I don’t mind suspending my disbelief for a good movie, and I’m sure Iron Man won’t disappoint. But come on – are the filmmakers seriously asking me to believe that a single man designed and built a fully functional, armed, armoured, self-supporting, powered exoskeletal suit – starting with nothing but some molten iron and a few wires – while locked in a cave – in under 24 hours?
I bet it took the props department a month, or more, to build even a non-functional wearer-supported unit out of plastic. I’m all for suspending disbelief in films, and I love exoskeletons, but come on.
Tags: iron man
June 3rd, 2008 at 12:06 pm
Well, not to suggest that suspension of disbelief is not required for any movie based on a comic… but I’m pretty sure Tony Stark was meant to have had a bit more than “some molten iron and a few wires” and also more than 24 hours.
But I’m guessing you’ve actually seen the movie by now and already know this.
It was good though, wasn’t it.
easily the equal of, or better than any of the other Marvel based movies that have come out I think.
June 3rd, 2008 at 1:31 pm
Hehe, yeah I’d just seen the trailer at that point – it seems like 24 hours in that. In the movie it was a week, I think, and with more tools. Still, uh, improbable but hey, it’s a movie!
I agree, it was great. I’m always worried with these movie interpretations that they’re going to just take the name of the franchise and then just make some generic BS and not do justice to the property at all – like they do with anime movies, which are usually insults to both the audience and the property. Great to see they put a lot of effort into this one and I think Stan Lee would approve.
June 3rd, 2008 at 3:37 pm
Indeed. Did you spy Stan Lee with some blonde chicks outside the party, as Tony Stark walks in, mistaking him for Hugh Hefner?
I like it when Lee makes his presence known with a cameo. It bodes well for the movie.
So you’re an anime fan as well? Good stuff. I’m always interested to know what other otaku’s are checking out… The last really good stuff I saw was Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. been too busy lately to find anything new… Any recommendations?
June 3rd, 2008 at 4:15 pm
No, I didn’t notice! I’ll keep a look out for him next time – I agree, that’s a good sign.
Sigh, I haven’t liked all that much recent anime – although it’s such a broad genre that what I like may or may not mean anything at all, my tastes tends to be somewhat .. eclectic. The most recent series I got into with any enthusiasm was Dennou Coil, which was an interesting exploration of augmented reality – but definitely a children’s show. I’m still mourning the demise of SAC, which along with Eva was my most-loved series. Speaking of Eva, there’s the new movie versions, but they don’t add much if you’ve seen the TV series. I had high hopes for Macross Frontier but they were dashed pretty quickly
Hard to give recommendations. But if you like GITS, you might like Patlabor, even though it’s much older and again, pretty obviously a children’s show. However, I really like the Patlabor TV series, so if you’re feeling open minded you could give that a shot. If you’re not obsessed with seeing robots, another good series recently has been Nodame Cantabile – a musical drama, which I usually don’t really like but I liked this one. Further afield, anything by Rumiko Takahashi is probably pretty good. It’s not sci fi but Inu Yasha has a great story I was totally pulled into.
Ah, I could go on and on and list everything I’ve ever liked! But if you’re a real otaku with an interest in idols, etc, or even just interested in the culture, you might also enjoy the movie Kisaragi (2007), which I thought was really great, and *so* accurate…
Sorry, that’s the best I can do … : /
June 3rd, 2008 at 9:27 pm
Yeah, I know the feeling, works been keeping me busy for quite some time, I have a backlog of stuff that I keep meaning to watch but never get around to. So I haven’t really seen much lately that I like either.
Ah yes, Patlabor. Have seen it, liked the second movie better than the first, IIRC. My friend had a Patlabor toy of one of the Police patlabors with the ablative armour.
And yes, Rumiko Takahashi! I remember some of the Rumic World (was that what it was called?) stuff. Never saw much of it, But what I saw I liked. I think there was one called Mermaid Saga I remember.
I do tend to gravitate towards the more R rated anime as a rule, but if it’s well done I don’t mind a bit of the kiddie stuff from time to time. I do like my giant robots, and as you’re surely aware, almost no giant robot anime is complete without the young boy protagonist that the target demographic can identify with.
Have you seen any of the giant robot designs from Five Star Stories? A lot more manga available than anime (one OVA I think) but way cool, out there styled robots.
Besides the giant robot sub-genre, I liked Berserk (they tried hard, but the anime couldn’t really do justice to the manga), I liked Ninja Scroll, Wicked City, Hellsing, Akira (of course), Gantz (though there should have been more episodes), Guyver, And of course… Hokuto no Ken. In my mind, Kenshiro and Roah will always be the toughest characters out of any series/movie/anything… Ever.
But Nodame Cantabile and this Kisaragi movie I have not hard of, will check them out, thanks. Not sure if I’m really into the idol thing, but I do love Japanese culture in general.
I originally found this site because I’m starting the Rails journey, coming from a mostly PHP background. Looks like you’ve got some useful and amusing content here. Hope you don’t mind if I drop by every now and again.
See ya.
June 4th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
You know, as soon as you mentioned those titles, I got a strange feeling of deja vu, thinking “they sound like the kind of titles you’d find in a video rental place in Australia a long time ago …”
So I looked at your IP address. Welcome to a fellow Aussie!
Being an anime fan in Australia is pretty hard if you just stick to the video stores. I don’t know about canberra (if my ip_to_location lookup is working properly) but I used to live in Adelaide, and the range there was hopeless. Sydney’s much better (current location) but still hopeless compared to Japan (previous location), obviously.
The good news is – the internet! It’s easy to get high quality subtitled releases of pretty much anything you want. 99% of Japanese media will never be released in Australia, and what is released seems to have little bearing on quality. You’d be lucky to find an actual Japanese person who’s even heard of most of what we get here. The distributor seems like they pick the releases based on how “extreme” they are, and in trying to pick movies over TV/OVA they’re working against the tendency of the japanese market – cinema is not such a big deal there, it’s almost all video, and the episodic format is strongly entrenched. There are exceptions, of course, notably studio Ghibli (*all* their films are great) and high-production-values adaptations of TV series. Most movies made there are live-action, like here/USA.
The R-rated stuff you mentioned, at least what is released here, is not common at all in Japan. I could write an essay about the cultural differences behind this but .. just take my word for it! The ‘adult’ stuff in JP is generally much more like To Heart, etc.
I also liked the Patlabor 2 movie better than Patlabor 1 – one of my favourite animated films, in fact. The TV series is very different, though, and a lot more interesting. Like SAC vs the Ghost in the Shell movies, which were great, but can’t compete with the amazing stories the TV series has time for.
Interesting that you’ve seen Guyver. I wonder if you made any connections between the name of the main protagonist and the pseudonym used by the owner of this site
June 5th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
LOL, busted! You got me in one, fellow Aussie.
Yes, I had one particular friend whom I used to stay up all hours of the morning with, watching whatever anime we could get our hands on in the format of VHS video tapes.
But yeah, I don’t think I’ve watched any anime off original VHS/DVD for what seems like aeons. My fav place on the intertubes is the Anime Reactor forums and anidb. The only slightly annoying thing about that AR forums is their insistence on sticking to using eMule exclusively. But hey, if it works for them and makes them feel a bit safer, then more power to them.
No more video stores for me, not for a long time
But I do still have some favourites that we first spied on VHS all those moons ago.
And yes, actually ever since I found this site, I’ve been thinking “Sho Fukamachi… Cool name… Sounds awfully familiar…” And yesterday I picked it. Took me long enough. That tells you how long it’s been since I watched…
Guy – eeeeeee – vaaaaaa!
I even saw the live action version, release in the AU as “Mutronics”.
I’ll have to check out the Patlabor series, when I get a chance.