Green Lantern Movie Review

I recently watched the movie Green Lantern. Overall, it seemed over hyped. Now this might be because I'm a bit of a fan of the comics, and anything deviating from them is despicable in my sight. It also might because it is bland and followed the same formula as every other superhero movie ever made. And the occasional profanity certainly didn't help. Now I had big expectations, I wouldn't say they were dashed, but the movie certainly didn't fulfill them.

The Guardians of the Universe, little blue men that resemble smurfs, employ green spacecops who are devoted to making peace in the galaxy. These "Green Lanterns" wield power green rings that allow them to create anything they want, only being limited by their will power and imagination. One of these lanterns, a purple alien named Abin Sur crashed his spaceship on Earth, after being mortally wounded by the being Parallax, who uses the yellow power of fear. In his dieing moments Abin Sur gives his ring to a irresponsible and cocky fighter pilot named Hal Jordan. His ring can allow him to fly, create green forcefields and constructs, fire energy blasts, it's all good.

I won't get into the rest of the movie, to prevent spoiling it for those who have not yet watched it. It's suffice to say that it wasn't amazing. First of all, the actor who played Hal Jordan (Ryan Reynolds) didn't fit the part, really. He looked like the comic book Hal Jordan, but he didn't have the right feel, he couldn't capture the essence of the character. A shame. As for the actual use of his ring, except for an energy blast or two he usually stuck with making green constructs while in battle. Swords, miniguns, racecar tracks, catapults, that sort of thing. It usually didn't work very well, and in my opinion didn't do his powers justice. Speaking of powers, the makers of the movie decided to leave out one little detail: the power rings are useless against the colour yellow. Now this might be because a main theme of the movie is that power of will (green) is greater than the power of fear (yellow). But still, that is essential to the capabilities of the ring. Now if they had Kyle Rayner's ring.... Oh wait, am I getting fanboyish? Sorry about that.

So to sum up, the movie isn't terrible, but it isn't great. You can find better ones.

Writers Block

Writers Block. Good stuff. As I'm sure you know, the last few days have been ridiculously hot and humid. Sadly, these things give me writers black. The inability to write, or at least taking much longer to get an idea to fruition than otherwise. Although this mostly applies to my writing with Ryan, in which my continued procrastination and then taking forever to write anything, now that it is time to blog it applies to this too. It's kind of sad, really. The last few days I didn't have much trouble finding ideas to blog about, and then expanding upon those ideas. Not so today. But, all writers have to live with this. At times under fits of inspiration, the language pouring out of you onto the page, it is a great thing. And then I get to periods like this... when I can't think... and it's not fun....

But hey, inspiration can still come my way, despite the lightheadedness from all the heat. Take this beautiful thunder storm, for example. Now I do my best writing when I feel what my characters feel, imagining what it would be like. Well, during this thunder storm I can't help but want to write a portion of a story with rain in it (sadly, I didn't get around to it. The lightning illuminating everything around me, so that for a half second it is as bright as day. The thunder, noisy and disruptive. So loud that you can't think. But then, the storm is over. it passed. The once enormously loud thunder is but a faint rumbling in the distance. What was it like? Can I even remember? Can I take back that intensity and put it into words? No, not right now. Not in this state of mind. Why writers block, why?

Imagination

In my post titled "Not Rushing Beauty" I addressed one thing that could be done while alone, appreciating beauty in unconventional things. I would now like to address something else that, in my opinion, is best in solitude: the use of one's imagination. Just thinking, day dreaming if you will. Not about problems, but about life. About extremely rare situations that will never happen to you, but if it does you will know how to react; about stories. But not normal stories. No one would bother reading them if they were on paper. There is no plot twists, and nary a plot at all. There isn't an eloquent manner to this narrative, and there wouldn't be many interesting characters. Aside from yourself (and maybe a bad guy or two). Oh sure it would be exciting, almost entirely action except for possibly a witty piece of dialogue or two. But, it keeps one entertained. I can spend hours upon hours just thinking. There are so many things to think about, and yet we are obsessed with entertainment. I am as guilty of this as anyone, but still, what happened to meditating on your own thoughts? Not rushing, but simply being content with who you are?

"I'm bored" or "Are we there yet?" are common sayings of little children (and even some big children). It is because we have all have been raised with the idea that we have to be doing something. And if we aren't doing anything then the few minutes that we wait for that entertainment is pure torture. Take books. Often thought of as jumping stones for our imagination, and rightly so. We can try to make the story real in our heads, or maybe go into the story, and become a part of it, interacting with the characters all within our imagination. This is a wonderful process. Yet how many times do we read a book, and then simply move on to the next activity before even thinking about what we learned?

If The Stars Only Appeared Once Every Thousand Years

While staring up into the night sky, you might be struck by the magnificence and great number of the stars that adorn the heavens. I won't go all Louie Giglio on you and spout facts of how gigantic our universe is, I won't even talk about specific stars. I simply want to ask what it would be like if stars only came out every thousand years. To quote Ralph Emerson, a 19th century poet and lecturer:

"If the stars would appear one night in  a thousand years; how would man believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their smile."

In a short story by Maurice T. Brackbill titled Once In A Thousand Years, the idea is eloquently expanded upon, trying to guess how people would react if the stars only came once every thousand years. Here is a brief summary of the story (by the way, it is one of my all time favorite short stories, right up with The Land Of The Lost Socks and Tales of Napoleon the Stub): Stories of the stars are passed down from generation to generation. When the calculated time approaches, the people are separated into two groups: The Pro-Stellarists, who believed that the stars coming was a matter of historical and scientific fact, and the Anti-Stellarists who believe that the stars are simply a myth. There would be much debate about who was correct, although the majority of the population agreed with the "Pro's". In preparation for the day when the stars come out people travel to places where it is expected to have no clouds. The government would outlaw lights except with permission, so as not to disturb the sight of the stars. Hospitals wheel the sick onto balconies, prisoners in solitary confinement are allowed a few minutes under guard in the courtyard, those on death row that are sentenced to die a few days before the stars come out are given a stay of sentence, all so that the stars can be seen in all their glory.
And when the star arrive, the spectacle is excitedly witnessed by all. But, when the last star disappears from the night sky, it is wished that they could see it just one more night, and how amazing it would be if they came out every night. Alas, it is not so, and it will be another thousand years before the stars are seen again.

 Yet, the stars do come out every night. We are privileged to partake in them at our leisure. And yet do we? They have become so commonplace we hardly give them a second thought. You have to wonder. If the stars did only come out once every thousand years, (assuming we were lucky enough to live at the point when they came out) as a whole would we humans appreciate them more on that once occasion than we do now, when they come out every single night? Or have we so taken them for granted that we do not recognize their wonder?

Search Engines

Search engines: The tools that help make navigating the vast interwebs possible. As most people are these days, my search engine of choice is Google. It finds what a need in a simple and easy to read format. Not to mention that I adore Google's other ventures, such as Gmail and Google Chrome. But recently I've tried to get into the habit of using GoodSearch. This engine, powered by Yahoo, has a great concept: for every search you make, GoodSearch donates half of the revenue made by the search (approximately a penny) to the charity of your choice. The charity that I chose is the "Office of Letters and Light", the non-profit organization that runs the National Novel Writers Month (NaNoWriMo) website. Okay, a good cause, but not quite feeding starving orphans in Africa. Okay, I'm sorry. I want to help them out, but I'm too stingy to make a donation. So I use a search engine instead. Sadly, because of the fact it is powered by Yahoo, it is very annoying to do searches. Which means occasionally I waste time switching to Google and then switching back....

Camp NaNoWriMo

Besides my daily writing with Ryan, I figured that I would have a rest from frantic writing until November, when I am writing a 50 thousand word novel in a month as part of National Novel Writers Month. Well, I was wrong. Apparently there is a CAMP version of NaNoWriMo, which means I will write ANOTHER 50k novel in a month. Which means I will be writing two 50 thousand word novels in two different months. So, including Camp NaNoWriMo, normal NaNoWriMo, and the novel I am co-authoring with Ryan, I will have written three novels this year. If it all works out, anyway. This year alone I will have written many times more words than the rest of my life COMBINED. That's a scary thought.

My Thoughts On Romance

Hormones: Despicable creatures that attempt to alter one's perception of the world. Luckily, if one has been in the routine one's whole life, they can easily be ignored.

That pretty much sums up my view of love. As I progress through the teen years, more and more friends begin "relationships". I of course see it as quite silly. First of all anything of that sort, either courting or dating, is usually meaningless in the teen years. Try college, guys. Or even better, stay single your whole life. Wouldn't that be cool? I'm probably the only person I know that has (and still does) seriously considered being a hermit in the wilderness. The only hindering factor right now is that I couldn't bring my laptop. Perhaps if I found a quaint cave near a McDonalds...

And what about on Facebook? On your profile there is an "interested in" option. You can either check the box for "Men" or "Women". Now the fact that you would even be able to check the same box as your gender completely disgusts me, but that's not the point. I, and many other people, simply don't check a box at all. But why isn't there third option that relays the idea that relationships aren't your thing? Why do they assume that you want one?

Still, my kind isn't that uncommon. There are plenty of teenagers out there that agree that relationships, proms, dances, crushes, break ups, they are absolutely ludicrous. But, eventually they will "mature", so to speak. Join the rest of the population in thinking that romance isn't actually bad. But, what about the holdouts (like hopefully myself)? It's easy to say now that you never plan to get married, but how many people will actually stay that way? I am deathly afraid of the day that I'll wake up from bed and think "Hmm, I think that my zero-tolerance relationship policy is odd, I think that I'll change that." Perhaps I am too young to make an opinion. After all, how many people believe the little boy that says that "Girls are icky" will stay that way is whole life?

So, drop me in a inhabited stretch of jungle with my laptop, an internet connection, and a companion cube. Then I'll be all set :)