#wheatley is a golden retriever

[eeveekitti]

don't let me, a mainly animal artist, get into anything not animal-based pawtal be upon ye

chell, wheatley, and GLaDOS respectively

+ an extra post-betrayal wheatley

[cause i rewatched the portal 2 [unauthorized] musical today]

and potatOS

[f0point5]

objectively which tp do you think is managing their team the best? like rb washing their hands on the racist marko comment on checo ain’t it even tho they’re the winning team and like the token black diversity mechanic they show on screen always?

Um, I can’t say I know too too much about all the TPs. Like who is Andrea Stella lol I only ever see Zak Brown. And I also think they all have teams that are not equally difficult to manage. Idk how much Geunther has to manage his team, and even with less to manage I still side eye his diver line up decisions.

For me it’s Christian or Zak Brown, and I know he’s not a TP but he acts like one, he is the mouthpiece of the decisions so I’m going to presume he’s making them. I think Zak is a very shrewd guy. He’s full of bravado and he’s brash so he sometimes seems like he’s just full of hot air but I think he’s got his head screwed on correctly. He makes brilliant driver lineup decisions, and I think he’s done a clever thing plastering himself to Lando’s side because he will want to lean on that friendship and loyalty later. He/McLaren have a clear dynamic that they’re going for with Oscar and Lando and so far they’re sticking to it which I think is smart. He keeps everything sunshine and rainbows in public, always explains things in a concise way but he never seems overly run down by things, which keeps intra-team politics out of the headlines and I think that’s the mark of a smooth operator. I think signing Oscar until ‘26 now was a clever move. I think Zak knows what he’s got, and he knows what he wants, and he balances those two well.

I’m saying Christian because I think of all the TPS he has the most to manage, certainly in terms of PR. And I find that he does it with charm, and more grace under fire than I would in his shoes. I know a lot of people don’t vibe with him but I really do. I think he’s got a boat with a lot of holes in it and he has for a long time (driver line up is always rocky, Helmut is always Marko-ing, bitch fights with Toto, engines don’t work then engines do work) and he somehow manages to make it float always, under very intense media scrutiny. I also think he’s got a history of explosive driver line ups, and he’s kept them all on a leash decently well. He managed multi 111, he managed a literal baby in an f1 car, he managed every teammate destroyed by said baby. Like, Guenther couldn’t manage a golden retriever of a rookie, Christian handled and raised Crashstappen. I also think Christian goes to bat for his drivers which I rate. You just know when one of them is called to the stewards he will make sure Wheatley fights tooth and nail for the best possible outcome, same with Christian and the FIA. Even in the press he never hangs his people out to dry. I’d have left Perez on a washing line in a blizzard by this point idc.

On your point about Helmut’s comments, I’m not sure what Christian could have done. Helmut isn’t his employee, there’s nothing he can do about his presence or his constant talking. He talks rubbish, everyone knows it. He’s also like older than the Roman Empire. Yes, he should stfu but he’s not going to. I don’t think Helmut still being at RB is any reflection of how Christian manages his team because Helmut isn’t part of team.

[the-meme-monarch]

Concept: a swap with your toon aus; portal toon au but theyre based more on animaniacs and vrai toon au where theyre just general toons

I’ve had this ask sitting for a while bc at first i was like hm idk bc wheatley and glados don’t really fit the same vibes as the animaniacs BUT i have had the idea of a not warners-esque-toon!bubby being a butterfly bc tube=chrysalis for MONTHS so like. he’s my favorite design. anyway bubby is an indian leafwing butterfly for no reason other than it has cyan like his accent color and orange bc Fire Connotations, coomer is a severe macaw which started out as an accident since i actually didn’t know there were any green parrots BUT it actually works out so well bc real severe macaws are the best speaking birds and are incredibly smart (I originally wanted him to be a parrot toon bc his repeating ‘hello gordon!’ and ‘gordon, I’m x’ lines), and tommy is a german shepard which. i thought ‘him being a dog is too obvious’ but it was my only idea. but hey he’s not a golden retriever like i initially planned. AND BENREY....... he’s a human toon bc i literally could not think of any animal toon that would’ve suited him. I feel like he actually is the best suited for being a warners-esque-toon bc he’s just. a fucking enigma.

[the-gemini-cores]

Hercules

Chell hurried out the turret control center with quiet steps; a sizable gathering had formed around the spot to poke around, but that wasn't in her interest. And since they'd ask for clarification, and she wasn't in any state to offer that- then again, when was she ever- she broke off the group while their attention was piled over a piece of tech, and snuck off.

The control center was linked to a different, more technical testing area, by a relatively short walk. The open space tightened into a tiny little corridor, that itself took a turn left and just barely squeezed into a slightly larger room. An almost completely empty room. A significant chunk of the wall was missing- in what Chell had always considered should've been a window- but was just a plain cut-out through which to observe the happenings just a few feet below you, in the open space framed by a square-shaped arrangement of observation stations just like this one. An old ragdoll was propped against a wall, miserably hanging off some sort of pole- the mobile line passed before it, platforms fixed to it every few feet or so, for turrets to be brought in on and have their aim and firing apparatus tested. At least that's what it used to be like. The line was frozen now, and the target doll- well- there wasn't enough of it left to call a doll anymore. Not even enough to call a rag.

The last time Chell had paid this place a visit, the door was shut- fallen into disrepair over Heaven-knows how many years it had been inactive. She'd found a way around that, eventually- with a quick pair of portals, anything is possible- but this time, she didn't have a portal gun.

She did however have a crowbar, a door fixed in rust-mauled hinges, and a mission.

Within minutes, the door was knocked over- sending a cloud of ancient dust rising lazily as it flopped pancake flat on the floor. This room had taken a bit of a harder blow; it was only illuminated thanks to the testing area and its blaring halogen tubes, and the doorframe- to Chell's delight- was now rocking a brand new, handsome look: pile of rubble, lying on the ground. In fact, the whole wall looked like it had been yanked out and crushed finely by an invisible hand. This saved Chell a good ten minutes of labor pulling the emancipation grill out of the wall- significantly more time-consuming than it should've been, because she would've had to be careful not to get her crowbar accidentally reduced to atoms.

She stepped over the wreckage, out into a whole new world: another catwalk picked up from there, cruising along lines of gigantic crates stacked on top of each other all the way up to the ceiling. The facility still had a weak hum, now more of a dying smoker's cough than the persistent purring that haunted Chell's memories. It was places like these that wracked Chell's brain, for whatever reason; places like the observation stations, made out of solid concrete walls, back when humans still operated the facility. Now they just sort of existed, sprinkled around, like vestigial organs inside the cutting-edge, ever-changing body of the beast that was Aperture.

She wasn't there to sight-see; that was more of a side-effect. She was seeking something, something very specific-

"I'm different."

There it was.

A little lump of off-white wedged between one of the crates and the catwalk's railing, nervously wincing every now and again. Chell put away her crowbar, and went to retrieve it- she grabbed it by its slender claw-like legs, and, with a bit more effort than originally expected, managed to fish it out.

"Thank you..." the turret sang meekly as Chell tucked it under her arm and set back; she walked slowly, carefully, as if she was cradling a fragile child in her arms- which she very well may have been. The turret's casing was liberally smeared in oily black erupted from its joints, and fit the shape of Chell's body a little too well. A second look revealed that it had been bent out of shape, its optic crushed- yet, somehow, it was still alive. Well, operating. Though by this point Chell was certain this one turret was sentient.

She secured it under her arm with the caring hold of a second hand, and gave it a pitiful look. This... Thing, whatever it was- she never saw it as a friend. She didn't now, either. But she still saved it, back then, and came back for it, now- and maybe, upon their first meeting, they could've been considered friends. After all, it was a robot- and robots were the only sentient constructs around- and it never tried killing her. It probably could have, or it could've just ignored her out of spite- after all, she was their opponent. And she held its life in her hands. In its situation, Chell would've probably kept quiet and played dead.

But it trusted her. In a way. That's what she liked to believe, at least.

The turret's optic flickered into life, bleary; a buzz shook its little body, like a dying shudder. "Prometheus was-"

"Punished by the Gods," Chell hurried to complete, pacifying- she worried if it kept talking, it would surrender its spirit right there in her arms. And she couldn't bare any more of that for the day.

"-Salvaged by the great hero Hercules," the turret continued, unbothered. "He descended into the abyss and broke the Titan out of his chains, so that Prometheus may rise again. Free."

She stopped. Waited, in the silence of the observatory, breath hitched, gaze digging into the turret's form.

"That's all I can say..."

With that, the buzzing ceased; died out, in the blink of an eye, as the light in the turret's optic drained. The facility hummed louder. Drummed in Chell's ears, the cadence of a beast's heartbeat not yet waning.

Clenching the turret tighter under her arm, Chell hurried back to the control center.

--

They walked back out into the sunlight well over a week later; in a caravan of sore feet, bleary-eyed and twitchy, and scared they'd return to an execution line waiting just outside.

But there was nothing there- nothing but an endless field of dirty gold and a rusty sunset. Chell breathed, for the first time in what felt like ages; she could unwind, let the tension seep out her shoulderblades and stay underground. She was out. She was free.

And they were going home; her, and her Wheatley, and the turret under her arm,

And the round piece of metal and golden glass around her neck.

[apertures-archived-files]

Wheatley: It’s so nice to be with you because you’re so easy to keep happy.

Craig: Please elaborate.

Wheatley: Well, you just need to sleep well, eat lots and go for nice walks.

Craig:

Nigel, choking with laughter: Y-you’re a golden retriever!

[write-stuff-for-life-blog]

Review: Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom

NOTE: I actually saw this movie in theaters but since it’s DVD release was yesterday I figured I’d post my review of it here. I might ramble on for several paragraphs in these reviews, especially if I feel strongly about something, so I’ll try and make it a point to post a short rating at the top as well as a more in depth one at the end.

NOTE THE SECOND: I don’t usually care about spoilers in these reviews so read at your own risk.

1 out of 5 stars. Only watch on Netflix if you exhaust all your other options.

Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is written by Colin Trevorrow (previous writer and director of the last entry in the franchise) and Derek Connolly and was directed by J.A. Bayona. Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard reprise their roles as Owen Grady and Claire Dearing respectively and are sent back to Isla Nublar by Jon Hammond’s previously never mentioned before former partner billionaire Ben Lockwood played by a James Cromwell who can barely bother to keep his eyes open throughout the movie. I, in fact, share that same sentiment.

Usually in these reviews I try to touch on all the aspects of said medium: visuals, camera work, writing, directing, acting, etc. But this review is going to focus mainly on the writing and acting because both are so atrocious all the other aspects are inconsequential. 

I didn’t think the first Jurassic World (JW) was as great as it needed to be for a soft reboot / revival of such a beloved franchise but it did have several memorable moments. The leads were charming enough to make you forget that they lacked meaningful character arcs (Claire does have one but the movie doesn’t care about it that much) and the action in the second half of the film was pretty cool (specifically T-Rex and Raptor and Giant Alligator Thing vs. the Indominus Rex). So for the second go around I was hoping that the filmmakers would take the time to really get it right and do the franchise justice. My hopes were far too high.

The only two performances that were worth anything in Fallen Kingdom (FK) were the two returning leads, Pratt and Howard. Howard is a decent enough actress but I’ve never seen a performance from her that I really love and FK continues that trend. Claire does undergo a change from shrewd, cold businesswoman to animal rights activist and that does give some depth to her character but it happens off screen during the three years between JW and FK. It was a little jarring at first but I swallowed it better when the film took a minute to explain her motivations. Pratt was as Pratt as ever as Owen is exactly the same through this movie as he was when we first met him in JW. I fear there’s a real risk for Pratt here as it seems as though he’s becoming another Will Smith or Tom Cruise. He is varying degrees of his usual charming and charismatic self in whatever project he appears in. Owen is just Pratt but outdoorsy to the extreme. Star-Lord is just Pratt with his ego turned up to eleven. Andy from Parks and Rec is just Pratt as a dumb man-child. And I guess that’s fine. Plenty of stars have made careers doing the same but actors actually stretching themselves and challenging themselves to become someone else will always be more impressive.

One thing that annoys me about modern blockbusters are their tendencies to inject new secondary characters into each following installment while completely ignoring the B cast from the previous entry. In the original Jurassic trilogy it did make some sense to do that as each sequel followed the branching lives of Ian Malcolm and Allen Grant who, we can presume, never encounter one another again after the first film. But here there’s little justification for it. JW’s comic relief characters Lowery and Vivian, played by capable comedy actors Jake Johnson and Lauren Lapkus respectively, are nowhere to be seen in this movie. Instead we have Franklin Webb, a spazzy tech guy played by Justice Smith, and Zia Rodriguez, a ball busting veterinarian played by Daniella Pineda. I don’t have much to say about Pineda, she was decent enough and served her purpose, but Smith … Oh my God. I believe this guy will go down in history as the absolute worst character in any Jurassic movie ever. Yes, he is even worse than every child character in all of the movies combined. He does nothing for the movie other than to scream in a high pitched voice when something scares him. Everything scares him. It’s always played for laughs but the joke falls flat on its face every time. The movie thinks it’s funny for a grown man to shriek in terror and scream out loud the thing that’s scaring him. “Lava!” “T-Rex!” “Social interaction!” All right, I made up that last one but the character is so cliché he might as well have said it. And what’s more there is no reason for this character to be here. The movie wastes a fine opportunity to bring back JW’s Lowery who was also a tech guy. In fact it even makes sense for him to run with Claire in her animal rights activism as he was a huge fanboy for Jurassic Park. He had toy dinosaurs all over his work station, he loves them! And it makes even more sense for him to return to Isla Nublar because he was familiar with the park’s computer systems. Why isn’t he joining Claire? He was courageous and had some genuinely funny interactions with Vivian. He certainly would have been better than Spazzy McScreamy.

Speaking of trends let’s talk about the obligatory child character. Isabella Sermon makes her big screen debut as Maisie Lockwood, Ben Lockwood’s granddaughter. Of all the new additions to the franchise she’s the standout as her performance has a depth and range most child actors would struggle to convey. Now one thing about the Jurassic movies is that their child characters were usually pretty capable in some way or another. Hammond’s granddaughter in JP reboots the computer system. Malcolm’s daughter in Lost World is able to gymnastic a raptor to death (yeah it’s a dumb scene but she saves her dad). The teenager in JP3 survives Isla Sorna alone for eight weeks. And the brothers in JW are able to fix a derelict jeep and rescue themselves. FK started out following this trend of capable children with Maisie … until it abandons the idea so we can have a “monster creeping through a child’s bedroom” scene. This completely undermined her whole character. Up until then the movie had established her as smart and independent and capable as hell. She snuck into the secret lab, spied and hid from the bad guys, busted out of her room which she’d been locked in, and climbed atop buildings all secretly by herself without help from a single grown up. But the minute the new hybrid dinosaur goes after her, which she had seen several times before then, she immediately forgets how capable she is and hides under her bed sheets. This might be the most heinous example of bad writing in this whole movie. Mixed messages? Okay, fine. Forgettable action sequences? Whatever, that’s most of Hollywood anyway. But please, for the love of God, have consistent characters!

Now the villains. Ugh.

BD Wong returns as the dastardly Dr. Henry Wu, the mastermind genius behind the dinosaur cloning process, the I-Rex, and FK’s new hybrid the Indoraptor.  It would seem that in the three years since JW InGen and its parent company Masrani Global have cut Wu loose as he’s now partnered with a new financier Eli Mills played by Rafe Spall, the CEO / director / executor of Ben Lockwood’s … estate? Company? Trust fund? I don’t remember the movie specifying what Mills’ job was, only that he was another white collar villain (because we haven’t seen that before in a Jurassic movie). Toby Jones makes an appearance as Mr. Eversol, an auctioneer for the high rolling criminal underworld, and Ted Levine plays Ken Wheatley, the leader of a disposable mercenary force who has an odd fetish for collecting dinosaur teeth. And that is literally all there is to the villains. Each of them is cartoonishly shallow to the point that Wheatley is a parody of an archetype and all Dr. Wu needs is a mustache to twirl. True, the villains have never been that big of a deal in the Jurassic movies as the dinosaurs have always been the main attractions but not even Vincent D’Onofrio’s Hoskins from JW was this bad and in a movie full of weakly written characters he was the weakest link.

And let’s not forget the dinosaurs. They are there. Not as much as you’d like but they’re around. The big draw for Owen this time around is to save Blue, the only surviving raptor from the pack he raised and trained, from Isla Nublar’s impending volcanic eruption. FK plays this up as though Blue was always the equivalent of a loyal attack dog but it conveniently forgets that JW established her as a dog capable and willing to bite the hand that fed her. The scene from the previous movie in which Owen is in the raptor enclosure is a tense moment because he is under threat from all the raptors, Blue included. In fact when the I-Rex persuades them to go after the humans all the raptors focus in on Owen. There was that one moment when Owen pulls off Blue’s head camera at the end of JW but to rewrite the relationship as though she were a loyal golden retriever, I feel like that was not earned in the slightest. And the main attraction this time is the new hybrid, the Indoraptor, essentially a smaller version of the previous movie’s I-Rex. FK presents this abomination of genetic manipulation as an ultimate monster but it really just looks like rejected concept art of the I-Rex. Also the Indoraptor is only in half of the movie. The I-Rex in JW was a better monster because it was terrorizing the island for almost the whole runtime. Plus the I-Rex has some decent build up and a good reveal. Here, it feels like the movie couldn’t be bothered. “By the way, we made another hybrid dino. Here it is.” I did enjoy the return of more practical animatronics over every dino being CGI but if you saw the last film this one doesn’t have anything special for you in that regard.

Let’s talk about Trevorrow’s writing. It’s awful. Like a pile of hot rancid garbage awful. The biggest problem with JW is that it completely ignores the moral of the original. JP was a cautionary tale that proves whenever man tries to exert his will over nature he will lose and just because we can do something it doesn’t mean we should. It’s classic man vs. nature ending with man being humbled. JW said, “Hey look, we’re going to keep doing that ethically questionable thing most people believe we shouldn’t be doing and wield the power of a god with no regards to any possible consequences,” and gets upset when the monster it created wreaks havoc. But does FK finally learn that lesson and try to take the franchise somewhere new that doesn’t lead the characters into being idiots who keep going back to the island? Do Michael Bay’s Transformers movies understand subtlety?

More than ever this movie has dumb characters making dumb decisions that nobody with a brain can follow. The villains want to capture the dinos and auction them off to billionaire criminals because these crime lords want them for pharmaceutical reasons (but why though?), the ability to hunt one like a big game hunter (because we also haven’t seen that before), or for weaponization. Let’s touch on that last point. The villains justify it by saying animals have been used in combat scenarios for centuries when armies rode to battle on horses and elephants. And the movie might have had a point if either one of those transportation methods hadn’t become outdated before the fifties.

Now just for the sake of argument I’ll list off a few more examples for this movie’s case: K-9 units, bomb detecting dolphins, and pidgins have all historically been used by one military or another at various times. But here’s the common thread among all those examples: none of those animals are predisposed to ripping a man’s head off in a single bite. Why do you think it isn’t common practice for a military to use lions and tigers and bears? And let’s take a closer look at the proliferation of working dogs and horses. Could it be that thousands if not millions of years of closely co-existing with humans have made them predisposed towards not killing us on sight? What’s that called? Oh yeah. Domestication!

Whether we’re talking about fiction or not, training an animal that never co-existed with humans so it can become an attack animal is not a good idea any way you slice it. Any semi-intelligent person can recognize that there are way too many variables to take into account. Oh but what about Blue, I hear you asking. Owen proved that raptors can be trained with Blue. That may be true but one successful instance against a multitude of failures does not prove the concept. Sure the Polish Supply Brigade around WWII kept a bear named Wojtek that would carry their supplies for them but you don’t see cargo bears being implemented throughout the world’s militaries these days. Do you know why? Because they’re freaking bears! They could go in for a playful swipe and nick your carotid by accident you MORONS!

And that leads me to this movie’s message. Apparently FK believes these animals have as much right to life as any other endangered species. That’s the whole reason Claire wants to go back so she can save them. But the film is bookended with Jeff Goldblum reprising his role as Ian Malcolm speaking before a congressional committee on how much that is a bad idea. He argues that nature selected the dinos for extinction millions of years ago and bringing them back was a mistake. The volcano erupting and eradicating the clone dinos on Isla Nublar, he says, is nature’s way of correcting that mistake. So the film opens and closes arguing why protecting these creatures from a second extinction is the worst. And yet we spend most of the runtime doing exactly that.

Seriously?

Malcolm has always been the ultimate voice of reason in these movies and we as an audience are inclined to agree with him given the proof each movie provides for his argument. There are four previous films illustrating why bringing the Earth’s most dangerous predators back to life is a horrible idea. And now that nature wants to correct the mistake you’re going to defy that decision?

The film uses Maisie here to make this case. The dinos are technically clones and we learn that Maisie is a clone as well so now we’re using clone rights to justify saving the dinosaurs. It is a weak argument thrown in at the last moment. Arguing for conservation is good and all but how well are you going to side with that argument when the T-Rex is meandering through a neighborhood gobbling up pedestrians left and right? These animals have lived on an island their entire lives. Aside from T-Rex who visited San Diego in the 90s they have never seen a town. The only human made structures they are familiar with were the derelict park buildings that the movie shows them waltzing through all the time. Even our own real world wild animals don’t understand that they should stay away from human settlements, how well do you think Blue is going to do the first time she’s caught in the headlights? But apparently they have a right to live because they are just as alive as Maisie the clone is so let’s end the movie by releasing all these dangerous animals, most of which are as large as a rhino or elephant, into the American countryside.

Sure, forget about public safety. Forget that dinosaurs had their chance but nature selected them for extinction over sixty million years ago. Forget about all the indigenous plant and wildlife that is now under threat because you just loosed at least eleven different dinos onto the world. Forget about how their nesting habits might destroy the landscape like nutria in Louisiana. What was your motivation again? Conservation? Give me a break.

Honestly this movie makes me glad Trevorrow was fired from Star Wars Episode Nine. This proves that he has no clue what decent writing looks like and has no regard for what the original was trying to say. Just because he was given the opportunity to make these films doesn’t mean he should have.

 1 star out of 5

A forgettable and messy film that slowly meanders through the second and third act with no sense of purpose other than to say, “Ooooh look. It’s a dinosaur!” And it doesn’t even say that well.

[ashirajaganshi]

Ok, this thing is huge. I didn't expect it to be this big at all O_O This Puu is certainly even bigger than life size! Here is my golden retriever Wheatley for scale XD All in all, it's a nice plush. Very soft and squishy, although the hair is not so pleasant to play with as it isn't just nice fur all the way through. Instead, it has flaps of faux fur fabric layered as a few pieces with that scratchy underside. Not a huge deal simce I won't be cuddling with it anyways.