The Queen is Their Slave

3D Movies and the Death of the Story

Hollywood is a fickle place. Every week there’s a new star assuming the role of “in” celebrity. Fashion trends change faster than new clothes can be made. The place is never content with the thing that it has, and constantly searches for that which is new and exciting.

Nowhere is this more true than in the studio system. Movies studios love to seem as “hip” as they can. They choose actors, writers, directors, plots and themes based on what will fit the “in” thing of the moment.

This obsession with following trends manifests itself in many ways. The current glut of programming about moody, emotional vampires is one example. Remaking (read: butchering) classic 1980s films is another. Most of the time, kowtowing to these trends serves only to detract from the overall quality of a film. Nowhere, however, is this more true than when it comes to the recent wave of 3D movies.

Hollywood is obsessed with 3D movies. They put so much effort into crafting visually stunning features that they often neglect the lifeblood of the cinema: story.

James Cameron has a habit of making big movies, the most noted among these being Titanic and Avatar. They currently hold the first and second positions in the battle for highest grossing movie of all time. Both feature stunning visual effects, showcasing the hight of technology during their respective times of production. They both had casts of A-list actors. They both made billions. The difference, however, is the quality of the story.

Titanic has never been thought of, at least by normal moviegoers, as “that movie with the great effects”. It is remembered by most as a sweeping love story, filled with compelling characters and an engrossing plot. While their will always be some appreciation of the attention put towards the visual production, it has never been the main draw of the film.

Avatar, on the other hand, is all about the effects. Cameron spent more than a decade developing the 3D and animation technology used in the film. When you ask someone about Avatar, the effects are likely the first thing they will talk about. Unless, of course, they have ever watched it on a nine-inch screen.

In May of this year, I spent seven hours locked in a bus, along with forty other restless nerds. Like any normal coach bus, the one we rode was equipped with half a dozen TV screen, networked to a central DVD player.

This was right around the time of the Avatar DVD release, so the Hollywood hype machine was busy making sure that everyone knew about it. Like any nerds worth our name, we had a copy of the film onboard. Most of the people there had seen it, but the ones that hadn’t had heard all about it, and were eager to watch. So we threw it in the DVD player and settled back for the much-anticipate viewing experience.

The movie was exactly as I remembered. Everything in the story happened exactly as it had in the theatre. This time, however, it was terrible. Watching the movie was nowhere near as fun as I remembered. Watching the movie on a nine-inch screen, without any sort of 3D effects, I realized how dumb Avatar actually is.

When you ignore the digital animation, the fancy explosions and the 3D, all you’re left with is a movie that’s poorly plotted, poorly acted and poorly written. Fortunately for James, most people fail to recognize this. They’re too busy focusing on the effects to pay attention to what was going on underneath.

Avatar is by no means the worst offender in this category. That spot is perpetually held by the legion of movies that rely almost entirely on 3D to attract and audience.

RottenTomatoes, the crowd-sourced movie ratings site, is widely regarded as the Number One location for ratings on the web. They possess what is likely the largest collection of movie reviews and ratings that exists. Naturally, they have reviews of all the latest 3D films.

Spy Kids 3D, released in 2003, spent a great deal of it’s advertising touting the “3D experience”. While the first two films in the series were received with general moderate acclaim (93% and 75% respectively), the final film garnered only 45% positive response. The site review stated “the movie will be found wanting if one is not taken in by the 3-D visuals”.

The Final Destination and Alpha and Omega, which also spent a great deal of time advertising their use of 3D technology, both received a 19% rating. The reviews criticized their recycled, predictable stories, claiming that the visual experience was the only redeeming factor of the films.

And then there’s the Last Airbender. Shyamalan had previously been praised as one of the greatest filmmakers of the past twenty years. The Sixth Sense was nominated for multiple Academy Awards, and is hailed as a cult classic along with Unbreakable, Signs and the Village.

Airbender, however, was a failure. Audiences, especially fans of the animated series, were disappointed all around. The collaborative review on Rotten Tomatoes read: “Despite flashy special effects, The Last Airbender squanders the potential of its popular source material on an incomprehensible plot, laughable dialogue, and a joyless sense of detachment.” That went along with a critical response of just 6%.

I would seem that “critics and audiences agree”, 3D movies are seriously lacking when it comes to story. All of the aforementioned reviews show that a shiny coat of paint can’t do much to distract from a broken core.

Though it is possible that these examples are simply coincidences, it seems unlikely. While there have been critically acclaimed 3D movies (Toy Story 3 being the most notable example), they seem to be the exception rather than the rule.

While it is possible to combine 3D technology with a compelling story, examples are few and far between. Hollywood seem as though it would rather invest in visuals, which are infinitely reproducible, that talent, which is not.

Scapegrace

I’m mad. Really mad.

For those of you who are out of the loop, I’ll fill you in. Several days ago, an anonymous source sent images to Engadget, featuring what was alleged to be the upcoming fourth generation iPhone.

Monday morning, Gizmodo took the story a lot further. They revealed to the world that they were in possession of the same unit from Engadget’s pictures. They wrote a thousand-plus word article covering every aspect of this alleged iPhone.

I’m still shocked at their gall.

When you take the story at face value, it all seems pretty easy to explain away. After all, Gizmodo is a news site competing in a market where whoever has the story first makes the most money. And I hope, for their sake, that they’re making a bundle off of this story…because all of the money has the potential to disappear very easily.

In the article they released this morning, there was no direct mention of what they company went through to obtain the unit. Andy Ihnatko seems to have the best summary of what has thus far been revealed.

Step One: This phone was lost in a Redwood City bar;

Step Two: (nervous cough);

Step Three: They got it last week.

Despite the lack of transparency surrounding this particular interaction, Nick Denton confirmed to the New York Times that Gawker Media paid five thousand dollars for the unit.

According to all tellings of the story, the device was originally lost in a bar in Redwood City, California. Here’s an interesting fact: under California law, the finder of a lost item must alert the police and return the items to the rightful owner. Do you see what I’m getting at? Both Gizmodo and the anonymous finder say that the device was indeed found, not stolen.

However, it doesn’t make a difference in California. If the device was indeed found in a bar in Redwood City, then the finder had the obligation to turn it over to the authorities. When he didn’t the “iPhone” effectively became stolen property, which Gizmodo then bought. If this alleged iPhone is indeed the property of Apple then there could be some serious legal consequences for Gawker Media.

Legal issues aside, what the folks at Gizmodo did was simply unnecessary. This wasn’t a Woodward and Bernstein scenario. There was no real need for the information about this alleged iPhone to be exposed. There wasn’t any noble intent behind this story. All of Gizmodo’s actions were motivated by greed. When Gizmodo purchased the (potentially illegally obtained) unit, they weren’t thinking of the lives that would be enriched by their story. They were thinking of the money that they could make off of a scoop like this.

But the story doesn’t end there. Only hours after the Gizmodo released the initial story, they published a second article. Rather than talking about the unit itself, or even discussing how the phone ended up in their hands, they chose the specifically target the Apple employee who left the phone in the bar.

Of course, there are scenarios in which this type of article would be appropriate. If this had been a story about a Visa employee who got drunk and leaked thousands of credit card numbers, perhaps this type of personal attack would be merited.

Unfortunately for Gizmodo, this is not the case. No one outside of Apple was hurt by this employee’s actions. There was no need for this second article to be published. The man is likely at one of the darkest points in his life. He makes one stupid mistake, maybe loses his job, and then has his misery exploited so that a company can make a profit.

There is no excuse for this type of behaviour. They buy stolen property; they publish an unnecessary article, likely caused a man his job and proceeded to publicly humiliate him.

But hey, at least they want to give the phone back. So I guess that makes everything better.

Update:

Apple SVP and General Counsel Bruce Sewell sent a letter to Gizmodo requesting the return of the unit. Brian Lam (an editor at Gizmodo) responded with a message that included this quote:

“Happy to have you pick this thing up. Was burning a hole in our pockets. Just so you know, we didn’t know this was stolen when we bought it.”

Stolen. Not lost. Stolen. Interesting.

(Intentionally) Belated Thought on the iPad

I know what you’re thinking. “Nick!” you shout, “What the hell? Everybody else had their iPad articles published over a week ago! What took you so long?”

What took me so long is that I wanted to wait. I wanted to sit back and take it all in, let the Reality Distortion Field wear off before I put fingers to keys. But it has been a week, thus I present the following.

Name

Let it be stated on the record that I stand in firm opposition of calling it the “iPad”. While the name itself makes sense, considering that the device is essentially a gigantic iPod touch, but I can’t shake the feeling that there is something weird about it. And I can’t help but recall that one MadTV skit whenever I hear the name.

To be honest, I didn’t expect Apple to continue the ‘i’ moniker with this product. Similar to Gruber, I expected the device to be called the “Apple Tablet”, or, based on the event invitation, the “Apple Canvas”. I even felt that “iSlate” or “iTablet” were more likely than iPad. Steve is clearly not a frequent viewer of suggestive sketch comedy.

Hardware

Design

The wifi version of iPad is hands-down one of the most gorgeous devices to come out of Cupertino. The front of the device is dominated by a single sheet of glass, interrupted only by the home button. Like the iPhone, iPad seems to feature the bare minimum amount of buttons, focusing solely on interaction through the screen. The iPad is a Jonathan Ive product in every way.

Form Factor

I’m concerned.

Look at the trends with display technology. Over the past decade, every display that we interact with has slowly turned towards the 16:9 form factor. The iPad does not follow this trend. It is possibly the only major consumer electronics device of the past year that does not employ a widescreen display. This is especially worrying if, like myself, you have ever had the experience of watching 16:9 video on a 4:3 screen. Let me tell you my friends, it is not pleasant. The display ratio also affects the way that applications written for the iPhone will run on the iPad. Applications that are built with the iPhone SDK are built to run on a 16:10 display. Even with the application expansion that the iPad promises, there will be an awful lot of wasted space on the edges of the screen.

What I am not, however, concerned about is how one would hold the iPad. Looking at the demonstrations done during Wednesday’s keynote, the iPad seem entirely intuitive to hold. It seems, and I hate to use that analogy, but it seems almost as natural as holding a book. Being that the device features only four buttons, you could, in theory, operate the device properly at any orientation.

Software

I’m a little disappointed in the software side of the iPad, specifically in regards to the operating system. I expected Apple to provide us with something a little better than what amounts to a giant iPhone. I was hoping for a platform that more resembled Mac OS X that the iPhone OS.

That said, they seem to be presenting a decent software offering, even if it is hindered by its mobile roots. The new built-in applications are, gorgeous; really showcasing what can be done with this larger screen. The new implementations of the Mail, Contacts and Calendar applications are three of the most beautiful pieces of software I have ever seen.

iBooks

This is both the most interesting and most concerning feature that the iPad has shown off. To illustrate this, please consider the following scenario:

It is the Twenty-eighth of January, 2010. J.D. Salinger has just died. As a fan of literature, you are saddened by this event. You suddenly feel the urge to re-read The Catcher in the Rye. Then you remember that your copy of the novel was destroyed not three months ago by your neighbour’s dog.

Do not fret, however, because there is a solution. You turn to your trusty iPad (which you obtained through a rare flaw in the Space/Time Continuum), hop onto the iBookStore and download yourself a copy. Problem solved.

The iBookstore is intended to allow anyone access to any book at any time. But there is a problem with that plan. It was unofficially revealed yesterday that the iBookStore function will not be available outside of the US at the iPad’s launch. This saddens me. Sure, Apple will sell you the iPad, but they’re going to cripple its functionality because they couldn’t get their act together in time to make international publishing deals. They’ve gone and limited one of the key functions to only work in 0.005% of countries. Which, you know, kind of sucks.

“Downfalls”

This section right here is the exact reason that I’ve so long to publish this article. Over the past week, the giant squids of anger have, as they do with every new Apple product, done nothing but complain. From the moment Steve stepped off the stage on Wednesday, nearly every piece of the iPad has been ripped apart by these chronic pessimists. From all that I’ve seen out there in the ether, there are three common grievances that these haters sight when making their damning predictions.

No Multitasking

Near every non-nerd that I know is freaking out over this. The complaint about lack of multitasking is second only the complaint that “it’s just a big iPhone”. For some strange reason, people assume that the iPad will be completely useless if you can’t run more than one application at a time.

I’m not entirely sure where this fear stems from. We’ve had the iPhone around for almost four years now, and ninety-nine percent of us have gotten along just fine without multitasking. But people seemed really rattled that the iPad will, as far as we know, ship without multitasking functionality. Perhaps it’s their NADD.

As you may have guessed, I stand contrary to this view. I’m a firm believer in the sentiment that the iPad does all the multitasking it need to. Beyond the use of the music player, I have never found the need for background processes on my current OS X iPhone device.

Then, of course, there will be those that argue “the iPad is a netbook-type device! It needs multitasking”. But, in reality, it isn’t. Steve was very clear that the iPad is a new category of device. If a comparison has to be made, then the iPad is closer to a Kindle than a netbook. And let’s be honest. How many times have you heard people complain that their Kindle doesn’t support multitasking?

No Camera

To the angry internet people yelling about the iPad’s lack of a camera, I have two words: Prove It. As of writing, Apple has neither confirmed nor denied that the iPad feature a camera. Recent rumours have claimed that there is an unannounced camera lurking behind the bezel of the iPad.

But I would like to present you with a different rumour. Just about a year ago, a bunch of reports appeared regarding a new Apple patent. Essentially, Apple wants to put a webcam behind your screen. The patent is strictly in regards to laptops, but who’s to say that the same system couldn’t be implemented within the iPad.

Even more pressing, who’s to say that the systems has not already been implemented, but hidden from the public eye?

No Flash

[I’m not seeing the problem here][]. Perhaps it’s because I’m a person who supports web standards, but I really can’t find a problem with Apple not supporting Flash. In all my experience with browser crashes, Flash is the culprit close to ninety-five percent of the time. Flash is an old piece of technology. It is a bloated, legacy product that is fraught with security exploits and used in unnecessary ways.

Even the dominance of Flash in web video is slowly dying. Both Youtube and Vimeo are slowly introducing video players based off of the HTML5 video spec. Every modern browser, with the exception of Internet Explorer 8, supports HTML5. This includes the browser shipping with the iPad.

There is almost no reason for the iPad to support Flash. This is not a disadvantage. It is an improvement.

The iPad seems like a contender in the growing ultra-portable category. Despite all of its apparent advantages and downfalls, it is most likely that people will have to get their hands on both the hardware and software before they can make proper judgments.

Remember Remember the Fifth of November

In honour of Guy Fawkes day, I present an essay, written for my Grade 11 English class, on why I do not trust governments.

My grandfather died in October of 2004. Up until five years prior, there was no cable television allowed in his house. Like so many of his generation, my grandfather was an avid reader. His favourites included the works of Jeffery Archer, Ken Follett, Tom Clancy, and George Orwell. And like so many that read Nineteen Eighty-Four, he developed a fear and mistrust of the government. Cable television wasn’t allowed because he was sure of the fact that he and his family were being monitored through the TV.

And while these particular fear seems irrational, it’s origin is not. While I may not agree with his methods, I do agree with the underlying theme. Governments are scary. They are benevolent organizations, riddled with hypocrisy, corruption, broken promises and hidden agendas. They are comprised of men and women who I find myself unable to trust, resulting in my inability to trust the organization as a whole.

Just as in the world Orwell created in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, world governments have begun the invasion of our daily lives. In the days following the September 11th terror attacks, the United States government introduced the Patriot Act. This bill allowed government organizations such as the FBI, CIA, and NSA to reach into both public and private organizations and procure information about patrons at will.

Another example of this level of invasion is Facebook. When the company was in the process of raising capital funding, they approached a venture capital firm which eventually invested in Facebook, receiving, in exchange, a sizable amount of the company’s equity. In the months following Facebook’s arrival on the mainstream, it was revealed that the aforementioned VC firm is owned by the Central Intelligence Agency. Meaning, of course, that the CIA has access to every byte of information that users place on their Facebook pages.

Of course, all of this is done in the name of security. Let’s say that the US government is looking for potential terrorists. Under the Patriot Act, it has the ability to go to a grocery store and find out the names of any purchasers of hummus. Or the addresses of people who check out books on communism from the library. Doesn’t that make sense.

No.

What purpose does reading people’s grocery bills serve? So what if they read about communism. My family and I have engaged in both of the “suspicious” activities described above. Does that make us a terrorist cell? Are we suddenly the enemies of capitalism? The Junior Antichrist Brigade? Again, no.

The only purpose this type of law serves is to aid in racial profiling. None of this information is relevant to tracking down terrorists. And even if it did, it removes the privacy of the normalized many to track down the radical few. As Benjamin Franklin said, “Those willing to sacrifice a lot of privacy for a little security deserve neither privacy nor security.”

Another, more obvious side effect of the attacks on September 11th was the invasion of Iraq by American soldiers. President Bush, recognizing the opportunity presents to him, quickly assembling the armed forces and sending them into Iraq, supposedly in search of Osama Bin Laden.

Unfortunately there was one, itty bitty little problem. Bin Laden wasn’t in Iraq. It was public knowledge that, at the time of the invasion, Bin Laden and his followers were hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. Bush, using the opportunity presented by a “War on Terror”, began nursing his own private agenda.

Bush was not the only leader who has exploited a situation to achieve personal ends. Indeed, governments across the globe have used these tactics since the days of Christ. Governments, while meant to serve the people, place vast amounts of effort in serving their own means. I cannot support this. I cannot stand behind a system that pretends that it cares about my needs and concerns, while working only to achieve those that the politicians want met or filled.

Take a look at newspaper archives from the lead-up to one of the more recent elections. Throughout the month of campaigning, the candidates made a myriad of promises, each made to counteract and discredit those of their competitors. The different parties promised tax cuts and the like, while claiming the others wanted to perform actions the population would find unfavourable.

One of the most prominent Canadian examples of this was the 2004 Ontario Provincial election. Dalton McGuinty, leader of the Liberal Party, made dozens of promises about lowering taxes, ranging from those supporting education to those supporting healthcare. The public took to the promises like an obese child to a Big Mac, with similar results. As McGuinty and his Liberals entered office, still holding these promises in full view of the public. And yet five years on, the taxation has only gotten worse.

It seems as though McGuinty had discovered the power of lies. By manipulating the views of the public, he has been able to secure not one, but two terms in the office of the Premier. McGuinty employed hypocrisy and deception to create a guise of good intentions and receive goodwill.

Mr. McGuinty is not the first to employ this technique. For generations, politicians have lied to their constituents, with mixed results. None the less, it is clear that these tactics are ground into the DNA of those who dream of a career in government. Why would we trust these people? These people who make a living off perfecting the art of lying. These politicians, whatever party they may belong to, do not promote themselves through honesty. I do not believe in a system that works like this.

The goal of a governing body is to serve those who fall under it’s authority. Decades ago, there were many governments who worked to achieve the goal of this statement. Today, you’ll be hard pressed to find this attitude from anyone, save small town mayors. The world is rampant with examples of the government working to serve their own ends rather then those of humanity, or simply their own citizens.

In the late 1980’s the then Soviet government created a nuclear fallback system called Perimeter. In the simplest terms, Perimeter is designed to strike back when all other components of the Russian military failed. During a scenario in which major Russian command centers have been destroyed, the Perimeter sequence can be activated by any employee of the facility. After that point, the launch of Russia’s 12,000 plus nuclear warheads is controlled entirely by computer, with heavy offensive concentration toward the United States. Perimeter is still operational today.

This is not a defence mechanism approved by the now democratic population of Russia. This was a system created by the Soviet government to serve the wishes of the bureaucrats. This is not dissimilar to the Iraq War.

The American government, meant to be “for the people, of the people, by the people”, is acting in a manor that is frowned upon by the majority of “the people”. And yet what power do the people have to change this. Sure, there is the quadrennial election, and yet we have already seen that these politicians are experts in the field of appealing to constituents during these periods. In reality, the people hold no control over the goings on in a government, even one of the democratic nature. The powers that be are going unchecked, serving only to create more chaos then had existed before.

I have never understood how governments can act in such a manor. These are the people who are supposed to be working toward the betterment of mankind, and yet have served only to cause so many to lose hope in the goodness of people. I do not trust organizations that require a mask of deception to get by under the scrutiny of today’s public. I cannot trust governments, and I fear the lengths that they will go to in order to achieve selfish ends.

On Teenagers

Teenagers, as a whole, have a problem. Well, several problems. I will excuse the stereotypical problems, such as the irrational hatred of our parents, and the all too rational mistrust of authority. These have been over examined by people with much better qualifications than I.

This article focuses on a different set of problems. Some of these are thrust upon us by the rest of society, some created by nature, some by ourselves. The following focuses on three issues, one from each of the previously mentioned areas.

Suspiciousness

If you are a teenager, get out of your chair. Stand up, grab a backpack (or large purse, if you are so inclined), and go walk through any store. Now take a look at the employees. Notice how ninety percent of them are watching you? Even if they are dealing with another customer, they have one eye on the person in front of them, and the other on you.

What is it about us that make people so suspicious? Is it the way we walk? The way we talk? Perhaps it is the fact that some of us find vanity through the strangest means. What ever this X Factor is, it seems to be a incurable affliction.

The most disturbing part of this problem is it’s age. Our parents generation, which will vary depending on the readers age, suffered from the exact same stereotype. They were scrutinized to the same degree that we are now.

Having lived through the experience, one would assume that the members of the older generation would realize that we do not differ from them to such a degree, especially in the sense that we do not exist simply to steal from department stores.

It would appear the the aforementioned X Factor is fear. More specifically, fear of the unknown. Though we are in many ways similar to the lives that our parents lead as youths, there is a vast amount of difference. This fear is the same one that leads to more serious activities, such as racism.

To date, I have found the most accurate interpretation of this problem through AMC’s Mad Men, “…maybe every generation thinks the next one is the end of it all. I bet there were people in the Bible walking around complaining about kids today.”

Sloth

As is becoming an all too frequent trend, I’m going to reference something by Merlin Mann. In one of the older episodes of the 43Folders Podcast, Merlin talks about a high school he attended in Florida. This particular establishment started the school day at 7:15 AM. Which, as you might guess, presented some issues for the young Mr. Mann.

Audio available here.

You see where the problem arises? It is a scientific fact that teenagers require gratuitous amounts of sleep in order to function properly. And it goes without saying that this is a problem. The majority of schools in North America start first period before nine in the morning. Meaning, of course, that to receive that proper amount of sleep that we require, every teenager would have to go to sleep between seven and eight in the evening.

And while all of that is a great fantasy, it is almost never practical. We have social lives. We have jobs. We have homework. Oh god, do we have homework. On occasion, we are forced to labour into the early hours of the morning. Which, ironically enough, prevents us form getting the sleep we need in order to perform well on the homework that is keeping us up late.

Good Lord, We do Hate Each Other

Adults, think back to the days of your youth. Try and recall the day off high school. Remember the cliques? Those groups of students who fell into a particular category, who banded together and felt no warmth towards anyone outside of the group.

Teenagers seem to have a natural tendency to loathe those who are different form themselves and their friends. But it goes beyond that. Teenagers even posses the ability to hate people who are exactly like them. There can be two girls who talk the same, act the same dress the same, and even have the same friends. And yet there is no force that could cause these girls to see eye to eye.

Most people would assume that this type of loathing is simply part of high school. I propose that it goes deeper than that. I propose the theory that this inherent hatred is a combination of situational influence, peer pressure, and primal defenses.

The first two causes are interwoven. I know from personal experience, as many of you probably do, that the attitude and behaviour of most people is dependent on the situation they are confronted with as well as the people around them.

More specifically, the second cause is driven by a need to belong. Teenagers will find a group that they either a) Feel they belong in; or b) Wish that they belonged in. Once this group is found, they will do almost anything to fill the role presented to them.

The third cause is presented in the example I have provided above. The two girls are so similar, that the lizard brain of their brains fear what it perceives to be an inevitable replacement by the threatening party. The person fears being obsoleted by someone who is so similar to them, that they will do everything in their power to drive the threat away.

Fortunately, this is not always the case. There plenty of people who fill all of the specifications above, and yet still manage to maintain friendships. It is these people who present hope for the future of cooperation amongst humanity.

These are not the only problem that teenagers face, they are simply the ones that I chose to highlight. They are issues that need to be resolved in order for teenagers to move forward in to the world of adulthood.