It’’s been quite a while since I did a proper update so here it is.Last year I started having serious back and left leg issues, they were so bad I spent most of my time on my back. It prevented me from doing quite a few things, this included some house hold chores I did on a daily/weekly basis. It also prevented me from sitting at a computer most days. There were times it got bad even when I was on my back. I began seeing a Doctor for my back. Thankfully I was able to get some medicine that helped dull the pain, but starting that April and over the course of, let’s say “Nine Months”, I fought to get an MRI done on my back to figure out just what the hell was happening.
Turns out I had a pinched nerve.
By the time April of THIS year rolled around, I was able to go and get injections for my back that helped revealed the pain. I still have a few aches here or there, but they’re more random and less painful, and I’m able to do the things I could do before.So Now I’m back at the computer (I’ve actually been back for a couple of months now).
But during that Time I finally came to a rather sad revelation... I hate making comics... I love writing them, but physically making them, it was too time consuming and personally too draining on me. So It’s sad to say, but for the time being all comics are kinda on Hiatus. At least until I can find someone willing to draw them. Personally I would love to reboot all my series, but for the time being I think I would rather just work on writing. But at the same time, I can say this.
I am looking for an Artist to do comics with.
If you’re interested, click that it should have most of the details.
So if comics are on a break for now, what will I be doing on Tumblr? Well I intend to start doing stuff on Youtube again in the near future, but I’m also working on some writing stuff that I may post here in the near future. At the very least, If I can’t get an artist for my comics, I can post the scripts here. I’m also doing some fun stuff on Minecraft and will probably post some pictures of my little project on here too.
In the meantime feel free to sit around and wait or do whatever. Stuff is coming soon.
Dragon Lizard: Alrighty, you may have noticed there hasn't been any comics over the past 2 days, that's because I gave Jareth time off for Thanksgiving... to feed me. However there came a new problem, seems our waste disposal system... crashed... and took out several other important key functions here at the hub. So sadly comics will be on hold until next Thursday when we'll return to our regular comic schedule.
As for the Mass Effect 3 review... well... we kinda... lost it... so Jareth is just going to have to do two reviews next week. Sucks to be him.
After some careful rearanging, and the help of a few people I happen to know, the final message came out to this:
soon the mind reaping will commence.
you stole my image and for this you will pay,
you can not escape me, i am everywhere,
and i am all knowing.
even now i desecrate your hub with my taint.
and soon i will find out where you have gone
for there is nowhere you can run or hide.
i will find you.
Needless to say, I am now worried, because within seconds of finally getting the message, we got THIS in the drop box.
According to the backtracking programs... it came from the hub... I'm gonna try talking the Dragon Lizard into moving to a new location.
Today we're looking at what is considered to be one of Christopher Nolen's hit movies, Inception, a movie about having a dream, while inside one man's dream, who happens to be dreaming inside another man's dream. Confused yet? Well depending on how you read into this review, I may ether: Answer some of your questions, or confuse the hell out of you further.
After a rather dull and gray logo sequence we open to every girl's dream heart of the 90's, Leonardo Dicaprio, washed up on a beach and watching children at play, only to suddenly be found by a bunch of weird security personnel guarding a large Japanese manor. They take him to their boss, an old man who gives him something to eats and asks if Leo is there to kill him. He apparently recognizes a spinning top found on Leo's person, as he apparently seen it years earlier.
We then cut to a similar location sometime in the past where we learn more about our characters. Leo plays Dominick "Dom" Cobb, a man who apparently is an expert in mental security, only it turns out he and his partner Arthur (played by every girl's dream heart of the 2010's, Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are actually thieves trying to steal secretive information from Japanese businessman Saito (played by Ken Watnabe). On top of that, there actually inside his dream using a device of unknown origin. Cobb is apparently an “Extractor”, one of the best, who enters a person's dream to steal information (because in a dream a person's defenses are at their weakest. Cobb and Arthur usually take jobs for various corporations who want to sabotage their competitors.
Anyway, while they are attempting to extract the information they need, another member of their team is apparently keeping an eye on their bodies while what seems to be a riot takes place outside their building. Cobb figures out where Saito is hiding his info and attempts to steal it, but he is sabotage by a woman named Mal (played by Marion Cotillard) who reveals to Saito everything, even that their inside a dream. Cobb steals the information anyway and shoots Arther who was already captured so the dream will collapse and they can escape. However Cobb discovers some of the information has been intentionally left out, and wakes in the real world just as Saito tries to subdue him and his team.
They try to interrogate Saito, but after he lands on his rug he discovers it's made of a different material, meaning their STILL in a dream. Saito is impressed with the Dream within a Dream tactic Cobb used, and reveals that he is really auditioning Cobb for a job. An angry mob arrives, attacks Cobb and Arther's Partner (The Dreamer for this set up and their “Architect”) and everyone wakes up to the real world and forced to flee as Cobb's current employers, will most likely kill them for their failure.
We then get some exposition, such as Cobb is apparently wanted in America for a crime and he has children he can't see because of said wanted status, but we don't really get any information on how long it's been since he's seen his kids. Just as Cobb and Arthur are about to leave the country (I'm guessing their currently in Japan?) they are intercepted by Saito, who learned more about them from their Architect, who in turn is taken off screen to be handed over to their former employers.
Saito reveals he want's to hire them to perform an inception. Where an Extraction goes into a person's head to retrieve information, an inception is where a person plants information “or an idea in this case” inside a person's mind. In exchange for his services, Saito offers to have Cobb's name cleared of all charges so he can return to America and his kids. Cobb agrees despite Arthur saying it can't be done, but on the plane out Cobb reveals it can be done, and that he succeeded it pulling it off once.
Anyway, Cobb reluctantly agrees to Saito's offer and he goes to France to recruit an architect. Here he meets Prof. Stephen Miles, played by Michael Caine (Que quire of Angels singing). Turns out Miles is his father in law as well as mentor. After telling Miles about his plan to return he introduces Cobb to his greatest student Ariadne played by Ellen Page (YAY SHADOWCAT!). Cobb reveals to Ariadne the existence of Dream sharing and the details behind it (even revealing it was developed by the military to train soldiers).
They also have a run in with Mal, revealed to be Mrs. Cobb, who scares Ariadne so bad that she declines to join them, but she comes back later because the idea of dream building is too much to pass up. Arther in turn teaches her ways to cheat in a dream, including paradoxical architecture, such as creating loops or infinite steps. We also learn that Mal died some point in the past.
Meanwhile Cobb goes to Mombasa to recruit Eames (played by Tom Hardy) a conman and identity forger who can change his appearance into someone else inside a dream. However Cobbs former employers goes after Cobb, forcing Mr. Saito, who was keeping an eye on his “investment”, to save him. Eames in turn leads them to Yusuf (played by Dileep Rao) who developed sedatives to be used in dream sharing. In order for the inception plan to work, they need a compound that will allow for three lairs of dreams to remain stable. (A dream, within a dream, within the dream). Saito also joins the group within the dream to insure they complete the job.
And finally 45 minutes into the film we finally learn what the job is (took long enough). Saito's company can no longer compete with the Fischer conglomerate, another company that is about to gain total energy dominance throughout the world and in effect, become a new super power. For the good the world Saito needs to convince the son of the company’s owner to resolve the corporation after his father's death. The guy they target is Robert Michael Fischer (Played by Cillian Murphy who played Scarecrow in the Dark Knight Series). Robert has a poor relationship with his father Maurice Fischer (played by Pete Postlethwaite, one of his final roles before his death).
Their plan is to repair the relationship between Robert and his father and have Robert come to believe that his father wants him to become his own individual and create something for himself. At the same time they take the opportunity to expose Robert's godfather Peter Browning (played by Tom Berenger) as the money hungry greedy bastard he his in hopes of aiding in the inception. When Maurice is pronounced dead, the group sabotage Fischer's private plane and book a the 747 he'll be riding in so they'll have access to Fischer for ten hours.
While the planing goes on we get more exposition as how every dreamer needs to have a totem, a small object with a specific weight that only the individual dreamer can know (such as a loaded die or Cobb's spinning Top) with it a dreamer is able to tell the difference between reality and a dream. We also learn that Cobb belong to Mal, and due to some regret Cobb is unable to let go of Mal after her death, but is also unable to keep the projection of Mal under control, which constantly wants Cobb to kill himself so he'll “Wake up”. Ariadne offers to to help Cobb keep Mal under control, but only if she joins them in the mission.
And the mission begins, they drug Fischer to hook him up to the machine and enter the dream of Yusuf. Which is a massive city designed by Ariadne. Unfortunately Yusuf had too much free champagne and it's raining in his dream (Funny). Posing as kidnappers they capture Fischer, however they learn that Fischer has had training against dream extracting, and his projections have military training. On top of this Mal briefly get's out and launches a train at the car containing Cobb. They escape the projections and make it to a warehouse, however Saito has been shot.
It's at this point the stakes are raised even further, due to the super powerful sedative used by the group, not only does dream last longer, but if they die in any of the dreams they wined up in in a shared dream space known as limbo, which contains nothing except stuff created by former visitors. In limbo the 10 hours will seem closer to 70 years, and by the time the person wakes up, their mind will be so far gone that they'll remember nothing in real life, therefor when Saito wakes up, he won't remember the deal he made with Cobb.
Forced to work faster then they originally intended, they disguise Eames as Browning and “reveal” that the kidnappers are looking to get into a safe which contains an alternate Will which would allow Fischer to dissolve the company. We also get MORE EXPOSITION (jesus!) we finally learn how Mal died, apparently Cobb and Mal wound up Limbo and spent decades there before waking up, however Mal was not convinced that they truly woke up. So she committed suicide and tried to get Cobb to join her by making it look like he killed her, because of this incident he was forced to leave his children behind and he's been trying to buy his way home ever since.
Although their attempts to convince Fischer his father cared for him don't work so well and the projections catch up to them. They continue on, laving Yusuf to drive their escape van, and drug Fischer again. The next dream is a Hotel created by Ariadne and dreamed by Arthur. Here they trick Fischer using a technique called “Mr. Charles”. Basically it's a scenario where Cobb poses as the head of Fischer's dream security and turns him on his own projections. The plan works, even going as far as to create a projection of Browning, they even go as far as to convince Fischer that Browning orchestrated the kidnapping and is trying to prevent Fischer from getting the will.
The group goes onto the next level, leaving Arthur behind to fight off the projections. We get some really cool fight sequences here as while Arthur is battling the projections on his level, Yusuf is on his level trying to outrun the projections with the van. He ultimately get's stuck however and is forced to engage the kick, a method which allows dreams to be pulled out of the next dream and wake up. He does this by Driving the car off the bridge, however it fails to wake anyone up and so they have to use the next kick (hitting the water) as their wake up call. It does however cause Arthur's dream to become Zero Gravity, giving us some of the coolest special effects ever.
The next dream level is a massive ice fortress which Ariadne designed, but this time Eames is the one dreaming. They plan to get Fischer to a vault that will contain what they need him to see (even they don't know what it is). However things just go horribly wrong, Mal finally breaks out and kills Fischer, sending him to limbo, while Saito finally succumbs to his wounds and also winds up in limbo. To get them back, Cobb and Ariadne use the dream device to enter limbo and confront Mal. And we FINALLY get the full details of what happened between Mal and Cobb.
For simplicity’s sake all explain the while thing here: Prof. Miles is Mal's father, he taught Mal and Cobb about the architecture of Dream sharing. Feeling adventures the two decided to see how far they could get in dream levels, unaware of how much time difference there is in dream levels. They ended up in Limbo and spent 50 years building a world together, however wheres Cobb could no longer live in that world, it became reality for Mal. To keep her reality going, she hid her totem (the spinning top and infinitely spins in a dream). Cobb found the safe and got the top spinning, thus pulling an Inception on Mal and convincing her that they needed to wake up (by having a train run them over... yikes!). They wake up to find the 50 years they spent in limbo was merely 3 hours.
However the problem with Inception is, even after a person wakes up, the idea plant continues to grow, it becomes their new reality, as a result Mal continues to believe they are still dreaming and they need to wake up. As stated before she commits suicide, but tries to get Cobb to join her by having her self declaired saine by three psychologist and planting evidence that makes Cobb look like her killer. (DEAR GOD THAT WAS A LONG WINDED EXPLANATION!)
Anyway, by admitting the truth, Cobb frees himself of any guilt and is able to let Mal go. (but it is totally his fault). They rescue Fischer but Cobb remains behind to find Saito. Fischer returns to Eames dream and opens the vault to find a projection of his father and the safe. Fischer opens the safe to discover the will... aaaaaaaand a paper windmill. Again this requires some explanation: throughout the film Fischer kept a picture with him that contained himself as a child and his father playing with a paper windmill (the one in the safe). It's one of the few happy memories he has with his dad. By seeing that his father held onto the one thing Fischer created in his life, he comes to the conclusion that his father wanted him to build a life for himself rather then live off his fathers accomplishments.
All the kicks are triggered and Fischer returns to reality with the idea planted in his head. We truth to the start of the film with Cobb talking to the old man and we realize... IT'S SAITO! Yes Saito has spent decades in limbo and has become “an old man filled with regret, waiting to die alone” (A line used by both him and Cobb throughout the film). But Cobb's return reminds him that he's in a dream and that he must “Come back, so (They) can be young men together again”. The two wake up back in the 747 and Cobb is able to make it past the immigration officers thanks to Saito's authority.
Cobb returns home to see his kids in the yard, he quickly gets the top to spin to see if he's dreaming. But he decides to “take a leap of faith” when his kids turn to greet him and he goes to be with them. The camera pulls back to reveal the top is still spinning, probably about to topple as... it cuts to black.
Well... I only have two things to say in this situation... kudos to you Christopher Nolen, for pulling such a gutsy ending... also... FUCK YOU... Christopher Nolen. In a movie like this, I would rather have a conclusive happy ending, rather then an open cliffhanger.
Where do I begin with this movie. It's a good fresh idea, something we've never really see before, or at least for a long time in the cinema. But at the same time, it seems so awkward and confusing at times that the viewer could be easily lost. It took me three viewings of this movie to fully understand what happened and who dreaming, but ultimately I do find the movie enjoyable. While it is full of CG effects, it's a good use of CG effects. It all looked real and felt real, even if it was in a dream. I do have a problem with whoever did the sound design in this movie... because the freaking Han Zimmer blows are ten times louder then the dialog being spoken.
At the same time, it felt like there were some details missing from the plot, like how much information on dream sharing and extraction has made it into public knowledge. Who created the dream sharing technology. How did Prof. Miles learn about it? When did Cobb start doing extractions, before or after his wife's death. What was Cobb's Job before leaving the country? How does he know Arthur and Eames? It's little questions like this that leave me wanting more from this film.
At the end of the day, I find this to be a tolerable film, I do come back to it once in a great while to watch it again, and sometimes I do find stuff that I missed the previous times I saw it. It's not a great film, but it's defiantly not a bad film. I like it, although it did take me a view viewings to really enjoy this film completely.
OVERALL DECISION ON INCEPTION
An okay film, you will need to watch it more then once to understand everything.
Plot: 6/10
Characters: 8/10
Effects: 8/10
Score/Music: 4/10
Rewatch: 7/10 (not because you'll want to, but because you'll have to)
