It is amazing what movie makers can do now. Last Friday I went to the alien planet of Pandora, and lived the life of an arboreal savage in a world of extreme beauty and peril. Watching Jake Sully go alien, I could only marvel at the beauty and complexity of Pandora. Ah, to be young and strong and physically perfect living on another world–heck I’d be just as happy to be young and strong and physcially perfect on Earth.

James Cameron’s Avatar is a movie of transcendent beauty. It’s all computer generated effects, but there has never been such a gorgeous jungle planet. I want to go there. It doesn’t seem right that the atmosphere is poisonous to human beings. It’s a wonderful move. I give it five stars. Everyone should go see it.

But, like all science fiction and fantasy movies, check  your brain at the door.  Man has gone to the stars in slower than light ships–not much slower because they reach another star in a little over six years.  And they got lucky–real lucky. They found an earthlike planet with intelligent life. They also found a new mineral–unobtanium with anti-gravity powers. Stop right there! Unobtanium–give me a break! Is there an element in the whole periodic table with such a stupid name? No. If someone discovers a new mineral, they name it after themselves. Maybe this was discovered by a guy named Unobtan, but I doubt it.

The world is named Pandora.

If there’s one thing the critics don’t like about Avatar, it’s the story line of greedy Americans raping the planet for this mythical metal. Everything is driven by the quest for profit. The natives are sitting on top of the world’s biggest deposit of unobtanium–the natives have to go. If they won’t go peacefully, they’ll be forced to move, or killed. The military men in the Earth force would actually prefer the latter. What good is a fighting man if he doesn’t get to fight?

Now, the truth is that American buisness is greedy, and the profiteers will do whatever it takes to get those resources, make their money, but it isn’t just America that will do that. Every industrialized nation on Earth is like that. Making a profit is human nature.

However, the unobtanium was scattered all over the planet. They didn’t have to attack the Na’vi. If the movie didn’t call for an exciting battle between the forces of nature, and the ultra-mechanized might of Earth, then I don’t think the conflict would have happened. The payoff didn’t justify the risk.

So, let’s talk about some subtext that the critics are never going to get around to mentioning. That subtext is heroic humanity, brilliant humanity, compassionate humanity. Pandora is in orbit around Alpha Centauri. In this movie, we are the ones who figure out how to travel to the stars. We create the technology that gets us there. We are the ones who open communciations with the natives of Pandora, learning their language and teaching them ours. We are the ones who create Pandoran bodies that Earth humans can occupy. These are magnificent achievements. Humans are smart–very very smart.

Pandora is a strange and deadly world in alien space. Yet Men go there and set up a colony and start studying the place. Faced with the Unknown–faced with incredible dangers from flora, fauna, and atmosphere, Men (and Women) conquer it all, and go bravely into the most incredible situations. Fear of the unknown is a big fear. It hasn’t stopped Us in the past, and according to Cameron, it won’t stop Us in the future. In fact, Humanity loves the Unknown. We thrive on it. When the big showdown comes, the humans don’t show any less courage than the Na’vi in combat. Not a single coward is shown on either side. Moreover, the scientists who want to study and learn from the Na’vi risk their lives on the planet’s surface in pseudo-native bodies. The point of all this is: humans are courageous. Even the worst badguy, the ultimate military man, faced with giants beasts and savage men, and knowing that he’s going to die, never gives up, fights to the last. And bravest of all is Jake Scully–he overcomes his own body, the prejudices of both Earthmen and Na’vi, and the incredible challenges of the planet itself to become the leader of the resistance.  As a human being, he transcends his background and saves the Na’vi from his own kind.

Humans transcend mere biology. It is a human being who makes the leap that bridges the two worlds–not a Na’vi. Even when Cameron is showing how pure and brave the Na’vi are, it is ultimately a story of human superiority. If the human scientists and our hero hadn’t been brave and compassionate, the Na’vi would have been wiped out.

So, people may read this as another movie about bad civilization and good primitiveness, but it isn’t. It’s about following your heart and doing what you think is right. And if you do that, then you’ll probably get killed doing it.

But, do it anyway. Cameron says follow your heart, and rejoice in your Humanity, because with all Our faults, We are still Lords of Creation, Masters of the Universe. And no one lives forever.

End

In brightest day, in blackest night, no evil shall escape my sight, let those who worship evil’s might, beware my power–Green Lantern’s light!

Duh! What is evil? Green Lanterns know it when they see it.

One of my favorite comics from D.C. has always been Green Lantern. I always wanted to be Hal Jordan–gifted with a ring that would enable me to do anything I could imagine. Of course, Hal was supposed to be without fear, and I, being a normal human being have plenty of fear. Chicken is one of my middle names, along with Stupid, Insensitive, and Klutzy. Needless to say, I don’t mention those names on any official forms.

But, if willpower and imagination counted for anything, then I should have one of those magic rings. Reading those comics all my life, I’ve come to see how abysmally stupid and limited the ring wielders are. It’s like they never once sat down and asked themselves what they could really do with a ring like that.

First of all, the ring’s description says it’s powers are only limited by the imagination of the wielders–imagination and willpower. Some comic writer, i forget who, but it was probably Gardner Fox, once suggested that the rings were only placebos–the true power came from the will power and the minds of the wielders, but everyone else seems to think the power comes from the rings, and that it’s limited to a 24-hour charge.

That’s a weird concept–why 24 hours? Surely that time period has no meaning anywhere else in the galaxy than Earth?  But let’s say the ring can hold X amount of power, let’s call X one hundred percent. In order to recharge the rings, every wielder has a power battery. One would think that ring-slingers would want that battery on hand at all times, and they should find some way to take it with them, not leave it lying around the airplane hanger like Hal always did.

The rings can communicate over distance–do telepathy, act as a scanner. Why can’t they power up over distance? I bet they could if anyone ever had the imagination to order it. So, the whole running out of power thing should never happen, and Lanterns should never lose their power batteries.

Lately, a lot of Green Lanterns have died. In Emerald Twilight, Hal Jordan went mad with grief and killed everyone who stood in his path. Why? Why do Lanterns die? If I were a Lantern, the first thing I’d do is use the ring’s power to make myself invulnerable to harm. Projectiles of all sorts would either bounce off or harmlessly dissipate–the ring’s forcefield would automatically counter them all. Sound waves would be acoustically countered. Poisons would be filtered out and neutralized by little green nanobots in my bloodstream. If I did get injured, I’d have the ring fix me. Why cant the rings do medicine? Failure of will? It is no more difficult to mend a broken arm than to fly unprotected through interstellar space at warp speeds. And it would all be done by standing orders. Green Lanterns shoud be like Superman, unharmable by most of the things in the universe.

For most of D.C.’s history Green Lanterns weren’t supposed to kill. That seems like a good rule–killing is so final. What are you supposed to do with a horrendous evil bad guy who won’t stop attacking, and who won’t change, if you can’t kill him? How about paralyzing them? All voluntary muscle control negated by the power of the ring. You could leave autonomic functions so that the bad guy could breathe, digest food, and excrete. That would stop most of them. How about simply slowing down the speed of thought by  a factor of one hundred or one thousand or one million? It would take so long for the bad guy to think of what he wanted to say or do that ordinary humans could walk up and carry him away. How about teleporting the bad guys to another galaxy? How about accellerating their metabolic processes to the point where they grew old and died in minutes? I tell  you that not many would dare to mess with the Green Lanterns if they took that kind of action against their foes.

Green Lanterns are always firing off force blasts of pure concussive energy–good for knocking things down or back, and not much else. Sufficiently powerful enemies just shrug those off. How about firing off rays of concentrated microwave radiation that would so accellerate the atoms of whatever they touched that the recipient would burn up or explode on contact? Let’s say they have a moral code against doing that to living beings? Most of their enemies have physcial tools of some sort, from ray guns to super space dreadnaughts. How about just blowing up all the weapons that the Weaponeers of Qward use? Boom!

How about being pro-active, seeking out their known enemies remotely, and then just blowing up all the enemies’ tools and weapons?  Don’t tell me they can’t use those rings for remote viewing.  Each Green Lantern is responsible for a considerable volume of galactic space. How do they watch over dozens or hundreds of planets? That is never explained. If I had that responsibilty, you can bet there would be a green monitor on every single planet in my territory, especially those with life. If there was a catastrophe, I would know, and I’d be there to fix it.  The Green Lanterns in the DC universe seem to either hang around Oa waiting for the Guardians to send them off, or stay on their homeworlds looking after the home population. That’s not right.

And while I’m talking about failure of imagination, let’s consider the imaginations of the DC writing staff. The Green Lantern corps has 3600 members who are supposed to police the universe, although it seems to be just the Milky Way galaxy that they cover.  There are about one hundred billion stars in our galaxy alone. If the load were distributed fairly, that leaves each Green Lantern with 27,777,778 stars to watch over. If only one star in a thousand has life and civilization, that leaves each Green Lantern to care for 27,777 different races.   Let’s make life really rare. Only one star in a million supports intelligent life. That leaves each Green Lantern looking after 27 different full time civilizations. That’s more than enough to keep one person busy.

In short, it seems like no one has ever really sat down and thought seriously about the whole idea of Green Lanterns in the galaxy.  I love the color, the scope, the sheer science fictional brilliance of the Green Lantern books, but the overwhelming idiocies associated with them are enough to drive any moderately intelligent reader away.

And I could probably go on for another ten pages talking about discrepancies in the Green Lantern universe. I won’t. Just believe I know I’ve barely scratched the surface of the GL problem. I leave it to you readers to point out some of the other idiocies of the whole epic.

end

This blog was originally meant to be about things that entertain me–movies, books, parties, even emails could qualify. The internet is all about entertainment, when it isn’t all about getting your money. 🙂

I got another scam letter from Nigeria today, and it sparked an idea.  My guess is that the brightest minds of Africa are working on these scams, making things ever more plausible and entertaining in hopes of finding that one in a million gullible person who will fall for it and give them money. I’ll reproduce the one I got so you can see just how hard they work at trying to make this unbelievable scam believable. (and it doubles the size of this blog, thus making it more entertaining)  Here it is:

Greetings to you,I have kept a close monitoring of the account since then and nobody has come forward to claim the  money as next of kin to the late Mr. Ziya Bazhayev meaning that no one is aware of the account. I can not directly take out this money without the help of a foreigner and that is why I am contacting you for an assistance to claim the funds and share it with me.

This letter must come to you as a big surprise, but I believe it is only a day that people meet and become great friends and business partners.My name is Mr.Zuma Kalu the present branch Manager of a bank here in Nigeria West Africa.

I write you this proposal in good faith, believing that I can trust you with the information I am about to reveal to you. Like I said, I have a transaction that will benefit both of us, as your assistance is required as a foreigner.

I use to head the Accounts department in my bank head office, but last December I was asked to take position of a Manager of our branch in Lagos who passed on,so that was how I became the present Manager and discovered a fortune. As I resumed duty, I discovered an account with total sum of $10.5 million that has not been operated on for the past 4 years.From my investigation,I found out that this account belongs to one Late Mr. Ziya Bazhayev a Russian big time Oil dealer, who unfortunately lost his life in the Air France Concorde  on July 26, 2000.

You will read more news about the crash on visiting these site;
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/851119.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/859479.stm

(Atroll speaking–this is clever–first time I’ve seen scammers try to reinforce the hustle with a link to something that actually happened.)

As the Manager of my bank branch, I have the power to influence the release of the funds to any foreigner that comes up as the next of kin to the account, with the correct information concerning the account, which I shall give you.I am seeking your co -operation to present you as the next of kin to the account.

There is practically no risk involved, the transaction will be executed under a legitimate arrangement that will protect you from any breach of law.If you accept to work with me, I want you to state how you wish us to share the funds in percentage, so that both parties will be satisfied. Contact me as soon as you receive this message if you feel we can work together,so as to give you more details.

Thanking you in advance and may God bless you.

Please, treat with utmost confidentiality.

I wait your urgent response.

Regards,
Mr.Kalu

Sorry, Mr. Kalu (not really), no confidentiality for you. This is a scam, and you’re a crook, and I don’t believe for a second  you have any banking connections at all. Love that name, tho. Zuma Kalu, a fantasy character name if I ever saw one.

This is my idea, and my question. Would it be plagiarism to put together a book consisting entirely of these scam letters?  What if I interjected snide remarks after each letter? Would it be entertaining enough that anyone would buy and read it? Would it serve a purpose as an object lesson and warning? Would anybody publish it for me?  If I did it, am I an author, an editor, or an anthologist? Or all three?

Would the scammers put a hit out on me for exposing them this way?

Would such a book benefit from including the scam letters from all over the rest of the world? It’s just amazing how many lotteries I’ve won that I never even entered.  I could easily do a chapter on winning the lottery.

And then how about all those women who never met me but have a secret crush on me? And all those women in Russia who want to have my baby? You know there is plenty of material available for a book about internet scams, and yet I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. I don’t think I’ve ever looked for one, though. Maybe I should do that  first.

I don’t think I’ll do the book, but it was fun to think about for a little while. A quick check of Amazon netted 1355 hits for book searches on internet scams and hoaxes.  Or, if I do, I’ll really have to find an angle that plays it for laughs–there are plenty of serious warnings already. Darn! For a few minutes there, I imagined that I had an original thought.

And remember, if someone makes you an offer that is too good to be true, then it isn’t true. You can’t cheat an honest man. If someone invites you into a dishonest scheme, then the person who will get cheated is you.

end

Greetings, O Generous Ones

     Please respond if you’d like to participate in the White Shoggoth exchange on Sunday, December 20 during the Trollhalla Online Midwinter party (TrOMP).

I need 2 emails from you. The first one looks like this:

Khenn, count me in. I have wrapped up a white shoggoth and it looks like this: rectangular, four inches wide by 6 inches tall by one inch thick. Plain heavy brown paper tied in a bow with goblin guts.

The second one looks like this:

Unwrapping the package you find it’s a paperback book: Tarzan of the Grapes, National Lampoon Press, c. 1969. Cover art by Fred Frazetta showing Tarzan (in his cups) armwrestling with a baboon.

Mark these emails with your trollish name and Shoggoth 1 and Shoggoth 2.  All the shoggoth 1 items will be posted in a list for members to choose from. Once an item is chosen, I will open the shoggoth 2 letter and post it on the walla.

Remember to keep your items relatively light. To participate  you should be willing to mail the item anywhere in the world. Sending heavy things to different continents can be very expensive.

Remember also that the white shoggoth should be something you already own and would be willing to give away to a good home. This is a gift for a member of Trollhalla, so it should be something relatively nice, but not exorbitant. The idea is to share the wealth, not to do conspicuous consumption.

Yes, those of you who feel more generous may do extra presents to be offered to those who would like to participate, but weren’t prepared. I’ll probably chip in 2 or 3 items.

Stealing the Shoggoth

When someone unwraps a shoggoth and reveals it, you may feel that really should have been your present. At that time you may attempt to steal it. Unarmed combat rolls will be made, 1D6 plus your combat adds and the winner gets the present. Only one steal attempt will be allowed per member. If you steal Tarzan of the Grapes from Ea, and then decide  you’d rather have the 40th anniversary gold edition of Nuclear War that just got unwrapped by Cathal, you won’t be allowed to steal a second time.  The robbed person will then get to choose another shoggoth until he/she finally gets to keep the gift.

If you steal a shoggoth, you forfeit your chance to pick one.

All disputes will be settled by the trollgod on the spot.

Let’s have some fun with this!

H’aaarrrggghhh!
Khenn Arrth

Greetings,

     I don’t know if anyone has ever used a blog to send out an online party invitation before, but what I have to say is much too long to post on Twitter and Facebook. Still, if you consider yourself a friend of Tunnels and Trolls, or of Ken St. Andre, then you’re invited.  See the invitation and rules below.

Greetings, O Funloving Ones!

I intend to host the first ever online virtual party at Trollhalla on Sunday, December 20, from 3 to 6 p.m. Arizona time. YOU ARE ALL INVITED TO ATTEND–even those of you who never sign in here. Please come on by. I think we’ll have a very good time.

If you don’t know your login and password, simply email me this week, and I’ll tell you.

If you know anyone who likes T & T, but isn’t a member of Trollhalla, have them email me, and I’ll give them a temporary login for the party.

This should be simple. you login, you put things on the walla, you read what other people put on the walla, and you have a good time. Every time you post something on the walla, your screen will refresh, and you’ll get to see what everyone else has posted.

There will be doorprizes. There will be games. There will be chances to earn tvp at the party.
Bring your own drinks and goodies to eat.

I am thinking of ending the December 2009 month at 2:55 p.m. Arizona time, thus starting everyone on Trollhalla at the same time. There will be a grand prize to be announced to whoever earns the most tvp during the course of the party.

You know, with the right knowledge on your part, much more than words can be posted on the walla. Extra tvp will be given to those who entertain by posting pictures, videos, cartoons, whatever.

Party music will be provided by Corencio the dj on blip.fm.

December 20th seemed like the best date to get as many people as possible before true Christmas obligations kick in. 3 to 6 p.m. should make it possible for even those of you in Europe to get on between 9 and midnight your time at a reasonable party time. I don’t know what time it will be for those of you in Australia and New Zealand, but I hope it won’t be too early in the morning for you to attend.

It’s a party, folks. Please leave your animosities behind, and let’s have some fun.

H’aaarrrggghhh!
Khenn Arrth

You have to be able to login to Trollhalla to attend this party. All Trollhalla members have passwords and logins. If you want to come, but you’re not a member of Trollhalla, you must rsvp to this blog and send an email to me: kenstandre@yahoo.com. Do that, and I will give you a login that will work on the day of the party only.

Of course, you could have even more fun if you joined Trollhalla between now and next Sunday. The price is right. Free!

Ho ho ho!

Ken St. Andre

I was thinking about the different categories of gamers in the world. There are so many different ways to divide things. Here are some terms I came up with: noob, power gamer, alpha gamer, beta gamer, notta gamer, grognard, and finally omega gamer. Then I got to thinking about where I fit on this loose scale of gamerishness.

A noob is a beginner. Since I am an ancient 62 years old, and have been gaming as far back as I can remember, I’m not a noob to gaming. But, in another sense, I am a noob, and will always be a noob. There are so many games that I’ve never played, or have just looked at. After 35 years of role-playing, I’ve only played actual Dungeons and Dragons less than ten times. That makes me a D & D noob, for sure. I love Greg Stafford’s Runequest game, but have only played it 2 or 3 times in 35  years. Noob! And the same is true for virtually every other role playing game out there. The only rpg I’ve really played a lot of is Tunnels and Trolls, and I created that one. So, I’m a noob–no getting around that. There are plenty of other games that I’ve never played–card games, board games, mind games. Noob, noob, noob. Maybe I should just list the games where I’m not a noob. T & T, Magic, Shadowfist, Bridge, Poker, Risk, Diplomacy, Monopoly, Chess, Scrabble, a few dozen others that don’t leap to mind. I think we’re all noobs, so let’s not get bent about that.

The power gamer is the person who gets off on winning, on crushing his foes and humiliating them. He’s the guy with the biggest collection of rulebooks, and the most dice, and the boxes full of magic cards. It hurts the power gamer to lose–they tend to look for circles of beta gamers they can dominate to feed their own self importance. Those people who live from tournament to tournament are power gamers. And no, I don’t fit the power gamer stereotype.

An Alpha gamer  is someone that plays a key role in connecting with the concept behind a product, then adopting that product, and finally validating it for the rest of society–in this case, other gamers. (I modified that definition from the definition of an alpha consumer on Wikipedia.) That would make an alpha gamer the guy who spends a lot of his time introducing people to games that he likes. I was thinking that I’m not an alpha gamer, but I guess I really am. I love teaching people how to play Tunnels and Trolls, or Magic, or Shadowfist, or Scrabble or any of the games I play. But, teaching people how to play games really isn’t my mission in life–it’s just something I do in order to have fun and hopefully improve their lives. So, as alpha gamers go, I’m not very alpha-like at all.

I made up the term beta gamer. A beta gamer is someone who just likes to play games once in a while. It’s not very high on their list of things to do, but they can enjoy the gaming experience when it comes along. Winning is nice, but they don’t care whether they win or lose. Most people are probably beta gamers whether they know it or not. They are the sane ones.

The notta gamer is another term I made up. That person is not a gamer. He/she doesn’t like games. She/he avoids them. Notta gamers are no fun to gamers. They need to be converted into noobs at the very least.

A Grognard is French for “grumbler”. It is not necessarily pejorative and is sometimes used as a compliment. Historically it meant a soldier in Napoleon’s army, particularly a member of the Old Guard.

“Grognard” came to mean a veteran wargamer in the early 1970s. It was first used by John Young, at that time an employee of SPI, and subsequently popularised by Strategy & Tactics magazine. I tend to think of a grognard as someone who is obsessed with the rules–knows them all, and insists on enforcing them. You mostly see grognards in miniatures, and they have their own ranks and rankings. Ordinary grognards look up to uber-grognards and down on pseudo-grognards. I’m not a grognard.

And that brings me to the last category. Omega is the end. If alpha gamers are the leaders in the field and beta gamers are the followers, then omega gamers are the ones who chart their own paths–not caring whether they are leading or following. Power doesn’t matter to them. They’ve been around for a while, usually a long while. Gaming is an end for them. Gaming makes them happy, and they’re often willing to play just about any game that someone else is interested in–it’s for that wonderful gaming experience.

I really think I’m an omega gamer. How about you?

End

I was in a movie theatre for the end of the world. For me it came on Saturday morning, November 28, 2009, but the film claimed it was December 2012.

You may have seen disaster movies before, but you have to see this one. I went to see it for laughs, but let’s ignore all the impossibilities and ask ourselves if it was a good movie. The answer is yes. You get to know and care about the characters in it. I was on the edge of my seat, eyes glued to the screen for the last two hours of the film.

As disasters go, the cause of the problem in 2012 is almost believable. Almost. I liked it when the scientist/hero learned that neutrinos were causing the earth’s core to overheat, and said that was impossible. I liked it when the researchers who discovered the effect just pointed to the equipment. Are we really so sure what’s possible and what isn’t? An enormous increase in solar activity (solar activity is increasing as we read this) causes the earth’s molten core to heat up. This causes intense volcanic activity all over the world, and earthquakes of gigantic proportions. The earthquakes cause tidal waves big enough to sweep over continents. If the shaking and the explosions, and the deadly gases released into the atmosphere don’t kill you, the floods will.

The movie follows the efforts of one heroic man, a wannabe science fiction writer who is really a chauffer for a rich Russian billionaire. He learns that the end is near, and that there is supposedly a safe place to go, and decides to save his family–even though his wife has divorced him and his son resents him. He learns all this in Yellowstone, which is probably one of the first places that would erupt–partly from government scientists who are monitoring the site, and partly from a crazy radio announcer  (Woody Harrelson does over-the-top crazy characters in film better than any other American actor, IMHO) who has put all the clues together–and there have been plenty of clues in the last three years. He not only gets back to Los Angeles in time to get his family out, but also returns to Yellowstone to try and rescue the nutso announcer and get the map showing where the arks are being built. This is the ludicrous part of the film, and I laughed all the way through the sinking of California and the eruption of Yellowstone. But, the special effects were great. If you like celluloid destruction, the effects were beyond awesome. The movie trailers only hint at the incredible escalating catastrophe. I haven’t been this blown away by a movie’s special effects since opening day of Star Wars back in 1977.

The scientific speculation in 2012 is interesting. If the Earth’s core got hotter, it would cause more volcanic activity. If you were building arks to ride out such a storm, you’d probably want to put them in either the Himalayas or the Andes. If the world was coming to an end, and the government knew about it, they’d save government officials/employees and the rich who could help finance the work. They probably would kill everyone who figured it out and tried to spill the beans.

There is some great acting in the movie. It comes mostly from the bit players. The kids are all excellent. I love watching child actors. They really get into the story. Woody Harrelson as the crazy Yellowstone disk jockey is worth the price of the movie by himself. His internet web page about the end of the world is priceless, brilliant satire of the web in general.

When it was over, I got to wondering. If governments knew the end was coming soon, would they help make such movies with financing and influence on the sly just to prepare the people for the end? Call me paranoid, but it seems like just the sort of thing our U.S. government would do.  They’d probably take a share of the money the movie made too.

 I have seen the end of the world as we know it, and I wouldn’t live through it. Neither would you. Neither would the stars of this movie. They should have died a dozen times or more, but if they die, there’s no movie, so I’ll accept all the impossibilities that kept them alive. The end of the world will be a time for heroes, and 2012 gives us heroes we can all identify with.

I could say a lot more for 2012. The movie gives us all a lot to think about, and it does it by laying all the messages between the lines. The big theme is the end of the world. Great special effects–laughed all the way through that. What makes the movie worth seeing is the many vignettes that talk about what it means to be human. The movie is best when you see a child fighting to save his father, when you see a nerd protesting that he’s not a pilot (but he has to be or they will all die), when you see a woman risking her life to save her dog, when you see a disk jockey broadcasting live from the lip of an erupting volcano. 

I thought I was going to 2012 just to spend time with son and friends and get a few laughs. I wound up really enjoying the film. Ignore the impossibilities–just watch the people. I guarantee a good time.

End

(I meant to put a still from the film in here, but this uploading pictures doesn’t work nearly as smoothly as it should. I guess I need more practice. But if you wanna see pictures, you know how to use Google. Look it up. There are pictures enough from the film for those who care to look.)