Love and other Drugs

I was genuinely surprised by this movie, in a good way. I was just gonna go see it because it has Anne Hathaway - and well she's hot - especially if she has even more nude scenes in this film than she had in Havoc. But seriously, this is a beautifully orchestrated and heartfelt and funny romance and right up there with movies like Sweet November.

In terms of plot not many surprises: A guy, good with the ladies, finds his match in a girl, gets rejected. She, sick, is looking for a casual thing. He starts to have feelings for her, of course in the beginning completely unaware that it's love, and she pulls away. He tells her he loves her. She feels pushed and ends the relationship. He feels miserable, but so does she. Then they run into each other again and the love is still there, but they part ways once again. He goes through old videos of the two of them, realizes she's the one, and in one final grand gesture drives to her workplace, she's on a bus trip, so he drive like mad to catch up with the bus, convinces her to listen to him one last time, and they finally make up. He gives up his career to spend the rest of his life with her and they live happily ever after. So far so good. 

But what makes this movie special is how well Anne Hathaway and Jake Gyllenhaal work together as a screen couple - funny, but cheaky, seemingly effortless and natural, but with depths and character - it's simply mesmerizing. This romance movie is perfectly orchestrated, hitting all the right notes at the right time. This is one for the books. The perfect film to enjoy with your girl.

Give me an H. Give me an E . . . ah, screw it. Hellcats, baby.

So I started watching Hellcats just recently. Not my first choice in terms of plots, but let's see if it gets better. But who cares? It's Aly Michalka, Ashley Tisdale, Heather Hemmens, and Sharon Leal in cheerleding outfits . . . and sometimes less, hehe. I could spend hours looking at those hotties and never get tired of it. Plus it's not high school, but university level. Finally those actors in their mid twenties don't have to pretend they are ten years younger then they really are. Plus, much more relatable for me in terms of age and topics. And finally we know what chief Tyrol is doing now that Battlestar's over. Keep those episodes coming.

Halo : Combat Evolved - Mission 3 "The Truth and Reconciliation"

This mission is a mix of a sniper, stealth and infiltration. The plot is straight forward: search and rescue. Captain Keys has been captured by the Covenant and you have to use the gravity lift to get inside the Covenant cruiser, find the captain, free him from the brig , and escape. This is also the first mission where we see a Covenant ship from the inside - and the violet, bluish round organic design is in perfect complementary contrast to the edgy feel of the UNSC ships. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

On the ground

You start out with a group of marines. If you're lucky they might even survive till you get to the cannion just before the grav lift. However, since the Covenant will bring in reinforcements in that cannion - which will include heavy elites - they're unlikely to survive till you get to the bottom of the gravity lift. If you play this right you can save some sniper ammo which gives you a significant edge when onboard the cruiser. This is also the only mission where you start out with more ammo for the sniper rifle, 68 rounds to be exact, than at any other time in the game. But be careful. If you waste your ammo you will only be abled to pick up so much as the regular limit of 42 allows.

The first part of this mission - the fight on the ground to the grav lift - can be tricky because you have to decide on the fly when to take point, fall back, go stealth or guns blazing - and to be honest, most of the time the discission is not up to you, but you have to act when your marines get themselves into trouble - which then also rains down hell on you.

In the first cannion sneak up to the right to take out as many of the Covenant. As soon as you open fire they will engage too so take out elites and grunts manning the stationary guns first. Then, to save sniper ammo, go in with your battle rifle and take out the rest. Fall back to the ridge as soon as you killed all the enemy in the cannion before the reinforcements led by elites get in from the far end. Take them out with the sniper rifle because your marines will have a hard time because of all the obstacles. The elites are very good in making quick leeps to the side and in this area that almost always means they have rocks as cover. Even though your marines outnumber the elite, they will have a hard time because they can't flank them.

I also like to take point here, advance to the stationary gun right before the passage to the next bit of the level, and use that to take out all the Covenant coming down that path. Still, the elites will spawn before you can reach that turret so take them out before they kill half your squat. Advance slowly on the path, stop to trigger the checkpoint before you are on the top of the hill again because if you die you will spawn right in the line of sight of the patroling Covenant. The patroling Covenant and the grunt manning the gun turret are easy enough, but that elite hiding in the right corner of the rock formation can be a real pain in the ass. On Legendary, if he doesn't kill you he will cause you serious damage which just sucks. Even if you loose a lot of health on this sucker, try not to pick up the med kit at this point, but wait till you killed all the enemies spawning after you get over that hill and killed all those coming into that cannion over the ridge from the next cannion.

I love the next cannion because it has multiple options and those have multiple event chains triggered. It's also nice because it's a more open area than the previous cannions. You can take out the patroling elite and some grunt and jackels without causing much commotion among the Covenant. You can go up a path close to where you come in to this cannion or go further ahead and follow the cliff edge around the length of the cannion. Once you chose either you trigger more Covenant and most importantly the gunners will take you into cross fire. The grunts, even though there's quite a few of them, should not be a problem, but watch out for the jackels. I like to choose the second path because that gives you a clear shot at two elite - the only two in the area. If you were to choose the first route you rist being ambushed and flanked by those two because while you fight you won't be abled to keep track of them and they can come in from at least two directions - around or over the hill - both giving them a very good shot at you because the first route takes you right into a pit with no cover. If you haven't taken care of the jackels by then, they and the elites will finish you off pretty quickly in that pit - which is why I like to use a little trick to take out a lot of them without triggering their alarm and attack mode.

When you get into this cannion there's a big bolder right under a ridge with a stationary turret on it. Take out the grunt on that turret, climb on the rock and jump repeatedly and use you sniper rifle to take out as many of the jackels and grunts. It takes some skill to aim at the moving enemies during that second you're able to see over the ridge, but if you take out enough grunts and jackels this gives you a significant edge later on. Before you finish the last enemies in this area, make sure you are not in the spot where the dropship lands, that is where the second advance route takes you.

Man either that turret in the left corner or one on the other side of the cannion. But be careful because the turret on the left is very close to the landing zone of the dropship. Also, there's an invisibility pickup on the hilltop. I like to use that to advance on that narrow pathway to the cannion with the grav lift. Don't waste it during the battle in this cannion - it's not worth it because with all the fighting going on it's very likely you'll get shot just by accident which will reveal you or you will have to fire back which will also lift the cloak. But it comes in handy to sneak up on the elites hding around the corner of the narrow pathway, plant a sticky grenade, and put enough of a scare at them that you marines don't get butchered right away.

The cannion at the ground of the grav lift is tircky. First you have to take out the massive group of elites, grunts, and jackels protecting the entrance. Then there's two more, but al least smaller groups. One on the ground to the left of the grav lift, the other two the right in the ridge. Take on the second one first because that one has a blue elite. If you managed to kill all Covenant at the entrance the jackels in the first group will be so scared that they spend more time hiding behind their shields more than they spend on firing at you. Then take out all the grunts on the turrets surrounding the grav lift. Be careful, once all of them are dead you've triggered multiple waves of reinforcements coming down from the cruiser. Lucky for you they all use the grav lift so you know exactly where they will hit the ground. So get on one of theose turrets and just leave that finger on the fire button. be careful, the last of these waves has two hunters. Since you're a sitting duck in your turret, get on and off. Trust me, you need the fire power. Don't waste sniper ammo on any of the enemies in this area, they're not worth the bullets. In fact I like to use the turrets to take out all the grunts on the other turrets and that dropship coming in. Only take on the hunter on foot if you have been forced too far away from a turret or they blasted it off the cliff.

If at any point during the first half of this mission all the marines from your initial squat should be killed a pelican will bring in reinforcements. However, try to avoid this as much as possible. Your marines aren't very good at surviving anyway and you need the help against the hunters. When you've killed the hunters you will be able to use the grav lift. Wait for the pelican to drop in more marines, stack up on ammo, health etc from the pile near the grav lift, and then get on that crusier.

Onboard the cruiser

Now you are finally on the cruiser and can start looking for the ship's brig and Captain Keys. But first you have to get out of this hell hole of a room. This is one of the most insanely intense, frustrating, and repetitive bits of the entire game. This room has five entrances, four of which will be used by waves of enemies spawning randomly from any one of those four. After the first few waves groups of enemies will come in from multiple entrances simultaniously or at least you will have a hard time to finish one wave before the next one is spawned. And at the end you have to take on to hunters in melee combat. But worse than all of this, the bit that makes this part so insane are two cloaked elites with lightsabers. And we all know what lightsabers mean in Halo, that's right, instant kill.

On Legendary, it is very likely that those elites twill make short work of half your newly remanned squat while you just turned your back for the fraction of a second to take on thatgroup of grunts. Since the elites spawn randomly, everytime you die and go back to the last checkpoint you will not know through which door they're gonna come. So you keep spinning, you hear a door opening and before you've even figured out which of those four doors it is one elite has killed two or three of your marines.

If you have not killed both cloaked elites with lightsabers by the time the second grunt and jackel wave has spawned you are as good as dead. One moment you're still dodging sticky grenades flighing at you, trying to get a clear shot at those grunts hiding in the deadend passages behind the doors, and bam, one of those elites just snuck up on you and killed you with his lightsaber fast than you can say Star Wars. Oh and if your squat isn't already dead at this point, the elite that killed you will take out the last marines while you watch Masterchief falling to the ground. The fifth door opens only to unleash to hunters. You will have no choice but to engage in melee combat. Wait till they get close enough to strike a blow, dodge out of the way, and try to shoot them in the back because that is the most vulnerable part. The orange, fleshy body parts are easy enough to recognize. In that respect Halo did what Lost Planet would do later. After you defeated the hunters, the next door will be locked. If any of your marines survived you can listen to a bit of dialogue here.

You will have to unlock the door from the other side. Pick up the cloak and sneak through the corridors to the balcony atop the next room. Take out as many of the Covenant out from up there and proceed with caution in the hallways. I like to hang back here quite a bit. Use short firing bursts to increase the precision of your weapon. This way you can take out enemies from quite far away. Once you get to the bottom, run to the center of the room to trigger the next wave of enemies and head back to the hallway you came from. The Covenant will gather in front of that entrance and that makes it a lot easier to take them out. If your marines survived unlock the door. Otherwise just go ahead.

Apart from more hallways the next big area is the cruiser's hangar bay. It has two landing pads along with door hangar gates protected by shields. The pads are separated by a structure with the hangar door controls on top. It also give the elites up there an ideal vantage point. The pad where you come in has a maze of crates. They can be helpful, but don't stand in the center of them, especially when playing on Legendary, because the Covenant will just take you into cross fire. The other pad has a tank and only a few crates. There are two areas with dead UNSC soldiers and supplies in the hangar. One on the first landing pad in a corner of the separating structure, the other on the other landing pad behind the pillar in the middle. When playing on Legendary, you are probably low on ammo and health by now and even though it is very tempting, do not recharge right away. There are many more waves of Covenant to kill and there's a good chance the newly recharged health will just go to waste if you pick it up now. That's the only thing about the Halo 1 health system that is problematic. You either have almost full health or you loose health quite quickly when getting into crossfire, but if your health is actually, say, down to one bar you actually still have a better survival chance than with, say, medium health. This makes using med kits to recharge a bit useless sometimes. Whenever you know there are multiple waves of enemies and you are very low on health it's much wiser to just hang back, use cover, and not use a med kit. I have cleared many a rooms with only one bar left.
The hangar also has three levels of balconies interconnected by hallways and slopes. Basically you have to fight your way to the top and follow the hallways there until you get to a command center. This room might have been intended as the cruiser equivalent of a bridge and even though the holographic interfaces are kind of cool, overall the room is not very impressive. What makes it cool is that you will revisit it later on in the game. Watch out, there's a golden elite with lightsaber on the raised command platform. As soon as he sees you he will launch an attack and follow you trough the hallways. Since he starts out on the platform he can get to the rooms entrance in one jump so watch out for that.

After that it's pretty straight forward. Follow the hallways which if you keep left first take you to a group of holding cells where you can pick up some ammo and a med kit. The other cell block is where Captain Keys is. Watch out for the cloaked elites and the one with the lightsaber. Use the control interface to turn off the brig's force fields and watch a little cutscene of Captain Keys explaining that Halo has religious significance for the Covenant. From there in out the rest of the mission is straight forward. Fight your way back to the top level of the hangar bay where you will release the docking clamps of a Covenant dropship and use that to escape and make sure Captain Keys doesn't die. The only tricky bit here is when you get back to the command center. If you go through the door of the command center, where you get the checkpoint, Captain Keys and the other marines will be right behind you - and in front of you two cloaked elites with lightsabers. On Legendary, if you run in the room like this Captain Keys is as good as dead. Even if you fall back into the hallway you are basically sitting ducks while the Covenant storm down that slope. What you want to do is before Captain Keys lays out his escape plan stay as far away from the command room as possible - best if you stay near the corner of the long hallway with the multiple entrances to the command center. Don't bother using the adjacent hallway which you could use to go around the Covenant in the command center without actually being in the room. If you manage to take out the elites right in the beginning there is no need for this special kind of tactics here. Just make sure you take out the jackels and your marines with their needlers will make short work of the grunts.

And finally a little cutscene. Captain Keys, you and the marines get on the dropship and you squash two hunters before flying away - "Nice one, sir." I like Captain Keys voice. Next one up is one of my favorite missions, the Silent Cartographer which was also the original demo level, because it takes place on an island with an elaborate system of Forerunner structures underneath it which you get to explore, plus, you have alot of marines and much bigger fights with the Covenant and you get to drive around with a warthog.

Merry Christmas, 2010

This is the first Christmas I'm not spending at home with family and until a few days ago it seemed like I was gonna spend it alone. But you know how life goes and now I get to spend it with great friends afterall. Life is good.

Halo: Combat Evolved - Mission 2

The beginning of this mission, the first and second cannion, are the hardest bit. Taking down one of the banshees so the other one takes flight, fairly easy. Just use your pistol for distance and switch two the battle rifle when your clip's empty and the banshee gets closer, joker if the banshee gets stuck in a tree or smashes into the cannion wall. I like cross the bridge and attack the grunts and elites from the other side of the abyss. At least the grunts are easy to take out, the elites are the tricky bit. If you get lucky, a well placed grenade makes the elite duck-jump off the cliff, double jackpot if it was the red and not the blue elite. If both elites survived, especially if you're playing on Legendary like me, things get tough because at this point, with all the grunts killed, they like to hide behind trees or that rock right next to their side of the bridge.

At some point you'll have to make a bold attack across the bridge. If you have grenades left use them to drive the elites into hiding away from the bridge, otherwise it's very likely they'll kill you before you can even make it to the other side. Once you managed to take them out you might want to stack up ammo and health before advancing further up the hill because the next checkpoint only comes when you reach the next cannion. At this point I like to pick up a needler because it's very effective against elites and keep the pistol for ranged attacks on the grunts further up.

The second cannion is the first one where you have to defend other survivors from the Pillar of Autumn until evac arrives. It's also the toughest position to defend because unlike the other cannions to come, Covenant dropships will come in from three directions, plus, you don't have the warthog yet and those technicians in their jumpsuits and their pistols aren't helping much. This is also where you'll meet Srg. Johnson again. Heck, you might even manage to keep him alive, but don't count on it. 

Plus, you'll get plenty more chances to get him killed throughout the game. Also notice, that although in a group of randomly chosen soldier character models you might get two caucasian soldiers with the same faces, but there will always be only one Srg. Johnson. The reward of defending this first defence is really getting the warthog and keeping at least one or two soldiers alive so you have someone to man your vehicle's gun turret.

I love the next bit where you go under ground and must activate the light bridge to cross the casm. The music, the dialogue and the Forrunner structures are just perfect and a nice foreshadowing of things to come. In fact, I'd say this bit and the structures in the Silent Cartographer mission are my favorit Forerunner structures in Halo 1.


We learn that most of the crew made it off the Pillar of Autumn and is on the surface and we will spend the next couple of missions trying to reunite the crew and rally a resistence against the Covenant ground forces. The whole campaign itself is quite straight forward, but the beautiful dialogues are what bring it to live. Back in the day Halo accomplished what even more recent sci-fi shooter aspire to and that is to deliver a believable mature space opera which feels more like starship troopers, but with a lighter tone like Star Wars (especially when it come to the design of the various Covenant races).

Even though the ball physics of the warthog can have a will of their own sometimes I'd still take that over any other vehicle in a shooter anyday. Take Half-Life (one and two and both of the episodes together). If you're a rookie you will bump into every minute obstacle along the way. It really takes time to master a vehicle in Half-Life and not in a good way because it mostly requires you to memorize every turn and spawn point, be it in the hover craft behing chased by the choper, be it car in Half-Life 2 or the even the car in Episode Two (even though this is by far the best Half-Life vehicle in terms of maneouverability).

Anyway, the way back to the surface leads you to a nonlinear bit of the mission. Basically you have three cannions left to rescue survivors and it is you choice in which order you visit them. The order you pick also alters how Covenant spawn between the cannions and where they come from. I've tried different orders, but the way I usually do it is to go to the one to your right first, because it is the easiest at this point, plus, you'll get a sniper rifle which comes in handy especially for the cannion where the pelican picks you up in the end.

The holographic displazs are my favorit of all the Forerunner stuff. That simple uv animation is very subtle, and the color scheme gives a nice touch to the world, both distinct from the UNSC and the Covenant tech and architecture.

 So the first cannion on the right is pretty much easy-peasy. The marines are hiding behind this rock formation and they also have some snipers, so occasionally they manage to take out the odd Covenant - mostly grunts because they're the slowest and don't have shields like the jackels or elites.

Now that you have to do you can just drive between the three sites where Covenant dropships come in, maybe run over some in the process and basically try to give your gunner a steady target. If you're playing on Legendary it's likely the marine riding shotgun won't make it through the entire battle, but once it's over you can pick up one of the survivors to replace him.

Then I ususally follow the other passage (not the one you came in). On the way to the second cannion you have to cross a river coming down from a waterfall - the particle  effects and the water is just great, even if it doesn't have the realistic Halo 3 reflection yet.

The ocean in the environment model of the level, though, has a nice reflection of the gas giant, sky, and the ring. For the second and third cannion I like to get of the warthog so the Covenant don't spot it accidentally, then sneak up on the ridge of the cannion entrances, and take out most of the Covenant around the cannion. Might take some patience, but hugely increases the survival chances of your marines. Don't worry about ammo, cause the wounded marine on top of the hill has a sniper rifle.

Once you check out the nav point on the hillside a Covenant dropship will come in. Since it brings in three elites, two of them red, plus a few grunts I like to just go GTA on them with the warthog. Unless you bump into trees there's not much of a risk in that strategy. Two down, one to go.

For the last cannion there's an empty lifeboat (nice supply of ammo). Again using the same covert strategy as before I take out as many of the Covenant with the sniper rifle, take the warthog to drive from one of the two cannion entrances to the other, and finish of the rest.

If you're lucky, you can take out almost all of them. All you have to do is kill whatever Covenant remain on the surface, then the marines hiding underneath the structure will make a run for the top. Go down an take out the Covenants hunting your marines. The dropship arrives and we learn Captain Keys is being held on the Covenant cruiser Truth and Reconciliation.

Happy Anniversary, Halo!

For the ten year anniversary of the release of Halo: Combat Evolved, I'm replaying the original... and for my enjoyment, tehe. Halo 1, in my opinion, is still one of the most balanced shooters to date. Granted, not all levels are that exciting - in fact you can be sure you'll hear a lot of nagging once I get to the Library mission - but the combat, the enemy AI, and the weapons are balanced out perfectly. Not that the AI was that smart, but in combination with your move set and the weapons you have, everything falls into place. Above all, I've played this game a lot of times now, but, yesterday, when Srg. Johnson gives his first speech on the hangar deck of the Pillar of Autumn, believe it or not, I heard yet another dialog variation I had never heard before. Also, you only start to appreciate the missions once you've played them a couple of times and realize just how perfectly every piece of cover and spawn point is placed - compared to the irritating checkpoint placement in Halo 2.

Yesterday I played through the first level. I just love the Alien-like introductory shot with the ring and the gas giant in the back panning down and the Pillar of Autumn flying in from the right - so great that they picked that shot for the end of Halo Reach and the credits - coming full circle. The first cutscene is quite long and back in 2001 when the game was first released its scope was just mind-blowing. It still amazes me how well this first cutscene manages to establish all the major characters and in such a relatable way - Captain Keys, Sergent Johnson, and the Master Chief a.k.a. Sierra 117 (John). Apart from Starcraft II, the Jedi Knight Mysteries of the Sith, and Star Wars The Force Unleashed, the Halo franchise still has one of the best spaceship interiors. Little details like the digital notice boards with their inside jokes are quite telling about the game's age. Half-Life 1 also had a lot of these, but alas, few of the recent games. One cool Easter egg in this first halo mission is the endless wave of soldiers you can trigger if you go back an kill everybody one the bridge once Captain Keys has handed you the pistol. Indeed, there's a lot happening in this level. Making your way from the cryo bay to the bridge, introducing Cortana. Locking back at how shooter where back then (take Half-Life for instance, before Alyx and her dad and dog or Barney; Gordon never said anything and if you didn't run into some scared scientist the only company you had was a very generic computer voice giving you status updates on your hazard suit) shooters where very quiet. It was mainly you, the player, always the silent type, with very little interaction with other friendly characters. Having Cortana as a constant companion was a great addition. Not only does she give you mission objectives on the fly, but I love that she has a will of her own rather than just being the voice of your suits computers She and the Masterchief both trying to have their way makes for lots of nice bits and nips along the way.

So expect more to come. Once I've completed mission 2 I'll probably post another update.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part One)

I've heard a lot of people say that this movie was boring because hardly anything happens. But I disagree. It's like the calm before a storm slowly building up to what we can expect from Part Two. Plus, there is a lot of fighting and action as well and yes, by action I mean Ron and Hermione, of course.

More to come...

Tron: Legacy

Tron: Legacy theatrical release poster.

Now this film is a definite must. Well paced, amazing score, and beautiful visuals (and I'm not just talking about Olivia Wilde). It has all the great elements from the original 1982 Tron - the arcade, the laser, light cycle races, the recognizers, the solar sailor, the display including virtual keyboard in glass desks and the overarching themes like the fruitless search for logical and technological perfection and that there is more to human nature than the sum of its parts. Despite being visually one of the most innovative movies this year (a virtual, young Jeff Bridges - though not perfect - in stunning fidelity and realism), it does not stop there, but manages to immerse us with great relatable characters and a well thought through story rather than relying on computer effects.

Poster of the original 1982 film Tron.

The plot is similar to the 2003 first person shooter Tron 2.0. Both game and Tron: Legacy have Kevin Flynn, the programmer gone hacker gone gaming mogul from Tron 1982, who got not only fired, but had his game stolen from him. This game was a beautiful sequel to the original Tron. You would both fight and solve puzzles using your disc, programmes derezzed, they even introduce Byte as your companion who can speak unlike Bit from Tron 1982 and actually won't shut up. "A Bit? No, I'm a byte." And very much like Tron: Legacy you played Kevin Flynn's son and had to find a way to get your father and yourself out of the computer world again. And just like in the original movie a great deal of the game would involve communicating with the real world through emails, retrieving legacy code from abandoned parts of the system and even defeating villainous programmes by posing unsolvable equations to them. If you read all the emails (including the corrupted ones) you could find out an extremely detailed account of what happened to your fictional father between the movie and when the game takes place. And just like Tron: Legacy, Flynn's son in Tron 2.0 was kind of a rebel not wanting to follow in his fathers footsteps. The main villain of the game was a character called Kernel (a nice word play) who like the Master Control Program in Tron 1982 was communicating with the real world, but had gone rogue and like C.L.U. in Tron: Legacy would turn into a virus - but not like the MCP who assimilated programmes to grow, but like C.L.U. the Kernel abducted programmes and turned them into an army in an attempt to infect more and more systems until the entire world was controlled by him. The later levels of Tron 2.0 have you revisit places from earlier levels, but now corrupted by the virus - very cool.

Box cover of the 2003 video game Tron 2.0.

But Tron: Legacy introduces some interesting new ideas to the Tron universe: The isos, isomophic programmes, that is progammes that evolved on their own - the ghost in the machine - rather than being programmed. The idea that not only real people could be digitized by the laser, but that programmes could be turned into people in the real world - in Tron 2.0 the Kernel only sort to spread across all computers of the world, but still as software. Second, the idea that evolution involves coincidental emergence and that a true artificial life form cannot be constructed in a quest for (techno)logical perfection - humanity is not about being perfect, but being flawed in a uniquely human way. Quorra, the last surviving iso (because Kevin Flynn saved her from C.L.U.'s cleansing) is more human because she is not perfect like C.L.U. And C.LU., even though he is the main villain, being the perfectly logical programme - like the Asimov's supercomputer - can only come to the logical conclusion that in order to 'create the perfect system' the disrupting element, free will, the seed of disobedience, must be eliminated. And that is Quorra, the symbol of free will, in an artificial life form, but like in Asimov's stories if C.L.U. was to ever come into the real world the only logical conclusion of his programming can be to destroy all human beings. And Quorra is that symbol of free will when she shows Sam Flynn the books his father gave her to read and says that the one she likes the best is a collected works of Jules Verne. And Quorra dreams about the real world very much like Jules Verne dreamed about the depths of the sea and space travel. I think the thing I liked the most about how Olivia Wilde plays Quorra is that she portrays her not just as this one-dimensional hot chick slash love interest of Sam, but as being nerdy and looking at the world with wondrous eyes as well as driving stick and kicking ass. Quorra's humanness comes from her awareness that there are many things she does not understand (even if the sunset seems like a cheezy Hollywood metaphor) and that is why she dreams about the real world. C.L.U. may seek world domination, but that is not his dream, no, it is his function programmed into him by Kevin Flynn and unlike the isos he cannot outgrow his original function. At some point in the film, Sam talks about how C.L.U. destroyed the system when he killed all the isos, but his father interrupts "No, he didn't. He did what he was supposed to do. He created the perfect system. I couldn't have done it without him." I also liked that the face-off between C.L.U. and Sam, Kevin Flynn and Quorra is not a fight-to-the-death kind of confrontation, but a reconciliation between C.L.U. and his maker. C.L.U. says: "I only did what you asked me to do." and Kevin Flynn answers, "I know." Plus, there's a cataclysmic explosion when Kevin Flynn reintegrates C.L.U. and that looks pretty neat. Like in Asimov's stories or in Terminator the dramatic force of the story comes not from the fact that there is a computer programme or piece of technology, created by man, but faster and stronger which turns against its creator, no, its that what we are facing there is our own hybris of brutally logical reasoning. We are fighting a part of us. And similar to ancient Greek philosophy it is not in perfectly obeying rules that we find humanity, but in a balance between the extremes of perfect, but cold reasoning and instinctive anarchy.

Even though I've digressed quite a bit now, returning to the film, I think, Tron: Legacy tabs on all of these topics in a very light manner, leaving us with a fun story to enjoy. Understatement is king.

The Beginning

It's night, has been for a couple of hours now, and this is where we start our journey. This blog is a random collection of my thoughts on the things I love. Let's see what it grows into.