Day 267: Titanic (Fan Request)

This is not just any fan request. This is a request from my biggest fan... my wife. Let me backtrack a bit and explain.

My wife, aside from being a big space nerd, is also a big Titanic nut. Now I don't just mean she loves the movie Titanic, though she does (I'll get to that shortly); she legitimately is a Titanic fan, or at least as much of a fan as you can be of an event that killed over fifteen hundred people. She's fascinated by the whole story and has read books about almost every aspect of it making her pretty much the Titanic authority among everyone we know (besides maybe her mom).

Now, couple that interest in the historic event with her love of Leonardo DiCaprio (which I think started with Titanic, but let's not split hairs) and it should be obvious that Titanic is one of her favorite movies of all times. And if you hadn't heard that it's back in theaters in 3D right now for the upcoming 100th anniversary of the sinking, well, now you know.

So long story short, we saw Titanic in 3D last night.

I will go on record right now and say two things that I'm sure will prompt my wife to keep a hard copy of this blog somewhere to refer back to in the future. First, in my opinion Leonardo DiCaprio has proven himself to be a pretty goddamn good actor (plus he's named Leonardo) and second Titanic is actually a really good movie. We've been over-saturated with images of it since 1997 and it's become something of a joke, but really, it was damn impressive when it came out and it still is. There's a reason it won all of those Oscars.

Anyway we saw Titanic last night and I was really impressed with the upconversion to 3D. It looked really good, way better than Thor which I think was the last 3D movie I saw. And I'll let you know right now I hate this 3D movie trend. I think 3D is a bullshit excuse to charge an extra three to five bucks per ticket and if given the choice I will take 2D almost every time (Pixar is the exception. Their movies are gorgeous in 3D and they can do no wrong in my eyes). So, yeah, the 3D actually looked good and wasn't distracting, and unlike most 3D movies it wasn't dark or muddy at all. I may not like all of his work, but James Cameron is a technical genius.

So we watched the movie and everyone cried (except me cause Titanic makes me sad, but not like that) and I snickered a little every time they showed a shot of the stars because all I could think about was Neil deGrasse Tyson getting all snarky with James Cameron. I also couldn't help but make mental jokes about Lord Theoden captaining the ship and Professor Perry sneaking radioactive mutagen onboard. Plus, I don't have a problem with my wife drooling over Leo so I made sure to give her a thumbs up when Kate Winslet dropped her robe for the portrait scene just to let her know I was enjoying the movie as well.

After we got home I talked to her a little about what I had been planning on posting here, but hadn't had time to do.

Me: I was planning on doing a Titanic inspired drawing. I thought of a good one.

Em: Oh god, is it a "draw me like one of your French girls" scene?

Me: No.

Em: Is it "I'm the king of the world!" with Casey Jones and April O'niel?!

Me: No, but that's not actually a bad idea.

Em: No, wait, can it be me and Leonardo-(at this point I honestly thought she was talking about Leonardo the ninja turtle)-DiCaprio?... And the ninja turtles can be killing Hal and Lovejoy in the background with x's over their eyes so we can be happy forever!

Me: Umm...

Em: You know, you said you would do fan requests.

Me: That's true.

Em: And I am your biggest fan.

Me: Haha OK, you have a point.

So there you have it. I don't think she expected I would really draw this, but I did because she is my biggest fan and it was a pretty funny idea. I know, all of my humans look terrible, but sue me. All I ever learned how to draw with any regularity was ninja turtles.

So tomorrow I'll be back with my original idea for a Titanic drawing. I promise the post will be much shorter.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A bit of unrelated news: new blog friend Jaime wrote an awesome post about this blog yesterday. She's got a great site and she's a huge Ninja Turtle fan so you know she's cool. I have plans to add a couple things here and one of them is a list of web friends and sites I personally enjoy and her's will definitely be on the list. In the mean time go check her blog out.

http://shezcrafti.com/

Day 266: Master Splinter Molding Young Minds

It was recently pointed out to me by an anonymous reader that in the 9 or so months that I've been posting to this blog I have yet to draw a picture featuring Splinter. I've done all the Turtles, Shredder, Casey Jones; I even did a picture with Venus de Milo, the most universally hated character from any of the iterations, but somehow I missed Splinter. Well I'm here to remedy that right now. Splinter is an important part of the Turtles' mythology and he needs to be represented. So here's Splinter imparting his wisdom on his young pupils. Ironically I didn't intend to make the Turtles look young, but they kinda do anyway. And no, I don't know why the Turtles in the foreground are smaller than the ones further away. Perspective is not my strong suit.

Day 265: Journey (Again)

You may or may not remember my lengthy post about my 20 minute preview of the game Journey from last year. It was full of flowery words and lots of praise about why Journey was my number one most anticipated game for this year. Well the full game finally came out almost three weeks ago and I just played it today. The reason it took me so long was because for games like this I prefer to wait to start until I know I can give it my undivided attention for at least a couple of hours. With Journey I wanted to have the house to myself long enough to play it through in its entirety (which ended up being about 2 hours).

Now onto the game.

I've started this "review" three times now and deleted several hundred words worth. It's hard to write about the mechanics of the game without in some way taking away from the things that I found amazing about it. The gameplay is simple and well developed, but at its heart this game is about creating an emotional journey for the player as you lead your character on a literal one. The sense of isolation, even when paired with another player, is immense. I've said it many times, but it really reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus which is one of my favorite games of all time.

Of course in the game you're not alone. A major part of the emotional journey is sharing it with the random companion you are paired with. It's strange how connected you can feel to a perfect stranger when you can't talk to them and don't even know their name. It makes communication more difficult in some ways, but in the end you feel an attachment to this person because you're in this adventure together with literally no one else to help you see it through. While the game does make you feel isolated, you don't ever feel alone, and that is incredibly comforting, especially in the end.

When I finally completed the last long struggle with my companion it was sad and exciting and sort of unbelievable all at once. I don't want to get into plot details, but there was a real sense of "if you can't make it, I'm not going to make it" about the whole thing. That's not a gameplay feature, you can absolutely make it on your own, but by the end you don't want to.

I feel like I want to say so many things about my one brief play-through, but my words seem inadequate to capture the feeling of the game. It's really something you have to experience to understand. I realize this is not a game for everyone, but the people that get it will love it.

The levels, characters and mechanics are simplistic, but beautiful; the music is beyond amazing. These things make the game worth playing but it's the emotion thatgamecompany was able to tap into that make it more than memorable. I don't know how many times I'll revist Journey but I do know I'll never forget my first.