Villains

Where would our favourite shows or movies be without their villains? When you think about it, a lot is actually riding on how the audience feels towards the villain. A straight-cut bad person never makes for a good villain as they are too one-dimensional for the audience to connect with. A villain can be bad but they need to have one redeeming factor about them so that people can see the good that was once in them. This can make the job hard for some writers as they need to make a villain so that some people empathise with them while others are against them and still others are in the middle. Sometimes we do not even know who the real villain is until the final moments and that also makes for a great villain. Taking this into account I have made a list of some of my favourite Villains of all time. Oh yeah, it really has been a list weekend over the last three posts has it not?

1. Regina Mills/The Evil Queen from Once Upon a Time

Source: http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/villains/images/31394368/title/regina-mills-evil-queen-photo

Regina has been through a lot in her life. Before she was the evil queen she was just your ordinary girl in love with an overbearing mother who had different plans for her daughter. Through Once Upon a Time we see how and why Regina became the Evil Queen and her hatred for Snow White. We also see that there is still good in her and this is why the writers of Once Upon a Time should be commended for their work on creating such an in-depth and confusing villain.

2. The Tet from Oblivion (*SPOILER ALERT*)

Source: http://jaysanalysis.com/2013/04/26/oblivion-2013-esoteric-analysis/

*SPOILER ALERT* The following paragraph will contain spoilers regarding the ending of Oblivion so if you intend to watch the movie and have not yet then you might want to skip this bit and move on to number three. *SPOILER ALERT* Anyway, so the Tet is basically this big machine in the sky that, throughout the majority of the movie, we believe as Earth's final military base before everyone leaves Earth after a devastating war that destroyed the planet and its moon. It is not until the final minutes that we actually find out that the Tet is actually an alien space ship that goes from planet to planet taking all energy. It really is a great shock and the creators of Oblivion created such a hidden and unexpected villain that it is just marvelous. The Tet may be evil but it is still pretty awesome (and I do not use that word nearly enough).

3. "Big" Jim Rennie from Under the Dome

Source: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/box-seat/recap-no-place-like-dome-20130626-2owtq.html

Big Jim is a character that has his fans in a yo-yo. At one point we see a great person and feel some sympathy for him but then a second later he just morphs into a horrible human being. It really comes down to the writing of Stephen King and the other writers from the series. The actor himself, Dean Norris, is fantastic at portraying this character. As much as the character comes down to the writers the actor themselves also plays a big role in how the audience feels towards them. A single twitch in the face can reveal a lot about a character and it takes a skilled actor to pull something like this off.

I am sorry for all the lists this weekend if that has annoyed you, blame it all on Random Thought Friday which sort of spread throughout the whole weekend. Anyway, see you tomorrow!

Gravity Review

Source: http://www.space.com/22603-gravity-movie-venice-film-festival.html

My Rating: 9/10

Trailer:


Synopsis (Click here for Source):
Gravity, directed by Oscar nominee Alfonso Cuaron, stars Oscar winners Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in a heart-pounding thriller that pulls you into the infinite and unforgiving realm of deep space. Bullock plays Dr Ryan Stone, a brilliant medical engineer on her first shuttle mission, with veteran astronaut Matt Kowalsky (Clooney). But on a seemingly routine spacewalk, disaster strikes. The shuttle is destroyed, leaving stone and Kowalsky completely alone.

My Review:
Wow, just wow. Gravity is a visually stunning and incredibly realistic masterpiece by director Alfonso Cuaron. It leaves you hooked from beginning to end with little rest in between. You will have your heart in your throat for the majority of the film and what happens in the movie will leave you breathless. Even the camera work adds another layer of depth to the film as you sometimes have a third person perspective and then you come twisting around to one of the characters' perspectives and are given a whole new level of immersion. I saw it in 2D and this had no impact on how I experienced the film. The acting is another thing, it would be really interesting to see how they actually filmed it. The back stories of the characters add yet another layer to a film and these are subtly dropped in every now and then to break up certain parts of the movie. The starting lines (shown in the trailer as well as the beginning of the movie) where it says "Life in Space is Impossible" is something you are constantly reminded of and thinking about throughout the course of the film.

Gravity really is a must-see thriller that will have you hooked from the silence at the beginning to the credits at the end. See you tomorrow!

Fanfiction

Continuing on with the theme of writing I just want to point out fan fiction to you. Fan fiction is a story (often about well-known people like celebrities, books, movies or television shows) that is written by fans [just in case you did not get that from the prefix]. Some of them are really well-written and very descriptive. They can often give you an insight into someone else's interpretation of a book and may even shed light on something subtle you may have missed. Sometimes it even continues the story the way fans want it to. The best part about it is that these people who write it are doing it for free and so are writing what they are passionate about. It really is amazing.

Image Source: http://www.insomniverse.net/csifanfiction.html

Sometimes when I'm bored I might just Google Hunger Games fan fiction or something similar and thousands of results pop up. There are whole sites like http://www.fanfiction.net/ which are full of millions (literally millions) of stories written by fans. Sometimes they can continue a story you may have really loved. Sometimes they are good and sometimes they are really bad. Fan fiction is just one of many ways for people to get their writing out there and some of it is publishing quality. The best part about it, as I already said, is that these people are writing it purely because they want to and are passionate about it. It really brings out the true creativity of a person because it isn't a chore and they can stop whenever they want because it is their writing, their rules and what they want. Some people do not like writing blogs and so turn to the casual writing of fan fiction.

Image Source: 

http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/random/articles/200526/title/harry-potter-hunger-games-fanfiction-d

In the world of fan fiction anything goes. There are no publishers or editors telling you to change anything. It is purely what you want when you want it. It also allows people to express themselves in writing and enjoy writing stories about their favourite book characters. Stories like this would never otherwise be published because it would be copyright on the original author of the source series. Some fan fictions out-shine their original counterparts and can even create a mix of two different series others would not think of. A great example of this is "The Potter Games" (as pictured above) which is a mix of Harry Potter and  The Hunger Games. There is actually a site called The Potter Games (I'm not sure if it is the same thing as pictured above) where you read a paragraph and at the bottom there are choices you make and each choice continues on to a different story line so it is like one of those choose-your-own-adventure books. That is one of the advantages of the online world, you can easily do this just by creating a hyperlink to a new page. It is also one of the reasons I love fan fiction. If you have not ever read any fan fiction then I really recommend you should because they are fantastic!

Image Source: http://www.outpost-daria.com/fan_fiction.html

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!