Monday, September 30, 2013

Hero's Cycle

My group's hero is Will Turner from Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl. The movie in it of its self is amazing because they have so many random characters yet they still manage to connect them all pretty seamlessly. To point of where you forget the astronomical odds of that occurring but that what draws people to adventure movies, to see something that is seemly impossible succeed. Since there are so many characters and so many plots in the movie there is more than one primary character. Captain Jack Sparrow, Elizabeth Swan, Will Turner and Captain Barbossa are all considered primary characters but only Will Turner fits the hero cycle. The reason being Barbossa is automatically out because he is antagonist in this film and he dies at the end which makes it rather hard for him to complete the cycle. Captain Jack Sparrow is always working for his own gain and rarely helps anyone out unless it's to his advantage, also he lack very crucial things in the hero cycle like a mentor. Elizabeth could have worked for the hero cycle in a way but she is more often than not playing the damsel in distress rather than the hero. Though Will's fit in the hero's cycle was not as black and white as some other movies he fit rather well it also helped that he has a fabulous choice in hats.

The other groups' hero posters were quite amazing. The movies that people chose were very interesting in that they were movies I have never heard of or wouldn't have even thought about. Everyone did, in my option, a wonderful job of connecting their character to the hero cycle. That being said there were some posters design wise that stood out to me, first of all the poster for Pi because they did a wonderful job of combining the elements and colors from the movie in the poster. Usually orange, black and shades of blue don't go well together but this group made it into a very seamless, elegant work of art that fit the story line. The paintings on the poster for The Nightmare Before Christmas were extremely well done and really set that poster apart from the others. I must also mention the poster for The Hobbit because of the creative use of the One Ring as the O in Bilbo's name. Sadly I cannot mention all the posters but they were all quite wonderful. 




Monday, September 23, 2013

The Paradox

The one big problem with our world is that we all try to be the "perfect human" yet being absolute perfection is impossible. If you really think about perfection is a paradox, it's made up of many pairs opposite characteristics that a person must strike just the right balance to. Take a student, you must be studious yet not antisocial or almost every human being on earth you must be part of the group yet still keep your own personality. Which is rather hard in this day and age because everyone is trying to shove their own personality, their own interests down our throats. Because modern people think that the only way to fulfill their life's purpose, to achieve success to get tons people to love them, to mimic them, to have their own interests and personality imprinted on someone else. The goal in life is not to be worshipped and not to achieve perfection. It is to follow the path makes you happy even if only a few people know your name or what you achieved in life. You know what you did to change the world. You know what you did to change the existing reality.


Monday, September 16, 2013

Order Out of Chaos


“Whether you call someone a hero or monster is all relative to where the focus of your consciousness may be” - Joseph Campbell

This idea is not new to society or hopefully shouldn’t be because in movies, plays, songs and most importantly real life we brand people (sometimes unfairly) hero or villain with out looking to see the good or the bad in the hero or villain. Basically the rule is that if you are a hero to someone then you are most likely a villain to someone else. Because you cannot become a hero, slay monsters, rescue maidens whatever without hurting the monster or foiling the person’s plans who rightfully stole the maiden in the first place. In life there is no black and white only gray but the problem with us humans is that we seek out the black and white. If that doesn’t work we make things black and white because we are humans and we need to make order out the chaos. 

Monday, September 9, 2013

"We Will Be With All The World"

"Furthermore, we have not even to risk the adventure alone, for the heroes of all time have gone before us. The labyrinth is thoroughly known. We have only to follow the thread of the hero path, and where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god. And where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves. Where we had thought to travel outward, we will come to the center of our own existence. And where we had thought to be alone, we will be with all the world."
-Joseph Campbell

Though you may try to go in a certain direction fate pushes you into the opposite direction. In the quote it says, “We had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves” Even though you meant to hurt another person you will only end up hurting yourself. It is you not them who will have to live the guilt of slaying someone which in some ways worst than being slayed. You have to deal with the pain, they will not. Also it’s hard for a totally new hero to really pave the way for rest of the world’s heroes since as a society we have really decided what makes a hero. That is the expectation and that is the reality. So if a new hero does come along and is truly a new breed of hero then society will most likely brand him/her a villain and that hero exploring a new labyrinth will never be a true hero in the eyes of society. 

Monday, September 2, 2013

La Plata De Nada

Movies have now become an essential part of our culture as humans. We share feeling, emotions and ideas through film and tend to connect with people who happen to like the film or types of films as we do. Therefore I will be sharing my favorite film, Pink Panther 2 with you.
Pink Panther 2 is about a bumbling idiot of a detective who somehow ends up solving the case in the end. The picture above illustrates the character quite nicely because no matter how badly he messes up he continues work towards solving the case at hand. Enough about film, on to the medium of art we human connect through, music.

There are over 26 million songs in the world and it is quite hard to choose a favorite out of 26 million yet I have and it is Steve McQueen by M83.


I love this song just because the actual song and lyrics are just so hopeful and happy. Every time I hear it I just remember that there's a future out there and I can choose to make it great, happy and awesome or I just think that nothing is ever going to change and that we as a human race are stuck in this rut that it's impossible to get out of. 



It's quite hard pinpoint to the greatest experience in my life but would have to be touring NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. By the way if you didn't know how big of geek I was before, now you do. Since JPL is where NASA controls and receives data from its rovers and orbiters there is always data being sent or received. Nothing show how hard or how many people it takes to receive, go through and make sure that these robots millions of miles away keep transmitting better than JPL's massive control room. Seeing these control room and meeting some of the people who work there really proved to me how far civilization has come since the first flight about 100 years ago. Then we could only get aircraft to fly for a few seconds and now we can send a robotic geologist to another planet while we control from earth.