I realized that as I finish all my podcasts up for the week around 2:30 PM on Friday, I switch to music. I've also noticed that the particular playlist I've been listening to gets me all manic and ramped up for the weekend. I'd like to share it with you:
DragonForce - Through Fire and Flames
Brocas Helm - Cry of the Banshee
So I went to the dentist and found out I need a million fillings and possibly a root canal. Since I posted my MRI Pics, I think it's appropriate to post my X-Rays, dontcha think?
OMFG The dark spots are like tooth AIDS.
DERP!
This is going to have MAJOR spoilers, including my thoughts on a new ending, so don't read if you don't want to know.
9 was awesome, for sure. Make no mistake. The visuals were stunning, and the world was amazing and beautiful. The characters were AWESOME. The thing that made them great was that each one had a purpose, but on their own they had no purpose, only once they came together did they have a real purpose...
But this was the problem in the end, 2 of the characters DIDN'T have a purpose. 1 and 2 didn't have a purpose, in fact, I learned more about them reading the wikipedia page than watching the movie, which isn't true of other characters. This was the flaw of the story; the buildup was great, and the action was INCREDIBLE, and then the story left you unfulfilled. 1 and 2 were poorly executed, and the ending was abrupt and lame. Come on: Everyone stays dead, but their spirits create microbial rain that repopulates life? Bullshit.
We need to talk about the relationship between 1, 2, and the scientist. To do this, you need to examine the part of the scientist's soul, the sense of purpose, each of the others have. 3 and 4 are the academics, the catalogers, the librarians, the foundation of their knowledge. This has a purpose in my new ending. 5 is the protege of 2, in theory, so you can say both were the builders, engineers, and healers, yet 5 had less of a sense of adventure, and with a more developed 2 could have filled out the part of the scientist's personality that was the student as much as 2 was the teacher which would have been a GREAT angle. 6 was clearly the artist and dreamer. 7 was the fighter, and the part of the scientist that leaps before thinking. 8 was the defender, the one who wanted to protect, and if 1's personality was more flushed out, we could have maybe understood what part of 1 8 was compelled to protect; think one part of the scientist's personality defending another, more important, deeper part. Finally 9 was the leader, the visionary, the one with the power to bring them together.
So who were 1 and 2? 2 was like 5, but more adventurous. I talked about it above and how the teacher/student stuff would have been interesting. Nonetheless, it's a moot point, he was in the movie for LITERALLY 4 minutes then he died and that's the end. Totally worthless, and from the trailer you almost got the sense he'd have a fatherly relationship with 9. Also, from the press stuff, you thought the conflict between 1 and 2 would be more prominent, almost like 2 would lead 9 to challenge 1, saying he himself would be unable. Which brings us to 1. What was 1's purpose? According to the Wiki page, "1, the oldest of the stitchpunks and their self-proclaimed leader of the tribe. He is clever and sly, but also domineering, irritable, quick-tempered and slow, if not unwilling, to trust 9. The Scientist described 1 as struggling out of his hands after his creation, and being stubborn and defiant." WTF is that, some kind of "he is the bad side of the scientist?" He's a crappy leader, an ass, and provides no help to the group except from keeping them away from everyone and thus alive. Only when 9 shows up does he occasionally deviate from his ways, with the barrel of oil and the cape. There's so much obvious depth to him that was left out I can't type it fast enough: He was the first of the characters who were to be tasked with saving humanity, his drive to protect them all would make sense except he lets like 4 of the ones there die (they weren't dead but he thought they were) and he did nothing to save humanity. Pointless! What was his purpose?
Finally, in the end, there's the fact that 5 of them die. This was a poor ending. First, the technology is THERE AND DEMONSTRATED to put parts of a soul into a stitchpunk. Second, we know they were all trapped inside the talisman. The decision to leave them all dead only to float into rain squanders several opportunities: the chance to give it a "happy ending" where they're all alive again, and the chance to let them work together in one more big display to drive the point home that the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.
Which brings me to my alternate ending. Start at the point where 1 sacrifices himself and 9 gets the talisman. Here's what should have happened: With the BRAIN dead and nothing left alive but the punks, they should have taken the talisman and ventured out to repair their comrades. Cut to a scene where some time has passed, they've collected the bodies in the scientist's lab, repaired them (leaving much visible damage) POSSIBLY using the twins' knowledge to put them back together as they'd have scanned everything in there. They set up the talisman and everything and BOOM everyone is back. Cut to 7 doing a "what do we do now?" as she's the fighter, but has no purpose now that there's no real enemies. Here's where 1 and 2 can shine: 1 understands the purpose, when the scientist created him he was the first when the scientist had just begun saving humanity and 1's purpose is to have the tools to revive humanity if all else fails. It sets up the fact that he made himself the de-facto leader and that his goal was to protect all the other punks knowing they were needed to save humanity, choosing to hide rather than fight. It helps to explain 8 as well; if the punks started to get damaged the scientist would make a punk to protect 1, seeing as how 1 would be the key to reviving humanity. 1 finds some sort of contraption built by the scientist that's purpose is to revive humanity somehow, but it's broken. Cue 2, who has been compulsively collecting parts based on 6's earlier prophecies (makes sense, 2 being an engineering type, 6 being the one with more knowledge about what is needed). A better writer could make more details of this scene, but start to picture them all working together to put together some sort of device, you have a chance to see 2 and 1 work together and have 9 smooth out their relationship. Finally, the device is built again, and 1 begins to operate it. Throw in some drama and intrigue: an arm on the device almost breaks as a cable snaps and 8 quickly uses his strength to hold it together; they need a wire quick and 2 remembers finding some way up on a shelf and 7 hops from object to object to go get it; The device isn't working and 6 draws something showing it needs sunlight or something and 5 quickly fashions a mirror to shine some down. Point is, BIG DRAMATIC WORKING TOGETHER. Finally, the machine almost works, and 1 orders them all to put their faces into slots, and it sucks the green soul out and the machine succeeds; It causes time travel back, or it revives the scientist, or it operates an embryo machine to make babies, or brings someone out of stasis, I don't know, some kind of plot device where the result is a group of human beings are walking around. The point is, ALL the stitchpunks are dead, not a select group, and instead of stupid rain microbes, actual humanity is saved. A real writer fills in the details.
I know much of the decision to keep the ending how it was with the little cemetery scene was motivated by keeping in line with the short; this can still happen by having the revived human burying them all and having their green souls rise up and walk around, like they did in the short (where they did NOT ascend into the clouds). Also, part of me fears that the reason they let 4 stitchpunks live is to set up a sequel, which SHOULD NOT happen. ALL OF THEM NEED TO DIE.
So there's my ending. It fleshes out the characters, provides a more satisfying ending what with humanity being revived, it closes the story of the 9, it provides a cathartic action scene at the end, and we see that 1 wasn't a crazy old fart, he actually had a purpose (other than reluctantly helping the group, being ornery, and then suddenly sacrificing himself). Shane Acker, Tim Burton, make this an alternate ending on the DVD!
I sometimes think back to the things I fought for and believed in over the years. In my mind, I play a huge game of connect the dots. When I think back to what I used to believe in like college, and compare it to what I believe now, I'm like "what the fuck, dude, when did you lose all that?" The thing is, I don't see it that way, I've been there for all the steps in between. It's not like "All I see is 26 dots, how the fuck did you come up with an umbrella?"
The most striking example is drinking. I was so anti drinking up until about March 2005, it was crazy. I was judgmental of people who drank, I looked down on it, I considered it immoral, all kinds of stuff. I wouldn't say I regret any of that; I had very good reasons - drinking represented succumbing to something I absolutely did not want to be. I'm the type of person that when I believe something, I do it all the way, no cognitive dissonance. I really try to behave in a way that adheres to my beliefs, part of my atheism is that only my peers and myself can judge my actions and as my peers change I can be the only reliable judge, and I make sure I do a good job.
I don't remember exactly how I began to reverse course on the drinking thing. Come like 2004, Jenn expressed interest in wanting to drink and we fought and fought and I said terrible things and all this nastiness. I was a huge douche to her over this issue. Somewhere along the way though, I started to realize that I was being that asshole I didn't want to be, and it wasn't a factor of drinking or not drinking. I had always thought drinking led to being an asshole, but I had started to be an asshole without it. I think that planted the seeds of disconnecting the 2; if the eventual goal was to avoid being a drunken asshole, I was only making sure not to be drunk, and I was missing the point. As I began to have a paradigm shift away from "alcohol is the devil," I really began to undergo cognitive dissonance. How do you approach that? When your actions are so determined by your beliefs, but your beliefs evolve, it's VERY hard to reverse your actions. We're talking about Rush Limbaugh suddenly opening a planned parenthood shit here.
I think back, and a huge turning point for me was the HA trip to Miami. Before all this, I hadn't really been around drunk people, and we went to Miami, and to only myself I'd begun turning my opinion around. In Miami, people drank a ton and I didn't, I DD'd the whole time, and we had a ton of fun. I think that experience was instrumental in turning the corner of "people who drink aren't automatically assholes." But, nevertheless, after that even if I'd wanted to drink, how could I? I'm the douchebag who publicly denounced drinking, it's not like I can go ask someone if they want to go get a beer. Quite frankly, I was ashamed of it; I was ashamed for believing something and essentially gradually reversing course on my beliefs, but not being able to reverse course on my actions.
Eventually, I brought it up to Jenn, and we had our first drink probably in May of 2005 (a Mike's hard lemonade) and had a drink at a restaurant every so often. I turned 21 December 1 2004, by the way. We didn't really tell anyone, maybe a few people, but it was interesting to me how much of my behavior at that point was determined by the expectations of others, and at this point in retrospect that's something I'm slightly ashamed of.
So then I left for grad school in Florida. If you don't know the story of FL and me, there's no point rehashing it. In summary, I did not fit in well in Tallahassee FL or at Florida State, I got very depressed and suicidal, gained a ton of weight, and in a lot of ways tried to throw my life away. The t-shirts you can buy there say "Tallahassee: a drinking town with a football problem" and that's true. In SD, you can go to the comedy club, or the beach, or seaport village, or sea world, or the zoo, and on and on; there's always something to do. In Tally, there isn't, people just drink. It was crazy to me. When I first started and was working in housing on FSU's campus, the chief of police came to us and said "we need people to come in, we'll get you drunk, then you'll help our new officers learn to do field sobriety tests." I, being a new drinker, being around people with no social expectation of me and know knowledge of my anti-drinking campaign, and figuring it's the safest environment you can ever learn to be drunk in, volunteered. I was taken to the chief of police's conference room and brought to a .12 on plastic bottle vodka, and resoundingly failed the field sobriety test. Also, one of the people brought in got sick and there was concern they had gotten alcohol poisoning, all of this happening in the chief of police's conference room. Connect those dots: leaving SD as being kind of a closet alcohol-sipper, to getting tanked and someone else getting alcohol poisoned in the chief of police's conference room. Tallahassee represented a huge and immediate disconnect with everything I had ever been familiar with throughout my whole life.
Over the time I was there, I made good friends and went out drinking many times, I was drunk many times and went to clubs and don't remember how I got home and the whole bit; I compressed a reasonable undergraduate career into 2 over-21 years of grad school. And somehow I survived, though at the end I weighed 300 lbs and was on all kinds of psych meds. And after leaving and moving up with Jenn, I lost the weight, got off the psych meds, still to this day I don't know what I want to do with my life, got an M.S. out of the ordeal, and casually I'll responsibly drink. I'd say I've been drunk 3-4 times in the 2 years since then, but mostly it's a beer over dinner or something.
If you were to take a snapshot of me now, you'd think I was pretty normal. I have a good education, I have a good paying job (even though it's not what I want to be doing, it's a recession and I'm happy to have a job) I'm healthy, and I do the things I want to do, I have a great wife, and I enjoy a drink when I feel like it. Nevertheless, we are shaped by our past experiences, and knowing the presentation I portrayed from like 98-2005, I still to this day hesitate doing things like posting pictures of us having a beer over dinner to facebook, or commenting that I tried a local beer and recommend it, because of what people from that time period will think. I need to get over that, and this explanation is in part a self-therapy session of fleshing out that umbrella - it may seem strange to jump to dot 26 when you only ever saw dot 1, but hopefully now you can see how the rest of the picture began to take shape.
