Entertainment & Sports: June 2005 Archives
I saw Batman Begins last night and it's my favorite in the series thus far. I don't think I've ever read any of the comics, so I can't say how true the movie is to the sources, but it sure was fun to watch. Without being preachy, it was also one of the most solid and viscerally moralistic movies that I ever remember seeing. Spoilers follow, obviously.
I didn't completely buy into the motivations of the League of Shadows, though I liked Ra's Al Ghul's interactions with Batman. The differences between the moralities of the two characters was subtle and mostly came down to a question of implementation, but the movie dealt with the contrast cleanly, for the most part, and presented both sides of the issue. Ra's Al Ghul wanted to fight evil by destroying the city, writing it off as a lost cause, wheras Batman recognized the evil but didn't believe that the city was beyond redemption. Realistically, humanity has no choice but to hope for the latter.
There are all sorts of nits to be picked, but I'll lay off the science since it is a superhero movie. However, am I the only one who found it unrealistic for Katie Holmes to turn billionaire crime-fighter Bruce Wayne away just because he hadn't "found himself" yet or somesuch nonsense?
Finally, Christian Bale was a great Batman, and again, my favorite thus far. Liam Neeson did a great job. Katie Holmes' character was well written (except for the rejection of Wayne near the end) and understated, and she pulled it off well. I also enjoyed Gary Oldman as Jim Gordon, Michael Caine as Alfred, and Cillian Murphy (best know to me from 28 Days Later) as Scarecrow.
Ok, this is going to be an incredibly geeky question.... Does anyone know if the "Imperial March" from Star Wars is ever played in character, or is it always just in the soundtrack? That is, do the characters ever hear the music?
My shipment of Lego Minis came and I put two of them together last night.
First off, the MINI Star Destroyer (4492) is one of the best models I've ever seen. I typically like the mini scale models, and this Star Destroyer is awesome. It's very solid and has a definite weight and presence to it, even for such a small model. I'm going to try converting it to a Mini Super Star Destroyer in a little while, but I really wish I'd bought two so I could keep one in the original configuration.
The other model I built is the MINI Sith Infiltrator (4493), which was disappointing. Granted, I'm not a fan of the prequel movies or their products, but the Infiltrator in Episode I looked like a pretty sleek ship. The model is boring, and the landing gear arrangement is awkward and anti-sleek. The wings are cool, but I can see why the landing gear was hard to design so as to keep the wings off the ground. I'd skip it and get a second Star Destroyer.
I'm excited that my Lego shipment is arriving tomorrow. Meanwhile, here are some Lego-related blogs that look worth checking out. They don't update that frequently, but they're still pretty cool.
Zemi has the coolest site design I've seen in a while and describes a pretty sweet Lego Moonbase modular building system that allows builders to combine complying modules into giant amalgamations.
Jake's Lego Blog is maintained by the Global Community Relations Specialist for the LEGO Group, Jake McKee. It's mostly links to other Lego stuff, but seeing as how Mr. McKee works for the company he has an inside track and there's some pretty good information in the archives.
From Bricks to Bothans is a blog devoted to Star Wars Lego sets, and it has reviews posted for many of the most popular. It also has a lot of sets posted with only placeholder pages, but presumably these are being filled in over time. One of the more interesting recent posts is an interview with Jay Bruns, the Lego Star Wars Brand manager.
I started playing Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II last night and stayed up way too late, as could be expected. Naturally this led me to purchase a bunch of Star Wars Lego Minis this afternoon, including the Mini Star Destroyer -- which can be converted into a spiffy Mini Super Star Destroyer! I also bought a Mini Imperial Shuttle, a Mini Sith Infiltrator, and a Mini Republic Gunship. The best part -- other than the Mini Super Star Destroyer -- is that all the models were on sale for 20% off, getting me four for around $20. Sweet. My cube-mate got a Mini Star Destroyer too, and we're planning to start our own fleet.
Oh right, KOTOR2... uh, it looks cool so far. More on this story as it develops.
Update:
Larger-scale custom Star Destroyer and Super Star Destroyer. Nice.
