The Grasshopper Unit (Keep Movin')
Since I got a Dragon Ball Z movie in the mail today, I'm gonna talk about that for a minute. Deal with it.
This was the final DBZ movie, and as far as Funimation goes, it's basically the last piece of original content for them to adapt into English. In anticipation of the American release, Funimation held an advance screening of their dub of the film at Wizard World 2006. I had considered seeing it, but they rescheduled it at the last minute or something, and I had already pre-ordered it on Amazon, plus I had downloaded and watched the Japanese version like two years ago, so it didn't seem like a big priority to watch. The next day I attended Funi's DBZ panel, and not only were the voice actors late to their own panel, but they asked if anyone watched the advance screening the night before, and only two people had. Also, most of the announcements were about stuff I either already knew about or stuff that wouldn't be of any use to me. For instance, they said that you could actually buy "Wrath of the Dragon" at the Funimation booth that weekend, more than a month before the actual release date. All well and good, but they might have said something before I pre-ordered it in July. So the panel was kind of a farce, but that was still cool, since the voice actors were all funny and cool and stuff. Really, I only went just to listen to them talk. It's always great to listen to a grown man or woman speak in a even, professional tone about how their character plays a magic ocaraina, and he has a special connection to the other character he plays, but he doesn't want to give that away since only two people went to the screening last night.
But today I got the movie, and I really enjoyed it. People keep recommending Harry Potter books for me to review, and let me just say right now that most of your endorsements go in one ear and out the other at this point. I'm interested in what people have to say, of course, but the thing is that Harry Potter fans have a totally different range of expectations when it comes to pop entertainment. I specifically remeber someone telling me that Book III was the best because it had plenty of action, and for a moment I started to consider that this might be true. And now I'm halfway through this book and the only real action has been Harry's attack on Aunt Marge, a classroom of students making a shape-shifter look funny until it explodes, and Harry falling fifty feet during a thunderstorm. Those moments do constitute action, to be sure, but spread out over the course of 250+ pages, it's not much to crow about. "Wrath of the Dragon" opens with an ominous prologue/teaser scene, followed by a car chase. Then the car chase is interrupted when a dude smashes up the car, and the driver shoots at him. With a machine gun. At pointblank range. And the dude just catches the bullets. Then he and his girlfriend do a stupid dance. This is like the first several minutes of the movie, you understand. And the thing is, the first time I watched it in Japanese, I remember feeling kind of bored, because this was the relatively dull part where they set up the plot, before the REAL asskicking begins. Older and wiser, I now have a newfound appreciation for the scene, because I've seen what passes for "action" in other fandoms. And I'm not trying to defend Dragon Ball Z as some sort of great work of art, but at least the franchise knows how to stay focused. Rowling avoids action at all costs. She doesn't even like to write Quidditch chapters, and she's the one who created the sport in the first place, so why would I believe she would make the effort to show me anything else worth seeing? You let Toriyama have a crack at this, he'd give you a twelve-page piece on Black's harrowing escape from prison, and maybe a flashback to the crime that got him thrown in the slammer to begin with. Then Funimation would dub it and it'd look like this...
SIRIUS BLACK (voiced by Christopher Sabat): Well, well, Peter. We've just finished kickboxing all over London, causing at least twenty different traffic accidents in the process. Also, you just shot me with that insanely huge fireball that lit up outer space, but failed to actually hurt me. I guess I'll have to stop holding back and take this fight seriously...
PETER PETTIGREW (also voiced by Christopher Sabat): Ah... aahhhh! Impossible...! Ahh....
MUGGLE BYSTANDER #1: Duuuude! Like, who are these gnarly dudes?
MUGGLE BYSTANDER #2: I dunno, dude, but they sure are mondo powerful.
MUGGLE BYSTANDER #3: Fer Shur!
BLACK: Baker's... Dozen.... Hell Missile!
SFX: DOOM! V-M-M-M-M
MUGGLE POLICEMAN (incredibly, also voiced by Christopher Sabat): Hey, you, you killed all those people! Now you have to go to Azgapam Brissom!
BLACK: LOL!
Now to sit back and wait for Jim to add to the parody. "You forgot the part where they stand perfectly still and sweat for five minutes."
Two things I don't get about the movie.
First, Vegeta's barely in it. I don't necessarily mind this, since it's really Trunks and Tapion's story anyway, but it doesn't make a lot of sense when characters just no-show these movies. A giant monster wrecks the city and Piccolo and Tien don't even bother to check it out? But what makes this so bizarre is that most of the action in "Wrath of the Dragon" takes place at or nearby the Capsule Corporation Building, where Vegeta lives. When he does appear, he at least acknowledges that he's pissed about Hildegarn tearing up his house, but it just makes you wonder why he wasn't there when it happened. It'd be like doing a Batman movie in the Fortress of Solitude. It's probably better that Superman doesn't appear, but it's kind of weird that he doesn't.
The other this is the rewrite Funimation did to the original script. See, when these movies are done in Japanese, it's up to the American studio to figure out how to translate the script AND word in such a way that the lines can be delivered and match up to the lipflap in the animation. Oftentimes, this means Funimation has to embellish on the story to fill an awkward silence when the Japanese line takes longer to say than the translation would. In some cases, Funi will alter a premise altogether, much to the chagrin of the hardcore fans (read: nerds). This can sometimes be helpful to the story, since the English rewrite can embellish on the plot. In English, Vegeta manages to explain that he was taking the day off, so that kind of covers for his absence. Other times, it just muddies up the waters. For example, the original version ("Dragon Fist Explosion! ! If Goku Can't Do It, Who Else Can? !"), Goku is the last hero standing to challenge Hildegarn, and when he powers up to SSJ3 to defeat him, there's a line of internal monologue where he observes that Hildegarn's is vulnerable only in the instant when he attacks. Goku capitalizes on this by goading Hildegarn into throwing a punch at him, only to dodge at the last second and launch his devastating new finisher, the Ryu-Ken (Dragon Fist). In the dub, this is rewritten slightly, with Goku now deciding that Hildegarn is vulnerable to "intense emotions". I'm not sure what that meant, or why they added that in. More irksome, when Goku launches his Dragon Fist attack, the English dub now calls it "Dragon Fire."
This probably wouldn't matter to me at all, except that Funi had already dubbed the line in video game form, and they called it "Dragon Fist" there, so I was kind of looking forward to seeing the same moment in the movie that it came from. I'm pretty sure Funimation dubbed it "Fist" when it was used in Dragon Ball GT, so it just doesn't make sense to me why they'd suddenly change it now. This hardly kills the movie or anything; it's a cool attack no matter what you call it. "Nutty Honey Cocoa DEEEEAAAAATH!" I'm certainly not gonna start an online petition demanding this grave injustice be undone, or insist that Funimation recall these "defective" DVD's and redub them with "Fist" instead. The closest analogy I know of is whenever an artist draws the Thunderbolts insignia wrong. The new issue came in the mail today too, and it features Songbird on the cover, with her T-Bolts belt buckle prominently displayed, and the insignia has the wrong design. It's annoying because the correct design is incorporated into the letter "O" in the Thunderbolts logo at the top of every cover, so you'd think after 106 issues that the artists would notice the discrepancy. It's not a big deal, but it still irritates me.
It's a shame, because if I'd just seen the advance screening at Wizard World, then I could have asked Sabat and Schemmell why they decided to change the line. Respectfully, of course, I refuse to be one of these otaku freaks who insist everything be just so. Honestly, I'm just interested in the thought processes that lie behind these kinds of decisions. I assume there's a story behind this where Sean Schemmel did several takes of "fist", and either it just didn't sound as good, or he and Sabat watched the scene enough times to notice that Goku's not actually hitting anything with his fist while all that blazing yellow flame shoots out everywhere. Only they'd tell it funnier.
Chapter 13: Gryffindor Versus Ravenclaw
(Original Japanese Title: "G-Tower vs. R-Claw, the Battle Continues. What, Demerits?")
So Crookshanks ate Scabbers, in the culmination of what is apparently the main plot of this book. Sirius Black, Azkaban Prison, soul-eating wraiths? Buncha hooey, it's all about cats chasing mice. I'm not saying I couldn't have gotten behind all that, but cats vs. mice has been done, and you really gotta keep it fresh if you want to impress anyone. Tom and Jerry made the floor all ice that one time. Speedy Gonzales could run fast. Garfield's morbidly obese. All-Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku Nuku? Well, she's a cat's brain in a robot body, so she chases mice with like gyroscopes and lasers and stuff. Anyway, Ron's pissed because Scabbers was only three days from retirement, and Hermione is pissed because Ron can't actually prove that Scabbers was eaten. I'm sort of on her side with this. It's not like cats eat mice whole. If there really is no corpse lying around, then you'd probably want to turn your suspicion to a snake. For that matter, there's an entire room full of owls on the property, and Hagrid keeps all sorts of hideous monstrosities around. If anything, we should blame Ron for all this, since he was dumb enough to bring an animal that low on the food chain into this deathtrap. Honestly, it's a wonder Ron hasn't been eaten himself by now.
But the conventional wisdom at Hogwarts seems to be that Crookshanks somehow managed to eat an entire rat in one swallow. My brother's cat (affectionately named "the cat") will nibble on pieces of cat food, which are a tiny fraction of the size of Scabbers, so I'm guessing that everyone in this school is just a total moron. The Weasleys stop to take a look back at all their fond memories of Scabbers, like the time he bit Goyle on the finger, or that time he ate and slept in Ron's pocket, or that time that Crookshanks ate him. That's pretty much it. Ron's all pissy and irritable, but Harry offers him a ride on his new superbroom, and suddenly he's back to his cheerful and irritating personality. It's like Jekyll and Hyde with this kid, except neither option is all that likeable.
Leading up to the big game between G-Tower and Ravenclaw, Team Captain Seymour Butz informs Harry that R-Claw's Seeker is a girl named Cho Chang. I'm more familiar with Chang as Harry's obscure ex-girlfriend from Book VI, but whatever. The Skipper's mostly concerned with the fact that she's pretty good, and she's somehow managed to avoid being crippled in advance of the game. It's not really that important anyway, since Harry's got his spiffy Firebolt, which apparently is the OTHER main plot to this book since no one will shut up about it. Somehow, I knew as soon as I read about the stupid thing on display in Chapter 4, not only would Harry get the dumb thing but every single character would be fascinated by it. I hate being right. Anyway, the Firebolt is far more manueverable that anything Harry's used before, and it appears that he'll have no trouble at all outclassing Chang and securing the match... IF, there's no interference from the dementors, although Harry's somewhat confident that he's got that angle covered.
On the way back from practice, Harry thinks he sees that Grim again. You know, that black dog that's supposed to be a portend of his premature demise? Only this time it turns out to be Crookshanks instead. Ron throws a rock at him, and he runs away. Boooo! Nothing justifies throwing rocks at cats. Not even Doom Music.
The next day, Harry takes the Firebolt down to breakfast with him, and a bunch of boys form a sort of makeshift honor guard for it. Does the Firebolt need to eat? Because this is seriously starting to creep me out. Percy (who's the Head Boy, by the way), jovially informs Harry that he's got a bet with his girlfriend on the outcome of the game, then pulls him aside and pleads for him to win, since he can't cover the wager. Oh, Percy, what sort of delightful mischief have you gotten into this time? That's our Percy, he'll be back!
Then it's Señor Draco and his two best friends to weigh in on the Firebolt. The thing about Draco is that the only thing he's really got going for him is that his family's rich and stuff, so if you've got a nice car or something, he's kind of out of ammo. "Well, it's too bad your car doesn't come with... uh... uh... Dork Insurance. Yeah, because that's what you are." He tries a lame crack about Harry fainting again on the field, and Harry comes back with a line about how Draco's broom needs an arm so it can basically play Quidditch for him. You know, because Draco sucks at Quidditch, I guess is the point.
Since the game is pretty paint by numbers, let's just get this out of the way quickly so I can get to something else. The kid commentating the match is too focused on Harry's broom to actually call the game, much to the chagrin of Professor McGonagall, whom I suppose is supervising his commentary. Wouldn't want him to drop any F-bombs on the air, I guess. "JORDAN! ARE YOU BEING PAID TO ADVERTISE FIREBOLTS? GET ON WITH THE COMMENTARY!" Harry's broom works fine, in case you were expecting some sort of twist where it totally chokes up when he needs it. The problem is Cho Chang is basically following him across the field of play, waiting for him to find the Snitch, then trying to cut him off and beat him to it. Realizing her strategy, Harry dives at thin air, as though he's found the Snitch a third time, then does a hairpin at the last possible second, allowing him time to get the Snitch for real while Cho is still getting turned around on her less manueverable broom. Harry catches sight of three dementors on his way to claim the Snitch, so he whips out the wand he snuck onto the field and does his Patronus thing, then intercepts the Snitch as fast as he can, just in case that doesn't work. G-Tower for the win.
That said, let me just take this moment to critique the whole Quidditch concept a bit.
It was writerbuggie who first suggested that we all go to Lumos 2006, although ultimately she couldn't make it when the weekend finally arrived. Part of her endorsement was that they had "Water Quidditch" as one of the events. I never got around to asking how this worked until the night before the symposium, when cindale mentioned that swishandflick was a captain of his own team, and would be playing in the game himself.
ME: Now, how do they play Quidditch, exactly.
CINDY: Well, they do it in a pool.
ME: Oh, well that explains--huh?
And really, Water Quidditch was one of the things that made me want to go to Lumos, because this seemed like something I'd have to see for myself. It's one thing for a writer to create a sport for a fantasy novel, it's something else altogether to see live humans attempt to recreate it into a competitive event.
If you're one of the four people reading these reviews who doesn't know how the game is played, Book Quidditch goes like this: Each team has a goal, defended by a goalie (Keeper), and two players from either team (Chasers) attempt to score points by manuevering a ball (Quaffle) into the opposing team's goal. The Quaffle is an ordinary ball. Complicating matters is the presence of each teams' pair of Beaters, players who bat two heavy iron balls (Bludgers) at the other team's players while protecting their own teammates from being hit. Further complicating matters is the fact that all players are riding flying broomsticks, which means that they have to do all this in three dimensions. Even Further complicating matters is the Golden Snitch, a fourth ball that flies around the field in an erratic pattern under its own power. Each team has a player dedicated to capturing the Snitch (Seeker), and doing so is worth the equivalent of fifteen goals. Capturing the Snitch also marks the official end of play.
Logistically, this means that team that captures the Snitch is almost certain to win, which sort of makes the other players academic. Of course, the differential in score seems to have something to do with your team ranking, but I don't claim to understand such matters. The only way this doesn't work is if your team manages to gain a fifteen goal lead, in which case it doesn't matter who catches the Snitch, since it'll end the game in your favor. In such a situation, the losing team's Seeker would then have to adopt a strategy of distracting his counterpart until his teammates could close the gap. Looking back, that was probably Cho's mistake, since she was more or less doing this to Harry, except that her team far enough behind on points to warrant such a defensive posture. Indeed, I have a hard time believing that any evenly matched teams would ever get into a situation where one side scores fifteen more goals than the other. Even if your players were that skillful, it would still make more sense to go for the jugular, capturing the Snitch in the first few minutes of play, instead of pulling ahead and risking a lengthy siege where the other team defends the Snitch as long as possible.
Water Quidditch attempts to simulate the game by the following: Everyone's in a pool, which is far smaller than the field described in the books, thus compensating for the smaller range of motion allowed to human players without vehicles. The Quaffle and Bludgers float on the surface, and anyone struck by a Bludger is required to stand still for about sixty seconds or so to simulate the disruption of being hit with an iron ball in midair. Finally, the Snitch is replicated by a pair of volenteers standing on either side of the pool, about midway between the goalposts, each holding a length of rope with a small spongy replica of a Snitch. At various intervals, one of them will dangle their Snitch into the water, dragging it along for the Seekers to attempt to catch. However, only one of the two Snitches is the official one that earns 150 points and ends the game, and this is determined by some object concealed inside one of them. When a Seeker catches a Snitch, the referee would then inspect it to determine if it was the right one. Otherwise, play would resume. A few observations about this setup.
1) The goals were unsuitable for the game. The books use three hoops in a row as goals, and while the organizers at Lumos seemed to have arranged a very worthy replica, I don't think that was very conducive to play. The Quaffle looked to be about eight inches across, while the hoops weren't much larger in diameter, so it was difficult for anyone to score any goals. Frequently, they'd simply fall over when anyone attempted a shot. Gareth told us that every single match he'd ever played had been decided by the Snitch, and I can believe it, given the apparent difficulty of the goals.
2) The water doesn't seem to affect things one way or the other. Initially, I thought that it somehow provided a third dimension of play, to simulate the aerobatics used in the books, but since most of the players were able to walk on the bottom of the pool, and sine the balls floated on the surface, I'm pretty sure I had it figured wrong. More likely, the water is intended to serve as an equalizer, so you don't have to be super-athletic to play against people who are. No one's gonna be running circles around anyone else when they're chest deep in water, and no one's gonna pass out from over-exerting in the noontime heat of a summer day in Las Vegas. And really, I could be overthinking it, since a pool tends to justify itself. If I could write this review in a fun pool, I would.
3) The Snitch is too predictable. I'm impressed they managed to come up with what they did, but I think it's still not good enough to make the game work. The idea here is that the Snitch is so small and fast and elusive that it's tough enough just to find the thing, and then you have to catch it before the other guy does. In this situation, you can see the two people standing on either side of the pool, and you can tell when they're getting ready to unleash their Snitch because they'll wave it around first, and you know exactly where it can and can't go, because you can see the length of rope its attached to. The only element of randomness really is the decoy Snitch, but since the two volenteers never trade places or swap their Snitches around, I'm assuming that only one of them ever has the real thing in a given match. If it were me, I'd just pick one side, and shadow the person until he finally put the Snitch into the water, and then watch where it goes and grab it. Fifty-fifty chance it's the decoy, but the other team's up against the same odds, so it's worth a try. Actually, that's a problem in itself, because while smaller players make better Seekers in Book Quidditch, the water version would probably benefit from a big tall guy like me, who could just calmly reach forward and grab it. A better idea might be to use a long pole and dangle the Snitch from a string on the other end, just over the surface of the water, like a cat toy. But someone might get hurt, I'm not sure. Failing that, I'd almost suggest using a live Snitch. You throw a golden retriever into that pool, and then it's a party.
4) The girl in the referee outfit standing next to me was pretty hot.
If it were me writing this thing, I probably would have tweaked the rules to make it more evenhanded. For one thing, everyone is assigned the same broomsticks for the game. Why should Harry be allowed to use a top-of-the-line broom when no one else can? He didn't beat Cho in this game here, it was his Firebolt that beat her whatever-she's-on. Secondly, the Snitch could be worth 150 points, but it has to be caught TWICE to end the game. That way a superior team can shut out the opposition with a 300+ point lead, but you also have the possibility that both sides catch the Snitch once apiece, which means it's up to the rest of the players to actually decide the outcome. And if you wanted to make it more interesting, you could always bump up how much the goals are worth, or introduce some other rule where you get bonus points for scoring goals with bludgers or something. Anything to diminish the importance of the Seeker, you see. It's been suggested that Rowling arranged the rules so that Harry could win or lose games singlehandedly, but that's just the thing, she didn't have to do that. Michael Jordan could win games for the Chicago Bulls and be the big hero, and that was simply because he was a great player, not because there were any special rules where if he did something the game automatically ends and he gets a million points for doing it.
Anyway, back to the book. With the game won, everyone's all "Party at G-Tower", and congratulating Harry for his victory. Again, that's kind of the problem. Any game Gryffindor wins will always be thanks to Harry, not because he can score 150 points in one move, but because he's the only one on the team with the power to end the game. I mean, fine, he's the main character, but there should at least be the possibility that someone else might upstage him and be the hero of the game. I guess there was that match in Book VI where Harry had detention and couldn't play, and now that I think of it, I can't recall if the book ever mentioned who filled in for him. Poor, unloved Seeker with no name.
In any event, Harry's equally thrilled that he successfully resisted the dementors. It's here that Lupin informs him that while he did a good job with the Patronus Charm, it was all for nothing, since the dementors he spotted were never dementors at all. Turns out they were Señor Draco, Crabbe and Goyle in disguise, no doubt in an effort to distract Harry and keep G-Tower out of the running for the Championship Cup Award Trophy Whositz. McGonagall gives them detention and demerits, which sort of puts an exclamation point on Harry's triumph here. I gotta admit, that was kind of a cute moment there.
So they have a big dumb party, sort of like in Book VI except Harry played this time but he doesn't get any sumpin'-sumpin' for his trouble, and then they all go to bed. Harry dreams he's walking through a forest carrying his Firebolt (Geez, it's in his dreams, too?), and he chases after something, but wakes up before he can catch it. This is because Ron is screaming something about seeing Sirius Black slashing at the curtains with a knife. Everyone assumes it was a bad dream, so Ron falls back on the caps lock key to emphasize his point. "IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE! PROFESSOR, I WOKE UP, AND SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME, HOLDING A KNIFE." Let me also add for the record: LOOK! SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS!
Stupidly, McGonagall dismisses his story, since she can't imagine how on earth Black could have gotten through the portrait hole in the first place. Well, that's stupid. No one thought he'd get into the castle at all until he did, so just because he didn't get through the portrait before doesn't mean he couldn't have figured it out later. I'd be more interested in knowing why Black would waste time on curtains if he's supposedly after Harry Potter.
But the answer to McG's question is quickly ascertained. Recall that the original painting was damaged by Black earlier, so that dork Sir Cadogan was employeed as its replacement, he reports dutifully that Sirius Black did indeed enter G-Tower, and that he allowed him access, because he has the password conveniently listed on a piece of paper. Demanding to know who would be stupid enough to write down such sensitive information, only to misplace it for Sirius Black to find, Neville Longbottom raises his hand.
All in all, an inoffensive little episode. I don't know why Harry would go into any other line of work, since it seems like these Quidditch chapters are the only times he's ever depicted as a halfway competent, well-adjusted person. Any other job description, he'd be the usual suspicious, self-interested twit he usually is. And Rowling managed to slip a plot thread under my nose. Cadogan is introduced in Chapter 6, Black slashes the Fat Lady portrait in Chapter 8, forcing Cadogan to be employeed as her replacement in Chapter 9, and his unorthodox style as gatekeeper forces the forgetful Neville Longbottom to keep a list of passwords, which he's lost by Chapter 12. I'm pleasantly impressed to see that these elements all managed to tie into something.
So maybe I was wrong to write this book off as a colossal load of poo. Yeah, it started off on the wrong foot, but maybe it'll turn things around and maintain this momentum up to the end. Yeah, that's the ticket. I'll see ya next time, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and ready for more QUALITY!
RATING: GOOD
NEXT: Or not...
This was the final DBZ movie, and as far as Funimation goes, it's basically the last piece of original content for them to adapt into English. In anticipation of the American release, Funimation held an advance screening of their dub of the film at Wizard World 2006. I had considered seeing it, but they rescheduled it at the last minute or something, and I had already pre-ordered it on Amazon, plus I had downloaded and watched the Japanese version like two years ago, so it didn't seem like a big priority to watch. The next day I attended Funi's DBZ panel, and not only were the voice actors late to their own panel, but they asked if anyone watched the advance screening the night before, and only two people had. Also, most of the announcements were about stuff I either already knew about or stuff that wouldn't be of any use to me. For instance, they said that you could actually buy "Wrath of the Dragon" at the Funimation booth that weekend, more than a month before the actual release date. All well and good, but they might have said something before I pre-ordered it in July. So the panel was kind of a farce, but that was still cool, since the voice actors were all funny and cool and stuff. Really, I only went just to listen to them talk. It's always great to listen to a grown man or woman speak in a even, professional tone about how their character plays a magic ocaraina, and he has a special connection to the other character he plays, but he doesn't want to give that away since only two people went to the screening last night.
But today I got the movie, and I really enjoyed it. People keep recommending Harry Potter books for me to review, and let me just say right now that most of your endorsements go in one ear and out the other at this point. I'm interested in what people have to say, of course, but the thing is that Harry Potter fans have a totally different range of expectations when it comes to pop entertainment. I specifically remeber someone telling me that Book III was the best because it had plenty of action, and for a moment I started to consider that this might be true. And now I'm halfway through this book and the only real action has been Harry's attack on Aunt Marge, a classroom of students making a shape-shifter look funny until it explodes, and Harry falling fifty feet during a thunderstorm. Those moments do constitute action, to be sure, but spread out over the course of 250+ pages, it's not much to crow about. "Wrath of the Dragon" opens with an ominous prologue/teaser scene, followed by a car chase. Then the car chase is interrupted when a dude smashes up the car, and the driver shoots at him. With a machine gun. At pointblank range. And the dude just catches the bullets. Then he and his girlfriend do a stupid dance. This is like the first several minutes of the movie, you understand. And the thing is, the first time I watched it in Japanese, I remember feeling kind of bored, because this was the relatively dull part where they set up the plot, before the REAL asskicking begins. Older and wiser, I now have a newfound appreciation for the scene, because I've seen what passes for "action" in other fandoms. And I'm not trying to defend Dragon Ball Z as some sort of great work of art, but at least the franchise knows how to stay focused. Rowling avoids action at all costs. She doesn't even like to write Quidditch chapters, and she's the one who created the sport in the first place, so why would I believe she would make the effort to show me anything else worth seeing? You let Toriyama have a crack at this, he'd give you a twelve-page piece on Black's harrowing escape from prison, and maybe a flashback to the crime that got him thrown in the slammer to begin with. Then Funimation would dub it and it'd look like this...
SIRIUS BLACK (voiced by Christopher Sabat): Well, well, Peter. We've just finished kickboxing all over London, causing at least twenty different traffic accidents in the process. Also, you just shot me with that insanely huge fireball that lit up outer space, but failed to actually hurt me. I guess I'll have to stop holding back and take this fight seriously...
PETER PETTIGREW (also voiced by Christopher Sabat): Ah... aahhhh! Impossible...! Ahh....
MUGGLE BYSTANDER #1: Duuuude! Like, who are these gnarly dudes?
MUGGLE BYSTANDER #2: I dunno, dude, but they sure are mondo powerful.
MUGGLE BYSTANDER #3: Fer Shur!
BLACK: Baker's... Dozen.... Hell Missile!
SFX: DOOM! V-M-M-M-M
MUGGLE POLICEMAN (incredibly, also voiced by Christopher Sabat): Hey, you, you killed all those people! Now you have to go to Azgapam Brissom!
BLACK: LOL!
Now to sit back and wait for Jim to add to the parody. "You forgot the part where they stand perfectly still and sweat for five minutes."
Two things I don't get about the movie.
First, Vegeta's barely in it. I don't necessarily mind this, since it's really Trunks and Tapion's story anyway, but it doesn't make a lot of sense when characters just no-show these movies. A giant monster wrecks the city and Piccolo and Tien don't even bother to check it out? But what makes this so bizarre is that most of the action in "Wrath of the Dragon" takes place at or nearby the Capsule Corporation Building, where Vegeta lives. When he does appear, he at least acknowledges that he's pissed about Hildegarn tearing up his house, but it just makes you wonder why he wasn't there when it happened. It'd be like doing a Batman movie in the Fortress of Solitude. It's probably better that Superman doesn't appear, but it's kind of weird that he doesn't.
The other this is the rewrite Funimation did to the original script. See, when these movies are done in Japanese, it's up to the American studio to figure out how to translate the script AND word in such a way that the lines can be delivered and match up to the lipflap in the animation. Oftentimes, this means Funimation has to embellish on the story to fill an awkward silence when the Japanese line takes longer to say than the translation would. In some cases, Funi will alter a premise altogether, much to the chagrin of the hardcore fans (read: nerds). This can sometimes be helpful to the story, since the English rewrite can embellish on the plot. In English, Vegeta manages to explain that he was taking the day off, so that kind of covers for his absence. Other times, it just muddies up the waters. For example, the original version ("Dragon Fist Explosion! ! If Goku Can't Do It, Who Else Can? !"), Goku is the last hero standing to challenge Hildegarn, and when he powers up to SSJ3 to defeat him, there's a line of internal monologue where he observes that Hildegarn's is vulnerable only in the instant when he attacks. Goku capitalizes on this by goading Hildegarn into throwing a punch at him, only to dodge at the last second and launch his devastating new finisher, the Ryu-Ken (Dragon Fist). In the dub, this is rewritten slightly, with Goku now deciding that Hildegarn is vulnerable to "intense emotions". I'm not sure what that meant, or why they added that in. More irksome, when Goku launches his Dragon Fist attack, the English dub now calls it "Dragon Fire."
This probably wouldn't matter to me at all, except that Funi had already dubbed the line in video game form, and they called it "Dragon Fist" there, so I was kind of looking forward to seeing the same moment in the movie that it came from. I'm pretty sure Funimation dubbed it "Fist" when it was used in Dragon Ball GT, so it just doesn't make sense to me why they'd suddenly change it now. This hardly kills the movie or anything; it's a cool attack no matter what you call it. "Nutty Honey Cocoa DEEEEAAAAATH!" I'm certainly not gonna start an online petition demanding this grave injustice be undone, or insist that Funimation recall these "defective" DVD's and redub them with "Fist" instead. The closest analogy I know of is whenever an artist draws the Thunderbolts insignia wrong. The new issue came in the mail today too, and it features Songbird on the cover, with her T-Bolts belt buckle prominently displayed, and the insignia has the wrong design. It's annoying because the correct design is incorporated into the letter "O" in the Thunderbolts logo at the top of every cover, so you'd think after 106 issues that the artists would notice the discrepancy. It's not a big deal, but it still irritates me.
It's a shame, because if I'd just seen the advance screening at Wizard World, then I could have asked Sabat and Schemmell why they decided to change the line. Respectfully, of course, I refuse to be one of these otaku freaks who insist everything be just so. Honestly, I'm just interested in the thought processes that lie behind these kinds of decisions. I assume there's a story behind this where Sean Schemmel did several takes of "fist", and either it just didn't sound as good, or he and Sabat watched the scene enough times to notice that Goku's not actually hitting anything with his fist while all that blazing yellow flame shoots out everywhere. Only they'd tell it funnier.
Chapter 13: Gryffindor Versus Ravenclaw
(Original Japanese Title: "G-Tower vs. R-Claw, the Battle Continues. What, Demerits?")
So Crookshanks ate Scabbers, in the culmination of what is apparently the main plot of this book. Sirius Black, Azkaban Prison, soul-eating wraiths? Buncha hooey, it's all about cats chasing mice. I'm not saying I couldn't have gotten behind all that, but cats vs. mice has been done, and you really gotta keep it fresh if you want to impress anyone. Tom and Jerry made the floor all ice that one time. Speedy Gonzales could run fast. Garfield's morbidly obese. All-Purpose Cultural Cat-Girl Nuku Nuku? Well, she's a cat's brain in a robot body, so she chases mice with like gyroscopes and lasers and stuff. Anyway, Ron's pissed because Scabbers was only three days from retirement, and Hermione is pissed because Ron can't actually prove that Scabbers was eaten. I'm sort of on her side with this. It's not like cats eat mice whole. If there really is no corpse lying around, then you'd probably want to turn your suspicion to a snake. For that matter, there's an entire room full of owls on the property, and Hagrid keeps all sorts of hideous monstrosities around. If anything, we should blame Ron for all this, since he was dumb enough to bring an animal that low on the food chain into this deathtrap. Honestly, it's a wonder Ron hasn't been eaten himself by now.
But the conventional wisdom at Hogwarts seems to be that Crookshanks somehow managed to eat an entire rat in one swallow. My brother's cat (affectionately named "the cat") will nibble on pieces of cat food, which are a tiny fraction of the size of Scabbers, so I'm guessing that everyone in this school is just a total moron. The Weasleys stop to take a look back at all their fond memories of Scabbers, like the time he bit Goyle on the finger, or that time he ate and slept in Ron's pocket, or that time that Crookshanks ate him. That's pretty much it. Ron's all pissy and irritable, but Harry offers him a ride on his new superbroom, and suddenly he's back to his cheerful and irritating personality. It's like Jekyll and Hyde with this kid, except neither option is all that likeable.
Leading up to the big game between G-Tower and Ravenclaw, Team Captain Seymour Butz informs Harry that R-Claw's Seeker is a girl named Cho Chang. I'm more familiar with Chang as Harry's obscure ex-girlfriend from Book VI, but whatever. The Skipper's mostly concerned with the fact that she's pretty good, and she's somehow managed to avoid being crippled in advance of the game. It's not really that important anyway, since Harry's got his spiffy Firebolt, which apparently is the OTHER main plot to this book since no one will shut up about it. Somehow, I knew as soon as I read about the stupid thing on display in Chapter 4, not only would Harry get the dumb thing but every single character would be fascinated by it. I hate being right. Anyway, the Firebolt is far more manueverable that anything Harry's used before, and it appears that he'll have no trouble at all outclassing Chang and securing the match... IF, there's no interference from the dementors, although Harry's somewhat confident that he's got that angle covered.
On the way back from practice, Harry thinks he sees that Grim again. You know, that black dog that's supposed to be a portend of his premature demise? Only this time it turns out to be Crookshanks instead. Ron throws a rock at him, and he runs away. Boooo! Nothing justifies throwing rocks at cats. Not even Doom Music.
The next day, Harry takes the Firebolt down to breakfast with him, and a bunch of boys form a sort of makeshift honor guard for it. Does the Firebolt need to eat? Because this is seriously starting to creep me out. Percy (who's the Head Boy, by the way), jovially informs Harry that he's got a bet with his girlfriend on the outcome of the game, then pulls him aside and pleads for him to win, since he can't cover the wager. Oh, Percy, what sort of delightful mischief have you gotten into this time? That's our Percy, he'll be back!
Then it's Señor Draco and his two best friends to weigh in on the Firebolt. The thing about Draco is that the only thing he's really got going for him is that his family's rich and stuff, so if you've got a nice car or something, he's kind of out of ammo. "Well, it's too bad your car doesn't come with... uh... uh... Dork Insurance. Yeah, because that's what you are." He tries a lame crack about Harry fainting again on the field, and Harry comes back with a line about how Draco's broom needs an arm so it can basically play Quidditch for him. You know, because Draco sucks at Quidditch, I guess is the point.
Since the game is pretty paint by numbers, let's just get this out of the way quickly so I can get to something else. The kid commentating the match is too focused on Harry's broom to actually call the game, much to the chagrin of Professor McGonagall, whom I suppose is supervising his commentary. Wouldn't want him to drop any F-bombs on the air, I guess. "JORDAN! ARE YOU BEING PAID TO ADVERTISE FIREBOLTS? GET ON WITH THE COMMENTARY!" Harry's broom works fine, in case you were expecting some sort of twist where it totally chokes up when he needs it. The problem is Cho Chang is basically following him across the field of play, waiting for him to find the Snitch, then trying to cut him off and beat him to it. Realizing her strategy, Harry dives at thin air, as though he's found the Snitch a third time, then does a hairpin at the last possible second, allowing him time to get the Snitch for real while Cho is still getting turned around on her less manueverable broom. Harry catches sight of three dementors on his way to claim the Snitch, so he whips out the wand he snuck onto the field and does his Patronus thing, then intercepts the Snitch as fast as he can, just in case that doesn't work. G-Tower for the win.
That said, let me just take this moment to critique the whole Quidditch concept a bit.
It was writerbuggie who first suggested that we all go to Lumos 2006, although ultimately she couldn't make it when the weekend finally arrived. Part of her endorsement was that they had "Water Quidditch" as one of the events. I never got around to asking how this worked until the night before the symposium, when cindale mentioned that swishandflick was a captain of his own team, and would be playing in the game himself.
ME: Now, how do they play Quidditch, exactly.
CINDY: Well, they do it in a pool.
ME: Oh, well that explains--huh?
And really, Water Quidditch was one of the things that made me want to go to Lumos, because this seemed like something I'd have to see for myself. It's one thing for a writer to create a sport for a fantasy novel, it's something else altogether to see live humans attempt to recreate it into a competitive event.
If you're one of the four people reading these reviews who doesn't know how the game is played, Book Quidditch goes like this: Each team has a goal, defended by a goalie (Keeper), and two players from either team (Chasers) attempt to score points by manuevering a ball (Quaffle) into the opposing team's goal. The Quaffle is an ordinary ball. Complicating matters is the presence of each teams' pair of Beaters, players who bat two heavy iron balls (Bludgers) at the other team's players while protecting their own teammates from being hit. Further complicating matters is the fact that all players are riding flying broomsticks, which means that they have to do all this in three dimensions. Even Further complicating matters is the Golden Snitch, a fourth ball that flies around the field in an erratic pattern under its own power. Each team has a player dedicated to capturing the Snitch (Seeker), and doing so is worth the equivalent of fifteen goals. Capturing the Snitch also marks the official end of play.
Logistically, this means that team that captures the Snitch is almost certain to win, which sort of makes the other players academic. Of course, the differential in score seems to have something to do with your team ranking, but I don't claim to understand such matters. The only way this doesn't work is if your team manages to gain a fifteen goal lead, in which case it doesn't matter who catches the Snitch, since it'll end the game in your favor. In such a situation, the losing team's Seeker would then have to adopt a strategy of distracting his counterpart until his teammates could close the gap. Looking back, that was probably Cho's mistake, since she was more or less doing this to Harry, except that her team far enough behind on points to warrant such a defensive posture. Indeed, I have a hard time believing that any evenly matched teams would ever get into a situation where one side scores fifteen more goals than the other. Even if your players were that skillful, it would still make more sense to go for the jugular, capturing the Snitch in the first few minutes of play, instead of pulling ahead and risking a lengthy siege where the other team defends the Snitch as long as possible.
Water Quidditch attempts to simulate the game by the following: Everyone's in a pool, which is far smaller than the field described in the books, thus compensating for the smaller range of motion allowed to human players without vehicles. The Quaffle and Bludgers float on the surface, and anyone struck by a Bludger is required to stand still for about sixty seconds or so to simulate the disruption of being hit with an iron ball in midair. Finally, the Snitch is replicated by a pair of volenteers standing on either side of the pool, about midway between the goalposts, each holding a length of rope with a small spongy replica of a Snitch. At various intervals, one of them will dangle their Snitch into the water, dragging it along for the Seekers to attempt to catch. However, only one of the two Snitches is the official one that earns 150 points and ends the game, and this is determined by some object concealed inside one of them. When a Seeker catches a Snitch, the referee would then inspect it to determine if it was the right one. Otherwise, play would resume. A few observations about this setup.
1) The goals were unsuitable for the game. The books use three hoops in a row as goals, and while the organizers at Lumos seemed to have arranged a very worthy replica, I don't think that was very conducive to play. The Quaffle looked to be about eight inches across, while the hoops weren't much larger in diameter, so it was difficult for anyone to score any goals. Frequently, they'd simply fall over when anyone attempted a shot. Gareth told us that every single match he'd ever played had been decided by the Snitch, and I can believe it, given the apparent difficulty of the goals.
2) The water doesn't seem to affect things one way or the other. Initially, I thought that it somehow provided a third dimension of play, to simulate the aerobatics used in the books, but since most of the players were able to walk on the bottom of the pool, and sine the balls floated on the surface, I'm pretty sure I had it figured wrong. More likely, the water is intended to serve as an equalizer, so you don't have to be super-athletic to play against people who are. No one's gonna be running circles around anyone else when they're chest deep in water, and no one's gonna pass out from over-exerting in the noontime heat of a summer day in Las Vegas. And really, I could be overthinking it, since a pool tends to justify itself. If I could write this review in a fun pool, I would.
3) The Snitch is too predictable. I'm impressed they managed to come up with what they did, but I think it's still not good enough to make the game work. The idea here is that the Snitch is so small and fast and elusive that it's tough enough just to find the thing, and then you have to catch it before the other guy does. In this situation, you can see the two people standing on either side of the pool, and you can tell when they're getting ready to unleash their Snitch because they'll wave it around first, and you know exactly where it can and can't go, because you can see the length of rope its attached to. The only element of randomness really is the decoy Snitch, but since the two volenteers never trade places or swap their Snitches around, I'm assuming that only one of them ever has the real thing in a given match. If it were me, I'd just pick one side, and shadow the person until he finally put the Snitch into the water, and then watch where it goes and grab it. Fifty-fifty chance it's the decoy, but the other team's up against the same odds, so it's worth a try. Actually, that's a problem in itself, because while smaller players make better Seekers in Book Quidditch, the water version would probably benefit from a big tall guy like me, who could just calmly reach forward and grab it. A better idea might be to use a long pole and dangle the Snitch from a string on the other end, just over the surface of the water, like a cat toy. But someone might get hurt, I'm not sure. Failing that, I'd almost suggest using a live Snitch. You throw a golden retriever into that pool, and then it's a party.
4) The girl in the referee outfit standing next to me was pretty hot.
If it were me writing this thing, I probably would have tweaked the rules to make it more evenhanded. For one thing, everyone is assigned the same broomsticks for the game. Why should Harry be allowed to use a top-of-the-line broom when no one else can? He didn't beat Cho in this game here, it was his Firebolt that beat her whatever-she's-on. Secondly, the Snitch could be worth 150 points, but it has to be caught TWICE to end the game. That way a superior team can shut out the opposition with a 300+ point lead, but you also have the possibility that both sides catch the Snitch once apiece, which means it's up to the rest of the players to actually decide the outcome. And if you wanted to make it more interesting, you could always bump up how much the goals are worth, or introduce some other rule where you get bonus points for scoring goals with bludgers or something. Anything to diminish the importance of the Seeker, you see. It's been suggested that Rowling arranged the rules so that Harry could win or lose games singlehandedly, but that's just the thing, she didn't have to do that. Michael Jordan could win games for the Chicago Bulls and be the big hero, and that was simply because he was a great player, not because there were any special rules where if he did something the game automatically ends and he gets a million points for doing it.
Anyway, back to the book. With the game won, everyone's all "Party at G-Tower", and congratulating Harry for his victory. Again, that's kind of the problem. Any game Gryffindor wins will always be thanks to Harry, not because he can score 150 points in one move, but because he's the only one on the team with the power to end the game. I mean, fine, he's the main character, but there should at least be the possibility that someone else might upstage him and be the hero of the game. I guess there was that match in Book VI where Harry had detention and couldn't play, and now that I think of it, I can't recall if the book ever mentioned who filled in for him. Poor, unloved Seeker with no name.
In any event, Harry's equally thrilled that he successfully resisted the dementors. It's here that Lupin informs him that while he did a good job with the Patronus Charm, it was all for nothing, since the dementors he spotted were never dementors at all. Turns out they were Señor Draco, Crabbe and Goyle in disguise, no doubt in an effort to distract Harry and keep G-Tower out of the running for the Championship Cup Award Trophy Whositz. McGonagall gives them detention and demerits, which sort of puts an exclamation point on Harry's triumph here. I gotta admit, that was kind of a cute moment there.
So they have a big dumb party, sort of like in Book VI except Harry played this time but he doesn't get any sumpin'-sumpin' for his trouble, and then they all go to bed. Harry dreams he's walking through a forest carrying his Firebolt (Geez, it's in his dreams, too?), and he chases after something, but wakes up before he can catch it. This is because Ron is screaming something about seeing Sirius Black slashing at the curtains with a knife. Everyone assumes it was a bad dream, so Ron falls back on the caps lock key to emphasize his point. "IT WASN'T A NIGHTMARE! PROFESSOR, I WOKE UP, AND SIRIUS BLACK WAS STANDING OVER ME, HOLDING A KNIFE." Let me also add for the record: LOOK! SCABBERS! LOOK! SCABBERS!
Stupidly, McGonagall dismisses his story, since she can't imagine how on earth Black could have gotten through the portrait hole in the first place. Well, that's stupid. No one thought he'd get into the castle at all until he did, so just because he didn't get through the portrait before doesn't mean he couldn't have figured it out later. I'd be more interested in knowing why Black would waste time on curtains if he's supposedly after Harry Potter.
But the answer to McG's question is quickly ascertained. Recall that the original painting was damaged by Black earlier, so that dork Sir Cadogan was employeed as its replacement, he reports dutifully that Sirius Black did indeed enter G-Tower, and that he allowed him access, because he has the password conveniently listed on a piece of paper. Demanding to know who would be stupid enough to write down such sensitive information, only to misplace it for Sirius Black to find, Neville Longbottom raises his hand.
All in all, an inoffensive little episode. I don't know why Harry would go into any other line of work, since it seems like these Quidditch chapters are the only times he's ever depicted as a halfway competent, well-adjusted person. Any other job description, he'd be the usual suspicious, self-interested twit he usually is. And Rowling managed to slip a plot thread under my nose. Cadogan is introduced in Chapter 6, Black slashes the Fat Lady portrait in Chapter 8, forcing Cadogan to be employeed as her replacement in Chapter 9, and his unorthodox style as gatekeeper forces the forgetful Neville Longbottom to keep a list of passwords, which he's lost by Chapter 12. I'm pleasantly impressed to see that these elements all managed to tie into something.
So maybe I was wrong to write this book off as a colossal load of poo. Yeah, it started off on the wrong foot, but maybe it'll turn things around and maintain this momentum up to the end. Yeah, that's the ticket. I'll see ya next time, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and ready for more QUALITY!
RATING: GOOD
NEXT: Or not...