Thursday, May 19, 2005

Weekly Geek Rant #4: The Saga Is Complete

An era has ended. Last night (or this morning, depending on your point of view) was the last time I will ever see a new Star Wars movie. I watched both Episode I and II before going to see Episode III: Revenge of the Sith at 12:05 PM, Thursday 19th May 2005. I'll get straight into my thoughts about the movie now.

There are no spoilers here, so read on without fear of finding out what happens.

This film is very dark for a Star Wars movie. There's just as much implied violence as there is actually shown, though there is one scene near the end of the film that I wasn't quite prepared to be as graphic as it was. That said there is a quite a lot of humour in the film too. Lots of cool moments to chuckle at (and no cringe-inducing lines like Threepio's "This is such a drag" or "I'm quite beside myself".

The CG this time round is much improved - the opening space battle is just amazing. Quite often I forgot I was looking at CG or models and was convinced these ships were real, that's how good it was. The clone troopers generally look believable but some of the new designs and colour schemes didn't quite look as good. They still have trouble with animals though - Obi-Wan's reptilian steed is an example. Still better than in Episode II.

The sound was excellent as always (and a lot louder than I remember other Star Wars films being). John William's score manages to successfully weave together almost every theme from the movies he's used before.

The acting is the best it has been from any of the three prequels, which isn't necessarily saying too much. However, I was blown away by Ian McDiarmid's performance as Palpatine in this movie. The benefits of using a classically trained actor in such a role are obvious. I can't say too much without spoiling, so I will just say when you see the movie you will know what I mean.

My favourite part of any given Star Wars film is usually the climactic lightsaber battle. Well, this one has so many I lost count. The highlight is of course the Anakin vs. Obi-Wan battle at the end. It's fast, frenetic, and quite physical. I can only imagine how many times these two guys injured themselves rehearsing it.

From the Star Wars geek perspective, this movie rocks hard. There are so many things, both big and small, that tie into episodes IV, V and VI. There are a few references to things from the books and comics that I noticed as well. The biggest geek-out would have to be Darth Vader in his fully armoured glory.

Finally, this movie is, I think, the most emotional of all six films. Anakin's story is a real tragedy, and you do view Darth Vader differently after watching this one. Seeing how he was seduced by the dark side, even though you know it had to happen, you don't want it to (at least I didn't want it to).

Go see it. Even if you didn't think that much of Episode I or II, you will enjoy Revenge of the Sith.

Posted: 9:16 PM

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Promotions and Travels

There are probably a lot of you who may still not know about my job situation. I have recently been promoted from my position at QUT. I was working as a Web Developer providing support and training for QUT web developers (among many other things :) ), but on Monday I start my new position as Web Information Project Officer (sounds important :) ). Without giving away any confidential information, I will be investigating how we can better make use of the information we have at QUT and how we can make the experience for users getting that information a better one. The project is initially on the QUT home page and seom second level pages, but would expand further than that if the project is continued next year (chance for longer job! :) ) This also means I get a reasonably significant pay increase, so we are hoping to be able to save more sooner for the wedding and house deposit.

As something of an 'early bird special', my soon-to-be-new supervisor informed me of a conference in Sydney on the 17th of May that would be of interest and use to me in my new position. So I was invited to go and off I went. I was very excited as this was my first trip to Sydney (outside of the domestic terminal). Unfortunately the camera batteries didn't last long, so I don't have many pictures (I'll try to upload some later). However, we stayed in a hotel in The Rocks/Circular Quay, so while in the process of trying to find somewhere to find some dinner at 8:00 on a Monday night (unbelievably difficult - we ended up going back to the hotel restaurant) I got to walk down to the Quay and see the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge. I feel like I've seen Sydney now :) I was struck by how much this area reminded me of a cross between Melbourne and Hobart. I felt somewhat at home even though I had never been there before. I look forward to going back for sightseeing in the not too distant future.

The conference was interesting, and reassuring that I seemed to know and understand a lot of what I will be doing in my new position. Breaks were spent munching, drinking, and chatting to other people from around the country who were all there for the conference. Before I knew it though, the day was over, and I had to come home - not so bad since I was coming home to my lovely fiancee who I love very much :)

When we left the Brisbane terminal, I think I mentioned the number of hours and minutes until I would be seeing a certain movie...

Posted: 2:24 PM

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Weezer-ific!

For those who know my musical tastes, you would know that near the very top of my list if bands is Weezer. Their new album 'Make Believe' has been out for a couple of weeks now and I've been giving it a bit of a listen and thought I'd do something of a review. So if you don't like Weezer, or don't know who they are, you can probably switch off now.

Firstly some general comments. I am pleased with my music-reviewing skills in that I seem to have come to many of the same conclusions as a lot of other reviewers about this album. I would describe 'Make Believe' as a mix of the 'Blue Album' and 'Pinkerton', with some 'Maladroit' thrown in. The tracks on this album have the same emotional honesty and insight into Rivers' life that the 'Blue Album' and, to a much greater extent, 'Pinkerton' had though without hardly any of the melancholy that the latter had in abundance. Rivers had spent three months in near-solitude at a remote Buddhist retreat before coming back to begin writing and recording this album, and it shows in the lyrics and tone of many of the songs. Now for some track specific comments (note not all tracks are discussed):


My overall rating: 7.5/10

Posted: 1:46 PM

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Tuesday, May 03, 2005

RFC: Request For Comments

This is a very quick post with a simple request. Kirsten and I both like posting to the site. But what we like even more is knowing that our friends and family are reading our posts. The best way for us to know that's happening is for you guys to leave comments.

So please, do leave a comment if you want (we certainly want). And if you never leave any other comment (which we really hope you don't) please leave a comment on this post so we know who is actually visting our site (and please don't leave comments anonymously). It means a lot to us.

Cheers,

Matt & Kirsten

Posted: 9:53 PM

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Weekly Geek Rant #3: More Than Meets The Eye

Those of you who know my inner-geek (quite often outer-geek) enough already know I love the 80's. That is, the things I loved from my childhood in the 80's. Star Wars, He-Man, G.I. Joe, The A-Team, Knight Rider (minus the Hoff) and more. Apart from Star Wars, probably the most influential force in my childhood (sorry Mum, Dad, school, friends, etc...) was...The Transformers!

I'm one of many 20-something children of the 80's reliving the glory days of their childhood at the moment. It seems there are enough of us to warrant a live-action motion picture of the 'Bots and 'Cons. Woo-hoo I say. It has some good stuff going for it:

The latest news (about a month old by now) is that Michael Bay is most likely going to direct. My first reaction was 'Eeeek! Michael Bay - of Pearl Habour infamy!'. But then I thought, hey I liked Armageddon, and the car chase in Bad Boys 2 was pretty good (pity about the rest of it). So I'm not super worried at the moment. As long as it ends up more like Armageddon and less like Pearl Harbour, I think I should be happy. Oh, and as long as the CGI is kick-ass. The original voice actors (those that are still alive) from the cartoon are a must. And if Bay is directing, Trevor Rabin should score. That would kick ass. So bring on live action Transformers!

One last thought on the topic of giant robots. Go here. Yes it's REAL. You can actually buy one.

Posted: 9:36 PM

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Website Workin'...

Well you may not know it from looking, but I've actually done a bit more work on the site.

The way Kirsten and mine's archive pages work has now changed, and we have a working archive page for the 'What's up with us?' part.

There are still lots of little things left to fix now though - a couple of template things, putting links back to the main page on some pages, making the 'What's up with us?' archive page work properly.

But all that's for the weekend some time. I'm just glad I don't have any broken links now. That I'm aware of...

Posted: 8:55 PM

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