YES!

Just two more weeks until the simulcasts start!  I'm psyched!

MLP: FIM's Worst Villain Ever (In Terms Of Sheer Evil)

 WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SPOILERS!

I've been on another My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic binge for the past few weeks.  And with Season 5 in full swing, I've decided to talk about one of the villains.  I am not talking about an ordinary jerk like Diamond Tiara or a dangerous monster like the Bugbear.  No, I am talking about a major villain in the show; one who is a very dangerous threat to Equestria and its surrounding area.  

Starlight Glimmer is the ruler of a small remote village where she has convinced other ponies to give up their Cutie Marks, which are kept in a vault in a cave.  She claims that special talents cause pain and disharmony and that equality is the best way to create friendship.  So all the villagers have an Equal Sign Cutie Mark that acts like the brain implants from Kurt Vonnagut's Harrison Bergeron.  And she is by far the most evil villain in the show thus far. 

Until now most of the villains in the show have been either demonic tyrants like Tirek, or mad gods like Nightmare Moon.  These villains have all been simply trying to spread chaos and darkness for various reasons, but they simply loved darkness.  They also had an evil laugh to make them sound more terrifying.  And they all had tremendous powers that rivaled (and even overpowered), Princess Celestia.  
       Starlight Glimmer on other hand--I mean hoof--is a regular ordinary unicorn.  She does not have a hoard of undead-looking shape-shifters under her command, nor does she have the power to turn Ponyville into a chaotic nightmare.  What she has is her own unicorn magic and plenty of resentment.  And she also has a fair amount of charisma, otherwise she wouldn't be able to convince ponies to willingly give up their Cutie Marks.  
        It is implied near the end of Part 2 that she was jealous of other ponies' talents.  She studied magic like Twilight did, except not as good as other unicorns.  In fact, it could be said that she felt so jealous that she figured the only way to be friends was if everyone was mathematically equal.  And the ponies who live in her village came because they were looking for something that they didn't have in their lives.  This made them easy prey for her.  She would convince them that the only way to be friends is to give up their special talent.  After all, if everyone is equal, no one is better than anyone else (of course this leads to lowered quality of absolutely everything).  In their eyes, she was their friend.  They thought she gave them friendship and love when really she was using them for her own gain. 
   
When the Mane Six come to investigate, Starlight takes away their Cutie Marks by force, hoping to use them to further her ambitions.  But when Fluttershy sneaks out during the night, she discovers that Starlight kept her original Cutie Mark.  When this is revealed the next day, it breaks the hearts of the villagers.  They thought she cared about them.  In truth she didn't, she just wanted control over other ponies.  Knowing that the jig is up for her, she tries to escape with the Mane Six's Cutie marks (which she has kept in jars rather than the vault).  The villagers retrieve their Cutie Marks, and four them help the Six regain theirs.  
       
In short because Starlight Glimmer believes that what she is doing is for the greater good, 
she is a far worse villain than all the previous ones combined.  And all she has is ordinary unicorn magic and resentment. 

The Giant And The Dragon

The people of a certain village were suffering under the iron rule of a giant.  He would come and steal their food; the grain from the field, the livestock, the vegetables in the gardens, leaving the people with little to eat.  The giant kidnapped the young maidens as slaves and killed anyone who tried to rescue them.  And he would casually wreck the houses in his search for gain.  
       Finally the people could stand it no longer.  They knew the giant had a rival--a fierce red dragon who lived in the mountains.  And they knew that both the giant and the dragon hated each other.  So the people sought the dragon and called on him to help.  He agreed to help, and so he returned with the people to the village.  The dragon fought the giant until the giant was defeated and sent away.  The people hailed the dragon as their savior.  But within a very short time the dragon burned the people's crops, demanded that maidens be sacrificed to him at full moon, and all in all proved to be far worse than the giant had ever been.  

Moral: The enemy of your enemy is not your friend.  

JURASSIC WORLD: Same Song, Fourth Verse; A Little Bit Louder, A Little Bit Worse

Has no one learned anything from the events of the first Jurassic Park movie?  

 In Jurassic World, yet another dinosaur-themed park has been made.  Only this time it's a full-blown resort; complete with hotels, a museum, the whole nine yards.  InGen, the company behind it all, has decided to genetically create a monster theropod called Indominus Rex, for the sake of simply having something awesome.  Naturally this experiment goes completely haywire and Indominus begins to run amok and kill people.  And now it's up to a beefy macho guy named Owen Gradey and a hot-but-air-headed scientist named Claire to put an end to the monster's rampage. 

I'm not going to lie; I personally thought this to be the most hilariously stupid film ever put to screen.  Everyone except for Owen had the common sense of a bag of potato chips.  InGen went out of their way to create a killing-machine just because the public wanted something more awesome than Tyrannosaurus Rex (I don't care that there were bigger predatory dinosaurs; nothing is going to dethrone T-Rex).  After the business with Utahraptor, T-Rex, and several other dinosaurs breaking out and causing havoc years earlier, the wise thing to do would have been not to create a genetically-enhanced theropod hybrid killing machine.  

That's not to say that the movie was entirely bad.  The acting was actually fairly decent.  You both love and hate Claire and her child prodigy nephews.  They make some of the stupidest mistakes throughout the film, but the actors did a very good job with their roles.  Bryce Dallas Howard and Chris Pratt (who portrayed Claire and Owen respectively), have such great chemistry together.  Nick Robinson and Ty Simpkins as the two boys Zach and Grey are fantastic in their roles. Simply put, these were great actors with little to work with.  

I don't know why I like this film.  It's completely ridiculous, and all the characters seem to be airheads except for Owen.  At the same time, however, that thing managed to keep me at the edge of my seat.  So maybe it's the thrills that get me interested even if the whole thing plays like a repeat of Film One.  I won't spoil the good part at the climax. 

Victorian Anime

Well if this wasn't the most curious production of Gilbert and Sullivan's The Mikado or The Town of Titipu I've ever seen!  The Madison Savoyards gave the classic operetta an Anime-style spin, complete with colorful and spiky hair and schoolgirls who look like they stepped out of Sailor Moon. 

I cannot give a detailed synopsis given the farcical plot-line, but I can do this:  Nanki-Poo, the disguised son of the Mikado of Japan, is in love with the schoolgirl Yum-Yum.  She however, is engaged to her guardian Ko-Ko, a tailor and ex-convict who is now Lord High Executioner of the city of Titipu.  And Nanki-Poo is pursued by the much older woman Katisha, who mistook his politeness for affection.  On top of that, Ko-Ko is in a fix because he can't execute anyone until he's cut off his own head.  And to make matters worse, the Mikado himeself is coming and, since no executions have taken place in Titipu for a year, will demote Titipu to the status of a village if a beheading does not take place within a month (your head may now explode).  Suffice it to say hilarity ensues, loves wins out in the end, and Ko-Ko gets stuck with a cougar.  

I can go on about all the singers in all the various roles, but I think no one stood out more than Ko-Ko.  The baritone who portrayed him (who also did Major General Stanley in The Pirates of Penzance three years ago), made him look so much younger than usual.  Ko-Ko was originally conceived as a middle-aged fellow who wants to marry a young wife.  Here, he's a highly attractive twenty-something jock-type, complete with an outfit reminiscent of Goku in Dragon Ball Z, and an almost constant pout on his face.  This made his wooing of the elderly Katisha in Act 2 all the more hilarious.  
        Heck, I can't even talk about the characters; the costumes totally stole the show for me.  The women's chorus with colorful hair and miniskirts, the Mikado wearing a robe and headdress modeled off of a squid, Pooh-Bah's ridiculously long epaulettes that the schoolgirls play limbo under, and Yum-Yum and Nanki-Poo carrying backpacks with Anime logos on them as they leave for their honeymoon.  Oh, and I can't forget Katisha's kimono that was a patched-together concoction of ridiculousness.  Oh boy, I could go on forever about it.  

The singing was great, but once again there was serious shortage of men of the chorus.  What's up with that?  The Mikado is such a well-known opera; why only a sextet of men?  That's three years in a row this has happened!  

This opera is a must-see.  

Crud Puppies!

So about a couple of weeks ago, I found out that Dmitri Hvorostovsky was diagnosed with a brain tumor ans so canceled all scheduled performances for the next two months.  Oh sure, he says hoping to get better soon and is optimistic about everything.  But this is a brain tumor we're talking about.  This is a cancer lodged right in the body's control center.  Brain disorders are harder to deal with as the organ is super delicate.  Simply put, I'm not sure Dima will be able to sing alongside Yonghoon Lee this coming October.  

Remembering Christopher Lee

The world lost its best villain today.  To say that Sir Christopher Lee was a superb actor would not do justice the talent this man possessed.  He is most famous for his many Dracula roles.  But I remember him best as the fallen Maia Saruman, and also as the elegant Sith Lord Count Dooku.  

I also learned that he met J.R.R. Tolkien once.  Actually, Tolkien himself said that if Lord of the Rings should ever make it to the big screen, he thought Christopher Lee should be in it.  He was right; I don't think anyone could have played Saruman better than Lee.  

Also, I think Attack of the Clones would have suffered even more if it had not been Christopher Lee playing Count Dooku.  For the record, the Star Wars prequels are some of my favorite movies in the world.  And I must say, Lee's Dooku was one of the highlights of the trilogy.  

    Farewell to a splendid actor.