Once in a while, you come across a moment in a story that is so perfect that it stays in with you for years, or even a lifetime. These are moments that, in my opinion, are flawless; perfect gems of storytelling that cannot be improved in any way, and are a joy to treasure and revisit again and again.
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The Video:
NOTE: This video has language that is not safe for work.
Why it’s Perfect
Another Thanksgiving has come and gone, and as we all settle down into our post-dinner comas, we dream of finally being able to put up all the Christmas decorations once again.
But with Christmas comes something else: something malevolent, malicious, and that infects the soul. No matter where you go, no matter what you do, you cannot escape it. But no one who works in our stores can escape it, and they will spend the next month fighting off the madness that will attempt to destroy us all. Please spare a moment to thank them for their sacrifice so that we can continue to get the consume goods we need while they struggle not to go insane.
What is this evil? Well, just watch the video and find out. And if you have scars from having to wrestle with this madness then you’ll hopefully get a laugh out of it like I did.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Video
Why it’s great
If I had to pick Hollywood’s most famous weapon, I’d choose the lightsaber. Ever since it’s introduction in 1977’s ‘A New Hope,’ it has become a part of pop culture, imitated, parodied, and sold in toy stores for decades. There’s a long-running joke online that adding lightsabers to anything immediately makes it more awesome, and I can’t think of a better example than seeing a skyscraper-sized monkey wielding a lightsaber against an equally-large reptile.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Video
Why it’s great
Nothing story related today; we could all use a laugh, and kazoos make everything better; they can take the most emotional, most stirring, and most heart-wrenching songs and instantly turn them into comedic gold, and God only knows we need more kazoos in a time of rising authoritarianism, a worldwide pandemic, and mother nature conspiring to murder us all.
With that said, here’s ‘My Heart Will Go On’ but with kazoos. I hope it’s played at my funeral.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Video
Why it’s great
When reading fantasy stories, you’ve probably thought, ‘how would this go if these characters had guns?’ Who hasn’t dreamed of Gimli mowing down Uruk-hai with an M-60, Jon Snow cutting down white walkers with a mini-gun, or, in a more recent version, what if Harry Potter gave up on magic and went after Voldermort and his followers with shotguns, submachine guns, and rocket launchers?
While the debate of, ‘would muggles with guns defeat wizards with magic‘ continues to this day, this video from 2010 shows that, initially, it’d be a pretty one-sided fight. I especially love how Ron is a fish out of water here: having used magic all his life, he now has to suddenly adapt to weapons he has no idea how to use, but adapts pretty quickly. After getting a taste of the awesome power of rockets, I doubt he’ll be going back to wands anytime soon, along with Harry.
Once in a while, you come across a moment in a story that is so perfect that it stays in with you for years, or even a lifetime. These are moments that, in my opinion, are flawless; perfect gems of storytelling that cannot be improved in any way, and are a joy to treasure and revisit again and again.
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The Video:
Why it’s Perfect
While the Star Wars movies have been a part of my life since I was a child, complete with toy X-wings, TIE fighters, and action figures of Luke and Vader, ‘Independence Day’ is a film that’s much closer to my heart, having watched it at an impressionable young boy and being blown away by the terror of alien death rays, the exhilaration of humanity’s triumph, the heart-pounding score, and the incredible visual effects. So, naturally, seeing both sagas tied together years later is a dream come true.
Everything about this crossover is flawless. The editing is perfect, the visual effects of the Harvester fighter is masterfully spliced in, and the humor between Jeff Goldblum and Will Smith is even funnier than before, and having them be the only fighters assaulting the Death Star makes them underdogs fighting impossible odds, and their victory all the sweeter.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Videos
Why they’re great
What happens when you take a character from one movie, and transplant them into another? The results can be amazing, and in this instance, we get Tommy Wiseau from ‘The Room’ interacting with the Star Wars universe, to astonishing effect (no, seriously, the rotoscoping in these videos is breathtakingly good!).
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Video
Why it’s great
When it comes to pop culture villains, Darth Vader is one of the best. He has it all: Magic powers, an intimidating outfit, entire armies under his command, a mythical destiny, and James Earl Jones’ imposing voice.
But what happened if that voice was replaced with young Jake Lloyd? Suddenly, the second most dangerous being in the galaxy becomes a wide-eyed, fun loving guy who just wants to free slaves, show off his droids, and have fun blowing up rebel pilots. It’s… bizarre, to say the least, but also a funny and interesting look at a Dark Lord who mainly just wants to have fun while enslaving the galaxy.
We all have our favorite moments in movies, books, and games, moments that stay with us long after the story is over. This column is my attempt to examine my favorite moments and see why they stick with me.
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The Video
Why it’s great
Outside of, ‘Did balrogs have wings?’, no nerd debate has gotten as much infamy as if Han shot first, or Greedo. In light of the news that the scene was changed yet again, I thought I’d go looking for the most ridiculous version of this infamous scene, and found one where Greedo’s incompetence at shooting someone three feet away is hilarious.
This little short also serves as an example of incompetence becoming funny:
Someone who thinks they’re the best + charging into a dangerous situation = Comedy
It’s important to note that this formula works best if the situation is played for laughs, and the character is a villain deserving some good, old fashioned karma: watching a good-natured but incompetent soldier in a wartime drama charge into a battle only to be blown apart seconds later isn’t funny. Having racist, smug Nazi commandos wearing full body armor charge into battle against kids throwing snowballs, only to be beaten to a pulp (or be blown up when a snowball hits them) is much more amusing and satisfying because it feels deserved.
When it comes to fan theories, nothing’s off-limits. Are the characters in a show all dead? Are they aliens? Is everything happening in the show a dream? Is Jar Jar Binks a Sith lord who secretly masterminded the events of the entire Star Wars saga? There’s no limit to the creativity that fans can come up with, which leads to one of my favorite theories: that Rexy – the Tyrannosaurus Rex from the first ‘Jurassic Park’ film – is God.
No, of course not. It’s ludicrous. But for the fun of it, let’s take a look and see what conclusions we can draw, based on the evidence seen in the films.
In analyzing this theory, we need to lay out some ground rules about God. The most common characteristics of God are:
*God is everywhere.
*God is all-powerful and can do anything.
*God knows everything.
We also need to figure out what God wants. This is perhaps one of the most unanswerable of all questions, but for simplicity’s sake, let’s guess that God wants us to be good to each other. Therefore, we can assume that if God did come down to earth and took physical form, God would spend the lifespan of that body trying to help people live better lives and become more moral and fair.
Now, let’s apply all of these interpretations to Rexy, starting with God’s traits.
1. Is Rexy everywhere at once? No; she can be confined to paddocks, cages, etc.
2. Is Rexy all-powerful? No; she can break through fences, is quite strong, and surprisingly healthy as an old individual (Rexy is about 30 years old in ‘Fallen Kingdom’; the oldest known T-rex, Trix, died around the same age), but she cannot fly, shoot lasers out of her eyeballs, or summon black holes at will.
3. Does Rexy know everything? No. Rexy may be intelligent enough to test an electric fence when its power goes out, cooperate with other dinosaurs to kill even bigger and more dangerous dinosaurs, and destroy important objects that evil people want or need, but she is still distracted by flares and flashlights swung about by obnoxious children.
On the surface, these three points prove that Rexy is not God. To further prove this, let’s take a look at what she does in all the films:
‘Jurassic Park’
*Hides from the tour group
*Breaks out of her paddock after the power goes out
*Attempts to eat Tim and Lex
*Destroys one tour vehicle and shoves another off a cliff
*Gets distracted by a flare
*Injures Ian Malcom
*Eats a lawyer
*Sniffs Grant and Lex, but doesn’t eat them when she easily could
*Chases Ellie Sattler, Robert Muldon, and Ian Malcom in the jungle, presumably to get them out of her territory
*Eats a gallimimus.
*Saves Alan, Ellie, Tim, and Lex in the visitor center, which allows them to escape the island
‘Jurassic World’
*Eats a goat in her enclosure
*Follows Claire out of her paddock without trying to eat her
*Battles the Indominous Rex
*Gets injured fighting the Indominous Rex
*Teams up with Blue the velociraptor to defeat the Indominous Rex by shoving it towards the Mosasaurus paddock, where it is eaten
*Allows Blue to live, despite their species being mortal enemies
*Roars at the abandoned park.
‘Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom’
*Attacks a team of mercenaries trying to salvage a DNA sample of the Indominous Rex.
*Tries to yank down a helicopter with said mercenaries as they try to escape.
*Allows the Mosasaurus to escape from Jurassic World and enter the open ocean
*Saves Owen from a Carnotaurus.
*Survives the eruption of Mt. Sibo and the destruction of Isla Nublar
*Seemingly attacks Owen after he and Claire take some of her blood to save Blue
*Eats a goat after arriving at the Lockwood Estate
*Eats Mills who wants to sell dinosaurs on the black market
*Destroys the only DNA sample of the Indominous Rex.
*Roars at a lion in a zoo.
Are these the actions of an incarnated god? No. Rexy destroyed the tour vehicles because they were unfamiliar objects and she considered them a threat. She attacked the Indominous because it was in her territory, and she ate Mills because he was easy prey.
However, it’s interesting to note that, starting with her saving Alan and the others in the visitor’s center, Rexy’s behavior starts to become more heroic as the films go on. If Rexy was God, then it’s logical that she would become a force for justice and righteousness. And with those facts in mind, let’s take another look at her narrative through the series, but rewritten to make her a divine being.
In ‘Jurassic Park,’ Rexy, having been sent by God to act as an embodiment of justice, has grown up and has been placed into a paddock, where she bides her time until she can break free and judge the humans on Isla Nublar. Finally getting her chance when the power goes out, she tests the fence and, confirming that there’s no electricity, escapes. She attacks Lex and Tim, but only because their yells and screeches annoy her. She turns her attention to Malcom, but upon realizing that he was only trying to save the children, she spares his life, and then, realizing how greedy Gennaro is, promptly eats him. She has the chance to easily eat Lex and Grant, but realizing that Grant is only trying to save the children, decides to spare the two. She thinks about trying to eat Tim, but decides to just get rid of them all by forcing them down into the jungle.
Later, she pursues Ellie, Robert, and Ian through the jungle to maintain her cover as an animal, while testing their will to survive. Deciding that they’re worthy, she lets them live.
After roaming the island and eating a gallimimus, she then realizes that the remaining humans on the island are innocent and in danger, and saves them from the pack of raptors at the visitor’s center, ensuring that they can escape to safety.
In ‘Jurssic World,’ Rexy – having been captured and put on display as a zoo exhibit – has allowed the humans to keep her like this, as she knows her presence delights other humans and helps educate them about the wonders of the animal kingdom. Plus, she gets free food, good medical care, and daily exercise and mental stimulation, so it’s a sweet deal.
When the Indominous breaks out, she decides to remain in her paddock to see what humanity will do. Throughout the day, she carefully observes as they try to contain the dinosaur, and then save as many people as they can, and decides that the surviving humans are worth saving. Thus, when Claire finally releases her, Rexy attacks the Indominous without a second thought, seeing it as an abomination to the natural order that must be destroyed.
However, having not gotten into any fights in over twenty years, Rexy is quickly overpowered and almost killed, but manages to turn the tide, thanks to Blue’s intervention. Knowing that she lacks the physical strength to kill the Indominous herself, she instead cunningly pushes it back to the Mosasaurus pen, allowing the larger beast to finish it off. With the battle won, she debates whether to kill Blue, but, seeing as how she, too, is an innocent, she spares her and departs, allowing the humans on the island to flee.
Two years later, however, not all is well. While on a routine patrol in search of evil, Rexy realizes that a group of people have arrived. Hiding in the shadows, she studies them, only to quickly realize that they are mercenaries who have come for a grave and evil purpose: Retrieving a sample of the long-dead Indominous Rex. Furious, she deems them unworthy to live and attacks, trying to bring down their helicopter so she can destroy the sample, taking care to release the Mosasaurus as a backup plan. But unfortunately, she fails, and the Mosasaurus is unable to destroy it, allowing the mercenaries to escape.
Later, during the eruption of Mt. Sibo, Rexy comes across Owen, Claire, and Franklin. Recognizing that all three are fighting to save dinosaurus and live up to their responsibility as their creators and protectors, Rexy saves them all from a carnotaurus.
She allows herself to be captured by yet another mercenary group, pretending to be angry so she can keep up her disguise. When onboard the ship, she’s drugged; upon awakening when she has her blood drawn, she’s confused and angry, and roars at Owen and Claire, briefly attempting to injure Owen as punishment for taking her blood without permission. However, he escapes unharmed.
Rexy decides not to pursue the matter further, as she needs to bide her time for her bigger mission: Finding the Indominus Rex DNA sample, and bringing justice to those who want to create more abominations against God.
Eventually, Rexy arrives at the Lockwood Estate, but can only observe and study what’s going on around her. After managing to escape, she brings justice upon Mills for both murdering Lockwood and selling dangerous dinosaurs and dinosaur genetics to the black market by eating him, and then destroying the Indominus Rex sample, ensuring that no one else will ever be able to use it again.
And so, with her task completed, she sets out into the world to continue her divine mission of justice, which we’ll have to wait until 2021 to see.
While the idea that Rexy is God is still ludicrous, the idea that Rexy is divine actually might have some merit. When viewed through the mindset that she’s a divine being sent to enact justice, Rexy’s actions throughout the films, especially ‘World’ and ‘Fallen Kingdom’ give the theory some credence.
Although it’s highly unlikely to become official cannon, I like to think that Rexy is some sort of avenging angel who inhabits the body of a T-Rex and brings justice to all those who defy the natural order, or do harm to others. And indeed, throughout the series, all the humans who are either innocent or good survive every encounter with Rexy, while those who do evil or are greedy meet their demise.
This may be a goofy idea, an implausible one, and something that someone with too much time on their hands comes up with, but it does allow for subsequent viewings of the ‘Jurassic’ films to take on a new light, and help us see them in a new, unexpected way.
There are a lot of great quotes about writing out there; these are some of the most insightful, thought-provoking, or ‘ah ha!’ ones I’ve come across.
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‘The Adam West “Batman” teaches us that life is serious and angsty enough without having to get more of it from our entertainment. That it’s ok to be lighthearted and not always take things so seriously. The world would be a better place if more people took this approach.‘
–Matthew Marcinko, commenting on the Honest Trailer for 1966’s, ‘Batman: The Movie’
While this isn’t a quote on writing, per se, it’s still a valuable reminder that not all fiction has to be serious; fun is a part of life, too, and we should cherish and remember that.