this is selling well - let's raise the price
A few years back I bought a Behringer Xenyx 502 audio mixer board. I bought it because I knew Behringer made good stuff, and it packed some good features for a little 4-channel thing. The price was right $29.99. Good unit at a good price.
The going price at any online retailer for the same product is now $45. If you're thinking "$30 to $45 isn't too bad?", bear in mind that's a 50% price increase - before taxes.
Now you may be thinking "Well, there must have been some improvements on the product". Nope. Exact same product, 50% more in price.
Glad I bought it back when it was cheap.
return to oz
Return to Oz, released in 1985, is unofficially the sequel to the original 1939 The Wizard of Oz. This is yet again another one of those movies that I saw when I was barely a teenager, remembered almost nothing about it but wanted to see it again now as an adult with fresh eyes.
And wow it is so much different now compared to when I saw it then.
A few points I'm going to say up front before I get into this:
First, I do not consider this a sequel to The Wizard of Oz, even though there are direct ties to the first movie. Return to Oz is a totally different film in every way.
Second, this is not a bad movie. The reason it was received so poorly when originally released is because everyone was expecting (and rightly so due to the title) something that looked, felt and acted like the 1939 film. That's not what you get with this movie. Instead you get something totally new, totally unique and totally not a follow-up to the original.
Third, this movie is dark. I'll cover more on why this is in a moment, but upon watching this you'll swear it's a Tim Burton movie. For that reason alone most people would say "Cool! I gotta see that!" Yes, you should if you like Tim Burton. More importantly however is this is not a kid's movie. It trips the line into PG-13 area a few times because of the scare factor. Again, I'll get more into that in a moment.
Why I wanted to see this movie again
Tik-Tok
In the back of my mind I distinctly remembered the Tik-Tok character. Even back in the day I remembered how cool he was. Very distinctive, very unique and nothing like I had ever seen before - or since. Even his voice was cool.
As for why he's unique, how many robot characters do you know that are round, wear a hat (that can fall off), need to be wound up three times in three separate places to operate properly and carry an old-timey look to them?
The headless scene
To a kid 13 years old or under, this is the stuff of nightmares. It's not gory nor gruesome; rather it's just plain creepy and terrifying. If you're an adult, you probably won't find this scary at all, but this is the scene that scared the crap out of little kids. This is the scene that makes the film unsuitable for kids 12 and under.
It would take too long to explain the lead-up to why this is so terrifying, but believe me, after you watch what leads up to it, you'll totally understand why it scared the daylights out of little children. When I saw it for the first time as an early teenager, I was frightened by this. Yes I was and have no shame in admitting that because it is a MASTERFULLY done scene. Weird backwards devil-like talk, many blood-curdling screaming women, blasting evil doomy music and of course the headless Mombi character. It's all there and it's all awesome. The thrill and scare you get out of it is the result of a director who really knew what he was doing, and oh yeah, he pulled it off with flying colors.
The ornament room
A tribute to good set design is when you can remember it over 20 years later. This room is another reason I wanted to see this movie again because it stuck out in my head. I understand now why it did - it's huge. Although it's nothing more than a huge room full of ornate furniture, ornaments and other knickknacks, there's a lot to see here. The bigness is further accented when Dorothy yells for help and hears an echo.
I also distinctly remembered how she got out of the room and wanted to see that again as well.
What I take away from the movie as an adult
As a 1985 film, this is pretty darned good
In the early-to-mid 1980s there were a whole ton of creative movies out there, and I place Return to Oz in the same category as say The Dark Crystal (1982) and Gremlins (1984). If you watch this movie with that in mind, you'll enjoy it a whole lot more. If on the the other hand you watch it expecting the original 1939 film, you'll be sorely disappointed.
The stop motion animation in RtO is incredible. The sets are incredible. The colors are incredible. The soundtrack is spot-on and all the audio is mixed properly. Everything is in perfect order here. The film is a complete work of art from start to finish, with the only tiny flaw being that you do see some obvious green screen work - but only in very few scenes and only for a few seconds. You can tell Disney spent a TON of money on this flick, and it shows.
There are no glaring plot holes
Everything in this movie was explained and done so in a way that was mostly believable for a movie of this type. While watching this I was specifically looking for holes, and every time I thought I had one, it was explained later in dialogue. The story for the most part is wrapped up fairly well and at no point did I ask myself, "Why did that happen?"
The dark side of Return to Oz
This movie as I said is dark, and as you read into it you find out how dark it truly is.
At the end of the movie, the message sent that's loud and clear (at least to me) is that Dorothy is literally insane.
Short version of Dorothy's insanity
Dorothy was never able to truly recover from the traumatic event of her old house being destroyed by a natural disaster, and invented a fantasy world as a means of escapism to deal with it.
Long version of Dorothy's insanity
The beginning of the movie starts out showing her having problems sleeping six months after the tornado that ran through her part of Kansas originally. She has explained to her aunt all about Oz and how she believes it's completely real. Her aunt obviously knows something is wrong with her, but then takes the drastic measure of taking her to a mental institution for electrotherapy in an attempt to cure her after all other attempts to get her back to normal have failed.
In the mental institution, she meets another girl who we never find out the real name of that I knew right off was out of Dorothy's imagination - and in the way the story was told, the director wanted you to know this. She appears and then quickly disappears afterward when other hospital staff arrive. Shortly after this, Dorothy is asked to lay down on a wheeled hospital bed and is then tied down to it.
In the operating room you see the electric machine. The doctor places a headphone-like device over Dorothy's ears in which electric shocks will be sent directly to her brain. Suddenly the power goes out due to stormy weather, and the doctor and his assistant leave the room to go assess the damage and fix the power outage.
The unnamed girl who vanished before now reappears by rushing in the room, unties Dorothy from the bed, tells her they must get away, and then they make their escape outside and attempt to run away. As they're running away, the doctor's assistant Nurse Wilson as well as other staff chase after them.
Dorothy and the unnamed girl run through the woods and come upon a river. Both girls see Nurse Wilson yelling at them "STOP!", then the unnamed girl slips in the mud, falls into the river and then hangs on to a nearby fallen tree to keep from being swept away by the current. Dorothy goes to the edge and holds out her hand in an attempt to get the unnamed girl back. Dorothy then notices Nurse Wilson coming closer, so she jumps in the river to escape. At this point both girls are now hanging on to the fallen tree to keep from being swept away by the river.
The branch the girls are holding on to breaks and both start to be carried off by the current. Nurse Wilson jumps in the river in an attempt to save them, but can't reach them because the girls are too far away.
It's at this point is when Dorothy enters her fantasy world.
Fast-forward to the end of the movie.
Dorothy is seen washed up on shore and is slowly coming out of her fantasy and back into the real world. She is then found by those who were looking for her. We then see Nurse Wilson being carried away in the back of a paddy wagon, evidently having been arrested for something. This is the only part of the movie that is not explained but it was very intentionally put there, and I'll touch on that later.
Now comes the part where it's confirmed Dorothy is in fact insane.
HERE BE SPOILERS
I'm purposely going to break this into another page just in case you haven't seen the movie yet. You may want to watch it before continuing because I'm going to give away everything, or at least my interpretation of it.
the (most expensive?) star trek game that barely sold
In my collection of now-vintage video games is Star Trek: A Final Unity. No, I did not buy it for full price and I'll explain that in a moment.
The year, 1995. Spectrum Holobyte releases ST:AFU which probably had the highest production cost for any video game of the time. The graphics were very intricate and represented the show characters for Star Trek: The Next Generation almost flawlessly. In addition, almost every show character voiced their own parts. Yes, this means Patrick Stewart voiced Captain Picard, Brent Spiner voiced Lt. Commander Data, Marina Sirtis voiced Counselor Deanna Troi and so on. I don't even want to begin to know what was spent to get all those actors from the show in the game, but they're there.
I distinctly remember the price of the game when released; there were two versions.
The first version was your standard box-and-CD, which in itself was pretty amazing for 1995 being not everyone had a CD-ROM drive yet. That cost $65.
The second collector's version - which came in series - was $105 to buy it. And no, I'm not kidding. I don't know how many of the series there were, but each came with special collector pieces, a pin if I remember correctly and a toy figurine.
It wasn't even a question of whether I'd buy either version or not - the answer was flat out no. Too expensive.
Less than six months later I was in some major electronics store with my father going to buy something (I don't remember what). I saw this cheap white cardboard kiosk, as in the kind you see at Wal-Mart routinely, loaded with ST:AFU copies. All of them were nothing more than a cheap white black-and-white booklet and CD in shrink-wrap.
The price: $17. I bought it.
Yes, that means that those who released the game were so desperate to sell it had to make an ultra-basic version for sale just to break even - assuming that even happened. The game was exactly the same as it was in the $65 and $105 versions in a plain wrapper.
I recently dug out my copy of ST:AFU, which is playable and runs perfectly in DOSBox even on Windows 7 64-bit. Ah, the memories.
ST:AFU is a great game, no question. Well, except for the space battles - those suck. But the rest of the game is spot-on. It takes a long time to get through it and you can tell a ton of effort was put into development. The storyline is good, the game follows the show very well and most of all it's fun.
TRON: Legacy
I finally got around to seeing TRON: Legacy. On a four-star rating I'd give it a 3. It's above-average and very well done, but is yet another one of those movies that focuses too much on effects and not enough on story just like The Incredible Hulk.
Did I like the movie? For the most part, yes.
What I didn't like about TRON: Legacy
The Flynn (as in old Flynn) character is weak. He seems to be an aloof goofball most of the time who doesn't really do much. He's a pivotal part of the story but his absent-minded nature does nothing to move the story along and in fact drags it down several times where you're just saying "DO SOMETHING! C'MON!" He eventually does get around to getting off his ass and making things happen, but it happens way too late for you to care.
In the parts I would have liked to hear more about the story, you see effects instead. Tons of them. Yes, they're spectacular and awesome, but they also get in the way of the story.
I thought the movie could have ended better. The way everything was left was on a somewhat somber note. I understand the writers were trying to put across the "new world" feeling where you're supposed to experience that through the character's eyes, but it just didn't work.
What confused me about TRON: Legacy
There were several parts of the movie that lost its glue so to speak when it came to the storyline.
Is the computer world big or not?
I honestly couldn't tell. I think, but am not sure, that the world of TL is supposed to be self-contained compared to the original TRON which could in fact branch out. My feeling is that the computer world in TL is small on purpose, although again, I'm just not sure.
Weird aging?
Data can in effect age in real life due to bit rot, yet in TL there is nobody old, save for old Flynn. How could he age in the computer world while no other programs did? The excuse for this is "reinvention" on the program's part, but that just doesn't stick.
Where is the world?
In the original TRON, you knew exactly where the world was, as in the physical locations of the computer servers that housed it. In fact, you actually saw some of the servers in the beginning of TRON. In TL you have no idea at all other than the fact you assume it's all in the lab. However, the lab is really dark and you barely see anything while in there. Again, this does not stick well.
There are several other parts of the movie that don't stick, but can't mention them because it gives away too much of the storyline.
What I did like about TRON: Legacy
The programs acted like people with real character to them. This is good because the way we see data now compared to the 1980s is like night and day. For all intents and purposes, we do grant the technology we use life. For many people, if their computer, smartphone or otherwise starts working improperly, they start "reasoning" with the technology as if it were "sick" and needed to "get well".
Certain parts of the movie's look had a very, very intentional tech noir (a.k.a. Blade Runner-style) look to it, but did so in a way that was inspired and not totally ripped off. Worked great. Also, one of the characters was an odd-but-good combination of Roy Batty and Alex. You'll know which character I'm talking about if you see the film.
I liked that the computer world had a very dark look to it. There's a reason for that which is in the story, but I can't say why because it would ruin it if you haven't seen the flick yet. What I can comment about without ruining anything is the fact the sky has lightning in it almost all the time. This actually makes complete sense being everything in that world would be electric, and power would in fact arc lightning-style on a routine basis.
I like that the good guy and the bad guy were very clearly spelled out. There are some movies where you have no clue who the true villain is. You know who it is in TL, and I dig that because I can't stand movies where you don't know who's fighting who or for what reason.
Memorable?
I'd have to say no. TRON: Legacy had a real chance here to be very different compared to other modern sci-fi movies, but in the end ended up as something which will easily be forgotten in a year or two.
TL could have been more memorable if it had focused more on what a digital life is actually like. Movies are, after all, supposed to take us to a different place and immerse us in it. What makes the original TRON so good is that it shows a completely new world and you get to live inside that place for a short while. TL doesn't do that. You're not living in that world, you're just a visitor along for the ride.
At the end of the movie it's shown that even if you wanted to, you could not live in the digital world. The story ends in such a way where it's said loud and clear "you can't go here", figuratively slamming a door on your imagination. That above all else is why TL won't be memorable.
Truly great movies end on a note where you're left in wonder and awe. You say to yourself, "I felt like I was really there." As for TL? Too impersonal, forgettable and leaves you asking the wrong kind of questions.
Still a great movie to see in IMAX though.
on K-PAX, people used netscape on a mac
There are some web sites are there that have literally been untouched for almost 10 years. Once such example is www.k-pax.com. What is it? It's a promo site for the movie K-PAX, released October 26, 2001. The k-pax.com domain hasn't been touched since 2002 since the movie was released to DVD. This is especially obvious since the site says "Flash 5 Required". To put this in perspective, we're all using Flash 10 now.
There are a few very quick scenes in the movie of internet back in the early 2000s. I spotted them, of course.
In the movie, you see Netscape being used on a Mac. No, not Mac OS X. Mac OS 9.
I also noticed that the search engine used is Yahoo! and not Google.