(no subject)
Day number whatever without Internet access (I've lost count, lawls) and I'm really, really enjoying Christmas vacation but I have to get the last of my English assignments done very, very soon or I'm SOL. Besides the sense of immense dread looming on the horizon, the holiday itself was lovely. Family and I saw James Cameron's Avatar on the 23rd and all I have to say is... Wow. It's been a long time since I was able to lose myself so completely in a movie. It was great to see something by a director who knows how to actually tell a story rather than assaulting his audience with mindless violence in order to make up for lack of plot and character development. I think Mom commented on the length of the movie before we went to see it; it is a little longer than most fare, but that length is totally justified. The story takes place over a matter of a month (or more? I can't remember) and as the audience, you get to live in the main character's skin(s), understand him and the connections he forms to the Navi. The romance between Jake and Neytiri is also one of the most beautiful and well-done I've seen in a looong time; I'm so used to boring Hollywood insta-romances, and it was really refreshing to see two characters who come to love and care about each other the way these two did. If our Internet connection wasn't still down, I'd be all over the Avatar fandom by now - but alas, I'll just have to wait a little longer to sink my teeth into some good fanfiction. :C
I got everything I asked for and more this Christmas. On Christmas eve day, we went out to see a professional theater performance of A Christmas Carol. Quite honestly, I always used to find the television and movie versions of Dickens' story boring as dirt, but getting to see it live was an awesome experience, especially since I'd never seen any live, professional theater before. The sets were amazing - I was really impressed with how different pieces of the stage folded out during the performance to reveal entirely different settings, then quietly folded back in as the story progressed.
On Christmas Day I got Firefly on DVD (finally! I'd been looking all over the place for it but couldn't find it anywhere) and Terminator: SCC Season 2. I hadn't realized how much I missed the Terminator fandom/'verse until I saw T4 with Dad on Video On Demand a little while ago. (I wasn't at all impressed with Christian Bale or Sam Worthington, but Sam redeemed himself with Avatar and Anton Yelchin was absolutely adorable. He deserved the most screen time out of the three, in my opinion, but naturally, he got the least.)
Sis and I both got a bunch of PS3 games as well: Uncharted, Uncharted 2, and Little Big Planet. LBP is lots of fun and positively adorable, and I'm really digging Uncharted right now. (Haven't started on Uncharted 2 yet, but everyone keeps raving about how great it is.) Uncharted has more shooting than I expected for an adventure game, but the graphics are superb. Honestly, I'm willing to ignore anything I don't like about the gameplay in favor of the plot and characters. Uncharted is really more like a movie, and I mean that in the best ways - that story's a lot of fun, and the characters are great. I don't warm to characters so easily anymore, but I really love Nathan and Elena.
There's a bad trend right now of making male protagonists growly, soulless badasses, so naturally I took to Nate right away because he actually has a personality. And Elena is just freaking awesome. There are times when the video game industry as a whole disgusts me with the way it treats women, but seeing a character like Elena helps to restore my faith. She's dressed decently; she has her own motivations; she's driven; she's blonde, but not dumb - in fact, she's actually quite clever and knows a few valuable tidbits that help them on their quest. It's clear Nate wants to protect her, but she's not helpless, she can hold her own in a firefight, and she hasn't been made into the damsel-in-distress - in fact, she's the one who winds up rescuing him. Elena is actually a much stronger, more well-rounded character than I see in a lot of TV and movies. I kind of want to write Naughty Dog a thank-you letter right now for creating such a wonderful character, and not shying away from giving her a personality in fear of her upstaging Nate. I have no clue whether she's in the second game or not, but I'm crossing my fingers that she is!
I finally bit the bullet and watched the third season of Heroes. Basically it was as bad as everyone said it would be, but I treated it as a fun romp through an AU, OOC universe and fast-forwarded through the stories that bored me. Near the end it got a little better when everyone finally started acting like themselves again, but honestly, I gave up when Nathan died. Sounds dumb, I know, especially considering I didn't care a whole lot about Nathan during season 1 or 2, but Jesus - why did they go to the trouble of starting to develop a proper father/daughter relationship for him and Claire just to kill him during the endgame? When Mrs. Petrelli started ordering Matt to stick Nathan's memories in Sylar's head, I just turned off my DVD player. That was it for me. I was also sore throughout the season over how Claire and Noah's relationship turned south, but oh well. Time to turn to fanfiction, I guess.
I got everything I asked for and more this Christmas. On Christmas eve day, we went out to see a professional theater performance of A Christmas Carol. Quite honestly, I always used to find the television and movie versions of Dickens' story boring as dirt, but getting to see it live was an awesome experience, especially since I'd never seen any live, professional theater before. The sets were amazing - I was really impressed with how different pieces of the stage folded out during the performance to reveal entirely different settings, then quietly folded back in as the story progressed.
On Christmas Day I got Firefly on DVD (finally! I'd been looking all over the place for it but couldn't find it anywhere) and Terminator: SCC Season 2. I hadn't realized how much I missed the Terminator fandom/'verse until I saw T4 with Dad on Video On Demand a little while ago. (I wasn't at all impressed with Christian Bale or Sam Worthington, but Sam redeemed himself with Avatar and Anton Yelchin was absolutely adorable. He deserved the most screen time out of the three, in my opinion, but naturally, he got the least.)
Sis and I both got a bunch of PS3 games as well: Uncharted, Uncharted 2, and Little Big Planet. LBP is lots of fun and positively adorable, and I'm really digging Uncharted right now. (Haven't started on Uncharted 2 yet, but everyone keeps raving about how great it is.) Uncharted has more shooting than I expected for an adventure game, but the graphics are superb. Honestly, I'm willing to ignore anything I don't like about the gameplay in favor of the plot and characters. Uncharted is really more like a movie, and I mean that in the best ways - that story's a lot of fun, and the characters are great. I don't warm to characters so easily anymore, but I really love Nathan and Elena.
There's a bad trend right now of making male protagonists growly, soulless badasses, so naturally I took to Nate right away because he actually has a personality. And Elena is just freaking awesome. There are times when the video game industry as a whole disgusts me with the way it treats women, but seeing a character like Elena helps to restore my faith. She's dressed decently; she has her own motivations; she's driven; she's blonde, but not dumb - in fact, she's actually quite clever and knows a few valuable tidbits that help them on their quest. It's clear Nate wants to protect her, but she's not helpless, she can hold her own in a firefight, and she hasn't been made into the damsel-in-distress - in fact, she's the one who winds up rescuing him. Elena is actually a much stronger, more well-rounded character than I see in a lot of TV and movies. I kind of want to write Naughty Dog a thank-you letter right now for creating such a wonderful character, and not shying away from giving her a personality in fear of her upstaging Nate. I have no clue whether she's in the second game or not, but I'm crossing my fingers that she is!
I finally bit the bullet and watched the third season of Heroes. Basically it was as bad as everyone said it would be, but I treated it as a fun romp through an AU, OOC universe and fast-forwarded through the stories that bored me. Near the end it got a little better when everyone finally started acting like themselves again, but honestly, I gave up when Nathan died. Sounds dumb, I know, especially considering I didn't care a whole lot about Nathan during season 1 or 2, but Jesus - why did they go to the trouble of starting to develop a proper father/daughter relationship for him and Claire just to kill him during the endgame? When Mrs. Petrelli started ordering Matt to stick Nathan's memories in Sylar's head, I just turned off my DVD player. That was it for me. I was also sore throughout the season over how Claire and Noah's relationship turned south, but oh well. Time to turn to fanfiction, I guess.