I Gotta Feelin’…
…Today’s Gonna Be a Good Day….
The Black Eyed Peas are awesome, and their newest album is amazing. Check out this video of a live performance in the heart of Chicago!!! Amazingly cool!!!! Enjoy:
Priest - A Movie Adaptation
Now, I guess, in order to understand my frustration with what I’m about to bring light too, I should provide a little bit of back story. There is a story that I’ve been working on for the better part of a decade now and I can only hope and pray that I finish it. It’s what I would call, my masterpiece. I have no idea if it’ll ever be completed. The scope and details are just so involved and intertwined that I honestly think it’ll take me years of full time devotion to ever finish it. But I digress….
Anyways, a while back I came across this manga called “Priest” by Hyung Min-woo and I was blown away. I was so impressed by the depth of the plot and the characters that Hyung created that I yearned for each book to come out. There was so much inspiration coming from the pages that it really helped me in developing my story and provided fuel for my imagination. I was able to accomplish quite a lot with my story while I was reading and living in the world that Hyung had created. Sadly, there’s only 16 books so far in the series, it is nowhere near the end of the story, and currently it appears that no more books are being produced. It’s looking like the world will never know the fate of Ivan Isaacs and Temozarela.
Now “they” - being the movie studios - have decided to make this manga into a movie. At first I can easily say I was excited until I read the plot synopsis for the movie:
The film centers around a world where vampires and humans are at war. A priest, presumably Ivan Isaacs, goes against the church to track down a band of vampires who have kidnapped his niece.
So, you might ask, what’s the big deal, other than the fact that it seems like another “vampire” movie. Well, allow me to introduce you to the plot of the manga (from Wikipedia):
Priest tells the story of humanity’s battle against 12 fallen angels, led by the archangel Temozarela. Despite having fought for God in the battle against Lucifer, Temozarela and his cohorts shortly thereafter found that God had lost interest in them. Upon finding God has focused his attention on humans they decide to rebel against God in light of God’s favoritism towards the human race. They descend upon Earth to ‘play God’ among the humans who build a temple and statues for them. For their rebellion and acts against humanity, God destroyed their temple and their statues were cast underground, with their souls being trapped within the statues.
Centuries later, there lives a Holy Knight called Vascar De Gullion, a killer of heretics in the name of God. After his wife and children were burned alive, Vascar De Gullion ‘loses faith’ and wanders the earth in a ‘blood rage,’ leaving a wake of slaughter wherever he goes. His journey comes to an end when he discovers a hidden cave with the statues of the 12 fallen angels. Temozarela talks Vascar De Gullion into giving his body to him in the hopes of gaining revenge on God.
It is again centuries later that Vascar De Gullion is found alive and sentenced to be judged as a Heretic by Betheal, a powerful priest. Upon dealing with Vascar De Gullion, Betheal discovers from Vascar De Gullion that he is not who he is meant to be, but rather Temozarela. Temozarela plays with Betheal’s only pride and joy in life, a child he saved from a heretic sacrifice. The fallen angel manipulates the child into brutally slaughtering a young woman, taking her arms and heart, and setting up a blasphemous ritual room with her blood. Once Betheal sees what his child had done, he instead sees Temozarela laughing and ends up killing the child with his own hands. Betheal loses faith in God also and Temozarela takes Betheal under his wing as one of his disciples. Instead of turning in favor of Temozarela, Betheal acts as the Judas in this story, betraying Temozarela. Betheal devotes his life to study a way to trap Temozarela so that people can be free from him. This came in heretic invention of the Domas Porada. Betheal’s body is needed to be the key in keeping the lock on this ‘cage’ locked. With his soul trapped inside the Domas Porada, Betheal enters a new life altogether with the power he gained from turning away from God. He is a now a kind of demon, called Belial.
Ivan Isaacs, the hero, is called upon to solve the puzzle that the Domas Porada presents. Upon solving it Ivan is cast onto a cross after witnessing his only love, Gena, die in his arms. It is then that Belial takes Ivan, who in the madness of losing Gena denounces God. Ivan is reborn as an immortal serving Belial. Because of Gena’s death Ivan devotes himself for vengeance against Temozarela and his men.
The Priest story spans three distinct time periods; modern times, the Crusades and the Wild West, although it is primarily focused on the last period. Whilst featuring a large cast of heroes, anti-heroes and villains, a number of which enjoying in depth and detailed character development within the plot, the lead antagonist of Priest is Temozarela, whilst the main protagonist is Ivan Isaacs, a now immortal, 19th century priest who sold his soul to Belial, a former priest turned devil, in the pursuit of revenge and redemption after unwittingly unleashing Temozarela from the Domas Porada, a prison of sorts constructed by Belial (then Betheal) to imprison Temozarela.
Now, I ask you, where are the vampires or a niece in that synopsis? This is completely unbelievable. Why do studios do this? You already have an incredible story full of action, suspense, love and pain. There are characters that have depth and a story large enough to easily make three movies. Why would you take a character’s name and supposed profession, and title and a similar likeness (e.g. a cross on the forehead) and leave out all the rest. Well, that’s not entirely true. The sheriff character - Coburn - is also supposed to be in the movie, however, his character is butchered as well. I just don’t understand. What’s the point?
Anyways, given that “Priest” was such an inspiration to me and such a great story, I really don’t know if I’ll ever be able to watch the movie. Honestly, I think the movie will still be decent, but given what it could have been, I will most likely be too disgusted to subject myself to it, or give the studios my money - thereby encouraging their disgraceful acts of butchery. Unfortunate…most unfortunate.
Comic Book Update
Matt and I have been making some decent progress on the comic book. I’ve finally have a rough skeleton outline developed for the first six issues. Now, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this already or not, but we have envisioned ourselves creating a six issue mini-series comic to introduce the main characters of our story and set the setting for an extended series run should we successfully pitch the comic to a publishing company - or decide to produce it on our own. So, having said that, it’s pretty exciting to finally have an idea of what we are trying to accomplish in this mini-series.
Currently the first two issues have been outlined in detail and are ready to written into a script, however, due to the way I am writing the first six issues, I needed to figure out what was going to happen in all six issues before I could start writing the first. Now that I finally know where I am going, the scripts can begin and the characters can come alive.
In addition, last month a Mini MegaCon went on in Orlando. It’s called a “Mini” MegaCon because the really one happens in April every year and is 4 times as big. Now MegaCon is the largest southeastern United States comic book convention. Think of it as the San Diego Comic-Con but with more comics and less movies and movie stars. Anyways, MegaCon is both a fun and interesting experience. On the one hand, you are surrounded by a huge amount of talent in both writing and drawing. Hundreds of people are there pitching and showing off their work to the masses. It’s fantastic to be around people doing the same things your are. Now, on the other hand, people to “dress up” at these conventions too. So it’s like Halloween only unless you are a Sci-Fi, anime or comic book fan, you aren’t going to recognize any of the characters. (Case in point: my financee) All in all though, it really is fun to go and attend.
Now the reason we went to convention was because there were a number of panels going on dealing with creating your own comic. We sat in on panels that had a number of famous artists and writers and we were able to ask questions and get answers from people working in the industry that we, ourselves, want to someday get into. We were able to understand what it’s like to work under the larger publishing companies like Marvel or DC, as well as, learn just what it takes to produce and market your comic on your own. It was very educational and we learned a lot. Some really good ideas came out of the convention too. And I don’t want to get into too much detail because for one they are still in development, but for another, I don’t want to give any of our ideas away. Matt and I have some pretty ambitious plans though. I just really hope that we can put the time and effort needed to do the ideas justice.
Anyways, I’ll leave you with some updates on the concept work my brother’s been working on. Enjoy.
Wedding Planning
Ah, the pleasures and pains of wedding planning. I’m writing this now approximately 6 months into our engagement, and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed with everything we’ve accomplished. It was a little rough in the beginning, but once the “big” decisions were made it’s been all downhill from there. Deciding on the location and the guest list were easily the two hardest parts of this ongoing process so far. And of course, the decisions go hand and hand. You have to decide on a location that will allow you to invite all the guests you want and still keep costs on budget. Speaking of budget, I definitely would like to thank Ashley’s parents for the budget that have given us to plan the wedding. They have been very gracious.
With the two biggest decisions taken care of, the rest of the planning has been coming together just fine. We have our minister, caterer, photographer, DJ and music, and florist. Ashley has bought her wedding dress and accessories. She’s decided on the bridesmaid dresses as well. I have already my tux and groomsmen tuxes picked out as well. We’ve decided that we are going to take a cruise for our honeymoon and will be booking a cabin next month. Both of our wedding bands have been picked out and we are currently saving for their purchase. There’s really not much else to do. Just a few lose ends with invitations, cake and gifts. We also have to update our registry because some of the items we selected are out of season now. Other than that though, there’s not much left.
Location: Case Feliz
Caterer: Arthur’s Catering
Photographer: Cory Callahan
DJ: Tagas
Florist: Flowers by Lesley