First off let me get the one negative out of the way; I had trouble with the IMAX 3D glasses, since I already wear glasses (one size does NOT fit all, or even most). Still, at the first 3d movie I've seen since my youth (hint: b&w), the technique has improved dramatically since the Fifties. Now admit it, those who saw the movie in 3d; didn't you find yourself swatting at the bugs on Pandora? Or trying to push a frond of vegetation away from the camera? Thought so. Like I said, dramatic improvement.

My compliments to the CG teams; the Na'vi avatars look strikingly like the live actors, and while you never see the faces behind the native actors, you get the impression that they would be recognizable. And to the vehicle CG team: I recognize what airframe you used for your live shots! Never try to fool a wrench monkey!

Why the title: Any of you old farts who remember the alternative rock band YES would recognize the album cover artist. For those who don't, find a couple of references to Roger Dean's work. The stone arches, floating mountains, garish color patterns on exotic animals; Roger wasn't into techno weapons per se, but he might approve of the mecha.

Okay, so I've insulted the Twilight crowd, Greens, Nazis, Goths, emos, and Burger King; oh, yeah, aristocrats and royalty syncophants. Who's next?

How about the flip side of the vampire craze: lycanthropes. Wolfmen (odd that wolf-women don't get as much press as the guys). Again borne of Euro-fear, this legend attacks the unfamiliar, the alien. You know: gypsies, refugees, Semites. In more modern times we Euro-trash included Native Americans, carnies, true geeks, mentally ill and the occaisional "mad" scientist (to Americans, all scientists are "mad"). Notice that Silicon Valley techs, computer geeks, cosplayers and dopers are essentially harmless, so only worthy of disgust and contempt.

Lycanthropes, like vampires, feed on humans, with an occaisional sheep or cow. They have the decency to eat more than just the blood, so are only slightly less wasteful than their vampiric foes. And foes the vampires are; both are competitors for the same resource: humans. From Lon Chaney being in thrall to Bela Lugosi to now, lycanthropes have been the slaves (since, as a Euro-American, I have no right to use another, more oppressive adjective) to vampires; the wolves would fight themselves free, only to be enslaved by the aristocrats at a later time. A cycle of serfdom. A good source of anger, resentment, superiority complexes and plot complications, but hardly good examples of developing independence, which is the goal of many of the Twilight crowd. And both sides use the same techniques to dominate their opponent; brutality, deceit, the shameless use of people as tools and the occaisional shield. This is the methodology of survival being taught to today's impressionable, malable young adults, but with a critical twist.

You see, in previous tellings of the vampire/lycanthrope tales, in the end these monsters, though at war for centuries, were defeated locally, by plain folks. Yes, sometimes the brutality of the plain folks rivaled the monster's; remember, the plain folks were fighting for survival against inhuman forces. But in the last twenty years, it seems that the monsters not only survive, but are somehow transformed into "plain folks," who just happen to feed on their neighbors. They're protected, nurtured, emulated. The monster has become the role model. The monster's techniques, their consideration of their neighbors as tools to be used up and then discarded, that has become the prefered way of dealing with others today. There's no silver bullet, no Van Helsing to protect our culture; only the forlorn hope that, this time, the monsters will go after someone else.

The problem? we are all "someone else."

I find it ironic that many people who think of themselves as environmentally aware and friends of the Earth also worship at the altar of vampirism, which teaches consuming for consumption's sake, make more consumers in the process, and ignore the finite nature of Nature, as well as its resource, i.e., blood. The more clever vampire stories talk about herding humans like cattle, but the more popular vampires (This decade's Twilight crew, last decade's Lestat servants, the "hero-worship" in eastern Europe of Vlad Tepys, and on back to that old Mick Bram Stoker's original child of the night, Dracula) wouldn't give a damn for humans; were they all dead or undead, the emphasis would switch to other primates, then mammals in general, and so on. The supply of blood users may peter out in several million years, but vampires will still be around, sucking away on the last husks of life. Probably fighting with other vampires, too, over resource rights.

Sound familiar? Take away the lace shirts, gothic trappings, and nocturnal work habits, and they're just plain folks; the very same plain folks PETA, FOE and other eco-protestors are targeting. Talk about hypocrisy....

Those are the rabid; and like rabies, short of radical innoculation of sanity nothing can save such a ravaged mind. Then there are the "wannabes," those who dress the dress, talk the talk, and celebrate Hallowe'en their entire lives. Some call themselves "vampires," though the closest they get to consuming blood is an under-cooked Whopper with strawberry shake (unless you want to count sucking their parents fiscally dry). Others find colors either intruding on their self-absorbed depression or just too confusing, so they wear the same non-colors as their fellow mental cripples. As a clinical depressive I find these people contemptable, and as to their garb I would like to point out another group who wears similar drab clothing, body mutilations (as opposed to true piercing and tatoo art), and complete lack of anger management. I of course refer to the skinheads, the un-Aryan Aryans, the neo-Nazis that not just live in enclaves in Idaho but small sports communes in Tukwila, Salem, Petaluma, and Riverside, to mention some West Coast hang-outs. The Nazis express their desire for violence better, but then, they aren't as tied to the family wallet as the neo-Goths and Edward Scissorhands clones. In that they are more honest about their anti-humanism, though regretably more crippled in their choice of role models, choosing a syphillitic Austrian war veteran and vehement anti-Semitic (yes, that includes you Arabs, too, sons of Abraham).

Still more to come....

Oooh, am I gonna get pilloried for this journal!

Well, 'New Moon' is out, 'The Wolfman' is lurking in the wings, and the annual lame excuse of a spending orgy is about to get this decade's worth of vampire worship. Yes, roughly every ten years some incredibly clever and intelligent author finds a new way to express one of the oldest methods of aristocrat bashing known to humanity. Vampires have been endemic in story-telling for centuries, possibly millenia, but all revolve around a basic premise: undead who feed off the living. To some vampires sound like capitalists, except capitalists produce (albeit with ulterior motives that are vampiric). But since the introduction of hired national armies feudalism, and its bastard child aristocracy, have been more of a drain on national coffers than they're worth. Now before you point out "Sirs" Paul McCartney and Elton John, et al., remember that they are entertainers; in other words, pretending to be like plain folks to get their money. Sounds like undead living off the living to me. Not to mention that in an older era entertainers were the feeble-minded bastard children of the local aristocrat.

Why so much sour grapes? Because supposedly intelligent and "emotioned" young people are lapping at the heels of these parasitic archetypes instead of finding real, positive role models to emulate. Their money, self-worth, and compassion are being sucked out of them by unfeeling, brutal semi-animal predators, teaching them to be just like them.

More to come....

Usually when I load two or more tasks onto me I tend to do none (I'm not a multi-tasker). And this Samhain was no exception; I vowed to do more CGI (at least one per week) and to categorize all my content on D|S.

Guess which is getting done?

I hope you like this Weekend Warrior series I started. It will be all CGI, mostly science fictional, and involve conflict in some form, as well as a smidgen of humor.