Predators

Eeep!! New Predator movie, from the orginal 1994 Robert Rodriguez script:-

Predators at IGN.com

The evil that men do

There's a subtle difference in the role played by Killer Bob in the first and second series of Twin Peaks. In the first season in 1990, Killer Bob represented 'the evil that men do', whilst Agent Cooper found that Leland Palmer, a seemingly loving and caring father, killed his own daughter who he'd been sexual abusing for years.

Leland Palmer was an evil man, and this evil manifested itself as Killer Bob. Killer Bob was Leland when Leland abused his daughter.

In the second season, in late 1990 and 1991, due to the first series's success 22 episodes were made, rather than 8, other writers were used in addition to Frost and Lynch who were involved in other projects. These other writers turned Killer Bob from from an absract 'the evil that men do' into an actual malevolent entity that 'makes men do evil things'. Bob was a demon who possessed other innocent people and made them do evil things, and absolved them of personal responsibility.

'It's not my fault gov, Killer Bob took over my body and made me do it'.

In a similar way, yesterday's riot in Harrow. I feel that SIOF and EDL are clearly being portrayed as a season two Killer Bob. The streets were filled with angry youths pelting the police with bricks, bottles and firecrackers, breaking through lines of riot police in the hope of finding someone to fight.

They're absolved of all responsibility because the SIOF and EDL provoked them. These organisations provoked the local youths and UAF into becoming a thousand-strong violent mob.

Right-wing groups who claim to oppose Islamic extremism are trying to provoke violence on Britain's streets, the communities minister has said.

The thousand-strong violent mob is 'the evil that men do', and they did it themselves, they breached the peace. Each one of them has personal responsibility for their actions, and fighting.

One of the most important lessons Marty McFly learnt in Back To The Future III was not to give in to provocation.

At the end of the movie when he's just managed to get back to 1985 from 1885, he refuses to take part in a drag race with Flea from the Red Hot Chilli Peppers who calls him 'chicken', and as a result, doesn't get hurt in a car crash which would have ruined his future.

Youths of Harrow, you can be Marty McFly, don't be Leyland Palmer.

Movie Review: Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

4/5
I've got to say about an hour into the film, I thought it had jumped the shark a bit, the plot was either non-existant or all over the place, the editing and cutscenes were a bit pants and it seemed like they were taking the piss.

I started noticing characterisation I'd never paid much attention to before. The way Optimus Prime is so American, a big vengeful 21st century Old Testament American. He really likes mercilessly killing Decepticons. The start of the film has the Autobots and American military working together hunting down and slaughtering Decepticons, and whilst usually I don't shed many tears for them, I did think the way he executed Demolisher was a bit harsh, and when Sideways was sliced in half by Sideswipe, before he'd even had a chance to transform, I found my self hypothetically tugging at my pappy's jumper "Daddy, why's the little robot killing the big robot?"

"Just because they're Decepticons," seems a bit fascist.

Demolisher was just running scared, being hunted down like some ethnic minority and a 20th century socialist country. He's a big guy and being pushed to the edge. Sure he's a decepticon, but Jetfire, he was a decepticon too, but he switched sides and was redeemed. Why wasn't this option presented to Demolisher?

Cos he was guily? Cos he was a murderer?

Prove it, I saw no trial. Just self-righteous old Optimus Prime being judge judy and executioner.

And who made Optimus Prime leader of the autobots? No election, no democracy on cybertron. In fact, with all that business of the seven Primes, it seems like he's leader by some kind of theocratic hereditry. And America lets this guy rampage across the world ruthlessly slaughtering his opponents?

Lets be clear here, is being a Decepticon a political or racial thing?

Anyhoo, Transformers has been going as a franchise for the best part of twenty five years, so that's about an eightieth of the duration of Christianisty or half as long as Scientology. The concept of Transformers, robots in disguise, more than meets the eye will go on and on into the future. One slightly overlong, philosophically uncomfortable movie isn't going to affect things much, besides, towards the end of Revenge of the Fallen, the robots do look pretty cool and you've accepted the quirks.

Now in real life, a lot of the Transformers thing won't work. In the first film they said that all mod cons, like computers and microwaves and so on were just reverse engineered from Transformers artifacts and the AllSpark cube thing. Reverse engineering is really difficult, and claiming such a thing is a bit of a disservice to the thousands of engineers and imagineers who've slaved away for centuries to invent, by themselves, computers microwaves and the iPhone.

What real life has to offer by way of Transformers-style things include:-

Automous Nano Class Sumo-bots


Transformering radio controlled cars


Swarming robots


Automous collaborative modular robots


Giant Robots


We've got a long way to go before there's a live action Transformers movie, but give it time. Transformers have set the imaginations of a generation bubbling for a generation.