UP

Well, Pixar’s done it again. Up is incredible.

This new animation tells the story of Carl Fredricksen, an old man who seeks to complete a childhood dream that he shared with his recently deceased wife Ellie, and Russell, an overeager scout looking to complete a collection of Wilderness Explorer badges in order to gain his father’s approval. Carl, who refuses to allow city developers to buy his house even as they start building around his property, decides to say good bye the city and flies his house with balloons and bed sheet sails to Paradise Falls. Russell, much to his excitement, gets stuck on the porch as Carl takes off and is forced to help old Mr. Fredricksen during his adventures.

Carl Fredricksen is, of course, a comically bitter old man with fantastic dialogue and Russell is, like many young boys, eager and adventurous to the point of stupidity. This combination has always been entertaining, but Up takes it a bit further with some other wonderfully humorous characters.

There is Dugg, a delightfully oblivious dog with a translation collar who latches onto Carl as his master, and Kevin, a large, brightly colored bird that follows Russell in order to mooch off his chocolate bar. Of course, because wacky Pixar storytelling must have twists, Dugg used to belong to the pack of villainous talking dogs and their master, explorer Charles Muntz, and Kevin is a female bird with offspring awaiting her return.

Even the villains in this movie are delightfully amusing. Charles Muntz, who was actually a hero of Carl’s, has been in Paradise Falls since Carl Fredricksen was a young boy. He is, therefore, an old man -- and nothing is funnier than a good old man trying to stop an evil old man from killing a giant bird. Charles Muntz also keeps, and uses as zeppelin cleaning and cooking staff, a large pack of trained dogs. All of these dogs have collars that translate what they’re saying into English, and no dog has it as bad as the lead dog Alpha. While he is dark and menacing in appearance, his collar has some faulty wiring and he spends half the movie barking out orders in a hilariously high pitched voice.

I swear, I was laughing the entire time.

But, like all Pixar movies, Up is not just about the humor and the adventure. There is a good story underneath it all about friendship, which makes it another great family movie to add to the collection.

To be honest, I have nothing bad to say about this movie at all. It was absolutely wonderful. I definitely recommend this one to everyone.

Marvin

I said on Thursday that I would post this "tomorrow." It's technically two days late. Someone needs to call me out on these things.

But seriously, THIS is what I've been working on since Tuesday.




An amigurumi Marvin.

I had come across some amigurumi tips on Tuesday morning and could not get the idea out of my head. I still need to finish some similar dolls for a couple of the fooligans because I didn't get a chance to before the semester ended, but that's all sewing on buttons and props. I wanted to get down into the actual doll making again.

And the pattern making. I've done patterns for ninja and pirate fetus...es, a purple pentapus, and Boota, and even though they might get tricky, they are really fun to make. Plus, for things like Marvin, Boota, and the purple pentapus, it is really satisfying to be able to make a three-dimensional replication of a fictional character/creature.

I'm thinking that, when I get enough patterns for these guys, I might make a book of them. What do you think?



Also, please be aware that he's available at my Etsy shop and/or by commission.

Star Trek XI

I was never really a fan of Star Trek. Hell, when I was a kid I actively rebelled against my parents' Trekkie tendencies. If Trek was playing somewhere on TV, it was also playing somewhere in my house. While my parents were not extreme Trekkies by any means, I know characters and story lines solely from being around the show as a young child. They have all the movies, a bunch of the books, a Tribble, and, when my younger brother started expressing his enthusiasm at about three years old, they outfitted him with as many action figures as they could get their hands on. My anti-Trek sentiments increased in middle school when I became a huge, hardcore Star Wars fan, but since the prequals have ended, the animosity has decreased dramatically.

For a nerd, Star Trek is just a fact of life. You learn to live with it.

Knowing that, I saw the trailer for this new Star Trek and immediately wanted to see it. It looked action packed and revamp and everything that, if I had ever watched Star Trek, I would have wanted more of. This movie DID NOT disappoint.

The new actors did a fantastic job of freshening up the classic Star Trek crew. The things that everyone had loved about the first crew were there with these new actors. Spock and Kirk have their banter. Kirk and McCoy have their banter. The ship is attacked, people get shaken around, and accented voices yell through the comms from different parts of the ship. A red shirt dies. Hell, Kirk even almost has some sex with an alien. All pretty good times.

I knew from the trailer that Chris Pine (Kirk) had to be good. I was a bit leery of Zachary Quinto as Spock because I know him from Heroes as Sylar, but I didn't see Sylar at all in this movie. He was Spock, and my brain had no trouble equating his character to Leonard Nimoy. Karl Urban as McCoy was a surprise and, to be honest, he played his role well enough that I couldn't quite figure out that it was Eomer up there.¹ Simon Pegg was a surprising casting choice and his enthusiasm made him a great choice for Scotty; I really wish he had been in the movie more. Most of the other crew members didn't have that much screen time, but I thought they did a great job.

And in addition, these new actors and the advancement of special effects allowed Star Trek to be more action packed. There are huge effects scenes with fights and explosions and everything I love about science fiction. The ships looked great, the sounds were great, and everything was very well put together. Oddly enough, ILM and Ben Burtt (Star Wars) did most of the effects and sound for this movie.

There were, of course, some things that I didn't like in the movie. The fact that the alternate time line is never put right was weird to me. I have watched one Star Trek movie and it involved a partial alternate time line, but it was fixed at the end. From what I understand, most of the alternate time lines in Trek are resolved, but this one isn't.

Also, the whole love affair thing between Uhura and Spock was weird. And wrong. It just felt off and forced.

But other than that, this was a great movie. It made me, someone who's spent his whole life purposefully not watching Star Trek, think about sitting down and watching all the old shows. I definitely recommend it to anyone even remotely a fan of science fiction or action movies.



¹ And I have it on good authority that Urban was an AWESOME 'Bones'. XD