Svensk Filmindustri and why I feel you fail

This is a rant about a very Swedish phenomenon. You have now been warned.


There has been a few times when I feel extra annoyed about SF (Svensk Filmindustri) and their actions and comments.


But let's start with a very basic point; All sorts of business will eventually die out. Yes, it's sad that the business your dad, granddad and his granddad all worked in will not be available for you, but if we were to follow the logic that all family business has to live on we'd be subsidizing pyramid building.


So, even if your dad and granddad had a fishing boat and you grew up on it, it doesn't automatically mean you have the right to fish out every cod or herring from the ocean because they did so. And just because your dad and granddad hunted wolves that were attacking their caribou it doesn't mean you can take a helicopter and sniper rifle to shoot the last 200 that are left. And just because people used to be forced to only view the movies you thought were good enough to import, it's not that an environment anymore.


A short while ago some cable companies wanted to make a deal with Swedish cinema and movie industry to be able to show blockbuster movies on demand only a week after international release.
This was to provide an alternative to people downloading the same movies but was met with a lot of skeptism and again the "movie lifecycle" was given as a reason not to provide this.
The movie lifecycle is in short how long periods should go between the different stages: Movie on cinema, movie on rental, movie for purchase and lastly, movie on TV.
This is of course as bright a plan as claiming you can commit murder if you later on buy a letter of indulgence. Hint, we stopped that practice some time ago...


But these points aren't so much how "SF" are failing as how they are clinging for all their might to a dying system. Cinema is entertainment, entertainment change. You don't see a ballet-stage in every mall and city and that is open every night of the week.


So, why do they fail?


First of all; They promote the wrong movies. I know, this isn't the fault of the cinema provider, it's the fault of the companies purchasing the movies. An excellent example comes from last summer:
Before the summer there was one very big "talky" on the Internet and two lesser ones. The big one being Inception (at least outside Twilight circles) and the two "smaller" ones Scott Pilgrim vs The World and The Expendables.
The movie that received most TV commercial time and space on billboards in Sweden was Knight and Day, some b-grade action with Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz that nobody cared about. There was also some commercials for a Swedish copmovie parody, the kind of movie had it been made anywhere else you'd be lucky to find it under the cheap rental comedies or the "2 movies for 1" bargain bin.


So, where was Inception, Scott Pilgrim and Expendables? Well, Inception did get some talks and was scheduled long ahead for the international release. As for the other two, at first it wasn't certain they would even be shown on Swedish cinemas.
The Expendables came up two weeks after launch after much pressure from customers. Late July SF said they had no plans to show it in cinemas, on August 13th it had it's opening night.
Scott Pilgrim had it's opening 3 months after it premiered in the US. Which is a move so stupid it baffles me. A movie that so strongly caters to a computer savvy audience, people who in many cases have friends in all parts of the world, such a movie you either don't show in cinemas or you have it go up internationally. Need I say that Scott Pilgrim didn't do that good at the cinemas, despite that people who download are among the most frequent cinema goers(there are studies on this that come by all the time)?


But all of those were American movies (except for the cop parody). And here is another of my annoyances with SF. Show something else once in a while! Not everything is made in the US, there are movies from other parts of the world as well.


5 days ago they premiered Real Steel and commercials are still showing on TV. But, Rock'em - Sock'em robots was never that big a tabletop game in Sweden. In fact, I'm not sure I've ever seen it in a store.
What is big in Sweden and has been so for several years is anime and manga, and a lot of Swedes has watched Star Blazers, that is the strangely edited version of Space Battleship Yamato.
Why would I mention this? Because in 2010 a big budget live-action movie premiered in Japan based on that series. Will we ever get to see this movie in Sweden, even in DVD shape? Of course not.


And for another blog I will rant on Swedish voice "actors" and why Ghibli movies are only shown dubbed on Swedish cinema.


So, to conclude, if SF wants to be a part of entertainment Sweden they need to evolve. And the same of course goes for their suppliers. Take a dare once in a while, I'm not saying you should buy and try to show "Fish story" (even if it is the best movie ever) to the general public, but at least look at what's out there!
And Tom Cruise does not make a good movie.
1. Bad actor.
2. Bad director.
3. Low budget.
4. ???
5. No, it does not equal profit.

What's the story #guildwars ? - Chinwe, collector and airship inventor

Today we look at Chinwe On top of a high plateau in the Shattered Ravines stands a collector asking for Dusty Insect Carapaces. He needs these to create bellows for his balloon that will take him to the gates of Lion's Arch. All in all a good quest for someone stuck in the Desolation, but he does raise a few questions; First of all, why would a ghost need a balloon to take him so far away? Is it even possible for him to leave this place of his mortal remains? How would the citizens of Lions Arch respond when suddenly one day a ghost piloting a blimp (obscure Portal 2 reference is obscure) floats over their gates? I am sure there are a lot more questions to the current state of Chinwes plans, but there is an even bigger question for me, will he succeed? Guild Wars 2 is 250 years into the future, a length of time that for a ghost will seem like an instant. Will he succeed? Will we see a lone balloon floating high above? And most importantly, will he crash with Rata Sum? Again, Arena Net, I ask that you give this piece of lore the fleshing out it deserves. In fact, I believe Chinwe would be happy for any flesh at all as he is right now.

What's the story #guildwars ? - Lissah the Packleader

This will be a series of entries on different characters that appear in Guild Wars, that I feel should get some explanation or perhaps a follow up in Guild Wars 2.

My first entry will be about Lissah the Packleader.

In Bjora Marches, deep within Gursteig's cavern roams a pack of wolves, and in their midst is Lissah. What separates her from the others is the fact that she's an elemental with only the vague shape of a wolf. In fact she shares model with the shard wolves.
There is no explanation on why she leads the pack or why she feels a connection to them. Is she a shard wolf that's escaped the Fissure of Woe or is the resemblance to them just coincidence (and a resource saving use of an existing model)?

Is Lissah the failed experiment of a crazed Stone Summit mage that tried to create a pet?

Was she just a wolf that came too close when Svanir called upon the magic of Jormag?

I own a few novels written within the Elf Quest world and one of these tells the tale of magic gone bad. A small puddle of residual magic that through the ages has gone stale, and when a wolf entered it, it turned him into a monster. Did Lissah stumble upon some elementalist corpse that was lost and forgotten in the mountains?

Whatever Lissah is or how she became the packleader, there is a story there and it deserves to be told.

Why I like the new Thundercats

This is without a doubt be my most pointless blog post so far, but who reads this anyways.
And yeah, may contain spoilers for the first three episodes.

Why I like the new series
I have just watched the first three episodes of the new Thundercats series, a remake I was at first very reluctant to watch because I really liked the original. Though my fascination may have been mostly for nostalgia reasons, not so much for the deep story and good characters.

The new series amends those points. We have a society that's well thought through with both racism as well as class differences, sadly it doesn't last for too long as a society in the series.
I hope they'll get back to a larger cat society soon. I have a hard time seeing how an entire, and not to mention predominant, species can live in a single not too large canyon.

The characters actually have personalities in the new series, not just traits. I never really liked Lion-O in the old version. Yes, I understand that his body grew up while his mind was sleeping, but through the entire series he was a sniveling brat, even WilyKit and WilyKat seemed more level headed.
In the new series:

Lion-O actually have reason and thought behind his actions. Not always good reasons, but still.

Cheetara is someone, not just background.

Tygra grows somewhat, and I hope he questions Lion-O again later in the series, it bothered me a bit that he went from belitteling Lion-O to follow his every command without question in a night.

And Snarf doesn't talk! This almost made me dance with joy.

So what is wrong with the new series?
The voice actors for WilyKit and WilyKat. Seriously, they're equally bad and they are HORRIBLE! They bothered me in the 9 minute preview and they have not gotten any better as the show has progressed. Which is sad, because the characters themselves are promising.

And the voiceacting by the new characters in episode three is almost equally horrible, I hope we never see them again.

The animation
I guess this needs a part of its own. I think I like it, though I am an anime-fan so this shouldn't come as a surprise. I was hesitant to Lion-O's very slim face at first, but it works. There are some issues with crowd-animations, but nothing to really argue about. All in all, the new style works.
So there was really no need to separate the animation, but hey, it's my blog so who cares.

Såhär fungerar Google+ - För dig som alltid undrat.

Såhär fungerar Google+

Du har äntligen fått en inbjudan:

• Du måste skapa ett Google-konto. Antingen ett baserat på din vanliga email eller ett Gmail-konto som då även fungerar som mailkonto.
• Klicka på inbjudningsknappen i ditt mail. Har du inte skapat ett Google konto tidigare kan du göra det nu också.
• Telefonnummerverifieringen kommer upp om man inte har ett Gmail konto. Jag håller med att det känns ganska olustigt, men de sparar i alla fall inte telefonnumret vad jag kunnat se.
• Fyll i koden som du fått, antingen röstmässigt eller SMS ledes.
• Fyll i namn o.s.v. Kom ihåg att bocka av i den lilla vita rutan som annars ger Google tillåtelse att använda din information till reklam. Google frågar i alla fall till skillnad från Facebook.
• Du är nu en av drygt 20 miljoner medlemmar.

Du har nu kommit in, hur fungerar då Google+ ?
Börja med att klicka det lilla kugghjulet i höger, övre hörn - välj ”Google+ inställningar” och avmarkera merparten av ”Få meddelanden” – ”E-post” för att slippa en lavin av mail. Samma som i Facebook alltså.
Avsluta med att klicka ”Tillbaka till Google+”.

Det andra du ska titta på är Kretsar, eller ”Circles” som de heter i den engelska versionen. (Och helt ärligt, Cirklar låter roligare än Kretsar.)

• Det finns ingen för mig känd maxmängd kretsar. Själv har jag 13 stycken. Läs gärna mitt tidigare blogg-inlägg om varför jag anser man ska dela upp det så mycket som möjligt.
• En person kan vara med i flera cirklar. Precis som en vän kan även vara en klubbmedlem, men alla klubbmedlemmar är inte dina vänner.
• Ingen vet vilka cirklar man är med i. Du behöver inte vara orolig att det ska synas om du väljer bort någon.

Din och andras logg:

• När du skriver ett inlägg kan du välja vem som kan läsa det. Man kan lägga in kretsar och enskilda personer. Antingen klickar du upp listan över kretsar och väljer där, eller börja skriva någons namn, så kommer du kunna välja dem.
• Om du vill att alla i dina kretsar ska se ett inlägg väljer du ”Dina kretsar”, vill du att hela världen ska se ditt inlägg väljer du ”Offentlig”.
• Du kan även välja människor som inte har Google+ men vars mailadress du lagt in, dessa kommer få ett mail med ditt inlägg.
• Vill du skicka ett inlägg till en enskild person så går du inte in på deras sida, du gör bara ett inlägg men sätter den personen som den enda som kan se inlägget.
• Googles ”+1” knapp är samma sak som Facebooks ”Like”. Vill du sluta gilla något, klicka ”+1” igen.
• Du kan redigera inlägg i efterhand. Du behöver inte ta bort om du skrivit fel eller inte skrivit klart eller liknande.
• Genom att sätta + eller @ och sedan skriva en persons namn så taggas de i ditt inlägg.
• Klickar du på ett inläggs tidsstämpel så kan du få en länk till exakt det inlägget.
• Om du inte vill att någon ska kunna dela ditt inlägg vidare, klicka den lilla pilen i högra hörnet och välj att inlägget inte går att dela.
• Du kan sortera din logg så du bara ser inlägg från människor i en viss krets.
• Om du använder Google+ på en smartphone kan du se inlägg från människor i din geografiska närhet. De inlägg som syns i så fall är sådana som är satta som ”Offentlig”.

Ytterligare funktioner i Google+

• Chatten i Google+, till skillnad från den i Facebook, fungerar väldigt bra. Den går även att komma åt via t.ex. Pidgin eller andra IM program. Den slöar inte ner din dator var gång det kommer ett nytt meddelande, den buggar inte ur för att du ändrar inställningar, överhuvudtaget den fungerar bra.
• Gnistor behöver du inte bry dig om. I alla fall inte än, jag väntar fortfarande på att höra någon som gillar dem.
• ”Hangout” är en funktion där man skapar en gemensam plats där vänner med webkameror kan prata med varandra. Nej, jag har inte testat och kan inte riktigt kommentera om det fungerar eller ej.
• Fotoalbumet fungerar bra. Markera bilder på din dator, dra dem till ett album. Inget speciellt alls att kommentera kring dem.
• När någon lagt till dig i en krets (du vet inte vilken dock, bara att de gjort det) så kan du lägga till den personen i dina kretsar direkt utan att behöva leta upp dem.
• När du använder Google+ så har du en liten svart banner på alla Google-sidor där du bland annat kan se nya notifieringar samt kommentera och läsa nya händelser där.

Google+ snabbkommandon:
Space = Scrolla ner i loggen
Shift + Space = Scrolla upp i loggen
J = Scrolla ner ett inlägg
K = Scrolla upp ett inlägg
Q = Hoppa till chatten
Enter = Starta ett inlägg/kommentar
Tab + Enter = Avsluta ett inlägg/kommentar
*Word* = Word
_Word_ = Word
-Word- = Word

A blog, a blog, my kingdom for a Twitter feed!

Started my blog earlier today with a post about Google+. But besides that I think this will be a place to expand on my thoughts for the moment, or thoughts I've been grinding over and over at the back of my head.


To be honest, this is not a true addition to the blog, it's more a test to see the RSS feed, and a chance to sort out what I plan on doing with this.


I think I'll add some thoughts on lifes little peculiar conditions.
I am anxiously awaiting Guild Wars 2, so I assume that will show up.
I play a lot of Guild Wars 1, so no surprises if that topic will appear.
Internet might rear it's twisted head.
Some general "Here I am in the forest with my two dogs."
And of course, things that annoy me to no ends...

Less than four Google+ circles? You're doing it wrong.

My first ever bloggpost. Well, not really, but the first one on this blog; it is about Google+ circles and why you shouldn’t spam.

I’ll start with a very personal list. It’s a list of most of my circles and what will follow is an explanation on why I have them all:
Friends
Acquaintances
Family
Relatives
[My company]
[My hiring agency]
Games
Guild Wars
[My Guild Wars guild]

First, friends and acquaintances. On Facebook everyone is your friend; your uncle, your first grade teacher, your high school class representative and your friend’s stepdaughter. These are people I do care for if they get married, divorce, have kids, move cross nations and have their x0th birthday. I don’t care if their now 2 year old son just said his first swear, I don’t care if they had an excellent glass of wine and I don’t care that they like this new song by Justin Bieber (seriously, I DON’T!). But this isn’t me being a jerk, I’m pretty sure they don’t give a rats that my dogs just played in the rain or that I really love this new song by some obscure Swedish reggae group.

Family and relatives. To some, the entire clan is bound tighter than an 19th century corset, to most people, family are the only relatives you can spend more than 4 hours on a wedding every 3 years with. So why should I spam great great aunt Hilda with tips on what’s showing at the cinema right now?

Company and hiring agency. This is a somewhat special deal for me, but to most people it’s important that what you share with your coworkers should stay with your coworkers. If you have friend-stuff to share with them, add them to the friend circle as well.

And lastly, it’s my hobby. Well, the hobby I share with other people at least. And the reason I have three circles, where many participants share all three, is that not all of the members in all of the circles are interested in all of the comments. Some are my gaming buddies that like games in general. Some are like me, deeply invested in Guild Wars, but they have no reason to see what I share with my guild in ways of rosters and lazy dogs.

In conclusion: Use circles, and use them a lot. And if you have people you are in doubt of what circle they fit, add them to several. Together we can stop the annoying spam that was the main problem with Facebook and get a clean, glorious world where we don’t have to see burping babies from people we don’t know or have to read that our old gym teacher just had a coffee and donut.