them see the pyramid and where exactly the humans are, which is very nifty.

Here the expedition finds what they call the Sacrificial chamber, where skeletons from ages ago are still intact. Aaaaand again, notice how much light is in this room.

Some pondering about why the humans were sacrificed and Mr Annoying talks as if he knows everything yet again.

Yet another shot of our Queen downstairs, who is now told to lay eggs at full speed because “we be havin company love!” “Bring out the Aliens and biscuits!”

See those eggs in that line? that’s some form of conveyor belt that’s taking them into other parts of the pyramid.

Now lets stop for a second, this is always something that’s puzzled me more than it has amused me.

In every adventure movie where there’s an old building with secret passages, switches and moving walls: how does the mechanisms work?  Most of the time its stone objects,  stone walls being pushed, and the more stone-like the things get, the harder it is for me to believe there’s a possible logical mechanism for it.

I mean look at that egg conveyor belt, what in the name of arse is running that thing? Sure its supposedly Predator technology that is far beyond our capacity, but still, nothing about it makes any sense.

The Indiana Jones movies basically started this crappy trend of stone blocks that have invisible electricity.

Maybe its cogwheels? Bleh, who knows.

Its just really hard to buy.

A few of the team are told to stay in the sacrificial chamber to (IKEA) catalogue everything while the others head downstairs, because nothing ever gets scarier unless you head further in or down something.

Downstairs, directly below the sacrificial chamber, they find a sarcophagus (coffin) that has strange symbols on it.

Mr Annoying starts rambling about the three circles that are set to 10-10-1904 (the day where the hairy guy stole porridge up top) and starts turning them into the current date.

Why is he spinning all the wheels? and once again, how in the bloody hell are those stone thingies capable of so much interaction?

The sarcophagus opens up and reveals three Predator plasma guns, which are obviously meant for the Predators and not humans.

The team decides that they are done for the day, but Mr Weyland orders the artifacts to be taken with them. And once again Sebastian knows that these aren’t to be touched by humans, so he tries to stop them. The Italian who knew too much.

And ofcourse this makes all hell break loose, the Predators watch on their monitors and realize their guns have  been stolen, and all the doors in the pyramid lock the guests inside the  pyramid. (I just realized i had written “temple” 6 times and had to go back manually to change it).

So the Predators rush into the temple because they need their guns to fend off whats to come.

The downstairs crew gets locked in, and a new staircase opens up behind  them.

As for the upstairs crew, they really took the short straw on this one…

They get locked in as well, but something gets sent up to the room they are locked inside.

And then…

Lets cut the crap, we all know what they look like.

Now, alot of things happen all at once, and its confusing even for people watching the movie. But to sum up, Predators attack the crew who has their weapons, the pyramid shifts and locks three of the characters below everyone else. And its impossible to tell that from these screens.

One fella gets trapped alone under everyone, two others are locked in another room next to Weyland and the others.

Sebastian starts to ramble after they have been locked in for a set amount of time regarding the pyramid reconfiguration.

Sebastian thinks that the pyramid reconfigures every 10 minutes, because the Aztec calendar was metric.

But it sure as hell wasn’t.

Did Anderson think no one would google if the Aztec calendar was metric or not?

But either way, the movie continues because in this universe Sebastian is right and the pyramid does reconfigure as he thought.

The other two survivors, Miller and Verheiden are trapped together, but Verheiden decides to stick around to observe gun snot.

He ofcourse fails miserably and falls yet another level, where he meets a new friend.

That quote is actually from the movie.

Now, is that really the first thing you’d say when you first encounter an intergalactic murder machine that eats brains on crackers?

I’d probably say “WAMAAGGGGAAGAWALOAAAAAA” Or something to that effect, enjoy trying to vocalize it.

Miller meets a very similar end not long after that.

In another part of the pyramid, Weyland, Lex and mr Resident Evil and Sebastian get attacked by a Predator, and mr Resident Evil gets it really bad.

Now, he doesnt exactly die by the Predator net, he gets impaled by a spear. But look at how he dies in Resident Evil, did i mention the characters were the same?

Coincidence that the same character is killed off in a net like pattern?  i think not.

Lex gets beaten up by a different Predator who, as he’s about to cut her down, gets annihilated by an Alien tail.

Then the second Predator jumps in and attacks this Alien, and this fight scene is ridiculously boring, except for this one bit where the Alien looks like he’s got a problem with his lip, i think its hysterical.

After some struggling, and getting stuck inside a Predator net which gives him a really ugly net scar, he kills this other Predator aswell.

Now hold on a second.

This movie is called Alien vs Predator right?

So we should start keeping score… and uh… so far this lone Alien has killed off not one, but TWO Predators.

Aliens 2 – Predators 0   (And i recon Aliens should receive a soloing bonus)

So Aliens 2 ½ points, Predators nothing.

In another shot, Weyland, Sebastian and Lex run away but they get slowed down by a sick Weyland who tells them to run ahead.

When a Predator confronts him, he tries to set him on fire, and in turn gets sliced open.

You know how in some movies and some scenes, someone has a time limit that just stupidly gets ignored and they should have exploded half an hour ago in real time?

This is similar, but in distance and space.

The Pyramid re configures and Lex and Sebastian have to climb up on a platform that is rapidly reaching the ceiling, except they’re technically squashed like twice.

Bullshit adventure logic at its finest!

In a room next to Sebastian and Lex, the last Predator kills a facehugger and an adult Alien with a proper Clint Eastwood style and gains 1 ½ points to the Predators because of his stylish move. .

Sebastian watching from the other room through a peephole manages to realize the entire story of the Predators and Aliens by just watching the Predator mark himself with a facehugger finger.

(and then the Aliens gain yet another point…)

Sebastian deciphers some hieroglyphs and retells the story that he possibly couldn’t understand.

The Predators found earth thousands of years ago.

They showed humans how to build pyramids and were worshiped as gods.

And they would return once every 100 years to throw flying vaginas at their worshipers to breed Aliens that they could fight.

(How the hell did they get that many?)

And if they lost the battle, they would destroy themselves, which they did at one point.

And so they lost, and wiped themselves out, all the aliens and the civilization over night.

Sebastian figured all this out through hieroglyphs.

My only question is…

If they all died over night, who the fuck wrote the hieroglyphs depicting their doom?

PLOT HOLE!

And how come the pyramid is still up?

Lex becomes emo and says that when the pyramid shifts again, she wants to give the Predator his gun back that she’s been carrying around because she doesn’t want those “serpents” to reach the surface.

“Everything everywhere could die!”

…How?

They are in antarctica for crying out loud!

I know the Aliens can swim, but can they really swim in those temperatures, and would they know where to go?

The Predators *know* about this hunt as well, if things were to go wrong with these teenage Predators, they’d just fly down to sort the mess out before any Aliens spread.

The pyramid shifts and they decide to go look for their friend, but gets ambushed by an Alien. And once again, there’s just too much light in this pyramid, and its bigger than you thought as well.

Lex sucks at jumping, so Sebastian has to help her hold on to the ledge.

Now the movie turns sour for me.

Yes, Sebastian dies and thats amazing. But the shit starts flowing so badly that the only thing that saves it are a few Predator scenes and the Alien Queen.

Lex is now the last human standing, and she gets confronted by the last Predator who wants his gun back. So she gives it to him.

And at the same time, an Alien attacks the Predator, and he throws him onto Lex who in turn kills it with the Predator spear.

While this is happening, the Predator has installed his new gun and starts shooting incomming Aliens with plasma blasts.

And after the Aliens die… here comes…

The biggest plot hole ever!

Look at the corpses from the Aliens.

The acid blood is tearing apart the pyramid floor, and there are several corpses that’s done this.

Tell me, if this pyramid has been used for Alien hunting every 100 years since the Aztecs and Mayans lived, how come there are no visible holes in the floors until now?

Is someone refurnishing the pyramid by gluing new stone pieces into the parts where acid has sprayed?

It took me ages to think of this plot hole, and i first saw the movie 7 years ago.

And another plot hole that i’ve slowly come to think of is that, the pyramid was built when there werent any ice in antarctica, but there were no mountains next to it that the whaling station could have been built on later.

You dont build whaling stations on ice because they melt once the antarctic summer hits.

Not a big a plot hole as the acid one, but still worth noting.

Either way, from now on in the movie, the plot holes just get bigger and bigger.

Lex and the Predator now become a team, and that just annoys me. He makes a weapon out of an alien tail and… a shield out of his skull. And its just retarculous.

Another plothole, how the fuck can she have her hand inside an Alien head without her hands burning off from acid blood?

And she looks like a complete idiot, is she supposed to block with that thing?

He demonstrates that the acid blood doesn’t affect the alien exoskeleton, but really, how many times do the aliens use the blood as a weapon? they cant spit it.

The two lovebirds run off into the sunset and it cuts to the Alien Queen getting freed by her minions.

In another part of the pyramind, Lex and the Predator finds Sebastian, Miller and Verheiden all cocooned to a nest like chamber.

Aaaaaand the plot hole opens up again, look at these images.

When the hell was this built? and again, who cleans it after every time!?

It cant be the first time the Aliens have nested an area of the pyramid?

There’s just TOO much going on here for it to have been built up during the night, and again, who cleans it every 100 years? Predator Janitor? Prejator?

The Queen escapes and she can barely fit into the walls, so she ruins them.

Meanwhile, the Predator arms his arm gadget to detonate the entire place (again, why would he do that if they want to continue the hunt later on?)

They drop the bomb, run out of the pyramid and gets on the sled that will drive them back up to the surface, where the queen is waiting, but they dont know that.

It just looks absolutely terrible when these two pair up, i cant stand it.

Eventually they reach the surface, run away from explosions and bond by the Predator showing his ugly face.

They also exchange marking customs.

That’s seriously a problem with this thing, the scene gives you the idea that if someone with even less taste were to write this script, these two would have kissed here.

Thats how you know they did something wrong, the scene just isn’t right.

But then someone which much better taste jumps in and ruins their love.

Where the hell was she hiding?

Some battling ensues, but its really boring to show, so imma just upload some battle screens then jump to whatever is important next.

In general, it is also a bad idea not to run around in just a thin sweater in antarctica, but hey who am i to judge?

Yes she gets acid on her jacket, but thats just excuses for her to take off her clothes for the audience.

Lex gets chased under a big water tank, and thats a good place to hide. Until the Predator comes back from absolutely nowhere and does a “Jump” attack from the Final Fantasy series (I like to think of him as Freya).

It’s like the most awesome scene involving a predator, i recall that being the only good taste i had in my mouth when i left the theaters in 2004 when i first saw it. Well, me and my friend agreed it was the best move.

After the Queen gets a spear in her head, they eventually decides to attack the chain still stuck on her head, to the water tank and push it down.

Which may sound like a smart idea on paper, but they have no paper, and that tank is heavy.

They finally manage to attach her to the tank, but then our Predator finally gets some tail.

Just not the human tail he was hoping for.

Lex finally manages to break the thing thats keeping the water tank, and the queen falls to her …death?

Thing is, we’ll probably never know if she made it or not. She cant swim with that tank obviously, but perhaps once they reach the bottom, she can get lose?

But then again, can the Queen swim with those arms and legs?

Like i said before, there’s no telling if the Aliens can swim in these cold temperatures or not.

The Queen is gone, and more love scene is on its way.

Now, you’d think, the ammount of Predators on that ship, would be enough to stop an Alien outbreak, they could have landed and taken care of the Queen before anything broke lose, instead of destroying the entire pyramid.

The Predators are there to take home their fallen brother, and the Predator elder see’s the mark on Lex’s face and recognizes her as a “true warrior”

And hands her a gift.

So there Lex is, no jacket, no means of contacting the mainland.

But oh, there are two trucks here! convenient!

Trucks that appear from out of nowhere is one thing, always good. But uh..

They came to the whaling station through boat, because that was the only way to reach it.

Them trucks better be really amphibious.

And as we say goodbye to Lex, we see a final scene onboard the Predator ship, where they have placed our Predator hero on a table for… something.

And that is the end of the movie. Finally.

This scene with the Predalien wasn’t meant to set up a sequel, Anderson just wanted the whole “versus” thing to become even (which obviously it wasnt, the Aliens won).

But the sequel to this movie just ruins that.

1. The predators are able to spot Alien embryos when they are inside hosts, wouldnt they have like a routine to check a Predator corpse after he’s been on an Alien hunt for possible parasites?

2. How come no one was nearby to spot this thing as it ran away?

Yeah i know im mentioning sequel details right now, and i shouldnt because it is made of ass. The sequel, not the Predalien.

What do i really think about this thing?

This wasn’t really a review as much as it was a total walkthrough of everything that happens at all times, which wasn’t really what i was going to do in the first place.

But the lure of making speechbubbles just became too great, and then it just snowballed.

Either way, its hard to put my finger on what i feel about this movie.

I think the Aliens were treated respectfully, after all, what happened in Alien Resurrection was three times more blasphemous than what happens in this movie.

The Predators, while being awesome and cool and totally hard and all, get emasculated (lose their manliness) as soon as they meet the Aliens, i mean 2/3 of them loses to the FIRST ONE they meet.

While Scar (the last Predator) totally makes up for it by being all bad ass and breaking necks of chestbursters etc, it’s already too late to be honest.

There just werent enough “Alien versus Predator” in an “Alien vs Predator” movie, if that makes sense.

It was more like, Alien vs Predator and stupid humans that we certainly dont want to get to know any further.

Or AvPASHTWCDWTGTKAF.

Good luck writing that on a poster.

And i do like the general story idea, its very mysterious and i think it works well, it could have used alot more work though, perhaps have James Cameron come in and take a look at Anderson’s script and revise a little.

There is too much emphasis on the human characters, they get more screen time than we who are fans of the series, care about.

The only reason this movie works is because the franchises are already established in popular culture. Do you think some random middle aged couple, who knew nothing of either series, would check movie showings and say “Hey, Alien Vs Predator… that doesn’t sound absolutely stupid at all does it? Lets go!”

And as Yahtzee Croshaw points out in his Zero Punctuation series: They’re both Aliens and they’re both Predators. Redundant title anyone?

To sum up, it’s not amazing, but its not terrible. And everyone will look at this differently, i myself don’t believe that this movie is enjoyable if you know nothing about either movie series.

The only question remains if Predator fans enjoy it more than Alien fans? or the other way around, i’m kind of curious as to what the different crowds think.

And like i said, i started respecting this movie for what it was, as soon as i saw the followup Alien vs Predator: Requiem.

I think they made that solely to make the original much better by comparison, sort of like Hostel 2 which did the same thing to me.

I’ve spent way too much time on this post by now, and it’ll most likely not be read by the few who would find it funny. But one day i shall reach out to you, selected disturbing few.

They mostly come out at night, mostly.

(Yes i know i’m a God when it comes to fooling around in paint)

This happens to be my 20th post since i started this blogg, and why not celebrate with something i haven’t done before?

No, it is not “being funny”, that’ll have to wait until i know how it’s executed.

But i’m going to share a dream that i had, and it’s one of the weirder ones I’ve ever dreamed.

Thing is, i don’t remember much other than who was in it, i don’t know if anything special happened but that’s not whats interesting here.

Basically i dream’t that a man named Selim Lemouchi, band leader, guitarist and lead composer of the band “The Devil’s Blood”, had changed his name to John St John and was dying of cancer.

So far so good, but lets back up and describe those people.

Selim Lemouchi is a die hard satanist who believe his sole purpose on this earth is to take his spiritual journey, and spread his satanic music in a progressive 70′s rock style. Great band, and if you hear them you cant really guess what they stand for unless you read the lyrics.

Is that a meatball sandwich? D:

May as well also link one of his songs just because they’re really great.

So, that’s out main character. In my dream he has cancer and changes his name to John St John, the name might not ring a bell whatsoever but i’ll explain who he is.

In 1996 there was a game released called “Duke Nukem 3D”, its about a macho Rambo/Terminator style guy killing aliens and rescuing “babes”, the character was voiced by a man called John St John.

I thought i’d link a clip of a Duke Nukem game, but im actually going to link the ventrilo harassment where John St John’s voice was used to harass a psychotic gaming mother and her guild.

(A quick explanation of a ventrilo harassment: its a program sort of like Skype, where players in the same game can talk to eachother through microphones, and someone comes in and ruins their strategies by making weird sounds, preferably pre recorded ones from movies or games, this one happens to be sounds that John St John has recorded for Duke Nukem)

So far so good, and so far so really weird.

Lets recap again.

Selim Lemouchi has cancer and changes his name to John St John who does voice work for Duke Nukem, what happens then?

When he dies, he leaves his kids with Jon Bon Jovi to take care of them.

What the actual fuck?

I honestly cannot see Selim wanting:

A: to reproduce (why bring more humans into this earth if you want to see it burnt to ashes?)

B: Change his name, even more so to a really fucking stupid one.

C: I cant see him giving custody of his poo, let alone none existing children, to Jon Bon Jovi who stands for everything The Devil’s Blood vomits at.

So its most likely (very likely) not about the real life person Selim Lemouchi, but my own weird mind.

Why did i dream this?

Do i have a fear of dying?

Becoming a Satanist?

A voice over artist?

French toast?

World of Warcraft?

Hispanic people?

I think that dreams take our feelings we have during the day and assemble them into abominations, and in my case, i want to become a macho satanist with a passion for 80′s hair pop metal.

Sometimes i frighten myself.

Tack L

Alright i lied, i’ve only been eating and that usually makes me unable to do anything productive.

So where were we?

Ah yes, Prometheus, the new science fiction film by Ridley Scott who is returning to the Alien universe to explain how a couple of eggs ruined so many lives.

This teaser was leaked about a month ago, but was taken down very quickly afterwards and you could only hint at what the teaser had to show, but it was enough to send my brain into a permanent lock. It was officially released on December 22 along with screenings of “The girl with the dragon tattoo”.

One thing i found really strange is that a preview of The Dark Knight Rises was attached to Mission Impossible 4, and Prometheus was attached to The Girl with the Dragon tattoo.

Now here is the odd part, the two main actors from the original Swedish “The Girl with the dragon tattoo”: Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist are in Prometheus and Mission Impossible 4 respectively.

That a coincidence?

Nevermind that, here is the teaser!

So where do we begin?

First off, the music is extremely haunting, and we like that. And it has the same wailing from the original 1979 Alien trailer, and the title is slowly creeping into the trailer just as Alien did.

I’ll be taking a few screen shots and ponder over its possible depiction.

This could perhaps be the home world of the “engineers”, its a really beautiful landscape regardless of where it is.

Here is where it gets interesting, this scene in the trailer looks exactly like someone being hit with acid blood from the Aliens, hopefully that is a clue of whats to come.

Is this the same guy getting hit by acid? sort of looks like it on his face.

This is the ship from the original Alien where they find the eggs, only this one is airborne and appears to be under fire or perhaps just self detonating. Its strange to see it in such a bright sky light, but its creepy in a way.

We finally see the space jockey as it looks 30 years later, i think the figure on the right is one of the engineers, perhaps that same pilot we saw in Alien attached to the jockey.

Final screenshot is the derelict ship again, standing ominously silent, and we all know what that ship is carrying.

As far as i’m aware, the derelict ship in Alien is a battleship meant to carry biological weapons = the alien eggs.

And Prometheus explains who sent that ship and why.

I cant wait, but that’s probably no surprise to anyone.

WordPress has a feature that lets you see what kind of search terms people used in google and other sites to get to my blog, and some of the stuff people have been searching with is rather strange.

I thought i’d share some of them with you and analyze a little.

Ursula fucks Ariel

Well there you go, right of the bat. I’m pretty sure that the person who searched for that got rather disappointed when he (or she, lets not be sexist) stumbled upon my rather innocent post about Ursula. I wonder if the tentacles are the important bit in this.

Triton fucks Ursula

Much better, tridents and squid ink. *Shudder*

Was scar gay in lion king

Um, i dont know if i helped answer that question, does it really matter? Although the search term has a point, he had access to 10+ lionesses and wouldn’t do anything.

Lion king dissection

I know the blog post is called that, but why would you search for that? If the person who used that term is reading this, were you hoping to see a picture of Simba in the morgue with his guts hanging out?

Is the movie human centipede 2 fast forward?

Um… what? Are you wondering if the movie was recorded in twice the speed? Or are you wondering if its badly paced.  Its more than just badly paced.

Porn videos of eating shit like human centipede

Now this is what i’m talking about, amazing googling skills brought someone here. I’m sorry that i couldn’t redirect you to any torture poop eater sites, since its not really my cup of tea, but i wish you luck with future goals.

Nude Grimhilde

All of the searches above, have only one instance where they were used. Nude Grimhilde has two, i really hope its the same guy.

As for Grimhilde/Wicked stepmother from Snow White, she’s been googled the most to get people to my blog with over 70 searches, its rather strange. Who knew disney would be the biggest reason for people to run into this place.

Maybe i ought to get into the animated porn poop gay lion squid business?

Now this is what i’ve been waiting for my whole life.

For those of you who do not know me, i am a huge ”Alien” series fan, i have two shelves worth of stuff from the movies in my apartment and i plan on filling it even more if i ever become wealthy enough to blow cash on nonsense.

And you’re probably asking , why am i talking about Alien in this post?

Well, Prometheus is an ALIEN prequel story directed by Ridley Scott, the same man who directed the original ALIEN from 1979. He is returning to the series after over 30 years to answer some of the questions about the creatures and the universe of the franchise.

The Alien creatures have been made a mockery with the Alien vs Predator additions to the series, and whenever new audience hears “Alien” they say “oh that film sucks”, and then it turns out they just meant AvP.

Yes, people are stupid. But the problem remains.

Prometheus was originally intended to be a full on prequel to ALIEN but as the script developed, Scott realized that he wanted it to be a story that could stand on its own and not completely build on an existing movie. This announcement made me extremely upset because the way they put this, it seemed as though everything “alien” had been abandoned.

However that was not the case, the movie “shares the alien DNA” in ways that they have yet to reveal.

But i can give you a short explanation for those of you who have seen the original Alien with just the help of a picture.

Remember this?

The giant space ship from Alien that had a weird telescope like contraption with a dead humanoid on it, also known as the “Space Jockey”. Nothing was ever explained about the creature, why it was there, what it was and why it had a ship full of the Alien eggs.

This is what Prometheus is about, the origin of the Space Jockey and ultimately the origin of the Aliens.

And that is enough for me to shoot semen all over my walls in excitement, but i wont, because i recon that’ll be a mess.

A leaked teaser trailer hit youtube about a couple of weeks ago, someone who had recieved a preview of the teaser had filmed a screen with horrible quality results, but that little unviewable clip made my skin crawl.

The music was a mix of a composition by Audiomachine combined with the original 1979 ALIEN trailer music, a brilliant move that completely knocked my socks off.

One of the guys from www.Prometheusnews.net managed to mix the original song with the Alien soundtrack to try and recreate the leaked teasers music, and here is the result uploaded to youtube.

Seriously, this thing gives me the creeps and it makes my eyes water at the same time, its impossible to explain what this film means to me.

The movie itself will be able to stand on its own and those not familiar with Alien will still be able to enjoy it, but for us who have been waiting for this since we were young boys who weren’t even allowed to see the Alien films, this is complete and utter joy.

Once the teaser hits for real, i’ll make another post and cry a little more happy tears over it.

If you could remember your life differently during your last moments.

What would you change?

I promised video games in this blog

And ironically, the first one i’ll ever be writing about is one that you can barely call a game.

To The Moon is an indie game written, directed, produced and also scored (with Laura Shigihara) by Kan “Reives” Gao at Freebirdgames.com and for those of you not aware, indie games are not a particular type of game but more a collective term for games that have been made without extreme amounts of money pumped into it from publishers.

Now since this is a heavily heavily story driven game, its hard to explain how it draws you in without spoiling anything, but i’ll do my best to write a short synopsis.

Somehow this stupid Savage Garden song is playing in my head.

You play as two scientists in a not so distant future who works for a company that has the ability to enter a clients mind and change their memories as they remember them, the only problem with that is the changes are permanent and causes damage to the point where you can no longer function.

That’s why people order this service when they are on their last days of their lives, to live a few hours of complete fulfillment and satisfaction of what they always dreamed to have done.

The client in this game is an old man called Johnny, and his last dying wish is to go to the moon, the only problem is that he doesn’t even remember why. So our characters have to dig into his memory, from his old self down to when he was a little boy.

I suggest that if anyone of you are interested in seeing this game yourselves by this point in the blog, you should see this announcement trailer for it.

Lets talk “gameplay”. It’s simple, you walk around with the arrow keys and press space to get through conversations or initiate objects. And thats it.  The reason for mentioning this  is because its my biggest problem with this game and i want to get it out of the way so i can talk about the good stuff.

There just isn’t enough gameplay in this for me to call it a game, but at the same time the story and music stands on its own in a spectacular way.

If you can see this as a good book or interactive movie, you’ll do just fine with playing To the Moon.

I myself ain’t very good with sitting down to watch long movies alone or reading any books really, but these 4 hours flew by in a way i could never imagine.

Now the great stuff.

The graphics are 16-bit goodness (as you can seen above) and it looks very much like Japanese styled RPG’s from the Super Nintendo era, and thats a great thing. The greatest thing about this is that, the characters don’t even need facial animations or ANY body language whatsoever to get their words across.

It’s funny how a few pieces of music can tie something together.

The music in this game matches the story so well that you cannot play this without sound, it’s impossible. Most of it was written by the guy who wrote the game’s story, and in a way that makes a lot of sense.

The soundtrack was co-written by Laura Shigihara, who is best known as the composer of the highly popular “Plants vs Zombies” (trust me, i’ll get to that one day), she also sings in one of the songs that certainly caught me off guard.

I was going to link that particular song, but i cant in case some of you decide to try this game, i don’t want to spoil the moment when the song absolutely stuns you.

But here is one of the instrumental tracks from the game.

What 300+ hours of Final Fantasy could never do.

I wrote Kan Gao after i had played this game, and told him what i’m about to tell you.

The story and the music actually made me cry, and that is something that no video game and only one movie has ever done (and even then, its only because of nostalgia).

300+ hours of playing the Final Fantasy games, and the series have never come close to what To the Moon brought out of me in those 4 hours that blazed by in what seemed as a blink of an eye and a lifetime all at once.

And it’s all because the dialogue is so convincing that it surpasses most writing in games I’ve played, the characters come to life  because of this, and you feel as though you know them within an hour.

It’s a love story, yes, but it’s written in such a way that it doesn’t become corny nor does it seem like that distant fairy tale that you can never connect with.

Another thing the dialogue did that very few games have ever done, was made me roar with laughter. That may seem like an easier task, and yes i have laughed when i’ve sprayed poo on people in Saints Row or some lines in Final Fantasy, but nothing like this.

The scientist partners that drive the story forward are so believable that you really feel they’ve worked together for ages, and their dark humor is the best I’ve heard since Portal.

And it’s been ages since i played something that stuck with me an entire week, where i’d catch myself thinking about it as if it was a girl i had a crush on.

Spreading the word

The reason i took on to write about this game is that the work of Ken “Reives” Gao and indie games in general, needs attention. I pull my hair over the fact that because this isn’t really a game, a lot of people will miss out on the sublime story.

And if only one of you play this game because of this text that I’ve spent two hours on, it’ll be worth it to me and probably to Kan Gao aswell. I’d appreciate it very much if you wrote me in case i got you to play it.

To The Moon helps to prove the fact that games should be accepted as an art form, just as movies, books or paintings.

If you read this far, Thank you for your time. And now if you’ll excuse me, i have to go and listen to Gorgoroth before i succumb to soppy-cake.

Ever eaten anything that left a smell indoors, days after it’s been consumed?

I have, its called Surströmming or directly translated: Sour Herring.

It’s a Swedish dish that involves fish that have been fermented in tin cans for over six months, its been eaten for over 300 years and is today consumed only by the old, the brave and the absolutely insane.

Guess which one i happen to be.

Why anyone would get the idea  for strange foods like this is usually related to myths and legends but the most logical story regarding the creation of Sour Herring is that back when we preserved fish and meat in salt, it happened by accident when salt was too expensive to completely preserve the food item.

So basically they used enough salt to keep the fish from rotting but because it wasn’t the ideal amount of salt, it fermented but stayed safe to eat.

Today we generally eat (we as in… those brave/stupid souls that eat it) Sour Herring around August when the first batches of herring have finished the fermentation process, but i think we eat it in august because it needs to be still warm enough outside so you can open the cans in the backyard.

When i was a young lad, my dad offered me 500 swedish crowns (our currency, for those not aware) to eat an entire Sour Herring sandwich, and that’s the only way to eat that fish. I took a bite, and then gave in, it wasn’t worth it.

So why am i writing about this today?

It was time to take revenge.

Earlier this week i called my dad up and said “I want to try and eat a Sour Herring sandwich, can you set that up?”. He obliged mostly because it was such a strange request, and a way to spend “quality time” with his son.

Now, i have to describe what the sandwich thing is about.

Shamelessly stole this picture btw.

What you do is you butter up a Swedish styled hard thin bread, place sliced potatoes all over it, sprinkle red or yellow onions, then add small pieces of fish. Some people add sour cream or other vegetables and herbs (like the picture) but we ate it like my dad and grandma used to eat it.

Those ingredients really help the overall taste of the food, but in general, eating this thing is a losing battle and your taste buds are in the front line.

The problem with writing about smelly and/or disgusting food is that there aren’t any words that can describe the experience, you have to smell/taste it yourself.

Or better yet, don’t.

When you open the tin can, it takes a second, and then you realize what’s going on. The cans are so pressurized from the fermentation and the bacteria that they bulge and look like they’re about to explode. Literarly.

Some, or most airlines do not allow cans of Sour Herring on board flights because of the potential risk of explosions.

Now that’s terrorist food.

I actually finished my sandwich, and it *does* taste better than it smells… but not significantly enough for me to have another sandwich. At one point i got a piece of fish in my bite that was bigger than i expected, and that was dangerous.

I was going to film myself eating it and telling you about it, but i ate it at my dads place and definitely didn’t want him in it. So instead i’ll link you a video of an episode of the “Big Steve” series where he gives Sour Herring a go.

I urge everyone who haven’t even smelled Sour Herring, to try and catch an old relative eating it, or if you’re a foreigner: google your arse off and try to import a can for sublime masochism.

What is a Trailer Failer?

A Trailer Failer is a situation regarding a movie that has a trailer that either stretches the truth about the contents of the film, or has footage that is promised but never delivered, or perhaps just different takes.

The “Failer” portion of that word is the bit where you’re actually dissapointed or confused when you see the actual movie. And i know Failer isnt a word and sounds retarculous, but it rhymes for flips sake!

I thought i’d make this a recurring segment in this blog, because now looking back i realize there are alot of times where a trailer has been a bit decieving and made me jump up and down more than i should have.

Here’s my Card…

The TF (abbrevated like this from now on) found in The Dark Knight’s trailer/movie is a very small one, but it has bothered me for almost three years now and i really have to get this off my chest.

And hopefully point this out to a few of you who have never thought about it, so your lives are ruined aswell.

In the trailer, we see clips of The Joker (Played by the late Heath Ledger, as if you didn’t know this but it looks so much more professional pointing it out) talking to the criminals of Gotham City about killing Batman.

We see him pull out a Joker card and say “Here is my card” with a tone of voice and expression as if this was his actual business card with phone number and email adress.

Watch 0:40

When i first heard that line i thought it was absolutely brilliant, and it set the tone for the Joker character in my eyes.

Boy was i disappointed when i saw this in the theaters and realized they used the wrong footage.

Check 1:49/1:50.

Now, listen to that, it doesn’t imply that he is giving them his “business card” does it?

His voice just tells us that he is giving them a card from one of his playing card decks, and why would he do that? what are they supposed to do with a joker card?

It just falls flat.

I know i might be taking this too seriously, but i thought it was such a brilliant line that it just shouldn’t have been ruined like this. Let me know if you agree or not, or if you hadn’t thought of this until i pointed it out.

I’d also appreciate suggestions of trailers that have been deceiving and i’ll promise to take a look at them.

Now shall you deal with me…

And all the powers of hell!

Maleficent, the wicked fairy, is without the shadow of a doubt the most evil Disney villain ever conceived. She holds a special place in my heart not just because of the dark design and her evil theme music, but because compared to other Disney villains, she does not have an inch of sillyness to her.

All evil, All the time.

And that it something that struck me much later, that she is seriously never portrayed in a light tone, and i think that does a lot for her dark charisma.

In my native Swedish, she was simply known as “the evil fairy” which i suppose makes sense because Maleficent would not be pronounced very well in the Swedish dub, but how awesome is the name Maleficent anyway?  The Heavy Metal bands must have been fighting tooth and nail to copyright that.

As far as the origin of the story of Sleeping Beauty, it is based on a fairytale by  Charles Perreault (no idea who he is) and the Grimm brothers version of it.

But as with most Disney movies based off of old fairy tales, alot was changed, including the inclusion of Maleficent who is an extremely evil form of “the evil godmother” that was included in some version.

And strangely enough, the movie is based more off of Tchaikovsky’s ballet of the same name, even the music were taken from it.

Not much is known about Maleficent other than the fact that she is the counterpart to the good fairies that live in the kingdom where “Sleeping Beauty” takes places and do you want to know the reason why she is more evil than Scar?

She decides to doom a newborn with a sure death because she wasn’t invited to the christening.

What the fuck would she do if you simply called her fat?

Scar may have killed his brother, blamed it on his nephew and tried to kill him too, but at least he had a motive of power and jealousy.

Maleficent wanted to kill someone she didn’t know because she didn’t get invited to a party, what if the invitation had gotten lost in the medieval mail?

“Woops, sorreh, cant reverse it… ah yeah… i see the letter here, thank you… um… meh whatever, make a new baby, i hear its fun”

“We still on for volleyball this weekend?”

Lets look at her characteristics for a moment. She wears 90% black, the rest purple, yellow eyes with tiny black pupils and she has a crown with the Devils horns. One can only wonder if they are actually attached to her head or if its a hat. Either way, they really wanted to make her closely resembling a demon or a satanic figure.

Need more proof of that? the quote up top, her pet raven named Diablo and… look at the above picture, she holds her hand in the “Left Hand Path” stance, clearly a satanist.

Its probably the closest to satanic imagery that Disney has *ever* gone before or since then, its quite fascinating.

Oh and she uses green fire magic.

I have to say, her method for dooming the princess Aurora is rather weak. To let her grow up til 16, then have her prick her finger on a spindel (nej inte den sorten) of a spinning wheel?

Cant she just put a DoT (Damage over time) on her thats specifically tailored for 16 years? It’s odd.

The king obviously does the only drastic thing he can do, and orders all spinning wheels to be burnt, since no one could ever ever make a new one.

Couldnt she have gone: “Before the sun sets on her sixteenth birthday… she will… eat dinner….and CHOKE ON A CHICKEN DRUMSTICK!”

Obviously thats less dramatic, but what the hell?

The fairies come up with a plan to hide Aurora for 16 years in a cottage in the woods, and they’ll be humans and not use any magic since that’ll attract Maleficent.

I see the point, but isn’t she just as safe in the castle? if she has guards 24/7, how the hell could Maleficent sneak a spinning wheel inside the walls?

This, is the Forbidden Mountains, where Maleficent has her castle. And how awesome is this place? Its a place even Dracula would be jealous of.

But this scene also sadly leads to her only fault as a villain.

16 years have passed since her spell, and Maleficent walks around anxiously in her castle, pissed off that her henchmen (pigs, crocodiles and ugly vultures in chain mail) haven’t seen a trace of Aurora.

And then they tell her that they’ve looked everywhere, every cradle. Meaning Maleficent wasn’t specific enough to tell her idiot workers that human babies actually grow out of cribs and cradles, essentially wasting 16 years of searching.

That’s my biggest problem with her, she seriously took this long to check up on her henchmen’s work? and she couldn’t have picked better people to work for her?

She eventually sends her pet raven Diablo to find her, which she should have done a long time ago.

And what a perfect timing, because while Diablo is out on his scouting run, the fairies have gone absolutely haywire preparing for Auroras 16th birthday, firing colour spells at eachother that eventually fly out through the chimney causing Diablo to spot the fairy magic.

Diablo overhears the conversation about Aurora being a princess and flies back to report what he’s heard.

Later that night, the fairies bring Aurora back to the castle for the first time since she was a newborn, they take her to a small room where she is crowned and then left alone to process what she has learned about herself.

Big.

Fucking.

Mistake.

This scene, is among the scariest of scenes ever produced by Disney, and it sends chills down my spine even to this day.

It’s as close to horror as you can get in an animated kid friendly feature film.

I would dissect this scene and discuss the many weird things in it, but i actually wont ruin this.

Aurora pricks her finger and falls into a sleep that’ll last for 100 years, and the fairies subsequently put everyone ELSE in the kingdom, to sleep for 100 years. Whats the logic of that? they’ll never friggin wake up!

A short while later, Maleficent also captures the prince (every story needs a hero eh?) and imprisons him in the castle.

The fairies enter the castle and free’s him while Maleficent is asleep, but Diablo intercepts them and wakes Maleficent just before he is turned to stone by one of the good fairies (isn’t that technically black magic? Oo)

Maleficent, in all her rage, creates a gigantic wall of thorns to stop prince Philip from entering the castle. But he uses his sword to cut through it, so she clearly didn’t think through that one.

But that was just the warmup, Maleficent descends from her tower and in a green inferno, she transforms into a dragon.

Here is also where i noticed something really strange, the shield that prince Philip wields might be the strongest shield in the world (Diablo 3 producers, pay attention)

Maleficent attacks Philip and misses, and hits the bridge.    The bridge is turned to ASHES.    The shield stops that exact same flame.

In the end though, Maleficent traps the prince and he throws his sword at her, and that’s that. Really lame if you ask me, which you didn’t.

For the time (1959), the animation of the dragon was among the biggest projects that Disney had ever tackled, and i recon they did a great job.

Maleficent has lived on ever since her wimpy death, in TV-series and videogames where she usually plays the main villain. And why is that?

Because she is frigging evil.

In the video game series Kingdom Hearts, she was the villain controlling all the other villains (not even going to mention the gay boyband muppet). I’ve yet to play it sadly, but i have to one day, if only just for her sake.

I thought i’d upload a picture…

Drinking coffee is always nice when you can do it while placing your lips… no wait, nevermind.

I love Maleficent, she is my number one villain because she is basically Black Metal in Disney format.  Everything about her design is absolutely flawless, from her horns to her dress and her epic green fire magic that surrounds her entrance and exits.

Rumor has it that people are in the works of creating a live action Maleficent movie, and that Angelina Jolie was closely associated with the role. Honestly, its not a very bad pick when it comes to potential actresses.

I just hope they do the original justice.

Now, we are finally done with this Disney stuff, and i’ll never have to mention animation in this blog ever again!

Well that’s probably far from the truth, but one could always hope.

And to top it off,  here is another wonderful drawing.

Honestly, sometimes my artwork actually brings *me* to tears.