This movie was great. The only problem is that it left me wanting
more. We are up to our noses in shitty entertainment, lawyer show
after lawyer show, doctor show, crime show, cop show, zombie show,
etc. Sure some of it is amazing, good acting, production quality,
music, but the settings are all the same. The most recent general
story setting has been the "Zombie" one, and I'm sure we
are all tired of that.
Red dawn is one of two
films, (the other being something called "Red Dawn") that
have the setting "Your home nation invaded, what do?" And I
loved it. We have so many shows about preppers and how awesome our
military is, we are ready for this setting.
*SPOILERS AHEAD -
ALERT*
To really enjoy the film, you need to remember that the
opening montage of the movie, the one that explains the state of the
world that caused this new Red Dawn, does not explain everything. It
says something along the lines of China becoming a superpower, and
gathering regional allies, to include Russia and North Korea, (and
possibly others). But thankfully it leaves very little answered.
If
you know anything about China, Russia, and North Korea, you know that
them working together in the capacity required for this movie, is
highly unlikely. North Korea hates international aid, and China and
Russia were set against each other to weaken the second world during
the cold war. Being a highly unlikely alliance, only reinforced the
setting.
When NK forces started to appear, with new tools,
fancy tanks, and nourished soldiers, the first thought that came to
my mind was not, “This is stupidly unlikely.” It was, “My god,
what could have happened to make them do this?” What sort of dirt,
blackmail, or coercion could have brought NK into this new Red
Coalition? Wearing and using equipment that they obviously
could not have made themselves. The thought lingered in my mind for
some time as I enjoyed the combat scenes.
Later in the film,
it became obvious. In an iconic line, (which I believe was lifted
directly from the old film), “They don't want to be here,” was
the feeling conveyed. When the character spoke, he was talking about
the normal, boots on ground grunt. When I heard it, I thought to
myself, “Who DOES want to be here? How high up the chain of command
does this go?” It became obvious, NK did not WANT to be here, they
were just another pawn in China's game. They had shiny new toys, and
in my mind every single one of them was emblazoned with “made in
China.”
Looking for these deeper secrets made the film far
more interesting, but unfortunately they made the setting far more
interesting than the film. It was said that North Korea was only
tasked with occupying the NW states of the USA, with other nations
tasked with other sections of the US. That moment kind of killed it
for me, up until then I was focused and following the Wolverines of
Spokane, but those lines broke a seal and had me thinking... “Yeah,
there is a WHOLE OTHER WORLD out there, WTF IS GOING ON THERE?!”
Sure, the film was meant to follow the Wolverines, and by only
showing their local view, convey the feeling of being cut off from
the outside world.
That's not the crap I want though.
1
hour and 54 minutes is not enough time for this world.
I want
some grade A+ series from this shit!
Think about how much could be
covered! Instead of one lone resistance group, we could be presented
with the whole smörgåsbord of American culture. The Wolverines In
Spokane and the military families at Fort Lewis, fighting to hold off
an enemy and disbelief; the
resistance in california, easily dominating the disarmed population
of the inner city, but struggling with rural resistance; the humid
death swamps of Louisiana, full
of Vietnam Veterans waiting for revenge (bonus points if Vietnam is
tasked with Louisiana and Mississippi); The East coast, bombed into
submission because of our massive military presence there; and the
Michigan Militia, who was actually in a training exercise for just
such an event when it happened. The scope does not end there, there
could be drama in other countries, Germany, Great Britain, shit, what
is happening in the middle east?!
The potential does not even
stop with the combat on the ground. The dialogue of the national
leaders would be good too, and act as a calm, yet suspenseful
juxtaposition that all dark war tales must have. You could have some
state governors, struggling to gather the shreds of their national
guard and state militias. The inept President of the United States
that allowed this to happen, or did not do enough to prevent it,
perhaps he just managed to pull out all US foreign troop deployments,
and just weeks ago signed a bill that cut military spending to a
fourth of it's previous amount. Not to be limited to our side of the
pond, the President of Russia, North Korea, and whoever else, all
struggling as their nations are practically the lap dogs of this new
Chinese mastermind.
The ideas for epic moments practically
write themselves.
Imagine the freedom fighter, who learns
some dark secret that seems to justify this invasion.
Imagine
the same guy, who learns that the inept president has forces set to
knock out the disruptor field long enough for him to launch the
nukes. In an attempt to stop the end of the world they need to break
into an active nuclear silo to access the launch network, and do what
they can to jam it. Or otherwise attack their own nation to prevent
some greater evil.
Imagine deep within a bunker in China, an
old man hunches over a war table, talking to his subordinates. Once
everyone leaves a young and noble looking officer walks up to the old
man, the Premier of China... The
conversation drags on about the planning, and in the heat of
conversation the your officer says, “Would you have us call you
Emperor? Would you have us kneel and revere you as a god?!”
To
which the Premier replies, in his old gravely voice, as he plops into his chair, “Kneel.”
So yeah,
Red Dawn,
4/5, would pay to watch again.
Kale's Cliff
2.12.12
14.4.12
But I never forgot that it was all free.
I remember when I first switched to Linux. My incredibly powerful gaming laptop was torn asunder by Iranian computer viruses and spyware. A friend had mentioned linux, and I had an Ubuntu 8.10 CD lying around, so I popped it in.
Installing was simple enough, just keep clicking "next" on the screen, and other minor clicking. Nearing the end of installation it asked for an internet connection... I was in Iraq at the time, and to log onto the internet I needed to open a browser and put in some data, so I clicked past it. A few moments later, I discovered the horrible truth... my laptop's networking chip was part of the graphics chipset, and the Ubuntu CD did not come with Nvidia drivers. Put plainly, to get my computer on the internet, I needed the internet.
For months I hassled with my laptop, fiddling with settings, trying to bypass the requirements. I could not download games, programs, or browse online. My nice and expensive gaming laptop was reduced to a typewriter... except I could not get printer drivers either... Many months later, I took a pass (short vacation) to Qatar, and, hoping to find some wired internet there (the Iranians I got the internet from in Iraq had a login system that did not work with linux even if I plugged directly in, they fixed this eventually).
Sitting in Qatar at one of the tables I pulled out my laptop to play some simple game that came with it, like minesweeper, or draw a photo, I can't remember. It was never super amazing anyway. My laptop has a 16-17 inch screen and was displaying at 800x600, the highest it could go. I had gotten used to it... But today, for some reason it connected to the internet wirelessly. Did the router there use some other frequency that the base drivers could use? Did I accidentally change some setting? I have no idea, but I still could not log into their paid internet thing, though this time it was because I did not waste the money on a prepaid internet card, when my internet did not work.
That day I found out something beautiful...
Paid internet services don't block the ports used for updates... and all of the software downloads are processed though the same ports.
Joy, I had never felt such joy.
For hours, perhaps the whole night, my computer downloaded updates. I did not know at the time that I could get games, the software catalog had never downloaded. And the whole time I sat there watching in 800x600 as the download bar grew, and the programs were installed in the terminal. It was the first time I saw a download speed get up to 2 megabytes a second, I did not even know things could go that fast.
Of course it needed to be restarted, I don't think you can triple the data on your hard drive and not need a restart, but before I would I searched through the software, downloaded Wine, The Battle For Wesnoth, every other game I could find! Video codecs, things to play DVDs, EVERYTHING! It was an orgy of installation.
When I restarted my computer, the true glory of the open source world exploded onto my screen. I had forgotten that my computer screen was the highest definition on the market, I had forgotten that draw speeds could go faster than you could see. I had forgotten about the internet, and I had forgotten about games...
But I never forgot that it was all free.
Installing was simple enough, just keep clicking "next" on the screen, and other minor clicking. Nearing the end of installation it asked for an internet connection... I was in Iraq at the time, and to log onto the internet I needed to open a browser and put in some data, so I clicked past it. A few moments later, I discovered the horrible truth... my laptop's networking chip was part of the graphics chipset, and the Ubuntu CD did not come with Nvidia drivers. Put plainly, to get my computer on the internet, I needed the internet.
For months I hassled with my laptop, fiddling with settings, trying to bypass the requirements. I could not download games, programs, or browse online. My nice and expensive gaming laptop was reduced to a typewriter... except I could not get printer drivers either... Many months later, I took a pass (short vacation) to Qatar, and, hoping to find some wired internet there (the Iranians I got the internet from in Iraq had a login system that did not work with linux even if I plugged directly in, they fixed this eventually).
Sitting in Qatar at one of the tables I pulled out my laptop to play some simple game that came with it, like minesweeper, or draw a photo, I can't remember. It was never super amazing anyway. My laptop has a 16-17 inch screen and was displaying at 800x600, the highest it could go. I had gotten used to it... But today, for some reason it connected to the internet wirelessly. Did the router there use some other frequency that the base drivers could use? Did I accidentally change some setting? I have no idea, but I still could not log into their paid internet thing, though this time it was because I did not waste the money on a prepaid internet card, when my internet did not work.
That day I found out something beautiful...
Paid internet services don't block the ports used for updates... and all of the software downloads are processed though the same ports.
Joy, I had never felt such joy.
For hours, perhaps the whole night, my computer downloaded updates. I did not know at the time that I could get games, the software catalog had never downloaded. And the whole time I sat there watching in 800x600 as the download bar grew, and the programs were installed in the terminal. It was the first time I saw a download speed get up to 2 megabytes a second, I did not even know things could go that fast.
Of course it needed to be restarted, I don't think you can triple the data on your hard drive and not need a restart, but before I would I searched through the software, downloaded Wine, The Battle For Wesnoth, every other game I could find! Video codecs, things to play DVDs, EVERYTHING! It was an orgy of installation.
When I restarted my computer, the true glory of the open source world exploded onto my screen. I had forgotten that my computer screen was the highest definition on the market, I had forgotten that draw speeds could go faster than you could see. I had forgotten about the internet, and I had forgotten about games...
But I never forgot that it was all free.
1.3.12
RE: TTAG
This was originally a comment on The Truth About Guns post Ambienistas Rejoice! 3-Gun Nation Series Returns to the Internet, but it ran a little too long for the comment box... so I put it here. Please check out TTAG, I really hate leaving a comment there directing them here... :<
I don't think 3 gun will ever be as
popular as football. In general the popularity of a sport is directly
related to it's cost of entry. The worlds most popular sport, actual
football (the one where they use their feet...) is popular because
all you need to play is a single ball. Since everyone can play it,
everyone has a basic understanding of the rules, which are themselves
simple, just one sentence "Kick the ball into the other team's
goal" sums up the worlds most popular sport.
Mind you things like Nascar are
popular, but have a high cost of entry. The thing here is again, the
rules are very simple to understand, win a race, everyone knows what
a race is, but it is also related to a car, which nearly everyone in
the US has a basic understanding.
Also these are team sports (back to
football/field games), where people work together to outmaneuver
their foe. Generally (exception baseball) a large portion of the team
competes at the same time, and against another team.
Something like this three gun
competition has a high level of entry, and the technology it uses is
generally obscure, reducing the fanbase. The teams do not work
together at the same time, and they are only engaged in indirect
competition, do direct team vs team play (understandable though,
while I would like to be shot by some of those ladies I doubt I would
draw a large crowd).
As a final note we have the marketing
aspect of the game. Here I see team FNH, and others dotted with
sponsors, not "The Seattle Seahawks" or "The Oakland
Raiders." Games like football are more than just things we
attend to watch advertisements, we go to pit our cities against each
other and see who is the best, like nationalism on a smaller, less
violent scale.
If you wanted to make a popular sport
you would need to do the following:
1- Take... say 15 prominent cities and
have them establish teams for this "newsport"
2- Move the advertisement and
sponsorship out of the limelight to let the cities shine, the Seattle
Spartans (we do have a Mt. Olympus) and Oakland Operators sound WAY
better than "Team Foreign country based military arms
manufacturer." Sport is an analogue for cities to fight, we hate
each other you see.
3- Lower the barrier to entry. Have
team armories and open drafts so people don't need to bring their own
guns.
4- Yes, point 4 and now we address the
actual game. You need a game that directly pits one team versus
another, in a fast paced game that involves a lot of movement,
stamina, and chances to do improbable feats of skill.
5- Fill airtime. Require helmet
cameras, and a gun camera, and have commentators, like some cool
people. FPS Russia and R Lee Ermey.
If it was me, I would have a game go
like this, there is a live fire preliminary, where the teams compete
in shoothouses and such, do some long range shooting, etc. Then for
the final round have a simunition battle of capture the flag, have
ten players active on the field, and when they are hit they need to
be carried off by the next in line to deploy, who is invulnerable
while they retrieve their teammate, then the retriever replaces the
fallen teammate, slowly rotating through the whole team. It would be
fast paced, allow for various physical and lucky feats, and dynamic,
which is something the 3GN is lacking. I am sure to a seasoned
shooter the little differences are readily apparent, but the visual
drama is lost on a newbie. This would have people running, shooting,
falling, being carried, all somewhat relatable to a wider audience.
That was long, sleep time is now.
8.2.12
Testing Testing, 1,1,2,3,5
Alright, so I am a total nerd, I watch science fiction, science fantasy, I play D&D, Pathfinder, GURPS, Shadowrun, and occasionally I might write a fanfiction...
But right now I am figuring out this "blog" thing...
CUE FIBONACCI!
Testing Testing, 1,1,2,3,5
But right now I am figuring out this "blog" thing...
CUE FIBONACCI!
Testing Testing, 1,1,2,3,5
6.2.12
I should really be doing
Sorry I have not updated in awhile, I know I said I would update every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, but I have so much homework...
...I should really be doing.
...I should really be doing.
23.1.12
Remarkable Progress Indeed
Today I woke up at 8. Nothing special for you "normies" I am sure, but to me, waking up at a "normal" hour is something to be cherished. As I have stated before I have some new rules regarding my conduct... IN BED!
Honestly now, ever since I stopped surfing the web in bed... well it's not like the sleep is any better, but now I don't lie in bed for 4 hours before falling asleep.
Remarkable progress indeed.
Honestly now, ever since I stopped surfing the web in bed... well it's not like the sleep is any better, but now I don't lie in bed for 4 hours before falling asleep.
Remarkable progress indeed.
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