Gamera

Many daikaiju reflect something far greater.  For instance, Godzilla was a reflection of the horror of nuclear waste and its affects on humankind.

...Gamera, on the other hand, started out as a character who was mostly just competition to Godzilla.  Nothing a whole lot deeper.

Regardless, Gamera is not without his merits.  

Gamera begins is a surprisingly Western-style movie.

While the movie offers no point except that all problems have a safe solution, and science can be used for good, Gamera's first movie is still rich with decent ideas, starting with his cast, such as the first major "Kenny" of the Gamera franchise, Toshio.

The first "Kenny" of the Gamera franchise, the first boy to see good in him, Toshio developed an attachment to turtles because his biological mother died when he was very little, and her last gift to him was apparently a terrapin named Pee-Wee.  So he was attached to the turtle and took only the best care of Pee-Wee.

Ken inaccurately concludes that Pee-Wee changed into Gamera, perhaps hoping that Pee-Wee was still somewhere to be found.

When he learns that Gamera was globe-trotting, he reminds the adults that Gamera could be lonely, which may actually be true, given that Gamera is quite likely the last of his kind; we've never seen any other Gameras flying about.

Gamera could be treated as a metaphor for man's relationship with scientific advancements, powers we ourselves unleashed that are seemingly beyond our own control, but are ultimately not evil by themselves, only evil because we use them for evil, or at least don't find good uses for them.  Some discoveries are best treated perhaps with the faith and innocence of a child, to only use them in ways that would help people and make them happy, as Gamera would continue to do long after his first movie, regularly saving people and bringing them joy.

Also, no Gamera movies are without songs!

Doctor Who: Captain Jack Harkness

Few characters of this series have drawn more fan fascination than Captain Jack Harkness.

What is the actual explanation behind his popularity?

Was it his dashing good looks? Perhaps, but many companions looked good, including some who actually ended up tremendously unpopular, such as Mel.

Was it his flamboyant expression of LGBT inclinations? Perhaps, but some people who were actually LGBT actually found him slightly pandering and too stereotypically hypersexual, and thus not really their best representation, and frankly, I don't blame them either.

But the main secret to the character's success is probably not difficult to explain:

Comedy.  Captain Jack Harkness had to be one of the single funniest companions the Doctor ever had.  His blunt innuendos pushed all boundaries of decency to the point in which it was hard not to be amused by them.

But he was more than just a funny guy.  Jack Harkness' expression of comedy was often his coping mechanism for the variously dangerous situations he was in, and his means of breaking down tension with the often intense Ninth Doctor, meaning he was not only hilarious, but also a vital means of changing the story's tension, whilst making the story feel more alive and believable to fans watching the show.

But it's only natural.  Like most good characters, Jack Harkness had many sources and underwent lots of changes, which is usually how one creates characters that naturally fit and connect with many others as he did.  His origins lay in the Marvel Comics witch, Agatha Harkness, who was every bit as prone to character development and secret-keeping as he was.  Loosely based on her, Russel T. Davies constructed the character around the idea that he would begin as a cowardly character who would become extremely courageous towards the end, starting as somebody who hid in the shadows and exploited others, but grew into somebody who faced down the Daleks without any shred of fear.

Because of his very peculariar and highly specific function, Jack Harkness unsurprisingly ceased to be the companion when the Ninth Doctor got replaced by the more energetic Tenth.

Of course, this is the good Captain's story function.  What you probably came for was a tribute, and I will never fail to deliver in this area!

How Xehanort Stole Kingdom Hearts

Everybody in the Realm of Light liked the Light a lot.
But Xehanort! Who lived in the Keyblade Graveyard, did not.

Xehanort hated the Light, and all sunny seasons.
Now please don't ask why, no one knows quite the reasons.

It could be that his head wasn't screwed on just right.
It could be that his boots were just too tight.
But I think that the most likely reason to bark
Was that his heart, was two shades too dark.

But whatever the reason, his heart or his boots
He stood there, waiting, hating the coots.
Staring down from his ledge with a sour, X-Blade frown,
As the dwellers of light lit the lights of Disney Town.
For he know that every toon down beneath
Was busy hanging up a Wayfinder wreathe.

"And they're brandishing keyblades!" he said with a sneer,
"We're surrounded by Light! It's practically here!"
Then he growled, with his Heartless fingers mercilessly drumming,
"I must find a way to stop the Light from coming!"

For tomorrow, he knew...

All the toon girls and boys,
They'd wake bright and early.
They'd rush for their toys!

Oh, and all the noise, noise, noise!
That's one thing he'd hate.
All the noise noise noise!

And then, they'd sit down to a feast.

And they'd feast!
And they'd feast!
And they'd feast, feast, feast, feast!
They'd feast on vanilla pudding
And on animated beasts
Which was something Xehanort couldn't stand in the least.

Then!
They'd do something Xehanort liked least of all
Every toon, the tall and the small
Would stand together, with the town bells ringing
Every toon would join their hands
And start singing!

And they'd sing! And they'd sing!
And they'd sing, sing, sing!
And the more Xehanort thought of this toon Christmas sing
The more Xehanort thought, "I must stop this whole thing!"
Why, for seventy-five years, I've put up with it now!
I must stop this from coming...but how?"

The significance of appearances: Ansem and Xemnas

Many fans treat Ansem as though he was nothing more than a mere extension of Xehanort, and Xemnas as though he were Terra's Nobody.

I'm going to explain why this view is completely wrong.

First, there is physical appearance.

On a first glance, Ansem may more closely resemble Xehanort due to his similar fashion sensibilities, but upon a second inspection, his face has its similarities, but also its differences.  His hair and skin color is Xehanort enough, but many of his other facial features are a mix of Xehanort and Terra.  First there are the eyebrows, which have a shape halfway between that of Xehanort's and Terra's, and the same is true about his chin.  As for the nose, it's more prominent and pointy, like Terra's, and he has round Terra ears.

As for his personality and motivations, they still lean most strongly towards that of Xehanort's, but not without Terra's distinctive streak of seeking out more wisdom in the process (not that gaining more wisdom ever seems to do Terra any good; his learning curve is flatter than Larxene's chest).

All in stark contrast to Xemnas.

Xemnas has prominent cheekbones and a straight, flat nose, his chin is very much the same as Xehanort's.

So if he's at least partially Terra's body, why does he look almost exactly like a 30-year-old Xehanort, and also act very much as his own person?

This boils down to what Nobodies are.

Nobodies are more than just reanimated bodies without hearts.  They are actually primarily the outlines, the impacts that hearts leave in this world, inhabiting the bodies left behind.  To understand this, try imagining making a footprint in the sand.  Then for some reason, your body loses your heart to darkness, and it triggers something in the sandy footprint.  The old body falls apart and rebuilds itself from scratch, but without the heart, in the footprint.

The result is that Nobodies won't always look identical to their complete counterparts if their complete counterparts were storing other hearts.  Case in point? Roxas.  Sora stored part of Ventus' heart inside of himself, and so when he became a Heartless, the imprint Ventus' heart made on the multiverse took over the fading body, giving it a new life and personality of its own, resulting in an individual easily distuishable from both Sora and Ventus.

Xemnas is no different.

Terra-Xehanort, or as he's more popularly known, "Terranort", had elements of the hearts of both Xehanort, and Terra.  As a direct result, the Heartless is both Xehanort and Terra, but Xemnas is different.  Xemnas may be Terra's body, but the imprint of his heart animating him is Xehanort's, resulting in an almost wholly Xehanortian appearance, and yet, because he was just a heart outline that filled itself with its own experiences and connections, Xemnas has come to assume much of his own identity apart from those of both Xehanort and Terra.

Whosday: Susan Foreman

Because the show Doctor Who was never meant to be exclusively about the Doctor, it naturally meant that his earliest companions were all fleshed out, and who better to talk about than the very first onscreen companion, Susan Foreman?

Susan was the pseudonym of the Doctor's granddaughter, back when the Doctor was basically meant to look even more elderly than the actor playing him was, and not the reverse (to the point where William Hartnell always wore a wig and sometimes a cap to conceal his hairline in order to make his Doctor look old), and so it would not have seemed strange at all that the Doctor had a granddaughter.

The 1960s was also probably the most emotionally mature decade of the show (in a similar fashion to how the 1970s was perhaps the most intellectually mature decade of the show, but that's a whole other article) until the revival in the 21st century, and thus that meant that there was sometimes interpersonal conflict, and there was sometimes strong sentiments towards other characters.  Susan often expressed this the most, seeing the world with young, innocent eyes in contrast to the more paranoid and cynical worldview of her grandfather, the Doctor, and so they often clashed, such as when she did whatever she could to defend the innocence of her Earth teachers, and later the Sensorites.  

She was also, being essentially the youngest of the TARDIS team, was often depicted as the most vulnerable both physically and emotionally, often needing rescuing by both of the Doctor's other companions, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright.  However, unlike Ian and Barbara, Susan's personality was not always too terribly fleshed out, depite how emotionally mature the show was and how much effort there was into making Ian and Barbara multidimensional.  However, given that Barbara was a highly complex character, this probably has almost nothing to do with Susan being a girl, and everything to do with how young her character was, especially when one takes into account that the most clearly defined personality traits of Susan were her insatiable curiosity (a trait she may have gained from her equally inquisitive Grandfather), general lack of guile, stubbornness (a trait she also shared with her grandfather), strong sense of justice towards the innocent, and her morbid sense of humor (also a trait of the First Doctor's).

However, this article desribed Susan's personality and her role in the show, not her history.  To learn Susan's history, I suggest you watch this video:

Musical Monday: So This is Love

Cinderella may not have the same dark panache as other Princess movies, but it undoubtedly had one of the more likeable leading characters.  It is therefore hard to believe that Cinderella was subject to a particularly troubled production by Disney standards, having at least eight people heavily involved in the development of the story.  While these numerous writers played a valuable role in developing the Cinderella character, Cinderella's likeability can also be attributed to her voice actress, Ilene Woods.

Of course, Ilene Woods is a stage name.  Her real name was Jaqueline Ruth Woods.  She was born in 1929, and her mother worked behind the scenes of film sets.  Jaqueline herself had dreams of becoming a schoolteacher, but had eventually followed her mother's footsteps and pursued a career in cinema.

Whoever deserves the most credit for Cinderella's likeability, in the end, she became Walt Disney's favorite Princess, because her work and her efforts to get somewhere struck a chord with Walt, who had to deal with an unpredictable father and had struggled with being recognized in his early days as an artist.

She sang multiple songs for Cinderella, such as this one, So This Is Love, a romantic ballad between Cinderella and Prince Charming.

This would be the first duet between a Disney Princess and a Prince (though sadly not the first Prince with personality of his own; that wouldn't be a thing until Sleeping Beauty's release around 1959, nine years after the release of Cinderella).  It was originally meant to show her dancing on a cloud to symbolize how she felt from looking into his eyes, but this was changed because, barring the talking mice and the fairy Godmother, Cinderella has fairly few fantasy elements and Disney wanted to keep it that way.

Her life leading up to her death was truly a sad story: She developed Alzheimer's Disease, and not only forgot that she sang this song, but forgot that she ever voiced Cinderella in the first place.  However, she liked another Cinderella song, A Dream is a Wish your Heart Makes, and would take comfort every time she heard it play in the nursing home, and it was played as often as possible until her death in July 1, 2010.

The Science of the Heart

Tired of the fake hearts and the sugary candy? Want to talk about the bleeding human heart instead?

Gladly!

Perhaps the most fascinating thing about the heart is that it keeps beating on its own, without us ever having to conciously think about it.  This is because the heart actually has ganglia surrounding it, sometimes called the heart-brain.  That means that basically, the heart sends more information to the brain than the brain does to the heart, and the heart doesn't merely keep beating because of signals from the brain, but also because of the very nervous system it is tied to.

Seuss Saturday: The 500 Lives of John Snow

In the beginning, John Snow didn't have 500 lives.  He had only one life.  It was a normal life that came from his parents.  It was the simplest life in all of Westeros,  but Jon liked it well enough.

Part of Westeros was ruled by King Jophery.  His palace stood high on the top ofive the mountain.   From his balcony, he looked down over the houses of all of his subjects.  First, over the spires of the nobleman'so castles,  across the broad roofs of the rich men'should mansions, then over the little houses of the townsfolk, to the huts of the farmers far off in the fields.

The History of Animation: Richard Williams

Richard Williams is probably one of the single most talented animators that there ever was.

He had a long history animating that began with The Little Island, a highly philosophical cartoon that explores tons of different ideas.

When one observes The Little Island, it is difficult to believe that this would be the same man who'd animated Raggedy Anne and Andy's Musical Adventure and Who Framed Rodger Rabbit.

Oh yeah, he did that one!

One cannot discuss this man's work without mentioning The Thief and the Cobbler.

It was his passion project for years and years of his life, and really, everything he did, such as Raggedy Anne and Andy's Musical Adventure, were merely for-hire jobs he took so that he could fund his passion project.  However, over the nearly twenty years he worked on it, all on his own, he made only about twenty minutes.  Eventually, there was no choice but to unveil compromised versions of the story, which is really sad, because try to watch any version of this story, and try to remind yourself that it involved almost no computers at all.  I dare you.

• The Recobbled Cut can, in various editions, be found online. 

What if Anakin Loved Sand?

Isn't sand marvelous?

Oh sure, it's not as soothing as the tides of the beach, but sand is still marvelous; you can make it into sand castles, and it can warm you up when you're cold after a nice awkward walk through the waves getting your nuts ice-cold.  But not everybody sees it that way.  Anakin Skywalker certainly didn't.  But what if he did? Here, Star Wars Theory provides a highly insightful answer to the raging question: What if Anakin loved sand?

There is no soft, there is only the COURSE
With smooth, there must come the ROUGH
Through will, I plow through the IRRITATING
Through perseverance, my will shall go EVERYWHERE
The SAND shall make me strong.

Love in Godzilla: 1954

Godzilla has tons of these, the love triangle.  Almost every Godzilla movie has one.  While the execution is generally unexciting, the idea behind it is generally interesting.  Here, the general idea involves this:

Love triangle.  A guy almost 40 named Daisuke Serizawa.  Emiko Yamane, daughter of a paleo-biologist.  Hideo Ogata, the handsome, dashing sea captain.

Emiko was betrothed to Serizawa.  However, Ogata is in the way.  She prefers Ogata.

However, Serizawa has to reveal his greatest secret, the Oxygen Destroyer, which, how it works? A fascinating discussion by itself! However, that is not currently important.  What is important? Serizawa is afraid that if his invention is used as a weapon, it will be a weapon of Mass Destruction more powerful than any nuclear weapon.

When he activates the Oxygen Destroyer, to preserve his weapon's secrets, he ultimately ends himself, telling Emiko and Ogata to be happy together.  Thus, he sacrifices himself twofold by doing so.

Yeah, maybe not the most well-thought love triangle.  No, real love is not really often explored deeply in the media.

However, the ideas behind the connections we have are often executed and explained in interesting ways in these stories, and Godzilla is seldom  different.

Whosday: Nine and Rose

Doctor Who has provided many interesting ships throughout its duration, and few draw as many questions as the Ninth Doctor and Rose.

However, there have been clear explanations about it, some throughout the show itself.

Cheem can't comprehend the Doctor and Rose having anything other than a relationship, suggesting that she was a wife, concubine, or prostitute.  From the start of the series, the potential ship is teased.  Not love at all, just unsubtle shipping, but something was intended to be there.

But a kind of chemistry comes into play in the following episodes.  We learn just how defined the Ninth Doctor is be his own pain over the Time War.  Rose is tremendously understanding towards him, despite his sometimes harsh self-expression that can be observed in Dalek.

However, the Ninth Doctor's ultimate demonstration of his love for Rose is his sacrifices to save her life, first risking his own death in the hands of the Daleks by sending her home, and then drawing the energy from her when she became the Bad Wolf, triggering his regeneration.  This reflects the time the Fifth Doctor sacrificed himself to save his companion, Peri.

There's a whole fascinating Tumblr blog that is partly dedicated to specifically this ship, and I'll directly link to the part that focus on 9/Rose.

Musical Monday: I won't say I'm in Love

This is February, the month of, in theory, love.

In practice, it's the month of chocolate candies (which I like) and a nauseating, unappealing shade of pastel pink (which I, obviously, don't like).

However, it doesn't hurt to talk love during a time such as this.

Most of the good songs are about this kind of thing.  As I cannot stress enough, I don't have anybody in my life right now.

Real love is putting somebody else before yourself, and it's every bit as difficult as it sounds.  Sometimes, the selfless thing is truly painful for you, and sometimes, I was the one who caused hurt, and have honestly felt guilty about it, and would really like a chance to make it right somehow.  This can make relationships choices difficult, if these stay on your mind, which is Megara's problem here:

It's amazing how many genres this one song covers, like most other Hercules songs: It's a 1950s-style ballad primarily composed of the musical elements you typically find in R&B and the doo-wop ballads, overall capturing a strong MoTown feel to it.

As for the lyrics, they make it all too clear that Megara knows what it's like to be hurt.  I can't say I know it on the same scale that she does, and I thank God for that, but I know tons of people who sadly do, and it's all to painfully clear to me just how much this affects them.

Who knows? Maybe in the future, I'll say this over some woman.  Maybe she'll be new, maybe she'll be somebody I knew previously.  I don't know.  I am open to all possibilities.  I only know this much:

It most likely won't be easy for me to say!

Science Sunday: The Science of Animals and Weather Prediction

Today may be groundhog day, but it's well known that groundhogs are less accurate at predicting the weather than a coin flip.

However, the same isn't necessarily true about other animals.

Birds in particular are very good at predicting the weather.  Some birds can hear the infrasounds produced by the weather that eventually causes tornadoes, even though humans cannot hear these sounds.   Birds also likely can detect changes in air pressure to indicate when they should eat more, and thus store fat.  In general, it makes sense that our fine feathered friends can detect the changes in weather due to their generally smaller sizes and the fact that they travel by means of flight.

So in general, I wouldn't pay attention to Punxsutawney Phil.  He's a convicted criminal with a serious charge of weather fraudulance, punishable by the death penalty.  Instead, I'd pay more attention to the birds.

And to Think That I Saw It on Baker Street

When I leave home to walk to work,
The wife always says to me,
"Watson, keep your eyelids up
And see what you can see."

But when I tell her where I've been
And what I've seen.
She looks at me sternly,
And says "your eyesight's much too keen."

"Stop telling such outlandish tales
Stop turning minnows into whales."
Now what I can say
When I get home from work today?

On my way to work
And all the long way back
I've looked and I've looked
And I've kept careful track

But all that I've noticed, except my own feet
Was an funny-looking detective on Baker Street
That's nothing to tell of.
It won't do, of course.
Just a detective who looks like a horse.

Theory on Deadpool

Hey readers! Deadpool here! Now you chumps have been told that I used to be Wade Wilson, a former special forces operative turned mercenary.

But, what if this isn't true?

Consider the following: I'm not exactly the most reliable narrator that there ever was.  In fact, I've been known to be a fairly...unreliable narrator.  So, what if the backstory I've been telling you is something he feels obligated to concoct because he knows he's a fictional character?

If that's so, then what is my true story?

Perhaps I was never Wade Wilson at all.  Perhaps I was actually a test-tube baby grown from tissue samples of various individuals, such as Wolverine.

Maybe, born without my own identity, part of my mind made a new one, from scratch, and maybe my mental state resulted from having to essentially create parts of my mind from scratch, but living without limits such as "a grasp on reality", I was also able to figure out that I was just a fictional character.

As for my cancer?

Dolly the sheep fell victim to cancer, because she was grown in such a way that cell multiplication continued long after maturation, which is basically the same as getting cancer.  Being a test-tube baby, I was probably grown in a similar way and has thus developed a similar condition, but thanks to my healing factor, I'm not going to die from it.

Or maybe I'm just fucking with you, and everything I told you was absolute bullshit.

Or maybe not.

You'll never know.  I'll never tell.

But I'll say this much:

CAN I HAVE SOME OF THAT COFFEE YOU'RE DRINKING! I'M DEAD FUCKING TIRED MAN!!

The History of Animation: Etienne Gaspard Robert

Etienne Gaspard Robert, though often known under the stage name "Robertson", was a true Dutch polymath, skilled in many things, namely physics.  However, one of the things he's most famous for, by his own design, is revolutionizing the stage art of phantasmagoria in Paris, a form of horror theater that used "magic lanterns" (early slide projectors similar to Kirscher's).

Indeed, his Phantasmagoria exhibition that began by 1794 was so successful that, three years later, he moved his displays to an abandoned Capuchin monastary to fit the gothic flair of his phantasmagoria, and to adhere to the fascination with ruins that was commonplace at the time.  Capuchin monastaries were especially fitting due to the presence of decorative skulls the monks used to remind themselves of their own mortality.

Robert, or rather, "Robertson", would gather the audience into a skull ridden room with spooky images of fallen heroes of the French Revolution, closing with a spooky final image: An image of the Grim Reaper, saying "the fate that awaits us all."

Angry letters were submitted to magazines from mothers complaining about their children stealing coins to see the show late at night.  Phantasmagoria was a huge hit throughout France, and it became the model of other phantasmagorias to come, even coining the term, "Phantasmagoria".