May. 4th, 2012

andrewducker: (Default)
First, some local observations. I have to say that I was incredibly disappointed to discover that the majority of the people standing in my local area didn't have a web page up anywhere explaining who they were, what they believe, and why we should vote for them. At a point where people are disgusted by all the political parties coming across as a real person rather than a mouthpiece for the party line is vital. This is particularly true in Scotland, where we use Single Transferrable Vote. While my natural reaction is to place Labour near the bottom of the parties I'm willing to vote for, I'd move an individual candidate who was on the liberal wing of the party up the list - so it's in their interest to make it clear exactly where they stand. Also, STV makes it dramatically easier for independents, or unusual parties, to get elected. I'd have been interested in a Pirate Party candidate, but there weren't any standing in my ward. With a decent voting system (as we have in Scotland) there's no excuse for not voting "Because they're all the same." - you can get involved, organise some friends, and get out there recruiting people.

On a national level the main issue I'm seeing is incredibly low turnout - less than 30% in most places. Most people have no idea who to vote for, because of the aforementioned "They're all the same" argument. From the Boris and Ken show in London to the various Scottish parties warning me not to let each other in, the main driver that's being used is fear. And it's not working, because at this point nobody believes anything any of the major parties say.

[livejournal.com profile] bracknellexile suggested I run a poll about the voting, which was tempting. He was wondering what information people got through their door, whether it only had national information or local information, whether it had information on what the candidate(s) personally believed, etc. But after reading on Facebook, LJ and various other sites last night, I know that the answers are horribly disappointing all round. The thought of posting a poll that will then get filled up with more information that makes me miserable, and comments highlighting the awful state of British politics just fills me with too much dread.
andrewducker: (Default)
andrewducker: (cards of love)
There is definitely a place for creating versions of existing stories that are (generally) faithful to the original. While there are always issues in conversion from one format to another, the basic storyline is generally the same in the film versions of The Lord Of The Rings as it is in the books*, and that's a good thing, because if you're only going to get one version of a treasured book then it's nice that they don't completely Dark-Is-Rising it up.

However, when it comes to superhero movies, there is a definite limit to the number of times that I can maintain any kind of emotional interest in watching Bruce Wayne's parents being killed in front of him. Show me multiple variations on the same movie, and eventually I will get very bored with it. The sheer fact that every movie maker who takes on a superhero movie decides that they have to do the origin story already bores me to tears - sticking so closely to the origin story that I find myself anticipating the gunshots that inspire a life of Great Responsibility is just taking the piss.

And so I am delighted to watch this latest trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man and discover that I have _no idea_ exactly how it's going to pan out. Sure, the familliar Peter/Gwen/Curt/Ben/May characters are all there, but I'm not convinced they're going to be following the same patterns as usual, the origin story seems to have been tweaked, they're involving different bits to his back story than I'm used to seeing in the movies, and frankly it looks like the plot of a Spider-Man movie is going to interest me for the first time in a long while**




*I can hear the naysayers already. Look, I know that Faramir had a personality transplant, and the Ents had to do a double-take for no good reason, but the vast majority of the plot was right there.
**I'm not a fan of the Sam Raimi movies. The first one was meh, the second was at least watchable, the third was godawful.

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