Author name: Alexander van Loon

Historical drama films and the application of artistic license

Yesterday I watched the film Elizabeth, one of the many historical drama films which takes significant liberties with regard to history. Some other good examples are Gladiator, Troy and Alexander. For details on the historical deviations (deviations from the myth in the case of Troy to be exact) refer to the relevant sections in the Wikipedia articles which I linked.

Certainly Elizabeth and Gladiator are well made films if we take the historical deviations into account. Some would say artistic license would have been necessary to produce a high quality film. However, I can’t imagine why certain historical deviations would have been necessary for applying artistic license. These are small details mostly, like the barbarian chieftain in the opening scene of Gladiator speaking in the modern German language, while that language didn’t exist yet for a long time. It is also stated in the beginning of the film that Rome was founded as a republic, which is of course not true. Another example is that in Troy Aeneas is portrayed as a child. Those deviations have nothing to do with artistic license, but all with negligence and indolence on the part of the scriptwriters.

But then the question if artistic license is necessary to produce a good film is necessary. I don’t think that’s true either. Having read the Iliad, I think it could have been translated to a film without deviating from the myth. Of course, because it’s an epic far more characters would have to be included, the gods would have to be included. Probably it should be covered in two or three separate films, but if that was possible for Lord of the Rings, then why not for the Iliad? The only problem I’d see would be the talking divine horses, but if anyone in Hollywood would have the guts to do it and do it well, it could be successful. The same treatment would apply to Alexander, it had potential but was poorly executed. If the old Ptolemy as storyteller would have been ditched and the story would have been told in chronological order without flashbacks, with a better script and if it would have been made as a trilogy it would have been awesome. The story told in Gladiator is very loosely based on real events. I think it would have been a better idea if different subject matter from the history of the Roman Empire would have been chosen for a film. Why not Hannibal? That would be an exciting story to tell, and it wouldn’t need deviation from history.

One last complaint is that in neither Gladiator, Troy or Alexander the Latin or Ancient Greek language is used. The film The Passion of the Christ has proven that a film which is not spoken in the English language can be very successful with English-speaking audiences. Hopefully future historical drama films will feature Ancient Greek and Latin.

A film about Elizabeth’s life probably wouldn’t need any historical deviation to make it exciting either. Not only are the historical deviations in the film Elizabeth quite serious regarding the historical facts, but I also question the behaviour depicted in the film. Especially the rather informal negotiations between the English Parliament and Elizabeth seemed dubious to me, as did the treatment of problems relating to Elizabeth’s gender. Burghley’s remark that Elizabeth is a woman near the end of the film seemed rather insolent to me for her most trusted advisor, or anyone else for that matter.

I have one unsolved question though concerning the film Elizabeth. During the coronation ceremony in the film it is stated that she is queen of England, Ireland and France. Wikipedia confirms that. France is still mentioned in the style of the English monarchs until 1801. However, with the French conquest of Calais in 1557 the English lost all their possessions in France, before Elizabeth became queen in 1559. Elsewhere on Wikipedia it is confirmed that British monarchs continued to style themselves as kings of France until 1800 even though they had lost all their territories there. Can anyone tell me why they continued to deny the reality for centuries?

I think I’m not going to watch historical drama films any more in the future if they continue the liberal use of artistic license.

Lack of innovation, or why Call of Duty: World at War sucks

Recently the video game Call of Duty: World at War (CoD: WaW, WaW in short from now on) was offered on Steam with a heavy discount for a few days. Because it was heavily discounted I decided to buy it, which I now regret. Keep in mind that my criticism is based on playing through the single player experience of WaW, as well as it’s predecessors Call of Duty and Call of Duty 2. I wasn’t interested in multiplayer, because if I want to play a multiplayer first person shooter I prefer Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Counter-Strike: Source and recently America’s Army 3. In WaW, very little has changed in comparison with it’s two predecessors. Mostly it’s improved graphics, but the gameplay is very similar in all three games, and most problems I perceived with the gameplay apply to all three.

The player has to follow a compulsory route. Sometimes you can choose a different route, but that doesn’t hide the limitation. Other games like Far Cry, released in 2004, give you a lot more freedom. In that game there was a designated route, but in many cases you could stray from that route or choose a different route, allowing you to use your creativity and providing more enjoyment. Of course there are so called sandbox games which provide even more freedom, like Morrowind (2002). In other first person shooters which take place mostly indoors I don’t experience it as a problem, but in the Call of Duty series I do, because it takes place mostly outdoors. Then this limitation gets annoying because you expect to be able to take a different route.

Enemy soldiers behave like you killed their pet goldfish, they have bullets with your name on it. As soon as the player exposes himself to them, they ignore your allied soldiers which are controlled by the AI, and focus all their fire on the player, even when your allied soldiers are closer to them. Your allies will not advance until you do, everything depends on the player’s ability to assault the enemies. Your commanding officer often singles you out to this or that, while he relaxes. Combined with your allied soldier’s inability to provide you with good cover, this makes the gameplay quite annoying. In some cases your enemies receive seemingly infinite reinforcements, which stop only when you complete a specific objective, like killing specific enemies (inside the Reichstag near the end of the game you have to kill a few enemies on a balcony, otherwise the enemies are infinitely reinforced). Near the end of the game it mentions that Berlin was even defended by child soldiers and the elderly, as was the case in history. But you don’t encounter any child soldiers, every soldier you encounter seems to perform identical.

The developers of the Call of Duty series also seem to have an aversion for the Russian language. Germans speak German, but Russians use a ridiculous English accent in all three games. And why did you never have the opportunity to play as a German soldier? Do the developers think all of them were pure evil? Probably it’s a serious case of political correctness.

The lack of innovation can probably be explained by the saying ‘never change a winning team’. Because the Call of Duty series is successful, and will probably continue to be. The only way to stop this is to vote with your wallet, as long as gamers buy this junk it won’t stop. I will not buy any game in the Call of Duty series until they try something new.

I don’t think producing sequels is a bad thing, as long as they are innovative. Take for example the Grand Theft Auto series, I think GTA III, GTA Vice City and GTA IV are all awesome games. Those games feature similar gameplay throughout the series as well, but they managed to innovate. In some cases I think innovation in the field of gameplay isn’t even necessary to produce a good game if gameplay isn’t a deciding factor in the equation determining the enjoyment of the game. For example in games which depend more on telling a story, like Baldur’s Gate and it’s sequel Baldur’s Gate II. Those games played and looked mostly the same, but the content was very different. In the sequel you had access to an entire new ‘world’ and a new story was told, which made it enjoyable. But a games like in the Call of Duty series don’t have a story, the only thing they have going for them is shooting stuff, so it’s not interesting anymore is a sequel merely provides more of the same.

Why you should not buy an iPhone

In a recent conversation I’ve heard people voice their intention to buy an Apple iPhone. Surely the iPhone hardware and software is well designed and Apple’s marketing is effective, but there’s also a bandwagon effect at work here. People want an iPhone because they see others who use it, and they don’t give much thought to buying competing smartphones, or the iPhone’s restrictions. There are some compelling reasons why you should not buy an iPhone:

  • The iPhone is only available through Apple-approved carriers. Apple uses a SIM lock to enforce it. As you can read on Wikipedia that’s not the case everywhere, but for example you can only get an iPhone in the USA in combination with an AT&T contract, in the Netherlands you’re restricted to T-Mobile. Yes, there are ways to unlock the iPhone, but Apple doesn’t like that of course.
  • Apple doesn’t allow you to use third-party software, you can only use Apple-approved software. Developers who want to create applications for the iPhone need to pay a membership fee for Apple Developer Connection. Developers can decide on a price for their application if they want to distribute it through the App Store, but Apple will take 30% of the sales if it’s not free of charge. Apple can decide to stop distributing applications if it doesn’t like them, as most recently happened in the case of Google Voice. Of course, it’s possible to circumvent this by jail-breaking the iPhone, but Apple thinks that is illegal.

In conclusion, Apple is treading on your freedom. Do you want to buy iPhone and be enslaved by Apple, live with the restrictions, or the trouble to circumvent the restrictions? I certainly don’t. I’m looking forward to the Nokia N900, the successor of the Nokia N810. The N810 was an internet tablet without cellular capability, which made it uninteresting for me, but the N900 will be a full-fledged smartphone. The N900 will run the Maemo Linux-based OS which is mostly free and open source software, like it’s predecessors. It gives you the freedom to install the applications you like, and you can choose the carrier you like. I know Android exists as well, another Linux-based smartphone OS which is mostly free and open source software, but I think it’s flawed, and Google is well on it’s way to the dark side just like Apple. I especially appreciate how Nokia managed to involve the community with application development for Maemo, and I hope the N900 will arrive soon.

But Apple’s anti-competitive practices aren’t limited to the iPhone. Apple has also prevented the Palm Pre smartphone from syncing with iTunes. In the past I used to think that Apple wasn’t evil because of their involvement in free and open source software, especially the WebKit web browser layout engine. But it’s recent behaviour discredits Apple, who have become a second evil empire next to Microsoft with their market dominance of the iPod and the strong position of the iPhone.

If you don’t approve of Apple’s and Google’s actions, there’s only one option: punish them by voting with your wallet, and don’t be seduced by pretty-looking smartphones.

Seen: Drag Me to Hell

A few weeks ago I saw Drag Me to Hell in the cinema. It was about time a good horror film was released again, certainly in recent years there haven’t been much good ones. It’s not a typical horror film, possibly more puke and slime is shown than blood, and it combines horror with comedy. It also had a scare scene which managed to startle me, which is quite an accomplishment. What disappointed me was the plot twist in the ending, not because of it’s consequences, but because I was able to see through it easily when I saw the scene which foreshadowed it, and it was predictable. Nevertheless, this film was worth watching.

Removed all tags

A while ago I wrote about adding tags to my posts. The tag cloud certainly looked cool, but using tags was tiresome because a lot of them were so specific that they could only be applied to one post. I’m a person with perfectionistic tendencies, so I tried to choose tags very carefully, which required too much of my time. I think categories will suffice. On the other hand, maybe if I’d use more generic tags which can cover the subjects of multiple posts while still being more specific than categories, I could give it a try again.

Testing the latest web browsers on Ubuntu

Recently Mozilla Firefox version 3.5 was released, but Ubuntu 9.04 a.k.a. Jaunty Jackalope which was released in April still uses Firefox 3.0 because of Ubuntu’s policy to distribute only bug and security fixes after a stable release. Meanwhile, the next release of GNOME will include the first version of Epiphany to use the WebKit layout engine instead of the Gecko layout engine. The Midori web browser is interesting as well, it uses WebKit too but it’s not strictly meant for GNOME, even though it does use the GTK+ toolkit and integrates in GNOME reasonably.

If you’d like to use 3.5 like me, and if you also want to check out how Epiphany and Midori have progressed, there fortunately is an easy way to download and install them on Ubuntu 9.04. You can simply use the Personal Package Archives (PPA’s) of the Ubuntu packagers. Here you can find the PPA for the stable version of Firefox 3.5. When you have enabled the repository and reloaded the software sources, make sure to install the firefox-3.5, firefox-3.5-branding and firefox-3.5-gnome-support packages and the dependencies those packages require. For some reason these Firefox 3.5 packages also depend on the Firefox 3.0 packages in the standard Ubuntu repository, so you can’t get rid of Firefox 3.0. Frequently updated (apparently they are daily builds) development version packages of WebKit, Epiphany and Midori can be found in the WebKit PPA, the Epiphany PPA and the Midori PPA. You need to have the WebKit PPA repository enabled if you want to use Epiphany or Midori. The installation instructions are simple, and can be found by following the ‘Read about installing’ link on the PPA pages. Ubuntu’s PPA’s are awesome for enabling us to get the development versions of software so easily.

When the final version of GNOME 2.28 will be released along with Epiphany 2.28 and they have shipped in October with Ubuntu 9.10, a.k.a. Karmic Koala, I will post a detailed comparison of the three browsers.

Battlestar Galactica S3, Lost S5 and Planet Earth

I bought the DVD box set of Battlestar Galactica season 3 last week, and watched all episodes in a few days. Watching all episodes in just a few days says a lot about how great and addictive this series is. Like many others say, this is the best science fiction series of the 2000s. I got the DVD’s of the third season for € 30 which is acceptable, at it’s release it was more like € 40 if I’m correct. If the final fourth season is more expensive than € 30 though I don’t think I’ll wait until it will be cheaper, because I want to see it as soon as possible. What’s disappointing is that the complete box set of the entire series on Blu-ray can be pre-ordered for € 150 on Play.com, which is ridiculously expensive considering that Play.com is often cheaper than internet stores in the Netherlands. Not that I intend to buy that in the near future anyway, because I’ve already got it on DVD anyway.

Currently I’m watching Lost season 5 on the Dutch TV. Unlike in the USA and probably other countries, in the Netherlands they started broadcasting just two weeks ago. A double episode is broadcasted on Friday nights starting at 22:25, apparently the late start and unfortunate scheduling had to do with falling ratings. The Dutch broadcaster tempts their audience to start their Bittorrent clients with their furstrating late start. I didn’t give in to downloading the HDTV (even more reason for me because I don’t receive HDTV) rips through Bittorrent because I don’t want to steal but reward the creators and broadcasters, but the Dutch broadcaster isn’t helping their own case.

Reruns of the nature documentary series Planet Earth are being broadcast as well on Dutch TV at this moment, and I seized the opportunity to watch because I hadn’t seen this series yet. To be honest I don’t see much nature documentaries, but this is probably the best ever. I’ve never seen such spectacular images in all my life, this is a must-see for everyone.

My research papers produced with LaTeX

Recently I have produced two of my research assignments for my History bachelor’s programme with LaTeX. I’ve uploaded both papers along with their sources: Research Seminar 2 paper, Research Seminar 2 paper source and Citizens and Democracy paper, Citizens and Democracy paper source. Both documents are written in the Dutch language, but hopefully anyone who is interested in using LaTeX might learn how to use LaTeX more effectively by looking at the source file and the resulting PDF document. As I expected the learning curve was a bit steep, but at this point I’ve become an experienced user and LaTeX is giving me better results and makes me more productive.

I’ve used some graphics in my documents, they are all vector graphics converted to the PDF format. The tables were created with LaTeX, which can be tricky if they are complex. Unlike what I have seen in the LaTeX files of others, I haven’t used manual line breaks to start new lines, I’ve relied on my text editor to do text wrapping. I don’t understand why anyone would want to insert labour-intensive manual line breaks, can anyone tell me why?

I’ve used the awesome biblatex package for reference management. Without it, it would not have been possible to apply citation styles which are used in the humanities and social sciences. The biblatex package still uses BiBTeX bibliographies as the source for references, but does the formatting of references by itself. The Citizens and Democracy paper uses the APA style, which requires an additional package found here on CTAN. The Research Seminar 2 paper uses a style which is included with the biblatex package, while it does closely resemble the citation style guidelines of my department, it’s not completely similar. I’ll have to figure out how to modify the citation style, which is easier in biblatex when compared to BiBTeX, but still difficult. The Dutch language isn’t supported by biblatex at this moment, but it was easy to make my own translation and I’m in contact with the biblatex developer to get it included by default in a future release.

Both papers use the memoir package, which is also quite useful. For example, it includes functionality for modifying headers without having to use packages like fancyhdr.

Recently I have also been looking into using XeTeX in combination with LaTeX because of the advantages related to using fonts.

Probably the features of LaTeX which I appreciate the most are the automatic hyphenation, the reference management with biblatex and the beautiful PDF documents it can produce.

Using the latest version of the memoir package for LaTeX

The research paper I’m currently writing with LaTeX uses the memoir document class, because it provides a lot of useful features. Recently I was reading a useful document explaining how to use the page styles in memoir to modify the headers and footers, but unfortunately some source code examples didn’t work. I figured out this was caused by my version of memoir being out of date. The version of memoir I used was provided by the Ubuntu package texlive-latex-recommended and was dated 2007/01/22, while the most recent version of memoir found here was last updated on 2009/02/06.

The process to use the latest version was easy, but the instructions on manually installing LaTeX packages on the Ubuntu Wiki and the instructions given in memoir’s README file were slightly misleading. All you need to do is create a directory named texmf in your home directory, then download the file memoir.tds.zip from memoir’s page on CTAN, and extract the contents of that file to the texmf directory. Then open a terminal and execute the command texhash ~/texmf. If you compile your LaTeX document again, the new version of memoir will be used instead of the old one provided by the Ubuntu package. To verify it, you can insert the \listfiles command in your document, and then check the log file after you’ve compiled your document.

I was surprised to notice that the version of memoir provided by the Ubuntu package is so old, especially because I’m using Ubuntu 9.04 which was released not long ago in April.

Seen: Star Trek

Yesterday I watched the new Star Trek film in the cinema, which I thought was quite good. It’s good to see that Star Trek was revived succesfully with this film after the cancellation of Star Trek: Enterprise, also in perspective of the wider shortage of good science fiction at this moment since the Battlestar Galactica re-imagining was finished, as well. However I wonder, or doubt, if a new Star Trek television series would be successful. I’d welcome a more innovative kind of science fiction series, following the example of the Battlestar Galactica re-imagining.

Because I was so anxious to watch Star Trek I decided to see it in the cinema, but once again I experienced how unattractive that is. I live in a relatively (for the densely populated Netherlands) remote place, so it takes quite some traveling to get to  a cinema. Too much time is spent on watching advertising before the film starts, the break is too long and unnecessary for me, and a ticket costs € 8,30. I can go the DVD rental store which lies closer in my vicinity and rent maybe eight movies for a week for the price of that ticket. And while Star Trek was a success, I think Hollywood produces too much air-headed junk. That’s why I intend to visit a cinema which shows independent films some time in the future.

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