TRON Legacy debuted on screens around the world and unfortunately has met critical panning, almost across the board. The funny thing to notice is that nearly every review compliments the visuals, the score and the action. From that point on, they use those same praises to either compliment the film, or tear it apart. I guess it stands to reason that people either “get ” this film or they don’t.

The Sequel That Seemed Unlikely:

Now I love TRON. Please don’t read the next part of this without knowing that. However, the original TRON is (honestly) a silly film, created at a time when Disney was trying to gain some “cred” with the older crowd. They didn’t really succeed at the time, but they planted great seeds for the future. TRON arrived in 1982; five years after Star Wars had brought audiences to a galaxy far, far away. In many ways, TRON felt like a rip off of Star Wars. It contained a basic “mythic” story following the Joseph Campbell hero’s journey formula, it had strange visuals, and a young cast. The visuals would go on to be snubbed at the Oscars because ”they used computers to cheat“.

That’s pretty funny.

By and large, TRON was considered a failure of the mainstream and quietly fell to the background of pop culture. The place films go that may not be understood at the time, or are full of an undeniable spirit that won’t be ignored forever.

Yes. As you may understand, TRON became a “cult film”.

In the minds of a lot of today’s 30-40 year olds, TRON came out during a seminal time. Video games were the rage. You would spend hours after school at the arcade pumping quarters into the latest hit arcade machine. Pac-man, Space Invaders, Donkey Kong. These games and others like them were responsible for 7.3 billion in revenue from just arcades alone in 1982. [1] The games were a doorway to another world, an escape. With your pocketful of quarters, you could dominate your favorite game and feel like a hero. The protagonist of the first TRON movie, Kevin Flynn, was a champion. He was great at video games and owned his own arcade. He also wrote many video games, and that brings us to another segment of the population that was “sucked in” (pun intended) to the story laid out in TRON: Computer Programmers.

Computer programmers found validation while watching TRON. Everything they were doing was suddenly made alive and vibrant. The monochrome letters on the screen gave way to a digital world. A colorful, exciting world inside the computer. These programs they were creating had life, feelings, personalities, and quirks. These things programmers knew from working with them, but now others -the mainstream- could see. The rest of the world could appreciate what the programmer saw and felt about their creations, thanks to the visualizations set forth in TRON. Well, the rest of the world that bothered to see the film at least could. Critical reaction was mixed, where Roger Ebert praised the film for “a technological sound-and-light show that is sensational and brainy, stylish, and fun”, and Jay Scott of the Globe and Mail wrote, “It’s got momentum and it’s got marvels, but it’s without heart; it’s a visionary technological achievement without vision”.  Sound familiar?

All Visuals, No Story?

TRON: Legacy has been criticized for “effects that are above average while the plot is a mess”.  It’s my claim that the critics just don’t get this one. It’s an action-adventure movie, with dense computer references, and deep philosophical themes. It has too much action for the art house types to get interested, and too much philosophy and story for the ADD action junkies. It’s an extremely well-rounded film that is fun, exciting and makes you think afterward… if you want to.

TRON: Legacy does not require that you deeply ponder the film afterwards. It ties up at the end and leaves you with a sense of conclusion and it is very easy to leave it at that and leave the theater satisfied.  If you are the type to pursue ancillary materials, there is much more to this TRON world than which is shown on screen. I know film purists get upset about this and complain that what is on the screen should make sense on it’s own, but this universe as imagined is quite large and dense. Think of it as when Star Wars actually opened up in the middle of the story.  Joseph Kosinsky and crew created a whole universe here, and we just received a glimpse of  one part of the action.  There is currently a TV show in development for Disney XD, and hopefully we get some sequels to the film down the line to help further explore this massive world.

If you DO want to search deeper, that layer exists. TRON: Legacy is rich in philosophical and religious allegory. Upon repeated viewings, the movie matures for you. The story of an absentee father trapped in his own world and a fatherless youth avoiding responsibility contains subtle and painful comparisons to most males in today’s society. We are either the father lost or trapped in his work, or the son that grew up without a father and trying to find their own way without guidance. I think most of us are both – to some degree. We desire to be reconciled to each other so that life makes sense. The Flynns get this chance and it brings new focus and vision for Sam.

What do you think? IS TRON just a simple story that looks pretty? Or is there more to chew on?

When I heard they were going forward with a series of mini-series that would be a prequel to Watchmen  – titled boringly “Before Watchmen” – I was ho-hum. Then I saw some of the talent involved, Darwyn Cooke? Amanda Conner? Adam Hughes? Sign me up!

My problem isn’t with Watchmen at all.

Watchmen, while an excellent story, never really gelled with me. I understand that it’s about taking heroes and breaking them down. I get the concept, and I get why it has fans and my dislike for Alan Moore has nothing (well okay in a way it does)with his skill (?) as a writer, but rather it’s him as a person that ruins his work.

No my problem is with Alan Moore.

The man is an utter hypocrite.

You can start stoning me but it doesn’t change this fact.

All of his work was done as “For hire” in a lot of cases, and when it was adapted for film, he cried.

DC, to their credit, has tried exhaustively to reach out to him on several occasions with an olive branch, even offering monetary compensation, to which he’s snuffed and rebuked each time.

My main problem, however,  is that this is a man who, to the best of my (admittedly limited) knowledge has made his living off of writing other author’s characters and creating facsimiles of existing ones (in fact he very brazenly used James Bond in a round-about way like a fox to avoid copyright infringements), even going so far as to take some of literature’s most beloved young heroines (Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, Alice from Through The Looking-Glass and Wendy from Peter Pan) and featuring them in a pornographic story.

Well, no. That’s not the problem.

When he was trying to fight DC’s decision to move forward with “Before Watchmen” he had this to say…

“What I want is for this not to happen. As far as I know, there weren’t that many prequels or sequels to Moby Dick.”

Sorry Alan.

You’re argument is now null and void.

Wah-wah.

If you can do what you want with Verne, Wells, Baum and others, if you can turn little girls from some beloved stories into porn stars “for art”, I’m quite sure you can man-up and allow others the same courtesy YOU have taken with characters you didn’t create.

I hope your beard holds the gallons of tears this might cause.

Summer, 1989.

I was on my way into seventh grade and Tim Burton’s “Batman” was all the rage that year. Yet, while today he is my hands-down favorite superhero, it was a Sunday morning chance-encounter with a random airing of Marvel’s X-Men pilot “Pryde of the X-Men” that drew me into the hobby seriously. I was fascinated with Marvel’s Merry Mutants and the thought process in my mind was “Hey! If this cartoon is this awesome, then the comics must be amazing!” and they were! Sure, I’d watched the sixties Spider-Man cartoon reruns from when I can remember, caught Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends when I was a bit older, had some Secret Wars action figures from 1985, but outside of the Transformers and G.I. Joe I had never really seriously read comics before that point.

I give credit where credit is due and if it hadn’t been for Marvel, I would not be such a rabid Batman fan that I am today. Kind of a back-handed compliment, isn’t it? I assure you though; I’m not here to talk about the Dark Knight (though I assure you I could go on and on and on and on…).

No.

Marvel’s inventive, every-man, flawed characters are what drew me to the hobby I know and love today, as I discovered, the X-Men where just the tip of a very large, very colorful, very eclectic iceberg. From a team of astronauts who get caught in a sudden cosmic ray storm to an unfortunate high school student who gets bit by an irradiated spider, the Marvel Universe offered and continues to offer a rich diversity of characters that all have fascinating (if dated, scientifically) origins.

As such I’d like to focus on one Marvel hero in particular who has continuously resonated with me.

It’s not easy, being green.

My first exposure to The Incredible Hulk was the 1978-1982 CBS TV series in which Dr. David Banner (not Bruce, one of many, many revelations that would soon shatter my precious knowledge of the character up to that point) overdoses on gamma rays on experiment he performed on himself, turning into green-painted Lou Ferrigno when ever he’s provoked or angered.

I thought that was it. For years I assumed that MUST be all.

Boy was I wrong!

As with most of the core Marvel characters, their origins are steeped with Cold War concepts and Atomic Age fears of the early Sixties, many often shadowing the B science fiction films of the time. The Hulk is no different.

It’s 1962.

Dr. Bruce Banner is the world’s foremost nuclear physicist. A genius, Dr. Banner has discovered the way to harness the most extreme form of radiation – the Gamma rays – and has built a weapon to release this tremendous power – the Gamma Bomb; a device capable of wiping out all life but leaving structures intact (essentially today what we call a “dirty bomb” which releases a large amount of radiation but has little actual explosive capability)!

At Desert Base, in the barrens of New Mexico, the test of the bomb is about to commence. From the safety of a concrete bunker, Dr. Banner watches in horror as a civilian vehicle parks directly underneath the bomb, it’s occupants a teenage boy partaking in a dare to drive out onto the test site. Watching the precious seconds before detonation tick-down, Banner orders his staff to abort the countdown while he takes a Jeep to retrieve the boy from harm’s way. However, duplicitous beings in form of Soviet espionage and a spy within his midst, the countdown is continued, hoping to kill Banner and remove a key American scientific asset.

Banner frantically argues with the teen to accompany him only to his terrified gaze does he see the bomb is still active and that he has only seconds to reach the safety of a concrete ditch. The bomb detonates just he manages to toss Rick to safety, becoming caught at ground-zero – exposed to the full payload of Gamma radiation! Banner, by some miracle, survives!

Remember when I said above there were many, many revelations that would rock my prior knowledge of the character?

Yeah, this was the second! “So he didn’t do that to himself?! Okay, makes more sense it was this kind of an accident…” I thought.

My next surprise greeted me!

Awakening in the infirmary, Banner is at a loss for what happened. His physician recommends keeping overnight for observation, along with Rick. As night falls, Rick is horrified as Dr. Banner begins to change a large, brutish human-like creature with immense strength and crude speech.

Yep.

The Hulk originally changed only night. No provocation, no “You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry.” Just sun-down did the trick.

Know what else I was shocked to discover? The Hulk was gray! Not green!

“…the hell?”

It was only later I would discover that due to an inconsistency in the printers to replicate the exact shade of gray panel-to-panel, Stan Lee was forced to change his skin-tone to something the printers could more easily read and copy.

Hence green!

Also added were the stress triggers, as obviously this would make for dramatic moments building suspense in the readers as you never quite knew when Banner would reach that breaking point and transform into a creature of pure rage.

And that, for me, was the deal-sealer! I can’t help but think of the Hulk as one of the finest concepts in superhero literature. It’s brilliant, really. A perfect combination of Victorian gothic ingredients – just a large dose of Frankenstein in the form of a giant, super-strong monster who is repeatedly misunderstood; equal-parts of the werewolf who cannot control when and where he becomes the monster and finally, a dash of Dr. Jekyll tossed in liberally.

Another aspect I loved (I credit the 70’s television series with really defining this) was the fact that Banner was just an average guy – a selfless individual who genuinely tried to help the people around him but yet very unassuming. You’d pass him by on the street and not give him a second glance.

However the moment he lost his temper or allowed his emotions to go unchecked he became a literal force of nature. Reading some of the late Sixties – early Seventies stories, the Hulk, often hounded by General Thunderbolt Ross, engaged the US Army resulting in so many crushed tanks, crashed jets, and missile explosions that could possibly put Godzilla to shame!

In recent years I’ve been glad to see Marvel’s Jade Giant gracing the silver screen in some big budget extravaganzas. While some strayed far off the mark (Ang Lee’s 2003 venture, which I still defend to this day as a film that was too smart for audience; an art house approach at rage and tranquility issues using the Hulk) to 2008’s Marvel Studio’s release with Ed Norton which perfectly captured the blend of both the television series and coupled it with the comic book lore.

It’s no surprise to me that in this summer’s blockbuster epic, “The Avengers” that Hulk was awarded most of that film’s best scenes. I won’t post any spoilers (but I can’t stop anyone from posting about it below) but needless to say, the Hulk steals the show!

So go on.

Lose your temper and let out steam. Pick up a Hulk comic and rage for a moment or two as you discover, in my opinion, one of Marvel’s best creations.

I still feel the need to make this post, however. Just for my own self – if nothing else.

Hopefully it connects with you and gives you a little more insight to your own life. That’s my hope at least.

On to the confession!

I have been keeping this site “free” of something that is true to my character. I have put this site over in it’s own little box and labeled it my “nerd box”. It wasn’t touching anything else. I even went as far as not posting my real face. You just get to see the mask I put up, quite literally.

But that’s not all of who I am. In fact, it’s very little of it. I hid for a long time out of fear. I used entertainment and being a “geek” or a “nerd” (I’m actually unclear on which means what, truthfully) as a way to escape. A way to push people away and throw something else up in front to distract them. Instead of talking about things that really matter, I would bring up something that I knew they liked too and steer the conversation in that direction. It made people see me as some sort of “expert” on many things that really just don’t matter. It was a way to avoid getting too close to others, while still being liked by them. I apologize to all of you out there that really know me that I have done this to.

This site actually started as a message board back in 2006. Kyle Thoreau and I made it as a place to talk about whatever we wanted to. When this actual site (at this domain) was started, it was created out of the desire to simply create something cool. A desire to make something I could be proud of and work on and figure out. I have used it to run SEO experiments, it taught me a lot about wordpress and CMS creation in general, and I also got to post things I thought were interesting. A few other guys have posted here too and even though I have never met them face to face, I consider them very good friends and kindred spirits. I nearly always kept this place separate from anything too personal, however. That was by design. I thought about starting up another blog where I would just be “me”… whatever that was. I started posting things and then would just label them “private” so that nobody else would see them. It then turned into a business thing instead where I would post the latest projects that I worked on for someone. It was more of a portfolio, because I was too lazy to actually update my real website portfolio.

My desire from now is is to be real.

I don’t feel the need to hide myself anymore. I’m not afraid of doing new things, meeting new people, talking about how I am really feeling. I realize that I need to set a filter on these things, and not say things at an inappropriate time or place, but the key is that I’m learning to be the person I have always wanted to be. The person God has intended me to be. I am a leader. A husband, a father, a son, a brother, a work guy, a friend. I’m no longer a” boy that can shave”, to steal from Pastor Mark Driscoll. I have spent too many years being afraid. Too many years trying to be a boy and avoid any sort of real responsibility. It got me nothing. In fact, it got me worse than nothing. It almost destroyed me. It almost destroyed my family. It almost destroyed everything I hold dearest to me. Eventually it DID destroy my old self. It crushed my mask. It blew up my walls of safety that I had put up that I was keeping everyone away with. My life has been changed, for the good. I feel re-born.

In case you hadn’t noticed the hints I have been dropping, yes, those were “religious” references.  I grew up as a “Christian”, and as I have grown older, that has helped and comforted me in times of crisis. There have been times I have questioned everything. There have been times of struggle and doubt. I have examined things over and over again. I have read, studied, and dissected, and I still believe. I have read opposing arguments and I have compared them to my beliefs. I don’t know everything, but what I have learned and have personally experienced has not proven false to me yet. My perceptions may have been skewed and needed to be re-adjusted, but the conclusion I keep coming back to is that there is a God. He loves us, and He actually cares about us.

This is all a really long way of saying that I’m going to start posting about spiritual, philosophical and religious topics here. Read if you want, ignore if you don’t. I have some things I want to share that I have been working out in my own life and I figure this site is as good of place as any. I hope that at times, this column can be a safe place to discuss some difficult issues in a healthy manner. Other times it will be just the usual rambling about nothing.

I am still interested in nerdy and geeky things. I am still in many ways the same person I have always been. I still have the same sense of humour. I am just much more intentional about life now. I am not hiding any more. I am not afraid. I am a man, not just some guy that is clueless about life. I’m far from perfect, but I am not afraid to try and fail. I’m also not afraid to try and actually succeed.

I am a follower of Jesus, a husband, a father, and your friend.

-Wug

Yes, that is me. Mock away, people!

I think this was probably the best part of an amazing movie.

Agree? Disagree? Chime in below!

If you missed the line right afterward like I did (thanks to a laughing crowd) it was: “Puny god.”

There are spoilers here, so turn away if you haven’t seen the movie yet!

Ye be warned!

Partway through the end credits to the Avengers we go to a brief scene of two shadowy figures somewhere in space discussing that the humans aren’t as weak as first believed. The shot ends on a grinning dark figure with a wrinkly chin. My Dad had to call me to ask what the hell it was.

This character is called Thanos, and he is another one of the “cosmic” villains in the Marvel Universe. For a complete history, you can czech out the Thanos wikipedia page. In short, he is another of the “god-like” villains in the Marvel U, possessing incredible power and intellect. A worthy adversary for the collection of Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! I was actually a little surprised (yet delighted) that they introduced what at first glance could be seen as an “out there” choice of character. Thor already introduced us as an audience to the 9 realms and the “cosmic” nature of the MU, and we got a closer peek during the Avengers movie with the Chitauri as a enemy force. I assume that each of the next individual character films (Captain America 2, Thor 2, Iron Man 3, etc.) will have a small sequence further developing the threat that Thanos is mounting. Thanks to the inclusion of the Infinity Gauntlet in Thor, that storyline could be possibly be explored in the Thor sequel.

Dark Screenshot of Thanos from the end of the Avengers movie

A statue of Thanos for better visual reference

The second end credits sequence in the Avengers movie finds our heroes immediately after the battle in New York. Stark had mentioned getting some Shawarma, and so there our victorious friends sit, sharing a meal together. Nothing more than that.

I guess this scene was filmed real shortly after the world premiere of the Avengers, and there was an issue with Chris Evans.

It seems he has grown a mighty beard:

So the makeup folks put fake skin on his face and the director had him sit with his head in his hands like he was resting for the whole bit.

I’m also now hungry for some shawarma. I don’t think any Minneapolis-area restaurants quite offer it exactly, but I would love to hear if they do! Ansari’s? You got some?

Some of us argue on line who are the coolest characters……This bastard does this. By Greek artist Ilias Kyriazis

That’s what I came away from after devouring the latest (and possible last) techno-thriller penned by Michael Crichton, Micro, which was completed by author Richard Preston (most famous for his chilling 1994 non-fiction thriller, The Hot Zone, about the Ebola outbreak in a primate quarantine building that occurred in Reston, Virginia in 1989).

Mr. Preston thinking "You thought Ebola was scary? Have I got a surprise for you!"

To anyone having doubts about Mr. Preston picking up where Mr. Crichton left off (rumor has it the manuscript was only 73% completed at the time of Crichton’s unfortunate passing due to Cancer in 2008), rest assured it is seamless – you literally cannot tell where Crichton ends and where Preston begins, nor what ideas and extrapolations belong to whom! It is most definitely feels like a Crichton
novel in it’s entirety!

The plot strays a little further away than most of Crichton’s stories in regards to the actual science utilized, in this case, micronization, but what it lacks in size of real physics in makes up for in the biology showed on display, showing a world that literally exists within our own that is a thriving ecosystem within our own!

Seven grad students in an eclectic assortment of fields (Envenomization, Biochemical Engineering, Arachnology, Entomology, Applied Science Philosophy, etc) are invited by a fellow student, Peter Jensen, on behest of his older brother Eric for recruitment into his start-up company, NaniGen Tech, a start-up company specializing in micro-robotic environmental research tools.

It’s not long before tragedy strikes in the murder of Eric and the mystery of what NaniGen actually does and with which find our protagonists shrunk-down into “micro-humans” and abandoned in a vast rainforest on Hawaii’s big island of Oahu.  From here, it becomes a “Lost World” tale of survival as the company of students must somehow trek back to NaniGen and restore themselves, while solving the mystery of Eric’s death.

Mr. Crichton moments before he touched the fossil behind him and merely "willed" it to life, cackling madly!

Fans of Crichton’s work will find this vintage-Crichton at his best with a streamlined plot and enough thorough research and explanation to make even a layman an expert in some of the fields addressed. As well, this always makes the attacks even more frightening when are heroes are confronted by waves of wasps, spiders, and even bats during their journey.

And these attacks are NOT for the feint of heart as Crichton and Preston detail the horrors of the insect world GRAPHICALLY (particularly stomach churning and harrowing is a sequence involving a grub, but I’ll let you discover that on your own).

PICTURED: Mr. Preston's pants-shittingly scary surprise.

The weakest flaw in this book is the seven grad students in the group, which are cardboard at the very best – you have the quiet thinker, the outspoken know-it-all, the tomboy, the promiscuous girl, the girl next door, the take-charge and the whiner. I wish I was exaggerating, but I’m not – adding in  that they behave as academic snobs through 3/4 of the book doesn’t exactly you root them on, with Peter being the sole one you care about because of his relationship with his brother. The villain of the piece seems more at home in a Bond film than here and is extremely over-the-top in his actions and swaggering. I did, oddly, wind up growing the fond of the side-characters, particularly the Spam-sushi-eating, easy going and intelligent Honolulu homicide detective who suspects there’s something foul at work within NaniGen.

Some of the tech concepts displayed are intriguing despite the fact they almost seemed to come from an eighties  cartoon-toy line property, with the micro-humans having access to a plethora of miniature tent stations, concrete-brick research labs dotted along the rainforest, six-legged “Hexapod” walkers used to transverse the micro-terrain and even miniature micro-planes! If this gets made into a movie (it’s Crichton so chances are already 60/40 in it’s favor) you could see endless toys taken from the novel alone!

Which brings me to the opening notes from Crichton himself, in which he states some (in my mind, anyway’s) alarming statistics about school children these days, while being aware of insects and animals, couldn’t identify nearly any of the bugs they’d fin in their own backyard, blaming compressed school cirriculums with an emphasis on test scoring to the sad simple fact that kids too busy inside playing video games than playing outdoors in nature. I can’t help but wonder if maybe this was Crichton’s way of hoping kids might pick this up in the same way they read Jurassic Park – inspiring them to get outside and find fascination with the world right in their own lawns? It will certainly help move those bug catching nets and kits you see displayed every spring and summer!

MICRO, while having some small flaws, is MACRO fun!

* Words in red are danger words – Google Image them at risk to your own sanity, or to **know-your-enemy…

**…at which case I suggest a can of Lysol and a lighter; distance is your friend!