Last night I went to go see I Am Legend at the IMAX due to IMAX screenings of the film having a seven minute The Dark Knight trailer proceeding it. So after being really anxious and having to deal with stupid waiters, stupid drivers, and retarded lines, I must say that it all paid off.
First, I saw an old friend of mine while I was in line to get our tickets from the ticket machine, so that was cool. I talked with him for a bit while waiting, then he went off to see his movie and my girlfriend and I went off to met our friends who were already there.
So after seeing the first trailer for The Spiderwick Chronicles (which is a shame that they showed the first one as the second one is a lot more compelling), and a trailer for some Rolling Stones concert that was shot and directed by Martin Scorsese, the moment I had been waiting for for far too long happened. Now before getting into it, for those that don't know, The Dark Knight has six scenes that were shot on IMAX cameras. This means that when you watch the movie in a normal theatre when these sceens come on, instead of being in the normal 4:8 widescreen, the ratio will be 1:1, so the entire screen will be filled. But it will also be lacking, so for the true "theatrical" experience of it all, seeing it on an IMAX screen will be the way to go.
So the trailer starts with the Warner Bros. logo, followed by the Legendary Pictures loge, then lastly the DC Comics logo. The logo march is presented in 16:9, which looked incredibly small on an IMAX screen. But then the footage starts and the entire screen is filled. I always forget how huge those screens are.
Anyway, the footage starts with a helicopter shot going over a city scape and toward a skyscraper that has a shitton of windows. As it gets closer, a window blows out. Cut to inside the building where two guys in clown masks are messing with tools. The camera goes out the blown out window, and does a sort of swoop down to the street below (kind of like when you're watching an IMAX movie that has a scene up in the mountain and the camera just goes off a ledge and you're like, "Well shit, that's high,"). Before it gets to the bottom, it cuts to a street corner where we see a back shot of a guy holding a bag and a clown mask.
He stands there for a bit then a van pulls up, he puts the mask on and gets in the van. Cut back to the two clowns up in the building and they shoot a wire to the roof of the building across from them, then proceed to use those Ninja Warrior/American Gladiator wire slider things to go down to the roof of the next building. They land and we cut back to the van. The three men in the van all have clown masks on. They're talking about the job they're about to do. The cut is going to be split five ways. The two guys on the roof, and the three of them in the van. One of them says, "Six ways. Don't forget about the guy who set this up."
The other replies, "If he thinks he's just going to get paid for not helping out, and just laugh about it then he must really be The Joker."
Back to the guys on the roof one of the clowns goes, "You know why they call him The Joker?"
"I know why they call him The Joker. He puts make-up on his face to scare people. It's like his war paint."
Cut back to the van and the three are exiting and entering a building, guns drawn. They start shooting and tell everyone to get down. We cut to William Fichtner looking slightly disturbed at his desk. The clowns are still telling people to get down when it cuts back up to the roof. One clown is at an electric box and says, "There's the silent alarm... and there it isn't." Or something akin to that. As he says that, the other clown shoots him, grabs the bag of tools, and runs off. He's shown running down stairs and makes it to the vault where he starts to drill.
Back to the clowns in the bank lobby they pull one of the clerks over the counter and tell her to get down. That's when there is a shot gun blast, glass exploding, and one of the clowns going down. Then William Fichtner is seen getting up out of his chair and walking toward the clowns, shooting every now and then hoping to get them. He yells, "Do you know who you're robbing from? Do you?!"
It cuts back to the clown working on the vault and he gets a shock and is launched back.
Back in the lobby, Fichtner is still shooting at the clowns. When the last two are together, they sit and wait for Fichtner to stop. One clown asks, "Is he out?" The other nods, the first clown stands up, and Fichtner lets off a shot that grazes the clown. He goes back down, but Fichtner is finally out. The shot clown gets up and shoots Fichtner, taking him down. He then looks over at the other clown and says, "Where did you learn to count?"
It cuts to the shot clown going to the vault and he talks to the guy who is opening it. The vault cracker says, "It's wired with electricity."
"This is a mob bank. Of course it's protected," or something akin to that. "Where's the other guy?"
"The boss told me to take him out once his job was done," he starts to open up the vault.
"Funny, he told me the same thing," he brings his gun up to the other clown's head.
"What? Wait! No!" Bang.
The shot clown is in the vault putting large piles of money into huge duffel bags. He then is shown throwing the bags out onto the bank lobby floor where the last clown is watching over people. "That's a lot of money," he says as he throws the last bag down. "The boss should have known. We could have brought a bigger van." The other clown turns to look over the people and the shot clown brings a gun up to his head. "I'm pretty sure the boss told you to kill me after my job was done."
"No... I'm supposed to kill the bus driver."
"Boss driver?" Just then a bus comes crashing into the building, hitting the shot clown and killing him. The bus driver comes out of the bus and just as he hits the ground, the other clown shots him while he's walking to pick up the bags.
He throws the bags into the bus and William Fichtner starts whimpering on the floor. "Criminals in this city used to be honorable. They had respect."
The clown walks up to Fichtner and says, "The crimes are the same, we just became," he removes his mask to reveal The Joker underneath, "strange!" The Joker puts a grenade into Fichtner's mouth. The grenade has a string attached to it. The Joker climbs up into the bus and closes the door, we see that the string leads into the bus. The bus pulls away and pulls the pin out of the grenade. Fichtner is panicked, his eyes bulging, when smoke starts to come out of the grenade. Is it Joker toxin? We're not sure. But if it is just a smoke grenade that's just as funny.
We're shown a line of buses driving down the street and The Joker's bus blends right in as Gotham PD arrives on the scene. We're then shown quick shots of the new Bat-suit in a chamber (if it's supposed to be the cave, it's too bright). The Tumbler is shown doing a slide (looks to be in the Wayne building once again). Scenes of Batman riding the new Batpod. Gordon standing with some officers in the rain. The Joker turning while walking down a street. Cars exploding. Batman standing on a rooftop. Gordon back in the ran, then smashing the Batsignal. The Joker walking down a street shooting a gun. More of Bats on the Batpod. Then the Bat symbol going up on the screen, and that's where it ended.
All in all, quite bad ass. Thinking back, having that one clown get shot by Fichtner was just funny to The Joker, that's why he told him Fichtner was out of bullets. It was also probably him who asked about splitting the take six ways. Very much Joker.
My only problems so far is that it very much just looks like make-up on his face, and his green isn't really too green, yet. Now this is supposed to be the opening scene, and he could very well make a full transformation later in the movie. In the newest screen released, his hands actually look pale, and you can tell his hair is green, so maybe?
It is funny how this has become The Joker's movie, and Warner Bros. knows it. Shots of Bats were at a minimal, and the whole scene was like, "Here's our Joker. Love him."
Also, I like that they're keeping Two-Face heavily under wraps (of course, I say this and they could have shown him in the trailer that ran in front of standard screenings of I Am Legend, I'll have to check into that). I'd prefer of Two-Face was left as a hook for the next film then be a major player in this film anyway. Over crowding with villains has never worked with this franchise, and I'd hate to see something that could be great shot to shit.
As for I Am Legend itself. It strayed from the book greatly. Had way too many dragging points. Could have been maybe 10 minutes shorter. And was basically 28 Days Later without Cillian Murphey. C+
But they're more fun when you bring in people from the Inland Empire and L.A. area to shoot the shit while at the same time talking shit while playing a game.
Last night a small group of my friends got together to hang out and do a night of gaming. Something that hasn't happened in a long time.
GAFs own Justin Fassino stopped by to join in on the fun. It's weird because Justin's been working on the site for about a year (a little over maybe?) and I've done podcasts with him and such, but never met him. Yet he came over and it was like we'd known each other for a long ass time. Same thing happened when I met Luke in person (until I jumped his bones... but that's a different story).
But yeah, Justin's a pretty chill guy and can keep you with the antics of my roommate and I. Plus, lips. Like. Satin. Oh yeah.
The highlights:
- My roommate getting drunk before everyone else and bringing the life.
- Our friend Billiam saying some of the best random shit ever.
- Justin giving a good fight in Soul Calibur II (it's about time there's someone).
- My lady friend coming over to the madness and actually enjoying herself.
- Me realizing that VF5 on the 360 is going to be way to great due to it's online play alone. Watch that 9 turn to a 10. WATCH!
- Playing near drunken Guitar Hero II. I had no idea what was going on most of the time.
There was a lot more to it as people arrived at 9:30 and left at 4:30 but it was probably more along the lines of "you had to have been there" as opposed to, "it was like this."
I get home from work and my brother shows up shortly after. He then hands me a copy of Virtua Fighter 5. Needless to say, that's pretty much what I did all day. So far I reached 2nd Dan with Pai in Quest mode. Then unlocked Dural just to do so.
When I write the review up I'll go into more detail, but here's some first impressions:
+ It plays super smooth. The animations are spot on. I love Virtua Fighter 4: Evolution but there are times when some of the animations felt jump. Not the case at all here.
+ It looks amazing. More details later, but there were quite a few times when my jaw dropped.
+ The soundtrack is MUCH improved. Good-bye butt rock, hello Phantasy Star Online inspired tunes.
- Where the hell are the quests in quest mode? Am I just not finding them?
- Why can't I upload my replays to compare with other matches?
I'll never complain about online play with the series as the developers themselves have said that until there is absolutely no lag in online play, they won't have it as an option. So personally I never judge the series that way.
But yeah, so far I'm in love. The VSHG isn't too bad a stick, but I'll still probably pick up the HRAP3 as a secondary. You never know and such.
Until later, enjoy Pai handing it to a hella fucked Akira.
I recently got a PS3 do to an odd string of conditions (thanks, bjork!) and while I await my tax return to go out and buy Virtua Fighter 5 so I can write a glowing review about it, I was messing around with the PlayStation Store and downloaded Gran Tourismo HD and the Resistance: Fall of Man demo.
Now I don't have an HDTV to make the most out of GTHD I still find it pretty enjoyable for a free download. Though, I've found that I like arcade racers like Ridge Racer much more than simulation. But for free, I can't complain.
Now for the Resistance demo... My biggest complaint with the demo is also my biggest complaint with various other demos. Too often they toss you into a game and you have no idea what is going on, you're just supposed to figure it out.
What they should do is make the demo level the first level of the game, which will invariably teach you what to do while setting up what the game is about. Then what also needs to be added in is the ability to save on said demo, and have that save be transferable to the retail version of the game. It worked for Working Designs and the Lunar games on the PSX. It makes no sense that in an age of downloadable game demos and hard drives, that we can't save our progress on a demo and continue from that spot on if we decide to purchase the game.
It isn't recently that I've thought of this, either. When I downloaded the Splinter Cell: Double Agent demo on XBL I almost passed on the game since the demo just tosses you in and you really have no idea what is going on. Sure it's cool that Sam is outside during the day, but you're not used to controlling him in such environments, wean the player in to that sort of shit.
Resistance is the same way. My initial impression was, "Wow, this looks pretty cool." Then there were enemies everywhere and I had no clue what the fuck did what. So I was seeing myself die instead of seeing others die by my hand. I'm sure the game is great and deserves the psuedo-acclaim it's been getting. But since I've no clue what the hell is going on in the demo, I'm probably going to wait to try out the retail version to pass any kind of judgment.
There are a good number of gamers who are sold on games based on the demos (it happened to me and Viva Pinata... thanks, bjork!), and it just seems odd that there are demos that actually turn some gamers away. And although the answer may not be just have the demo stage be the first stage in the game with the ability to save, it sounds great.
