Well THIS is certainly something I never thought I'd have to do. Over the last few years it's been a tendency6 of mine to write fairly large comments on YouTube, DeviantArt, the Escapist and other sites regarding my thoughts on whatever I happen to be commenting on. This, apparently, has led to a lot of people thinking I'm some kind of big intellectual who's got a lot to say about everything. Whilst I personally don't see it that way my attempts to say otherwise have thus far proved fruitless. One of the major consequences of the way I present myself on the internet is that a fair number of people have been sending me private messages asking me questions about what I think about various things.
Look, let me say right now. I am NOT some guy who's important enough for you to be asking questions about like this. i certainly appreciate that people hold me in enough esteem to ask though, I mean it's always nice when people like what you have to say. But the things you've been saying about me are somewhat overboard and I really wish they'd stop.
Still, I feel that I should at least pay these people some attention, so I've decided to have this brief Q & A session to answer some of the bigger and more frequent questions people have been asking me over the last few months. I can't guarantee that I'll answer all of the thi9ngs they've asked, or that you'll like what I have to hear, but I'm just giving my opinion.
So here goes.
Q: "Why do you like My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic?"
A: Ever since I declared my liking of this show some months ago it's been pretty much the number one question people like to ask me. And it's also one that's going to be hard to answer. Not because I can't think of why I like it, but because my reasons for liking it are essentially the same reasons why I like ANY great show. The writing is clever, it doesn't feel like it's looking down on me as a member of the audience or thinks me unintelligent, the voice acting is great.
And while all those things are true, I can also say the same of many other shows I love. Avatar the Last Airbender, Batman the Animated Series, I Claudius and many others. There is a long list of shows I like and they all have these great things going for them. But I suppose if I had to say why I like MLP more these days, I guess I'd say it was because it's managed to break out of it's intended audience, something very few shows can do. Even some of my other favourites tend to get bogged down by simply appealing to certain audiences. But MLP has broken out of that, so i appreciate it a great deal more because of it.
Q: "What's your opinion on the recent attempts at internet censorship legislation?"
A: Hate it. Absolutely hate it. Look, I understand that there's a lot of dark and sick things on the internet right now and I know that plenty of people dislike the fact that vulnerable groups like children have such easy access to it. And if I were a parent I'd probably be worried about them being exposed to it as well. But there is a big difference between trying to prevent the damage caused by a minority of the internet community, and painting the whole lot of us like some evil gang of deviants.
But by far the biggest thing that irks me about it is the fact that the legislation seems so poorly thought out. It would be one thing to simply limit the access that vulnerable people have to potentially harmful sites. But this legislation is so poorly thought out that it would have allowed for any site to be blocked simply because of something as small as having links to the aforementioned harmful sites. It's guilt by association, which is never a good way of going about it.
Still, I suppose it's a testament to how badly it was put together that acts like SOPA were met with failure. I cannot tell you how happy I was when that happened./ True there have been other attempts to get legislation like that off the ground, but given the kind of public opposition that's been brought to light, I have hopes that they'll be met with similar failure.
Q: "What's your religious affiliation and why?"
A: This is a question that I was surprised to get as I've publically stated what I believe in many times. But I suppose it's the "why" part of the question that has people so interested.
Just to get things out of the way, I am an Atheist. I was raised a Christian for much of my life but eventually declared my lack of faith at around 14 or 15. My reasons were largely because having read and heard many of the stories of Christianity and other religions, there were so many contradictions on the morals and lessons that it just came across as nonsensical. "You must not kill" and yet God commits several acts of genocide. "God is kind" yet tricks Abraham into almost killing his beloved son. "God knows everything", but doesn't know that Adam and Even would stray from him.
It all became too much so one day I just threw up my hands and gave up on the whole thing. I know that may offend a great many people but it's what I believe and I'm not going to change my mind on this.
Q: "Why don't you hate "Cars"?"
A: Pixar's "Cars" was an odd film for me. I certainly didn't think it was a terrible movie by any stretch of the imagination. I liked the characters, the animation was beautiful (this is Pixar after all) and while the story was fairly formulaic it wasn't to an insulting degree.
What did interest me however was the staggering number of people who said that they hated the thing. Lines like "it's the worst movie ever" were commonplace amongst the discussions I had with others over it. I appreciate that they don't like it but to call it the worst film ever is just ludicrous, especially given some of the other films I watched that year.
No, what I think bothers people most about this film is that it doesn't meet the standards met by earlier Pixar film. While I certainly agree with that point I think it's both unfair and unrealistic to expect them to be perfect all the time. As good as Pixar may be, they cannot produce miracles every time. They've had a spectacular run of films in their day, but to expect them to keep up that standard with every film would be like asking an Olympic althlete to keep up their running speed 24/7. It just isn't going to happen.
Q: "What's your opinion of anime?"
A: This is another tricky thing for me to answer as I'm no expert on anime by any stretch of the imagination. I watched a fair deal of it in my youth along with many others of my age range. Shows like Dragonball Z, Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop were all shows I'd watch and love on a regular basis. But as I got older I stopped watching them and although a new show would come along and peak my interest now and again, it just didn't hold that much sway with me.
However, I will say now that the animated movies produced by Studio Ghibli are not only film I greatly admire, but films I hold as some of the best movies ever made, especially "Princess Mononoke".
So I suppose my final thoughts on anime would be, "like the shows but love the movies."
Q: "What bothers you most about video games today?"
A: This question could probably be a whole post on it's own as there's plenty of things about modern video games that I dislike. I dislike the vast number of FPS games that all look alike. I dislike the focus on multiplayer over single player campaigns. I dislike the attitudes of people who play multiplayer. I dislike that so many games seem designed to make this medium look bad in the eyes of the mainstream media. There are just too many things to talk about.
But I suppose if I had to narrow it down to only one thing it would have to be the depiction of various ethnic groups. Now I know I'm probably going to sound really preachy here, but I do not like how various groups of people are represented in video games. Games like the Modern Warfare titles, Resident Evil 5 and others have all done absolutely revolting depictions of these groups and it's one of those few things that almost makes me ashamed to say that I like video games.
I truly think that when future generations look back, they'll see this as one of the great failings of the industry. It's kind of like how today we'd look at old movies and cringe when we see a member of an ethnic minority doing something silly or offensive. Sure at the time it might have been considered acceptable, but how it's just horrific. And the same will be true of video games in the future, a chapter of our medium's history we will forever look back on with shame.
Q: "If YOU were in charge of the live-action Transformers movies, what would you do different?"
A: I've admittedly been guilty of following the crowd a great deal when it comes to my hatred of Michael Bay's Transformers movies. I've harped on about it so much that many people simply asked outright how I would have done any better. Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that I'm not a film-maker, so I have no idea what goes into making stuff like this. However, simply as a fan of the source material, I can think of one defining thing I would do that Mr bay seems to have avoided when making these films.
I would make them for kids.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't think this franchise can't do adult themes. Hell, my favourite Transformers series of all, "Beast Wars" became my favourite solely because it managed to be more adult-oriented. But still, there is a big different between making something adult-oriented, and making it into something almost designed to deter kids from watching. When I see all of the explosions and soldiers and half-naked women in these movies I cannot help but think that Bay is simply trying to overcompensate for his shame at being attached to a franchise that was intended for children. He want' to put as much distance as possible between himself and the franchise's kiddy roots as possible.
And that was a big mistake. Bob Chipman said it best in his "Big Picture" episode, "Done with Dark", when he said that simply putting on so-called "adult themes" doesn't make it adult. In fact, it actually achieves the opposite and makes the whole franchise out to be childish, like a ten-year-old using swear words because he thinks it'll make him sound grown-up.
By making Transformers into something that seem ashamed of being meant for children, it's taken away any of the qualities that made it a great franchise to being with.
Q: "Aside from Transformers, is there anything else about the movie industry that bothers you?"
A: Yes. The Oscars. This award ceremony is, in my eyes, a very poor thing for films in general. Once more, Bob has said plenty of bad things about the Oscars, so pardon me if this sounds repetitive. But when I look at the kinds of people in charge of this ceremony and the kinds of awards that end up winning, it really does seem like it's nothing more than a handful of people making choice about what they think is good film-making without any regards to what the actual movie-going public may or may not agree with.
My biggest gripe with it is the ceremony's treatment of animated films. I honestly think that the category "Best Animated Feature" only exists so that the people in charge of the Oscars can prevent animated film from being considered the best film of the year. Don't believe me? Then just look back to 1991 Academy Awards. Disney's "Beauty and the beast" was the first animated film ever to be nominated for Best Picture. It was by far the best film released that year, hailed as not only a crowing achievement for Disney but for film as a whole. And what happened? It lost to "Silence of the Lambs". Now don't get me wrong, I like Anthony Hopkins as much as the next guy. But that film didn't even hold a candle to Beauty.
I could go on all day about this so let's just move onto the next question.
Q: "What's you opinion on the current divide in American politics?"
A: This is a question that I seriously considered not answering. The reason being is that I'm not American. I'm from the UK and as such it doesn't feel right for me to stand here as an outsider and declare my support or derision of political groups or policies. And also being an outsider, my opinion wouldn't really affect anything in American politics to begin with, so why bother?
However, if I was to comment on one thing about USA politics that gets under my skin, it would be the fact that a large number of people involved in politics in that country seem to be of the opinion that old ideas, or "traditional ideas" as they like to call them, should be held in high regard and untouched for no other reason other than the fact that they're old ideas.
This bothers me because many of those ideas and traditions were first thought up a long time ago, back when the USA and the rest of the world were very different places. The people are different now, the country is different and the world is different. Everyone and everything has undergone massive changes in the last few centuries, so the cultural circumstances that gave birth to those traditions and old political ideas doesn't really exist anymore. So there's no real justification for those ideas to change, or be replaced entirely.
Things change, and politics needs to change with it.
Q: "Why do you hate modern Disney movies?"
A: Okay, I've left this one until last because I really need to put my foot down here. I do NOT hate modern Disney movies. I like modern Disney movies. What many people seem to be interpreting as hate is really more along the lines of disappointment, but even then whenever recent Disney movies haven't "wowed" me the same way the older ones have, I still found things to like about them.
For example, say what you will about the Disney movies made from 2000 onwards, but at least they were trying something new and different. They tries different locations, different animation styles, even whole different genres of films. And even when those experiments didn't succeed the way they wanted them to, there was always something I found endearing about them, be it the characters, or simply the sheer gall to make films like these.
So just to clarify, I DON'T hate modern Disney movies, I'm just underwhelmed by them every now and then.
So that's that for my questions and answers. I hope that's put to rest some of the things people seem to think about me. And before anyone asks, I'm not planning on doing another one of these anytime soon.
And thank you to anyone who actually read through all this.
Look, let me say right now. I am NOT some guy who's important enough for you to be asking questions about like this. i certainly appreciate that people hold me in enough esteem to ask though, I mean it's always nice when people like what you have to say. But the things you've been saying about me are somewhat overboard and I really wish they'd stop.
Still, I feel that I should at least pay these people some attention, so I've decided to have this brief Q & A session to answer some of the bigger and more frequent questions people have been asking me over the last few months. I can't guarantee that I'll answer all of the thi9ngs they've asked, or that you'll like what I have to hear, but I'm just giving my opinion.
So here goes.
Q: "Why do you like My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic?"
A: Ever since I declared my liking of this show some months ago it's been pretty much the number one question people like to ask me. And it's also one that's going to be hard to answer. Not because I can't think of why I like it, but because my reasons for liking it are essentially the same reasons why I like ANY great show. The writing is clever, it doesn't feel like it's looking down on me as a member of the audience or thinks me unintelligent, the voice acting is great.
And while all those things are true, I can also say the same of many other shows I love. Avatar the Last Airbender, Batman the Animated Series, I Claudius and many others. There is a long list of shows I like and they all have these great things going for them. But I suppose if I had to say why I like MLP more these days, I guess I'd say it was because it's managed to break out of it's intended audience, something very few shows can do. Even some of my other favourites tend to get bogged down by simply appealing to certain audiences. But MLP has broken out of that, so i appreciate it a great deal more because of it.
Q: "What's your opinion on the recent attempts at internet censorship legislation?"
A: Hate it. Absolutely hate it. Look, I understand that there's a lot of dark and sick things on the internet right now and I know that plenty of people dislike the fact that vulnerable groups like children have such easy access to it. And if I were a parent I'd probably be worried about them being exposed to it as well. But there is a big difference between trying to prevent the damage caused by a minority of the internet community, and painting the whole lot of us like some evil gang of deviants.
But by far the biggest thing that irks me about it is the fact that the legislation seems so poorly thought out. It would be one thing to simply limit the access that vulnerable people have to potentially harmful sites. But this legislation is so poorly thought out that it would have allowed for any site to be blocked simply because of something as small as having links to the aforementioned harmful sites. It's guilt by association, which is never a good way of going about it.
Still, I suppose it's a testament to how badly it was put together that acts like SOPA were met with failure. I cannot tell you how happy I was when that happened./ True there have been other attempts to get legislation like that off the ground, but given the kind of public opposition that's been brought to light, I have hopes that they'll be met with similar failure.
Q: "What's your religious affiliation and why?"
A: This is a question that I was surprised to get as I've publically stated what I believe in many times. But I suppose it's the "why" part of the question that has people so interested.
Just to get things out of the way, I am an Atheist. I was raised a Christian for much of my life but eventually declared my lack of faith at around 14 or 15. My reasons were largely because having read and heard many of the stories of Christianity and other religions, there were so many contradictions on the morals and lessons that it just came across as nonsensical. "You must not kill" and yet God commits several acts of genocide. "God is kind" yet tricks Abraham into almost killing his beloved son. "God knows everything", but doesn't know that Adam and Even would stray from him.
It all became too much so one day I just threw up my hands and gave up on the whole thing. I know that may offend a great many people but it's what I believe and I'm not going to change my mind on this.
Q: "Why don't you hate "Cars"?"
A: Pixar's "Cars" was an odd film for me. I certainly didn't think it was a terrible movie by any stretch of the imagination. I liked the characters, the animation was beautiful (this is Pixar after all) and while the story was fairly formulaic it wasn't to an insulting degree.
What did interest me however was the staggering number of people who said that they hated the thing. Lines like "it's the worst movie ever" were commonplace amongst the discussions I had with others over it. I appreciate that they don't like it but to call it the worst film ever is just ludicrous, especially given some of the other films I watched that year.
No, what I think bothers people most about this film is that it doesn't meet the standards met by earlier Pixar film. While I certainly agree with that point I think it's both unfair and unrealistic to expect them to be perfect all the time. As good as Pixar may be, they cannot produce miracles every time. They've had a spectacular run of films in their day, but to expect them to keep up that standard with every film would be like asking an Olympic althlete to keep up their running speed 24/7. It just isn't going to happen.
Q: "What's your opinion of anime?"
A: This is another tricky thing for me to answer as I'm no expert on anime by any stretch of the imagination. I watched a fair deal of it in my youth along with many others of my age range. Shows like Dragonball Z, Outlaw Star and Cowboy Bebop were all shows I'd watch and love on a regular basis. But as I got older I stopped watching them and although a new show would come along and peak my interest now and again, it just didn't hold that much sway with me.
However, I will say now that the animated movies produced by Studio Ghibli are not only film I greatly admire, but films I hold as some of the best movies ever made, especially "Princess Mononoke".
So I suppose my final thoughts on anime would be, "like the shows but love the movies."
Q: "What bothers you most about video games today?"
A: This question could probably be a whole post on it's own as there's plenty of things about modern video games that I dislike. I dislike the vast number of FPS games that all look alike. I dislike the focus on multiplayer over single player campaigns. I dislike the attitudes of people who play multiplayer. I dislike that so many games seem designed to make this medium look bad in the eyes of the mainstream media. There are just too many things to talk about.
But I suppose if I had to narrow it down to only one thing it would have to be the depiction of various ethnic groups. Now I know I'm probably going to sound really preachy here, but I do not like how various groups of people are represented in video games. Games like the Modern Warfare titles, Resident Evil 5 and others have all done absolutely revolting depictions of these groups and it's one of those few things that almost makes me ashamed to say that I like video games.
I truly think that when future generations look back, they'll see this as one of the great failings of the industry. It's kind of like how today we'd look at old movies and cringe when we see a member of an ethnic minority doing something silly or offensive. Sure at the time it might have been considered acceptable, but how it's just horrific. And the same will be true of video games in the future, a chapter of our medium's history we will forever look back on with shame.
Q: "If YOU were in charge of the live-action Transformers movies, what would you do different?"
A: I've admittedly been guilty of following the crowd a great deal when it comes to my hatred of Michael Bay's Transformers movies. I've harped on about it so much that many people simply asked outright how I would have done any better. Let's leave aside for the moment the fact that I'm not a film-maker, so I have no idea what goes into making stuff like this. However, simply as a fan of the source material, I can think of one defining thing I would do that Mr bay seems to have avoided when making these films.
I would make them for kids.
Now don't get me wrong, I don't think this franchise can't do adult themes. Hell, my favourite Transformers series of all, "Beast Wars" became my favourite solely because it managed to be more adult-oriented. But still, there is a big different between making something adult-oriented, and making it into something almost designed to deter kids from watching. When I see all of the explosions and soldiers and half-naked women in these movies I cannot help but think that Bay is simply trying to overcompensate for his shame at being attached to a franchise that was intended for children. He want' to put as much distance as possible between himself and the franchise's kiddy roots as possible.
And that was a big mistake. Bob Chipman said it best in his "Big Picture" episode, "Done with Dark", when he said that simply putting on so-called "adult themes" doesn't make it adult. In fact, it actually achieves the opposite and makes the whole franchise out to be childish, like a ten-year-old using swear words because he thinks it'll make him sound grown-up.
By making Transformers into something that seem ashamed of being meant for children, it's taken away any of the qualities that made it a great franchise to being with.
Q: "Aside from Transformers, is there anything else about the movie industry that bothers you?"
A: Yes. The Oscars. This award ceremony is, in my eyes, a very poor thing for films in general. Once more, Bob has said plenty of bad things about the Oscars, so pardon me if this sounds repetitive. But when I look at the kinds of people in charge of this ceremony and the kinds of awards that end up winning, it really does seem like it's nothing more than a handful of people making choice about what they think is good film-making without any regards to what the actual movie-going public may or may not agree with.
My biggest gripe with it is the ceremony's treatment of animated films. I honestly think that the category "Best Animated Feature" only exists so that the people in charge of the Oscars can prevent animated film from being considered the best film of the year. Don't believe me? Then just look back to 1991 Academy Awards. Disney's "Beauty and the beast" was the first animated film ever to be nominated for Best Picture. It was by far the best film released that year, hailed as not only a crowing achievement for Disney but for film as a whole. And what happened? It lost to "Silence of the Lambs". Now don't get me wrong, I like Anthony Hopkins as much as the next guy. But that film didn't even hold a candle to Beauty.
I could go on all day about this so let's just move onto the next question.
Q: "What's you opinion on the current divide in American politics?"
A: This is a question that I seriously considered not answering. The reason being is that I'm not American. I'm from the UK and as such it doesn't feel right for me to stand here as an outsider and declare my support or derision of political groups or policies. And also being an outsider, my opinion wouldn't really affect anything in American politics to begin with, so why bother?
However, if I was to comment on one thing about USA politics that gets under my skin, it would be the fact that a large number of people involved in politics in that country seem to be of the opinion that old ideas, or "traditional ideas" as they like to call them, should be held in high regard and untouched for no other reason other than the fact that they're old ideas.
This bothers me because many of those ideas and traditions were first thought up a long time ago, back when the USA and the rest of the world were very different places. The people are different now, the country is different and the world is different. Everyone and everything has undergone massive changes in the last few centuries, so the cultural circumstances that gave birth to those traditions and old political ideas doesn't really exist anymore. So there's no real justification for those ideas to change, or be replaced entirely.
Things change, and politics needs to change with it.
Q: "Why do you hate modern Disney movies?"
A: Okay, I've left this one until last because I really need to put my foot down here. I do NOT hate modern Disney movies. I like modern Disney movies. What many people seem to be interpreting as hate is really more along the lines of disappointment, but even then whenever recent Disney movies haven't "wowed" me the same way the older ones have, I still found things to like about them.
For example, say what you will about the Disney movies made from 2000 onwards, but at least they were trying something new and different. They tries different locations, different animation styles, even whole different genres of films. And even when those experiments didn't succeed the way they wanted them to, there was always something I found endearing about them, be it the characters, or simply the sheer gall to make films like these.
So just to clarify, I DON'T hate modern Disney movies, I'm just underwhelmed by them every now and then.
So that's that for my questions and answers. I hope that's put to rest some of the things people seem to think about me. And before anyone asks, I'm not planning on doing another one of these anytime soon.
And thank you to anyone who actually read through all this.
