I’m so excited. I really liked Underworld. What’s not to like? Great special effects. Vampires and werewolves at war. Really hot leather-clad gun toting heroine with fangs.
What’s not to love?
Hmmm… I noticed the werewolves actually have hair now, instead of looking like giant molerats. I hope they get away from the werewolves = good, vampires = bad subtext they occaisionally dipped into in the first one. It tended to have characters do stupid things because the script called for it.
I hope in this film that they realize that they aren’t making “The Matrix”, because it sucked when they tried for the last movie.
I didn’t find that it was overly done. By the end it was clear that either side could be evil or good, and most of the problem was misunderstanding. It was a pretty simple moral, but I didn’t feel they were beating us over the head with it.
What Matrix-ey things sucked? I thought the gun battles and fight scenes and chase scenes were all fun.
It went through four stages:
- Vampies are good, werewolves are evil
- Werewolves are good, vampires are evil
- It was a big misunderstanding. Or something.
[4) Audience after watching it: They both suck.]
The problem with “Werewolves are good, vampires are evil” was that they had the vamps do some really stupid things. Like stand around during the overly-long transformation sequence instead of killing the bastard now. Or using whips as heavy-duty melee weapons, instead of a gun, sword, missile launcher, neutron bomb, etc.
A lot of people don’t like it when directors try to remake the Matrix with “x” (this one being The Matrix with vampires and werewolves). It didn’t even work for the actual Matrix sequels.
The “werewolves=good, vampires=evil” subtext comes straight from the source material, White Wolf’s World of Darkness games. If I remember my game lore correctly, in general (though there are exceptions), werewolves serve nature and the side of good, while vampires are pawns of a force that opposes all life.
I thought they were both cool, and the movie made me want to know more about them. But hey, I liked Aliens vs. Predator.
You’re harder on these movies than I am. I fully expect the bad guys to wait too long while the good guy recovers, recoups his strength, formulates a plan, etc.
I thought the vamps had guns, but resorted to whips when the bullets ran out. Also weren’t whips a traditional weapon, meant to psychologically defeat a werewolf by reminding him of his past as an animal-servant of the vamps? Weren’t the whips more up-to-date than a normal whip? Weren’t they metallic or something, inflicting more damage? Aren’t whips a good method for keeping a large, dangerous animal at bay? Although vampires and werewolves are both physically strong, it seems the last thing a lone vampire wants is to get into grappling range of a werewolf and his claws & fangs.
No, because in White Wolf, all supernatural creatures serve the dark gods of stupidity.
I am not joking (much).
Seriously, that would certainly be the werewolve’s point of view. The vanmpires think it’s a crock o’ hooey, and who’s right depends on whether the Storyteller likes Werewolf or Vampire more.
But the majolr point is that they are all idiots in White Wolf. I am not joking at all. Take werewolves in White Wolf. Even the “good” ones have more or less failed to do a single thing right from the dawn of time - by their own admission!
Created by (accounts vary) Luna or Gaia or whatever, they were supposed to guard all other creatures - particularly mankind - from the depredations of evil beings. Instead, they immediately walked into the embrace of evil and gained Rage, and became wholly dependant on it. Other shapeshifters suggested this wasn’t a good idea. The werewolves killed them. They they started killing others. They they decided humans wre too powerful, so they set about culling humanity. They killed one human for every one born (after taking into account natural deaths). This would include their own close relatives. They apparently did this with gusto and zeal. Other werecreatures objected. The werewolves killed them, too. Along the way, one werewolf tribe decided to jump in to the spirit world and attack their enemies. They all came back hideously evil and mad. They are still there.
Eventually, the werewolves stopped killing humans en masse, although a fair portions think it’s still a good idea and sometimes do it for fun. They find themselves horribly cursed, because humans have vast collective power over reality. Of course, despite having been warned by every interested party, they’re still not entirely sure what went wrong. Werewolves traveled to other lands in the Age of Discovery. They made the most vicious Europeans to shame by exterminating more werewolf tribes, more or less on a whim.
Enter the modern age. The werewolves have exterminated almost all their allies, and have so hurt the remainder that they have nothing to do with the wolf-boys. They still can’;t quite understand why humanity hates them (yeah, that ten thousand year genocide was really only a small thing between friends, right?), or that it embraces Vampires because the vamps are a defense against werewolves. Nope, no, it takes too much brains to recognize that they are now dying because, in WoD, they’ve managed to screw up everything good in the world. And that’s their side of the story. Other are less kind.
White Wolf does this with every game setting. Generally speaking, all sides are completely and utterly useless and they have all managed to complwetely betray the entire purpose of their existence.
-
That doesn’t mean it’s not the dumbest thing one can possibly do. I expect my characters not commit suicide for s**** and giggles.
-
Whips are not good weapons against someone trying to kill you, super-whip or no. Just take a fricking silver sword and cut his frackin 'ead off! With a big one, you won’t even have to get close!