Sighinide

Since publishing my earlier screed, I decided to test my theory.

And in light of the Oscars coming up this week and the whole “whitewashing” controversy refusing to leave the headlines, I feel it apropos to chime in again on this topic. So, here goes.

A lot has been written about the film Warcraft and it’s immense, and to many, incomprehensible financial success in China.

I was curious, too. So, I watched it myself.

I liked the movie, personally. I was pleasantly surprised that the film took more inspiration from the RTS franchise than the MMO, which I was never a fan of (the subscription model didn’t agree with me; seriously, Blizzard, time to go free-to-play with WOW).

At any rate, it was cool to see so much of the stuff from the RTS series on screen, like the big-ass portal that the Orcs used to escape Draenor. Very impressive. And Gul’Dan kicked ass, naturally. Us evil wizards always do, really.

I found the film more Warcraft 2 than Warcraft 3, which was doubly awesome. Maybe the sequel can introduce Arthas and Illidan, or at least Kel’Thuzad. That would be nice.

Is it just me, or did it seem to others that the film took inspiration from the old iOS game Orc: Vengeance as well? I mean, the story about the Orc chieftain being the protagonist and saving the world from evil, etc.

While I’m on this stream of consciousness kick here, some of what Medivh went through with the Fel seems eerily similar to some of what I went through with those ultra powerful dark and death based demonic energies that I experimented with, years ago. I got some weird flashbacks watching Warcraft. Crazy stuff.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m still evil, and I still have access in my brain to that stuff in case I ever need to enslave the Earth, or something. But, that isn’t on the radar right now.

Anyhoo- to a longtime fan of the franchise, the movie was nice.

Um, back on track, here… so why did the movie do so well in China? It’s because it wasn’t Chinese, of course.

It presented to the Chinese mainland a fantasy world that is unlike anything that they have themselves. To them, Warcraft (and the other Blizzard properties) are pure escapist entertainment.

China has it’s own mystical tradition that is unrelated to the European mythological and LOTR based worlds that White culture has. So to them, these Western traditions are new, fascinating and edgy. I think that to those in the far East, playing Warcraft would offer the same escapist thrill that Westerners get when watching Kung-Fu movies, or when getting tattoos of Chinese words, or something like that.

And all of this can be applied to Starcraft and Warhammer and The Elder Scrolls and Mortal Kombat and Avatar and the rest of the modern Western fantasy franchises, all of which have huge followings in Asia.

See, what people here need to “get” is that China has no need for, and no willingness to see, China and Chinese stuff in Hollywood movies. They have their own film industry for that.

I can’t stress this enough. China pumps out hundreds if not thousands of movies of it’s own, every year, that focus exclusively on China and Chinese issues. That being the case, why are people here thinking that the Chinese are begging to see China ineptly shoehorned into American films? They have zero need for such representation.

Done well, pandering to Chinese audiences will get Hollywood nowhere. Done badly, it looks offensive and dumb. So why do it at all?

The best approach to things in the future, by far IMHO, is to ignore China and other cultures completely and go full tilt White and European. This is what the Eastern audience WANTS.

I mean, JUST LOOK at the box-office receipts! It’s right there!

So, upon seeing Warcraft, my opinion still stands.

Whitewash everything.

These have become kind of a tradition here, so here’s this year’s edition.

Sports wise, the short takeaway is that this was a good game, what with it going to overtime, and because of Brady’s records and all that. He really is a great player. You can tell because even I think so, and I’m not a football fan.

That’s the litmus test for real greatness, IMO. If someone who doesn’t follow the sport and doesn’t even know all the rules can immediately tell that you’re the best guy out there, than you probably are. I mean, I only watch one NFL game a year, so I can’t honestly tell the difference between a poor QB and an average QB, or an average QB and a pretty good QB. But Brady? He is awesome- there’s no question. He is the best. Everyone can see it.

Watching Brady tonight, I got flashbacks of watching the Bulls, back when Jordan was our sports hero, here. He is so obviously superior at his sport that even non-fans feel comfortable cheering for him, even when they don’t understand 100% of what’s going on.

It is kind of unfortunate that the Falcons lost. I was actually rooting for them, because I’d learned before the game that they’d never won a SB before. I didn’t know who was on their team, or anything, but I thought it would make for a good ending if they would’ve taken it, kind of like how the Cubs won the World Series.

But… the Patriots deserved it. They were the better team today.

So, congrats, Patriots.

Non-football stuff… Lady Gaga was also awesome, as usual. Hopefully, her performance will lead to a comeback of sorts on the charts.

So, everything was all good, except for… that. The feeling.

That other feeling.

Is it just me, or is football… boring, now? Even the Super Bowl.

It’s puzzling. This was a good game, at least near the end, when it really counted, but… it was kinda boring, even then. It seemed very samey, which struck me since I only watch one game a year.

Something’s happened to the NFL lately. It’s nowhere near as fun or as interesting as it used to be. I think I can say this with authority, since I’m a non-fan. I can look at it objectively.

It was a good game, but it seemed weirdly anti-climatic. To me, it was a tense game with a unique ending that somehow seemed rote and routine. Even with Brady’s epic performance, the whole thing seemed hollow.

Maybe this is the “Cubs effect”. Around here, you can still buy magazines celebrating the Cubs’ World Series win. And a lot of them, too. I went to the corner drug store today before the game and saw fully stocked rows of four different magazines commemorating the Cubs’ victory. And still, the hats and T-shirts were prominently displayed, as if the Series was last week.

It could be that compared to the madness that was the Cubs’ victory, any Super Bowl would look stale here.

But… IDK. The NFL really seems to have lost it’s luster, and it’s aura of mystique. Back in 2015, I wrote another one of these, and I started the post off with this: “The Super Bowl is the only NFL game I’ll really watch, because it mostly isn’t about the NFL. It’s about everything besides.” But, I feel as though even that’s no longer true. This year, I felt as though I was just watching the SB because it’s what I’ve always done, and not because I can actually glean something from it.

The ads, especially, were horrifically boring. God, were they boring. They were awful, awful, awful. It used to be that people watched the SB ads because they were more entertaining than normal ads. But, things have actually swung in the opposite direction. I would have rather watched any normal ads over the SB ads this year.

And it isn’t the politics. I mean, everyone took note of how overtly political and anti-conservative the ads were, this year. But, that isn’t a surprise, or even noteworthy. That’s just how TV ads are, these days. But what is noteworthy is how utterly charmless and devoid of humor this particular bunch was.

Most of the ads were like sermons; like lectures on Proper Behavior. They were morose and tiring, and some were outright condescending. It seemed like there was *no* humor in the majority of them.

It was awful. Really, it was awful.

The ads are making watching the SB a depressing, painful experience. As it stands, I watch TV to be entertained, so I’m thinking of skipping next year’s show because of the overwhelming number of sullen, intentionally boring ads in this year’s show.

The ads this year illustrate, once again, how badly the left is missing the mark these days. Ideals aside, who in their right minds would want to be ruled over by people as flat, condescending and dull as those types who made this year’s commercials?

You know- what I said earlier, about the ads being like sermons, seems more appropriate the more I think about it. It really did seem like Sunday school all over again, because I remember watching movies like those ads all the damn time in Catholic Sunday School classes. Really drives home the Christian origins of the multicultural mentality to me, as if more proof was needed for that.

Beyond the ads, it just seems that football itself is boring, too.

The game itself never changes.

The sports boom was brought on by the advent of HDTVs. For the first time, people could actually see what was going on on the playing field. HDTVs and new camera tech re-invented watching team sports. It made the old games of the past interesting again. But now, that interest seems to be waning.

Football, I think, will likely take the brunt of this.

Football was boosted by HDTVs perhaps more than any other sport. NFL games are perfectly suited for them- they’re just the right length for a get- together with family or friends, and have enough action to entertain, but not so much all at once that you can’t talk with people or get something to eat while the game is on.

IMO the NFL was boosted by the advent of HDTVs perhaps more than any other entertainment choice.

But, the novelty really does seem to be wearing off.

You know… I think I’ve said enough. It’s midnight, I’m tired of typing and I’ve already given this experience more attention than it deserves, really.