We watched Underworld tonight. It was dumb. My wife doesn't know why I like bad sci-fi movies. But here's the thing with it: the plot was really intricate and convoluted and almost entirely made sense. The thing with sci-fi (and fantasy) is that even when the writer or filmmaker does a bad job, they can still have been working from a really interesting idea. That's what I like about sci-fi, the ideas. You watch some horrible Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie (and they are
all horrible!), and it's stupid, and often it's painfully dull (I don't like that, actually - give me either action and excitement, or just such stupidity that I can laugh), but if you think about the plot and actual events they crafted - not so much the fine details, which are often ludicrous, but the overall concepts - you find a really interesting story and set of ideas. Underworld was a really great one, because not only are they interesting ideas in a scientific sense (not that they're remotely scientific, but they're interesting in their rules and whatnot), but the actual events of the story and how they intertwine is complicated and multi-layered, plot-twists galore. It just happens to be poorly done in the sense that it's all very overwrought and silly. Classic trying-too-hard-to-be-cool syndrome.
We did a lot today, all kinds of different shopping, and came dangerously close to getting another new kitten, since someone was giving some away in front of Target. That would've been really wrong. Yeesh. And we ate at Thai Kitchen. That place is great. It's late. I'm tired and incoherent. I'm currently downloading wacky video game remix songs from
OCRemix. That's not really an official endorsement, because I haven't heard a single one of them yet, but remixed video game songs can't be too bad, right? There are Mega Man songs!
Oh, and speaking of huge bittorrent files, yesterday I was accepted into the World Of Warcraft beta test! So I got the privilege of download 2 GIGAbytes of stuff to play that. And I played it some. It's pretty cool! Acutally, it seems pretty pointless, but oddly compelling as well. I need to play more to pass judgment. Definitely designed to suck your time away, that's for sure. But I can never get into the way MMO games always have such pointless combat. You swing, you wait 2 seconds, the monster swings, you swing, 2 seconds later you repeat. I know it's an internet limitation, but surely this could be done better, with some strategy or something. Imagine if it played like Final Fantasy Tactics (only with real-time turns, since this is over the internet) - you maneuver for best position, choose from a variety of options, use cover... something! Standing there smacking each other until someone falls over just isn't the most elegant method of resolving a conflict. Good night!
