Yeah, I know, dead horse, but I’m a fan and I must rant.

So yes, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was bad. The first film way okay, and the second was bad. For me, the worst of it was the pervasive crude humor. Having read the reviews, I thought I had set my expectations low enough, but I did not expect to be tempted to walk out. Maybe if the third film doesn’t have any fluids squirting out of Bumblebee for once, I’ll consider seeing it. Maybe.

One thing that Michael Bay continues to get wrong is that the titular Transformers characters lack personality (the twins and the little RC truck guy don’t count because they’re stupid and annoying). The thing is, almost every transformers toy since 1984 has had a description of the character’s personality on the back of the box (called Tech Specs). To me, this is a big part of the appeal of the Transformers. They’re not just robots, they’re characters. Why is this so hard?

Take Skids for example. The original Tech Specs describe him as a daydreaming scientist fascinated by Earth. In the movie, he’s an offensive caricature. I was seriously disappointed that Devastator didn’t eat him.

Frequently, especially during the desert battle scenes, it was hard to tell who was who. I think the silliest mistake in this category was the introduction of two silver sports cars: an Autobot named Sideswipe, and a Decepticon named Sideways. The original Sideswipe was red, which could have easily solved the confusion. Why is this so hard?

Fans were very excited to hear that Peter Cullen would be reprising the role of Optimus Prime for the Transformers movie. Then we got a truck with flames on it. In the second film, we hear him trash-talking the Decepticons as he fights them. With most other Autobots I’d have no problem with this, but for Optimus it’s just out of character. The filmmakers tried to please the fans by bringing back Peter Cullen, but they didn’t understand why it’s important to us.

Optimus Prime is an iconic character, a classic leader. He’s charismatic, wise, powerful, but also friendly and approachable. These are the qualities we wanted to see Peter Cullen bring to life again. But he wasn’t given the chance.

I have heard and read many times the idea that same-sex marriage should be allowed because marriage is a civil right. The problem with this claim is that it very conveniently ignores the opposing argument, which is that the real issue is the definition of marriage. It makes no sense to discuss whether marriage is a civil right until we agree on how marriage is defined.

So I’m actually undecided on whether marriage qualifies as a civil right, but I’m not very concerned about the question because I think it’s irrelevant, or at best premature.

Out of curiosity, I have been searching the net for explanations of why marriage should be considered a civil right, looking at blog posts, articles, and court cases. In nearly all instances, people simply repeat the assertion that marriage is a civil right, without any kind of justification.

The closest thing I’ve found so far is traced back to a 1942 decision in the case of Skinner v. Oaklahoma in which it was declared that sterilization should not be allowed as a punishment for crimes.

We are dealing here with legislation which involves one of the basic civil rights of man. Marriage and procreation are fundamental to the very existence and survival of the race.

This decision was referenced by the Goodridge v. Department of Public Health case in which the Massachusetts state supreme court declared that same-sex marriage should be allowed. (The other Massachusetts case cited on this subject is that of Milford v. Worcester, but the text of that decision doesn’t seem to be easily available online.)

Finally, an explanation for this civil right idea. But I don’t buy it. Why not? For an explanation, I’ll use the words of the Hawaii state supreme court, in a case which is actually mentioned by the Massachusetts court, even though as far as I can tell it argues against their interpretation of Skinner v. Oaklahoma.

Whether the [US Supreme] court viewed marriage and procreation as a single indivisible right, the least that can be said is that it was obviously contemplating unions between men and women when it ruled that the right to marry was fundamental.

That was my reaction exactly. To use Skinner v. Oaklahoma to support same-sex marriage discards the entire context and severely manipulates the original meaning.

So I’m still looking for an explanation… but still, only out of curiosity. I still believe that the definition of marriage is the real issue, and I firmly believe that gender, as a fundamental characteristic of the human race, is and should be a vital part of that definition.

The iTunes Store is now 100% “iTunes Plus”, which is their higher-quality, no-copy-protection format. Supposedly you can upgrade past purchases to iTunes Plus, but this is not entirely true.

Just some quick statistics:

Purchased albums in my iTunes library: 33
Albums that the iTunes Store will let me upgrade to iTunes Plus: 13
Albums that I can’t upgrade but are still in the iTunes Store: 8
Albums I bought that are now missing from the iTunes Store: 12

Surprisingly, the missing albums include the soundtracks to the first two Harry Potter films, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Triplets of Belleville.

Yesterday we watched the new Wonder Woman animated movie… or some of it, anyway. Although this wasn’t the worst of its offenses, it sums it up pretty well that we didn’t get much farther than the part where the magic lasso is used to force a man to give a definition for the word “crap”. In a movie like that, they shouldn’t bring up the definition of crap because it just leaves them wide open. I’ll restrain myself.

As with the previous Superman: Doomsday, this is a direct-to-video PG-13 movie. And even more than before, they use the added “freedom” of the PG-13 rating to make a more “adult” oriented movie, limping around on the crutch/sledgehammer of sex (partial nudity with strategic camera angles and hair placement in a gratingly cliché bathing beauties scene) and violence (including a decapitation in the opening battle, plus two on-screen groin kicks, or maybe more since we quit early).

But even if it had been more tastefully done, the story just dragged, and it’s only 75 minutes long. What happened after Justice League that made Bruce Timm (the producer here) and friends forget how to make a good superhero cartoon?

One of the things Lisa and I both liked about The Dark Knight was that while there was more violence than we’d want small children to see, the film doesn’t dwell on it. It’s usually quick, and/or offscreen, so you can stay focused on the story and the characters. We’re not categorically opposed to violence in movies. Just before Wonder Woman we watched Mr. and Mrs. Smith, and enjoyed it thoroughly. Again, even when there was action and violence, the focus was still on the characters. Wonder Woman never achieved that.

As a follow-up to the previous post, I found my copy of Watchmen yesterday. Flipping through it, I saw that it is indeed an R-rated comic book. But I’ll stand by my claim that you could tell the story just as well in a PG-13 film. Sure, it wouldn’t be as “gritty” or whatever, but that’s a gimmick, it’s not the story.

A quote from an Entertainment Weekly article on the Watchmen movie:

The director also believed that an “adult” superhero epic needed to be explicit about its “adult” content. He wanted to hear the characters’ philosophical musings. He wanted to see the blood spurt. And instead of the chaste kisses of most superhero movie romances, he wanted to see some naked getting-it-on.

“I wanted to make sure everyone understood: This is not a kid movie,” says Snyder. “Violence has consequences. And doing that with a PG-13 just dilutes that message.”

Is it really necessary for an “adult” film to use the sledgehammer of sex and violence to tell us that it’s not for kids? Sorry, that was a rhetorical question, so I’ll just answer it: No.

Okay, violence has consequences. How does that message require spurting blood and explicit sex? (And why keep kids away from philosophical musings?) I admit it’s been a long time since I read the original Watchmen comic, so I don’t remember exactly how “adult” it is, but I have long maintained that the phrase “gratuitous nudity” is pretty much redundant.

Lisa and I have been watching a lot of old movies lately, both rented and on the TCM channel. The other day we watched All About Eve, which as the DVD’s documentary points out is tied with Titanic for having the most Oscar nominations, and yet its biggest “action sequence” consists of Bette Davis descending a staircase.

Standards have loosened since the days of All About Eve, as far as the allowable levels of sex and violence in movies. But I believe they’ve become a crutch as well as a sledgehammer… an interesting mental picture, I know. It certainly wouldn’t make it any easier to walk.

Finally, I can tell people about my day job - I’m one of the developers on the Mac version of Picasa, which was finally announced to the public last week at the beginning of the MacWord Expo.

I was at the expo for a couple of days, giving demos and answering questions. Although it was tiring, it was fun because there was such a positive response to the product, in spite of the fact that a new version of iPhoto had just been announced.

It was my first time going to MacWorld since about 2001; before that I had gone pretty much every year since high school. It was interesting to see what had changed, which was mainly in the overall focus of the products. Lots of digital video and photography, lots of iPod/iPhone accessories. Aside from that, though, nothing much struck me as different. This was ironic, since this year turned out to be so significant in the history of MacWorld. No Steve Jobs keynote, and Apple won’t be coming back.

I had stopped going to MacWorld because WWDC was much more interesting. But I had forgotten how MacWorld gave me a glimpse into the larger Mac community, which WWDC really doesn’t do at all. So even though I wouldn’t go to shop for a new hard disk or something, I’m still tempted to go again next year just to see what people are doing.

The new iPhoto does looks cool, with its new Faces and Places features. I look forward to trying them out. If I had known what they were going to add to iMovie, I might not have put Final Cut Express on my Christmas list. I’m still disappointed that iDVD is getting left by the wayside. I think Apple is still premature in abandoning physical media like that, especially after having originally been late to the party with CD burning. I still want to burn my high-def movies to DVDs, and the only software I’ve found to do that easily still requires Windows. I explained my situation to one of the Apple reps at their booth. Hopefully he’ll pass it on.

I’m less likely to get the new iWork. Numbers is the only app in the suite that I use regularly, and none of the new features are all that exciting for me.

As for the new 17″ MacBook Pro… yeah, definitely tempting.

Lisa and I spent our first anniversary at Disney World. I figured, if it’s the Year of a Million Dreams, that averages to about 190,000 per week. As we reflected on the days we spent at each park (3 at Epcot, 2 at Animal Kingdom, 1 at Hollywood Studios, and a few hours at Magic Kingdom), we made lists of the best and worst things about our experiences.

Caribbean Beach Resort - We chose this one because it was one of the medium-priced hotels, and it looks to be the most centrally located. Like many of them, it’s situated around a small lagoon, which is a very nice setting. You can even see (and definitely hear) some of the Epcot fireworks.
Best: The Old Port Royal swimming pool. Surrounded by the walls of a colonial-era fort, with water slides and water-spouting cannons, plus of course a pirate ship, it has to be one of the coolest pools I’ve seen. Also, the hotel’s one restaurant, Shutters, turned out to be surprisingly good.
Worst: Tuesday night we came back to find that the card reader on our door had quit working. We had to wait for someone to come let us in and fix the door (which took over half an hour). This is also the first hotel we’ve seen in a long time that didn’t have free wireless Internet access. Instead it was $10/day, and you had to use the Ethernet cable on the nightstand. They could have at least put it by the table. (Reportedly they’re working on installing a wireless network.) And they didn’t quite keep up on replenishing our shampoo.

Magic Kingdom - As Disneyland annual pass holders, we approached this one more as a curiosity to see what was different. Main Street is essentially the same, just with taller buildings. After that you definitely know you’re in a different park.
Best: The mosaic in Cinderella’s castle. This is of course ignoring all the things that are the same as in Disneyland. It’s a huge mosaic with lots of interesting details.
Worst: Stitch’s Great Escape. It’s just not nearly as entertaining as it tries to be, and I don’t really think they got Stitch’s personality right. In all we agreed it was a waste of time. Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin was also a disappointment, inferior in practically every way to the Disneyland version, Buzz Lightyear’s Astro Blasters (which I think is newer). The pistols are much harder to aim, being attached to the vehicle; there’s no feedback when you hit a target, and you can’t email the photo.

Animal Kingdom - Half theme park, half zoo. Imagine Adventureland expanded into a whole park, with real animals. The theming of the Africa and Asia areas was really nice, while by contrast Dinoland seemed out of place as just a collection of dinosaur-themed carnival rides and games.
Best: The waiting areas for the two big rides were beautiful. Expedition Everest practically has its own museum. The safari itself is of course great, but there are also two “walking tour” style areas where you can see ever more animals, without the wait. Tusker House is probably the best place to eat, and had by far the best vegetarian selection of any place we saw the whole week. Lunch is buffet style, and it’s probably best to get there right at 11:30 as we did before it’s all picked over.
Worst: Pizzafari’s pizza. While my sandwich was pretty good, Lisa’s pizza tasted like something out of a supermarket freezer. Also, the poor anteater kept walking in the same circle over and over, even though his enclosure wasn’t that small. That just ain’t right.

Hollywood Studios (formerly Disney-MGM Studios) - Like California Adventure’s Hollywood Backlot expanded to a whole park, except this came first. It’s like Disney’s answer to the Universal Studios theme parks.
Best: Street performers on Hollywood Boulevard. There was almost always at least one performer. They were entertaining, and I think this is an excellent tradition. I had already thinking they should have more in Disneyland.
Worst: Crème brulée at the Brown Derby. It’s Lisa’s favorite dessert, and usually the automatic choice for her when it’s on the menu. For the first time, she regretted it. The top did not taste caramelized, and the custard didn’t taste fresh.

Epcot - After Walt died, they couldn’t decide what to do with the EPCOT idea, so they made two parks in one. One half, Future World, is a big Tomorrowland, and the other half is a sampling of various countries from around the world. I’ve always found the latter half, World Showcase, to be more interesting.
Best: Morocco. Maybe it’s because it was the least familiar, but this seemed like the most authentic and immersive of the country-themed areas. The Marrakesh restaurant had my favorite appetizer (the Cheese Sails) and dessert (baklava assortment) of the whole week.
Worst: Being directed to the wrong ferry dock, when it turned out we had been right next to the correct one, in the rain. Also, we don’t recommend the Sunshine Seasons restaurant, particularly the Asian counter which served dry, crunchy rice. We also debated whether the Journey Into Imagination ride was a bigger waste of time than Stitch’s Great Escape.

All in all, we had a blast, even though we wore out our feet with all the walking.

The other day I discovered how awesome Chuck Norris really is, through an article he wrote about the intolerance displayed by many of the opponents of Proposition 8.

What’s surprising (or maybe not so) is that even though 70 percent of African-Americans voted in favor of Proposition 8, protests against black churches are virtually nonexistent. And everyone knows exactly why: Such actions would be viewed as racist. Yet these opponents of Prop. 8 can protest vehemently and shout obscenities in front of Mormon temples without ever being accused of religious bigotry. There’s a clear double standard in our society. Where are the hate-crime cops when religious conservatives need them?

The truth is that the great majority of Prop. 8 advocates are not bigots or hatemongers. They are American citizens who are following 5,000 years of human history and the belief of every major people and religion: Marriage is a sacred union between a man and a woman. Their pro-Prop. 8 votes weren’t intended to deprive any group of its rights; they were safeguarding their honest convictions regarding the boundaries of marriage.

He also mentions that he “passionately opposed” Barack Obama for president, but I’ll forgive him that, especially since he mentions it to make the point that it is important to honor the democratic process.