The Dark Prince

Just a short one today. There was an ad on recently which attempts to somehow relieve prejudice against the mentally challenged with the glorious tagline of “See the person, not the disability“. The advertisment is simple, it shows a less then perfectly mentally able chap in a wheel chair making strange noises, after a while it explains that he’s listening to Radiohead.

Now I know what this is trying to achieve and good on whoever wrote the stupid thing for trying to somehow show that even the less fortunate mentally can be snobbish arseholes who frown down upon others based solely on their choice in listening*, but perhaps a better caption would be,
“See? Even this guy can sing better than Thom Yorke”, or even the less subtle,
“If you listen to Radio head you must be funny in the head”.

Luckily the producers chose to stay away from U2 or Coldplay otherwise their campaign would be robbed of any credit whatsoever.

* To all of you who are Radiohead fans, (and you know I mean you), I’m not having a go directly at radiohead, they produce some very interesting stuff, you will eventually meet the fans of which I speak. Secondly, if you’re this you’d probably realise I’d say the same of any band in the same situation. In fact I really wish they had chosen U2, because then I could write more about what an arsehole Bono is and how someone should render him in a wheelchair state.

Recently I bought myself a copy of Chronicles of Riddick, the extended two disk edition, and happened upon a horrible possibility that until this disastrous purchase had never even crossed my mind.

See, usually when you get a special edition it’s because there are deleted scenes that get polished up and added, and it fills in the gaps. Perhaps the most famous special editions/directors cuts are Blade Runner (because of the weak ending originally imposed), and Aliens, (because of the huge amount of additional plot material which the original desperately needed). However, what happens if the director isn’t as competant? What happens if it worked in the cinema mostly because all the junk that the director wanted was cut out for time reasons?

Well, in that case you get a massacred version of the film with an entire pointless additional plot which serves to weaken the main one, a clumsy ‘romance’ scene which is both uncomfortable to watch and spoils the old time 70s style of the original movie, and you get a number of weak scenes which are so lamely try-hard that they make the rest of the film seem weak as well. I’ve never had it happen before with any other special edition, but the Chronicles of Riddick was a tightly paced really nice piece, it’s key attraction being the older style of sci-fi, rather like dune. The special edition manages to nicely remove a lot of the good dialogue, destroy the feel and in general make the whole film seem incredibly B-grade. There is a reason why the original costs a whopping $2 more than this pathetic unspecial edition. But it’s still better than those hideous star wars prequels…

Good evening all none readers. A few things have happened since my last update, mainly because I haven’t written anything for some time and you know, there are about six billion people in the world, so at least one of them is bound to do something silly or cool.

In this case most of the silly things that have happened that have attracted media attention are due not to terrible events, but individuals responses to these. I could make fun of the idiots that make sentences about hunting down and destroying verbs, and not being afraid, (because to be honest, if you’re not afraid in circumstances like that, then there is something wrong with you), and all the accusations flying around, but I don’t think there is a sensible person out there who hasn’t already drawn these conclusions.

So why are these people even being listened too, or covered? Surely the world isn’t full of people that actually believe this jingo? Unfortunately though, it is all to clear that people do. Reading newspapers, forums, any communication medium will reveal a number of people who sadden me deeply. The only thing that can be done now is enjoy the stupidity, the idiocy of all the things being said, and quietly carry on in the hope of better things.