http://www.alaric.ws/blog.asp Movie: Gandhi. March 10, 2010 at 12:07 pm. March 10, 2010 at 12:07 pm. en-us http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1084 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1084 March 9, 2010 at 11:05 pm. I had to watch Richard Attenborough's 1982 film Gandhi for a class I'm taking. In regards to cinematography and historical accuracy, yes the movie is reasonably well made and accurate. As it stands, the central issue of this film, as is the case with most Gandi-related media, is the ability to achieve justice via peaceful means. The gist of the story is known to all, one Gandhi, preaches non-violence and passive resistance, and in doing so liberates his homeland of India from the horrible and oppressive British rule. Rejoice, ye, free-loving people of the world, your salvation be at hand. All hail Saint Mahatma, and so on and so forth. The movie of course goes into more detail and paints Gandhi as a real person, not just a heavenly being. Unfortunately, the message of this film is a logical fallacy, namely a red herring. More specifically it is an appeal to emotion, as opposed to an appeal to reason. The movie uses the natural human desire for and appreciation of justice, the western tendency to side with the underdog, and graphical depictions of violence as well as serene imagery to force the viewer to take sides that are not necessarily well argued for. This is not to say that the movie twists any truths, or turns the events upside down. However, it does use every trick in the book, including, once again, logical fallacies, to prevent the audience from critically evaluating the events. What is worse, the movie reinforces an already prevalent idea, which also happens to be very much false, that all conflicts can be solved via non-violent means. People who firmly believe that, usually find themselves at the receiving end of various implements used to project force. It is also usually a surprise for them. Because of this it would have been better if the film actually took care to accurately explain the political and social situation in India at the time, and tried to show Gandhi not as a saint, but instead as a clever and shrewd politician, who knew exactly what he could and could not do. Specifically, it would serve well to make clear that Gandhi's resistance was only possible against the British - a noble and law-abiding nation, that produced and adhered by the concept of fair game. Men who saw it fit to keep firing into defenseless crowd were few and far between, and condemned by their own. On the other hand, should Gandhi have attempted the same tactics against the Russians (who murdered millions of their own people and kept 10% of their population in concentration camps at the time) or the Belgians (whose ghastly colonial cruelty is unsurpassed to this day,) the results would have been different. Gandhi along with his associates would have simply been slaughtered. Anyone not content with that would have been slaughtered as well. India is a very large country with a lot of people. Belgians, Russians, and others would think nothing of purging a few millions to keep the rest in check. The genius of Gandhi was in realizing how he can manipulate the most civilized nation on Earth. Particularly of note is the fact that when it came to negotiations between Hindus and Moslems, Gandhi was nowhere near his usual effectiveness. He himself considered the separation of India and Pakistan a dramatic failure. In that he was correct. None of this is to say that Gandhi was not a brilliant statesman. None of this is to belittle his achievements. While it is highly questionable whether the British rule was bad for India, everyone can sympathize with the desire for independence. Still, Gandhi's role is not very well shown for what it really was. His true achievements go unsung as far as this film is concerned. What the audience is shown, is yet another "obscurity to greatness to martyrdom" epic, which is hardly at all about Gandhi. Replace India with a fantasy kingdom, and no meaning will be lost. The true meaning and story is not shown, however. http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1083 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1083 March 6, 2010 at 12:43 pm. As a member of Club SLI, I got a free copy of Dark Void, a game where you get to fly with a jet pack in an alternative universe. At first I was excited. Then I installed it. Turns out you get what you pay for (who would have guessed?) Dark Void is crap and nearly unplayable. The controls are messed up, there is no obvious way to make the game run in full screen, etc. I already uninstalled it, erased the installation files, and do not intend to ever come back to it. http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1082 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1082 March 3, 2010 at 10:50 pm. Something a bit unusual today - a hardware review. The Adrenaline Vault published my review of AblePlanet's True Fidelity NC300B headphones with Linx Audio technology. Read it here. http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1081 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1081 March 3, 2010 at 10:37 am. My previous post, the one about the bastards at Activision killing the fan-made King's Quest sequel, is republished by the Adrenaline Vault today. It's not really an article, more of a news post, but I just wanted to make note of it here. Update: This article was also published by the Examiner on 3/03/2010. You can see it here. http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1080 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1080 March 2, 2010 at 2:20 pm. The Silver Lining, a fan-made sequel to Sierra's classic King's Quest saga, has been shut down by Activision/Blizzard the new owners if this IP. There was a similar setback in 2005, when Vivendi Universal sent a Cease & Desist letter to the developers. At that time, however, thousands of people wrote to Vivendy asking to grant a fan-license to the game, and after a while the company agreed. The game was not allowed to call itself King's Quest anymore, but the development was permitted to go on. It took the team a while to recover from this loss of stride, but as of late it looked like the first episode was about to be released. Meanwhile, Activision/Blizzard came to own the rights to King's Quest. Instead of allowing development to continue, they decided that the project is to be killed. Not only did they force The Silver Lining's site to be taken down along with all artwork, information, demo, etc. they also insisted that all of the forums are killed as well. Nearly ten years of discussions (some non KQ-related) are now gone. Good-bye King Graham. Who would have known that one of the most beloved gaming characters of all time would end his life at the tip of some greedy corporate suit's pen. http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1079 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1079 March 2, 2010 at 9:53 am. My earlier blog post about the ridiculousness of Ubisoft's newest DRM scheme is published by the Adrenaline Vault today. They toned it down a bit, but it still gets the point across. Go take a look there. The original version is just a few posts down. Update: This article was also published by the Examiner on 3/03/2010. You can see it here. http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1078 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1078 March 1, 2010 at 7:25 pm. My preview of the upcoming strategy game Supreme Commander 2 is published by the Adrenaline Vault today. Go take a look! http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1077 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1077 February 25, 2010 at 11:41 am. This morning my review of Wings of Prey, another WWII flight simulator, is published. It's a pretty crummy game, but the funny thing is that I start off ridiculing the insane number of WWII games, and it just so happens that the two reviews right below mine are actually WWII games. Go read it over at the Adrenaline Vault. http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1076 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1076 February 24, 2010 at 9:23 pm. Tonight the first installment of my series on Starcraft II beta is published by the Adrenaline Vault. In this episode I cover the new battle.net. Go read it at over at the Adrenaline Vault. http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1075 http://www.alaric.ws/comments.asp?record=1075 February 23, 2010 at 1:15 am. I got into StarCraft II beta test!!! Just now I played my first game. It lasted an hour and a half, and after a long struggle I ended up having my ass handed to me because I suck. No matter, I'm just glad I got to play StarCraft II for the first time since 2007, when I had a chance to take a look at an early build. It is a lot like the original, except obviously better looking. It also has many different units, of which I only got to see the Terran ones so far. Tomorrow I should be able to take a look at Protoss and Zerg. In all this excitement I must not forget to thank the man who made it possible! He is a reader of Adrenaline Vault (a gaming site I write for) and a regular on its forums. He is the one, the only, OmegaBob! Bob had a guaranteed place in the beta because he went to BlizzCon last year, and he offered it to me instead. Yes, that's right, he willingly passed on a chance to play StarCraft II so that I could play it and share my impressions with my readers. That, ladies and gentlemen, deserves some serious appreciation!