Quality Over Quantity; Fan-Fiction Vs Major Film Studios

An example of fan-fiction will be this week’s video of the week, “The Lord Inquisitor – Prologue [UHD]” (by Warpgazer).

It only took me 46 seconds before I came to the conclusion that I was mesmerised and hooked. My jaw dropped the moment I saw the incredible amount of detail on the ships, and on the planet, and with the background music fleshing out the opening scene; I was at a loss for words for all the right reasons.

Warhammer 40k’s universe is vast and offers boundless opportunities to create a magnitude of fan fiction, and Warpazer hasn’t that that opportunity slip through his fingers and instead created his own short film. After watching the video and picking up my jaw from the ground, the first thought that went through my head was, “this is miles better than the feature length film, Ultramarines: A Warhammer 40,000 Movie.” I could see what they wanted to do with the film, but it just didn’t hit the nail on the head for me, and unfortunately for a lot of other people as well. Games Workshop, who owns Warhammer 40k, took many years before they agreed to any company making a feature length film; but my overall review is it could have been much better than it was.

This could easily have taken its place. Being a prologue, not much of the story is revealed which is understandable, but it was gripping, stunning, and epic – all the ingredients needed to portray the impressive world that is the Warhammer 40k. The second thought that went through my head brought me back to when I was talking about the fan made video about the Doctor meeting Sherlock for the first time. I spoke about how a fan made production can sometimes look better than the ones that are acknowledged as being official and professional. This can be because when doing something by yourself, everything is yours, including your plan and therefore you can make the project the best of your ability, whereas within the walls of the BBC, or behind the official editor’s door for a full-length feature film, every aspect of the project has numerous deadlines. Whilst they are making each project the best it can possibly be, they can’t spend as much time as they probably would like to make it even better. The video above is another prime example of that.

So much effort and time has been put into making every shot so detailed and therefore perfect. To make any feature-film from beginning to end does take a very long time. Sometimes breaking into the third year from when it was first announced, but when it is eventually released, everyone loves it. It’s not always the case because sometimes certain productions are halted or deadlines extended due to various and/or numerous complications so when the final product is released, it’s not as good as it could have been. But even if those films were given the time to freshen up and be bettered, what could they have been? However, the deadlines are always creeping up behind everyone, meaning they have to be finished by then and not a day more unless rearranged otherwise.

My question is: Is it quality of quantity better? You do see this question more prominent within the game industry, and I do highly agree that quality over quantity is far better than pumping out a broken game every year, but can the same concept be applied to feature-length films and TV programs. My first initial example of this concept, is the TV series Sherlock. There are numerous reasons as to why each series is a couple of years apart from one another, but when the three episodes are released, they are a massive hit with audiences, and its popularity couldn’t be any higher with the anticipation of its fourth series beginning next year on New Year’s Day 2017.

I have looked at many of the main franchises that are dominating the film industry at the moment, and I can’t find any example of quality of quantity, but instead finding plenty of examples of quantity and quality, which is not what I was expecting. MARVEL studios is pumping out one to two films each year, and with the odd one, such as Ant-Man, Iron Man 3, not getting that good reception compared to all the other films in the series so far; I moved onto looking at another franchise.

I started to look into what films Pixar has made over the years from when Toy Story was first released back in 1995. It wasn’t until 1998 did A Bug’s Life hit cinemas, but it was only the very next year in 1999 when Toy Story 2 was released, and that was met with critical acclaim as well. Monsters, Inc – 2001, Finding Nemo – 2003, both major hit films two years apart – and some people are saying that they are better by a bit or by a lot than Toy Story 2. OK, so maybe there is an answer to all of this. The Incredibles came out the next year in 2004, and we all know how massive that film still is, and then in 2006, Cars came out and wasn’t met with as much acclaim as all the others previously. And I get further and further away from finding an example with the next 7 films in Pixar’s catalogue all released one year after the previous. These include: Ratatouille – 2007, WALL-E – 2008, Up – 2009, Toy Story 3 – 2010, Cars 2 – 2011, Brave – 2011, and Monsters University – 2013. Out of all those seven films, only Cars 2 is considered the worst and Toy Story 3 and Up are considered the best, so I can safely say that I won’t be finding any examples there. In fact, there were two films released last year in 2015: Inside Out, and The Good Dinosaur, and both of them were met with critical acclaim.

My third attempt at finding an example was looking at the franchise, James Bond, and I came close. Casino Royale came out in 2006, Quantum of Solace came out in 2008 – but that was met with a large array of dislikes from fans. Skyfall came out in 2012, and Spectre came out in 2015. Only one film was pretty much unanimously agreed to be the worst one. I’ve finally found an example that I can use to explain that sometimes it’s good to put quality ahead of quantity… But that’s just one example though and therefore doesn’t hold as much weight as I would like it to, and if I look at other franchises such as Harry Potter, which only got better with each film; DC, which is met with many mixed feelings; Mission: Impossible, which isn’t getting any worse as it continues, instead it’s exploring bigger and better avenues and succeeding; I’m just left scratching my head wondering why I even bothered asking that question in the first place.

So why are fan-fiction short films, movies, and videos considered better by the public than the actual films themselves? It doesn’t make any sense and is essentially slightly contradicting people’s opinions. Is it because of the prefix fan-fiction that changes people’s perspective just before viewing the completed project? It does make sense to think that in a way – a feature length film has been made by what people do consider as professionals and therefore it’s almost expected the finished project to be the best it can be: If it’s good – “awesome.”, but if it’s bad – “they are professionals and therefore it shouldn’t be this bad.” When it comes to fan-fiction, however, I believe there’s that automatic leeway we give to the people behind it: If it’s bad – “then they are only fans after all and they aren’t doing this as their full time job, but what they did create was good nonetheless”, but if it’s good – “this was created by a fan… why aren’t the bigger studios hiring this guy/these people.” And we also apply this train of thought with the time between releases. There will always be those that are wanting more right this very moment, but the majority of people understand that it takes time to create such masterwork, because they are only fans after all.

So maybe that’s my answer as to whether the film industry should consider the concept of quality over quantity: they are big studios, so they have a lot of people and resources to put into any one project at any one time, to make it the best film it can possibly be. Whilst the differences between fans and large studios is apparent and deserves a large list to explain fully, the main is there is only a finite amount of resources that be utilised within the given budget and within the set deadlines. Fans – whilst they do have their own set budget and their resources may not be as much as they would have liked, they don’t have an uncontrollable deadlines and therefore can use those resources to make any project they sink their teeth into the best it can possibly be. If certain fan-fiction creators are hired by major studios, they will also be confined to their ways and may not be able to create the same outstanding pieces of work that they have created before – but they do deserve more recognition that they have already and hired by major studios in their respective fields.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

Layers - Part 79

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

Film of the week: Now You See Me 2

The first film in the series, Now You See Me, kept you guessing throughout. An unknown person recruited four people who are extraordinary gifted when it comes to magic and illusion, hypnotism and card tricks. It was a constant chase between the FBI and the four horsemen, who were obeying the orders from this mysterious person, with the goal of stealing someone’s money to give back to the public, and as we see at the end of the film, frame someone who the leader believed was to be responsible for his father’s death. When it appeared to be going wrong, it was going right, and when it appeared to be going right, the horsemen had won.

If you haven’t seen the first movie, then this is when you need to stop reading because there will be massive spoilers ahead.

The twist ending reveals the leader of the four horsemen is also the leader of the group of FBI agents who has been chasing them all around the world, Agent Dylan Rhodes, who’s also known as Dylan Shrike, and is played by Mark Ruffalo. The four horsemen, Atlas, Merritt McKinney, Henley Reeves, and Jack Wilder – played by Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harrison, Isla Fisher, and Dave Franco – are successful with their magic trick and escape the FBI and the film ends with them going into hiding to wait for their next mission.

One year later, the Four Horsemen are back and wowing the world as they were before with their incredible magic tricks and intelligently planned out illusions that they are confident won’t fail. A new member of the horsemen is recruited by Dylan Shrike after Henley Reeves decided to leave the group, and they hijack the launch party of corrupt businessman Owen Case whose new software steals data from unsuspecting members of the public all for Chase’s benefit. Unfortunately, things start going wrong when their hijacking gets hijacked by an unknown person, and reveals a bunch of secrets to the audience about the horsemen, including that FBI agent Dylan is their leader.

Upon their escape, they find themselves suddenly in China and talking to tech prodigy, Walter Mabry – Daniel Radcliffe – who employs them to steal a powerful device from a person who was once Walter’s business partner, Owen Case. The device will allow the user to decrypt any piece of software, break through any virtual lock and gain access to any computer across the world. They have no choice in the matter and the horsemen accepts.

What follows from this moment on kept me rooted to my seat, but unfortunately I only developed mixed feelings for the film as a whole. The first film built up its tension and kept it at that level until the end, but this had moments of tension. The scene in the lab when they are stealing the chip and they are throwing the chip, which has been stuck on the back of a playing card, between each other as they are getting searched, kept my eyes routed to the screen because I wanted to catch everything that was going on, and its tension kept gradually increasing the longer the scene continued, but when it was done, that was all you were going to get for a while until Dylan Rhodes has been dropped in the ocean whilst trapped in a safe. That blotchy effect felt unnecessary and slightly ruined the film for me.

The entire film was well-acted, brilliantly directed, and its magic did go bigger and better than the previous instalment. If I were to see any of the tricks they performed in the film in real life, especially the one with Alas controlling the weather would have been mesmerising to watch and I would probably spend many sleepless nights trying to figure out how he did that, but since it’s a film, and anything’s possible, I guess you could say that it gave the term “movie magic” a new meaning. Sorry, I couldn’t resist.

Much like the first film, there is a mystery within its backbone and that took the form of the many unanswered questions from the previous. Those answers stood in the shadows, and waited for the right moment to reveal themselves. They did set up certain events that would lead to the revelation, but we didn’t know that until they were explained to us. Not that I have a problem with that, because the sudden revelation at the end was an eye-opener and was enjoyable to hear being explained.

One of the horsemen’s rivals is Chase McKinney, Merritt McKinney’s twin brother who thinks everything is fun. Woody Harrelson plays both brothers, and there was something off about that. Woody played both parts well, don’t get me wrong, but it would have been a lot better if his brother was played by someone else instead, so when they communicated, you saw two different people, not the same person but dressed up differently in a film as seriously as Now You See Me 2. Daniel Radcliffe’s performance couldn’t be faulted. Each time he was on screen, he stole the show. It’s not often Daniel plays the bad guy, but when he does, he makes sure you know he’s the bad guy.

I do prefer the first film over its sequel, but I wouldn’t say it’s a terrible film. I like it for what it was, and it did end with the potential of their being more. Former FBI Agent Dylan Shrike has become the head of the Eye, so it would be nice to see where the story goes from there, but if they were to make a third instalment, it would be a shame if they used this film as a starting point instead of the first.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

The Watch – Part 113:

That moment when you have no clue as to what to do next. When you have no clue how the story’s going to move on. There is a simple solution, but one that is deciding to stay hidden, maybe until the time is right, or until we’ve found it. Who knows? Amy and I can discuss this and piece together a plan that may get us somewhere, or nowhere, or may accidentally lead us all the way to the finish. Who Knows? Whatever we do, how much we try and organise our thoughts in our head, the more everything starts to unravel and more problems start to present themselves.

‘It looks like we’re stuck to literally making it up as we go along,’ I said, putting emphasis on the ‘literally’ part.

‘It looks like it, doesn’t it?’ Amy said through a large sigh. She was as stuck as I was.

‘Well, when I say make it up as I go along, I mean, at least we know the end goal.’

‘What’s that?’ Amy asked, curiously.

‘To sort out this problem,’ I said with a small hint of it being a question because I wasn’t quite sure what she was thinking.

‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘of course it is,’ and she ended that sentence with rubbing her eyes. ‘Sorry, all this confusion and thinking has made me tired.’ As soon as she said that, I came over tired and exhausted as well. We’re still motivated to tackle this difficult case, but it is taking its toll. We both will need a lie down at the end of this.

‘I think we should try and find the other us, you know?’ Amy said after a long silence. ‘Just so that we can get some idea of the situation.’

‘I don’t think that’s the best idea, to be honest,’ I said before explaining why. ‘We don’t want to make things even more complicated. We’re going to have to explain it all to them.’

‘They will understand. They’re us,’ Amy said bluntly.

‘I know, but I just feel as if we shouldn’t interact with anyone.’

‘So what’s our end goal, then. We want to get out of this problem, yes, but what do we actually want to achieve? I have never been this clueless before. Secretly, I want all of this to sort itself out, but I know that’s not going to happen, so I should stop hoping and just get on tackling the problem.

‘OK,’ I said, ‘so there is another us out there in this world, which means if we try and do anything, we may or will end up making this more confusing.’ I’m not helping by repeating what we both already know, but I think I have a reason for doing that. ‘What we want is for only us in this world.’ Again, that’s rather obvious. Then an idea just popped into my head. I said it aloud before reviewing it just in case I dismissed it, ‘what if we left and went to somewhere else.’

‘You mean, to another Parallel universe?’ Amy knew what I meant. ‘But aren’t every parallel universe different in some way or another?’ she asked rhetorically because I already knew the answer, but I answered it anyway.

‘Yes, they are,’ and that’s when I picked up what she meant, ‘you’re worried that something important will change.’

‘A bit,’ she said, not liking my idea that much.

‘I can pick which universe to go to where the difference is very minute. I can guarantee that you wouldn’t be able to spot the difference.’ Then I saw in her eyes that she had put two pieces together.

‘A parallel universe where we aren’t there, but our parents would know who we are.’ Her dislike of the idea grew even more. ‘I don’t think I’ll be comfortable, you know. I mean, I would always know. I mean, I know that we’re sitting in a newly created parallel universe, but that’s because we changed time, which means my parents are still the same parents. If we deliberately went to another universe altogether, I would always know that they aren’t… Well, my parents, if you know what I mean.’ Yeah, actually, it does sound like a bad idea.

‘Sorry,’ I admitted.

‘No need to apologise. Any idea sounds like a good idea when stuck in this situation,’ she reasoned. I nodded my head in agreement. Amy sighed again, this time with a small hint of anger in her voice. We went silent as we both thought some more. We’re both smart. We’re both clued up on time travel and how it works, so I don’t understand why we’re both stuck with this. Well, as I said before, we’re stuck in an open loop. Most time travel paradoxes involve a circle, not this. There is no end in sight, to be exact.

It was my turn to rub my eyes out of exhaustion. There’s so much to think about all at once, and no matter what idea we come up with, it’s instantly dismissed because it’s either going to make things more complicated or just won’t work, or we simply don’t like it altogether. There has to be another way. We can’t give up now. Who said anything about giving up. No, why am I even going down this route. I’ve automatically tangent off into something irrelevant. I guess it’s easy to do when faced with a difficult problem.

What if we aren’t actually out there at all? What if we are the only us in this world? I said this to Amy and she asked, ‘what do you mean, logically there should be another us out there, because we changed time.’

‘Yeah, but…’ it all makes sense, actually. I don’t understand why I didn’t put the pieces together before; almost making us being confused for ages redundant. ‘We went back in time, and we changed the past.’

‘Yeah,’ Amy knows that part.

‘And so the moment we changed time, we were standing in another universe… a universe where we went back in time to defuse the bomb, and so…’ Amy cut me off to finish enthusiastically.

‘And so we’re standing in that timeline’s future instead of the other…’ her shoulders slumped, ‘that does defy logic, though.’

Then the front door opened. We both turned our heads and waited for someone to enter the living room. And we did.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

Mum's Monday: Different for Girls

This film is one of BBC’s own, that came out in 1996. It is about a transgender man karl/Kim Foyle, played by Steven Mackintosh, and helps answer the question about sexual preferences (Gay or straight) in transgender people.

Karl goes to an all-boys school and becomes best friends with Paul Prentice (Prentice), played by Rupert Graves. Prentice has a habit of getting into trouble at school, whilst protecting Karl, gets into a fight with the other boys who notices there is something different about Karl. He has the mannerisms and the stance of a girl. The pair are teased about being friends with the term ‘queer’ being used.

Now we jump to present day and by chance, Prentice and Karl – now Kim – meet again, but Prentice struggles to know where he has seen Kim before, until he realises he is now a she.

Kim has turned out to be an independent woman with her flat, job and she quietly gets on with her life, Prentice however is immature and living precariously. Although he has a job, he is behind on his rent and struggles to budget within his earnings.

After a night out Kim goes to kiss Prentice on the cheek resulting in him telling her he is straight and her reply is “so am I”. it seems the stigma from being teased at school has stuck with him. Prentice struggles with this information and he has questions and later on in the film he even buys a book on the subject. I think this was a nice gesture and very thoughtful of Prentice, it showed him growing as a person during the film.

Kim, wants to cook a nice meal for Prentice and invites him round to her flat. Prentice has more questions, and after hearing the answers, he leaves and after a heated argument outside her flat. The evening ends with them being arrested. Although I don’t think the proper procedures were followed, what happened had to happen to make the story work out in the end. Kim wanting her quiet life runs to stay with her sister. Prentice already living on the edge makes things worse, by looking for Kim and loses his job.

This film is in some places confusing and uses a lot of artistic licence to carry it forward to the final outcome. The night Kim was supposed to have Prentice for a meal was a Friday. Kim gets home on what would be a Saturday and after Karl turns up saying he has to go to court today and needs her help, Kim runs to her sister’s and then we see her on what seems to be the next morning a Sunday, looking like it is a normal midweek day. This however doesn’t ruin the film, and therefore doesn’t distract from the story.

When Prentice and Karl were at school, Prentice protected Karl and throughout this film we see he is still Protecting Kim now. Kim realising this, goes to the second court date and tells the court what happened and explains about being transgender. In this film, Prentice becomes more mature and Kim becomes more outgoing. They protect and bring the best out in each other.

We still see a stigma attached when their story comes out in a newspaper. Kim is the subject of her workplace gossip, however her boss is understanding and can see what an asset Kim can be to the workplace and allows her to keep her job. 

This film is done in such a way that I find that you really care for the characters as if they are real and when at the end of the film, we see Kim and Prentice ride off together and disappear around the corner. I want to know what happens next. This is why this film stands out for me among others.

In this film the transgender person is played by a male the gender before the change. We have since seen in Coronation Street and EastEnders the characters played by the gender after the change. Hayley Cropper played by Julie Hesmondhalgh in Coronation Street and Kyle Slater played by Riley Carter Millington in EastEnders. Although there is nothing wrong in the casting of these actors, I still think Different for Girls has that authentic edge with their choice of actor because of the male aspect first then changing to the female but by using special effects with the character so it would be just as it would be in real life.

Layers - Part 78

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

The Watch – Part 112:

I do apologise for not uploading yesterday. A tonne of unexpected things happened all at once, and when I finally sat down to upload the next part, I discovered that there was a rather large plot hole, which I have no sorted so it makes a lot more sense in the coming parts. Thank you for your patience and I hope to remain on schedule for now on.

***

‘OK, I think I know what happened back there,’ Amy said after we had returned to the future, into a newly established timeline. Tom is no longer lying on my couch and from what I could tell, nothing drastic changed. I know it was a rather big risk, changing time like that, but I was not going to stand around and do nothing. I have my watch and so I’m going to use it. It felt good that Tom was back to his normal-self once more, even though he has no clue as to what happened as that version of him doesn’t exist anymore.

‘But there is something that doesn’t quite add up,’ Amy said.

‘Go on,’ I said wanting to know her thoughts.

‘Well,’ she began, ‘Tom knocked on your door and explained that his parents were killed in an explosion at work…’

‘Yeah,’ I said, curiously.

‘And I then suggested that you go back in time and save his parents from said explosion, and then you suggested that I had better come with you for, when the timeline changes, a version of me would be wiped out and replaced with someone who doesn’t know what’s happening. So we went back in time together and saved his parents by dismantling the bomb. And here we are, in a new timeline.

‘Before I continue, I have to ask even though I’m pretty sure I already know the answer. We can still return to that timeline, if we want.’

‘We can,’ I nodded, ‘because whenever you change the past, it creates a new parallel universe with the new timeline and therefore new future in.’

It was Amy’s turn to nod before continuing, ‘and by changing the timeline, Tom’s parents wouldn’t have gotten killed, we wouldn’t have gone back in time to save that and they wouldn’t have seen you just disappear into thin air, therefore keeping the secret of your watch just between us.’ Where was she going with this?

‘My question is: Shouldn’t there be another version of us somewhere in this world living life without having a clue as to what happened, because they never went back in time and became us?’ That was a good question, and a difficult one. Amy is right, there would be another version of us in this new timeline. But if there’s another version of us, that means we can’t be here for fear of meeting them and causing all sorts of problems, and if they are here, that means the other me has the watch.

I spend the next ten minutes furiously trying to figure out a solution to this problem, but no matter how many times I thought I was going somewhere that would explain away the problem that Amy brought up, I only ended up at the very same conclusion. I was thinking hard, which was Amy’s cue to throw in another spanner into the works.

‘Which brings me onto another question,’ she said teasing me.

‘Go one,’ I said.

‘Where are they? What are they doing? And will we bump into the other us?’ First of all, that was three questions, but that’s not important right now. The second thing is, if I remember rightly whilst studying the many theories of time travel, I came across a similar problem. All I have to do is remember what I had read. This is important, and so if I could remember basically everything that I had read, that would be rather helpful. Retracing my mind back through my memories, I thankfully landed on what I wanted.

‘What we have here,’ I said, ‘is an open ended loop that can never be closed because the beginning had been wiped out. There is no cause to start the effect. To be honest, now that you’ve brought up this problem, it has gotten me wondering why the other we (I think that’s the right tense? All this time travel can really twist the English language into many shapes) aren’t here.’ And I thought that it was complicated before. This is another level altogether. No, this is completely different game altogether. Wherever we go, we have to be constantly on the lookout for the other us, just in case we accidentally bump into them and create something else altogether. It wouldn’t be a paradox since there isn’t one in the first place because I changed time, completely eradicating any loops that were there. My head was starting to ache. I’ve been studying Time Travel for years now, but this problem was indeed the hardest to figure out, and it’s even harder now that I’m living it.

‘Would it be better if we tried to locate where the other us are just so that we won’t be in the same place as they are?’ Amy asked.

‘That would be the best way to go about it, yeah,’ I said thoughtfully. I couldn’t agree nor disagree because I just didn’t know what the best way to go about it is. The other us could walk through the front door any second now for all we know, and they wouldn’t have a clue as to what’s going on, and we can’t explain anything because we won’t know anything either. I need a lie down.

‘I’ve just thought of another potential problem,’ I said wondering whether this was due to over thinking, but it does make sense to bring it up anyway.

‘What’s that?’

‘Can we go anywhere anyway? Our other-selves would have interacted with other people, and if those people see us, they will talk to us about stuff that we don’t know about, creating some very confusion and awkward situations,’ I explained.

‘Going by that logic, we can’t go outside at any point,’ Amy said as if she wasn’t at all happy with my statement.

‘I know, right,’ was all that I could say to that.

‘So what do we do?’ Amy asked.

‘I have no idea how to get out of this one. We just have to take it one step at a time and let it lead us to a, hopefully, simple way out.’

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

Video of the Week: Are Humans Becoming Immortal? (by Alltime Conspiracies)

The video above raises an interesting question. Exploring many ways technology and medical research has developed and may develop into in the coming years, and the process is apparently speeding up so we might be seeing some significant changes in the near future.

As well as developing technology, we’re also focusing on making medicine undefeatable. The day we announce that we’ve found the cure for all major diseases plus more would be a day to celebrate forever. If we were able to successfully eliminate all diseases, us humans would live longer by a considerable amount. We’re already aware that we’ve pushed the age limit further away with modern medicine that takes the forms of pills and injections. How long will a single human being be able to live if they can take certain medicines to keep their body working?

Jeanne Calment holds the Guinness World Record for holding the longest confirmed lifespan at 122 years, 164 days. She was born on 21 Februrary 1875 and passed away of natural causes on 4^th August 1997. During her extraordinary life, she met Vincent Van Gough at the age of thirteen and saw the Eiffel Tower being built. The world has changed so much around her during her long life. She must have seen so much. Her incredible longevity is currently being studied for scientific research.

Now imagine increasing that age by 50+ years. What if, sometime in the future, due to modern medicine and further studies, people were living to 172 on average, or longer. Imagine if someone’s lifespan had been the same time as it took America to form and onto present day. It does make me wonder just how many changes would that person would have seen during their long lifetime. Maybe they will see the very first humans leaving the solar system, leaving the galaxy, maybe the release of Half-Life 3.

We are pouring so much time and effort into creating and developing an extraordinary array of modern medicines that maybe we will figure out how to expand our lives in a shorter amount of time than expected. We might just accidentally stumble upon the answer in a couple of years and after making it commercially acceptable, allow everyone to live for an astonishing amount of time.

And of course, what would happen if we were able to live forever? What if we were able to develop technology that kept our bodies working indefinitely, and healed us quickly if we were damaged in some way?

If we woke up one day and the news announced that there was a pile that you could take that stops the aging process altogether and allows you to live forever, would you take that pill? How would it feel knowing that you will see the end of this millennium, and the next, and the next? Excited? Nervous? Scared? All of the above? And why? How much information would you learn over our extraordinary long lifespan?

I pose all the questions because there is one aspect about immortality that has been heavily suggested via various sources and that it’s a curse. Living forever, being immortal is a curse. Seeing so many people being born and dying all around you and you keep moving forwards, feeling disconnected from the world as it turns and turns normally. Except it doesn’t have to escalate so quickly and into a dark corner, because this pill is mainstream and so anyone who can will go after it and take it. Hundreds of people, thousands of people, possibly millions of people becoming immortal over a short period of time. The human race has finally defeated that one certain fact: Death.

With everyone living forever, what would happen? Will we have also developed technology to increase the size of our memories, because we can only store so much. We can document everything we do: Write it down, store it on hard drives, keep every bit of information alive as possible. So we can forget things with our normal sized memories without worry because we can just go back and relearn it all over again. With technology increasingly and rapidly growing more and more advanced, the amount of information any one individual will be able to store in later years will be incredible compared to today’s capabilities. But, technology will eventually ware out, so all we would have to do is transfer it when necessary, therefore never letting anything become lost. Sounds simple – right?

Various depictions of immortality in fiction has shown us that it is a curse in some, but highly sort after in others. Those that depict it as a curse states that there are multiple versions of immortality, whereas those that show characters searching for it either shows them not succeeding, or ending up alone in some deserted place faraway from any civilisation – hammering down the cursed nature of immortality even further. The best depiction of immortality is Torchwood series 4. Everyone suddenly cannot die, but that doesn’t stop them from being injured, and if they are mortally injured to the point where they would die, they don’t and they just have to suffer being unable to move, or otherwise. If we are truly going to be immortal, we will have to consider every possible option so that it doesn’t become a curse.

Will humans in the future seek for a cure for immortality to make the human race mortal? That almost sounds like an apocalyptic future, which we may see because we would have lived beyond our normal life expectancy.

I’ve searched for some answers, but all I’ve found so far is what we already know. I seem that the impression I’ve been given is that we are searching for these answers, but yet haven’t taken into consideration the consequences that may or will stem from our actions. For all I know the human race may be bettered, and I’m worrying about nothing, however it would be nice to not worry now rather than later. The future is unpredictable, we can prepare for it as much as we possibly can, but we still have no clue what will actually happen, so I’m probably worrying about something that won’t happen at all. Whatever happens, I hope it’s something good.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

Layers - Part 77

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

Film of the Week: The Conjuring 2

The Einfield Haunting is known for being the most documented paranormal cases in history. Several claims of objects moving by themselves and people levitating are just some of the reports that have been documented during this case. The most chilling piece of evidence is of a video recording of the two girls being interviewed and the ghost seemingly speaking through her. This story is the focus of the sequel to the Conjuring franchise.

When a film’s story is based on a true story – or real documented reports – you have to expect that it would add a bit of artistic license to flesh it out some more, and these added features usually show what didn’t happen or bent the truth slightly to make it a bit more thrilling.

The Einfield Poltergeist story is so well-documented that it does blur the line between a hoax and fact. Numerous reports from various people, including Police Officers, members of the public, and photographic and video evidence. It is hard to dismiss that it happened, but was it actually a real haunting? I’m not going to try and discover the truth in this article. My main focus is how well the film portrayed the story, and I did like how it implemented the possible hoax aspect.

Before I started to watch the film, I knew that it would try and play it off as a real event. It’s a horror movie, and so the ghosts would be real, and they showed just that as the film went on. Objects of various sizes being flung across the room, people levitating, and possession all occurred and therefore is a true story in the eyes of the film. There was a moment, however, before the last act when it was to be believed as a hoax. Video recording showed the girl, Janet Hodgson, (played by Madison Wolfe) throwing furniture, plates, cups, and bending spoons on her own free will. This did make me wonder if they really are going for a twist of events, when it will soon be revealed to be a complete hoax and proceed to explain how it was all done. During that scene when they were discussing the integrity of the case, I was torn between wanting it to go down a different angle, and it actually is real.

But this scene and a number of previous moments throughout the film does address the hoax aspect. A number of people explaining away how everything could have been faked. This case gained a lot of media attention, across newspapers and TV, so you would get two sides of the argument looking at every angle. As the scene continued, I figured that they couldn’t explain how it was all a hoax, but no one knows if it truly was or not. All we have is the evidence in front of us, and whilst they can be explained away and dismissed, it is hard to deny that there could be some truth behind it.

At the beginning of the film when Ed Warren (Patrick Wilson) and Lorraine Warren (Vera Farmiga) were on a talk show discussing and defending that the cases they have tackled are real, Ed brought up a very good point that I felt unintentionally became the backbone of the entire movie.

He said, “it’s very easy to sit on the outside and pick apart their story, but it’s something very different to have been there and experienced it for yourself.” This line was immediately dismissed by the person trying to claim that their investigations are a hoax by saying that “I don’t have to go to the moon to know that it is not made out of green cheese.” Whatever side you sit on, or if you sit on the fence, there is something true about Ed’s statement. For all we know, the Einfield Poltergeist has always been a well-played hoax, but for those that were there and claimed to have experienced various paranormal activity, we weren’t there to say whether they are lying or not. We can deny everything they say, and believe it to be completely false, but there is always that possibility it could be true.

The film captures the everyday nature of the ordinary family before all the activity starts well, and when the action begins, it did scare me. It made me jump out of my seat a few times, even when I was prepared for it. I knew it was coming, but I didn’t know when. However, as I said before in this article, there are some moments when they filmmakers took advantage of artistic license and added a few things for added effect, and everything they added worked well, except for one, and that’s when the figure in the Zoetrope disappeared from the device and appeared in front of them demonically. That’s the only criticism I have about the film because it took some of the scare factor away and started to tangent off into truly fictional.

I knew of the story long before watching the film, but it was only after watching it did I start doing a bit of research into the story to see what’s what. My blanket opinion on ghosts and other paranormal activity is, I believe it when I see it, and I have seen a ghost. However, if you were to tell me that a certain house or other building is haunted, I won’t believe that it is until I’ve seen it for myself. This opinion developed on the basis that it’s hard to decipher what’s real and what isn’t, especially with today’s technology. Everything can be faked if you know how to. I do believe in ghosts, but if I were to walk into a claimed haunted house, I would essentially be a skeptic until proven otherwise. 

When I saw the ghost in my house, I made sure to look at it at every angle to see if I could debunk it, because that is what I do. My imagination is very active, and at times it can play tricks on me. Whenever there appears to be something out of the ordinary, I quickly start assessing the situation. For example, I could be listening to music and I hear a voice behind me, and when I turn around there's no one there. Could be a ghost, but it could also be something as simple as: My mum was sitting outside reading a book, and because I was listening to music, I wouldn't be able to hear her so well if she called through. This played on my mind a bit and I subconsciously created a voice behind me to grab my attention. Therefore I believe that it wasn't anything paranormal, but just a casual trick of the mind. When I saw the ghost in my home, I made sure to deduce as much as possible, and once I had eliminated all the options, I therefore concluded that it was in fact a ghost that I saw. The factors that I took into account were: It was a long, solid white light, moving as if someone was walking briskly from kitchen, through the living room and suddenly disappearing; the only way it could disappear behind the sofa is if it turned a ninety degree turn, which I saw it do; and there were no car lights outside. Sometimes, when a car go past, it creates shadows and sudden flickering of light before immediately disappearing as the car drives away - the light I saw wasn't coming from outside, it was compacted together as if it were a figure. I did take into account whether or not I was either imagining it from being in bed and therefore tired, but I knew for sure that I was wide awake. Therefore I concluded the only thing it could have been after eliminating the probably causes, and that it was indeed a ghost.

That has been the only occasion when I saw a ghost, but it hasn't exactly been the only experience of paranormal activity within the home - each occasion I have evaluated the event before accepting the only option.

I guess I could say the same about the Einfield story, but it is difficult to completely dismiss it entirely. There is a lot of evidence suggesting it’s authentic, and it would be harder to pull off such a believable story back then that captured the beliefs of many, many people, including two Police Officers who filed the report which started off the entire investigation. However, when the media got hold of it, does the line between fact and fiction start to grow thicker. Media loves to blow things out of proportion, or to state that something is definitive when instead it’s merely just suggested.

Despite my opinion on ghosts and other paranormal activity, I can’t really use that for this story. It’s both fact and fiction for me. However, I can’t deny the strength that quote Ed says at the beginning of the film.

What do you think? Is it real, or is it a clever hoax.

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)

The Watch – Part 111:

For the first time in what felt like ages, Amy broke the silent tension by asking, ‘when are we?’

‘Thirty minutes before the other us arrive,’ I said. ‘That should give us enough time to do what we need to do and get out.’

‘You sure?’

‘No,’ I said truthfully.

‘Fair enough,’ Amy accepted my honesty. ‘There is one problem, however, and that’s the receptionist. If we try and sneak in without being seen, that will only lead to what happened before, and we can’t keep going back.’

‘Good point,’ I said thoughtfully. An idea popped into my head. ‘We don’t have to try and sneak in without being seen; we won’t be seen in the first place,’ I explained cryptically.

‘I’m going to need a bit more information,’ Amy said plainly.

‘We go invisible, sneak in and when we’ve found Tom’s parents, we turn visible again.

‘OK,’ Amy accepted the idea without any hesitation, but there was a question brewing on her face. ‘But how does that work? I thought the watch would only work on us if we are travelling from one place to another. Would it be able to turn me invisible?’ That was a good question. I just assumed it would, but I couldn’t answer the question positively.

‘We’ll just have to find out,’ I said. That wasn’t what Amy was expecting, but it’s the best option we have at the moment in a very short time frame. She nodded.

‘Grab my arm,’ I said, assuming once more. She did and I navigated myself through the interface of the watch, strolling through the many menus until I found what I wanted: The invisible superpower.

‘Ready?’ I asked Amy.

‘Ready.’ I pressed the button. I didn’t feel anything out of the ordinary, and I could still see my hands, arms, and the rest of my body, yet I knew that I was invisible, but it looked as if I wasn’t, and that played havoc with my senses.

‘Wow,’ Amy expressed in awe. I could see Amy and Amy could still see me, but again, we knew that we were invisible, and once again my sensors starting going haywire. It might take a few minutes for them to settle down, but unfortunately we don’t have a few minutes. We have to get moving now, so we just have to fight through it.

‘It’s such a strange feeling,’ she said, ‘I can still see myself, giving the impression that I’m not invisible, but I know that I am,’ she explained the same feelings as I have. ‘My senses are all over the place,’ she said.

‘We had better start getting this over and done with, we don’t have much time left’

‘Ready whenever you are.’

Again, despite the natural sensation of awe, Amy does appear to be taking this in her stride, but I can’t focus on this at the moment. We have more important things to worry about. We walked side by side, our steps automatically falling into a perfect sync as we headed back towards the office block.

The doors opened by themselves, but the woman behind the desk was too into her paperwork to notice, just like when we arrived earlier – or will arrive in about ten minutes’ time.

If the receptionist looks up now, she won’t see anything but an empty space. She’ll look straight through us, never knowing that we were ever here. We didn’t want to draw any attention to ourselves, and so you could say that we were performing that comical sneaking action cartoons do when they want to bypass any security. If we drop our feet too loudly, she’ll look up in wonderment, only to see nothing there. What she’ll think next is unknown, but I don’t want to find out.

It’s almost mind-blowing really. We’re thirty minutes in the past, which means thirty minutes later, Amy and I are going to walk through those doors, and I’m going to cause plenty of unnecessary commotion, and it is even more unnecessary now that we’ve learned that we were here before, and sorted out the problem we came here for. Even if the receptionist looks up for any other reason, she’ll see nothing, and knowing that does make it slightly difficult to process properly, but we’re here for a more important reason that studying the situation, so I put it to one side and carried on forwards, making sure to be as quiet as possible.

Moving this slowly does make the reception area bigger. She’s still writing furiously on her many pieces of paper, and therefore deep into her own world. Eventually, we made it to the double doors at the other end. The task now is to open them without causing any distractions. That seems easier said than done, but we have to try. I placed both hands on the left hand door, and Amy placed her hands on the right, and together, as gently as possible, slowly pushed backwards. The door springs were too strong to be moved this slowly, and even if we were able to move them, the noise would be too loud. The slower you go and the more you try and make as less noise as possible, the more you are going to make – that is a fact. The only we’re going to get through these doors is if we walk through them normally. Amy knew this and nodded, mouthing the words, ‘one, two, three,’ and together we pushed the doors open, slipped through and let them swing shut normally. The noise echoed through the entire reception area. I could see through the mini windows that she was now looking in our direction, confused. What was going through her head now? Imagination? Ghost? Wind? It’s difficult to dismiss such a strange event, but if this happened before we arrived, then maybe our arrival would make her forget what happened.

Amy tapped me on the elbow to signify that we had better get moving. I nodded and turned around. We both started ascending the stairs together, careful not to create too much noise. There’s a chance that the receptionist would believe that she was so lost in her own world that she just simply didn’t notice anyone walking across the room and through the doors. That’s not much of a relief, but it does settle the mind slightly.

‘Do you know what floor we need?’ Amy whispered.

‘No,’ I said simply. I wasn’t going to dwell on how stupid I was to not find that information out at any point. Amy sighed.

But as luck would have it. Two people came out of the one of the floors and walked upstairs. Those people were Tom’s parents. They had their back to me, which gave me an idea.

I whispered my idea to Amy and she accepted. I disabled my power, returning us back to normal.

‘Excuse me,’ I called upwards, catching the attention of Tom’s parents. They stopped and turned around, noticing us two a couple of steps below. They recognised me more than they did Amy, but greeted us both the same.

‘Hey, Sebastian,’ they said coming down and shaking hands. ‘How are you these days?’

‘I’m good,’ I said enthusiastically. The plan worked like a charm.

‘Good,’ Tom’s dad said. Tom’s mum hugged me, which I gratefully accepted. They have no idea why we’re here and hopefully, they won’t ever find out.

‘I’m sorry,’ Tom’s dad said, ‘but we’ve never met,’ he said to Amy, extended a hand, which she took and they both shook.

‘This is Amy,’ I said.

‘Ah, Amy, yes,’ Tom’s dad said excitedly. They know about Amy. Tom, I’ve got a bone to pick with you. I blushed red with embarrassment.

‘It’s nice to meet you,’ Amy said smiling.

‘And to you, too,’ Tom’s mum said. They were both wearing smartly organised suits that didn’t seem to be ruffled that much, meaning they must have spent the majority of their time today sitting behind a desk.

‘What brings you here today,’ Tom’s dad said. ‘I would have thought Tom would have been here as well.’ A perfectly reasonable assumption.

‘Um,’ not knowing what to say, ‘we need to have a word, if that’s OK?’ I asked.

‘Of course it is,’ Tom’s mum said. ‘We’re just heading upstairs to our office. We can talk there.’ This was going better than I thought. The two problems that presented me now was: How do I save them from a bomb that I know nothing about except that it explodes later on today, and how much time has passed before the other us arrive and would make such an interesting conversation if ever we meet? Hopefully, the entire event would be over before anything confusing happens.

We entered Tom’s parents’ office. It was empty save from us four, meaning that the conversation that we’re about to have wouldn’t be overheard, which is handy.

‘So, what do we owe this pleasure,’ Tom’s dad said once we had settled down at their desk. I didn’t know exactly what to say. How do I start a conversation when the topic involves saving their lives from a bomb that could explode any minute now?

‘Um, we…’

‘Do you hear that?’ Amy asked who was sitting beside me nearer to the printer. The entire room went silent as we tried to listen out for whatever caught Amy’s attention. I didn’t know what to listen out for. All that I could hear was the low hum of the many computers in this room, but, the more I listened, the louder a peculiar sound became.

‘I don’t hear any…’ Tom’s mum was about to state before I cut her off.

‘I hear it, I believe,’ I said. The room went that much quieter than before, allowing the sounds of the office to grow, subsequently, the strange sound, which I have managed to distinguish as a very low ticking sound. I looked around, trying to see if there was any type of clock, but only finding digital ones. I focused my hearing on where I believed the sound was coming from.

‘I don’t hear any…’ Tom’s dad was about to repeat before I stood up and headed towards the printer.

‘What’s going on?’ Tom’s mum said curiously. If she was angry with the strangeness of my actions, then she didn’t show or say anything, she just watched me curiously, as I focused my attention onto the big, free standing printer right beside their desk, of which the low ticking sound grew louder. Whatever was in this, wasn’t good. I lifted the printer lid.

‘Amy,’ I said, ‘grab my arm.’

‘Er…’ she said curiously, ‘sure.’ She grabbed my arm and I activated the necessary settings on my watch. Amy didn’t want to say anything, but I knew that she was asking the question as to why I am revealing my watch in front of Tom’s parents. The truth was, I had a plan, and I couldn’t afford to waste time explaining it. I pressed the button, sending us back in time by a couple of minutes.

‘What did you do that for?’ Amy asked once we had rematerialized back into the office room that we had just been minus Tom’s parents, who were currently downstairs.

‘Sorry,’ I said, ‘I’ll explain later.’ I opened the printer and plucked the bomb out from inside it.

‘I think I know what you are doing,’ Amy said, ‘but how do you expect to…’ I crushed it in my hands, disabling the bomb. I had activated super strength as well. The bomb disintegrated in my hands, falling onto the ground in defused pieces.

‘Now we can go home. I can explain everything there,’ I said.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)