There’s been a lot of buzz building over the Scott Pilgrim comic book series lately, largely due to the live-action film adaptation being released in a few weeks. Now, I’ve never read Scott Pilgrim in its entirety — only bits and pieces here and there — so I’m no expert. I also have no desire to see the film right away, as I can’t stand Michael Cera. But I can certainly understand the comic’s appeal, especially to the Internet generation for which it is intended. It’s got a unique art style and hyperkinetic way of storytelling, and creator Bryan Lee O’Malley deserves all of the recognition and accolades he has received.

However, there’s one big problem that I have with Scott Pilgrim, and that is the central plot. It all boils down to this: the eponymous protagonist wants to date Ramona Flowers, but she requires that he defeat her six superpowered ex-boyfriends (and one ex-girlfriend!) first. The six Scott Pilgrim graphic novels detail the hero’s quest to vanquish his seven foes and get the girl.

And that’s what bugs me. Seriously, dude, if a woman is that high-maintenance…tell her to fuck off, and get someone down-to-earth! Cripes, if a woman asks you to beat up one ex, superpowered or not, that’s too much. She’s obviously more concerned witih petty revenge than you.

Come on, Scott Pilgrim. Don’t be such a pussy. Man up and get yourself a girl that respects you!

If there’s anything I can’t stand in film and television, it’s blindingly obvious product placement. Real-world products can make a movie or TV show more realistic, but when these products are gratuitously placed, it’s distracting and annoying.

There’s far too many incidents to list here, so I’m just going to point out some of my favorites, which are some of the worst examples of product placement I’ve seen.

• The Wizard. This 1989 film was essentially one gigantic advertisement for Nintendo. This was made abundantly clear up front, with the trailers proudly touting the Nintendo World Championships. Still, the fact that this giant commercial was actually released and made money was ridiculous, as the movie really wasn’t that good. (I’ll concede that the “He touched my breast!” scene was hilarious, though.)

• The 4400. In the second season episode “Rebirth,” one of the main characters was reminiscing with his old Korean War buddies about a fellow soldier who had recently passed away. While in the bar having drinks, they mentioned that the soldier “loved his Buds.” That’s not too bad, but what followed was much worse. One of the group mentioned how beer cans nowadays looked a lot like the old ones from their wartime days…complete with a closeup shot of a Budweiser anniversary can. Give me a goddamned break.
• Transformers. I’m talking about the 2007 film, mind you, not the cartoon; the latter was specifically designed to be a commercial to sell its accompanying toyline, as were many cartoons in the 1980s. The film had a toyline, as well, but in this case, the role was reversed: the toys promoted the film. Anyway, that’s not even the example I want to mention! There’s plenty of product placement in this movie, especially from General Motors, but the biggest offender is Panasonic. In one scene, a computer scientist picks up a memory card in order to copy a sensitive file. She holds the card up to the damned camera, so that we can all see the Panasonic logo emblazoned on it before putting the card into the computer! Are you fucking kidding me?
• Eureka. Syfy’s flagship comedy/scifi show got hit with a nasty dose of product placement in the first half of its third season. The show picked up Degree antiperspirant as a sponsor, and company logos were shown throughout the show. This was distracting, but the show’s writers managed to work it into the storyline with a bit of humor, showing that the Degree products actually came from the eponymous town in the first place. However, things really went overboard with the episode “Here Come the Suns.” Here, the show’s protagonists had to apply special heatproof gel (made by Degree, of course) in order to brave the high temperature from an artificial sun. As it turns out, having an episode that featured a Degree product saving the day was part of the sponsorship contract! This annoyed the shit out of the writers, but they did their best with what they had. Later episodes of Eureka featured blatant advertising from networking giant Cisco Systems, but nothing was bad as that Degree shit.
• Doctor Who. Believe it or not, product placement worked its way into the long-running British science fiction show, and it’s one of the most annoying examples ever. The 2005 episode “Bad Wolf” was in its entirety a commercial for the game show The Weakest Link, complete with hostess Anne Robinson appearing as a robotic version of herself. There were some Doctor Who plot elements running through the episode, sure, but the crux of the matter is that it was an advertisement, plain and simple. It was probably the most insulting episode of a television show I’ve ever seen. (And yes, I’ve seen “Love & Monsters,” but that one just hurt my brain rather than insulted me.)

I understand that product placement is how extra money for a film or show’s budget can be made, but often it’s just glaring. If someone’s casually drinking a can of Coke, that’s realistic and unobtrusive. But if that person holds up the can so we can clearly see the logo as the camera zooms in…come the fuck on. Stop insulting our intelligence. As a matter of fact, advertising like that will make me less likely to buy your stupid-ass product.

(Wondering why is this going up so late, since ComiCONN was held on May 15th? Remember, I tend to write my blog posts well in advance, and there were others already in the pipeline.)

I attended the inaugural ComiCONN, as my roommate had a table there, and I served as his lackey for the day. At the same time, I made sure to peruse the show floor, scouring for deals, getting stuff signed, and talking with creators. Some of my other buddies also had tables, so I was able to catch up and hang out with them.

But you don’t want to hear about that. You want to hear about the stereotypes and other freaks that crawled out of the woodwork for this show, don’t you?

Well, I’m happy to oblige. I’ll offer commentary on a few of the more egregious examples of fandom that I saw at the show. While I may seem caustic, I will not be posting pictures or using anyone’s real names. I may be a crotchety bastard, but I’m not a monster.

First up…the Fat Imperials. As we all know, the Galactic Empire in the Star Wars universe was very human-centric. Emperor Palpatine wasn’t fond of non-human species, so we saw very few of them serving in the Imperial military. Throughout the Star Wars films, we’d seen the personnel of the Empire to be in excellent physical shape; overweight folks were usually found amongst the Rebel Alliance. Well, not so for the local Imperial garrison, it seems. I haven’t seen cloth stretch that far since since I overloaded my laundry bag.

Next, we had the Vampire Tweens. C’mon, are you really surprised at this? I didn’t catch anyone selling Twilight merchandise, but the wimpy vampire fanbase was still out to annoy. I think there might’ve been some crossover with the anime fans, too, as I heard a few of them squeeing far too loudly on more than one occasion. Instances like that call for a roll of duct tape.

Then, the Disheveled. This wasn’t one particular group that stuck together, mind you; this was just a random assortment of people who haven’t quite realized that when you go out in public, you should at least make an attempt to look presentable. Look, comic book fans get a bad enough rap from the general public. These clowns do nothing but perpetuate the stereotype of the unwashed, lazy, and just plain weird-lookin’ superhero fan. Laundry detergent is your friend, people. (As are deodorant, hairbrushes, shaving cream, and sunlight.)

Last, but certainly not least…there was The Crazy Guy. I didn’t give him that nickname — one of my friends did — but trust me, nothing could have been more apt. This guy hit every item on the “Probably a Serial Killer” checklist:

• Overly loud speaking voice.
• Joker-like grin.
• Robotic movement.
• Brisk walking speed, complete with clenched fists held at his sides.
• Eating of live squirrels. (Okay, so I didn’t actually see that, so I guess it’s apocryphal.)

At one point, he was rapid-fire talking legendary creator Jerry Ordway’s ear off, and the look on the latter’s face prompted me to tell my friends, “Hold on, I think I need to go save Jerry Ordway’s life.” I ever-so-carefully butted into the conversation, using a convention program I wanted signed as an excuse. Not to toot my own horn, but I think I saw Mr. Ordway breathe a sigh of relief as The Crazy Guy walked away. (Of course, once he left Ordway’s table, The Crazy Guy immediately made a beeline for my friend’s table, and proceeded to scare the shit out of him. What luck!)

Thankfully, none of these folks ruined anyone else’s enjoyment of the show. And if the freaks enjoyed themselves, well, good for them. The important thing was that ComiCONN was very successful, and we’ll get to see all of these…interesting people again next year. I should also note that the stuff I saw at the show was nowhere near as scary as the shit you’d see at your local anime convention, or big events like New York Comic-Con.

Thanks to the planet-busting success of James Cameron’s Avatar, Hollywood’s been jumping on the 3D bandwagon. (What the hell is this, 1953?) Aside from a deluge of new movies being filmed in 3D, traditional “2D” movies are being converted to 3D as well. While the masses may lap this shit up, as they do with anything new and shiny, this is driving some movie buffs up the damned wall. I agree with them, to some extent.

While Avatar was a breathtaking achievement in cinematography, we don’t need to make everything 3D just for the sake of being 3D. Case and point: the recent remake of Clash of the Titans. My girlfriend and I had free passes to see it, so we checked out the 3D version. While some of the effects were impressive, they didn’t really add much to the film itself. More importantly, only special effects-laden shots actually utilized 3D; random scenes of characters interacting and such were in 2D, so the transitions were sometimes a bit jarring. Avatar did things right; everything was in 3D.

Continuing my point…who the hell wants to see a comedy or period drama in 3D? Is that even necessary? I don’t think we’ll see to big of an influx of those, as 3D technology isn’t exactly cheap…but again, thanks to Avatar, Hollywood really wants to milk this. More often than not, we’re going to see big-budget blockbusters as the 3D forerunners. This is okay, as those films are designed to be spectacles in the first place. Of course, since we’ve already got a glut of really stupid scifi/action flicks (I’m looking at you, Transformers), now we’re going to get an extra helping of really stupid scifi/action flicks…in 3D. That’s right, kids, the shitty acting and plots will come right out and touch you. I can feel my IQ dropping already.

Last but not least, while 3D has certainly come a long way from the red and blue glasses of yore, it’s still not perfect. Unless a 3D film has a very high frame rate, there’s sometimes strobing effects. That’s when parts of the movie appear to flicker. Also, since most 3D films operate by overlaying two images simultaneously (leaving the polarized glasses and your brain to merge them into a 3D image), they’re a bit dimmer than usual. Avatar may have been full of bright colors, but even those were subdued somewhat by the 3D projector. Most other films don’t have such a rich color palette to begin with, and this is instantly noticeable when viewing them in 3D.

While some “old school” movie fans are screaming from the rooftops about the “switch” to 3D, I really don’t think they’ve got too much to worry about. Every 3D film that’s been released has also been shown in 2D theaters as well, so you don’t have to see it in 3D if you do not wish to. Furthermore, 3D televisions are still extremely expensive, so the home 3D market is teeny. Even when big 3D films rule the box office, their 2D DVD and Blu-ray editions are big sellers. To continue beating that dead horse, Avatar‘s home video sales have been stellar…and there’s no 3D version available yet. When that does come out by the end of the year, it still won’t sell as well as the 2D versions have.

Movie studios may bum rush new technology, but fear not; there’s still plenty of tried-and-true techniques for us movie buffs to enjoy.

Like anyone else with a pulse, the Star Wars prequels hurt my brain. Detailing each specific complaint about the films would fill many blogs, but today, I’m going to focus on a singular one: the fact that the last two prequel movies revealed that Anakin Skywalker — and by extension, Darth Vader — was a whining pussy. (I’m leaving The Phantom Menace‘s little kid Anakin out of this; fans’ complaints about that may be valid, but they are not related to this specific problem.)

Darth Vader is arguably the greatest science fiction villain of all time, but his mystique was destroyed with the second trilogy. Chalk it up to George Lucas’ writing or Hayden Christiansen’s acting, but either way, the end result is the same. What’s strange, though, is that the Anakin Skywalkers portrayed in Attack of the Clones, the Clone Wars television series, and the original trilogy all feel like vastly different characters. (Note: I’m treating both Clone Wars series as one and in the same for the purposes of this discussion. Events therein may contradict one another, but the characters act the same.)

The difference between the Vader we knew and loved and the Anakin we grew to revile in the prequels was jarring enough, but I suppose that can be explained by the nearly twenty-year gap in the Star Wars timeline between Revenge of the Sith and A New Hope. Anakin may have been a brat, but decades can change a man, especially given what he went through. It’s the Clone Wars incarnation that throws a spanner into the works.

See, in that series, Anakin Skywalker is portrayed as hero of the Republic who’s larger than life. He’s fought numerous engagements with the Separatists, his tactical prowess is respected and feared by his enemies, he’s teaching his padawan Ahsoka Tano the ways of the Jedi, and he’s secretly married to Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo. Sure, he’s had his brushes with anger, fear, frustration, and all of that other stuff that leads to the Dark Side of the Force, but this merely paints him as an ultimately human character, as well he should be. Clone Wars Anakin is a far cry from his whiny Attack of the Clones self, and in Star Wars canon, the television series picks up less than a year after the events of the second prequel film!

Worse yet, Revenge of the Sith is a colossal step backwards for the character. From a production standpoint, this makes no sense, as The Clone Wars was being plotted during the production of Revenge of the Sith, and the first Clone Wars series aired before the final film came out! So when you view the saga as a whole, as Lucas intends, Anakin’s portrayal is a goddamned inconsistent mess.

If Clone Wars Anakin started out whiny, then grew more confident and capable over dozens of episodes, with Revenge of the Sith picking up on this new persona, then it would’ve worked out fine. But heaven forbid we want modern Star Wars tales to feature a solid story! Hey, I enjoy The Clone Wars as much as the next fan, but I’ll be the first to admit that it’s still a kids’ show with continuity problems of its own. The fact that it feels vastly different from the films, however, is a problem that never should have existed.