Random Access Memory

AMAZING OR NAH-MAZING: THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN 2 REVIEW

Before anything else, if you’ll read this review made by a seventeen-year-old, I’m ensuring you a lot of spoilers are going to be here. So let’s see what makes Amazing Spider-Man 2 amazing!

Parkers. In the opening scene, we finally get a glimpse of what happened to Mary and Richard Parker. I just feel the plane crash scene was worth mentioning—even if you don’t really lose anything if you (in any way,) have accidentally entered the cinemas late, it was still a quick, good punch. AMAZING!

CGI. Let’s be honest around here—computer generated imagery played a LOT of role in the movie. While there are plenty of ooooh!’s and aaaahh!’s, sometimes they just sore me eyes. Let me see, maybe three-fourths of the time, CGI is really eye-popping (and maybe even dizzying in 3D) and the remainder, just plain too much. Also, I liked the ultra-slow moments in some battle scenes—it sorta adds an extra effect to cut breaths away. AMAZING!

Characters. We’ll be long here. I’m giving the SFX a good praise on this review, but there are few moments when I’m craving for the story. Talk about growing up. When I was younger, the plot and its execution didn’t bother me—I belonged to the stereotype of kids who tell ‘good’ movies from ‘boring’ ones. But then after aging a few years, everything without backbone is not interesting to me. So what I’m pointing out here is the characters’ developments over the two hours (and twenty minutes?) run time.

- Peter Parker (Andrew Garfield). He looked younger in this film, but boy, he had a lot more heavy-handed dramatic scenes in this sequel. Yes, the humor is still there, but there’s just something about teenage hormones that greatly annoyed me while watching. That leaves us to...

- Gwen Stacy (Emma Stone). Oh, young, sweet Gwen Stacy is back! If I didn’t know that she’ll die, (and yes, this is actually the first time I loathed a spoiler) I probably had cried all over her death scene like a little kid. All kidding aside, she shares great chemistry with Andrew throughout—but I really hated them two in the story turning on and off like a broken switch. Foreshadowing? Let’s talk about that later. Although I found her a little annoying in the first film, she’ll be a great loss here.

- Max Dillon/Electro (Jamie Foxx). First of all, Foxx is a great actor, yes. But if we’re talking about his character, I hated Dillon. I hated how dense his character was made. I hated how unreasonable Electro’s existence and hunger to destroy Spidey. And lastly, I hated how it felt like something can be improved but was just dumped for the sake of good show. I can’t help but compare Amazing 2 to the original Spider-Man 2. Unlike the clichéd, cardboard-thin character of Max Dillon, Octo was a great villain in a way he felt real—it’s as if he was flesh and bones. Is it just me or his character development felt rushed? Ah, maybe to make way for…

- Harry Osborn/Green Goblin (Dane DeHaan). Sure, I’ve got to remark his and Garfield’s onscreen friendship chemistry, even if it didn’t last long. Before I made this review, or had watched the movie, I didn’t try to research anything about DeHaan yet. This was the first film I’ve seen him in. The actor was more or less great, handling those scenes where he really needed to be angry, remorseful, etc. We’ll definitely see more of Harry Osborn, though.

Plot. As a faithful fan of the original and reboot series of Spidey, I had thought that Spider-Man 2 directed by Sam Raimi had beefier and stable story. Yes, he faltered on the third film with too many villains, but I’m talking about Marc Webb’s Spider-Man 2—and the original had better story and plot. The Peter Parker I liked better, though, is still Andrew Garfield. (Even if he may have looked a bit more sullen in this film.) NAH-MAZING!

Climax! Really, I don’t know why I don’t feel satisfied with Spidey and Electro’s epic finale. This was the time when CGI started to feel scratchy on me. Is it on me? Nah. If you sensed that I didn’t like Electro, you’re right. And it’s probably the reason—I don’t care for him. It’s really easy to love a movie character if it gives you enough reasons to care for them. You need to understand what they were fighting for, or why. (But that doesn’t mean you need to love villains!) While there is white-knuckle suspense, I feel like I’ve just been waiting for myself to finish pooping and release something bad I was holding on for two hours straight. NAH-MAZING!

The Night Gwen Stacy Died. I’m not a comic fan of this franchise, but you see, I’m going to pretend I haven’t known from spoilers around Twitter that Gwen will die. As I have mentioned before, there were some foreshadowing around her death. Her graduation speech? Oh boo hoo, you just know that Peter will miss it! Cliché on. And then you just know that that speech will come in handy sooner or later in the movie. Her dreams coming true? Yep, killing her will just add to the drama. Her being too much heroic? This doesn’t apply to all, but she really risked herself too far this time. Nonetheless, I still can’t help but feel bad about her dying—it’s too harsh to watch on the wide screen. AMAZING!

Oscorp? Spidey 3? Sometimes we have to think ahead. What has this film possibly left us to open at the third film? I see Oscorp. Although I’m greatly annoyed by the abrupt appearance of the Rhino at the end of the film, I still want to see more of the Secrets of that institution. And yes, Harry Osborn is still alive, so that’s for Amazing 3. Also, who’s gonna play Mary Jane Watson? I haven’t checked yet, so don’t threaten me for the ignorance.

Overall, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 is a real treat, so bittersweet it’s like a dessert you’ll ignore the bad parts because there are still more goodies. I’m giving it 8/10.

DO YOU WANT TO BUILD... A SNOWFLAKE?!

so here's how it should look like when it's done.

I would say first that I had this in mind, for like, two whole weeks after making the final blueprint I drew on my buff paper. The first version I did was a 9x9 but while filling the blueprint I deemed it really small for this project. The final one (pictured above) was 27x27.

Before I get to the jump, I would like to note to you guys that I recommend reading and observing everything. Why? Because I think I have OCD already and I keep changing things here and there, even without prior notice. I'll also list my inventory at slides for convenience.

First up, line them up with dirt to mark the boundaries.

Inventory: Ice, Snow, Blue-stained glass, Light Blue-stained glass, Dirt, Packed Ice, Glass, and Lapis Lazuli block.

To achieve what I want, the Frozen-feel, I flew around for a while to find a pretty high mountain--and Extreme Hills biome will fit. You can check the elevation on my debug screen (clouds have irritated me the whole time for like, 9/10 times). Of course, it have to have snow, as you can see. Firstly, I made the dirt square of 27x27. The four corners I placed a torch on top. Simple as that.

note: the white-stained glass there is for my counting purposes.

Next up, I did three more inward squares of snow. This isn't permanent, so scroll down for more.

that's how it should look like after placing ICE. (PACKED ice is different)

I changed the dirt boundaries to Stone.

this part is soooo tricky, if you want to do it anyway

I had a fiasco back here. First, I didn't realize soon enough that the glowstone would be some sort of raw light to melt the ice. Second, packed ice doesn't melt (as compared to plain ice). I removed the glowstone on the dead center of the snowflake (coordinates of [14,14]) and fixed these water holes. I will resolve this later.

Blueprint...initiating...

I used the blue-stained glass to etch the snowflake pattern.

I used a redstone torch to light the dead center, because you know that redstone torches aren't bright enough to melt the ice.

Here's another bird's eye view.

You see, I had quite a lot of OCD remarks here: The pattern isn't easily visible. The snow ruins it. So what I did is to completely replace EVERYTHING surrounding the snowflake pattern with PACKED ICE. You'll see the contrast.

currently replacing everything with packed ice, with extra snow to work out

i'm almost through. the redstone won't melt anything, and yes I took care of the passive spider over there.

night falls and there's something I liked about the dim light on the center. wait.

As of this slide, I'm greatly annoyed by the transparent effect of the pattern given by the blue-stained glass. Let's fix that. (and yes, if you look at the left and right of the dead center there's a difference. fixing that later too)

I added a layer of PILLAR QUARTZ underneath, to shut off the glass from being translucent.

another view. this addon is finished.

And this should be the final product.

Thanks for stopping by! The comments section is open for suggestions--such as more Minecraft build ideas and how would I finally build Elsa's ice castle, Minecraft rendition?! :) At this time of blogging, I have the floor plan. If you liked this, follow me on Twitter and share this with your friends! Will help me a lot :D
[ if you're gonna go around with this original snowflake blueprint, don't forget to mention meee! :D ]