Is it taboo?

When I was a junior in high school, on one particular day, I was browsing through my history book during class rather than paying attention. (Yes, that actually happened more than just once, but we’re only concerned with this specific instance.) That particular day, I came across a photo of one of the Apollo 11 astronauts standing on the moon. It was on page 888. This photo sparked the thought in me that something wasn’t right. You see, the photo was obviously a fake. You could CLEARLY see that a backdrop was being used on a sound stage, made obvious by the straight, horizontal line across the bottom of the distant lunar “hills” and the abrupt color and texture change on either side of it. It mortified me, and it gave way to the thought that maybe the moon landing wasn’t as genuine as I had been told to believe. (For the record, I never completely surrendered to that conspiracy theory, I just refused to put it away for a long time.) Now, try as I might, I’ve never been able to locate that photo anywhere else. I’ve even looked up specific articles on photographic fakery theories for moon landing photos, and not ONCE since 1997 have I seen that picture.

I have since completely turned away from my “consideration” that the moon landing 40 years ago might have been staged all together, because most (if not all) of the things that conspiracy theorists say proves it didn’t happen, actually in fact prove that it did.

(And while I have the thought – you ever wonder what happens to old history books? Like the one you had in 1991 that was 4 years old and showed Presidents in the back, and it came to “Ronald Regan – 1981-Present.” Sure, most of them are trashed or recycled; but somewhere, someone has a collection of out-dated history books. They would be interesting to read, to see how differently things were interpreted in different times (like, for example, the Manifest Destiny).)

Okay – the point. I was Wikipedia surfing the other day and came across the cheery article of the holocaust. I wasn’t really reading much, just doing like I was that day in high school and browsing over the pictures, and reading a sentence here and there. Well, I came across a section of the article that dealt with the experiments that Nazi “scientists” performed on Jewish people. In this section, there was a photograph from the Dachau concentration camp of a Nazi professor and a Nazi doctor presiding over a man floating in an iced water tank, wearing a breathing apparatus. On the right frame of the photo was another man, taking notes.

For some reason I enlarged the picture to take a closer look – and I was shocked to see that it appeared extremely fake. It was so obvious! First, the hands of the two Nazi men were clearly not natural and drawn in post-development. Second, there are clear cut-out lines around the two Nazi men and the note-taker (note the curves on the body and hair). Third, the ice appears drawn into the photograph. Fourth, the light appears to be coming from the right of the frame, but the light is shining from the left on the note-taker. Yet the biggest kicker is that the man sitting on the edge of the tub has clearly been cropped in because THERE IS NO SHADOW UNDERNEATH HIM! (And just in case you’re thinking it, these light problems are not due to a flash because there are no shadows on the back wall.)

I searched high and low on the internet and NO ONE has discussed to the slightest degree that this photo is, at best, doctored. If you look up “cold water immersion,” this photo will come up 100 times, but every time it’s simply someone discussing the inhumane experiments done on Jews – not once do they bother saying anything to the degree of, “well, obviously this photo is fake, but there is documentation of these experiments being performed blah blah blah . . .” Has no one noticed? Is the topic of the Holocaust such that anything handed to us about it must never be questioned, so we look the other way? Please be sure that I am in no way suggesting that anything about these experiments or the Holocaust as a whole isn’t true. I’m not even taking my moon-landing-point-of-view and leaving the possibility open. But I think that someone wanted to show, in the flesh, that these two men (named Professor Ernst Holzlohner and Dr. Sigmund Rascher, left and right, respectively) were  performing these experiments, and put something together to provide that. And now, it appears that everyone just accepts that it’s authentic, which I find humorous because I checked Failblog every day for months, and every day someone would try to point out how some photo on that site was faked somehow. Sometimes I would notice one myself and go check the comments to make sure someone else did, too. Maybe this one just isn’t in the internet-surfer’s eyes enough. That may not necessarily be a bad thing, considering the subject material.

I’ve shown this to a few people. One agreed it didn’t look right, one couldn’t care less, and one proposed that the photo had been poorly edited, rather than created from scratch all together. I don’t know. But I do know that this couldn’t be more obviously fake if the guy in the tank was Ronald McDonald. In color. If it’s simply a poorly-edited-but-real photograph, I want to see the the original. I won’t believe otherwise until I do.

Now, before I conclude, if you want to toss out the opposition that, “Oh, those old photographs – they’re hard to tell what’s what,” let me knock that out of your head by suggesting you 1) study basic physics of light, 2) study the structure of the human hand, and 3) go look up some photos from the 1940’s and tell me if THEY look like they came right out of Photoshop.

 

29 random thoughts as I turn 29

Inspired by my wife’s incredibly cute email, 29 things she likes about me, sent on this, my 29th birthday, I decided to take the idea and do my own thing with it. I might later expand some of these into their own blogs.

1. I honestly, truly despise Michael Bay’s work. It insults me to the core. Explosions and special effects are fine, but he’s so unintelligent that he can’t work out a comprehensive story to go along with them. And he makes lots of money doing it.
2. I sometimes wish my wedding ring was tungsten, but when I remember that it perfectly matches my wife’s, I get over it.
3. Candy loses its appeal after one can get some any time, but I still keep eating it.
4. I’m curious if anyone will ever read my blog again after my nearly-year-abscence.
5. My right side of my body is much stronger than the left.
6. I figured out why I didn’t like beer when I lived in Illinois – because everyone drinks crap like Busch and Pabst. In cans. Or worse – aluminum bottles.
7. How about a Mathew Phillips quote? “In order to succeed, you have no choice but to deal with the environment right outside your skin. Some environments are better than others. There is more encouragement to succeed in some places than others. Without the help of others in better environments (that are prospering) the odds may be so impossible that you will not even be able to turn stumbling blocks in to stepping stones to succeed. This is something that even those of us who live in healthy environments should remember.”
8. I have to get back to work to avoid getting busted over-doing my break, but the Word Press clock is off and it says it’s 11:27 p.m. Which means that by the time this is posted it will say it’s July 2, which is NOT my birthday. Maybe I can fix that. Okay, yeah, I fixed it.
9. Even if I had gotten my dream guitar as a present today, it would have paled in comparison to my wife’s email. And I honestly mean that, which means I’m really maturing. Uh-oh.
10. I’ve come to think that a good AM signal is a lot better quality than most FM signals. But I’m not a big radio-listener, so I could be wrong.
11. Tonight I will watch The Prestige for like the 4th time. I like Jackman. I really like Bale. But I loooove me some Bowie. Too bad he didn’t do a soundtrack tie-in.
12. Speaking of old rockers, Rod Stewart’s old stuff is really good. He was very heavily influenced by country music, which I find interesting.
13. I still can’t quite figure out why Michael Jackson’s death shocked me so much. It’s almost as if I had never stopped to think that he WOULD die someday. On that note, how weird will it be when, say, Conan O’Brien dies? Let’s hope that’s long off.
14. I need to watch The Tonight Show more often. Support my Conan.
15. I just found out The Rock was directed by Michael Bay. I’ve never actually seen that movie, and now I never will.
16. I think I’d like to write a novelization of the story from Final Fantasy VI. I think it would be a great challenge and lots of fun. It’s such an incredible story.
17. I’m having spaghetti for my birthday dinner. I requested it.
18. It was very odd being in my in-laws’ home last week and remembering the different stages of my life (and states of mind) which that home has seen.
19. Fun Story: An old boss of mine had once ordered lots of pretty nice wine for a manager’s retreat that ended up getting canceled. All the wine was delivered to our office so she had me and a co-worker take it down to her van. As the two of us carried the last of like 12 boxes of those bottles, she grabbed two from one remaining box and put one on each of our desks as a “thank  you.” Not being one who ever really purchased wine on my own, I decided to save the bottle for a then-unknown special occasion with a then-unknown special someone. I thought it might be the night I would propose to whoever-it-may-be, but turns out that didn’t happen over a dinner. So instead, Dona and I had it with our first dinner in our home on our honeymoon. I’ve saved the bottle.
20. I told my wife about this as I’m writing it and she wants me to write “poop.”
21. I don’t want to promote poor financial choices, or shirking of academic  responsibility, but I don’t regret for a second buying my Fender Telecaster my last semester of college instead of several of my books, even if it did effect my grades.
22. There’s a stack of un-sent thank you cards on my desk. I get the feeling that we’re not the only couple who has done this.
23. I accidentally published this blog before I completed it. Good thing they’re easy to edit.
24. Most of the world misunderstands what Christianity says and is about. More people would be willing to listen if they knew that. But the irony is that those who spend all their time trying to make sure the masses “get it,” even though they don’t believe it, are wasting their time. Those that come to Christ are called by Him, not convinced by argument and exposition.
25. Turns out I don’t like white wine with spaghetti.
26. I have a copy of Boston’s self-titled debut album on vinyl, and the case is in sorry shape. There’s not even a protective sleeve. I got it for like $0.50 at Goodwill a couple years ago. Yet despite all that, it is easily my favorite record that I own.
27. Figuring out and then playing video game music on guitar is not only a delightful and nerdy way to spend your spare time, it’s also great training for the ear and fingers.
28. If anyone wants tabs to the Top Man song from Mega Man 3, ask. I can write some up.
29. Holy crap I’ll be 30 in less than a year.

 

Let’s see if I can write this thought in 14 minutes . . .

I was thinking the other day about something that has crossed my mind before . . .

EVEN IF, somehow, everything the Bible says condemning homosexuality has been misinterpreted, making such a lifestyle not sinful in God’s eyes, there is the issue of pride. Pride, it turns out, is a bigger problem all together.

As a Christian, God is the one in control of one’s life. It is completely contradictory to speak of following Christ, while at the same time speaking of your pride as a homosexual. On a personal level, I’ve had to deal with NOT finding my identity in the fact that I play guitar, that I live in Seattle, being a Midwesterner, or in the movies and music I enjoy. Those are all fairly small items, but even my marriage is not something in which I can hang my identity. Although God would never lead me to getting a divorce, even the existence of my marriage is something that has been given to me by Him and is ultimately His. If homosexuality wasn’t sinful, God could still ask someone to give that up. This becomes the main problem with the Gay Pride movement –  the act of homosexuality and sexual debauchery is a big issue, but bigger than that is PRIDE.

What we think we are based on our own conclusions is up for reinterpretation by God, and to accept Christ is to take his definition of who we are over what we think we are.

That’s pretty deep for the morning, but that happens on the way to work. I hope I didn’t write this blog before . . .

And the clock reads 13 minutes. Good job me.

 

There’s a reason it matters.

One way to get someone mad at you really quick is to point out their flaws. However, many people’s responses wouldn’t be to the tune of, “why do you have to focus on my imperfections? We all have them,” but instead a justification of themselves (citing extenuating circumstances) and/or belittling you for noticing. It is my belief that such a response is a sign of both narcissism and lack of education.

Recently, the movie Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen came out. I paid $6.75 at a theater in illustrious Carbondale, Ill. to watch this piece of trash. Thank goodness I saved my additional $3 that I would have spent in Washington; Michael Bay will never get that.

Now, you can go anywhere on the internet to find blogs and reviews of why this movie was so bad, with its poorly edited exposition, gaping plot holes, crude humor, plastic characters, and overall minimization of the title characters. And anywhere you go you will also find a mass of people attacking the reviewer for taking things too seriously, or forgetting that it’s just a movie, and reminding said reviewer that it’s just meant for entertainment “and it did just that.”

What is happening here? It is my opinion that, more and more, people in America today are allowing themselves to become uneducated and are losing their ability to recognize quality in forms of art, or lack thereof. We are allowing ourselves to be stimulated by only our most basic and primal of instincts, and not just leaving our brains at the door but never taking them with us anywhere; so we end up with Michael Bay movies, useless reality television, and music that consists of nothing but the most basic of chord structures, over and over, and poorly written lyrics. And what’s worse is that when someone points this out, we attack them like rabbid dogs. But we’re not really upset at them for not liking that movie, or that show, or that musical artist. We’re upset at them because they’re saying that it was unintelligent, and we are subconsciously denying that we have bought in to such a ploy, and we can never be convinced otherwise because our pride won’t let us.

And on the flip-side, when something requires a little more thinking, or some time and focus to appreciate fully, it is diminished by the masses. This is, at the end of it all, what makes this so concerning. It’s not that we just allow ourselves to be filled with sugar-for-the-brain, but that we also despise that which is truly visionary and creative.

I have no redeeming comments; I’m very saddened by this and hope that when I become a father that  can instill in my children an ability to appreciate that which is good and wholesome.

 

I’m going to talk about Terminator for a while. Part III

Well . . . here we are. This whole time I thought this would be my last writing about Terminator, but I read a review of Terminator Salvation in which the author rants about how stupid Skynet was.

Ah, heck. I’ll try to fit that rant into this one.

In Superman: The Movie, a large southern Californian quake (triggered by a missile launched by Lex Luthor) causes a crack in the ground that swallows Lois Lane’s car and crushes her to death. Superman gets there too late to save her, so he gets really angry and flies around the world so fast that the Earth spins backwards and time reverses, allowing him to get Lois out in time and also somehow fixes everything wrecked by the earthquake. By putting this into the movie, the writers opened not only the time-reversal box, but the “he can fly fast enough to go around the planet several hundred times a second” box, so that creates questions such as why couldn’t he fly there fast enough to save Lois in the first place? Why didn’t he keep going backwards for a few more minutes and just stop Lex from the get-go? That is a plot hole, one that is created by trying to write oneself out of a corner. You and I can discuss this one all day, detailing how bad of a story move that was.

Yet it is my thorough belief that when someone nit-picks plot points like this guy, it’s not about the story but about his ego. “Why doesn’t Skynet just kill John Connor when he was in the factory?” Golly he’s clever. Why didn’t Marty go back to the future a whole DAY before he originally left to guarantee he could talk to Doc before he got shot? Why didn’t Frodo just fly on those big eagles over Mt. Doom and end the whole Sauron thing in like two days? Why didn’t the Emperor use some Dark-Side action to trip Vader when he picked him up, or to fly or something when he was thrown down the pit? Why? Because first of all, you wouldn’t have a movie. And second of all, you’re talking about “in retrospect.” Sure, it’s a movie, but these are all things that the characters could look back on and think, “Oh, that may have worked, too,” but it’s pointless for us to debate them because, back to my first point, you wouldn’t have a movie. I believe that when reading a book, watching a film, or even playing a game, you should let the storyteller take you with them, instead of sitting there, bitching about where you think the storyteller should go in a subconscious attempt to make yourself feel smart. At the end of everything, everyone has a right to their opinion on the end result, but just remember it’s not YOUR story. Now that I think about it, that attitude is indicative of modern Americans. Eh . . . maybe I’ll expand on that some other time.

So what do I like about the Terminator series? Let’s hit a few points.

John Connor and Skynet are a yin and yang. Neither can exist without the other. John exists because he sent Kyle to defend his mother from the first T-800, which led to their short but fertile romance. However Kyle’s defense means that the T-800 is destroyed, leaving a couple spare parts for Cyberdyne to find and reverse engineer, eventually leading to Skynet’s creation. If Skynet were never created, there would be no war, no time travel, and no way for Kyle to meet Sarah at a comparable age. John could not be. If John were never born, Skynet would have no reason to send a Terminator to 1984. Skynet could not be.

When I first saw T3, I thought the idea that “Judgment Day is inevitable” was stupid and weak.. “Couldn’t they come up with something better than that?” I thought. But the more I thought about it- the more it made sense. It made sense because as long as John exists, Skynet will exist, and Skynet will cause Judgment Day. And while I’m here, let me retract a statement I made about “why would Skynet send the T-X to a time when it couldn’t find John?” I believe the quiet reasoning for this is because Skynet didn’t want to risk the delay of Judgment Day again. If it went after Connor at an earlier time, that would clue him in that something still needs to be done to “prevent” Skynet. Instead, the T-X arrives at a time when Judgment Day is imminent – thus ensuring the elimination of its targets without risking its existence. I can’t believe I’m saying this about the third film, but that’s really clever. I wonder if it was on purpose.

John Connor and Skynet are both their own grandfathers. Now that’s something you don’t see every day. Of course John wasn’t the father of Kyle, but he was directly responsible in making sure Kyle met Sarah. Skynet is, in truth, actually its own grandpa, but it’s a computer so it’s really not that gross.

The only way to stop Skynet is for John to wipe out his own existence. This one may seem like I’m thinking a little too far into this, but it’s true. I’ve established that they can’t exist without each other, so the only way to prevent it all is for John to not allow Kyle to meet Sarah. No John, no Skynet, thus no Judgment Day.

Some parts of the story were cleverly left open enough for these new movies. A lot of people have griped about Salvation, and when I saw the trailers I found myself to be skeptical about the inclusion of Marcus. I hate (as I think others should) the re-writing of cannon. Yet when you think about it, nothing about what we know up to 2016 in this fictional universe comes close to excluding the posibility that Marcus was part of the story all along (he wasn’t, but you get my point). In fact, it beautifully develops Connor more – instilling, or re-instilling, in him a willingness to trust a machine.

Marcus was a very deep concept in addition to a new character. The main thing being that Connor gets his heart to survive. It was Marcus’s human heart that kept him on the side of the resistance, and it is that which was given to John. You could say that John has the heart of a machine. That’s kind of deep.

For being a series of movies about killer robots from the future, it seems to be really a thinker’s story. That’s what makes it so great when you pay attention, and what makes it so upseting when they skip details.

But all in all . . . I’m really lacking for a good conclusion. I’m out.

 

I’m going to talk about Terminator for a while. Part two.

There are two kinds of stories.

Okay, there are more than two, but go with me on this.

There are two kinds of stories. There are simple stories, and there are complex stories.

A simple story, as in my meaning here, could be like many one-shot movies that have been made for decades. I just watched Pixar’s Up last night with my wife. It was an extremely charming movie, endlessly entertaining, and very simple. The basic ideas and themes were conveyed quickly, and it didn’t take much to determine where a character was coming from or what the motivation was at any given moment. It worked.

In a complex story, such easy viewing isn’t possible. The motivations are hidden. The events aren’t linear. There are twists around every corner. To tell this kind of story, you have to be very careful. You need to have your facts straight, have events mapped out, and have names memorized. To do so is extremely important because when everything is said and done, it all has to make sense to be worth the time of those watching, reading, or listening to it. I’m a huge fan of the Lost television series because it does exactly that – drops little pieces here and there while you think the story’s headed in one direction, but when it all takes a major left turn out of nowhere, you can go back and see it was coming all along.

The failure to do this can and will result in what I call “The Refrigerator Box Syndrome.” Let me quickly define what this means. When a family buys a brand new refrigerator, often they will give the cardboard box in which it came to the children. Such a box is a blank canvas of imagination and adventure, where anything can happen. The children get in and envision journeys of peril and heroics. At one point, one of the children suggests adding a back door. All the children agree and they do so, and it makes the box that much more exciting. Then someone wants to paint or draw a logo on the side, so they do and now it looks better than ever. Then someone wants to add a hatch on top. Then someone else wants to add their own details to the mural. Then someone thinks the back door would be best if it was just an opening and not a door at all. By the end, the magical world that the children had was destroyed by too many ideas and not enough cohesion, direction, and common purpose.

Many stories have suffered from this, and the result is usually abandonment by its fans until a reboot occurs and promises to keep things together. The biggest example of this of which I am aware, which many people may not get, is the X-Men comic book series. I haven’t read comic books in over 15 years, but I remember in my middle school days that the X-Men story line was being pulled left and right by countless, arrogant writers who want to drop their own stupid ideas into the mix regardless of established canon. And at the time, in my eyes, it ruined the story.

The Terminator story is, in many respects, standing on the edge of a cliff above this abyss of worthlessness and butt-of-bad-jokery.

The first reason for this, and the most prominent in my mind, is the TIME LINE.

My goodness, people, is it that hard to stop and do some simple MATH?! Let’s put some pieces together as they are presented to us, shall we?

As mentioned before, Kyle Reese and the first Terminator were sent back in time from the year 2029 to the day of May 12, 1984. How do we know the date? Well for one, nearly the very beginning of The Terminator gives us the setting: Los Angeles 1984, 1:52 a.m. Shortly after this, Kyle attacks a cop and demands he tell him the date. The cop tells him it is May 12, to which Kyle replies, “No, THE YEAR!” This was  confirmed again in T2, in the scene which two police officers are questioning Sarah Connor, locked in a maximum security mental care facility, and show her surveylance pictures of the first Terminator from the shoot-out at the police station in the first movie. The say that they were taken “at the WesttownPolice Station, 1984.”

Big deal, right? Well the problems begin to mount when you remember that Terminator 2 came out in 1991. However, we can’t just assume it’s 1991 in the film. Why? Because John Connor would only be SIX! He was conceived in May of 1984, meaning that if Sarah carried him for the full nine months, he would have been born sometime in February 1985 (see? I know I can do math!). But John Connor cannot be six in this movie! Edward Furlong, the young actor playing John, was 13 when they were doing principle photography in 1990! Sure, older kids play younger kids all the time (e.g. Daniel Radcliffe, Michael J. Fox, the entire cast of 90210), but a 13-year-old passing as a 6-year-old? Not gonna happen.

But hold on – this is still fixable, right? We can just say it takes place in the near future! Why should they have to wait until the year in which the fictional character John Connor would be in his middle school years just to do the story? Sure, that works. Of course you run in to the problem that you’ve got middle-schoolers in the mid-to-late 1990’s listening to Guns ‘n Roses, wearing mullets, and playing After Burner at the arcade, but we can get past that.

Yet there’s another obstacle in the way. The writers set the date for Judgment Day to be August 29, 1997. In 1991, the year 1997 may have seemed like an eternity away, but now you have issue because that means John Connor is TWELVE YEARS OLD WHEN THE WORLD ENDS! How old did we say Edward Furlong was during shooting? And this WAS done to an extent because the T-800 tells young John that he will send him back “35 years from now.” That means it would be, at the earliest, 1994. That makes John Connor nine. The writers have managed to chop of their own arms to make a believable story because there’s no WAY that kid is anything less than TWELVE! His voice is changing, for goodness sake!

You can brand me a nerd for noticing these things, but actually having things line up in your story shows that you care about what you’re saying. To completely ignore it and let things fall where they may is lazy and it shows you put as much effort into it as a D-grade 9th grader does in a 10-page research paper. If you write movies, then that’s your JOB. If I did my job to an equivalent of that I’d be fired in a week.

Well what has been done in retrospect is to say that Terminator 2 takes place in 1995, when John is 10.  Sigh. Whatever. Let’s move on.

Now we get to the crown jewel of the series (*cough* sarcasm), Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines. Right from the get-go you can tell the producers and writers of this film really didn’t give two hoots about what they were doing – they just saw dollar signs due to their super-model villian and Arnold’s mug on posters. Most people understand that the third movie was horrible, namely because of bad acting and over-the-top and way-too-long action scenes, but allow me to explain the other reasons it was bad.

The opening narration given by John Connor states that he was THIRTEEN when the 2nd Terminator came. We’ve already established that’s impossible within the timeframes given within the first two movies, so there’s no need to embelish on how wrong that is. What this means is the writers either didn’t care or didn’t check when they established this. My money is on both.

This error is embelished all the more when John later explains that his mom was diagnosed with leukemia and was given 6 weeks to live, but “fought on” for three years to make sure Judgment Day didn’t happen. That means she was diagnosed in 1994, three years prior to Judgment Day. I’m sure you’re doing the math by now to realized that John would have had to have been nine in the second movie (at the oldest), not thirteen, for those time frames to work. Though I am willing to bet that the writers assumed the first movie took place in 1991. I just got that vibe.

Now that I’ve pretty much exhausted the Time Line problems, let’s move on to a few more.

1) What the heck is the name of Arnold’s character? – In Terminator and T2, Arnold was called a “Cyberdyne Systems, Model 101.” The extended scenes in T2 refer to him as a T-800, and he is also called T-800 in the latest Terminator Salvation. Terminator 3 calls him both “T-850″ and “T-101.” Can we all just have a meeting and come to an agreement? At least pop a cassette into the VCR to see what the movie said. Does it take that much time?

2) We can all debate about how time travel can work, but it doesn’t work that way – This is essentially one of the major plot flaws of the third film. Putting aside the fact that Skynet wasn’t supposed to be around in 2032 (which I’ll get to in a moment), the T-800 (or 850, whatever) explains that John could not be located so the T-X was sent after his generals and future wife. Well that’s all fine and dandy since John told us in his opening narration that he’d been living off the grid for several years, but why didn’t Skynet send the T-X to a time when John could be located? I do believe that we’re talking about time travel. Does anyone else remember the climactic scene in Back to the Future when Marty remembers that he is in a TIME MACHINE and he can give himself all the time he needs to save Doc’s life? (Of course he comically gave himself only 15 minutes, but never mind that).

2) The T-1000 was supposed to be advanced as it got – This might seem a bit picky, but it ties directly into my main point, which I’ll conclude with. When Kyle is being interrogated by police in 1984, he states that his forces in the future had smashed the defense grid of Skynet, effectively winning. They found the “time machine” and that the Terminator had already been sent through. Kyle believed that after he went in after it, the time machine was destroyed. However the second movie reveals that there were actually two Terminators sent, and that the second one, the T-1000, was an advanced prototype, meaning those things weren’t in mass production yet and it was likely the only one. Then, remember, the human resistance wins the war. As Kyle said, they’d destroyed the defense grid. If that’s the case, how does the T-X come around three years later? And why all the sudden does Skynet know about John’s T-800?

Sure, you can say that Skynet knew all along. You can say that Kyle didn’t know that the war would rage on for 3 more years, just as he didn’t know a second Terminator went through. But by that point you’re not creating a good story, you’re mopping up bad writing.

My main point is that in these kinds of stories, one should not rewrite what is already written. You can write around what’s already written, and (even better) you can write into what is already written, but you shouldn’t change it. It negates everything already established and makes it less interesting because the multiple parts cannot be enjoyed as a whole.

Now that I’ve beaten up relentlessly on those movies, it’s time for me to bury the hatchet and admit how blown away I am by the over-arching story’s complexities and its subtleties . . .

 

I’m going to talk about The Terminator for a while. Part One.

When I was a kid, I viewed the film The Terminator as little more than a sci-fi horror flick. When I was in junior high, I saw the acclaimed Terminator 2: Judgment Day and loved it, but still saw it as something of a horror movie. As I grew older and matured (a little), I began to see something else in those films, something beyond scary robots and graphic death scenes. Then Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was released, and despite being a mediocre film that butchered the time-line of the story (which I’ll expand on later), it gave the story an opportunity to logically continue after the finality of T2, and it allowed me to see how incredible the story arch of this fictional universe actually is. Now that Terminator Salvation has hit theaters, I’m on a full-blown Terminator kick. I loved it. I know lots of people hated it (one of my best friends at work seemed angry with me when I told her how much I enjoyed it), but I’m telling you, that film has brought this flawed-yet-great story beyond being just a Schwarzenegger movie. (Oh, and for the record, while some people enjoy The Sarah Connor Chronicles television series, its very existence bothers me therefore I refuse to watch it and thus do not consider anything from it to be canon.)

Just to get this out of the way up front, this will NOT be one of those discussions that takes a secular story and equates it to the Gospel, as many people have done with the first Matrix movie. Don’t get me wrong, I like those discussions when they’re done well, but this is not my intention and it’s important to understand that because the character John Connor can very easily be seen as a Christ-like figure. So are we on the same page? Good.

Okay, here’s the game plan. First I’ll summarize the full story as it stands by the end of Terminator Salvation. Next I’ll rant a bit about the things that actually bug me to nearly no end, including (but not limited to) the complete disregard to the time-line that the films seem to take. Finally, I’ll get into what I think makes The Terminator, despite its flaws, one of the best stories to come out of late-20th century American culture.

The Story Thus Far

The story of Terminator, which could be logically re-named “The John Connor Story,” could be said to begin on August 29, 1997. In this fictional time-line, this was the day that a global defense network called “Skynet” became self-aware, and “in a millisecond” decided that the human race was a threat to its existence. Since it had absolute control over all the United States’ nuclear weapons, it launched every one against Russia, which started a chain-reaction of counter-attacks across the globe and annihilated 3 billion people. That day was called “Judgment Day” by the survivors, who would go on to live in hiding from Skynet’s race of machines. A resistance was formed and a war started that raged on for decades. It was led by a man named John Connor, who led his forces to victory by the year 2029 when they smashed the defense grid of Skynet. As a last-ditch effort to survive, Skynet sent two Terminators back through time to kill John Connor before Judgment Day. Connor learned of this and sent defenders for himself back to the exact times the other two were sent back. The first defender was one of Connor’s best soldiers, a man named Kyle Reese, who volunteered for the mission. The second defender was a re-programmed Terminator, which was actually identical to one of the two Terminators sent back in time by Skynet.

The first of the two Terminators, which was Cyberdyne Systems Model 101, or a “T-800″ (aka “T-101″, which is a robotic skeleton covered in living human tissue to give it the appearance of being human for the purpose of infiltration) was sent to the night of May 12, 1984, to kill John Connor’s mother, Sarah Connor, before John was born. Kyle Reese was sent back to the same date. Kyle found Sarah and, after fighting off the T-800 a few times, took shelter in cheap motel. Kyle taught the young future-mother-of-a-war-hero how to make an explosive called plastique, which apparently made the room a little hot because they had a spontaneous pre-marital romp when they were done. Unbeknownst to either of them at the time, their actions that night actually conceived John Connor himself. Kyle would meet his end hours later in a factory as a result of the exploding plastique that he placed into the abdomen of the bare, charred, metal endoskeleton of the T-800. The still-operating top half of the T-800 was terminated itself moments later in a large metal press, which was switched on by a rather witty and potty-mouthed Sarah.

Sarah continued her life, soon to be a single mother and bearing a horrible burden of knowing the fate that awated every face she would meet from that point forward. Also, not long after the night she lost Kyle, workers from the company that owned the factory, called Cyberdyne, found the remains of the T-800 and salvaged the forearm and hand, and an oddly-shaped computer chip that had been in the Terminator’s head.

The second Terminator was sent back in time to the year 1995, to kill John as a 10-year-old (as I’ll discuss later, these dates and John’s age are debatable, but this is what’s most commonly accepted). This second Terminator was a prototype, comprised entirely of a “mimetic polyalloy,” which means it’s liquid metal that can take the shape of over living organisms and simple metal objects. John’s defender, a reprogrammed T-800, arrived at the same time. While fighting and avoiding the T-1000, John actually becomes attached to the T-800 and views him as something of a father-figure. Sarah, who at this point was hardened by her hard years, attempts to assasinate a man named Miles Dyson, who would be responsible for the designing of Skynet (information courtesy of the T-800 with files full of future history). Dyson worked for Cyberdyne and was studying the first T-800’s two remaining pieces (the chip and the forearm). After almost killing Dyson, Sarah is intercepted by John and the T-800. They explain themselves to Dyson, who agrees to help them destroy all his research. Dyson later dies in a self-triggered explosion in his office building, and the T-1000 and the T-800 both are destroyed hours later in a vat of molten metal in a nearby foundry. After both Terminators are destroyed, John throws the original T-800’s arm and chip into the same vat. He and Sarah leave the scene believing that they have stopped Judgment Day.

Shortly thereafter, Sarah contracted leukemia. She would die by the fall of 1997, living just long enough to see that Judgment Day didn’t happen.

However, they did not stop Judgment Day – they only delayed it.

In 2003, a convicted murderer named Marcus Wright was executed by lethal injection. He had sold his body to scientific research to be conducted by Cyberdyne. More on him later.

On July 24, 2004 (again, dates debateable), an even newer model of Terminator, called the T-X, which is designed to not only kill humans but destroy other Terminators, arrives from the year 2032 to eliminate top officers in Connor’s future army, including John’s future wife, Kate. John was something of a “bonus target” to this Terminator because John was “off the grid” at this point in his life, never staying in one place for long, not carrying a cell phone or a job, etc. A third T-800 (and the second to be reprogrammed) is sent back in time to defend John and Kate. This third T-800 was not sent by John, but by Kate, because John had been killed by the same T-800 before Kate reprogrammed it.

The T-800 explains to the young John and Kate that Judgment Day is inevitable, and that it had been delayed to July 24, 2004, at 6:18 p.m. This meant they had less than three hours until it began.

Years earlier, the USAF had purchased Cyberdyne. In their purchase, they found remaining records of the research of the late Miles Dyson and began developing a defense system, which they would call Skynet, which would be capable of controlling all the country’s weapons, including nuclear warheads. The Air Force Lieutenant General in charge of the project, Robert Brewster, happened to be Kate’s father.

By the time John and Kate learned that Judgment Day would begin in less than three hours, they were already too late. A seemingly-unstoppable computer virus had been spreading around the world for days, shutting down everything from PC’s to military defense grids. The only remedy that seemed plausible to the US Government was to activate Skynet and send it into all the world’s systems to eliminate the virus. Lieutenant General Brewster activated Skynet moments before John, Kate, and the T-800 would arrive in an attempt to stop him. The activation made Skynet immediately self-aware, and it first used its already-built robotic soldiers, called “T-1’s,” to eliminate all personel at the base in which it was activated. A mortally wounded Robert Brewster would give John and Kate directions and access codes to what he said was the core for Skynet, but turned out to be a Cold War-era fallout shelter for U.S. VIP’s. The two of them were secured and safe in the shelter when the nuclear missles launched at 6:18 p.m. due to both its location and the T-800 destroying itself and the T-X in an explosion that collapsed the entrance under a mountain. John’s only connection to the outside world is an old radio, on which someone is crying out for help and John replied to them.

By the year 2018, the human race is hanging on by a thread and the resistance is hard at work in its full-on war against Skynet and its machines. John Connor is not yet in charge of the forces, but is already revered as something of a prophet because of his intricate knowledge of Skynet’s tactics and research (such as the development of the T-800). John’s primary mission to himself is to locate the teenage boy that he knows will be his father, Kyle Reese, and protect him. Meanwhile, the young Kyle Reese meets a revived Marcus Wright, whose last memory was dying in the year 2002. Kyle is captured by the machines, but Marcus escapes and is brought before John, only to find out that Marcus was unkowingly a cyborg, with only his brain and heart remaining in tact. After a few scuffles, John comes to trust Marcus and they work together to get John access to Skynet’s central base in what was San Francisco to rescue Kyle. John finds Kyle, frees him with many other human prisoners, and manages to destroy the San Franciso facility, but not after facing an early-model T-800 that manages to scar his face and stab him through the heart. Marcus, seeing that he has no future and understanding John’s importance, sacrifices himself and donates his heart to John, who was now leader of the resistance due to the machines cleverly locating the original leadership’s submarine base.

At this point in the story, I can only fill in that the war rages on for another 11 years, at which time John leads his armies to victory by smashing the defense grid of Skynet. Skynet issues a last-ditch effort to win by sending two Terminators back in time, and John sends Kyle and the reprogrammed T-800 after them. Somehow (if the third movie’s story will be regarded as canon) the war will continue for 3 more years, at which time John will die at the hands of a T-800 that is later reprogrammed by his wife and sent back in time after the T-X.

Well, that was brief, wasn’t it? Now that you’re caught up on the story, I’ll give a decent-sized rant about the carlessness of Hollywood writers in regards to plausible time-lines, among other things.

 

Election Day

I hate election day. I begin to enjoy life again slowly as each day passes beyond it. I’ve already gotten into three arguments over things that neither I nor any of the three other people really understood. I told one of them that Obama came from obscurity, and she said that Palin was more obscure, and I said she wasn’t, and then she somehow got me to defend the notion of Palin as President some day, when all along I don’t really think she’s that capable. How did she get me to that place? I’m awful at real-time arguments.

I usually try to keep myself out of the American political arena, instead standing on the outside where I can clearly see how everyone inside all act exactly the same way or, at the very least, have the same, messed-up hearts despite the fact that their issues are opposite.

So many people think that the future of the world hangs in the balance with this election, but that’s just not true. It’s the same as all the other elections previous. The left says that if the right stays in power, the world will be thrown into the dark ages. The right says if the left gets in power, they’ll take over everything we own. Obama is a Chicago politician (a city known for corruption) who has rose from obscurity over the last 4 years (he was first elected to the Illinois Senate in 1996, served 8 years, and then has been a US senator for 4), and he’s gotten us chanting things like, “Yes We Can!” and “It’s Time for Change!” without any of us really knowing what he means. Sure, we know what WE mean, and that’s what those who wrote those slogans were counting on: that we’d all fill in our own blanks. McCain is a Republican who has stood in the Moderate range at best for years now, and now that he’s the GOP’s candidate, he’s suddenly as right-wing as they come. Do we really think that Obama will make all the difference with the issues we’ve made him represent in our own minds? Do we really think that McCain really means it when he tells us he’s against abortion, let alone anything else he’s said? If you answer “yes” to any of those, I’m afraid you’re naive. The crossroads where we stand right now WILL NOT be the defining moment in our nation’s history that either brought about our demise or our success. It can be a step in either direction, but nothing that’s not reversible within 4-8 years. When Clinton took office, the right shouted “he’s undoing everything done in the last 12 years!” and then when Bush took over, the left shouted “he’s undoing everything done in the last 8 years!”

In the end, when you vote today, you’re just defending a point of view or your own comfort. Those on the left can go on about how horrible the Bush Administration has been, but the fact is there are those who think he’s done an excellent job – it all depends on the criteria you put forth. Those on the right can scream about universal health care and assisted suicide and increased governmental controls, but the fact is there are those who want those very things and will be happy if they are put into place. As much as anyone on either side wants to think, their opponents will not someday think, in mass, “Oh, gosh, guess I was wrong about this one” under any circumstances. Americans are stubborn like that.

I think we need to take a long, hard look at how important we make this stuff. Yes, it’s important and valuable in this nation to be sure to vote, but the fact is that people see various issues differently and you might lose. We have turned the act of NOT voting into an immoral action, and not because of fear of an unelected person taking over or people of which we don’t approve making decisions for us, but to keep the other guys from getting their way.

Go ahead, get mad, tell me I’m not seeing the importance of this election. Tell me that I don’t really understand what’s at stake. I’ve already heard it. Let me tell you that all of this will eventually pass, be it 4 years, 8 years, or maybe 16 to 20, and we’ll all have some other list of issues that we’re debating and thinking that the world will end if things don’t happen the way we think they should.

 

Almost there . . .

My wife and I will have internet in our home come the beginning of November, at which time I will be able to spend time sitting in front of the computer and really think through things to write, instead of trying to rush junk that I eventually delete on my lunch breaks. I feel like I’m Nintendo with the new Zelda game and I keep pushing back the release date. Except less people care.

Speaking of pushing back release dates, there’s this game called Little Big Planet that’s getting tons of hype right now, and it was supposed to come out this week, I think. But apparently one of the songs in the game has two lines from the Q’uaran in it, and there are Muslim groups losing their heads over this because it’s apparently sac religious to put the Q’uaran to music, let alone translate it. So the publisher has pushed back the release date, despite the fact that stores all over the nation, nay, the world, have boxes of this game ready to go in their storerooms, so that they can remove a song with 2 offensive lines in it. I don’t want to really climb all over that whole viewpoint of “our society today will do anything to appease other religions but tell Christians to ‘get over it,’” but I am still curious as to what would have happened if the song had been offensive to Christians in some way and they had protested. But then, if that happened, my view would be to tell the Christians to “get over it.” Part of being a Christian is knowing what sets you apart from other religions and not playing those silly “I demand respect” games that so many other people play.

Anyway . . . I should be working.

 

I’ve missed you! It won’t be much longer!

Oh, my neglected blog.

Give me a couple weeks. It’s been busy these last few months.