I am not sure if this title really suits the topic but its not like I know one thats better so lets just go with it.
Money is always an interesting topic, of course it would be since its such a major part of everyone's life, how much money you have and how much money you earn dictates your quality of life, its a bit sad in a way how you can measure people's worth by how much paper they earn in a month instead of who they are and what morales they have.
But the fact that money determines people's worth isn't the point of this post, its how incredibly messed up the world's salary is, and that's what really gets to me, how little some people earn and how much others do.
Sports and the Movie industry are what surprise me the most, while I do not in anyway say those fields are easy, they seem to give far too much for what the people working in them do.
This guy made 75 million last year.
I love how people justify the salary actors get especially, " oh you dont know how hard they work, they have to wake up at 2 am and spend hours putting on makeup and sometimes they must do the same scene 8 times".
Excuse me? for the money the make Anyone would be willing to wake up at pretty much any hour of the day and sit in a chair for makeup, its almost criminal to be honest to hear how much some people get paid, and how little others do.
Public workers, policemen, teachers, etc. A lot of professions get paid too little for what they do even though they perform a much greater public service than a person trying to hit a ball on television, yet that's how life works and thats pretty freaking confusing to me.
Then again that's the law of supply and demand, people don't mind spending their money to watch a sporting event and their money fuels that industry, yet they don think they will get sick or have their houses burned so they dont donate anything for doctors or fireman.
Its jarring to think of that.
Personally I believe those who make too much money should be taxed more and that would help the government and the people, what exactly do you need 75 million for anyways? what can you do with 75 million that you cant do with, say 30 million?
Such heavy taxation might sound harsh to some yet it would help thousands of others who are struggling to get through their daily lives while others are wondering which islands they want to buy. Is it fair to tax so heavily? Probably not, but its also unfair to think that people who study for years to get a job helping people are paid pennies compared to athletes who are paid millions for sponsoring some shoe.
I enjoy adaptations, from whatever form to whatever form, I love almost all of them, whether its book to movie ( Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter) comics to movies ( Hulk, Batman, Avengers) or books into TV shows ( Game of Thrones) A good adaptation is a chance to enjoy the same story A second time on a different medium.
So when I heard there would be a movie adaptation of one of the best cartoons to ever come out, I couldn't help but be excited, Avatar was an incredible show and was followed by the equally impressive Legend of Korra, but lets stick to the movie for now.
I didn't see the movie when it first came out, but I read many... less than flattering interviews about it, criticizing pretty much everything about the movie, honestly nothing about this movie was spared from the wrath of critics, but hey they aren't true fans like I am so they probably wouldn't enjoy the movie like I would right?
Oh how wrong I was...
Its really hard to tell what causes this movie to fall apart so spectacularly, I wish I could say something good about this movie to start the review, some small redeeming factor that makes it watchable at least yet sadly there just isn't anything good here.
I suppose it has an awesome poster.
To begin with, characters names are changed for no reason whatsoever. Aang becomes Ong and he's no longer the Avatar, oh no that's just too easy, he is now Ong the Ovotar although some people still refer to him as Aang or the Avatar which is even more confusing.
But those are just names right? I mean they may change their names but their still the same characters...or so I hoped, for no logical reason every character's race was changed, the water tribe becomes a race of white people instead of Inuits, the Fire Nation which is a Chinese dynasty in the cartoon has suddenly become Indian and the earth benders have now become Chinese instead, I find it hard to believe that whoever did the casting for this movie was sober at the time.
They look just like their animated version.
Perhaps these new faces were picked because they can bring the original characters to life or something, if that was the plan well that failed as well as nobody really pulls of their role well to be honest, Ong is boring to be blunt, Sokka isn't funny, Zuko's scar healed at some point and Katara doesnt have her hair loopies :/
So the characters fail, what next is there? the story of Avatar feels incredibly rushed, it would have been anyways no matter what they did probably, trying to squeeze 20 episodes into an hour and a half just wasn't going to work to begin with and because of that many iconic scenes were either rushed or entirely removed. Fans of the show will be able to follow the story, but I don't expect anyone to convert into an avatar fan because of this movie.
Mouths wide open.
I suppose only action is left to talk about, the movie mixes martial arts and CGI bending for fight scenes to produce something that's very lacking, to bend any small amount of anything benders have to dance for 6-7 moves before a pebble moves which is very different from the smoothness of the cartoon series, not only that but a major point of change is how Firebenders cant produce their own source of fire, meaning they carry torches into battle to bend, yet nobody targets these sources for some reason, in one scene three fire benders bend from a lantern that they have no way to defend should someone actually put it out, but nobody does. In the movie's final battle the Waterbenders know they will be attacked but they don't put out the fires in their city for some reason, such plot holes don't help this movie at all.
Easily the best part of the movie.
So in conclusion, should you watch this movie? well whenever someone asks me if they should watch this movie I always tell them.
Oddly enough, I'd say yes because its entertaining in its badness, it may have no redeeming qualities but any fan of the show should watch it just to see how bad it can be, watching this movie with friends really makes it tolerable, I watched it with my brother and pointing out every mistake the movie makes can be quite fun, make it a drinking game and you'll be out like a light within the first 10 minutes.
I give Avatar the Last Airbender a 0.5/5 ( But I still recommend you watch it for yourselves).
Spartacus is over, wow thats a sad thought isnt it? its been 4 seasons of blood, violence, drama, love and..well a lot of naked women but all of that is over now and it feels so weird to think that this show which started out quite weak to be honest, has come so far to produce an episode that is truly amazing.
From the start we see that the rebel army has spread out a little into small groups attacking homes to free slaves and the commander of each group claims to be Spartacus and while this is obviously a plan made by the rebel leader it also shows that Spartacus is not really a person anymore but an idea now, Spartacus means freedom and it doesnt matter who holds the name so long as people believe in the idea.
The main focus of the episode of course is the final battle between Crassiues and Spartacus but before that we spend a lot of time seeing the both sides prepare and I loved seeing the emotional scenes between everyone involved.
Agron and Nasir Surprisingly Agron lived past episode 8 and seeing him broken and unable to even hold a sword was really sad, Agron is the only person left from the ludus apart from Spartacus himself and seeing him with holes in his hands was just sad.
I loved seeing the weapon Nasir fashioned for him, a shield with blades through it is genius but what was better was seeing their relationship together, its rare to see a gay relationship portrayed so positively and I'm glad we see it here.
Gannicus and Spartacus Since the first episode of this season Gannicus has been reluctant to become a leader but this season has focused a lot on his character growth, when we first saw him Gannicus was really a very simple man who was good with a sword, even the start of this season saw him just a man who enjoyed sex and violence and he ends it as a leader of a part of a rebel army and with actual feelings for a woman.
His talk with Spartacus proved his character growth in the end, though Spartacus himself showed that he isnt the same man he was before either, I loved how he defines victory as not the death of his enemies but in the life of others he cares about which is really something to think about, a person who only aims to destroy others is a monster, the saint is the person who improves and helps others.
" an old argument spartacus"
Marcus Crassiues.
I end this season completely unsure of how I feel about Crassiues, he shows many conflicting sides of himself that in the end leave him feeling like a half-baked character, particularly in his relationship with his son who he thinks is a mirror of himself and after finding out what his son did to Kora Marcus cant bear to look into his own mirror without feeling disgusted.
Probably one of the most conflicted people on this show.
Dont get me wrong he's a very interesting person to watch, but its hard to figure out what his motives really are, he loves his son but is willing to risk his death, he loves Kora but is willing to kill her as an example to others, he joined this war to gain more power and he did but it cost him everything else he cared about in the end, was it really worth it? The battle
Of course since this is the final episode this has to be the biggest battle of all, there's too much action here to talk about since its all chaos anyways. What I did enjoy were the two private battles, Gannicus against Caeser and Spartacus vs Crassius.
Its hard to argue which is better, both fights were expected for a long time, since the season started we knew Spartacus would engage Crassius but having both the right hand men hate each other was a good bonus, especially since they had already fought earlier in the show.
oh Naevia dies...sorry.
Gannicus's fall in battle was heart wrenching, While I enjoy Caeser, his smug look made him seem like quite a monster, or perhaps I'm just bias towards Gannicus.
Spartacus's battle was a lot more focused though, after killing all of the Imperator's guards ( and getting injured in the process) he faces him in a very personal 1 on 1 fight and I've always been a sucker for those.
The fight seems mostly even, both men are tired and injured which balances out the scales between them, yet remembering how many people he loved died because of the romans gives Spartacus the temporary boost he needs to overpower Crassiues, and just when he is about to deal the fatal blow we see Crassius use the same move he used back in episode one to kill Hector.
Do either of these men know how to grab a sword?
Sadly, getting speared 3 times stops Spartacus from completing his "kill Crassius" plan.
The Aftermath
Spartacus manages to escape thanks to Agron but the damage is done, every slave has been caught and killed apart from a small group which Spartacus escapes with, Crassius gets no glory for his accomplishments due to the appearance of Pompey who claims he killed Spartacus elsewhere in the mountains, everyone caught is crucified and while seeing Gannicus in such a state and dying was heartbreaking, the more surprising image was that Kora suffered the same fate.
Still, the death of the title character is definitely the saddest part of this conclusion, I enjoy bad endings, when the hero doesnt always win yet the victory here was so one-sided for the villians its just depressing to think of.
You had a good run.
Spartacus is over and with it a lot of time has just freed up for a lot of people, a show like this is rare and while not everyone's cup of tea I enjoyed it immensely, thanks Spartacus for all the good times.
Funny how anticipating something is usually better than actually having it, I havent had internet at home for almost a month, and when it finally arrived here at my new home I pretty much acted like.
Or at least I did for the first hour or so, after that it was back to normal, weird how quickly our brains get bored...ah well c'est la vie.
Man did I love this chapter, Naruto 627 was a chapter that focused solely on characters and their motivation and I always love chapters like these, its mostly a set-up for the battle against Madara and set the pieces for what will probably be the climax of the manga.
To read my review of last week's chapter and predictions Click here.
Anyways lets start talking about this week's chapter, I loved what Hashirama said about shinobi, they are people who face difficult choices and see them through, they are forced to endure many hardships and it seems I am not the only person who thinks so as those words seem to have sunk in with Sasuke as well, he has been conflicted since he met Itachi and hearing what Hashirama said was the thing he needed to push him back squarely into the good side.
Was anyone really surprised Sasuke became a good guy again? since the moment he joined Orochimaru from part one Sasuke didnt do anything that was morally irreparable, he killed some people correct but none of them were what you could consider both Important AND good characters, he killed Deidera, Danzou and Itachi but all of these were considered evil at the time ( Itachi isnt evil of course but everyone thought he was at his time of death) and he did kill some fodder samurai earlier but those arent important to the story so they can be considered a forgivable offense.
If Sasuke had killed Kakashi in their reunion then he would be permanently in the villain camp, simply by virtue of being alive for so long without committing a major crime meant Sasuke was always set up to return to Konoha. ( This was one of my predictions from last week and I am happy it came true)
The above panel somewhat confuses me, did Madara's brother contribute anything towards peace? from all we saw he did try to protect the Uchiha by sacrificing his eyes but from almost all his appearances we see Izuna fighting, so I'm hoping someone can clarify this for me.
Itachi inheiriting Hashirama's will was a very interesting concept, the ones who usually get the cycle of hatred instead got the will of fire, I liked that a lot, I also liked it how when we consider the two brothers Itachi and Sasuke, Itachi the "good" one died being thought of as a villain and Sasuke who I think is more evil will turn out to be the one who redeems his clan.
Tobirama is not the villain people make him out to be, despite his questionable decissions earlier he proves that as second Hokage he deserved the title, he respected his enemies and trusted the ones who proved himself, was he a racist? Thats hard to tell, he has a hard view on the Uchiha and its up to every person to determine whether he is right or wrong in his views.
Pretty epic Panel.
While Sasuke's return to Konoha's side is expected, Orochimaru helping him isnt, its hard to figure out what he will do now that he has come back into the story, Orochimaru always seemed like the most unpredictable character and I doubt he will just join the Allied forces without some hidden agenda.
Karin is further proof that Kishi cant write women for some reason, the way she just forgave Sasuke for you know, trying to kill her was just mind boggling, this guy stabbed her without a second thought then ordered that she be killed and she just forgave him? what sort of sick love is this? but then again Sakura is still in love with Sasuke even after he tried to kill her too so perhaps trying to kill a woman is the fastest way to get her to love you in the Naruto world.
Suigetsu summarizes his group best.
The kages and everyone else assemble and its fun to see what they all want for the future, Minato wants to see his son, Hashirama wants to meet Madara again, Tobirama wants to defeat him this time and Hiruzon just wants a fight.
Best picture.
simply wow.
The last double spread page is epic, its just amazing, there is no other way to describe it other than that, its easily the best image this chapter, widescale shots like these are beautiful and seeing every kage stand on top of their own carved monument was too cool. So yeah thats the end of 627, a chapter that dealt with the results of Hashirama's speech and flashback as well as set the story up for the next few chapters, I personally loved this chapter so much and cant give it anything less than a perfect score.
Predictions.
Its a little hard to predict where the story goes after this since it could be anywhere, however I dont think the kages will arrive early in the next chapter, we will see how the allied forces are doing by themselves first for a while then have them join the battle, my bet is they will join at the end of a chapter, maybe 628 but not likely, They will appear to save the allied forces from some major attack by the Jyuubi. Minato's gift to Naruto will most likely be the Chakra sealed inside him, I read many theories on how Minato has half the kyuubi's chakra inside him and I believe that he will now give it back to Naruto when he meets him, this will probably allow Naruto to power up the entire shinobi army.
Orochimaru is the person I am most unsure about I simply cant tell what he will do because he's never been predictable, but I think he might try to either be the Jyuubi's jincuriki or he will sync with the Gedo Mazo, Tobi wont do it and Orochimaru has always talked about being a complete being, a god and whats more godly than being the Jinchuriki of the Ten-Tails?
Thats all my thoughts for this chapter, hope you enjoyed reading this.
Please note that this review is for the PC version, so things written here may not apply to the PS3 version of Dragon Age, if you have a choice play the PC version as its simply better.
Its a little hard to review a game as massive as Dragon Age, released in 2009 Dragon age won a ton of awards and acclaim for almost every aspect of the game, the question is, does it deserve all the attention it got? have a look below.
Pretty epic trailer, so lets talk about the game.
Story. Dragon Age takes place in Ferelden where every few hundred years a horde of demons called Darkspawn would emerge on the surface and try to take it over, this occurs at the same time as a civil war erupts, and its up to you to solve this situation.
Not the handsomest group of demons..
You start the game with one of six origins stories, the origin stories determine who you are in the world, you can be a dwarven prince, a newly graduated elf mage or a high born human, the origin stories are fun by themselves and its worth playing all 6 just to find out what you can be. Your origin story also determines how other characters react to you, if you're a dwarf then when you visit the dwarf city certain people will remember who you are and what you did in your origin story. All origin stories end though with the player being recruited by the grey wardens and going to Ostagar, after that you get to decide what quests to tackle and in which order.
The story of Dragon Age is one of its strongest aspects, its deep, engaging and fascinating but perhaps the best part of the story is basically how you get to write it yourself, Bioware gives you choices at every juncture allowing you to shape the world around you. Will you save a group of elves or ally with the werewolves and kill them? do you have sympathy for mages or do you think all magic is evil? who do you think should be the next dwarf king?
Dragon Age gives you choices for almost every quest big and small and these decisions change the world greatly, there is no morality here its all up to you to decide what is right and what is wrong, you can solve problems with persuasion and money or you can kill whoever bothers you, its your world and your decisions.
Characters.
The characters in Dragon Age are what make the story work so well, you'll have a rag-tag group of weirdos like every RPG does, a former spy turned nun, a royal bastard, a witch, an assassin... oh and a dog cause every team needs a pet.
All the characters in your party have a goal and a background, they joined you for a reason and through your interactions with them you'll learn about their history and motivation, they will respond to your decisions as well, do something they agree with and you gain their approval, do something they dislike and you lose approval from them. your allies are your best source of morality in this game in fact, good characters will get mad at you if you perform evil deeds while evil characters will encourage you to do them, and should you anger an ally enough they will leave you or even attack you.
You can also influence how your partners grow in this game, for example Alistair is hesitant to become king and you can tell him he shouldn't be or you can help him become a more pragmatic person who looks forward to becoming a king, Leliana is a former assassin who believes that she receives vision from God and you can either strengthen her faith or turn her back into her evil roots, Morrigan is a witch who believes strength rules over everything else but you can make her fall in love with you turning her into a softie really.
I'm sure people like Morrigan for her personality..
But its not just the people on your team that are interesting, almost everyone you talk to will want something or have a story to tell so its worth just running around towns to learn what everyone has to say, certain characters who don't seem very important might turn up later in the game and will remember what you did when you first met them so exploring and interacting with the world will come back to affect you later
Audio and Music.
The music in Dragon Age is adequate to be honest, its not particularly impressive but nor is it bad in anyway, you simply wont notice it much because the game doesn't really have any outstandingly good or bad music. You might be better off just playing whatever tunes you like in the background instead.
The voice acting on the other hand is very impressive, every word of dialogue is voice recorded and it really adds to the feel of the game, even random villagers who don't have much to say will have a voice and you can feel the emotion behind the words that people say, since your decisions affect what others will say its sometimes fun to just troll people to hear how sad you can make them * evil chuckle* not that I ever do that of course.
You can skip the dialogue and mute the audio if you want buts its honestly more fun to just listen to people talk, not every voice is pleasing though (I'm looking at you Anora).
Gameplay. As I mentioned before you start the game by picking an origin story, this origin story will depend on your race and class, there are 3 races and 3 classes in Dragon Age and they are human, elf and dwarf. While your race determines how you affect the story, your class is what gameplay will count on, you can be a warrior, a rogue and a mage and they each come with their own set of skills and talents, once you pick your class at the start of the game you cant change it later so pick wisely.
The Warrior is easily my favorite, being basically a brute you can choose to pick up a sword and shield, a weapon in each hand or giant hammers and axes, the warrior rushes into the front line wearing the biggest armor he can and engaging as many opponents as possible, the warrior is the "tank" of the group.
Next is the Rogue who is an expert at lock picking, stealing and disabling traps, the Rogue can fight at long range with a bow or close range with a dagger, Rogues are probably the most versatile class in the game and are capable of doing a lot of different things.
Finally we have the Mage which you should be able to tell what he does just from his name, Mages use magic ( that's a shocker!) to defeat their opponents, they can also heal and cast disabling spells if they choose to.
Mages have some beautiful visual effects.
Every time you level up you get points to spend into your stats and talents, you can level up all the way to level 25 but you wont be able to max out every skill with a single character so you have to pick your skills wisely as their is no redo button, take a skill you don't like and you're stuck with it all game long.
Combat in Dragon Age has your avatar along with 3 other characters facing the Darkspawn, at certain points in the game you are joined by random NPC's in a fight or are forced to use a certain character in your party but for the most part you will decide who gets to join you on your battles.
Battles can be paused to issue commands to every character, this is an extremely useful feature in high difficulties as this game requires a lot of tactics and positioning to win, you can pause to use potions, issue the next command or order where your heroes should go, you have to position your party adequately with mages and archers in the back and warriors keeping the enemy busy, you also have to make sure you don't hurt your own team mates with friendly fire as magic attacks can hurt everyone caught in their radius friend or foe.
You can zoom in and out of combat for whatever view you enjoy.
The combat in Dragon Age is well made, its fun without being too easy or difficult as any enemy can be defeated with the right tactics, unfortunately it does tend to be a bit slow and unlike the story which offers a lot of variety you'll mostly face the same enemies all game long, not only that but after playing the game once you'll tend to get bored of combat as it has a very " been there done that" feeling to it in later levels, not to mention that you get obscenely powerful in later stages of the game, foregoing tactics and just firing whatever you have at the enemy.
Another major issue with combat is how it sometimes feels unresponsive, you might order your character to hit an enemy but instead of straight away slashing they will tend to follow them for a while to land a blow, or they will hit them but the enemy dies 6 feet away from where they were struck, making combat frustrating for melee characters.
Sadly not every monster is as impressive as this one.
Re-playability.
Dragon Age is definitely worth playing again after finishing it, there are many achievements to unlock and some of them cant be achieved in one play through as they will require you to join different sides of the same conflict to acquire, not only that but playing the game with a different class makes you experience the game in a completely different way, trying out a mage after a warrior helps keep combat fresh after multiple games even though combat isn't really that great to begin with.
Conclusion.
Pros + Great story and characters. + Interesting system for morality. + Combat is generally fun. + Voice acting is impressive ( on some characters). + Game is very long, up to 50+ hours. cons - Combat can sometimes be clumsy and slow. - Lack of enemy variety. - Some NPC sound like banshees. - Game is very long, making multiple playthroughs just to experience different stories very time consuming.
To conclude this review, I'd say everyone should try this game, it may not be your cup of tea but its still an awesome ride to experience at least once, hope you enjoyed this review.
Alright lets begin with chapter 626, all the talk about how the Sharingan makes a person more evil seems to apply with Madara, as every time we see him upgrade his eyes he has become more and more twisted, the first time he unlocked his Sharingan he decided to fight Hashirama and the more he enhanced his sharingan the more evil he got, first by asking Hashirama to kill himself or his brother and now by betraying him and trying to kill him, I agree with what the Second Hokage says about how the Sharingan causes people to become more evil, as Sasuke is further proof of that, Itachi is the exception to this rule not the norm as many would like to think.
Madara leaves the village and while Hashirama seems sad by it over time his dream of a peaceful village is achieved, children no longer kill each other and the future sems bright apart from the black spot that is Madara, in the translation I read it says that Madara " kept attacking" the village which to me means more than once, can anyone confirm this?
Either way we see the final battle between the founding fathers of the shinobi world, Madara sumoons the Kyuubi armed with Susanno armor and Hashirama summons his giant Pokemon Tree statue ( I love how fights have turned into who can make the bigger blast wins sort of situation) Either way Kyuubi is subdued but Madara is left standing and he engages his rival one last time in an epic slash-cut.
We get a nice callback to their first meeting, with Madara claiming himself the victor this time, I get the feeling that he suffers from some massive inferiority complex as no matter what he achieves Madara is always second place to the famous First hokage and he cant live with that, its very similar to Danzou and the Third as well as Sasuke with Naruto, very few people in this manga can stand to be overshadowed.
Favourite Panel
Gotta admit, I loved Hashirama's backstab, while at first it seemed like Madara had won it was all just a ploy to spare him, yet after gloating for one last time Hashirama has had enough of sparing his old friend and decides to end his life permanently, after countless battles between them and probably fearing for future generations if he dies while Madara lives, The First finally does what he should have a long time ago.
Insert Homosexual and Penetration jokes here
I loved the above panel, the stab, the expression, the surprise buttsecks I mean the drama, it all makes it for one of the best images in a while.
I also loved Hashirama's declaration that no matter who or what tries to harm his village, he will protect them all, this really gave him some depth as until now he seemed kinda tame in comparison to his more badass brother, but in this fight we see why its Hashirama whose called the " God of shinobi"
Present day
Back to the present we see Hashirama conclude his storyto all those present, he is fine with what he did for the sake of the village and believes it was the right thing to do, he also confirms that he did kill Madara but isnt sure how he got revived, we end the chapter with the answer to the original question, What is a Shinobi?
Predictions
Just judging from Sasuke's expression this chapter I have to think that somehow he will agree with the First Hokage, Madara was wrong throughout all his actions and Hashirama gave him multiple chances to redeem himself and he gave them all up, I also think that the fact that Sasuke is even alive is a hint that his chance of redemption is near, after all it was only seconds before his death that Madara was considered irredeemable and had to be killed, till then he was spared multiple times and I feel that is the same case with Sasuke, he's lived too long to die a villian now.
Zetsu revived Madara somehow, its why he had the Rinnengan later in life, Zetsu found and revived him, I am guessing that from their battle some of Hashirama's chakra gave life to some of the plants around and that is how Zetsu was born.
We will have a Madara flash back, that seems clear now, too many events happened that we skipped over, like his brother's death as well as acquiring the Kyuubi, there is much story left to tell still.
I give this chapter a 4/5. share your thoughts in the comment section if you enjoyed reading this.
