Caitlin Snow & Cisko Ramon VS Joe Fitz & Jemma Simmons

On several websites, several forums, and whatnot, I have seen people, who have watched both “The Flash” and “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”, have a fit over how similar the characters Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon (“The Flash”) are to the characters Joe Fitz and Jemma Simmons (“Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.”). I do not blame them for thinking so. In both cases we’re talking about a duo of scientists, who assist the heroes, who are there to come up with the gadgets and/or cures that are needed for whatever plot device happens to be causing trouble, and so forth. Many would even go so far as to say that Caitlin and Cisco are DC’s version of Marvel’s Fitz and Simmons characters. Which, again, I can’t blame anyone for thinking that, since Marvel and DC are known to rip each other off.

I don’t know if people are still discussing this, but I’m going to (as they say) throw my hat into the ring, and say that Caitlin and Cisco are NOT rip-offs of Fitz and Simmons.

Now I know what you’re thinking: how can they not be rip-offs? The first season of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” was broadcast before the first season of “The Flash”, and the producers behind “The Flash” saw how popular they were, so they wanted to create their own version. You might be right, except that season two of “Arrow” (the show that “The Flash” spun off from) was broadcast at the same time as “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” And while both were being broadcast, production on the next season had already started. Not to mention that while they were producing the third season of “Arrow”, those same people had also started producing the first season of “The Flash”. On top of that, Caitlin and Cisco did make an appearance during the second season of “Arrow”. In other words, they were too busy working on two shows at once, and even building up the second show during the first one, it would be a little tricky to shoe-horn two characters into the show at the last second, just because some other show did it.

And personally, I can’t believe that they are shoe-horned in. Let’s take a look at the Fitz and Simmons duo, for instance. Throughout most of the show, the two are often referred to as Fitzsimmons. Why? At a guess it’s because they work so well together, and are always seen together, they might as well refer to the two as though they were one entity. And seeing as how Fitzsimmons is an existing name, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were originally meant to be one entity, they just got split into two at the last second. No idea why they would do that, though. Maybe somebody realized that realistically no one individual could have as much knowledge about science as these two do. Though why they bother with being realistic with a world in which Tony Stark and Bruce Banner exist escapes me. But even when it comes to knowledge, they don’t seem to be very consistent about it. Fitz is the tech-guy, while Simmons is the biologist, and yet there have been times when Fitz has knowledge about biology that he shouldn’t have, or when Simmons has knowledge about physics that she shouldn’t have. It’s like the dialog was originally written for one character, but since the one character is now split into two, they need to change a few names in the script, but whoever did the changing got a little confused as to who is who. Need further proof of this? There have been episodes that center around the one or the other character, but while the one is in the spotlight, the other seems to disappear into the background. It’s almost like one of the two is redundant. It changed a little toward the end of the first season, but even then, given what happened to Fitz toward the end of the same season, it seems to me that this wasn’t done for drama, but it was done because the writers didn’t know what to do with him, so they had to write him out. If he’s still in the show after season one (I haven’t seen the rest yet, so I can’t know), and as an active member of the cast (being in a coma or something along those lines does not count), that can easily be because some of the higher-ups pressured the makers of “Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.” It wouldn’t be the first time that happened, that they wanted to write a character out of the show, but then got pressured into keeping him/her in because of his/her popularity.

On to Caitlin and Cisco, they seemed a bit more natural. Each character knows exactly what you expect them to know, even have to constantly remind others that the biologist does not know enough about physics and vice-versa. They each have their own history, focus on the one does not make the other disappear,… basically, it actually feels like the two were written as two characters, which is more than can be said about Fitzsimmons. Also, I don’t think these two were meant to be a duo. Rather, along with Barry Allen (aka the Flash) they were supposed to be trio, not unlike Harry Potter who has Ron and Hermione, or Clark Kent who has Pete and Chloe, or John Connor who has his mother and the Terminator, and many more.

I’ll even go one step further. I recently started watching a version of “The Flash” that was broadcast in 1990. The show is about how Barry Allen became the Flash (obviously), and how he’s helped by a scientist from S.T.A.R. Labs to fight crime. And seeing as Barry Allen is a forensic scientist working for the local police force, he also has a lab assistant. In other words, this Flash has two scientists backing him up as well. Worthy to note is also that John Wesley Shipp, who portrayed Barry Allen in the 90s show, is now portraying Barry Allen’s father in the current show. It’s like whoever is working on the current show is actually trying to remake the 90s show.

So if anyone wants to believe Caitlin and Cisco to be rip-offs, they might be, but not of Fitz and Simmons, but of these other two characters from the 90s. In fact, if you want to believe the one is a rip-off of the other, simply because the one or the other did it first, then you might want to consider Fitzsimmons to be the rip-off, because “The Flash” (1990) did it first.

I’m Literally Confused

Ever heard of the phrase “it’s raining cats and dogs?” When someone says that, they don’t actually mean it’s raining cats and dogs. It’s an expression, meaning that it’s pouring rain. I am not telling you anything new, I am aware of that, however should the occasion occur that it’s actually raining cats and dogs (which is unlikely, but knowing that it’s rained spiders in Brazil, who’s to say it’s impossible) how do you tell people you’re being serious? By saying “it’s literally raining cats and dogs.” Again, it sounds like I’m not saying anything new. The keywords being “sounds like.”

Recently, I watched a (intentionally) funny video on Youtube. Somebody left a comment on the video, saying that he literally died watching this. That can’t be true, because if he literally died, it means he wouldn’t be able to write the comment. So, in this context, what exactly does literally mean? Is “literally” here meant as an exaggeration? If yes, this person completely missed the point when using the word “literally”. It’s supposed to make it clear that you’re not using an expression, or exaggerating. To say “literally” when you don’t actually mean “literally,” you’re doing the exact opposite of what the word is supposed to do.

I suppose on the one hand, I should not be surprised. After all, language does evolve. What used to mean one thing years ago, doesn’t mean the same today. A bit like how (for instance) “queer” used to mean “weird”, but people today associate it with something else. But to use “literally” as an expression or an exaggeration, when it’s supposed to point out when you don’t mean the expression or aren’t exaggerating, that has to be one of the dumbest changes ever. Sooner or later, we’re going to have to think of a new word so to make sure when one says “literally,” he/she actually means “literally.” Now I am curious to see what word that will be.

My review of “Harry Potter & The Cursed Child”

Less than a month ago, the latest Harry Potter novel was released, called “The Cursed Child.” Or at least, that’s what the advertisements said, as it wasn’t a novel by the strictest definition of the word. It was the script for the stage play, which they decided to make available to the general public in a hardcover book. On the one hand, this should come off as lazy. After all, why release the script and advertise it as a novel? Why not a novelization? That would lean a little closer to what was promised. On the other hand, the script did mention a number of things that seem impossible to do on stage. I mean, casting spells, making people shift into something else, and many more. If I have the chance, I’ll see the play, just so I can see how they could possibly accomplish such things.

I will even say, that the plot of “The Cursed Child” allowed for a lot of possibilities. It’s basically the same as the “Back To The Future” movies. Something happened in history, and characters from the present day want to change that, by means of a time travel device. A Time Turner, to use its proper term. Doing so allowed not only for dead characters to somehow still be in the play, but it also allowed us to see other possible worlds. For instance, a lot of fans didn’t think Ron and Hermione should be a couple, so this presented us with a world where that is the case. Also, for those who wondered what the world would look like if Voldemort had won, because of this time traveling business, we can suddenly catch a glimpse of what that world might be like. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, but I can add that even events that are often talked about throughout the series, but never actually shown, can now suddenly be witnessed.

It looks like I’m praising this story. Some of you are now probably wondering if there’s a catch. You’d be right. I do have one huge problem with this one. It’s the same thing that I hate about “Terminator 2”. In the third novel of the series, “The Prisoner Of Azkaban,” Time Turners are used for the first time. What I’m about to say might spoil the book for you, but odds are that if you do end up reading the book for yourself, you’ll figure out the twist long before the characters do. I know I did. Anyway, characters within the third novel are interacting with their future selves, but they’re not aware of it. At least not until they themselves become their own future selves, witnessing their own past. In other words, the plot of the third novel hinges on the so-called stable time-loop (which I already explained in my earlier article, about Skynet’s time travel plot) while the latest story hinges on that not being the case. As James Rolfe once said in one of his videos: “Funny how the laws of space and time can be altered for money.”

And before anyone is going to say that it’s a magical world and the laws of space and time do not apply here, you’re just being lazy. Even if the laws of physics as we understand them do not exist in the Harry Potter realms, or the Potterverse, said realm still has laws of its own. And the third one establishes time travel does not work the way that the latest story says it does. There is even this “plot hole” going around that if time travel were possible in the Potterverse, they could have used it to prevent the murder of James and Lily Potter, or even the birth of Voldemort, or anything that might have prevented many incidents from the novel. My defense was always that “The Prisoner Of Azkaban” established that time travel doesn’t work that way. But now this newest novel says it can. Well done, J.K. Rowling, you just destroyed the only defense you’ve ever had against one of your own plot holes. You’ve become your own Voldemort.

As something to see played on stage, it’s interesting. As a means of seeing possible worlds, it’s interesting. And yes, I’ll even admit, some of the characters’ growth is interesting to see (I’m not going to spoil it for you). But as a continuation of the Harry Potter series… like I said before, it’s on the same level as “Terminator 2”. While it has a lot of good things going for it, does it really have to come at the price of contradicting previous installments?

Fan Theory #8: Hobbes’ True Nature

Anyone who’s into comics, has heard of “Calvin & Hobbes” at some point. It’s a series that is published daily in the newspapers, about an overly imaginative boy named Calvin, and his anthropomorphic sarcastic tiger named Hobbes. And yes, both are intentionally named after the great philosophers.

A recurring question with the series, however, is Hobbes’ true nature. In some panels he’s a living, breathing and sentient tiger, while in others, when there are other people in the panels, he’s just a stuffed (or cuddly) animal. As mentioned before, Calvin is very imaginative, so it is assumed that Hobbes is only a living creature in Calvin’s mind, but not to everyone else. I’d believe that, except that the comics aren’t very consistent about this. There have been times when Calvin climbed a tree, but needed Hobbes’ help to do so. A recurring gag is when Hobbes (being a tiger) can naturally climb up into their tree house, but does not lower the rope-ladder to let Calvin in. There are many more examples, but what I’m getting at is the following: how are some of these events possible if Hobbes is just a cuddly animal?

Here’s my theory: what if Hobbes isn’t a cuddly toy? What if he really is a living, breathing, sentient being?

I know, Calving is known for his uncanny imagination, so it makes sense if Hobbes were just another one of his little fantasies. On the other hand, it also makes sense that, because he has such an imagination, he’s more accepting of seeing an anthropomorphic tiger. Which is unlike the rest of the world, who isn’t as imaginative as Calvin. Other people can’t accept something like Hobbes, even if they see it for themselves their minds can’t wrap their heads around it, so they’d try to rationalize it. In their minds, humanoid tigers are not real, such things just do not (nay, cannot) exist, so what they’re looking at has to be just a toy. Right? Sure, they’ll see it move, but it has to be Calvin just making it move. Or if they hear Hobbes’ voice, they’ll either assume it’s Calvin doing the talking, or Hobbes would talk really quietly, almost inaudibly next to Calvin’s loud voice, making it easier for people to think they’re just imagining it.

One thing that gives credence to this theory is the time that Calvin and Hobbes traveled into the cretaceous period, where he took pictures of dinosaurs, which he hoped to show to scientists, and get rich instantly. He shows the pictures to his father first. At first he says “Dinosaurs?” genuinely surprised to see them, but in the next panel he says “I didn’t realize dinosaurs looked so small and plastic.” This always seemed odd to me. The implication is that Calvin just put his dinosaur toys in the backyard, and made pictures of them, pretending to be photographing real dinosaurs (which he actually did, if you knew what plastic is made of, but one paradox at a time). I’d accept that, except that his father seemed genuinely surprised when he first saw the pictures. If those were pictures of toys, he would have said something along the lines of “you made pictures of your toys”, but no, he was convinced they were real at first, but knowing that that can’t be true, he told himself that they must be just pictures of Calvin’s toys.

And there’s my point. If these people can’t accept the truth if it stares them right in the face, then it doesn’t seem very far fetched to me if they do the same thing with Hobbes.

Which isn’t to say that all of Calvin’s adventures are real too, though. When it comes to time traveling, duplication, or transmogrifying, the science that allows such things to work are already made up, so for the sake of the comics I can accept that all of those are actually happening. But his trip to Mars from “Weirdos From Another Planet” probably wasn’t real. I mean, getting to Mars just by using his buggy? Not very likely. At best, they probably just traveled very far, into an unknown territory, where they see things which they had never seen before, which they just mistake for things you might find on Mars. And for those of you who doubt that, because that would imply that Hobbes is imagining the same thing as Calvin, why should that surprise you? In the same book, we see the two digging up old garbage, which they both mistakenly believe to be the fossil remains of a dinosaur. In other words, they are at the same wavelength, they are both very imaginative, and they were both in unfamiliar territory at the time. So of course they’d both believe themselves to be on Mars, and they’d both think they saw alien life-forms.

Some of you might be wondering, if there is any credence to my theory, then how do I explain the comic that I use as illustration for this article? First of all, I don’t think Bill Waterson (the creator of the duo) drew this. Not just because I’ve read every single one of the comics, and don’t remember seeing this one anywhere, but also because I know that Waterson deliberately wanted to leave Hobbes’ true nature ambiguous, so it’s up to the audience to decide for themselves what is and what isn’t real. If Waterson drew this, then that implies that he wanted to break his own illusion, and outright say that Hobbes is just a figment of Calvin’s imagination. Which I don’t think he’d want to do.

But in the highly unlikely event that the comic is genuine… I have to say that the following is based on hearsay, not on my own experiences, but here’s what I think. I happen to know somebody who used to take pills when she was younger (maybe still does, I did not ask). While it pretty much stopped her from dreaming, it also made her more focused. As such, if Calvin would take such pills himself, it made him more focused on doing his homework, and therefor ends up ignoring Hobbes. This comic doesn’t even show how Calvin gradually stops thinking of Hobbes as alive, it just shows how he’s too focused on his work, he doesn’t notice anything else. An ambulance with blearing sirens could pass by and he wouldn’t even notice. The comic’s implication seems to be that Hobbes is still a sentient being, but since Calvin is ignoring him, he might as well just be a stuffed animal to Calvin.

(It should be noted, though, that the same person I brought up about these pills, told me that because of those pills, she had a hard time imagining things, which can be a problem when your school assignment is to write a story, fiction or otherwise. This comic’s story is that Calvin is writing a report on something. It’s not explicitly said what he’s reporting, but in order to write any sort of report, you have to imagine what it is that happened in order to write about it. So whoever drew this comic said more than he/she intended)

Color And How Light Works

Anyone who remembers my fan theory about the Daleks, probably remembers my little explanation about how light works. How it is merely a medium which is reflected and/or absorbed by every object, and whatever is reflected, gets absorbed by our eyes, and interpreted by our brains.

It’s a rudimentary explanation, at best, but that’s the basic gist of it. There is, however, something I did not mention, mostly because it had no bearing to my theory, so I’m bringing it up here: light is (usually) white. White light falls on (say) on a sheet of paper, and it’s reflected, which our eyes catch, so we interpret the sheet of paper as white. If, on the other hand, you find an object that absorbs all light, then there is nothing for our eyes to catch, which is why we perceive it as black. On top of that, white light can be split into three primary colors: red, green and blue. If an object absorbs green and blue, but reflects red, then we’ll perceive the object as being red.

When someone first explained this to me, I found this to be counterintuitive. If an object absorbs green and blue, shouldn’t the object then be cyan? We only perceive it as red because that’s the color that’s reflected and caught by our eyes, which our brains interpret as the object being red. And that’s what I’m getting at. We merely perceive an object as having a certain color, but what if in reality that’s not the case? What if a white object is really black? What if a blue object is really yellow? (it makes sense if you know how color mixing works)

I remember reading about how scientists think that our universe is not real. Or, put in a different way, the universe is a mere reflection of something else. Bearing in mind that everything we see is already a reflection of light, it makes perfect sense to me if what we see is indeed not the real universe. Which has me wonder… what is the real universe like?

But of course, this last bit is based on my rudimentary knowledge of light, and limited understanding of the universe reflection theory.

Fan Theory #7: What Really Happened In “Highlander”

At some point in the 1980s, a screenwriter visited Scotland, where he saw a statue of a typical Highlander warrior. Upon looking at it, he wondered what it would be like if this warrior were still alive today. For him to be alive, he would have to be immortal. If he can be immortal, then others can too,… basically one thing lead to another, and thus the screenwriter ended up writing “Highlander”.

The plot of “Highlander” is simple. Several people, across the globe and across time, for reasons unknown to them, become immortal. As immortals, they are now partaking in the Game, where the immortals must kill all the other ones, a feat possible only through decapitation. And when that happens, the immortal left standing will absorb the powers of the immortal he just killed (a phenomenon referred to as the Quickening). One day, when very few of them are left, they’ll be drawn to a specific spot, the time of the Gathering (not to be confused with the movie by Anthony Horowitz), where they’ll keep fighting, until only one is left standing, who will claim the Prize. The main characters here are Connor MacLeod, the eponymous Highlander, and the Kurgan, the main antagonist. It is unclear what the Prize is, but it is said that if the Kurgan wins, it would be a dark time for us all.

So it’s your basic good versus evil story, where (not-really spoiler alert) the good guy wins. But the Game raises a lot of questions. When MacLeod first becomes an immortal, he did not immediately become aware of the Game, he had to be told about it, by his mentor Ramirez. Which begs the question, how did Ramirez know? If your answer is that Ramirez’s own mentor told him, then who told the mentor? Who told the previous one?

I can imagine many of these immortals thinking themselves as gods because they’re immortal. I can also imagine these people being afraid of other immortals for one reason or another. Not to mention that some of them were probably psychotic. Bottom line, much like how people would always find some reason to fight each other, I can imagine these immortals doing the same. And in a world where there is no real police to stop people from killing, of course a fight would be inevitable. On top of that, since they think neither will die, they don’t exactly hold back. As a consequence, not only do they figure out that decapitation kills immortals, they also find out that the dead immortal’s powers will go to the immortal that killed him. Now some of the more psychotic ones would not have any remorse for killing the other ones, but the genuinely good ones would feel bad for killing someone. So it would make sense to me if the earliest immortals came up with the idea of the Game, so to justify their kills. In other words, the immortals never needed to kill each other, the Game was never real, and the Prize itself is also made up.

And I know what some of you are thinking. If the Prize was never real, how do I explain everything else in the movie? The Gathering? The epilogue?

The idea of the Gathering is that the immortals will be inexplicably drawn to one spot. This could well be made up, and the immortals who came up with it didn’t think it would actually happen. But the movie did establish that the immortals can sense each other. And after killing many other immortals, each and every one of them become more powerful. So much so that the weaker ones can sense the stronger ones from a distance, or so much so that the stronger once can sense even the weaker ones, no matter how far away they are. So if a small group of these people are within a certain radius, they would sense each other, and just think that this is the time of the Gathering. Also, since these people have been fighting for their lives, most of them would flee to the new world (America) in the hope that their enemies won’t find them. I don’t know about the present day, but in the old days, when people fled to the new world, they would inevitably end up in New York. So it makes sense that most of the immortals are in or around New York. Enough for them to think that the moment of the Gathering had arrived.

This explains the Gathering, but what about MacLeod winning the Prize? The implication is that when MacLeod killed the Kurgan, the resulting Quickening was too much for him to bear. Which makes sense. He may be immortal, but not impervious to pain. Also, we have seen the Kurgan kill more people than MacLeod. One of them was Ramirez. So to receive all the powers from all the people that the Kurgan killed, that would be too much to bear, resulting in MacLeod getting knocked out cold.

Then there’s the Prize itself. The epilogue claims that the Prize is mortality, and the ability to hear what everyone on the planet is thinking. Really? Considering that MacLeod had for 450 years, befriending many people, even loving many women, but ultimately outliving every one of them, I would understand why he craved mortality. And considering that he had to fight for his life, often ended up trusting people who wanted to kill him, I would understand why he would want to hear other people’s thoughts. I would also understand why the Kurgan would want that, but why would he want to be mortal? Mortality would seem like too high a price to pay just to become a telepath. So I’ll have to assume that the immortals did not know what the Prize was, including Ramirez, who merely said that dark days would be coming if the wrong person wins it. He could merely have been expressing his fear because he didn’t know what the Price was. If he actually knew what it was, why did he not just tell MacLeod?

In short, MacLeod killed the Kurgan, goes through an unusually powerful Quickening, which knocks him out, and while he’s recovering, he’s dreaming of what he hopes the Price is. Mortality, and telepathy. But in reality, he just won the fight against his arch-nemesis, he did not win any prize, let alone thé Prize.

“BvS” And The Martha Thing

I have already shared my thoughts on “BvS” before, but there is something else which I wish to address. And that’s other people’s reactions to this movie.

Do not misunderstand me, I do value other people’s opinions, but as Benjamin Franklin once said (if I’m to believe my sources): “If everyone is thinking alike, then no one is thinking.” And that’s the problem. Too many people seem to think the same thing.

The only people who even remotely like “BvS”, are the fans, while the critics hated it. Seeing as the movie was made for the fans (a fact that even Ben Affleck (Batman) confirms), this makes perfect sense. I could go into detail as to what I mean, but anyone who read my earlier post already knows. But despite the fact that some people actually like it, there is this one thing that people keep harping on. This thing being the fact that the movie brings up the fact that Batman and Superman have mothers with the same first name.

In order to make my point, I might have to spoil the movie for you, so if you haven’t seen it already, I suggest you should not read the rest of this article.

Anyway, so Batman is fighting Superman, and actually winning. Thing is, Superman did not want to fight, and even hoped he could reason with Batman. As a last ditch effort, he tried to bring up the fact that his mother was kept hostage. But, considering the position he was in (i.e. he was losing the battle) he could only bring himself to say the name “Martha,” which threw Batman off. That makes sense. Batman’s weak spot is, and always has been, his parents. So if somebody brings up his parents (or in this case, specifically his mother), it makes sense why Batman would hesitate to bring the finishing blow. And when he finds out that Superman meant his own mother, Batman probably realized that the same thing that happened to him was about to happen to Superman. So of course he would side with him all the sudden. So this scene makes sense to me. Mind you, it’s still flawed. After all, why would Superman, in a delirious state, refer to his own mother by her first name? Still, it addresses something I noticed, and it’s one of the few times in this movie that Batman was actually in character.

But that doesn’t seem to be the opinion of everybody else. Everyone else, even if they are fans, they see this as just Batman deciding to not kill Superman because his mother just so happens to be called Martha, just like his own mother. No more, no less. Few others try to read more deeply into it. But even then, what they say is that Batman suddenly decides that Superman is human after all, which is consistent with how Batman was depicted since the beginning of this movie (i.e. he doesn’t think of Superman as particularly human), but in my honest opinion is still out of character for Batman. So even this doesn’t make any sense.

But this does bring up a strange new trend I have noticed in Hollywood movies lately. Take for instance “The Dork Knight” (for those thinking that this is a typo, I happen to hate the movie so much I can’t bring myself to refer to it by its proper title). So many people like it, and yet they can’t seem to bring themselves to overlook this one little detail. This detail being Batman’s voice. No matter how much they like “The Dork Knight,” they can’t forgive Batman’s voice. Which is odd. He used that same voice in “Batman Begins” but nobody complained about it then. So why do they harp on it with this movie?

Similarly, there are a lot of people who liked “Jurassic World”, but can’t overlook the fact that the character Claire wore high heels throughout the entire movie. They can accept cloned dinosaurs, but think running in heels is too unrealistic. You figure that one out.

So we have Batman’s voice in “The Dork Knight,” Claire’s heels in “Jurassic World,” and the Martha thing in “BvS”. It’s like the filmmakers are deliberately adding something so stupid into their movies so to distract their audience from noticing anything else that is stupid about the movie. So instead of trying to make a genuinely good movie, they add something into the movie to make the rest of the movie seem better by comparison. Just when you thought Hollywood couldn’t get any lazier (what with all of its movies being sequels, prequels, remakes and/or adaptations (and even then, they only adapt what’s already popular)), they find a new way to be lazy.

My Review Of “Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice”

One cannot talk about this movie, without bringing up its predecessor, “Man Of Steel”. I have been told that said movie’s audience is split. One half absolutely adores the movie, while the other half absolutely abhors it. If a fence were to be built between the two, you’ll find me sitting on it. There are a number of things to like about “Man Of Steel”, but then there are other things that make the movie a failure. Neither arguments for or against it are enough to win me over to either side. And wouldn’t you know it, this goes for “Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice” as well.

One common complaint about about “Man Of Steel” was that too many people died in that movie. After all, if Superman is a hero, then he should have been able to save everyone. Personally, I think if nobody died, then the threat wasn’t as dire as people think, so why would they need a hero? Still, in “Batman Vs. Superman”, the fact that so many people died in the previous movie was actually a plot point. Clever, I’ll give them that. However, this created what I like to call Power Rangers Syndrome. It’s probably older than that, but it’s the best example I can think of to make my point clear. If you take the original Super Sentai series, monsters attack Tokyo on a weekly basis, buildings are torn down during the giant robot battles, and while it is never explicitly mentioned that anyone died (except that one time in Shinkenger) it is safe to assume people did die. Then that same footage from Super Sentai is later used in making Power Rangers. I am guessing that kids started to cry when they realize there may have been people inside those buildings, so their parents sent angry letters to the producers of the show, resulting in the need to have a news anchor explicitly mention within the show that nobody got hurt (sic). A similar thing happened in “Batman Vs. Superman”. Because of the many complaints about the previous movie, they felt it necessary to mention in this movie that the character Doomsday is on top of a conveniently empty building, and the final showdown between the same character and our heroes happens in an empty building district. SERIOUSLY???

Speaking of which, in the movie’s introduction to Bruce Wayne, we get to see that he owned a building in Metropolis, which was torn down during the events of “Man Of Steel” (why he would have a building in Metropolis is beyond me, but what do I know about how to run a company). Many people died in this, and this is what made Bruce angry with Superman. Oh really? Bruce Wayne, Batman of all people, blames this one guy, for the actions of others of his race? Granted, things like this happen in real life. After all, aren’t there people out there who blame all muslims and/or Middle-Eastern people for the actions of IS? But you’d think Batman would be above such things. Apparently not, as this is the reason why he hates Superman. I won’t claim to be an expert on Batman, but I’m not buying this for one second.

And while I’m on the subject of why this is happening, toward the end it is revealed that the entire battle was set up by Lex Luther. Considering that Batman had been looking into Luther’s activities, it makes sense that the latter would do what he can to get rid of this pest, in such a way that he can kill two birds with one stone. However, am I supposed to believe he could somehow anticipate that Batman would be this petty? For that matter, am I supposed to believe that THIS guy is even Lex Luther? Every time he’s in public, he talks incoherently, rarely looks at people, and even looks like a hermit who rarely makes public appearances. He actually manages to make ME look good when I’m in front of people. I’m not against doing a different take on a character, but Doctor Insano is a more dignified villain, and he’s a parody character.

And another thing, how did he know that he needed Zod’s fingerprints to enter the ship? That is, specifically the fingerprints, and not the full hand? Or even prints at all, as if aliens would use the same security measures as we Earthlings would? For that matter, wasn’t the ship destroyed in the previous movie? Also, he used the ship to create Doomsday, and when that character rampaged, that would somehow draw the attention of someone or some thing else that’s out there in space. Could it be Brainiac? Or Darkseid? Who knows. But what bugs me is why Luther would do this. Killing two birds with one stone, I get that, but why draw the attention of something else that can destroy us all? It’s the equivalent of a vampire killing all humans. What profit could there possibly in it for him?

On to the stranger bits about this movie. When Batman and Superman first meet (in costume, that is), Superman warns Batman that the next time he sees the signal in the sky, he’d better not come. I’m assuming he means the bat-signal, but since that was never shown in the movie up to that point, assuming is pretty much all I can do. Said signal does show up, but not until the beginning of the third act, which is at least an hour and a half into the movie. Shortly after that, we see Batman in full armor, with which he’ll face off against Superman. They don’t wait to show us this armor until Superman actually shows up, so to make a dramatic reveal to both him and the audience, they just show us his armor long before the battle even begins. So the signal is revealed too late, and the armor is revealed too soon. I think Snyder (the director) got his priorities a little mixed up.

Then there’s this woman who keeps popping up every now and again. Who was she? I don’t know. She’s never referred to by name. Sure, some stewardess refers to her as Miss Prince, but that’s the only time her name is mentioned, and it’s shortly before the final showdown. Even her superhero name is not mentioned in this movie. Yes, I know she’s supposed to be Wonder Woman, but that’s exactly my point. If you didn’t already know Wonder Woman is in this movie, you wouldn’t know who this woman is. It’s almost like the filmmakers assumed the audience already know who these characters are, and thought that they shouldn’t bother with formal introductions. Actually, I dare even go one step further. If you were to edit Wonder Woman out of this movie completely, you wouldn’t notice a difference. It’s like she was added in at the last second.

Still, for all its faults, there were some good things in this movie. For instance, one thing I noticed a long time ago, is that Batman’s mother is named Martha Wayne, while Superman’s adoptive mother is named Martha Kent. So both mothers have the same first name. Who knows why that is. But this movie addresses this little fact, and even uses it as a plot point.

As I have said before, I do not claim to be an expert on either Batman or Superman. Though I am aware that even before this movie, Batman and Superman have clashed many times. Personally, I’m only familiar with three such stories. Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns”, Jim Lee’s “Hush”, and Kevin J. Anderson’s “Enemies And Allies”. This movie seems to have drawn inspiration from these three. Batman’s armor from “The Dark Knight Returns”, using Kryptonite as a weapon like in “Hush”, and having Lex Luther as the main villain, and no Batman villains whatsoever, like in “Enemies And Allies”. Though, speaking of Batman villains, vague references to the Joker have been made, but unless you actually know who the Joker is, those references won’t make any sense.

Which brings me to another problem. I remember when I first saw the Superman movies with Christopher Reeve, I knew little to nothing about Superman. I knew the name, I knew the costume, I knew what he can do, but I didn’t know about him having a secret identity, I didn’t know his history, and I didn’t even know that the movie was based on a comic book. If anything, I thought it was the other way around. And that’s my point. I wasn’t familiar with the source material, but that didn’t stop me from enjoying those movies. They introduced me, as it were, to Superman. The same thing can be said about Tim Burton’s Batman movies. But “Batman Vs. Superman” seems to be made with the idea in mind that the audience is already familiar with the source material. But what if they’re not? They’d be watching this movie and end up wondering what the hell they just watched. This is the Harry Potter movies all over again. I’m beginning to see what Alan Moore meant when he said that Harry Potter made modern day fiction decadent.

To summarize, this movie has a lot of good things, but it also has a lot of bad things. Is it good, is it bad? It is… mediocre. That’s all I can say.

Slow Vs. Fast Zombies

I just finished watching the movie “World War Z”. Is it any good? Well, considering that the book it was based on was more of a report than it was an actual story, part of me hoped that the movie would be more like a documentary. But the smarter part of me knew that was not what we were going to see.

As I watched the movie, however, I noticed that the monsters (if you know what “zombie” means, you’ll understand why I don’t want to call them that) were running. Personally, I am all right with the notion of these people being able to run, however I also know that a number of people are not. Including George A. Romero, who basically created the zombies as we know them today. But why? If you can accept that dead people can walk again, why does the notion of them running seem so ludicrous?

I have asked this question once before, and the answer I got then was that rigor mortis sets in. This makes sense in a way. I looked it up just to be certain, and the person who told me this was right. I’m not going to pretend to know or understand much of biology, or even about human anatomy, but from what I can gather, rigor mortis happens because the body is deprived of oxygen for a while. If we’re to assume that these monsters, even if brought back from the dead, don’t breath, and “World War Z” (the book) at some point implies as such, then it makes sense if rigor mortis sets in. However, that only happens up to three or four hours after an individual dies. So if anything, they should have no problem with running, until three or four hours after their deaths. But not only that, even if rigor mortis has set in, the body will eventually revert back to its earlier state. So again, there is nothing stopping the dead from running.

Is it, perhaps, for traditional reasons? Do people hate runners because the dead usually walk? I suppose I can accept that. But even in “Shaun Of The Dead” (more in the DVD extras than in the actual movie) the characters pointed out how non-threatening they are. They can easily be outrun, you can easily run through them,… they are hardly threatening. Sure, if you’re surrounded by them, they are a lot harder to dodge. But that’s exactly the problem. Their strength is in their numbers. One would not seem particularly threatening. If the monster were a runner, on the other hand, then one does seem more dangerous. If dead people are to seem even remotely threatening, it makes more sense to have them run.

Then again, with walkers, because they’re so slow, then all the suspense would slowly be build up. The terror in one such movie would be slow, and subtle. Something that is not impossible, but difficult to pull off with runners. Is that perhaps the problem? That those who want something more slow and subtle are not pleased with the current fast-paced ADHD style of filmmaking?

All of this is just speculation on my part. Is there perhaps some other reason why people prefer the one over the other?

Fan Theory #6: Skynet’s Time Travel Plot

I like time travel. I like robots. I like the horror genre. So how do I feel about “The Terminator,” which combines all three? Of course I love that movie. What did you expect?

And how can I not? The plot sounds relatively simple: in the future machines are taking over the world, but the human resistance, lead by a man named John Connor, fights back, prompting the machines to send a robot, the titular Terminator, back in time to kill John’s mother, Sarah Connor, and by extension prevent John Conner from being born. So we (humans) send our own soldier back in time, to protect Sarah. Like I said, sounds relatively simple. But (spoilers for those who haven’t seen the movie yet), what makes the movie interesting is that toward the end, it turns out that the soldier that was sent back, would fall in love with Sarah Connor, the two would… take the necessary steps to conceive a child, and that child will grow up to become John Connor. In other words, if the machines did not send a Terminator back, John Connor would never have been born, and thus the machines became, as the narrator from “The Second Renaissance” put it, the architects of their own doom.

While the movie seems to follow the basic formula of a slasher film (a near-unstoppable killer, a body count, a final girl,…) it does leave its audience with a lot to think about. Including the one question that has been plaguing me lately. Why?

Allow me to elaborate: you ever heard of the notion that computers can only think logically? There is a lot of truth to that. A computer program is made up of series of combinations of 1’s and 0’s. As such, as far as a computer is concerned, there are only two possibilities. Something is either 1, or it’s either 0. It’s either positive, or negative. It is, or it isn’t. If a computer could think, it can only understand these extremes. There is no in-between. There is no gray area. There is no 0.5, or even a 2. It is only capable of doing what is logically sound.

This is why it makes no sense to me that Skynet (the program that created/controls the machines) would build a time machine, with the intent to change history. Even if the thought could cross its mind, you would think that Skynet would be smart enough to realize the following: suppose he did change the past by killing Sarah Connor, then John Connor is never born, and nobody would be leading a resistance against the machine, and thus Skynet wouldn’t have a reason to send a Terminator back into the past. So if one was never sent back, then who killed Sarah Connor? The very thought alone is so illogical, you would think it would have fried Skynet’s circuits. Or whatever it is it uses for a brain.

This actually even brings up another problem. How did Skynet come up with idea? I know A.I.’s are supposed to be capable of independent thoughts and problem solving. But time travel? This seems a little bit extreme, even for killer robots.

One thing I can imagine happening, is that John Connor, being the leader of the resistance, would be the number one target of termination. But he somehow always manages to escape the machines. So naturally, with a human that is this capable of eluding the machines, they would come up with all sorts of tricks to kill him. Including collecting DNA samples. They would possibly do the same with his lieutenants. Like Kyle Reese. But when collecting the DNA of these two, the machines would notice something odd. The two have similar DNA, implying that they are father and son. Which would not raise any questions, except the father is only half the age of the son. So the son is older than the father? How is that possible? What if this discovery is what lead Skynet to realize that somebody has been traveling through time? And when it starts looking into history, it would find security footage of that L.A. Police station, which shows a Terminator killing these people. It also shows Kyle Reese, who seems to know about Skynet before it even exists.

So what if Skynet came up with its time travel plot because it found out people had traveled through time in the first place? Which would also lead me to wonder, what if their plot was never to kill Sarah Connor? All the other women who happened to have been named Sarah Connor (as well as the actual Sarah Connor’s roommate) and were killed by the Terminator, what if they were killed because the Terminator knew that history said he would? What if everything he did was not with the intention of killing Sarah Connor, but with the intention of being pragmatic? It would certainly explain those moments when he had a clear shot at Sarah Connor, but didn’t do anything.

And I know what you’re thinking. If he never wanted to kill Sarah Connor, why did he still go after her? Why did he kill Kyle Reese, for that matter? Well, the Terminators are shown to have scanning abilities. He must have scanned Sarah’s body, and realized that she had already done what had to be done, and so Reese no longer mattered. But meanwhile, as the Terminator said in the second movie, he cannot self-terminate, so he had to somehow force Sarah into terminating him.

Meanwhile, there is another question that I have. How did the humans find out about Skynet’s time travel plot? I don’t think they could just capture a Terminator and hold him for questioning. Could they? But it does seem likely that Skynet somehow started to spread rumors about their plot to kill Sarah Connor, which will eventually be caught by human ears, and… well, the rest you already know.

But if there is any truth to any of this, then how do I explain the events from later movies? Well, as that woman from Geek Crash Course put it, the third and fourth movies are just professional fanfiction, nothing more. And I agree, even though I happen to like the fourth movie. The same, in my humble opinion, can be said about the fifth. Admittedly, that one is more like professionals writing “My Immortal,” but that’s besides the point. And though I did quote the second movie earlier, implying that I at least do consider that one as canon, if I have to be one hundred percent honest, and there is no easy way of saying this… Terminator 2 is not that great a movie.

I know, it has better effects, which still hold up better than most of today’s movies, and I know it’s not just a carbon copy of the first movie, and I know it asks the question as to whether or not we have a choice, or if everything is predestined. I know all that. But does it have to come at the cost of contradicting the first movie? The first movie establishes the so-called stable time loop. Which means that the future is what is, because of time traveling. We cannot change the past, we can only shape the future. But then the second movie comes along, and throws it all down the drain. Suddenly we can do with the past whatever we want. Suddenly, time is like a bucket of play-d’oh, we can shape it in every way we want. It’s like the writer and director of the second movie did not even see the first movie. But wait a minute, weren’t the first two movies written and directed by the same guy? So this guy (James Cameron, for those who don’t know) can’t even remember his own movie? Well, what do you expect from a man who can’t count.

You read that right. And no, it’s not an insult, I can actually prove it. The first movie took place in May of 1984. During that time, Kyle Reese fell in love with Sarah Connor, and because of it, John Connor is conceived. Count up nine months from then, and that would place John Connor’s date of birth somewhere in February of 1985. When the T-1000 (that movie’s antagonist) checks John Connor’s public record, it says John is ten years old, which means that the second movie takes place in 1995. In the same movie, it is said that Judgment Day (the day when machines start taking over) happens in 1997, which would be two years after the events of the second movie. But for some reason, Sarah Connor’s dialog keeps insisting it happens “three years from now”, placing the movie in 1994. Make up your mind, Cameron!

I’ll just have to assume that the second movie takes place early enough in 1995 to say that Judgment Day happens two and a half years from then, which most people would round up to three years. Otherwise, this doesn’t make any sense.

But of course, that still doesn’t answer the question. Why would Skynet try to kill John Connor a second time? Answer: it wouldn’t.

Because Skynet created a time machine, supposedly with the intent to change history, the humans of that world must have thought it possible that history can be altered. So they device a plan to change history. Specifically, they will try to prevent Skynet from activating. But knowing how much difficulty a human would have to enter a secure building, they decide to send a Terminator instead. So they… somehow capture one. This is how Skynet catches wind of the humans’ plans, so they decide to spread new rumors about a plan to send another machine back in time to kill John Connor. But in reality, they’ll be sending a machine back to stop the Terminator from destroying Skynet. This actually makes perfect sense. After all, when Skynet’s machine, the T-1000, first meets John Connor, he doesn’t aim his gun at John, he aims for the Terminator. From behind the scenes, this was done to create the illusion that the Terminator was the antagonist, shocking the audience when it turns out the other guy was the real antagonist, but in-universe this makes little sense if his mission objective is to kill John Connor. It would even make sense if the only reason the T-1000 went after John, was because he knew that the Terminator would be looking for him. So wherever John is, the Terminator would not be far behind. I dare even say that the Terminator, while initially captured for destroying Skynet, he never received the command to actually destroy Skynet. When humans got to hear about Skynet’s new plans, they had to hurry up the reprogramming of the Terminator. There was no time to make destroying Skynet the mission objective, John Connor’s life was more important.

Getting back to the fact that the second movie contradicts the first movie, the very ending of the movie actually confirms my theory. Normally, time traveling creates a stable time loop. The second movie, however, destroys that stable loop. This would explain why after they terminate… well, the Terminator, there is no epilogue. We see a road, which supposedly Sarah and John are traveling, and we hear a voice-over from Sarah, but that road we see is actually footage that was used in an earlier scene. That voice-over may have been a thought that Sarah had after (or maybe even during) the Terminator’s termination. But we didn’t see Sarah or John settling down, we didn’t see them starting a (relatively) normal life. To all intends and purposes, there was no epilogue to the movie. Not even in the director’s cut. It’s like life just stopped after that moment. Why? Because the characters destabilized the time loop, and thus destroyed the fabrics of time.

On a side note, if you want to consider any of the later movies as canon, the fact that time is basically destroyed in the second movie, might explain why the later movies make little to no sense.

And for those of you wondering how the TV-series fits into this idea? As much as I like the series, it clearly contradicts the first two movies as well (they say the events of the second movie took place in 1997, for one thing), so I’m willing to accept it as its own separate entity. It needs not tie in to the movies, or my theory. Unless…