azurite | MISTER Anderson. Glad you could join us.

Well, I did it. I saw Matrix: Revolutions. And you know what? Not impressed. If I were the little guy from the Chron, I'd probably be sitting in my chair, maybe clapping a little. But not jumping out of the seat like I'd sat on a nail. Sorry.
Read all about it:

Story: Ah, the conclusion to the technological thrill-ride that is the Matrix. The first one kicked ass, the second one confused the living hell out of us, and now... well, now... it's the end of the war. As all the posters have been saying "Everything that has a beginning has an end." And that doesn't always mean the one you expected.

I mean, honestly, after watching the first two movies (and hopefully Animatrix as well, since that added a LOT to the story) what did you think would happen? Tell me.

I won't spoil you here, but I mean come on, once you see it... whatever impression you end up getting, it's my personal opinion that it HAD to happen that way. Sure, it would have been cool if it had ended another way, but... it wouldn't have "worked," you know what I mean? Well, you WILL know what I mean, once you see it. This isn't an endorsement to see it... if you WANT me to spoil you, then by all means, I will... on Wednesday. ^^;

Costumes: Same old, same old. Smith wears suits. The crewmembers wear tattered sweaters and the like. Neo wears that tweed trenchcoat number, so you can't see where the wires hook on for his stunts. Trinity wears her little latex/rubber/whatever the hell it is number that is sooo cool but must be a pain to wear... the Club Hell scene featured some cool costumes, but the costumer/W Brothers must have some sort of leather fetish or something, cuz.. whoo, that was one heck of a scene there.

Effects: Oh geez. *shakes head in despair* You know, there was this one fight scene that looked like there were puppets of Neo and Smith, just smashing into one another. That had to be the saddest thing in the whole movie. Not a whole lot of bullet time or explosions or such... some cool "quick-moves" that were rather interesting, mostly in Club Hell. This movie was primarily about getting away from the confusion and just doing what's primal and basic-- kicking ass. "Less talk, more ass-smashing" seemed to be the movie motto.

Environment: Well one thing's for damn sure, whoever did the sets OWNED. From the train station to Club Hell, all the way to the Machine City... X_X Impressive. I pay attention to these little things, you know. Setting is really the basis for everything, because you can't have conflict or action, you can't have character interaction without setting. And they did a damn good job for the most part. Some places in the last scenes, namely in the fight scene with Smith and Neo, looked a bit shoddy and pre-put-together, but... X_X Neo's attitude kind of made up for that.

Makeup: HOLY COW! With all the fighting, there was a good deal of gore and yuck going on. I mean, for the most part, there was a lot of people just getting tossed to the side, left and right, by those damn annoying Sentinels, but there was ONE makeup job that made me just CRINGE. It was THAT good. I mean, ew! I suppose effects would work into this too...

Characters: Well, you knew it had to happen. Characters DO die, but hey, I'm not sayin' who. You can probably guess anyway. What was funny was how, RIGHT at the start of the movie, one of the employees down front yelled "NEO DIES!" and it was one of those things where we're all... "...He's probably right." Nobody laughed or booed or anything. It was just sort of an obvious fact, I guess, and we're all there to see how it happens. X_X Trinity, unfortunately, didn't seem to have a big part here. They did a lot of focus on the Oracle (apparently Mary Alice isn't the actress who played her before? What happened to the original then? Did she die or get fired, or...?) and Niobe (which KICKED ASS... she 0wnZ as a pilot) but not so much on the ones that got the spotlight in Reloaded.

To Do: Watch Reloaded before you see this, just so everything comes together smoothly. You'll feel refreshed instead of confused, with the way the Matrix: Revolutions opens up. Oh, and as for "Revolutions," honestly... it doesn't seem to make much sense. The war vs. the machines has been brewing for a LONG time, and what happens is no "Revolution" so much as a "Revelation." It would have been cool if some people's theories were correct, but oh well. I wonder, once it comes out on DVD, will there be alternate endings?

I have to go vote today... X_X Whee. There's a proposition that affects schools here, you know. I went browsing through the voter pamphlet and checked out how the prop would affect my old school... I read about all the changes the passing of the prop would do, and WOW, it sounds cool. Too bad I know that those changes won't take effect anytime soon. "These things take time and money..." :P Why don't they ever make constant checks on schools and the status of them when they need it, so we don't need to VOTE on these things, and wait for the distribution of money, the selection of companies to do the work, blah blah... I would have liked the changes this Prop will make to my school WHEN I was still going there!!!

Okay, Chapter 7 of WDKY is LONG as hell, STILL getting longer, and I'm debating how to finish it off... cliffhanger-y, or tie-in to 8. o_O I HAVE TO GET THIS DONE TODAY! It's really irritating me. It's not as long (in KB, anyways) as 6 though, which baffles me; it SEEMS longer...

You know what pisses me off? For Chapter 7, I used a lot of songs. And I like songs. Music is cool. So, like any other fan who likes to sing-along, or maybe wants the lyrics for some other mundane purpose (i.e. fanfiction, AMVs, whatever), I went on a hunt for the lyrics for some of my fav songs. And almost ALL the lyrics at ALL the sites I went to messed up on at LEAST one line. ARGH!

In Lillix' "What I Like About You," there's a line: You keep me warm at night that was mis-transliterated as "You give me 1 out of 9." WTF? The singer doesn't say that. It doesn't even SAY that. o_O Yet, none of the lyrics sites I went to had that correction. In Liz Phair's "Why Can't I?" there were repeated words, mistransliterated words... I was surprised to learn there was the f-word in her song, though it's hard to hear unless you KNOW you're listening for it. That was one of the few things the lyrics sites got right. There were mistakes for Thalia's "Don't Look Back" and Billie's "She Wants You," as well. X_X GRR. And I don't feel like sending in corrections for all of them... I might just end up transliterating all my own songs, just so I don't get all boggled when I get lyrics that are littered with mistakes.

For the record, common music lyric transliteration includes:
Actual lyrics (echoed or background lyrics)
A [Chorus] that is the same, and repeats itself at least twice in the song
A Bridge during which there *is* no singing whatsoever, and the instrumentals reach their "climax."

Of course, you don't have to type [Bridge], but it's always nice to give people reading the lyrics a sense of when there's a pause in the song. You know, as if you were listening to someone speak, and you wanted to type out the paragraphs? It's the same as in singing, it's not just one continuous line. Any of that make sense?

I'm going to see what I can get with my Snapple caps now. X_X Mm, snapple.