Category Archives: Thoughts and other ideas

A Spider-theory: Schrödinger’s Spider-man

Posted on by under Thoughts and other ideas

Everybody has heard about Schrödinger’s cat. And for the most part, people manage to picture the concept really well. To actually understand it is to take it a step too far, however. #QuantumPhysicsAreHard But that is not the point of this short essay – if I may be allowed to call it so. All you need to know is that the cat, as long as it remains in the box and no one checks inside, is simultaneously alive and dead. It’s that simple. Or is it? Yes. Yes, it is. At least for us, right now. You may be wondering where I am going with this, but relatively to the title chosen to crown this post, the point I am trying to make should begin to get more clear. If it does not, keep on reading, I swear it will neither be (too) long nor (too) complicated.

— WARNING! potential marvel related spoilers ahead, for those of you who have not been alive these past few years WARNING! —

Captain America: Civil War saw a brief apparition from Peter Parker, a.k.a. Spider-man, as a part of the main canon of the MCU back in 2016. Then, about a year later, Spider-Man: Homecoming reintroduced the character as an integral part of the MCU, after more than a decade in the hands of Sony (for what were good, very good, and then less good years. And then better ones to be honest). So the beloved character was back and in good shape and his own universe was coming back to life with him, in the form of movie follow-ups to that apparition in the MCU, in the form of a great animated movie, and even a very good video-game. And, as I saw it unfold before me, as I lived this sort of small renaissance for the character, I must admit I really enjoyed it.

Sam Raimi’s Spider-man is the first superhero live-action movie I ever saw, before Batman, Superman or Daredevil. I loved the 90s TV show (I’m too young to have known any of the previous ones) and I became enamored with Spider-man 2’s Gamecube adaptation with its very wide map, its great slinging physics making it so satisfying to move around, and some of my now favorite characters in that universe: Black Cat, with whom I fell in love (her black suit, silver white hair and provocative charm); and Mysterio, who will always, despite being a villain, hold a dear place in my heart, along side The Phantom Menace’s Qui-Gon Jinn, as one of the coolest characters from my childhood (the dude has a ridiculous but oh so cool B-movie villain type suit, and holographic powers! What can I say, magic is magical).

Now, this bit of backstory wasn’t necessary per se, but I felt like I had to give it to you, dear reader, so that you would better understand my point of view.

So, as I was saying, Spider-man sort of came back into the world’s good grace over the last few years. And, when Avengers: Infinity War rolled in, and he died *wink wink* at the end, everyone was sad. Me included. I did not shed a tear for poor Peter – I don’t cry a lot, the last time a tear rolled on my cheek was when I re-watched the episode where Marschall’s dad died in HIMYM, and I hadn’t cried in years before that – but I did feel the emotion of the scene, and it was good. The movie was surprising, in many ways, not all great, but overall it was a very pleasant experience. And having that feeling of doom at the end, even if for only a moment, as we all know they are going to make things better in Endgame, was indeed satisfying.

But Spider-man died. Poof! He bit the dust. Or, actually, the dust bit him. And that is where I want to go, with this. As of Infinity War, Peter Parker is dead. And having that information, along with the names of others who have passed (King T’challa and Nick Fury, among others), was perplexing. I didn’t quite believe they would keep him dead, they couldn’t all be definitely dead, they had to come back somehow. To be honest, I feared this knowledge would ruin the movie to come, but, in retrospect, it didn’t. The how they would come back, and the who would actually come back (as I have a feeling some might not) or, at least, who would take their place in death, were questions that kept me interested and entertained over the months. It was very cool to read and discuss theories, to learn how that story-line had gone down in the comics, what was different, what seemed to be hinted in the progression of the movies, in the teasers, the trailers, etc.

Then they announced Spider-man: Far From Home. And they said it would be direct sequel. And that frustrated me. I would like to say it frustrated me real bad, but eh, I must be getting old and disinterested in everything because it was more like a mild inconvenience. But still an inconvenience compared to Infinity war. Now we knew. Spider-man was going to be alright. It didn’t ruin Endgame, but it did take away some of the suspense, at least for me. They also announced Mysterio would be in it, which I found cool – as I really like the character – and then, later, that Jake Gyllenhaal was cast for the role. It managed to hype me up, but not as much as I was for Endgame (and I wasn’t that hyped for that one either at the time).

But then, Venom came out and I went to see it. Now, I had heard about the project and that it wouldn’t really be connected to the MCU, just a stand alone movie [one to try to jump-start a franchise, but a standalone none the less], still, I had hopes. Sony and Marvel (Disney) had managed to find a common ground with Homecoming, why not there too? Sadly, it was not to be. Venom is alone – and perhaps it did disserve the movie – and it seemed to be set to remain that way. Seemed.

Now, don’t take my word for granted, this is just a wild idea, a theory, one in which I don’t even believe wholeheartedly, but which I find interesting enough to share.

I say it seemed, because, as you may – and by now, should – know, there were two scenes during and after the credits of Venom. The first one, and least interesting here, introducing Carnage, seemingly out of nowhere. To this day I still don’t know how I feel about that – both about the character being there and its introduction, and about Harrelson as the actor behind it. The second, the more interesting one here, this one :

A teaser of the then upcoming Spider-verse movie – a very good one by the way, go see it, it is absolutely worth it! I had heard about the project and I was hyped about it, I just never expected to see that footage after Venom.

It did not change my life, but it did make me think. What if…? Then I saw the Spider-verse movie and it was… great. Really great. But, to stay focused on the point I am trying to make, it put in place the notion of alternate universes (showing a number of them to us through the different characters) and it was a collaboration between Marvel and Sony, meaning they were perhaps, just maybe, making a literal middle ground between the MCU and Venom’s universe with this one. And that was what made me think even more. What if they had done it, the madlads? What if, this simple caption at the beginning of the scene at the very end of the credits of Venom was supposed to mean a lot more than it did? Some time passed, and I don’t remember if I saw parts of the teasers/trailers for Far From Home before or after Into the Spider-verse, but after becoming privy to that information and mulling it over, the hype sort of hit me, and the full extent of the theory – which I spent far too long to build up and which I am going to expose right now – came to me.

Now, one final thing before I explain it. What motivated to write this [I realize it now] huge-ass thing is this video, from Austin Mcconnell, where he exposes a theory of his in which he says the Far From Home movie is not real and is simply some misleading promotion stuff designed to make us think Endgame is going to happen another way than it actually is… Personally, I don’t really believe that, although after part of the trailer footage from Infinity War (with Hulk appearing in it, for example) not being featured in the movie at all, one can wonder.

I don’t really feel this is the case though. It might be, but I don’t think so. My heart tells me Gyllenhaal’s Mysterio is really going to happen. It has to happen. Please. I want Mysterio… Anyway, I don’t think this theory is right, but mine is strangely sort of related to it. So, without further ado, here is the madness I propose:

What if Spider-man, Peter Parker, the one from the MCU in Infinity War & Endgame, is not the same as the one in Far From Home? What if Far From Home, takes place in an alternate universe? One with a different Peter Parker and different characters and different events?

I know it is far-fetched, and very weak as a theory, but imagine what a surprise it would be! Spider-man still gone at the end of Endgame, never to come back (maybe), and a different yet very similar one very much alive, in a different universe, with a more or less different timeline… Or even another version of this: our Peter Parker transported to that alternate universe but without really realizing it and having to struggle to come back (or, yet even to come to terms with the fact that he can never come back). The prospect of that feels really cool, it does in my mind at least. We’d have a true sad moment with Endgame, and a strange melancholic follow-up with Far From Home, all this with more serious consequences and without ever seeing it coming. (Well, except for this right here, of course.)

And that could mean a whole new set of open doors: one between MCU’s Spider-man and Sony’s Venom, and even, perhaps, connecting all of it to the Spider-verse… So many possibilities, so many ideas, and so much hype! Now, I don’t know if that is what will happen, I don’t know which of the two theories between Austin Mcconnell’s and mine is the most outlandish, I don’t know how far Marvel and Sony are willing to go with this, but just imagine… what if?

Thank you for sticking with me until the end despite the outrageous length of this “short piece of an essay”, I hope you enjoyed the trip!

So yeah, this is sort of Schrödinger’s Spider-man, because as long as we don’t watch the upcoming movies, Spidey is alive and dead simultaneously.

What do you think about all this?

My art, your art

Posted on by under Thoughts and other ideas

Art belongs, in my mind, as much to the artist as it does to the audience but in different ways.

A creation is completely dual in the way it can never be separated from its creator if one wants to understand it but at the same time it doesn’t need any context to be appreciated for what it is, to be given value. So being able to determine to whom it belongs in the end – to the author who created it with some intention behind it or to the reader who gives it his or her own meaning? – is very difficult.

Some say a creation belongs solely to the creator and cannot be dissociated from them. But what do you do in the case of someone who did things or thinks things that are completely opposite to your way of living? Can you still appreciate their art? What about Hitler’s paintings? Are they still art, knowing what he has done? Can you really enjoy Edgar Allen Poe’s POEtry (see what I did there? #lol) without knowing the tortured soul he was? Or The Rocky Horror Picture Show without knowing the political/cultural context of the time?

And others that it belongs to the readers/viewers/public who enjoys that art. But what if they use it in a way that was not designed by the author and that might contradict his or her view of their art? Or what if they change it from its original form to make it ‘better’ or more ‘politically correct’, can it still be considered as having the same meaning, the same impact as the original work? What if they read the meanings wrong or attribute it false ones?

How does one define the line of property for a piece of art (whatever it may be)?

I don’t have an answer to that question, I don’t know for sure. But It’s something that I think about quite frequently. I believe that, just as life in general is complicated, it is the same for art. There are so many different cases and scenarios… What I think I am able to say right now is that a creation should be able to stand on its own to a certain extent, that the public should be able to find beauty/interest in a piece of art just by experiencing it. And then, if they learn how it was created, what it means or what the artist wanted to represent with it, then the art piece can only become even more beautiful/interesting. So it’s paradoxical. The art and the artists are two different things that should be separate but at the same time completely merged together, thus creating a great piece.

I’d like to finish on the fact that I, for one, often insert meanings and references in my art (if I dare call it that), some of which are obvious and others are hidden from the public eye. There are some references I want my public to get, whether I hide them or not, then there are some that I design so that only people privy to the knowledge of my person will get, and then there are some that I insert here and there that may seem comprehensible and obvious (or not at all) but that no one except me will probably ever get. There are many layers to [my] art and I love that about it.

Now, I also think that, beyond what I meant to say, to make people understand through what I write (for example) I people should be able/free to understand/take out what they want from my creations. They are made to make you think, feel and be interested but not just in the way I designed them to be, also int he way you want them to be. And we come back to the paradoxical concept of art here because I want my creations to carry a message but at the same time I want them to be understood on a personal level by each individual who discovers them and in their own original way too.

Is there an answer to this in the end? I don’t, and probably never will, know if I am truly succeeding in this venture but I do truly hope that I do because that makes everything more beautiful. All I can hope is that some people do enjoy discovering and experiencing it as much as I enjoy making it.

PS: I realize now that I haven’t spoken about context until now but it is very important in my opinion. Because the context in which I write (or any artists creates) adds meaning and intent to a creation and so does the context in which people discover said art, it can change something beautiful into something ugly and despicable or inversely.

Sorry if this appeared as a bit of a rant or if it was incomprehensible, I just wanted to put into words what I was feeling and I pray that I did it in a sufficiently coherent manner. Also, example might have been a bit weird, I know…

What you write is not what you are…

Posted on by under Thoughts and other ideas

Well not always anyway.

A writer doesn’t always write about how they feel or about how they think or view the world, not exactly. Writing isn’t always an open letter to one’s soul. Sometimes it’s less than that: Just a fun way of escaping daily thinking and routine. Or more than that, like a profound analysis of one’s psychology, moods and soul. But other times it’s something different, something that isn’t exactly them (or me or you), something that fills us, that passes through us, that uses us as a means of reaching others.

Sometimes, for a writer, writing is a vessel for foreign emotions. Fabricated emotions, borrowed emotions, emotions that are empathized… Emotions that aren’t ours, that do not belong to us but that we feel anyways. A writer acts a bit like a channel for these emotions.

I am not sad or happy, I don’t feel trapped or wings grow just because I write so. Perhaps I do, perhaps I don’t. Perhaps a bit of both. Perhaps not. Writing is a mash of a lot of things and a bit of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey stuff that we don’t always understand or think or feel but that we put into words anyways because it seems the moment to do so.

Writing is something you do to express yourself but not necessarily to express your self. This is something important that I have learned by participating in writing classes: never consider the protagonist of a story (or the subject or theme of a story) as the writer themselves. Try to think of it more like a mirror, a projection, something the writer decided to write about and that is dear to them, holds meaning, but doesn’t define them. The point of view of a character in a story is not the point of view of the author, so it is not to be refered as so.

True, as an author your ideas, thoughts and opinions often end up in your characters but that doesn’t mean that everything the story expresses is what the author wants to express or tries to convey. Sometimes, when writing, one even conveys things they didn’t even want to convey. Art is made to make people feel, think and reflect. Sometimes it expresses ideas but always remember, art and artists are a very clearly separate duo, even if they are completely fused together.

This was just a small rant to try to clarify this for all of humanity. Here’s the tl;dr you have to learn from this: ‘I am not what I write. Mostly.’. Maybe it sounds stupid, unnecessary or incomprehensible (I apologize if it does) but I felt it was something important to say and I wanted to express it.

Thank you for reading and understanding.

The Last Unicorn

Posted on by under Shorts, Thoughts and other ideas

So recently, well a few days ago actually, I have found myself being completely captivated by a single sentence that popped into my head at some point… I don’t know exactly when or why but it just did. And I couldn’t not think about it…

I have this small notebook you see, to write my ideas whenever I have something that comes to mind so that I don’t forget it and can get back to it later. Well in the middle of a class it sort of came to me and I kept repeating it to myself, over and over, and trying to voice my idea as well as I could, to put the perfect ensemble of words onto what was in my mind. Because you see, what I thought about wasn’t exactly a sentence, it was more like a concept, a feeling, the spark of a great idea that I immediately had to work on.

And it didn’t stop ’til the end of class and even then, I kept repeating it, trying to formulate it as best as I could. I started writing it, saying it out loud at the same time, working on it, re-writing, changing words, changing the order, and for almost and hour I was working on this lone sentence. I couldn’t explain why now but at the time it was evident, I had to do it, I felt this wonderful feeling of imagination, the rush of creation that sometimes takes over when I am working on my stories. So yeah. I just couldn’t help it.

Somehow this single sentence was comprised of an entire universe, it had its own deep meaning, its own complex story, it was a whole new world in and of itself. That is the best way I’ve found to try to describe what was going on it my mind at that time… You know, one of my teachers, who does a class on J.R.R. Tolkien and his whole work, told us that apparently the whole universe he created come from a single word he read in a poem at one point. Well, if you’ve ever heard of that or experienced something of the sort, or if you have felt a strange but exhilarating rush while writing or creating things (the ‘creative rush’ perhaps?) you know what I’m talking about.

So in the end I ended up working almost two hours on that sentence that time and then, for the next few days, kept it in the back of my mind all the time and still tried to make it perfect, I kept repeating it as often as I could to see how it felt. And finally I believe I’ve come up with a somewhat satisfying version of what I had in mind at that time. I can’t be sure because I still keep repeating it to myself now and then, but I feel like it got to a point where I can be proud of it. So here it is, I’m sharing with you the object of most of my creative thoughts of the past few days/weeks :

.

‘For in time you will learn to know the wonders of life…’

 .

Yep. That’s all. I don’t know what t makes you feel or think but this is it. A simple, single, sentence. I don’t know why it came to me, or where from, but I’m glad it did because it somehow inspires me a lot and I feel that someday it might become so much more than just a sentence. Anyways, read it as many times as you want and enjoy! Or not. You choose. I just wanted to share my thoughts on this…

Also! Before you go! There is this video which I HAVE to share with you guys! I don’t know why but it’s a bit like that sentence, I can’t get it out of my mind and keep listening and watching it over and over. It’s so beautiful and moving. I can’t explain why exactly but right now, to me, it is. I don’t know why but some times, I have these things which I obsess over (a song, a video, a poem, …) and for a period I can’t think about/listen to anything else and it sort of becomes part of me and it inspires me and I find this feeling so great that I just have to try to share it! I can only hope that it will perhaps touch you too…

This is happening to me right now with the song The Last Unicorn by Passenger and more specifically the video clip that Nanalew (a Youtuber) made for it. I find it so amazing that I can’t help but share it with you so here you go, enjoy! :) :

♪

And we’ll sit on our single beds
Nothing on our hearts and tears on our threads
For we know the last unicorn is dead

♫

Welcome to life.

Posted on by under News, Shorts, Thoughts and other ideas

I feel crazy. I’m excited, elated, unable to rest, focus nor calm down. Ideas, so many ideas. Or, more seriously, flashes, bribes, pieces of ideas, coming, going, dancing all around me, toying with me, my emotions and my memory. I have beginnings, ends and a thousand romances in between my fingers but none of them can I write down because of this unstable state of mind. Jumping from Ore to Alexandre then to the one with the magic ink writer back to the Halfling and so on and so forth. every moment of every second! I want to make something out of this, out of these ideas. Something good, something great, I want to write, to tell my stories, but I can’t… not until I settle down and make a choice, decide, choose, set the course and follow a single path. So many possibilities. Exhilerating, annoying, awesome feeling but frustrating. With ifs I could rebuild the world from scratch. But that’s not what I wanna do, I want to build my world from scratch. I want to, I need to, I have to, I will. But how? When? Soon. Perhaps. I hope. I can’t decide. I can’t write if I can’t decide. I have to write. Damn it!

 

So this is something that I wrote an evening, a few days ago, as I was trying to write something but couldn’t manage for my life to write down anything I had in mind. I just went with the feeling and let the pen do what it had to, I let my hand guide itself and came up with this rant. I don’t know why but tonight a song reminded me of this rant and the feeling I had in my heart while I was writing it. I have such amazing stories to write, such great ideas I don’t manage to make the most of… It’s extremely frustrating! You can’t even imagine! Or perhaps you can, I don’t know… But I the worst is that I realized that this doesn’t only apply to my writing, it also happens in the rest of my life too!I’m not someone who can manage to get motivated without any reason or to be serious and dedicated in doing things.

‘I have beginnings, ends and a thousand romances in between my fingers but none of them can I write…’

Especially my studies and finding a job.I try but not enough and, as soon as it gets hard or complicated I avoid it as best I can. Unconsciously or consciously I don’t know but it does happen. And in writing it happens too, I try but when I struggle I move on to something else and don’t try hard enough… It’s a big problem. I realize that but getting over it is extremely hard. I don’t know if I’ll be able to do it, at least not easily or very quickly, but I am working on it. I will be trying harder, even my hardest, to work on my writings because it’s one of the only things I really feel motivated for! Also I will try to apply some of that motivation to my studies, I like what I’m doing this year, I can’t screw things up, I have to suck it up and just do it.

If I try hard enough then, one day, perhaps…

Anyway, I’m not here to rant, just to try to explain what motivated me to write this and what I feel. I don’t know why, I just had to do it… I think that this song is not for nothing in this feeling : “J’essaye, j’essaye” from the Casseurs Flowters, a french singer (or band I don’t really know), which I just discovered and fell in love with. I’m not usually a fan of the genre of music they make but this time I seem to really be growing fond of it. Both the melody and the lyrics stir something inside me in a way that I don’t really understand but that I can feel deeply. Especially during the parts where the old woman sings. I can’t explain it, I can just feel it. It’s a bit like when I read poems that, without knowing, I end up loving for reasons unknown to me. And I wanted to share it a bit with you, somehow hoping you could get what I feel or at least what I mean or try to mean…

Anyways, that’s all for tonight, thank you all and enjoy. :)

♪ J’essaye, j’essaye de faire de mon mieux et je m’ennuie quand tout devient sérieux. ♫

(I don’t know if you’ll be able to understand the lyrics but both the meaning and the melody are worth listening to, at least they really get to me.)

Oh, and just before I go : no Echoes of Power tonight, I have literally no idea about how I’m going to write the next part which is very important and is going to (hopefully) start the really interesting part of the story (I also have very little motivation, which really doesn’t help). So yeah, no update on that side today, hopefully tomorrow I’ll have figured out how I want to write this and with great luck you might even get two parts instead of one. Who knows… In the mean time, have a great evening and see you later.

So I saw the new Star Wars. And it sucks…

Posted on by under Thoughts and other ideas

It sucks that people think it sucks! Ha! It was awesome! I don’t understand how people can hate on it… I loved it! (Though I did like The Phantom Menace so my  opinion might not just be the greatest out there…)

So yeah, I watched Star Wars episode VII : The Force Awakens. I didn’t just watch it though, I saw it a few weeks ago, a few days after it had come out. I went a cinema about an hour and a half away from where I usually go to be able to enjoy it in English, because it was only in French everywhere else. Yeah, it sucks a little. But I did manage to see it in its original version and it really was awesome.

I didn’t plan to write anything about it, or at least not a review, perhaps I’d just have said that I liked it and that you had to go see it, especially if you like Star wars, but nothing more. That was before I saw some of the reviews that people posted around the interwebs. Now, I know that everyone is entailed to free speech and that no one can stop people from saying what they want, I respect that, I like that right a lot myself. But I can’t just sit by when I see such stupid (yup, I said it, stupid) things out there said about that movie.

First of all, there are a few things I should say before beginning. One, this phenomenon of mass dislike is an aftereffects of the freedom that internet gives people, being able to express oneself as easily as when one speaks and having millions of people being able to read or listen (all in all have access) to what you say is as bad as it is good and it often goes completely haywire. Perhaps I’ll talk about that later on if I ever get the motivation to tackle this thought thoroughly one day, in the meantime just know that the internet can be completely crazy because of that freedom of speech sometimes and that’s to be taken with caution.

Secondly, I am indeed, as you probably guessed, a big fan of Star Wars so my point of view is a bit biased. I entered the amazing universe of Jedis and space battles thanks to my father who introduced me to the Phantom Menace in my early years, which I loved at the time and which I still love now, and then The Clone Wars, before buying the original trilogy, which I watched many times and loved each and every one of them. Then I Revenge of the Siths and despite enjoying it I was disappointed. Yup, I don’t really know why or how it played out like that but I saw it in that order and, even if, perhaps, the whole meaning of the saga and the mystery of Dark Vador’s identity didn’t echo as much as it might have if the order had been different, I learned to love Star Wars very much. The Phantom Menace will always have a special spot in my heart (especially because of Qui-Gon Jinn and young Obi-Wan, which I find soooooo cooool!!!) even if I now realize how the original trilogy is so much better than the prequels. I don’t regret them but still, despite their much more realistic touch they lack something that made IV, V and VI so awesome… Anyway, I’m not going to tell you about why I love Star Wars in detail right now, but just understand that I do. It was a huge part of my childhood and still is a big part of my life.

Thirdly, I am not planning any of this, I’m just writing as I go (as you may already have noticed by my messy style) so I apologize for anything that seems (or is) a bit strange or annoying in my way of writing. Sorry but I go with the feelings… I trust in the force.

So yeah, Star Wars The Force Awakens.

When they first announced they were making a new Star Wars movie my reaction must have been akin to many a fan : running around yelling of excitement, sitting down a little to take it in, run around and yelling again, realizing Disney was going to make it, thinking about the consequences and shivering, realizing once more A NEW STAR WARS WAS COMMING OUT and running around again. Yup, I must admit I was both excited and scared at first, a new Star Wars but made by Disney. Was it going to be good. I laughed at them and the bashing they received because, well, it was Star Wars being remade by Disney…

I laughed and had my bit of fun mocking them, I have to admit. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Then, as time went on I started to think that perhaps there was a chance they could make something good out of this, perhaps even something great! At least better than the last three (or last two) movies… After all, Disney has made great movies, all those classics that rocked my childhood, the Marvel movies, the Pirates of the Caribbean, etc. Those were good. Not always great but always good [well, almost always, even Disney has it’s own black swans… *ahem* sequels * ahem* Planes *ahem* The Haunted Mansion *ahem* Yeah, you get it.]

So I sorta went with it. Disney remade Star wars? Well okay, let’s see what they do with it. Time went on, things died down a little, or at least I payed a little less attention to news about episode VII, just hearing from it here and there. Then it was announced that J. J. Abrams was going to direct it. It didn’t shock me much but it got my hopes up a bit, I had loved Star Treck and Super 8 looked awesome (well, the trailer, I still haven’t seen the movie but will do one day) so it was good news. The only thing I feared were lense flares… Everyone makes fun of Abrams for this, myself included (I like to laugh about it), so I feared his way of doing things might not really play well with Star Wars and its universe but, once again, I was going with it. Not particularly excited, not depressed either, just waiting impatiently to see what was going to happen.

Then time passed again, production began, shooting and all that technical blahblah, which I don’t pay attention to very much, the cast was, well, cast, they showed early images and talked about ideas and things but I chose not to dig in too deep so as not to get spoiled too much of the surprised, just listening here and there about the thoughts of other people. They all were looking forward to it, no one (at least in my circle of informants) was completely against the idea. The project kept moving forward and the tension building. I saw a few images and got a bit excited and then, the trailer came out…

That was one of the best days of my life! I remember a few years back I was excited about 2014 because of the many big movies that were scheduled to come out at that time and even more about 2015 and its even bigger pile of huge movies coming out, like Guardians of the Galaxy that I wasn’t really expecting but which looked good, Interstellar, which I wanted to see so badly, Man of Steel was also coming out very soon at that time I believe (that was way back), and Avengers 2 and Fantastic 4 were scheduled too. I was waiting for so many movies to come out so badly that I couldn’t wait! I think that I was excited a bit by the Hobbit too, though not as much as for Avengers 2. So yeah, then I saw the Star Wars Trailer.

The Millenium Falcon flew, Rey looked beautiful, Finn was funny, BB8 seemed funny but a (paling) copy of R2-D2, the bad guy looked… weird with his strange sword (people hated on him so bad for that, I think I was part of them. I didn’t really like his sabre because it seemed uselessly weird) but still quite badass (he seemed like a bit of a madman to me at the time, which turned out to be half-true) and Han and Chewie were home… Man! That was awesome! I couldn’t wait for the movie to come out! All my worries had been blown away! Then the other trailers came out and I hesitated to watch them, not wanting to know too much, but I ended up surrendering to the passion and loved every second of it. It seemed like it was going to be so great! I was so excited.

Then the time the movie was going to come out soon arrived, I ordered my seats early to be sure and started preparing to dive deep while ont he internet to evade any eventual spoiler that would come my way before I saw it. I almost managed it, only learning Han Solo’s fate the day before (though it could have been far worse, I almost saw the name of his killer and his real identity…), but that did not stop me from going to see it and enjoying it! Now, sorry for this long explanation, but as I said earlier, I following my thoughts as I go… Onto the heart of this post!

I saw the movie and loved each and every second of it! Each one! The characters were great, their interactions with each others were emotional and fun, the sceneries were beautiful, the fan service was there and, while the plot was a bit simple (and reminisced of the original trilogy quite a bit) it still was very good! Only two things managed to annoy me just a little during the movie : the fact that the StarKiller base was just another Death Star which seemed a little redundant, and the fact that the final battle didn’t include more spaceships and space fighting. But other than that, that which was almost unnoticeable, I had nothing to say, I was simply blown away…

Now, after I had seen the movie and enjoyed it so much I allowed myself to finally roam the internet freely and go take a look at reviews with eventual potential possibilities of spoilers. And I saw that a lot of people had disliked the movie and were bashing it for  a single reason : it felt too much like an old Star Wars. The plot was, in their opinion, far too similar to the old trilogy that it was almost shameful to have made a new movie just to do that. Basically, yeah, it’s roughly the same thing : super powerful bad guys vs struggling good guys, a sith with a dark mask and a big red sword, a huge space station and a robot, in possession of very important secrets, having for mission to get to the rebels. It does seem familiar doesn’t it? Well I say f*ck that.

Of course it sounds familiar, it’s Star Wars people! What were you expecting? Pirates trying to save the world by using the magic bracelet of love? No. It’s about intergalactic drama, space fights, jedis and siths and all the stuff that made the universe so great! If it sounds familiar it is precisely the goal, this movie was made to introduce us back in the universe, slowly, by giving us back all the familiar marks we had and adding new characters on top of that! Of course it would seem familiar, this was what Abrams (and his whole team, because let’s not forget he isn’t the only one that worked on this movie) was aiming for: re-awakening (got it? #awesomejoke) old feelings and making us love Star Wars and its universe again.

So yeah. It is the same thing as the old things but it’s still awesome, feels fresh and gives us great new ideas to expand on! Yes people, the fact that you don’t know much about the new stormtroopers or how they were trained, about Rey’s or Finn’s identities, about what happened during those twenty years, about the mastermind behind all of it, and all those other questions that were left unanswered, why do you think it is? To make us want to know more! This movie is not full of holes, plotwise or anything else, it is just a piece of a three-part puzzle (just like the map of Luke’s location) that will become clearer as the next two movies come out. Just be patient and enjoy what has been given to you instead of criticizing everything!

So what if the Jedi is Rey? It doesn’t make this movie an ode to feminism. So what if she learns the usage of the force so fast? It doesn’t make her a Mary Sue, either it was made like that to be able to cram everything in a single movie (so be thankful for it) or it means she is even more powerful than Luke (or at least she has a far greater learning potential, potential isn’t everything you know, exploiting it is the key.) So what is we don’t know who Rey or Finn’s parents are or how we get there? Do you want to know everything immediately?! Take some time to think up theories first and scratch your head for a while before asking for the easy way out. So what if Starkiller base is just a giant Death Star (and if it isn’t logical)? It’s still wickedly awesome and, admit it, there wouldn’t be a Star Wars movie (or a, sorta, reboot) without one. So what if we don’t see enough of the space ships and space battle? No, wait, actually that was one of the things that did piss me off a little. (moar X-Wings and huge space battles!!!)

So what if Kylo Ren seems like a grumpy teen. It’s really well done (much better than Anakin’s character was treated in the prequels at least) and it’s so funny. Plus he’s not very strong yet (and he’s torn between the light and the dark side, which is cool) so it’s indeed a bit frustrating, especially when… So what if he’s defeated by Rey that easily? He’s not a Sith Lord yet, he still has to learn things, he’s only an apprentice, so basically, if she learns way faster than him (at least int he beginning), or has part of the jedi powers innate to herself, she IS technically able to do that. At east now, when he finishes his training though, that’s another story… So what if Maz Kanata is a convenient character (like, she helps Han but no one knows why exactly, she has Luke’s sabre and she seems very powerful or reliable in a business overlord kind of way)? She’s Chewie’s girlfriend for f*ck’s sake! And so what if the New Order is basically the Empire and the resistance are just the Rebels a few years later? We don’t know how everything got to that point yet and, yeah, it doesn’t bug me because it’s logical when you think about it. The Empire crumbled, but it’s power still partly remains and is now controlled by another Sith (I think?), but the don’t have the political grip they had before and they work in the shadows. And the Resistance is what is left of the Rebels after most people thought war was over and peace was there for good.

Besides, do you really think the writer of the scenario, who worked on the original trilogy, didn’t notice it was almost the same as A New Hope’s? If they did it that way it’s because they have something bigger in mind, something that spans the whole new trilogy. They wanted to make us want to watch Star Wars again and be excited for what was to come next so they had to give us what we all wanted: the feel of the old Star Wars with the awesomeness of the prequels in terms of special effects (and I mean the good part of those special effects) with a touch of something else, something more.

So stop hating and star enjoying. They made us like and want Star Wars again. They made something slightly new with a lot of old stuff. Perhaps a bit too much old stuff but don’t tell me it doesn’t work well… They had to do it that way, now the path is solidly paved for awesome new intergalactic adventures. I, for one, can’t wait for

PS: plus, for anyone who watched the movie, admit that the recurring plot, the new characters and the unanswered questions didn’t bother you that much while watching it, it felt good seeing Star Wars again, like seeing an old friend after many years, didn’t it?

PPS: I would love to see a few things in the next movies though. 1 – Rey with a double light sabre (à la Darth Maul) because she learned to fight with a long staff/stick/pole so it would seem better to see her fight with a weapon she is potent with. 2 – Finn could become a Jedi too. Or Poe. But at least give us another one. Even if it’s a long lost ‘new’ apprentice of Luke’s new Jedi order. 3 – The Jedi ghosts come back, Darth Vader for example (I think that’s in project so…), or Obi Wan or Yoda, or even Mace Windu or Qui Gon Jinn (yeah I love Qui Gon Jinn) 4 – Why not try a movie without any ‘giant death ray killing space station’ next time? 5 – Why not more lightsabre colors? 6 – Just a tad of politics? 7 – Jango Fett is alive? 8 – More Jedi powers are explored? (The mind thing was awesome though!) 9 – Leia trains a bit in the ways of the force? 10 – Darth Jar Jar anyone?

PPPS: (last one I promise) so, yeah, I hope this wasn’t too long or boring but here is my take on the new Star Wars and the reviews I saw… Or at least most of it, I wasn’t really structuring this to begin with (I think I said all I wantd to say though) so it is maybe not very clear… Sorry for that if it’s the case.

Anyways, thank you for reading and see you later folks!

This is not an homage.

Posted on by under Thoughts and other ideas

bowie_aladin_sane_1000px

So yesterday I learned David Bowie died two days ago.

I don’t really know what to say about this except that he had my respect despite me not knowing much about him. I often heard he was a great musical artist, great singer, great musician and, above all, a great creator, ahead of his time most of the time. Visionary as some might say. I can’t vouch for that as, to me, David Bowie was, or should I say still it to me, the strange, older, older equivalent to Marilyn Manson from the 70s and 80s in terms of style. The singer of Space Oddity, the only song I believe I really know of him (which I sort of rediscovered in Gravity). And the great Nikola Tesla from the movie The Prestige (one of my favorite movies of all time if not the favorite).

bowie-tesla

Davie bowie as Nikola Tesla in the movie The Prestige

I don’t really know him much more than that, I don’t have much idea about whatever else he did, but strangely he is still a great artist in my mind. Perhaps it is because of his appearance in that movie or the fact that I love his song since I saw Gravity (not just because of the movie, though it played a great part in that), but also because it’s a great song in itself. Or perhaps it is because I’ve unconsciously realized how great he was. I don’t really know. He was great, I just feel I don’t have the right or the authority to say this myself. I’m not a fan but I enjoy what he did a lot. Apparently he was fighting against a cancer without ever saying he was sick publicly, that’s why the news of his death came as a shock to me, and perhaps to everybody else. I wasn’t ‘ready’ for him to leave yet.

I didn’t know him well, not personally of course, but not even as a music fan, but I feel very sad about his departure. Perhaps he had a lot of things he still wanted to do… I know his new album debuted on his birthday, two days before his death, so maybe he was ready to go… I don’t know, all I can hope is that he didn’t have too much regrets leaving so soon and that he knew how much of an impact he has made in the world with his music (and everything else he did). I am sad to see him go, even if I didn’t follow him or his artist career a lot, I was always somewhat expectant to see news about him and sort of excited or happy when I heard talk about his music.

But what I am the saddest about is that I realized that I had almost missed the great homage the internet (and more precisely the users on Twitter) had given him earlier this week. I just realized that I had seen a few drawings, images or pictures of the night sky and stars with the words “The Stars Look Very Different Today” without understanding the reference. It somehow clicked when I saw a drawing of Charlie Brown and Snoopy  looking at the night sky and a bubble of text with this small sentence in it, I suddenly thought about David Bowie and his Space Oddity. Not that I remembered it being part of the lyrics of his song but I somehow guessed it had a link. A quick research gave me a positive answer but also a sense of shame. How could I claim to like an artist and not even pick up such an obvious reference?

In the end I did understand, but it took me a few pictures of the sky from NASA, World of Warcraft and drawings of a few artists with these words to realize it was an homage to a great artist who had recently departed. That is why I say this is not an homage and I am not worthy (to use a powerful word) of paying one to him, I don’t know him enough, I can’t appreciate his work to its true value and I haven’t been immersed sufficiently in his universe to be able to do that. So, instead, I will simply say thank you to him for all he did, or at least the little he did that I know of, and for what it has brought/given me. It wasn’t a lot but it was sufficient to have a great impact on me. So, yeah, thank you mister Bowie. I hope the stars will keep shining for you and that someday I will finally learn to appreciate your work to its real value, or at least come to understand it a little better.

Thank you.

Space Oddity in the movie Gravity

How he met their mother

Posted on by under Thoughts and other ideas

I don’t know why but I feel I have to come back to that show and to make a few comments. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been watching a few videos of HIMYM here and there, I don’t know… But I really want to give my opinion, my take, on the ending of the 9th season, the show’s finale.

A lot of people, from what I have been able to see, are upset over how it ended, either completely hating it or disliking parts of it a lot. Many are much more happy with the alternate ending (which I also like a lot, I’ll talk about that a bit later) than with the official one. Some, perhaps, are also unsatisfied with how the ending was sad, or bittersweet, because of How I met your mother being a sitcom, a ‘funny’ show, and all that. But frankly I liked the ending, I loved the show from start to end (despite the feeling that it got stretched a bit too much during the ninth season), I loved all the characters, all the stupid things they did and the laughy I had while watching it. The ending did bring a bittersweet taste but that is what makes it so awesome. Let me explain.

The main character, Ted Mosby, tells his kids the story of how he spends years (nine season in all) searching for his soul mate, the love of his life. His relationships have their ups and downs (mostly downs) but over time he learns that he can’t control everything and sort of lets chance decide, he decides to simply go with it. During all that time we know that the mother is not far but yet out of his reach (via the yellow umbrella, the roommate). Ted is already in love with her but he simply doesn’t know it yet. All this builds up to the final moments when they finally meet and they immediately know something is up and a few things are revealed which makes everything even better.

In the same time, Lily and Marshall have their times of love and their times of crisis (going as far as to break up at some point) but they slowly and (mostly) steadily make their way towards becoming a real couple (engagement, getting married, moving in to a better apartment, getting pregnant) and by the end they are the rock solid couple that unconditionally love each other (despite their few disagreements, like their children’s names for example). Their relationship isn’t really that interesting to follow on a dramatic point of view but they are still so awesome and likable that without them it wouldn’t just be the same. Plus they’re really funny! (“You sonnavabich!“)

Now, last but not least, Barney and Robin also slowly start circling around each other and finally end up falling in love and getting married (which the last season is all about actually). I won’t get into much details about this but let’s just say it isn’t easy, however they both love each other and it’s evident by the efforts they make to stay together and how well they end up being together. This is an awesome development for both their characters (Robin being afraid of commitment because of her inability to have kids and Barney being a ladies’ man) and it’s just so fun to see them struggle with couple issues throughout the latest seasons.

All this, in people’s head (I think) seemed to build up to a happy ending where everyone deserves to be happy forever. But unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view) the ending isn’t anything like one could’ve expected. Or is it? I have to agree that the revelation of the mother’s death was quite a shock, it saddened everyone I believe (angered some too surely) however, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve watched almost all the seasons in a row that I feel that way, but I was sort of expecting this outcome. It is crystal clear (at least to me) that in the last season something has happened to the mother. And from Ted’s reactions and from what he says, it isn’t just a breakup, no, something much sadder happened.

What most people hoped didn’t happen and the mother is revealed to have fallen very ill and have died at a young age. This makes everything a lot less cheerful but I think that it’s what make the show awesome: it felt better that way, more realistic. Now, I’m not saying that everything was realistic, it’s a sitcom guys. But this sadness that taints the last episodes, the melancholy, is something that gives it a much more powerful vibe and I loved this. I, who is mostly a robot with no feeling before such things, actually felt sad and almost started crying when I watched it. Only to be surprised by the little twist at the very end, in which the kids allow Ted to go back to his old ways of courting Robin. Yes, because Barney and Robin broke up you see.

Wait. I didn’t say I was mad at this decision. Once again, and probably against everybody else’s preference, I really liked the fact that the Robin/Barney pairing didn’t end up working. I was sad and disappointed at first, of course, but life is life and things don’t always end up well. They remain friends though, which sort of makes things okay. Barney and Robin, however in love they were, were perhaps not destined to be together. It’s sad but it is so. No, I like this ending.

The only thing that made me tick was the fact that Ted went running back to Robin at the end. This, despite being acceptably fun to watch at the end, is not really something I liked. (And this is really what I wanted to talk about here) Ted has lost his wife a long time ago at that point (six years before I believe) but in the point of view of the viewer it’s only been a few minutes. And I think that is what made me (and many others) tick. I love Tracy as the mother and her death makes the show even better, but it should have ended with the scene where Ted finishes his story by saying  “And kids, this is how I met your mother…”. This is an awesome point to end everything.

Of course it’s sad, but why not mixing the ending with its alternate twin and add the “meeting your mother wasn’t that hard” sequence. That would have brought a smile back to our lips I think. The mother has to die for the show to be that awesome. Barney and Robin can break up, they are still both awesome and I love them. But Ted simply cannot go running back to Robin… at least not so soon. And I think that this is what I didn’t like about this, it all happened much too quickly! They should have shown Ted and Robin yet even older, say ten or twenty years older, and then do the ‘I still love you’ thingy. Or at least just making the damn thing a bit longer (by adding the “meeting your mother wasn’t that hard” sequence from the alternate ending) so that it would have seemed that a bit more time had happened. I don’t know, many things could’ve been done. The ending was a tiny-weeny too rushed in my mind, and it’s that fact that bugs me, not that Ted goes back to Robin, that feels strangely… okay.

Well, anyways, that is how I would’ve loved to see it end. But, sadly, in life you can’t have everything you want. HIMYM is still and awesome show and I enjoyed it from beginning to end. I still enjoy it a lot and I hope that I will continue to love it ’til the end of times, all the while reflecting on its finale and trying to come to terms with the fact that Ted and Robin do, in the end, fulfill their 40-year-old-unmarried pact that they had. (Because yes, they had such a pact and this is what makes all of it okay.) It was one of the best show I have ever watched and I hope that one day I will get to watch an equally amazing piece of entertainment. Yup, I love How I Met Your Mother, that I do.

Thank you for reading this and, as a certain someone would say: Daddy’s home. *dundun dun dun dun dundun dun dun dun dundun*

Why I love randomly learning more about languages – Part Deux

Posted on by under Thoughts and other ideas

Part 1 over here!

At least we have and equivalent to these words, you might say. True, we could have had nothing at all (which I doubt because we’d have a hell of a time describing these things without appropriate words), it is still unnerving though. But here comes the worst part! We don’t, and I must insist in the don’t, we don’t have a word for dusk. Nope, nothing, nada, njet.  We can say tombée de la nuit which literally means the falling/fall of the night (just as we could say lever du jour instead of aube) but that is just a phrase, not a precise word. Even wikipedia doesn’t have a French page for dusk… So yeah, you might say its poetic, and I’m not saying it isn’t (it is!) but it’s a bit annoying when you think about it.

Yup, I know it’s completely trivial but it annoys me. And when it annoys me I can’t stop thinking about it until I find a way for it not to annoy me anymore… And I did quite a bit of thinking last night, here are some of the things I thought about. First, a small resumé of what I just explained in an easy way to visualize:

Night > dawn > twilight > sunrise > day > sunset > twilight > dusk > night again

Nuit > aube / levé du jour > crépuscule > aurore / levé du soleil > jour > coucher de soleil / couchant > crépuscule > tombée de la nuit > nuit encore

See?! We have ways to say it but not single words… But I am not here to whine. So, as you might have noticed, I added a word in French for the coucher de soleil (sunset) and that would be couchant. Apparently it would work to describe the sunset, it’s a single word and I like it (the word and the concept) so I decided to add it. I think it would be a good (and cool) way to say coucher de soleil, so at least I found a possible solution for that. But the big problem remains with dusk/tombée de la nuit, which has no single word for it. What I would like to find as a replacement for tombée de la nuit would be a word as cool as aube and that feels as poetic because wouldn’t something like aube / aurore / couchant / [insert cool and poetic word] be extraordinarily awesome?!!! Yes, it would.

From what I have heard (more like read, but who cares?) around the internet (and especially this article, which was a good part of the fuel to these thoughts and which you should go check out if you read French) one word that could be used instead of tombée de la nuit would be brune (or brunante). From what Reverso and Sansagent say it can mean dark hair, dark skin or tombée de la nuit/dusk. I’m not sure if I really like that word yet but I know I find it interesting, it’s quite poetic (much like what I would expect from an antonym of aube) and easy to remember, even if it has other meanings. I haven’t really found any other words that could suit my needs so I will have to think about it. I don’t know if I could ever place it anywhere in a text though, but I’ll try.

Now, with the addition of couchant and brune/brunante, we would get something like this :

Night > dawn > twilight > sunrise > day > sunset > twilight > dusk > night again

Nuit > aube > crépuscule > aurore > jour > couchant > crépuscule > brune / brunante > nuit encore

It’s a bit better than earlier, not perfect yet but better. This does give my mind a bit of peace. So yeah, now you know the precise terms both in English and in French, it’s up to you to use that knowledge wisely!

But, because there always is a but, even if I wanted to talk about this subject a lot (yup, sunrise and sunset are fun!) this is not the only time I have discovered terms that exist in one language but not in the other and, since it is the subject of this post, I must talk about them. I have to admit, it is quite annoying not to be able to translate exactly what someone says, with precise words and all that. The most obvious example I could give you would be with the words sibling(s). There is not single word to describe that concept in French. We either say frères (brothers), soeurs (sisters) or frères et soeurs (brothers and sisters) but we have no word for siblings. I believe you can imagine how frustrating that must be at times…

On the other hand, and this time its a win for us frenchies, we do have expressions you don’t in English (haha, take that yous suckers!). Two of these I can think of are bon appétit and l’esprit de l’escalier. The former being what you say to wish a good meal to somebody before they eat, which roughly translates as have a nice meal I believe. And the latter being the situation you find yourself in when you think about a good comeback too late, after the moment to say it has passed (it comes from the fact that Diderot, a philosopher, said he only found a good comeback to a remark that was made after he had climbed down the stairs to leave). These two expressions are found in French but have no real equivalent in English.

These discrepancies in the languages and the bridges between one language and the other make it, in my opinion, all the more interesting to learn foreign languages. These little facts, these little details, are what I thrive for, I try to always have the knowledge that somebody else won’t have just to impress because I’m like that. It’s a lot of fun being able to explain things when you are at a party, or should I say a soirée, and to be the know-it-all (which literally translates as le je-sais-tout, which would, translated in English again, but literally, be I-know-it-all or I-know-everything and not just know-it-all) from time to time. It has un je ne sais quoi* that makes it a lot of fun!

Well, that is about all I had to say, thank you for reading, I truly hope you enjoyed this (not-so) little post and I wish you a god day. See you later people! ;)

PS: * As I was writing this I just realized un je ne sais quoi (literally : a something I know not, or less literally “a small detail that I can’t quite explain“) is also a unique expression in French, it doesn’t appear to have any real equivalent in English… So, yeah, hurray for us!