A Review of the Top 12 Things I Looked Forward to in 2012

At the end of last year, I wrote a post about the Top 12 Things I Looked Forward to in 2012. Fortunately, I have managed to experience all 12 of these. Given that the world is supposed to end, according to the Mayans anyway, in a couple of days time, I figured I should at least review these things before the world comes to an end. If we're still around on the 22nd, then I'll start thinking about the things I'm looking forward to in 2013. For those of you scoring at home, if the world is going to end, it should end at 8pm Malaysia time (7am EST) for the simple reason that all regions of the world, according to the time zone lines, would have hit the 21st of December. But of course, it'd be 1am on the 22nd of December in Samoa, so, yeah...Haven't really figured out how it would work.

But anyway, here we go. I'm introducing a new 3-tier ranking system for evaluating these 12 things. I figured, anytime you have to add yet another convoluted method of ranking things to all the previous convoluted methods of ranking things you've done before, you got to do it. Even that previous sentence is convoluted. Anyway, it's pretty simple. We're going either by Underwhelmed, Whelmed or Overwhelmed. Underwhelmed just means that it was below expectations. Overwhelmed means it hit above expectations (obviously this means a lot more as we more higher up the rankings). Whelmed is just that. That feeling when things meet your expectations but all you can go is, "Oh, okay."

Onward ho.

12. American Reunion

This one was always about nostalgia for me. It was fun to see the crew get back into it. It was exactly as I expected, so I can't complain.

Verdict: Whelmed

11. The Avengers

I think that one of the saddest things to come across is to see someone with so much potential fail to make the most out of their potential. This is essentially my problem with the Avengers. There was so much room to do stuff with the characters. I understand the appeal behind the final product of the movie - it was good fun, nice rock and roll type thingy. But I think it could have done a lot more, plot-wise. Also, Loki didn't cut it for me as a villain.

Verdict: Moderately Underwhelmed

10. Rise of the Guardians

In fairness, I was always going to be a bit biased towards this movie because of its premise. I think it's pretty kickass to have the Sandman, the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Jack Frost and Santa battle the Boogeyman. While the plot was fairly standard cartoon-y stuff, I did like the theme of believing. I still believe in Santa, in all fairness. (If you're wondering why I can let this plot go, it's only because the Avengers had way more potential).

Verdict: Very slightly overwhelmed

9. The Amazing Spiderman

It's really not even fair how Emma Stone can have such an effect on males and females alike. She stole my heart completely, again, in the movie as loveable Gwen Stacy. In the sequel, shit is going to be flipped by me. I don't want to spoiler things but in my defense, the comic series has been out there for ages. In any case, I thought the movie was alright overall. Nothing really stood out but Emma. Not the biggest fan of the Lizard, but I can see why they pulled a Batman Begins thing by only introducing the archvillain in the sequel.

Verdict: Whelmed

8. The Raven

I watched this on a plane ride somewhere and it's just as well. The movie tried quite hard to be all dark and stuff, but it didn't really reach a level of darkness I felt would be good for the movie. It's hard for me to take John Cusack seriously anyway, what more as Edgar Allan Poe. Again, I expected it earlier to be dark along the lines of Se7en or Zodiac. But it probably only reached along the lines of some generic ghost story.

Verdict: Underwhelmed

7. Lob City

Did not disappoint. Got treated to an incredible array of dunks and lobs throughout the season. Granted, my respect for Chris Paul, the lobber, grew more than my excitement for Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan, the lobbee-s, but Lob City was still great fun. More to come for sure.

Verdict: Overwhelmed

6. The US Olympics Basketball Team 2012

Of the 12 players I tipped to be included in the team, 7 were in - Lebron, Kobe, CP3, Deron Williams, Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, Carmelo Anthony. The remaining 5 were all injured. And I gotta say, my 5 picks were spot on. The ones who came on after were replacements for the 5 that were injured. Russ West for Derrick Rose. James Harden for Dwyane Wade. Andre Iguodola for Blake Griffin. Anthony Davis for Chris Bosh. Tyson Chandler for Dwight Howard. Anyway, it was good fun watching the team play. And great fun watching Kevin Durant showing his all-world scoring skills. And much greater fun watching Lebron own the team and the Olympics.

Verdict: Overwhelmed

5. Lebron and Wade with the Eff You Edge

I do love it when athletes play with a real Eff You Edge. D-Wade does that on a regular basis anyway but Lebron did it this year, which I wrote about here and here. We saw a transcendent basketball player in his prime as a result. As a Celtics fan, screw you Lebron. As a basketball fan, I was a Witness.

Verdict: Significantly Overwhelmed

4. Euro 2012

For the 2010 World Cup, I decided to try and be unconventional and pick Brazil to win in my betting pool, assuming of course that gambling is legal. For the 2012 Euros, I decided to go with convention and pick Spain for my betting pool. I finished a close second. It was the right choice. What does this tell us? Firstly, people like picking the unconventional decision because if it pans out, you look like a genius. But there's a reason it's unconventional. Secondly, conventionality tends to win because the odds are in its favor. Like so many things in life, unless you feel very strongly against the odds, just go with the bloody odds. Go with convention. In other news, the football was okay - it was fun watching a transcendent team get down and boogie. And I love watching Xabi Alonso.

Verdict: Only Slightly Overwhelmed

3. BBC's Sherlock

Well, I wrote about this here and here. You know what I think about it. If you don't watch it, you're just seriously denying yourself a fricking blast of a TV show. I would like to make a correction though. In my review on "The Final Problem", I did say Fuck the Hobbit. Well, that was premature as I now know. But even so, I can't bloody wait for Season 3. This is the best show on TV right now.

Verdict: Magnificently Overwhelmed

2. The Dark Knight Rises

My full opinion on the movie is here. For the purposes of a review of things I looked forward to, here is 1 important thought - I sincerely believed that this movie could be my greatest movie of all-time. The potential was high. Expectations were high. And as we know, things tend to regress to the mean and maybe basing the Dark Knight Rises off a reference point of The Dark Knight made it significantly more difficult for the movie to whelm me, what more overwhelm me.

To reiterate, this was my main problem with the movie:-

"In a world where I can suspend belief to believe that the Batman is real, I'm still finding it difficult to believe that after an epic war/battle such as this one, all the major 'good guys' got happy endings...It was just too neat fore me. I would have liked to have seen an ending like the Godfather series, particularly in Godfather 2 - Michael Corleone sitting in his cabin at Lake Tahoe, on top of the world but bitterly alone (before you crucify me on a spoiler for Godfather 2, the movie has been out for 38 years. It's your fault if I spoiled anything for you)."

Verdict: Significantly Underwhelmed

1. The Hobbit

Hand on heart, I will be watching this movie for the third time in 7 days in just an hour's time. I will post a full review once more people have watched it. But this should give you an inclination of what I think and how I feel about the movie. I picked this particular picture because it's the White Council - the Council of the Wisest beings on Middle-Earth. This would naturally appeal to me. And after the meeting, Gandalf has some amazing words of wisdom that should be kept to heart. In any case, you can also tell given my seriously substantial love for Sherlock, I did admit that I was wrong about "Fuck the Hobbit." That was a mistake. The Hobbit is, well, deserving of my number 1 spot. (Hint: If you can't guess who takes my Number 1 spot for the year 2013, assuming no apocalypse, you need to evaluate things).

Verdict: Magnificently Overwhelmed

Are Superheroes Good for a City?

If you froze yourself in a cryogenic chamber in 1998 or simply just buried yourself in the snow, Eric Cartman-style, and was unfrozen in the year 2011, here are a few astonishing things you would observe about the world:-

1. A Black man is President of the United States
2. Information is freely available globally in seconds due to social media.
3. Cell phones have evolved to become mini-mini-computers, essentially
4. Minority Report-style mini touchscreens are now universally-used
5. 90% of contemporary music is auto-tuned
6. Vampires and werewolves are now mainstream culture
7. The major blockbuster movies are now mostly based on Superheroes

While I may, at some point, launch into a discourse on all 7 topics, let’s consider number 7 for the purposes for this post. Here are blockbusters in the 2000s and upcoming ones in the next 2 years which featured or are going to feature comic-book Superheroes:-

2000 – X-Men
2002 – Spiderman
2003 – Daredevil, X2: X-Men United, Hulk
2004 – Hellboy, The Punisher, Spiderman 2, Catwoman, The Incredibles
2005 – Elektra, Batman Begins, Fantastic Four, Sky High (!)
2006 – X-Men: The Last Stand, Superman Returns
2007 – Spiderman 3, Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer, TMNT
2008 – Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk, Hellboy II, The Dark Knight
2009 – Watchmen, X-Men Origins: Wolverine
2010 – Iron Man 2, Kick-Ass, Jonah Hex, Megamind
2011 – Thor, X-Men: First Class, Green Lantern, Captain America
2012 – The Avengers, The Amazing Spider-Man, The Dark Knight Rises
2013 - Man of Steel

That’s quite a lot. And, of course, it’s hardly a surprise. The genre has captivated millions of people across time just through the comic book medium. Given the advancement of film-making technology, it’s hardly a surprise that studios would try to exploit the genre, bringing it to hundreds of millions of people. So, yes superheroes are in the mainstream vernacular these days which has led to stuff like this:- A gallery of superheroes

This therefore begs the question (for me, at least) – Given that superheroes are en vogue at the present, would superheroes actually make the world or. even more simply, their city a better place to live? My take – using a perspective from Economics, superheroes would drive people away from cities, as opposed as into them, thereby implying that superheroes make cities a worse place to live in.

Safety

You would think that with a superhero, the city is safer – superheroes prevent crime, put out fires, lock up bad guys etc etc/ But, for every Superman, there’s a Lex Luthor, Brainiac, Darkseid and/or Bizarro looking to destroy Superman. Let’s face it – there are more people wanting to rule the world than those who want to save it.

As a corollary, battles will be waged in the superhero’s home city. It’s just common sense. Cue mass destruction (see The Death of Superman) of public property. Cue the taking of hostages to prove a point (see The Dark Knight). Now, is the city really safer? Despots always, no exception, love challenges and would love nothing better than to prove they’re better than the so-called ‘best’ person. And so, if one despot falls, another one rises. If Luthor goes down, there’s Darkseid. If Darkseid goes down, there’s Brainiac. If Brainiac goes down, there’s General Zod, a fricking despot if ever there was a despot. And to prove that they’re better than the ‘best’ person, or superhero, they have to defeat this superhero. And as such, everyone and the city is in perpetual danger.


Just another day in the office

Economic Density

Following through with the point of safety, there is simply no way that a city with a superhero such as Superman or Spiderman can really build economic density (GDP per square kilometers). If the city is so unsafe, no firm is going to base itself there with the exception of companies that provide medical services, construction services and that kind of jazz. Imagine if you have to cancel an important board meeting because the city is under attack from fricking Doctor Doom. How could you possibly do business like this?

Businesses thrive on stability. They need to know that their factory or their plant is going to be there the next day. Now, if you’re the Hulk, can you guarantee that? No fricking way. And so, it’s hard to think of how cities would build economic density with constant fear of death and destruction.

Collateral Damage

Again, building on the whole safety issue, the representative citizen of a city will have his or her life at risk on a daily basis. How can you be sure that the hospital in which you’re warded because of hip surgery (which you got while running away from the battle between Wolverine and Sabretooth) won’t get blown up by the Joker just because he wants a guy killed (see The Dark Knight)? Seriously, what the hell, right? And imagine, fine, you want to move. So you’re getting the hell out of this city and you’re driving along the Golden Gate Bridge and then what happens? Fricking Magneto lifts the Golden Gate Bridge just to get to Alcatraz. At this point, you might as well just jump off the Bridge – you’re dead sooner or later, might as well just get rid of the anxiety.


At some point, you just gotta say, "Eff this shit" and bail

However, to get to this stage, you have to survive this far first. Look, if the Joker poisons the water in Gotham or Doomsday goes on a rampage to kill the Last Son of Krypton, people are going to die from the carnage. Or if Carnage wants to kill people as well. But point is, there is no way a city under siege suffers no casualties. Sometimes, even by the superhero itself! There is no way that the Flash has never accidentally bumped into someone while zipping away on the streets of Central City. And, the principle of Conservation of Momentum states that, the momentum before a collision and the momentum after a collision must be preserved. And if the collision is an inelastic collision, it means that person X who just got bowled over will hurtle away at massive speeds and will probably die, not just from whatever person X hits, but also person X’s heart will probably just stop. And that’s just the Flash. Don’t get me started on the Hulk.


"Beat you! Whoops, sorry dude."

Overwork for Firemen, Medical Staff, Cops, Garbage Cleaners, Construction Workers

On the one hand, superheroes save people, so the conventional duties of firemen, medical staff and cops will be more and more insignificant. However, the rescue and rebuild efforts of these people will be significantly heightened. Take this scenario as an example. Doomsday rampages through Metropolis leaving destruction aplenty. Superman fights him (and let’s suppose Superman lives and defeats Doomsday). Superman wins. Superman’s a hero. Everyone’s cheering and all’s good right?

Wrong.

Even after Superman beats Doomsday, the city has to be put back together. Who’s going to clear the debris, heal the collateral damage, perform rescue operations on trapped people, manage the scene of the ‘crime’, rebuild the city? Well, it’s not fricking Clark Kent, is it? Superman gets the glory, but a bunch of other people has the crappy job of putting things back together. Only to get it destroyed again the next time Darkseid’s in town.


Well, fuck.

Superheroes themselves

Spoiler alert: Skip this paragraph if you haven’t watched or read the Watchmen, in which case you should stop being lame and go watch it.

Depending on whether you read the graphic novel or watched the movie, you will have a different idea of the details of the ending compared to someone who did the opposite (read novel, didn’t watch movie or vice versa). But essentially, Ozymandias kills plenty of people (using a psychic squid or Dr Manhattan’s energy, depending on whether you read the novel or watched the movie) in an attempt to prevent nuclear war between the United States and Russia during the height of the Cold War. The reasoning is simple – it’s essentially Spock’s greater good concept.

But wait, what? So, a superhero kills millions of people? Something’s not right here, isn’t it? Sure, the intentions are good but the path to hell is paved with good intentions and all that. Now, even if a superhero has the best of intentions, there’s no guarantee that the means the superhero uses will be the best of means.


"A World at Peace. There had to be Sacrifices. Just, y'know, not myself though."

Let’s consider another example – Superman flying fast enough to reverse time itself (See Superman: The Movie) to rescue Lois Lane (not exactly being super unselfish here). Okay, I’m a firm believer that there are other life forms in the universe. I’m willing to believe that Superman might exist. And I’m even willing to believe that Superman, of a completely different life form, has humanoid form (why do aliens have humanoid forms? – a blog post for another day). And I’m willing to believe that the laws of motion in non-relativistic physics do not necessarily apply to them. What I cannot accept is the complete dismantling of general relativity which is applicable to physics of the universe.

Reversing time would require the ability of things to move faster than the speed of light. And by Einstein’s famous E = mc2¬ equation, objects gain mass as they speed up, and that speeding up requires energy. And if that object, Superman in this case, reaches (not even exceeds) the speed of light, Superman’s mass would have to be infinite and so would the amount of energy required to increase his speed. To exceed it and thereby reverse time, the energy required and the mass would have to go beyond the infinite. And even for a guy that’s willing to accept the premise of Superman, that’s impossible. Even if Superman reached even more than 99% the speed of light, his mass would tend towards infinity and hence, Superman will become a black hole and be the gravitational singularity. He will therefore destroy the Earth and everything in it, defeating the purpose of travelling at the speed of light anyway.


"Lois? Lois? Oops. My bad."

Conclusion

I agree that there are perks to having a superhero in a city. For one, petty crime would fall. Secondly, it’s just cool. Thirdly, if the hero is someone like Superman, we would have a light that inspires us all (which makes Superman my favourite hero. He’s someone we can aspire to rather than relate to. I don’t want my Superheroes to be relatable. Okay, okay will stop. This is for a different post). Fourthly, we would have cool tourist attraction posters.


New York: It's Faaantastic

But that said, I really find it difficult to logically conclude that a superhero brings more benefits to a city than costs. Continuing along the theme of physics, a superhero is likely to have a more centrifugal force on a city than a centripetal force. So, while I do love superheroes in general, I’d be more glad if they weren’t in my city than if they were. So, I’m happy for Superman to be in Metropolis, Batman to be in Gotham, Spiderman to be in New York, all good with me. I’ll just be happy to live with Cicakman.


Gotta love the Lizardry.