Time and Space

I have this idea for a contraption that can move a person through time and space. It's revolutionary! Basically, you enter this cylindrical tube, sit down and strap in. After about 30 minutes, you fall asleep, and awake at your destination, where ever in the world in may be. I call it, an airplane. We've come a long way in a hundred years of flight. The quick flight from Guadalajara to Los Angeles was just under three hours long, of which I slept all of the way. Walking down the Third Street Promenade at 11am just after spending the morning sitting on the terrace of our friends hacienda in a third world country was surreal. The trip from a first world to a first world country is jarring as well, but not so much as this one! I've put several videos up on my youtube account of the place, be sure to check it out if you want. It's not visual effects related, but still kinda cool. The entirety of last week was spent at their place in Mexico, away from the bustle and commotion of visual effects, spending most of the week sitting by or in their pool, discussing topics from; why there isn't a good sci-fi show on TV, how the Watchmen might turn out, economics, housing troubles, management, Vancouver, Mexico, US, visual effects, special effects, weather, business, some politics, life, and almost every other subject under the sun! A good friend from Vancouver joined us, so it was the five of us, chilling for the full week. A very relaxing time was had, in preparation for the months ahead!



Yesterday we hit up the theatre to see Watchmen. It was a long movie, but what do you expect. It was a very intensive novel. I appreciated all the work that went into it, and the movie did show the backstories of some of the characters during the title sequence, as well as bits parts of characters throughout the movie. Overall, I really enjoyed it. Was it an identical retelling of the story in the book? No. Actually, I enjoyed the ending to this film almost more than the book ending, and I can see why they changed it. Both mediums have their pluses, and I am glad for the changes in the film. Jackie Earle Haley did an awesome job as Rorschach. The reveal of him when he gets arrested was just as powerful as in the novel, as well as the end of the movie and Nite Owl screaming no. A pretty powerful scene. The epilogue at the end was kinda hammy, I could have done without that guy from Eureka.

A disappointment for me was the stoic line by line retelling by the characters. At times it seems they have no emotion, no attachment to the characters they're playing. Just reading lines of dialog. That was a shame for a lot of the characters, as the action scenes were very well done. The opening scene of The Comedian battling the intruder in his home was excellent. This is how powerful characters should fight, with weight and substance. So many films don't contain it.

On the visual effects front, congratulations to the teams that worked on it. There were some great effects and some invisible effects that worked well. I can only imagine the discussions in dailies dictating how blue Dr. Manhattan should be! Cheers for dealing with it!