After the brutal demise of the Subaru in September, we’ve been using a borrowed behemoth of a pickup truck. Not only was it not fun to drive, it was brutal on the backs of me and my father. Due to our need for a good winter vehicle with serious cargo space (that also gets reasonable mileage), the search for a replacement in the price range we targeted was looking pretty bleak. Another Subaru was completely out of the question with used prices sky high for Outbacks and Forresters.

Grabbing the bull by the horns, I made sure we went out for an exploratory search of what, if anything, existed in our price range at local dealers. I had little hope of finding anything decent and planned to sacrifice longevity or capability. Our first stop ended up being our last thanks to a newly arrived used 2005 Ford Freestyle SEL at the dealership.

It was an afterthought of the salesman’s since it had only arrived a few days before, but it was as close as we could get to our needs with the only deficiency being that it was the front wheel drive version. A test drive revealed nice handling characteristics on the hills with decent power while feeling much more like a luxury sedan in ride.

My father left a cash hold on the car and so began a more than a week of scraping together the money for the car.

Numerous scratches, but no dings testify to this having been used along with the 138,000 miles on it. That’s still a 100,000 less than the Outback had on it when it was totaled.

In regards to space, the crossover has that in spades with folding seats in the cargo area. The Freestyle can seat six comfortably in three rows, which impressed me. I don’t know if we’ll ever use that, but the option is there.

The radio deck was replaced by the previous owner with a low end Boss that accepts USB drives, SD cards, and 3.5mm jack inputs, so that will be interesting to play with. After using a cheap FM transmitter for years, this is actually an improvement as far as ease of use goes. Sound quality of the speakers has yet to be tested and the stock Subaru set was pretty good, so we’ll see.

The last Ford we had was a nasty little Escort Station Wagon which I didn’t like and it didn’t like me. How can a car dislike someone? Well, the automatic seatbelt wouldn’t work for me half the time, but never gave anyone else a problem. Yeah, we had it in for each other. I think the Freestyle will be different because it reminds me of  driving the Chrysler LHS we had before the Subaru. That was a great car, just not built to last.

It’s nice to have wheels again.

It truly feels like a Monday, complete with the first significant snow of the season. In the wee hours of the morning here, a comment came into my blog that looked somewhat legitimate. After publishing it to get full access to all the html involved, I decided it was too shady to keep on the blog. Here’s the content of the post:

Social Cubix said...

Comment spamming you can only prevent by configuring your posting software appropriately. There are some technics like image code verification to verify a human is posting, against human postings with inappropriate content helps only an editor review before release. Machine posted spam may increase, if you use well known templates from popular blogging software.

12:21 AM

The html was in the name of the commenter, turning out to be an embedded link: http: // www . ripoffreport . com / r / social-cubix / washington-dc-20036 / social-cubix-undelivered-project-after-more-than-a-year-and-inexistent-communications-on-1097602

This is a complaint filed at a site I’d never heard of, Ripoff Report, which purports to be a consumer advocacy site. It’s layout suggest profit by any means rather than being something done out of altruism. So I’ve been spammed either by them, or more likely by the person who put up the report at the link. For more information about the site and their many legal issues, check out the Wikipedia entry.

Not surprising for me to read accusations of extortion after looking at the site. An “arbitration” service being offered is clearly there to rake in the bucks as is the clean business certification. All is presented in the classic hard sell style that trips multiple warning flags in my opinion, so I’m glad I visited using a virtual machine and TOR.

I’m amazed that thirty companies have paid this site to “clean up” their reputations at a cost of thousands of dollars a month. Looking at posts there, there is rarely any proof posted about the companies or individuals involved. A presumption of guilt is automatic while the cases are presented in impassioned and often incoherent rants.

But back to the comment and the rich irony of its content. Basically the message is a warning about what it really is and how to prevent it coming in! That has to be deliberate, doesn’t it? The use of the name of the company being accused of wrong doing is another way of smearing it. No matter whether or not they are guilty of wrongdoing, this is an extremely underhanded way of attacking their reputation.

Aside from that, I’ve also prevented another spam post that was clearly posted by a human, not a bot. There aren’t a lot of people going to those lengths, but I’ve read stories about people hired for miniscule amounts of money to do this as part of work at home scams. Where there’s money to be had, every way to spam is used.

As much as I’m grateful for all that our armed forces have done for us throughout the history of the United States of America, I find my thoughts elsewhere on this day of recognition. Specifically, Leyte in the Philippines.

Oh there is a connection to Leyte with our armed forces, for that is where General Douglas MacArthur started the liberation of the Philippines in 1944. Fulfilling his promise to return, U.S. forces and Philippino resistance fighters fought quite a battle there. For me, Leyte is synonymous with kamikaze planes slamming into ships thanks to old footage.

Something far worse than a worn out fighter plane loaded with explosives slammed into the island of Leyte Friday. Typhoon Haiyan hit with category five winds accompanying a massive storm surge. This is a storm so huge that it covered all of the Philippines.

At least 10,000 are dead (the count will rise) and more than half a million have lost their homes. Estimates are that between 70-80% of the buildings have been destroyed in the city of Tacloban which is the location of most of the deaths.

Things are incredibly grim in the news reports with looting to survive and incredible misery due to nearly all the structures being destroyed. Watching footage and looking at photos is a heart breaking experience, but nothing compared to what the people there are dealing with. Fears of starvation have the survivors teetering toward out of control behavior.

My thoughts and prayers are with them.

It’s been awhile since I updated the ongoing woes of my health problems. I only do it to document them for posterity which means I generally omit the minor issues. Lately, I’ve had to force myself to nap in order to maintain any functionality at all. The last three weeks have not been good.

The body is demanding repair time thanks to a host of minor infections of various types visiting me with sinusitis being the worst. Things had gotten so bad that scratches and minor skin breakouts were refusing to heal properly.  As much as I hate enforced rest, it is rectifying the problem.

One of the most annoying things about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome is how stupid it makes me at times. “Brain fog” is what it’s known as and is a pretty apt description. Just now I burned the toast in the toaster oven because I completely forgot about it. Last week, I managed to burn ramen on the stove for the same reason.

Yeah, that sounds like normal life to a regular person, but when I’m relatively doing well I don’t make those kind of mistakes. In fact, I’m the guy catching other people in danger of doing so and making sure things run correctly. When the brain fog sets in, I find myself wondering why I’ve entered a room. The purpose of being there has vanished into the ether leaving me bewildered and very frustrated.

This period of extreme resting eats into my ability to do things even while making it possible for me to do anything at all. So the movie review that was planned to be up by now doesn’t even have the notes finished. The most intellectual thing I’ve been able to muster most of the time is playing video games and only those I have played to death, since I don’t have to think in order to win.

On top of this has been an increase of demands on me from outside and of the nature that cannot be ignored or refused. So it is simply one of those gauntlets that has to be run.

At least the death estimates in the Philippines are going down rather than up. Perspective matters.

Or any other ridiculous excuse that you can imagine for not getting more done on the blog in November.

A wintery mix of weather, intestinal bug, and doing more in the real world than usual has led to my getting very little accomplished online lately. When it takes forever and a day to recover from expending energy, productivity suffers greatly. A couple of weekends ago I went on a trip up to the St. Paul area where I ended up assisting a close friend in teaching a merit badge course on computers to Boy Scouts.

Since then, I’ve been one of the walking dead and some extended trips out helping my father on some repair calls made me hungry for brains. Wait, that came out wrong. I lost my brains somewhere along the way, that’s what I meant. If you find them alongside the road, please send them to me and I might remember to repay the postage.

It depends on what shape the gray matter is in, you see.

Okay, I’ve been watching far too much Doctor Who lately. Though I have to say The Day of the Doctor was unexpectedly sentimental for me due to the ending. Also worth watching is Peter Davison’s The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot video. Utterly hilarious and filled with cameos, it is something for the longtime Whovians to enjoy. You kiddies who only started watching in the past decade won’t get as much out of it.

What was I talking about?

So I’m sitting here, looking at a list of movies I plan to review and pondering how ridiculously long it would take to finish it at this rate. Over a year ago, I wrote a post detailing my plans and I still haven’t finished that list. The old list haunts me, for I do my absolute best to be a man of my word.

Therefore, I probably should deposit the new list in a drawer, finish off the old list, and get the guilt god created in The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul off my trail. Mutated supernatural refrigerators are nothing to mess with if you value your sanity.

Come to think of it, when was the last time I cleaned mine? It might not be safe to check…

Anyway, with the holidays fast upon me, I think that finishing out the review in the pipeline then the rewrites first is the way to go. Finishing out all the episodes of Area 88 would be good, but that will wait until the new year.

To all my fellow Americans reading the blog, have a happy and safe Thanksgiving.

It may be a world of entertainment and mass distraction for those of us in the first world, but I’m far too aware of those who live in conditions much closer to that which the pilgrims faced in the desperate early years of the new world colonization efforts. Having food to eat, a roof over one’s head, and a warm bed are simple things that we all should be grateful for. It’s all too easy to lose perspective when trying to keep up with whatever expensive toy a neighbor or acquaintance has gotten themselves.

It is going to be a quiet Thanksgiving here at the Boonedocks, devoid of a turkey and the traditional trimmings. In fact, my father and I aren’t sure what we’re going to eat having made no preparations. Getting older and with little family living far away, the holiday simply doesn’t have the allure it once did. Substance matters and without it, the trimmings are pretty boring.

While I’m thankful for what I have, I’m even more so that I’m not going Black Friday shopping. It’s my idea of one of the nastier circles of Hell imagined by Dante.

With a sudden stop to the flood of Russian blog spam, I’d been feeling a little lonely this holiday season. But hey, Cyber Monday brought me a deal!

http:// www . amiricherthanyou . com / ec_recommended . php ?q=Oved&id=473535 arrived in my blog stats to assist me in feeling financially inadequate. Oh boy! Just what I wanted, more spam! Sarcasm aside, I was wondering why things had gotten so quiet lately. So firing up my trusty virtual machine and TOR, I checked out the link. Remember, don’t try this at home, kids. Never click on suspicious links or you will be sorry.

Surprise! The link took me straight to an ad for BitCoin trading. Yeah, that doesn’t look shady at all, does it? I’d have a better screenshot, but I forgot to maximize my browser and there was no quick way to get that site back – there’s a good reason for that I’ll go into later.

Clicking on “Skip Ad” brought me to the supposedly original destination which contains no links other than ads and the home page. Nowhere is my blog to be found. Most of the ads are for BitCoin services, of course.

So what’s on the main page? Well, it isn’t the get rich come on I expected. Instead, the site purports to be about gathering data on salaries across the globe. Looks innocent enough at first glance, I suppose. But anything gathering personal data has to be looked at with suspicion. Especially when there is very little about the site on search engines.

The “about” page doesn’t really offer much more information and really doesn’t give much of a motivation for Am I Richer Than You? existing. Non profit data gathering just for the sake of data gathering it the province of governments and universities, not individuals spamming their site. We do get a name, Gray Leo. Once again, not much can be found on him.

I tossed the disclaimer up for people to peruse. Basically it says the site isn’t responsible for anything, period. Next to it is the privacy policy, which is weasel worded in regards to sharing data with third parties. So much for keeping the data private, though it is not an unusual privacy policy.

So I decided to click on the recommended link at the bottom of the page, wondering if it would directly take me to the error page. Of course, it didn’t and there is code in place that serves rotating ads instead. Aha, this is why I couldn’t get that first ad back upon reloading. These ad involve BitCoins again and in this particular case a gambling site using them.

The whole thing is oriented around serving ads, mainly about BitCoins. That virtual currency was created in an idealistic attempt to create a truly neutral world currency, but has mainly been used in criminal transactions. Child pornography, gambling, malware extortion, drug dealing, money laundering, and every criminal activity you can think of has moved into using BitCoins.

At one point I thought of getting into the currency via “mining” or using spare computer cycles to generate the encrypted money, but I correctly foresaw that hacking and normal inflationary speculation would make it a dicey proposition. My advice to anyone involved in BitCoins is to get out as soon as possible and leave it to the criminals who now dominate it. Yes, that statement will offend a number of naïve idealists, but that’s the reality of the situation.

Please avoid Am I Richer Than You? like the bubonic plague.

aka Journey to Agartha

A visually stunning meditation on death, love, and loneliness, this story of a girl’s journey to a mystical underworld doesn’t shy away from the harsh things encountered in life. Filled with action, magical creatures, a hint of romance, and a profound sense of loss, the movie is one of the best anime efforts to ever come out of Japan.

Director/writer Makoto Shinkai has made a name for himself over the past decade by creating beautifully animated tales of love lost. Some have labeled him the next Hayao Miyazaki though he hasn’t had the international success of that renowned director. In an effort to reach a wider audience, Shinkai began to ponder universal beliefs across cultures and what would appeal to the entire world. The end result is a dazzling and thoughtful movie about dealing with the deaths of loved ones.

Set in a rural town in 1970’s Japan, Children Who Chase Lost Voices makes quite an impression right away. Not through a cheap trick of a shocking or surprising event, but through showing the quiet beauty of a girl listening to a railroad track. The play of light and shadows combines with the sounds of the countryside to create an authentic sun kissed moment that immerses the viewer into the setting.

The girl’s name is Asuna and she’s in a hurry to get somewhere. As we follow her running around, we are treated to superb animation on the way to her secret place hidden up on a hill. The sheer amount of eye candy borders on overload and repeat viewings had me finding something new every time.

On the hilltop, she pulls out a crystal radio set and tunes in an unearthly song. Alone but apparently content which she listens with Mimi, a strangely marked kitten, at her side. A nostalgic atmosphere of a lost era is saturates the peaceful scene compounded by the overgrown wrecked WWII era artillery piece on the hill.

Then a year passes in a lovely montage. Skipping around in time is a hallmark of Shinkai’s works, so this is no surprise. You’ll also find an amazing attention to detail in every scene.

Not all feels beautiful and right, though. Asuna is a latch key kid from a time before that label even existed and she seems to be keeping other students at arm’s length despite being at the top of her class. Then there are the facts that her father is dead, her mother works the night shift at a hospital, and the twelve year old is left to do all the cooking and cleaning herself. Aside from having a secret hideout, the twelve year old doesn’t seem to be living the life of a kid.

So it is understandable that a certain kind of restlessness shows in her behavior. The song she heard the last year still haunts her and when she spies a flashing blue light at her spot on the hill she decided to check it out the next day.

This all leads her to an encounter with an older boy, which in itself isn’t unusual. Looking very Seventies, he rescues her from a very strange creature on the railroad bridge. It’s a sudden departure from the normalness presented up to this point and a spectacular one involving a magic crystal. Now that’s unusual.

With the sudden shift into fantastic events the movie feels more like a Studio Ghibli production, though closer to Princess Mononoke in feel than one of the tamer outings. Blood and gore shatter the established halcyon atmosphere in a violent event that will change Asuna’s life forever.

First crushes are usually very intense and the heroic Shun completely flusters the adolescent girl. He’s mysterious, dashing, sensitive, and everything a girl could find captivating. Add in that he’s from a far off land called Agartha and it makes him a nearly perfect romance novel character. Coloring the encounters between the two is a feeling of something being wrong, which makes the blessing he gives wishing for her to live ominous

Their brief time together comes to a tragic end and because it’s vital to the story, I’ll spoil what happens. Shun reaches out to the stars and falls to his death like a star plummeting from the sky. He knew his time was short and his sadly facing death is a sobering moment in what had appeared to be a romantic action story.

Upon finding out about his death, Asuna goes into instant denial. This isn’t her first time dealing with the passing of someone she cared about, but as a flashback shows, she was too young to understand what was going on when her father died. Bit by bit, we are shown why the girl is a loner.

Her travails are only beginning, however.

Entering the picture is another mysterious older guy, but this one isn’t a romantic prospect. A substitute teacher, Mr. Morisaki is much more than he appears to be. For one thing, he knows about Agartha and mentions it when teaching about the commonality of myths about men going to the underworld to try to bring back deceased wives. From the story of Orpheus in Ancient Greece to Izanagi in Japan, each tale ends in tragedy.

Determined to find out more about Agartha, Asuna approaches a brooding Morisaki. Rumors are flying around school about his wife being dead and the two quickly show signs of being kindred spirits. While guarded, he reveals that legends around the world indicate that the dead really can be resurrected. There’s a great deal more to the man including an air of dangerousness about him.

Sure enough, Asuna soon finds her life threatened by a secret organization looking for Agartha. A chance encounter with a boy looking for the crystal carried by Shun shakes her up even more. The fact that he looks and sounds like her dead crush leads to some confusion as she’s sure he’s Shun, which he doesn’t take well at all.

Events snowball from their meeting eventually resulting in Morisaki and Asuna finding their way to Agartha. Thanks to Mimi hitching a ride in her bag, they are able to enter the fabled underworld. Oddly, the kitten has not grown in size during the intervening year since we were introduced to it.

Agartha is a gorgeous patoral world filled with long overgrown ruins an always cloudy sky. It’s a spectacular scene when they emerge to see the lost land and then see a strange and ornate ark flying through the sky. It is the Shakuna Vimana that God is said to ride, according to Morisaki.

Their odyssey beginning the two wander in search of the secret to bringing the dead back to life. Agartha, despite its natural beauty, is a place devoid of humans. Traces of their past presence are found in crumbling foundations and a library filled with damaged tomes. It’s a lonely journey that gives the two seekers a chance to bond in a way that neither have experienced before.

In truth, they are not alone in Agartha. Shin, Shun’s younger brother, is in a world of trouble for sticking to only his mission thereby allowing intruders into the land. A glimpse of a decaying and inflexible society is shown, one that has been damaged by past contact with the outside world. Determined to atone for his failure, Shin is set on a collision course with Asuna and Morisaki.

Lest you think the entire movie is grim, there are lighter and sweeter moments spread throughout. Mimi gets some of the best, being a precocious cat who seems to understand more than it should. Warm moments between Asuna and Morisaki unexpectedly occur and all the more welcome for it. Simply put, there is beauty to be found in the movie beyond the incredible imagery on display.

Dreams play a big role in the story, often used to show the emotional status and history of the characters. There is a nightmarish quality to them, with events of the past featuring line hatching for character shadows in what had to be a deliberate artistic choice. Those lines also show up when a rather nasty race of insect-like beings show up during the best depiction of sleep paralysis I’ve seen in fiction.

The incredibly creepy Izoku live in shadows and hunt down the “defiled” or impure to purge them from Agartha. Their arrival in the story dramatically ratchets up the stakes while introducing a new character, Mana. An endearing mute girl, she latches on to Asuna subsequently bringing out the best in the older girl.

Their desperate escape from a ruined city is a top notch action piece that rivals anything Miyazaki has done. Dazzling shifts in camera angles mix with the play of light and shadows during the intense chase to create a true spectacle worthy of a Hollywood blockbuster. It’s a tour de force that generates tension, fear, and dread in equal measure. Nothing feels safe and I remember wondering if some of the characters would die the first time I viewed the film.

One of the central themes of Children Who Chase Lost Voices  is that consequences follow every action with an encounter with the human remnants in Agartha hammering that home. Xenophobia, paranoia, and hopelessness are the chief characteristics of the locals, but an elder breaks the rules briefly to provide shelter and much needed explanations to the intruders.

The entire history of the surface world has been one of covert invasions looking for riches and power in Agartha. Generations of pillaging and slaughter has left the human population to a dwindle in hopelessness, so their hatred of topsiders is deep. Mixing with them is forbidden, though some have broken that rule with tragic outcomes.

With no hope of help from the humans in Agartha, Morisaki and Asuna set off on a lonely voyage to fulfill their quest. How far will they go to reclaim their lost loved ones? And more importantly, what price will they pay for their actions?

Only tragedy can await.

Thoughts

My first thought after first watching Children Who Chase Lost Voices was, “This is an absolutely brilliant movie.” My second thought was, “I must own this.”

Crunchyroll had a Makoto Shinkai weekend early in 2013 showcasing all of his works in a limited run. I watched this one first and immediately purchased the Blu-ray being offered in their online store. I also watched it a second time later that night. By the way, the weekend was so successful in getting viewers that they got the rights to stream his older works all year long. 

Imagine if Hayao Miyazaki and Isao Takahata (Grave of the Fireflies, Only Yesterday) combined to make a movie. Okay, not really possible given Miyazaki’s habit of belittling everyone else’s work, but if it were possible you would get something like this movie. Shinkai combines the artistic eye of Miyazaki with the emotional sensitivity of Takahata while having a tremendous sense of  combined impact superior to either of his elders.

High praise, I know. Yet that’s the opinion I have after watching his works. There has only been one I haven’t liked, 5 Centimeters Per Second, which ironically is his most praised work. All his other works have been tremendously fascinating at worst and deeply moving at best. He captures beautiful moments better than any animation director alive or dead.

One of the joys of watching a Shinkai film is his brilliant senses of shadows and light. His use of light is more like that of a live action director and I’d compare it favorably to Guillermo del Toro’s. Then there is the amazing world design that always has a big screen scope. Never is a background boring or uninteresting.

At nearly two hours long, Children Who Chase Lost Voices is the longest movie the director has made. Fortunately, the story is substantial enough that it needs all of that running time to tell the epic journey made by Asuna and Morisaki. The slower scenes add much to the atmosphere, for the story is all about melancholic contemplation.

That leads me to something I should discuss which is the one of the reasons why the movie was made. There is a genre of anime that loosely translates to “healing” and the intent of the movie is just that. It was specifically aimed at those who are having a hard time with loneliness or personal loss. That may sound pretentious, but it is meant sincerely and I’d say it succeeded in that respect.

The theme of dealing with grief necessarily dominates the film. Trying to resurrect the dead is the main motivator for the leads – though another motivation does get revealed in the third act. While not remotely as emotionally bruising as Grave of the Fireflies, there is emotional heft to the ending and many of the events leading to it. Shinkai doesn’t shy away from the kill (metaphorically speaking), the way Miyazaki always does in making nearly perfect happy endings.

Asuna and Morisaki are plausible characters, so much so that you could easily believe they weren’t cartoons. The brothers from Agartha, Shun and Shin, are also realistic in their emotional depictions as are any of the characters we get to see for a significant amount of time. It felt like being dropped into the middle of a living, breathing world filled with real people.

A warning to parents is necessary. This isn’t a film for small children and is rightly rated TV-PG. There are brief moments of blood and gore, plus very intense scenes of terrifying creatures. I may sound like a broken record in my reviews, but again this is something only suitable for double digits and up. One of the best aspects of the story and characters is that there is something for every age to like.

I highly recommend this movie to people who love mythology, epic tales, and emotional movies. Action lovers will find much to like too. Most of all, this is a good movie for anyone dealing with the loss of a loved one needing catharsis.

Also, sit through the credits, the movie isn’t over when they start rolling. More sensitive souls may want a box of tissues handy.

Technical

Sentai Filmworks put the Blu-ray out under their CoMix Wave Films label in 2012 and this is the edition I’m reviewing. While the packaging isn’t fancy by any means, it is nicely done with fully printed color artwork on the disc itself.

The HD transfer is superb. Presented in 1080p 16:9 ratio, the colors are vibrant and the contrast tack sharp. If you want to show off your HDTV, this disc will demonstrate why high definition benefits animation so greatly.

Audio is no slouch, either. Both the Japanese and English 5.1 tracks are in DTS-HD Master Audio with a second Japanese track for the commentary in the stereo version of the format. English subtitles are available for all tracks.

Something to note is that Sentai’s English dub omits some things and even has a couple examples of incomplete sentences where it appears they cut dialogue short to match the mouth movement. All in all, it isn’t an impressive dub and nowhere near the quality of the Japanese original.

A good part of that is due to the exceptional performances of the original voice actors. Watch the extras and you’ll see how those performances were elicited out of the cast. I think I’m slightly afraid of the Japanese voice director after watching him work.

The Blu-ray comes with a bevy of extras, all in HD with English subtitles:

Interview with the Staff & Cast– Approaching an hour in length, the voice actors of Asuna (Hisako Kanemoto), Shun/Shin (Miyu Irino), and Morisaki (Kazuhiko Inoue) give their insights into the characters and working with Shinkai. The director himself gets a fair amount of time as well.

What makes this fun is hearing how the film touched each actor in different ways. Also interesting is how carefully they were cast, for the director had a clear idea of what he wanted. In Kanemoto’s case, he wanted a highly talented up and comer who had experience (she was the starring voice of the breakout comedy Squid Girl) but wasn’t an old hand yet. That way her acting could be more natural and wouldn’t use an anime voice. On the other extreme, Inoue was the voice Shinkai heard in his head as he wrote Morisake.

A Brief Interview with Makoto Shinkai – Only a slideshow of a written interview, it does reveal he was inspired by The Kojiki and Dante’s Inferno.

The Making of Children Who Chase Lost Voices– This 45 minute long documentary is the best of the special features. Everything about the production is covered, from its genesis during a trip to Middle East Arab countries and England to the premiere. The film came from a desire to make something that wasn’t Japanese culturally centric and would be more mainstream. If you noticed the characters look very Studio Ghibli like, that was intentional since that is what is most people outside of Japan think anime should look like.

Quite a bit of research went into making the movie, including location scouting for the lovely rural town Asuna lives in. Recording the soundtrack, a good but not exceptional composition by Tenmon, near the end of the project inadvertently shows just how draining making an anime film is.

The Works of Makoto Shinkai– Introductions and trailers of his other works are shown here. One frustrating part is that the English subtitles of the intros are overlaid directly atop the Japanese text making them difficult to read.

Japanese Promotional Video– Talk about spoilers! The video for the end song, Hello Goodbye and Hello gives away the entire movie. Anri Kumaki’s lovely and bittersweet song is subtitled, which is a very nice bonus.

Japanese Teasers– The original ads complete with subtitles. Not terribly interesting, but it does demonstrate just how complete the extras are.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

The death of Mimi was throat tightening for me since it reminded me of the death of one my cats. There’s nothing quite like finding a loved animal curled in a lifeless ball, so I watching the distraught Mana weep uncontrollably over the cat was hard.

Eastern beliefs in becoming one with greater existence are displayed with the devouring of semi-divine Mimi by the humanoid Quetzal Coatl. Of interest was the missing arm like the Shun of Asuna’s nightmare earlier.

Shin’s rebellion against the resignation and abandonment of the will to live by the residents of Agartha is a pointed counter to acceptance. Since all choices in the movie have consequences, it makes him an outcast from Agartha and going topside isn’t an option since the polluted air will kill him like his brother. He’s the true hero of the story or at least the most heroic as his actions to protect Asuna show.

He might be a little interested in the topside girl by this point, but I can’t help think about that tearful local girl back at the temple he was raised at. She strikes me as the type to follow him if given the chance.

All the rivers lead to a circular chasm that is deep enough to have clouds. It’s an impressive obstacle for the duo and Asuna’s inability to climb down leads to an unusual tradeoff. Like Shun, Morisaki wishes for her to live, but he’s not going to stop so close to the end goal.

Their paths diverge, but both go through grueling trials on hard roads. Asuna’s run from the Izoku is alternately beautiful and harrowing capturing the essence of nightmare again. In the end, she can’t save herself despite having a gun. That’s far more realistic than most movies featuring heroines, live action or animated.

Though Morisaki and Asuna are parted, they both end up in the same place. The critical difference is one intrudes and the other is invited. With the Quetzal Coatl singing its death song that permeates and changes the world, Asuna recognizes what she heard a year before on the crystal set: Shun’s death song. She can understand it when it offers to take her and Shin to the Gate of Life and Death, one of many hints of her true ancestry.

The god of Agartha is a multi-eyed monstrosity, cold and inhuman. CG is used here and for the most part it blends in with the traditional cel art. It being a bit off actually accentuates the impression of an alien being.

You have to hand it to Morisaki, he’s consistent. Faced with having to provide a host for his dead wife’s soul, he doesn’t hesitate when Asuna appears. Instead of a warm scene of him doing the right thing after coming to care for the girl like the daughter he never had, he sacrifices her.

As foreshadowed, a tragic price is exacted for bringing his beloved Lisa back. Her confusion as she senses Asuna’s memories adds to the pain and guilt, but he won’t let go.

Seeing Asuna with Shun and Mimi in what appears to be the afterlife was unexpected and poignant. Especially the goodbye that she hadn’t been able to say to him before.

The broken music box symbolizes Morisaki  being freed at last from the past, albeit involuntarily.

The end credits are powerful, thanks to the song and the depiction of the trio traveling. Morisaki was blind in an emotional sense and now he is physically. Now he has to find a way to live due to Lisa’s last request. What a great character he is along with being the perfect example of someone so trapped in grief that they couldn’t move on.

Time to graduate from elementary school to junior high for our heroine. Asuna looks radiant and no longer the lonely girl we first met. She’s moved on in life, which is what everyone who loses loved ones needs to do.

I find it intriguing that Asuna is implied to be a child of both worlds and that her late father came from Agartha. Perhaps she is symbolic of that both worlds can come together. At least it is interesting to me that she shares the same heritage as little Mana.

While there is no plan for a sequel, Shinkai left a nice bit of hope in the form of the clavis shard of her father’s being given back to her by Shin, allowing her to return there in the future. It leaves us free to imagine an even happier ending than we got.

For once, I have something positive to record. After musing over the successes I had in boosting my health fourteen years ago, I decided to recreate some of what I did then rather than what’s considered medically sound.

Step one was going back to using NADH no matter the financial drain and after taking it for eighteen months I can say it has helped with improved memory and alertness.

Step two began Friday after I remembered how I used to do weight training. Instead of doing it every other day like you are supposed to, the routine is being done daily. In fact, I just completed todays sets with some amazement that they weren’t very difficult.

Four days in a row, which equals the total number of preceding workouts this year, if I haven’t forgotten any. Close enough for government work.

Perfection in pulling it off every day is not expected due to health problems, but this is a good start. In the short term, the hope is that back and neck problems will improve. Long term will result in a host of benefits, if my body doesn’t completely rebel against the routine.

With the year approaching its ending, I’ve found myself looking back at more than the past twelve months. For some reason, nostalgia has been hitting me harder than I’m used to.

It has been twenty years since DOOM from Id Software was released. I remember waiting for the shareware first episode to download over the glacially slow dialup connection I had through America Online.  Eager anticipation led to mild disappointment after firing up the game only to find I had to run it in a reduced box to get acceptable frame rates on my Packard Bell 486SX-25. That disappointment dissipated once actually running and gunning through the eerie atmosphere of darkened base on a moon orbiting Mars.

My first PC games were Chuck Yeager’s Air Combat, Dune, and Orel Hershiser’s Strike Zone. They weren’t graphically intensive, though Dune was one of the most lovely 256 color games every put out. Having played Castle Wolfenstein 3D, I couldn’t wait to play Id’s next game.

Two decades later and I’m playing games that look like this. How things have changed!

The screen captures are from Star Trek Online with the first taken in Earth orbit and the second in the brand new area of the Dyson Sphere. Imagine a solar system sized ship with a star at its center with people living on the inner surface of the sphere and you’ll get the bigger picture. That area in the game is visually stunning and only for the level 50 Admirals to play in.

That’s my ship, a modified and modernized variant of the Defiant from Deep Space Nine. Her name is the Red Shirt since my style in the game is to run around blowing things up and getting blown up. Despite it being very wrong to increase your aggro generation if you aren’t a tank, that’s what I’ve done with the ship equipment. Hey, it’s an Escort class ship, which means I’m there to take the heat off the cruisers. Yes, I’m role playing even in ship combat.

That play style isn’t much removed from the frantic shooting and fleeing of DOOM all those years ago. The big difference is that it is now a choice, not a necessity. For my first person shooter fix, I play Borderlands 2 with an effort to hit the level 72 cap underway in Ultimate Vault Hunter Mode. More than anything else I’ve played in recent years this game reminds me of the thrill I had fighting zombie soldiers and cyberdemons back in the day.

One of these days I’ll write a more serious post on video games and how I think they’ve badly damaged the Millennial generation, but not today. Instead I’ll stick to nostalgia.

And speaking of that, here’s a live performance by the Alan Parsons Project of the song that inspired the post title:

Better than its predecessor, the second The Hobbit movie still lacks the emotional depth and nearly flawless execution that made The Lord of the Rings trilogy a masterpiece. With that statement out of the way, I’ll go into a few particulars.

First, do not take small children to this movie. The giant spiders and the titular dragon are perfect material for childhood nightmares. Also, if you have arachnophobia, you’ll want to keep your eyes closed for one of the better action sequences in the movie.

Next up is the simple fact that The Desolation of Smaug is an action film with no real breathing room. There are a few slower scenes, where there isn’t wall to wall action, but this film is all about spectacle and 3D!!!

While I saw it in 2D, far too many shots screamed “look at me” in the gratuitous shoving of objects in your face. In fact, there is no such thing as restraint in the CG effects – it is almost Michael Bay style film making. Then there are the endless decapitations which seems to be an obsession of director Peter Jackson’s.

In regards to the big draw, Smaug, I was disappointed. However, I think most people won’t be. The voice performance by Benedict Cumberbatch was not impressive to my surprise. I also didn’t like how hyperactive the awakened beast was, but that is probably a side effect of the story being padded out far too much. At least the visual design of the dragon is excellent, ranking just behind the dragons of Dragonslayer and Reign of Fire. Unfortunately, he looked too CG for my tastes.

Not happy with how Bard the Bowman was changed. Don’t like the added plot or their reducing his fearsome skills to relying on a super weapon. Apparently there must be no challenge to Legolas being the best archer for fear of upsetting his fan girls.

I also don’t remember Thorin as coming off as so selfish to the point of being a villain. At best he’s an antihero as portrayed, but he’s thoroughly unlikeable in this installment. All the character advancement in the previous movie is reset here to my annoyance.

On to some positive notes.

Martin Freeman is superb as Bilbo and almost single handedly carries the film. Where he showed momentary flashes in An Unexpected Journey, he’s consistently charismatic with his absence keenly felt when the story shifts away from the furry footed protagonist.

Beorn was well handled, especially the makeup. This was of concern, because along with Bard he was a favorite character in the novel back when I was a kid.

The CG effects are better this time out, though still occasionally sloppy in places with gliding feet again. Much improved is the elves hopping about, which looked terrible in early trailers. Unfortunately, the use of practical makeup and effects like in Jackson’s other Middle-earth trilogy looks better. Alas, that ship has sailed in favor of computers.

Evangeline Lilly as Tauriel, the non-canon she-elf warrior is a pleasant surprise. Going in expecting to be highly annoyed by her insertion, she is instead a very likeable character. Her providing a love interest for an established character is not exactly what we were led to expect, so kudos to the production team for that. Tauriel is the most likeable elf in the films yet.

Though it could be subliminal elvish brainwashing was inserted in between frames affecting me.

All in all, a mediocre if entertaining movie. It feels like Peter Jackson is repeating himself and a fair number of scenes were nearly Xeroxed from The Lord of the Rings. That’s not counting the deliberate homages to his own work including the very start of the picture.

My advice is to park your brain for this flick. Since there’s no depth, it won’t be missed.

For those of us who have been on the Web for a long time, part of the wired existence is watching  sites take root, bloom, and then wither away. Some were casually visited sites, but there are the ones we sank way too much time and attention into. They are virtual communities, that perpetual next big thing on the Internet, serving as places to socialize, argue, befriend, defriend, and quite often reflect the social order of high schools.

I’ve been online in some form or another since 1993 with two decades of watching all this happen. Experience is a great educator and a little over thirteen years ago I got quite the education about people online (and offline) thanks to a movie news and fan site called CountingDown. Due to various soap opera experiences and a decision to embrace “real life,” I departed it permanently around 2003. I never looked back.

Which makes it strange that I’d be flashing back to that period of my life this week. I had the feeling the site was no more and sure enough, www.countingdown.com doesn’t even bring up an error message. So I did a search for information about it being shuttered and at first only came up with people asking the same question.

Expanding my search terms, I ran across something nobody wants to see when revisiting the past: an obituary for someone you knew.  Tiffany Lee Hopper passed away in late October at far too young an age. She was the constantly harried administrator actually actively helping us moderators at the sprawling website.

Along with Cat (one of the few others insane enough to moderate a ridiculous number of active forums) plus all the sane mods, we dealt with problem children of all ages, infuriating technical glitches, and all the weirdness that happens on heavily trafficked message boards. Holding it together was Tiffany who came on board after I’d become a regular at the boards.

I remember messaging back and forth with her when wildfires were getting close to the offices, the craziness around the bagel cam, and dealing with banning little darlings repeatedly for causing all sorts of trouble. Tiffany was always fun to virtually hang out with, especially when she lost her temper with the idiots. I’ve always appreciated a vicious sense of humor and that’s what would emerge.

Being a volunteer moderator meant long hours, many headaches, and no pay. People unfamiliar with the Internet at the time were astounded that I wasn’t paid, since they believed the electronic frontier was a money making machine. The reality was that it was riding an investment bubble and when that burst the illusion was finally dispelled. CountingDown was affected by the bubble when Dreamworks gave up on its Pop.com project which featured the site heavily after they bought it in June of 2000.

So it was in a shaky environment that Tiffany worked, though most site goers didn’t have a clue. I always admired how she handled the chaos, which was constant. Thanks to her, I did get a few perks for all the work I did. Stored away safely are the soundtracks to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and Catch Me If You Can along with a custom CD case from the changeover to the new black and yellow logo. She took good care of us and I always think of her when I look at them or listen to the ripped soundtracks.

The world is a little less brighter with Tiffany gone.

CountingDown was last archived at the Internet Archive project on December 23, 2010. Other than the news not being updated for a couple of weeks, there is no sign of it shutting down or any kind of announcement to the effect. While there are archives of some of the later message boards, the original ones I haunted are gone. Somehow that seems appropriate, since they were a nightmare to keep running with the code never meant to handle the traffic inflicted upon it.

Board crashes… I’d willfully forgotten that misery and dealing with the angry denizens of said boards. Those were worse than the death threats and at least one attempt to hack my PC by irate trolls.

Other memories are numerous, but some highlight (or lowlights depending on perspective) include:

The Harry Potter fans crashing the Lord of the Rings boards before the movies came out to claim Peter Jackson and company were ripping off Rowling. Yes, really. It was hilarious to watch the kiddies become rabid Rings fans later.

Nobody wanting to moderate the RPG (role playing games) or Dragonball boards because of the posters there. The first group were crazy and the latter were a violent, brain dead lot dedicated to giving a bad name to anime fans during the beginnings of the boom of that genre in North America.

Board wars between Star Wars and X-Men fans. It grew into something resembling high school rivalries, but less polite.

Dramatic performances of leaving the boards due to some perceived slight from management or others at the boards. This led to private boards being set up at other websites in some cases. Melodrama ruled forums before the popularity of MySpace and Facebook years later, so nothing is new under the sun.

Meeting people from the boards in real life. That was both good and bad, but no lasting friendships came out of it. That taught me the people around you are far more important than long distance “friends” who are really only acquaintances. Sadly, this lesson has not been learned by far too many people on Facebook and Twitter.

The madness at Doc’s in various incarnations on the X-Men board. Related truth or dare playing spilling over onto multiple boards, sometimes creating messes for the moderators to clean up.

Online tests to find out “what you are” sweeping through as a fad. That’s how I discovered I was neutral good.

The secret hidden board on the old system.

The FBI investigating a minor doing the equivalent of “sexting” with adults on the site’s hosted chat. Also watching predators carefully pursue minors and not being able to do anything about it. Clues would leak onto the posts from time to time, but since ICQ and AIM were where it was really going down nothing could be proven. Frustrating.

Finding out I had a strong paternal instinct toward the kids on the boards. Ever a paladin I guess, for the protector streak still runs strong in me. Adopted multiple little sisters there, hence the worrying above.

Group writing a spoof of the The Fellowship of the Ring on that board. Utterly hilarious madness, I wish we’d finished The Two Towers.

Learning more about women than any man would want to. I wish I could unlearn most of it.

Finding out what IP addresses were and how to trace them thanks to repeat trolls. Also seeing just about every perverse form of pornography thanks to said trolls posting it for kids to see. This led to discovering what 4 chan was and wondering if there was any limit to human depravity.

Trying to juggle 12 instant message sessions and two group chats at once in AIM while moderating.

Discovering Ron Howard has a very crude sense of humor.

Love found and love lost, along with accompanying drama. Betrayals, back stabbings, charity, kindness, and the full gamut of human behavior aimed at me by people on the boards.

In the end like so many things in my life, the evidence of my being at CountingDown is now gone, much like the parking lot that replaced the house I lived in while going to high school. Life is about people and places coming and going, which upsets many to hear. Yet it is the reality of our mortal existence that everyone and everything fades away eventually.

It’s just that it is so much faster and more complete in the digital world. It has been said everything we do is permanently recorded on the Net, but that isn’t true. Places like CountingDown, Friendster, and GeoCities are simply gone with a few archives of their front pages left. There is no guarantee the Internet Archive won’t meet the same end. This is the great peril of the digital age, that things can be erased and lost so easily.

Is it any wonder I’ve chosen to embrace the more solid foundations of the real world? At least I can go stand on the parking lot and look around at a few familiar buildings, unlike the one of the biggest places in my online existence now vanished. The lessons learned there remain with the biggest being the value of what is real.

This post does not mourn the passing of CountingDown, for unlike Tiffany, it was but a dream. I do mourn her death, though I hadn’t had contact with her for a decade. Her kindness was more real than most of what when on there and it’s a positive memory to hold on to. So I dedicate this post to her memory, since I never really got to say farewell.

Eleven straight days of weight training after todays workout indicate my theory of keeping the body confused may hold water. Time will tell.

I’m very tired today, due to quite a bit of running out and about starting on Friday. A trip to and from La Crosse to see the second The Hobbit movie was followed up by a trip to a party thrown partially for me by the Taylors, older friends from church. Good food and good company made up for getting stuck trying to go up the driveway.

Between being spoiled by the Subaru and having trouble gauging my level of force on the accelerator (a byproduct of doing weights), I’m having a deuce of a time relearning how to properly drive in winter conditions.

Sunday featured more driving than usual, because I’ve been brain dead and triple booked myself for after church. Fortunately for me, things worked out and I was able to make all my stops. I held up very well by my standards, so that was encouraging.

Even though I’m not up for doing much today, it isn’t as bad as it’s been the past couple of years.

Either I’m beginning to become a connoisseur of referral spam or I’m just bored with the usual offerings. Today brought something slightly different to my Blogger stats that piqued my interest: http: // prlog . ru / analysis / from-the-sidelines . blogspot . com . Having my blog address in the spam brings such a warm, fuzzy feeling. Wait.. no, that’s indigestion. Anyway, it was a blink and you’ll miss it hit and run.

Ever curious, I fired up my copy of Ubuntu on a virtual machine and used TOR to anonymously check out the site the link came from. Don’t try this at home unless you know something about security or reformatting your hard drive. Never click on suspicious links like this, leave it to crazy people like me.

Seeing the dot ru ending to the address meant it would be out of Russia and probably in Russian, so no surprises there. I did not use the complete link and omitted my blog address for security reasons. Instead, I went straight to prlog . ru to see what the main site was about.

With no Russian language skills, I didn’t see any obvious clues as to the nature of the site. But mousing over the menu options up top revealed the English language names of the pages and I quickly found “analysis” which had been part of the link. That took me to a barebones input form for typing in a page address.Of course I wasn’t about to do that!

Feeding the main site address to Google Translate produced the above screen captures. Now I started getting somewhere.

PRLog is aimed at getting you to part with money after getting a free analysis of the search engine rankings of your website. Since I was unwilling to enter anything, I can’t say whether or not it gives a good analysis, but my bet would be that it will always find something wrong with your site. Scrolling down reveals that they also provide a widget or counter for your site to track traffic. This seems reasonable until you realize they are also helping sell backlinks, which is a black hat (bad guys) form of search engine optimization (SEO).

Three different forms of backlink purchasing or trading are shown. First up is an exchange for website owners to buy and sell links. SAPE, MainLink, TrustLink, SetLinks, and LinkFeed are listed. Using these services is an excellent way of getting in trouble with Google.

The second category is for external link exchanging and cross blog promoting. Some of this involves writing articles on other blogs or selling the opportunity to do so on yours. While not as black hat as the first exchanges, Google is not very fond of the practices found here. I’ll note that the translation is dodgy in places, so things aren’t as clear as I’d like. SAPE (again), GoGetLinks, Miralinks, RotaPost, and Blogun are listed.

The final category is for services that “automatically” promote sites. How much do you want to bet that spambots are part of this? SeoPult, ROOKEE, MegaIndex, and WebEffector are listed.

Buying links or exchanging articles looks like a good way to get more hits from searches on Google and other search engines, but these methods only provide a temporary boost. Google has been aggressively tweaking their algorithms to hunt down sites doing this and penalizing them. Overnight a catastrophic drop in traffic hits and rarely will a site ever recover from it.

Having been accidently caught in such a sweep though not using any back linking or such, I can tell you the penalties are harsh and you will not always be notified in Web Master Tools if you are signed up for that from Google. A year ago I had added Google’s own ad service, AdSense, to my blog to learn how ads worked on the web. It turned out to be a very harsh education due to an unsolicited link coming in from a Gawker chat, my experimenting with layout, and a meteoric rise in traffic for several months causing the blog to look suspicious to the automated analysis.

Traffic from Google plummeted on December 15, 2012 and I didn’t see any kind of recovery until I removed the ads the following May. Within a month the blog started to get more traffic and I’m now where I was before the rug was pulled out from under me. That’s extremely rare because it is usually a permanent demotion when hit this way.

I can only imagine how much worse it would be if I’d been involved in using services in the spam. Don’t play with fire, kids.

After the catastrophic collapse of traffic to end 2012, it looked like a bleak year coming up for From the Sidelines. Being a small blog and because I don’t work on promoting it, pageviews are highly dependent on organic search traffic from Google, Bing, and Yahoo – mostly Google. Every tweak, alteration, and seasonal mucking about of that mighty search engines algorithms seems to affect it.

Above is a graph of the traffic for 2013 according to Google Analytics. December has taken a downturn that reminds me a little of last December. A lot of reports of weirdness from search engine watchers makes me suspect that changes are being rolled out yet again.

The most visited posts for 2013:

1. Another Day, Another Referral Spammer
2. Topblogstories Referral Spam
3. From the Sidelines (the home page)
4. Again With the Spam
5. India’s Bantam Weight Fighter: The LCA Tejas Displays
6. Ohbelog Referral Spam
7. First Referral Spam of 2013
8. The ‘Burbs (1989) Review
9. Secret Spam
10. A Tricky Bit of Spam
11. A Failure to Load a Spam Site
12. Movie Reviews (index page)
13. Spirited Away (2001) Review
14. Godzilla vs Biollante (1989) Review
15. Gorgo (1961) Review
16. Spam, Lovely Spam (index page)
17. Pacific Rim (2013) Review
18. Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) Review
19. Dracula (1931) Review
20. Nearly 2000 Movies Taken Off Netflix

The last one amuses me a great deal because the hits for that are usually looking for the movie Taken on Netflix. In fact, I increased the list to twenty just so I could include that little fact.

If you check out the post recapping 2012, you’ll see that posts on referral spam dominated the top twenty. Only Dracula (1931) and Godzilla, King of the Monsters (1956) returned from from the top fifteen and only due to my expanding the list. It’s a bit annoying that merely one film review made it into the top ten. So much for movie reviews.

If it weren’t for the public service of posting warnings about Blogger referral spam, my traffic figures would probably be as bad as I expected back in January. It looks like the boat has sailed on organic traffic for many a website, so I shouldn’t complain. At least I haven’t cratered with no recovery.

While I’d like to do a direct comparison of traffic from 2012 to 2013, the simple fact that I’m writing this early makes that unwise. Instead I’ll list the pertinent figures for the past year with an eye towards editing the post after New Years.

21,400 unique visitors generated 36,426 pageviews for an average of 1.55 pages looked at per visit. Average stay was 54 seconds, bounce rate was 81.64% and 91.02% of the people coming were new visitors. The first figures are an increase while the latter indicate shorter looks at the content.

Visitors came from all over the world for a total of 157 countries and territories. That’s an increase from 124 for 2012. For me, this makes up for the lack of huge numbers of people visiting. One of the promises of the World Wide Web was that it would be world wide. This is why I resist Google’s push to localize everything and haven’t set my region for the blog.

Another related fact: ten percent of my visitors to the review of The ‘Burbs are from Europe.

Little things like that make the time and effort put into From the Sidelines worthwhile. I have no clue how 2014 will pan out other than I’m going to keep writing.

A smart, literate script that derived much of its plot form Shakespeare's The Tempest propels this film from what could of been an expensive B-movie into a true top tier movie. Featuring a flying saucer, a robot, a mad scientist, and an alien monster it sounds like kid’s dream. Oh it is that, alright, but good acting and cutting edge effects made this science fiction film a true classic. UPDATED December 2013 with a full rewrite, HD screen captures, and Blu-ray details.

Younger people have frown up in an era dominated by special effect, but this wasn’t the case in the past. Once upon a time, there was no such thing as computer generated effects, or CG. Special effects were done in laborious, painstaking ways, with wires, matte paintings, and miniatures. Of late, there has been a renaissance in using the old methods, combining them with CG. But amazingly, there were genuinely well done special effects in the past (though kids today will laugh at some of them) with certain films being milestones in the art.

MGM’s Forbidden Planet is one such film, but the expensive effects were only part of the reason this bold experiment is considered one of the greatest science fiction films of all time. The introduction of Robby the Robot (who cost an astounding 100,000 1956 dollars) definitely contributed, as did Anne Francis' short dresses (an actual plot point). But the main ingredient stirred into the mix was that the director and actors took the story seriously.

The movie starts out with impressive opening credits that zoom out of the background, accompanied by eerie music produced from early electronic tones. Revolutionary in its time, the all electronic score by Louis and Bebe Barron was later very poorly copied by many a B-movie, as were many other things from the film. In fact, you might think this movie is full of science fiction stereotypes, when it actually began them.

We are quickly introduced to the crew of an Earth cruiser performing their normal duties inside the now familiar form of a flying saucer. They drop out of faster than light speed in a memorable sequence (featuring a set that will remind you of a certain Star Trek set) to arrive near the large and very hot star named Altair. Around that star orbits Altair 4, their destination after a year of being in space.

It’s an impressive spectacle that had to have wowed the audiences of the 1950’s. The C57D cruiser is a flying saucer to beat all flying saucers and the effects work is stellar, no pun intended. Both the ship and the planet were large models, which is simply amazing to me. I would have thought the planet was a matte painting, but MGM pulled out all the stops in making the movie.

Decades ago, a spaceship was sent to Altair IV and there has been no contact with the crew ever since. As they approach, the saucer is scanned and hailed by the only survivor of the crew, Dr. Edward Morbius (played with style by Walter Pidgeon). His theatrical dire warnings to not land are ignored and so begins the story.

I should take a moment to discuss the crew of the C57D since we get a good long look at ship operations. Led by Commander J.J. Adams (Leslie "Don't call me Shirley" Nielson), it is an all male group of military men reminiscent of many a WWII movie. Directly under him on the tightly run ship are two other officers, Lt. Jerry Farman (Jack Kelly) and Doc Ostrow (Warren Stevens). Only a couple of the enlisted men make an impression, with the Cook (Earl Holliman) being a stereotypical booze, broads, and a good time seeking idiot and his polar opposite, the extremely competent Chief Quinn, played by Richard Anderson. He was best known from The Six Million Dollar Man television series for playing Oscar Goldberg, the government agent.

A believable atmosphere of a functioning ship sets the tone for the rest of the movie. This isn’t going to be a golly gee whiz story that doesn’t take itself seriously. While there is humor, it’s mainly based on character interaction rather than sight gags.

One of the most appealing aspects of the film is how at times it looks like a pulp magazine cover come to life. Nowhere in the film is there a better example of this than the landing of the cruiser on the remote planet. Combining matte paintings, a model, and force field effects by an animator on loan from Disney, it’s a gorgeous scene to watch in high definition. I think it is no stretch to call this art.

Once on the ground, the no nonsense by the book command style of Commander Adams continues to be asserted. Impressed by the beauty of the rugged vista, the crew are startled to see a plume of dust in the distance approaching them. Not so much the plume, but the incredible speed is what gets their attention. What arrives is a surprise and the beginning of a cinematic legend.

Robby the Robot makes his silver screen debut to make every boy twelve and under a robot fanatic overnight. An impressive lumbering presence made up of whirling gizmos, blinking lights, and attitude, he quickly becomes chief scene stealer if not the star of the show. Getting back to the plot, he’s there to provide transportation for the officers to meet their reluctant host.

Dr. Morbius turns out to be an arrogant, but not altogether cold host. Fed by the natural curiosity of his guests he can’t resist showing off his inventions. There are moments where in his vanity he finds himself enjoying the interaction with the visitors from Earth, though it is obvious he wants them gone as soon as possible.

Obviously, he has his reasons and one of them walks in on very shapely legs. His very blond and young daughter Alta (Anne Francis) walks in clad in a miniskirt (they weren’t even invented yet!) to cause immediate trouble. Dr. Morbius has a right to be worried, very worried about his beautiful daughter with the gift to tame wild animals.There’s a saucer full of men who haven’t seen a woman for over a year and if the officers reactions to her are any example it could lead to a riot.

However, business must be attended to so that a report can be made. Tales of the previous ship's crew being torn limb from limb by an invisible force is met with skepticism by Adams. The cruiser's captain insists on staying and cannibalizing his own ship to rig up a transmitter to call Earth.

Eager to be rid of Alta’s would be suitors, the futuristic Prospero is happy to help out with the resources they need to contact home base. His discoveries are so advanced that even the rarest of elements can be easily synthesized, which gets the attention of the Cook pretty quickly.

As time goes by, it turns out that Alta is intelligent and luminous with a playful streak none of the crew can resist. A running gag is how the officers vie for her affections. For example, the eager lieutenant tries out every approach to woo the girl including whatever it takes to get a kiss out of her. Naïve due to isolation, she falls for the ruse much to his disappointment.

Yes, I wrote that last sentence correctly.

Also in the running is the head honcho himself. Adams infuriates and intrigues the young woman which leads to some well executed flirtation. Is this subplot there to get women to come see the movie like so many productions? No, it is an integral component of the main plot as it unfolds.

Later that night, we get to see things from the vantage point of something quite tall sneaking by the guards to infiltrate the spaceship. Morning brings news of vandalism that ever so conveniently prevents the crew from broadcasting a message home.

I liked the resulting conversation between Adams and Quinn. Though brief, it was a slice of realism that made me like the characters, especially the Chief.

Yeah, this is a talky movie, make no mistake about it. Yet it isn’t the boring exposition used to cover up a lack of budget like in inferior B-movies of the time. The dialogue is sharp and knowing, more like the detective films of the previous decade. Much is intimated between the lines.

A skinny dipping Alta throws the good commander off balance and soon icky romance enters the picture. Many a boy watching back in the day had to be relieved when the kissing is ended by a sudden attack. Of course they were then baffled by the ensuing dialogue hinting at things only adults know about, but hey they weren’t alone in this. Alta is genuinely clueless too.

Like few science fiction films up to that point, Forbidden Planet doesn’t talk down to the audience. One has to love that about the movie.

Determined to find out what is really going on, Adams and Doc investigations lead to the amazing remains of a fantastically advanced civilization. Having risen to unparalleled heights millions of years ago, the Krell were wiped out overnight leaving only a mysterious complex that was their final project.

It’s a great excuse to make some intricate and obviously expensive sets, not to mention show off state of the art effects of the mid-Fifties. Watch carefully and you’ll see ideas used decades later in big science fiction films.

Shifting into high gear, the movie picks up the pace considerably after Morbius gives the tour of the Krell complex. Soon invisible death visits the crew of the C57D in nightmarish fashion and it will be up to Commander Adams to solve the mystery if anyone is to make it off of Altair IV alive.

Thoughts

From exploring the ruins of a long dead civilization to concepts from Freudian theory, the film keeps a sense of wonder and suspense throughout. Many people will pass on watching the movie because of its age, plus the fact it has a flying saucer in it. That is a terrible mistake for the movie is always entertaining and influence everything from Star Trek to Star Wars.

This alone makes it a must see for any fan of those franchises. From the transporter room of the Enterprise being a inspired by the DC tubes to C3P0 being a slimmer version of Robby, many elements were lifted for use by creators in the genre. I’d bet Gene Rodenberry took one look at Alta’s outfits and thought that having all the women on a spaceship dressed like that would be heaven.

Having an intelligent story and script makes this a movie both kids and adults can appreciate, mostly for different reasons. Kids will love Robby and the space setting, while older folk will enjoy the banter along with the deeper musings on human nature. Director Fred McLeod Wilcox was better known for the Lassie series of movies, but his second to last movie showed he could handle much more adult themes adeptly.

Forbidden Planet is rated G, but the rating would be closer to PG these days. While there is no gore, people die and there are frightening scenes that would make very little kids afraid. Then there is the cook and his quest for booze. Alta’s skinny dipping is a little sloppy in the editing, so even kids will catch the actress was wearing a flesh colored bathing suit (very apparent in HD), so no worries for parents there.

I heartily recommend the movie to all science fiction fans, classic movie lovers, and anyone who enjoys an intelligent film. Well worth checking out, even if only to see Leslie Nielson playing a dramatic role in his youth. He's actually pretty good in this and won’t remind you of Frank Drebin. It well deserves its status as a classic.

Technical

My original 2008 review was of Warner Brothers 50th anniversary edition DVD and it shares all the same content as the Blu-ray edition I purchased in 2013.

The CinemaScope print has been digitally remastered to a glorious state that has to be seen to be fully appreciated. Vivid colors pop off the screen with only a few seconds out of several scenes showing less than perfect focus and contrast. It’s a great transfer with only a few speckles and imperfections.

Audio is pristine with the English soundtrack remixed to 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio (Dolby 5.1 for the DVD), all from fully restored film and audio masters. Some 5.1 remixes aren’t very good, but you won’t find anything to complain about here. Every burble and beep of the Barron’s electronic score comes through clearly as does the dialogue.

Dolby Digital mono is used for the French, Castilian, and Spanish dubs. Subtitles in English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese, German, and Norwegian are available.

There are a lot of extras including a full movie! All are DVD quality and not HD.

Watch the Skies!: Science Fiction, the 1950s and Us– This documentary features a host of famous directors, writers, and effects artists talking about 1950s science fiction movies. George Lucas, Steven Spielberg, John Carpenter, Alan Dean Foster, and many more give their opinions on the films and how they were influenced by them. Many a movie is covered including Forbidden Planet and the influences of the Cold War on the genre is focused on. Spielberg eventually dominates the nearly hour long show, showing a deep passion for the material.

Amazing!: Exploring the Far Reaches of Forbidden Planet– At almost a half hour, this feature returns most of the industry figures from above and adds a few more. Beginning with MGM’s desire to make an A level science fiction film based on Shakespeare’s The Tempest, it documents the behind the scenes goings on. Of specific interest to me was the saga of the Barron’s soundtrack and the union opposition to it. That’s why the credits don’t list “music” or “score” by them, but “electronic tonalities” instead.

Robby the Robot: Engineering a Sci-Fi Icon– Everything you could want to know about one of the most famous robots in film is found in this short documentary once again featuring the people from the previous ones. Designed by Bob Kinoshita, the suit was passed off as being a real robot by MGM’s publicity department for some time. A designer of transparent washing machine bodies for manufacturer testing, Kinoshita modeled Robby’s torso on one of those devices!

Construction of Robby was difficult and expensive. Built mainly of formed plastic, the technology wasn’t fully developed yet to work the material. As a result, advancement in plastic working came out of the production efforts which helped the fledgling industry long before “plastics” became a comic line in The Graduate.

It may have been heartbreaking to find out a man was inside the robot for a lot of kids,  but it reminded me of what was being done in Japan at the time. Frankie Darro was the man in the suit, looking out from behind the neon tubes than made Robbie’s “mouth.”

Trailers -- Both Forbidden Planet and The Invisible Boy trailers are included. They couldn’t be more different, what with the first having an appeal to intellect and sense of wonder while the latter is pure B-movie fare focused on Robby the Robot fighting soldiers.

Deleted Scenes– Obtained from a poor quality work print, the scenes provide further insight into the crew and the beautiful girl the officers are enamored with. Two scenes in particular would most likely have run afoul of the censors of the period, in that they go into the myth of the unicorn and how it relates to Alta. Adult stuff for a movie of this type, to say the least. Also shown is an entire scene of Robby playing chauffeur that was removed for simply not meeting the standards of the production.

Lost Footage– Consisting mainly of test shots to see if effects would work, this is a great glimpse of how Hollywood magic was performed.

Excerpts from MGM Parade Eps. 27 & 28– Hosted by Walter Pidgeon, he introduces clips from the film and of course, Robby the Robot. Interesting in a historical sense as it shows how things were promoted in the ‘50s.

The Thin Man: Robot Client– A complete episode of the television series that aired in 1958, it is a mystery with Robby accused of murder. Nick and Nora were not well translated from the big screen to small, I’m afraid. It’s formulaic and more than a bit dull even for the time.

Check out the wire supporting the man’s body! There’s no way the stuntman could have carried a full grown man while in that heavy costume. There were some benefits to watching on old TV sets and one was that the wires often blurred out.

The Invisible Boy Movie– I’ll be putting up a separate review of this. This 1957 film was simply about cashing in on Robby’s immense popularity as quickly as possible.

BEWARE! HERE BE SPOILERS!!!

George J. Folsey’s camerawork in the movie is not pedestrian and shows a huge amount of attention was paid to the lighting. I love how this shot from Adams confronting Morbius over Chief Quinn’s brutal death turned out. The two alphas argue while Doc and Alta observe everything in the background, but they are lit so that they can’t be ignored.

Also fun is how Doc inserts his comments to Morbius with surgical precision. Meanwhile, Anne Francis proves that you don’t need high heels if you have exceptional legs in the first place!

A picture is worth a thousand words, or so it is said. The cast made from the invisible monster’s tracks implies something bizarre that requires a lot more than a thousand, in my opinion. All the forensics work demonstrates that they may not have Morbius’ inflated IQ, but the crew of the C57D are still pretty smart. I miss this kind of portrayal of military men in films.

Animated by hand, the invisible monster or Id Monster is surreal even today. It’s a ghastly howling terror that simply shouldn’t exist. The old special effects just make it even more aberrant looking to the modern eye, which is exactly what the film makers were going for.

At this point, the previously hinted at real identity of the Id Monster is given away by showing Morbius awakening to Alta’s cries. She experiences the whole attack in a dream while the power readings of the Krell nuclear reactors go off the scale.

Given the strange triangular doors, I wonder if the shapes in the panels aren’t a silhouettes of Krell bodies? The unseen aliens were implied to be squat with large heads and possibly multiple arms.

Now that I look at the gauges again, they also look like the bad guys from the classic videogame, Space Invaders. Hmm.

For a lower intellect such as Adams to reveal the truth of what happened to the Krell to Morbius is more than the man can handle. Doc’s sacrifice to find this out leads to the famous line “…monsters from the Id!”, yet it is up to the scientist to explain what that means to the commander. In turn, the military man is the one to point out the obvious. So much for having an IQ of 184.

An important plot point is Robby’s programming against harming sentient beings. Oh he can disarm them, but he can’t hurt them. When ordered to kill the invisible attacker, he locks up thereby proving Adams is right about the monster being the subconscious of Morbius.

It was a nice touch having the silent condemnation of Alta finally convince Morbius he’s the true villain behind all the deaths. Pidgeon was one of the top actors at the time and his theatrical delivery was perfect for the narcissistic character.

Facing one’s own inner darkness is hard enough, but having it take a form fueled by over 9,000 nuclear reactors is a bit much. No wonder Morbius dies from confronting his id.

The melting of the impervious door is very well done, but you can see the effects men punching the melting material if you watch carefully enough. There are times HD gives away too much.

The movie ends like it began, with the cruiser soaring through space. I really like the design of the C57D due to its capturing every stereotypical aspect of a flying saucer while still managing to look good.

A talky movie has a talking ending, surprise! The exposition by Adams succinctly recaps the main theme of the dangers of men trying to be gods. Fear of the atomic bomb colors the story like so many of the ‘50s and the parallels between the Krell destroying themselves and humanity couldn’t be more obvious.

It’s 9:08 PM on Christmas Eve and I’ve got nothing in the way of inspiration for this post. Christmas with the Rat Pack is playing on Media Monkey, my head feels like its filled with cotton, and I’m suffering from dizziness.

Being a devout Mormon, no eggnog is involved. Bad health is, but I’m still counting my blessings since things could be far worse.

For some reason the shepherds in the hills being told of Christ’s birth has been haunting my mind the last few days. Why would a heavenly choir appear to those relatively poor denizens near Bethlehem? The meek may be the ones to inherit the Earth, yet why them?

After spending forty odd years on the planet, it has struck me how self important the powerful and well off are. By well off, I mean anybody who doesn’t have to scrabble to just survive, which excludes most Americans of the current age. I watch people wandering around lost in their own worlds and wonder if they’d even notice such a thing happening.

Even if they did, they’d attribute it to their own importance. Bah, humbug to vanity, I say.

Sometime much later after gaming with younger friends…

Another random thought: With all the focus on gifts, shopping, and decorations, there is a worrying element of losing perspective to Christmas. So I won’t be hoping for loot for myself, that’s for kids.

My wish is that everyone who reads this post will have a merry (or happy for the Brits) Christmas filled with comfort, joy, and love. That’s what it is supposed to be about, after all. That which is material must fade to dust over time, but true friends and family can be eternal. So let us be grateful for those we care about in our lives and for those who don’t have that, I especially wish that you find caring people in the days to come.

Hopefully this is the last post on my health for the year. It was not a good Christmas. My father and I both got sick earlier with him getting the worst of it. By the time Christmas Eve rolled around, neither of us were able to go anywhere or do much of anything. It got worse on Christmas day leading to a cancellation of a trip to visit my sister and her family in Indiana.

I’m still not feeling well and suspect the rotavirus going around is behind both our ailments. Shining forth amidst the gloom is one bright ray of hope for during the entire time I’ve managed to keep doing daily weight training. While far from easy and usually the only thing of any merit done, the new regime has stayed intact.

Usually when I get ill, I have flare ups of secondary infections often of a respiratory nature. First the sinuses try to kill me then the bronchial tubes. So far, only the sinuses have made an attempt with no success in enlisting their allies next to the lung sacs as is their annual tradition around this time of year.

While premature, the possibility the big experiment with daily weight training is having unexpected benefits involving the immune system is on my mind. Two days ago, I was able to help load and unload bags of wood pellets. That did cause problems recovering, but it was amazing that I was able to at all.

One thing I don’t like about weight training is how long it takes me to stop shaking afterward. It’s been half an hour and I’m vibrating worse than I normally do. Maybe it will improve in time.