Frame-By-Frame – Teen Titans 2.3: Terra

Teen Titans, Season 2, Episode 3: Terra

Episode three starts with a girl running through a canyon being chased by a giant snake.. worm.. thing… WITH BIG TEETH! She runs as fast as she possibly can until she seems to be at a dead end. The Titans show up to help her, but before they can do anything the girl shows off her own superpowers and she makes a big rock fall on the worm creature and crushes it. Robin figures out that she wasn’t running but she was luring the creature into a trap and then they think they should have her on their team. But Slade shows up in the background and says to himself, “Hands off, Titans, I saw her first.”

So the Titans introduce themselves to the girl and she tells them her name is Terra. She says she’s just a drifter whose home is nature, but the Titans insist she stays with them, at least for one night. She agrees and after making herself right at home she falls asleep on the couch and they suspect she really hasn’t had a real home for a long time and that she really needs one. Robin comments that they’re going to test her skills on the training course tomorrow. Terra hears this and looks upset.

She goes outside that night to just stare at the water. Beast Boy comes out to sit with her and talk and at one point she accidentally does something with her powers and freaks out and tries to leave, but Beast Boy stops her, figuring out that she doesn’t have complete control of her powers and that that’s okay. But she confesses that that’s the reason she’s been running all her life, because people hate her and betray her or get hurt around her because she doesn’t have complete control. She makes Beast Boy swear that he won’t tell anyone about it and he does, though he doesn’t really think it’s that big a deal.

So the next day she gets on the training course, nervous that she won’t do so well. She’s rough at it, but she survives and everyone cheers her, except Robin and Raven, who suspect that she doesn’t have control and she could be dangerous for that reason. Soon after that, they get a call about trouble and go to stop it. Terra hesitates but then Beast Boy tells her to come and she happily goes with him.

So Slade and his minions are attacking some… place… and the Titans go to stop them. At some point, Slade runs away from the battle and Terra goes after him. They fight for a bit, but Slade quickly overpowers her. He starts talking to her, telling her all these things that he knows about her, because he’s been watching her for a long time. He says that he wants to help her to gain control of her powers. At the last minute she retaliates and nearly crushes him, but he escapes.

When they all get back home, Robin welcomes Terra as an official member of the team, but mentions that he knows she doesn’t have complete control. She freaks out, saying Beast Boy told him, but he didn’t, but she won’t believe him and she runs off. Robin just guessed it and he had no idea it was such a big deal to her. So she goes back to running, and Slade continues to watch her, saying that she’ll eventually run to him.

I sympathize with Terra, which is why she is one of my favorite characters. Being betrayed by people who you thought were your friends just because you can’t control something about yourself, or because you’re different, that’s rough, and I can relate. I’m sure a lot of people can. But because of that, she finds it hard to trust anyone so she doesn’t like to stay in one place for long. Once trust is broken, especially time and time again, it’s hard to trust anyone ever again.

And then there’s Slade. He’s being a creepy stalker again, just like he was with Robin, only now it’s with Terra. Scary. I’ve seen the entire show and I still don’t know what his deal is. But that’s what makes him an awesome villain. He’s mysterious and creepy but he is sometimes good, at least to certain people. You never really know what he’s up to ever.

Anyway, back to the episode. I give it 5/5 stars.

Frame-By-Frame – Death Note 1.3: Dealings

Death Note, Season 1, Episode 3: Dealings

In this episode, we see that the Japanese police force is working hard on the Kira case alongside with L. The police don’t particularly like being ordered around by L, especially since they don’t know his true name or face. Also, he asks them to investigate things they don’t think are very important and therefor feel that it is a waist of time. Hey guys, this is supposed to be the greatest detective in the world, maybe you should give him a little more credit than that.

They discover that the time of death for the victims on weekdays was always after school sessions were out so they started to suspect that Kira could in fact be a student. L then asks them to investigate just how the victims’ identities were made known to the public, whether or not it showed their name and/or face with it.

Light’s father finally returns from work to reveal that his dad is really the police chief inspector that we have been seeing at all of the task force team meetings just to freak the audience out with the knowledge that, yes, he is looking for a murderer who actually turns out to be his own son. Wow. That’s harsh. Anyway, the family sits down to dinner and Light’s dad is really tired and spills a bit of information about the case he’s working on and that he really doesn’t like the person leading up the investigation, that being L of course but he doesn’t say that.

Light goes back up to his room and Ryuk comments on the fact that his dad is with the police, to which Light says that is his main advantage, because he can easily get his hands on police records without getting caught due to them being on a home network so he can copy files from his dad’s computer and no one will know. He finds out that they’re suspecting a student and starts experimenting with the Death Note and finds out that he can set the time of death for the people whose names he writes.

And therefore the police have a new problem on their hands. In the past two days, a person dies every hour on the hour; 23 criminals in one day, all in prison so they would be found immediately. They start to say this is a clue that it might not be a student, but L says otherwise. He says that Kira is sending them a message, one that says that he can determine time of death… and that he has access to police records.

Ryuk is confused as to why Light would want L to think this because he would just be able to find him faster. Light explains that it’s because L will have to start investigating the police now and the police won’t take kindly to that so they’ll start investigating L. Light’s plan is for the police to reveal his identity first and then he can eliminate L.

Three members of the task force resign because they have found out that Kira needs a name and a face to kill, or at least that’s what they assume, and that he’ll most likely be coming after anyone who is trying to stop him, as evidenced by the little stunt L pulled before. Later on, Ryuk tells Light that he is being followed. Light freaks out about this because he didn’t think L would send people in to investigate the police this quickly and if this person keeps following him for long, he could be found out, but he must find out the stalker’s name. Ryuk then informs Light of a deal he could make to get the eyes of a Shinigami, which would allow him to see the names of every person’s face he sees. The only catch? To get the eyes, he must give up half of his remaining life span, and there is no telling how long he actually has left to live. End of episode!

This episode is less showing how psychotic Light is and more showing that he is a clear, logical thinker who can come up with brilliant schemes: the perfect serial killer, since crazy serial killers like to leave clues for police to be able to catch them. That’s exactly what Light is doing, but since his murder weapon is a supernatural note book of death, it’s going to be much harder to catch him, if not downright impossible.

It’s hard to tell, but I think he sees this as a game. I think maybe L does in a way as well, though I might be looking too far into this. So L vs Kira with the Shinigami Ryuk watching just because he was bored.

I give this episode 5/5 stars.

Frame-By-Frame – Teen Titans 2.2: Every Dog Has His Day

Teen Titans, Season 2, Episode 2: Every Dog Has His Day

The second episode focuses on the character of Beast Boy mainly. He is trying to find something to do. First he goes to see if Cyborg wants to do something but Cyborg is messing with his car and Beast Boy accidentally does something to damage it so he runs far away from the raging Cyborg. Next he goes to see if Starfire and Raven want to do anything. At the moment they are both meditating and Beast Boy comes up and freaks them out and Raven tells him to get lost. So then he goes to see if Robin wants to do something. Robin is in the middle of training and accidentally kicks Beast Boy in the face. Of course he’s all right and then he asks Robin if he can train with him, but Robin informs him that it’s kind of a solo thing.

So Beast Boy walks off, feeling very dejected. He goes off to the city to try and find someone to hang out with, but no one wants to because they think he’s a green freak. But when he sees a couple girls gushing over a dog, he gets the idea that he’ll get attention if he’s a dog. So he changes into a dog and tries to get attention, but the girls once again reject him because he’s green and “ugly” so he runs off feeling very sad. Aaaaw.

But then he sees something crash and a green dog that looks pretty much like him jumps out of the wreckage and runs off and Beast Boy is captured. The Titans, having finished what they all were doing, get reports of a strange green dog running amuck through the city. They figure it’s Beast Boy and go after him. The green dog is tearing up the city by eating hunks of metal, including cars. So they go after it, still thinking it’s him.

However, the real Beast Boy is trapped on a spaceship with a collar around his neck. When he wakes up to find this, he sees that he is the victim of mistaken identity as a big alien dude has taken him under the assumption that he is his dog, when really it was that green dog he had run into earlier. Beast Boy shows him that he isn’t the dog because he can change into other animals, which only makes the alien like him better than the real dog. The collar around Beast Boy’s neck won’t even break or slip off if he changes into something bigger or smaller. And it can shock him. So the alien proceeds to basically torture him by shocking him until he changes for the alien’s own amusement, and once he gets tired of that he says he’s going to go back to his own planet and there is no way for Beast Boy to escape.

The Titans finally catch the other dog, having figured out that it wasn’t Beast Boy, and they discover that it can talk, in a sophisticated British accent at that. It tells them that Beast Boy was taken by its master and it just wanted to get away from him because of how stupid and demanding he was. The Titans quickly go to stop the alien’s ship from taking off. The alien gets angry, they fight for a while, somehow Beast Boy gets free though they never say how, and the dog puts the shock collar on his master. The alien is insane and he says he’ll be the dog now and the dog will be the master. Okay… creepy. They leave and the Titans tell Beast Boy that they should do something special for him, to which he replies “No, I’ve had enough attention for one day.”

This episode is interesting, to say the least, though I wouldn’t really call it serious. I wouldn’t call it completely goofy, either. The concept of being kept as a pet by some big alien is pretty terrifying, especially when there is no way for you to escape on your own. So yes, in that aspect I can’t call it completely goofy and pointless like a couple episodes of the show are, but the way the dog and the alien act is… um… strange. Yes, we’ll go with that word.

I give this episode 4½/5 stars.

Frame-By-Frame – Death Note 1.2: Confrontation

Death Note, Season 1, Episode 2: Confrontation

In this episode, we start out with seeing an Interpol summit meeting of the ICPO. (That is, a meeting of the world’s 8 leading nations’ police forces.) They are discussing the mysterious deaths of the world’s criminals and calling it murder, even though all of them died of cardiac arrest and so there is no proof that anyone could have done it, but it’s too many deaths of the same nature to be coincidence.

Meanwhile, Light is doing nothing but writing in his Death Note, saying that he has to work hard to study for school and prep class as well as get enough sleep so he has to write the names in the Death Note whenever possible since he’s serious about creating a new world. Ryuk thinks he’s crazy, as do I. But then when Light’s little sister, Sayu, comes to ask for help with her homework, Ryuk tells him to keep the Death Note hidden good because if anyone else touches it they’ll be able to see and hear him. Light freaks out about this because he’s been carrying the Death Note around with him everywhere he goes.

So then Light devises the perfect plan to hide the Death Note in a secret place in his desk and without the proper way of getting it out, the whole thing will explode and burn the Death Note so there would be no evidence. And of course this point is never brought up again in the show except for in this one episode.

As the weeks go by, the media picks up on the killings and people know it’s the work of someone doing it. Light finds a bunch of websites devoted to the righteous killer who they have started calling Kira. Light explains to Ryuk that in human society if you were to be asked if criminals should be killed, you would say no because killing is wrong. It’s the politically correct thing to answer. But if you aren’t in public you would answer yes. He says that those who are innocent are cheering for Kira because they have nothing to fear while those who are guilty are scared stiff of him and hiding in the shadows.

Back with the Interpol meeting, everyone is arguing about what to do and they finally say they need to call in L, who is the world’s greatest detective and who has solved every single case he’s ever been on. No one knows his true name or what he looks like or even how to contact him. But then a mysterious man named Watari, the only known person who can contact L, comes in and says that L is already on the case and he’s come there to let L speak with them because L needs the full cooperation of all the world’s police forces, and specifically the Japanese police, he says.

Some time later when Light is watching TV, a broadcast is played from the ICPO meeting and a man named Lind L. Taylor appears and says that he is in fact L. He challenges Kira and says that he is evil and must be stopped. Light flips out and says that he is not evil but justice. He then proceeds to write Lind L. Taylor’s name into the Death Note, killing him. But then L comes on TV, the real L, not showing his face of course, saying that Lind L. Taylor was actually a criminal whose death was scheduled for that day, but he was arrested in total secrecy so there was no possible way that Kira could have known he was a criminal. L challenges Kira once again to try and kill him. Of course he can’t.

L explains just how he figured out that Kira was in Japan and that, even though they said that that had been broadcast around the world, they only broadcast it in the Kanto region of Japan first. So then L figured out that that is where Kira actually was. Light sees this challenge head on and both he and L swear to bring the other down because they were justice.

Boy oh boy is Light crazy. You could tell at the end of the first episode, but here you really see it. He tries to kill L just because he is trying to stop Kira for murdering people, despite the fact that L isn’t a criminal himself. So here we see Light slowly descend into madness.

But I can’t help but wonder what would have happened if Lind L. Taylor’s death was a real heart attack. That would have been a hilarious coincidence and that would mean that L was just going on a wild goose chase.

So this episode sets up the fact that this show is actually more of a murder mystery than anything, but it’s where the audience already knows who the killer is and you’re supposed to root for him. Eh… I don’t. I root for L. Not just because he’s the one in the right, but when you actually do get to see him in person, he’s just awesome. But that is for another episode.

I give this episode 4/5 stars.

Frame-By-Frame – Death Note 1.1: Rebirth

Death Note, Season 1, Episode 1: Rebirth

We start out in the Shinigami realm, a place where the Shinigami, or Gods of Death, dwell. One Shinigami, Ryuk, is looking over his world with disgust, so very bored with his life… or unlife, as Gods of Death are neither living nor dead, really. Whatever. It then cuts to the human world, Japan to be exact where 17 year old Light Yagami is bored in class, staring out the window, disgusted with the world.

Ryuk, being bored, drops an item into the human world known as a Death Note. Light sees it fall to the ground and when he gets out of class he goes and picks it up to see what it is. He finds instructions on how to use it written in the front that say “The human whose name is written in this note shall die.” He thinks at first it’s nothing more than a prank, and a sick one at that, so he decides to leave it alone. But then something draws him back to it so he takes it with him and goes on home.

He reads the rest of the instructions in it and thinks it’s a bit too elaborate for a simple prank. He thinks about testing it out and then sees a news broadcast about a criminal who is holding children and teachers hostage at a daycare center. He decides to test it out on the criminal and it works. Logically he freaks out and hopes it’s just a coincidence, so to be sure he decides to test it out again.

Later that night, after a cram school for college prep, he sees a gang of thugs harassing a girl and try to rape her. Since the head thug loudly proclaimed who he was to everyone, Light writes his name in the Death Note and specifies the cause of death as an accident. The girl runs away and the guy goes after her and is hit by a truck. Light sees this as proof that the Death Note is real.

After five days, Ryuk leaves the Shinigami realm to go and find Light. By this time, Light has already written tons of names in the Death Note and gotten rid of major criminals in the world. When Ryuk shows up to him, he thinks that Ryuk is there to take his soul, but Ryuk explains that he’s just there to tag along until it’s Light’s time to die, in which case Ryuk will write his name in his own Death Note. He also says that any human who uses a Death Note will go to neither heaven nor hell when they die. Beyond that it is never explained but I speculate that it means they turn into Shinigami after they die.

Light explains to Ryuk that he decides to pass righteous judgment on the world, killing off criminals and those he sees as unjust and cruel so only the people who are kind and goodhearted will remain and he ends this little dialog by saying that he will be the God of this new world that he creates. Ryuk in turn replies that humans are very interesting.

So this episode sets up the simple premise of Light just being a crime fighter by killing criminals and being rather.. crazy. Ryuk comes to just watch him do what he does. He’s not going to stop him or help him, he’s just going to watch for the entertainment value and wait until Light dies. Also Ryuk starts his obsession of apples when Light’s mom brings him some apples and Ryuk starts eating them all and says they’re yummy and juicy. The intro scenes make it out to be like the apple is more significant than it really is, but it may symbolize something and I just don’t get it. It seems to me like apples are a big thing with gothic dark death stories. I don’t know.

My honest opinion of this episode alone: It’s confusing. Well, not as confusing when I saw it in English as when I saw it in Japanese, but it does set it up to be different than I thought it would actually turn out to be. I’m not sure what I expected it to be, honestly, but I guess I thought that Light was supposed to be more of a crime fighter or super hero type person that works behind the lines, when in reality he is the one being hunted. But that’s to be discussed in the next episode.

I give this episode a rating of 3½/5 stars.

Frame-By-Frame – Death Note: Intro

Death Note is a Japanese anime about a teenager who finds a notebook which has the power to kill anyone whose name is written in it. He tries it out and finds that it is real and then decides to pass righteous judgment upon the world by getting rid of all the criminals. This act doesn’t go unnoticed as the world’s greatest detective is on the case to find out who is killing all the criminals.

That is a simplistic synopsis of what the show is about. 17 year old Light Yagami is a straight A student and one of Japan’s brightest. He is sick of the world and how corrupted it is, seeing it rotting. Ryuk, a shinigami, or God of Death, is bored out of his mind. The shinigami are the ones who possess the Death Notes. He drops a Death Note into the human world where Light finds it and picks it up. When he finally realizes what it is capable of he decides he’s going to clean up the world and make a new world, one which he will be “God” of.

Of course his acts don’t go unnoticed and the worldwide governments see this as the act of a serial killer who everyone starts calling Kira. Light, being the overconfident jerk that he really is, shrugs it off and doesn’t see it as a problem. But then the world’s greatest detective, L, is brought in on this case. Light finds out that he’s gotten more than he bargained for as L starts to get closer and closer to him faster than he could have ever imagined.

The show is filled with twists and turns and great characters. The fact that it’s a story told from the villain’s point of view (though some may not see Light that way) is rare and enjoyable, at least for me. I’ll go ahead and say this right now. My personal favorite characters are L and Ryuk. L because he’s so deductive and eccentric and he eats sweets all the time. Ryuk because he’s mostly care free and is so addicted to apples he’ll do anything to get them. He’s hilarious, I just wish he was in it more than he is.

Season 2 brings in some new characters which I don’t like all that much and the entire tone of the show seems to change as well. That is something I’ve found with quite a few anime that have one defining storyline all throughout and have a definite end point. It starts out with one tone and later as it goes on it gets more lighthearted but after one defining moment it gets really dark and gritty again. (Okay, not a lot of anime as I haven’t seen many, but it happens in this show as well as my other favorite anime, Wolf’s Rain, which I find interesting and I wonder if other anime do this. Another point on that is that also happens to a point with my other favorite show – not an anime – Twin Peaks.)

In the beginning I didn’t want to watch this show, I thought it sounded weird. But a bunch of my friends kept telling me to watch it and that I would like it. My one hardcore anime loving friend told me to watch it in Japanese. I saw the first episode and hated it. It was so confusing and I couldn’t keep up with what was going on. I don’t tend to like watching shows in another language because I have to focus on reading the subtitles rather than looking at everything that’s going on and sometimes the subtitles go by too fast for me to read everything. Anyway, then another friend of mine gave me a link to it in English so I decided to give it another try. And I fell in love.

So I will be reviewing all 37 episodes, but it will be the English dub version, in case any of you care. Please keep in mind that all of these are strictly my own opinion and you don’t have to agree with it. Spoilers ahead.

Movie Review: Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master

Movie Review of “Nightmare On Elm Street 4: The Dream Master” (1988 – Rated R for Violence, Blood, Language, Nudity)

Unlike the other sequels in this series, Nightmare 4 is a direct sequel to Nightmare 3, as it has the same characters who survived from the last one in it. Do they survive in this one? Let’s find out! (Spoilers – They don’t. What a surprise.)

The Plot – So this movie starts out with Kristen, the girl from the last movie, having a nightmare. The nightmare is she’s being played by a different actress, aaaugh! Okay, no, she’s at the old house which Nancy used to live at, but the way this series uses this house, it’s like they’re trying to make you think that Freddy used to live there. I don’t buy that. But I’ll discuss that later. Kristen goes into the house and into the basement which ends up being Freddy’s famous boiler room. She hears a screech of metal on metal and she pulls her other two friends in who survived last movie, Kincaid and… the other kid whose name I don’t remember. It doesn’t matter. Anyway.

They yell at her for bringing them into her dream because they all think that Freddy is dead. Kristen isn’t convinced. Why? Because there wouldn’t be a sequel if he wasn’t in it, that’s why! Kincaid’s dog got pulled into the dream too and it ran out and bit Kristen in the arm, waking her and everyone else up. Of course she wakes up with a bloody arm and Kincaid wakes up to find his dog with blood all over its mouth. And no, it’s not what you’re thinking, the dog isn’t evil. It was just surprised.

The next day Kristen gets a ride with her new boyfriend and his sister, Alice, who is a constant daydreamer. They go to school and meet up with their other friends, the new main characters/victims of this movie: A tough girl who’s a weight lifter, a somewhat geeky girl who is really good at math and science, and Alice’s love interest who is somewhat of a jock, only he isn’t a jerk, surprisingly. And no, I don’t remember any of these characters’ names. That should give you a clue as to how good this movie is.

So Kristen gets confronted by Kincaid and her other friend about what happened last night and they try their hardest to convince her that Freddy isn’t coming back. The next night Kincaid gets pulled into a nightmare of being in a junk yard and finding Freddy’s grave from the last movie. The bones come to life and flesh grows on them and Freddy comes out and kills Kincaid and he screams, “Kristen, Freddy is baaaaaack!” Told ya so. Freddy then goes after her other friend by… er.. well, he had a water bed and then he found a naked woman swimming inside of it. Too stupid to figure out how weird that was, he falls for the trap and Freddy bursts out and pulls him in and he drowns in his bed. Let this be a lesson to everyone: Don’t sleep in a water bed, you could drown in your sleep.

After their deaths, Kristen knows that Freddy will be coming for her next. She tells her boyfriend and Alice all about what happened to them and shows them Nancy – I mean Freddy’s old house. Kristen’s mom sees her standing there and gets mad at her and makes her go home. That night she sneaks some sleeping pills into Kristen’s water and she freaks out and yells at her mom saying that she’s killed her and she stumbles upstairs trying to stay conscious. Huh, I didn’t think sleeping pills worked that fast.

Freddy comes after Kristen in her dreams, but Kristen tries to dream of a happy place, as Alice had told her to do earlier because her mom told her about dreaming methods and something about a Dream Master (name drop!). So Kristen goes to a beach and think everything’s a-okay. Aaaand then Freddy comes and makes her sink into the sand. She lands back in the boiler room and Freddy taunts her by saying she should pull someone into her dream for help. She tries not to, but then she gives in and pulls Alice in. Alice sees Freddy kill Kristen. Freddy is about to go after her then but she wakes up.

She tells her brother about what happened but he doesn’t seem convinced, or he is just not coping well with Kristen’s death. After all, was his girlfriend. Freddy strikes again during class when Alice accidentally falls asleep during a test. This other girl, her know-it-all friend, falls asleep as well and without meaning to, Alice pulls her into her dream because it turns out that her dream power is absorbing the dream powers of her friends that Freddy kills, so she absorbed the power to bring others into her dreams when Kristen died. Freddy kills her friend by sucking all the air out of her, because she had asthma. Mm, creative.

Alice wakes up and freaks out and runs away. Then she falls asleep and thinks of her brother, who is a karate master. Freddy then goes after him. He fights him for a bit and her brother seems to be winning, but then he makes a mistake and Freddy offs him. Oops. Alice gains his powers of karate.

Alice, her jock now-boyfriend, and her other friend, the tough weight lifting girl, decide to try and trap Freddy. They want to meet at the girl’s house but when Alice and her boyfriend try to go there, they keep finding themselves back where they started. Meanwhile, Freddy is killing their friend in one of the most disturbing death scenes I have ever seen. She’s lifting weights and then he comes and tries to press the weight down on her. She tries to resist and her arms break off and turn into bug arms (like a cockroach.) She runs around screaming for a bit and then finds herself somewhere that she can’t escape and falls down onto the floor which is really sticky. Her face falls onto it and when she tries to lift up, her human skin pulls away and she’s turned into a giant bug. Well.. not giant. She finds herself trapped in a bug trap box thing that Freddy is holding and then he squishes it and lots of green slime comes out. Wow… disturbing. Why this choice of death? She hated bugs. No other reason.

Alice’s boyfriend gets wounded by Freddy at some point and he’s taken to the hospital. Alice goes and gathers a bunch of items from her fallen friends that she now has the dream powers of. Not just the dream powers, but parts of their personality as well. She goes to confront Freddy alone. Using all these powers, she has enough to beat him. But then he starts winning. But then she remembers a rhyme that her mother used to tell her about the Dream Master and that evil shall be destroyed when it sees itself. So she gets a piece of a broken window and shoves it in front of herself so Freddy will see his reflection. And that… kills him. Well, that was easy. And they all live happily ever after. OR DO THEY?

Themes – This movie… is very strange. I mean it does have some cool elements to it. The way Freddy is killing people is due to fears of theirs, for the most part. Last movie it was something they liked or aspired for, this movie it was killing them with their own worst fears. But the thing I find strange about this movie is the whole Dream Master thing. Was Freddy the Dream Master? I’m not sure. Alice said her mom told her about the Dream Master who watches over your dreams, and it sounded more like a protector or guardian. Freddy is more like the Boogie Man, while this “Dream Master” sounds more like the Sandman to me. But I digress, for there is no Dream Master other than Freddy, I guess.

Something I didn’t touch on before was that Alice’s dad was somewhat abusive to them, but mostly to her. After their mom died he made Alice do all the work and she resented him for it. Much of the time she daydreamed about telling him off for it, but she never actually did it. She and her brother were very close and they both hated the way he treated them. But after her brother dies, her dad becomes very protective of her because she’s all he has left. It shows that he does truly love her, he just wasn’t handling the passing of his wife well.

Alice is a daydreamer. Constantly throughout the movie you will see things that she is just daydreaming about but you think are real until it shows otherwise. I think her dream power of absorbing the other kids powers is cool, but I also think it’s a bit odd. Given her daydreaming, I think it would have made more sense if her dream power could be controlling dream environments and situations. If you’re a daydreamer, for the most part, you just dream about things you want to happen. Therefore, I think she should have been able to do anything she wanted to do in the dreams. Then again, that could also be bad because it could give the potential of her being too powerful.

My Opinion – For the sake of continuity, this movie is all over the place. This entire series is, really, but it really starts here. They started with the house that Nancy used to live at in the last movie though. However, since Nancy was in that movie, it made a tiny bit of sense (no not really) but here it’s just really out of whack. What is the thing with that house? What’s so special about that house? They act like Freddy lived in that house. He didn’t. Nancy did. The way they talked in the first movie, they made it sound like Nancy had been born before Fred Krueger had been killed by all those parents. If that’s the case, I’d think they would have been living in that house the entire time. So therefore, Freddy never would have lived in that house.

Another thing that bugs me about that whole house thing is that they’re acting like he brought the kids to the house to be killed. He didn’t. He brought them to a boiler room. A boiler room which was not in the basement of that house (as some scenes imply, but the only reason they did that in the first movie was to be creepy, not to imply that his boiler room was in her house), but rather it was a place that he used to work at, as stated in Nightmare 2. So he brought his victims there, not to his house. This series doesn’t know how to keep its own continuity.

Speaking of, why does Freddy suddenly start going after Alice’s friends? At the beginning of the movie, Kristen points out that the reason he’s after them is because they’re the last of the Elm Street kids. The reason Freddy was going after everyone in the first place is because all the parents on Elm Street were the ones who killed him and he wanted revenge on their parents. He wasn’t just killing just to kill, it was for revenge. So after Kristen dies, all the Elm Street kids are gone. Why keep going? For a sequel!

No, there is an explanation for this. I could argue that he got his revenge at last and now he’s just out to start his child killing again like he had done before he died, which was the reason the parents killed him to begin with. He wants Alice to bring more kids to him in their dreams because no one but the Elm Street kids believed in him or could be reached from that point on. So if she brought more to him, more people would start believing in him and he could go after those who did believe in him. And if he killed them, he would absorb their souls and gain more power. What’s the point of gaining all that power? Uh… to… keep killing… for fun.. I guess. I dunno. I like to think that if he becomes powerful enough, he could come back to the waking world and go after people again not in their dreams, though that isn’t ever stated. I just like to think that.

Back to the movie itself and forgetting all the inconsistencies with the series. The ending. I think that counts as a deus ex machina. Why? Because Freddy saw his reflection and then he died. What sense does that make? Seriously. In the third movie he was in a hall with tons of mirrors. He would have seen his reflection then. So why wouldn’t he die then? Unless it was implying that Alice had the power to make him see his reflection that destroyed evil because she was reciting that verse about the Dream Master. I’m not really sure. But he died and all the souls he absorbed tore him apart and were freed. That was also a rather disturbing scene because limbs were ripping out of his body and tearing him apart. Geez.

So what’s my opinion on this movie? It’s rather hard to tell since I went off on that rant. Well, it certainly isn’t the worst in the series, but it isn’t all that good either. As I said before, the only reason for this movie was just to make another sequel to get money because the series is popular, not because it contributes to the story. There are interesting elements in the movie, but I think they could have been done a whole lot better than they were. All in all, I give this movie 3/5 stars.

Art and Story Telling – Visual Media vs Other Media

It’s an interesting thing I’ve discovered about sources of entertainment.  Visual media (Movies, TV, video games, etc.) seems to be more easily remembered and much more freely grasped than non visual, such as books.

Let’s start off from the beginning.  First the only way you could tell stories was by telling them out loud.  Of course, as those stories got told they would be changed from time to time until they were completely different from the original.  All you had to remember it were words.  Words are not easily remembered unless you can visualize them.

Then people started to read and write.  Stories were read in this form for the rest of time (because I am not convinced that books will die out.  Perhaps printed, but you still have eBooks, and you still have to read them.)  So hear you can visualize the words, but that leaves a lot up to the imagination what is actually going on in the story.  One person could picture one thing, and another person could picture something completely different.

This branches off into two different possibilities in the next step, then.  Comic books or movies.  Let’s go with comics to begin with.  You can recreate a story in a comic book so you can actually visualize the scenes without straining your tiny little brain to imagine it for yourself.  Comics are, sometimes, better remembered than just printed words on a page.  This is where we really get into visual media.  It’s also a reason, I think, that art – drawings, paintings, digital, photography, sculptures, etc. – is a bit of a better received art form than writing.

Passing away from still art, we get TV, Movies, and Video Games.  Let’s just say that someone told a story, then someone wrote it down in a book, then that book got adapted into a comic book.  And then it got adapted into a movie.  The majority of the populace will most likely see the movie before they ever read or even hear about the book or comic.  Why?  For one thing, people find reading boring.  They’re either too lazy or they’re slow readers (as I myself am) and they want to learn about the story now, as fast as they possibly can.  So squish it down into a two hour movie and you’ve got a quicker telling of it plus you don’t have to worry about imagining the details for yourself.

That’s what really makes it easier for people to remember movies over books.  Movies show you all the details, whereas with books you have to imagine it for yourself.  And sometimes it’s hard to imagine it, even if it’s well written.  But sights are just better remembered than words.

Another example of this is with music.  A lot of music that I’ve heard is from watching music videos people put together on YouTube.  When you watch a music video, that video is engrained in your mind and associated with the song.  So whenever you hear the song again, you’ll most likely think of the video.  Because music isn’t visual.  It feels more real than a printed book because you can hear things, but we want to see things along with it.

But all in all, I think the ultimate media – if done right – are video games.  Why?  Because it’s visual, audio, and interactive.  My best example for this is the Silent Hill series.  It has great visuals and atmosphere, great music and sound effects, a great story, and it does a great job of getting into the player’s head, thus making the interaction very important.  I stress this point of interaction because anyone can watch someone play a video game and have fun with it (or perhaps not), but with Silent Hill, you can watch someone play it and feel it, but you have to play it for yourself to really, really feel like you’re there.  I will admit that kind of interactivity with games is best done in horror (for the reason of scaring you) and RPGs (because it’s role playing, meaning you should be the one playing the role), though I’ve never played any RPGs that are successful at that level of interactivity.

To sum up – The artistic media that people flock to the most are a combination of visual and audio and/or interactive (Movies, TV, Theater, Video Games) and those types of media are usually the most successful and make the most money, but of course it still comes down to it having to have a good story, humor, entertainment value, etc.

The middle ground for successful artistic media is probably music because it’s something you can hear.  Music is very important.  The best kinds of music are those that can let your imagination fly, or move your soul.

The next type of artistic media is really a grouping of a bunch, but it’s pretty much what anyone thinks of when you say the word “art”.  This is a poor lumping as all can be really successful, really poor, or in the middle due to how different you can be with any of it.  So drawings, paintings, sculpting, digital art, photography, anything like that.  I think comic books could be put into this medium too, since it’s visual.  The thing people can’t take away from this sort of medium is it’s visual only and not audio.  People like having all their senses stimulated, which is why people try so badly to make “smell-o-vision” which is a stupid idea.  Probably they do the same for 3D to try and make it feel more real and make you think you can touch it.

Which brings me to my last point which saddens me greatly.  The written word, I have come to think, is the least appreciated form of art due to it not stimulating any senses.  No pictures, just words.  You have to imagine it all for yourself.  That sucks, says the lazy reader.  It’s awesome, says the sensible reader.  It means you can see whatever you want to see.  Hear whatever you want to hear.  Feel whatever you want to feel.  Smell and taste whatever you want.  Using your imagination is more fun because you don’t have to conform to anyone else’s standards of how this story must be told.

I’m not saying that movies or anything like that is bad.  If a movie is done good, I want to watch it.  I do actually have a hard time imagining details for myself (which is pretty bad since I am a writer), and some stories are better told in a visual and audio medium.  But some are just more fun when you can imagine it for yourself.

Words came first.  Writers came first.  Never forget that.  Don’t replace them.  Behind every good media is a good writer or imagination.  So why don’t you take the time to pick up a book and lose yourself in your own imagination between the spaces and paragraphs?

Writers VS Critiquers

“The thing about writers is that they need encouragement to keep going.  One simple statement like ‘I really liked that article, thought it was well-written’ will get them all fired up to write more.  On the other hand, a nasty comment will do ten times as much damage as a good comment helps.  So be careful when playing the critic.  It’s very hard for us writers to distance ourselves from our work emotionally.” ~Luke Alistar

The above statement is entirely true, especially the part about negative critiques.  I’ve had lots of negative critiques before and let me tell you, it just makes me depressed and I stop writing for days on end, feeling like a failure who won’t amount to anything, despite the fact that other people have said how good my stuff is.  On the other hand, I have had really good critiques before that put negative and positive comments in with it.  The best one I had was when they first stated all the bad then stated all the good, because in that way it made me first feel bad and then feel good, so I realized what was truly wrong with what I had written and didn’t think it was terrible and I failed.

So now I am going to express my views as a writer to a critiquer.  What writers want from critiques:

First off, if a writer specifically asks for their work to be critiqued and they ask any questions about it, answer them.  Just don’t be blunt about it unless they specifically ask.  If they specifically ask you to NOT critique something specific (such as grammar, in my case), then don’t.  I once asked for a critique and stated not to mention grammar, and I got a critique that was nothing but pointing out grammar and what sentences to omit and what didn’t make sense because they hadn’t read the entire chapter and it didn’t make sense until later.  That’s another thing: Don’t critique AS you read, read it first then critique after.

Another thing that annoys me about the critiques I’ve gotten is, when people like it they just say “Nice, I like it” but they don’t point out anything specific.  That’s fine for the most part, I suppose.  But then there’s parts where they say what’s wrong with it and just leave it that.  Critiquers should be there to tell you what’s good and what’s bad and make suggestions of how to make things better, not just say “This sucks” and then leave.  So what I’m trying to say here is, when you say something is bad or doesn’t work, you should tell why it’s bad and then perhaps give suggestions of how you could make it work.  Writers have the story engrained in their minds already the way they’ve written it.  You can’t say something doesn’t work and expect them to be able to change it on their own.  Give some suggestions that may jump-start their thinking.

Critiquers and writers need to work hand-in-hand.  Writers give them their work and critiquers tell them how to make it better, or that it’s fine the way it is.  Now, there are some exceptions where a critiquer may be reading a work in progress novel and chapter by chapter they think something isn’t working and the author says it will work out in the end.  In that case, they should wait until the end to tell them if it really isn’t working and how to fix it.  But again, they need to give them ideas how to fix it, not just say it isn’t working and is terrible.

A critiquer can be a writer’s best friend and a writer’s worst enemy.  So before you critique, think about how the writer may feel and put your negative comments as lightly as you can without making it not sound like something they should change, and also give them as much positive feedback with it as well.  For every one negative comment, give two positive comments.

Conflict

Just something I’ve been thinking about lately.  It may sound really terrible, but I find it true, for myself at least.

Life, without some sort of conflict, is rather boring.  Being happy with everything perfect and going your way is nice for a time, but if it stays like that for too long, you may eventually get restless and bored.  And, again this may sound awful, when bad things happen – when conflict happens in you’re life – I don’t think you can say you’re bored.

Think about it.  We do things like watch TV, read books, play video games, etc. to have fun.  All of those things have something in common: Conflict.  When you’re watching TV/movies, there’s conflict going on in it, which makes it exciting.  When reading books, there is conflict that drives the story.  When playing video games, you’re usually fighting some opposing force.

In real life most people don’t get the sort of conflict you see in books and movies.  Somehow, though, I think we wish for that sort of conflict, despite the fact that it would really be terrible to be in it.  Why do we search for conflict?  Why do we want bad things to happen instead of good things all the time?

The word Utopia is often referred to being a perfect society; a paradise.  But Utopia means ‘not real’, roughly translated and paraphrased from Greek.  What does this mean?  There’s no such thing as a perfect society.  There’s no such thing as life without conflict.

I can’t speak from experience, but sometimes I think that if a Utopia was real we’d all get bored with it eventually.  We’d be happy all the time with no cares in the world.  We’d get anything and everything we want, probably without having to work for it.  We would most certainly get bored doing the same things over and over again.

Conflict.  Conflict drives life, despite what everyone thinks.  We yearn for it when we don’t have it, but when we actually get to experience it, we wish for happier times.  It’s an endless cycle.

Life is complicated.