Garakowa -Restore the World-
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label computers. Show all posts
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Movie Review: Garakowa - Restore the World -
Originally the plan was to watch this movie the weekend it premiered on Crunchyroll but that was smack in the middle of my Katsu-crunch and, in addition to having fewer cosplays were I could multi-task and sew while watching anime, I found that I just wanted to watch the shows I was already following, the lack of reviews for the movie wasn't making me more interested in it. But once I found the time I was glad that it was only an hour, that's at least easier to make time for than a full two hour movie.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Book Review: Brain Jack
Earlier this summer I came across this book at the local Barnes & Noble and thought the premise for the book rounded really cool and a bit unique so when I came across it again at the local library I picked it up without a second thought. From the summary on the jacket flap, it sounded like it was set in a future so advanced that people simply plugged in their minds to use the internet but other people took advantage of holes in the firewalls to steal their minds, something I've never seen before. I did read a webcomic earlier this summer (Anatta which died in 2010 sadly) that involved people using technology to sell/switch bodies, which isn't the newest concept but it was the most thematically similar idea to the jacket description. Of course the book wasn't like that at all so in the end it doesn't really matter.
Brain Jack by Brian Falkner
A nice snazzy cover, even though I have no idea why they choose the color green (usually when I think of technology I think more of silvers and blues, maybe purple but certainly not green). The cover is also shiny in real life so it does an excellent job at attracting the viewers eye, no problems here!
Summary: In the near future, a near future where terrorism appears to be even more rampart, Sam is a teenager who fancies himself to be a great hacker and pulls off one of the greatest hacks in American history. When the government catches wind of what he did he's given two choices, work for us or go to prison for life and it turns out there is even more exciting stuff to come, stuff that only Sam has a shot at preventing.
The Good: Some people lately have been complaining that not enough teenaged boys are reading because "there are no books for them" (among various other reasons) and this is a book I would recommend to a teenaged boy without a second thought. It's got action, a girl who inexplicably ends up liking the main character, a chance to save the world or die trying, guys like this kind of stuff right?* The government/military in this story is more competent than they are in many stories which was rather nice (they were also pretty nice people) and the character that was the "villain" was an interesting choice (I've seen that kind of character used before, such as in Code Geass R2 but it's a less common kind of character).
The Bad: The book comes off so differently from the way it's described, basically it's a summer blockbuster movie in book form which isn't so bad in and of itself but I did not want to read an action film when I checked this out. Some of the earlier bits, such as Sam escaping from the kiddie prison reminded me heavily of the Alex Rider spy books (another series that will certainly appeal to male readers) but, while I thought those books were okay, the events here felt horribly contrived and simplified. Those two words also describe the hacking which plays a huge role in the book, hacking is something that's a lot easier to show than to describe (unless you want to put in a ton of technobabble) and Falkner tried to describe how the hacking would look in a Hollywood film, meaning that the way Sam interacted with the computer sounded nothing like the way people really use them. This book honestly would have worked much better as a made-for-tv Disney movie than a book and don't want to read the author's other books now in case they have the same problems.
I should mention that the book also takes a long time to get going, I think it takes about a hundred pages to cover everything I posted in the summary (which I hate to do but that you do need to give a basic set-up of the plot to summarize a story). It also had an incredibly pretentious opening** and managed to pull a "character becomes Jesus, uses deus ex machina and tells us a moral" while doing the exact same thing the story's "villain" did all in the last chapter which is actually a bit impressive. So, one of my least favorite books I've read this summer, partially because it was nothing like I was hoping for and partially because it just wasn't that interesting as a book, good thing the book I read after it was much more awesome.
*yes I'm being sarcastic, I know sarcasm doesn't come across in print as well but I'm being very snarky about all of this, here's a great rebuttal to the earlier article.
**paraphrasing: I know who you are, when you bought this book, look I got it from the library, I used your credit card number to hack into your computer and found those files that you don't want anyone knowing about .....are you telling me there's porn on my computer I don't know about? Don't worry, I won't actually use any of it so it's blackmail, not pr0nz? None of this was very hard, the security on your PC is a joke ....dude, I use a Mac, at least get that right! You can actually read the first few pages on Amazon, if you want a good laugh go do it.
Brain Jack by Brian Falkner
Summary: In the near future, a near future where terrorism appears to be even more rampart, Sam is a teenager who fancies himself to be a great hacker and pulls off one of the greatest hacks in American history. When the government catches wind of what he did he's given two choices, work for us or go to prison for life and it turns out there is even more exciting stuff to come, stuff that only Sam has a shot at preventing.
The Good: Some people lately have been complaining that not enough teenaged boys are reading because "there are no books for them" (among various other reasons) and this is a book I would recommend to a teenaged boy without a second thought. It's got action, a girl who inexplicably ends up liking the main character, a chance to save the world or die trying, guys like this kind of stuff right?* The government/military in this story is more competent than they are in many stories which was rather nice (they were also pretty nice people) and the character that was the "villain" was an interesting choice (I've seen that kind of character used before, such as in Code Geass R2 but it's a less common kind of character).
The Bad: The book comes off so differently from the way it's described, basically it's a summer blockbuster movie in book form which isn't so bad in and of itself but I did not want to read an action film when I checked this out. Some of the earlier bits, such as Sam escaping from the kiddie prison reminded me heavily of the Alex Rider spy books (another series that will certainly appeal to male readers) but, while I thought those books were okay, the events here felt horribly contrived and simplified. Those two words also describe the hacking which plays a huge role in the book, hacking is something that's a lot easier to show than to describe (unless you want to put in a ton of technobabble) and Falkner tried to describe how the hacking would look in a Hollywood film, meaning that the way Sam interacted with the computer sounded nothing like the way people really use them. This book honestly would have worked much better as a made-for-tv Disney movie than a book and don't want to read the author's other books now in case they have the same problems.
I should mention that the book also takes a long time to get going, I think it takes about a hundred pages to cover everything I posted in the summary (which I hate to do but that you do need to give a basic set-up of the plot to summarize a story). It also had an incredibly pretentious opening** and managed to pull a "character becomes Jesus, uses deus ex machina and tells us a moral" while doing the exact same thing the story's "villain" did all in the last chapter which is actually a bit impressive. So, one of my least favorite books I've read this summer, partially because it was nothing like I was hoping for and partially because it just wasn't that interesting as a book, good thing the book I read after it was much more awesome.
*yes I'm being sarcastic, I know sarcasm doesn't come across in print as well but I'm being very snarky about all of this, here's a great rebuttal to the earlier article.
**paraphrasing: I know who you are, when you bought this book, look I got it from the library, I used your credit card number to hack into your computer and found those files that you don't want anyone knowing about .....are you telling me there's porn on my computer I don't know about? Don't worry, I won't actually use any of it so it's blackmail, not pr0nz? None of this was very hard, the security on your PC is a joke ....dude, I use a Mac, at least get that right! You can actually read the first few pages on Amazon, if you want a good laugh go do it.
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
Movie Review: Tron Legacy
I saw the original Tron again a few months back (I was showing it to a friend who wanted to see the original before she saw the movie) and afterwords I was thinking that this might make a nice Christmas gift for my brother and checked out the prices on Amazon. Wow, holy cow, I have never seen a used VHS go for that much money before, one of my friends swears she's going to gold plate and hang her VHS on the wall if they go for that much. I've heard a rumor that Disney has a lot of the old DVDs and was also telling retailers not to sell them, fearing that people might not want to see the new movie. Having seen the new movie I believe that Disney is crazy and missing out on a chance to make even more money, sure the old one looks bad but this new movie looks really good regardless.
Tron Legacy
Summary: After Kevin Flynn's escapades in the original Tron he now leads ENCOM International and spends most of his time working but still finds time to tell his son Sam stories before bed. He vanishes one day however, breaking Sam's heart and the trust of everyone in the company except his old friend Alan. A couple of decades on Sam is drifting through life with no real purpose, except to mess with the heads of ENCOM once a year, but soon enough he's pulled into the world of Tron just like his father was and it's a race against time to get out.
The Good: There were several little details in the cyberworld (The Grid?) that I thought were really neat and unique. To say more about them would be spoiler-ish but I'd love to see some video games that explored the world more (maybe a prequel when Kevin was creating the world?). The plot may be lacking but the setting and ides surrounding it are not and, of course, the visuals are pure eye candy and the music is pretty cool too. So, the package for the story is very cool and it's worth seeing for the visuals alone. The other stuff however....
The Bad: I think the original movie actually accomplished more in terms of plot than this one actually. In the first movie there was an actual bad guy that had to be defeated to "save the world," here the plot isn't quite sure what it's doing. It's a quest of some sort and in the end it's just a beat the clock quest which is rather dull. But no one really came to see the plot of this movie so, a few other problems. There were a couple of subplots that I felt got axed halfway through filming so the basis for them (programs rebelling against CLUE is the one I noticed) is still there but nothing ever happens. Also, Quorra's character was just odd. Sometimes she acted like a regular person and other times it seemed like she didn't know how to interact with the other characters and that random inconsistency (well, along with her flatness which plagued all the other characters as well) didn't make me like her that much.
The Music: I actually did not like the music as much as I hoping and that made me quite sad. Derezzed was a pretty awesome song but not much else on the soundtrack stuck out to me. Oh well, at least I can buy Derezzed separately and put it on repeat.
The Visuals: I didn't see this movie in 3D, so I can't exactly comment on that, but I suspect it probably would have looked good in 3D. The CGI was slick and, while the film was visually dark, I never had any trouble making out details on screen. Someone (or more likely, many people) had a lot of fun creating the visuals for this movie. The CGI isn't as far ahead of it's time like the original Tron was but the visuals are fantastic none the less.
I was really disappointed with the plot here (I was expecting it to be lacking but not this lacking!) but I'm still glad I saw it for the visuals. Would I buy this, or the original Tron, on DVD/BR in the future? Probably not, but I can see my brother buying this or a friend so if I ever want to see it again I should have no trouble finding it.
Tron Legacy
Summary: After Kevin Flynn's escapades in the original Tron he now leads ENCOM International and spends most of his time working but still finds time to tell his son Sam stories before bed. He vanishes one day however, breaking Sam's heart and the trust of everyone in the company except his old friend Alan. A couple of decades on Sam is drifting through life with no real purpose, except to mess with the heads of ENCOM once a year, but soon enough he's pulled into the world of Tron just like his father was and it's a race against time to get out.
The Good: There were several little details in the cyberworld (The Grid?) that I thought were really neat and unique. To say more about them would be spoiler-ish but I'd love to see some video games that explored the world more (maybe a prequel when Kevin was creating the world?). The plot may be lacking but the setting and ides surrounding it are not and, of course, the visuals are pure eye candy and the music is pretty cool too. So, the package for the story is very cool and it's worth seeing for the visuals alone. The other stuff however....
The Bad: I think the original movie actually accomplished more in terms of plot than this one actually. In the first movie there was an actual bad guy that had to be defeated to "save the world," here the plot isn't quite sure what it's doing. It's a quest of some sort and in the end it's just a beat the clock quest which is rather dull. But no one really came to see the plot of this movie so, a few other problems. There were a couple of subplots that I felt got axed halfway through filming so the basis for them (programs rebelling against CLUE is the one I noticed) is still there but nothing ever happens. Also, Quorra's character was just odd. Sometimes she acted like a regular person and other times it seemed like she didn't know how to interact with the other characters and that random inconsistency (well, along with her flatness which plagued all the other characters as well) didn't make me like her that much.
The Music: I actually did not like the music as much as I hoping and that made me quite sad. Derezzed was a pretty awesome song but not much else on the soundtrack stuck out to me. Oh well, at least I can buy Derezzed separately and put it on repeat.
The Visuals: I didn't see this movie in 3D, so I can't exactly comment on that, but I suspect it probably would have looked good in 3D. The CGI was slick and, while the film was visually dark, I never had any trouble making out details on screen. Someone (or more likely, many people) had a lot of fun creating the visuals for this movie. The CGI isn't as far ahead of it's time like the original Tron was but the visuals are fantastic none the less.
I was really disappointed with the plot here (I was expecting it to be lacking but not this lacking!) but I'm still glad I saw it for the visuals. Would I buy this, or the original Tron, on DVD/BR in the future? Probably not, but I can see my brother buying this or a friend so if I ever want to see it again I should have no trouble finding it.
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