Tag: Gamera Mentioned

[SITE] AI Generated Headers (I)

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn Site Information1 Comment

When I wasn’t looking, WordPress added new features. This is more AI stuff, including a writing program that mimics my Hemmingway app. As I don’t always write direct into the blog, not sure how much use that is, but it’s a good tool. For instance, as I’m writing this it just told me the previous sentence was a long one. It also flagged the word “previous” as a complex word. If I cared, changing those sentences would be a simple thing.

I don’t care.

As you no doubt guessed.

Another new tool, and this one is giving me troubles, is called AI Feature Image. I guess what it does is “read” the post and then create an image based on what it finds. Below is one created based on one of my Spider-man essays.

Now that’s nice. I question were the assets it’s using comes from. In fact, this is one of my basic problem with AI, stealing other people’s hard work. The other problem is that I didn’t make this myself and it feels lazy and wrong.

To a point.

Oh, and because I’m who I am, I did one for Power Girl and Gamera. The former is from a post on this site, the latter my Giant Monster Gamera review on the sister site.

Very interesting. The Gamera, of course, is the least accurate of the three, and that’s the problem. You can’t count on the AI to do the job.

Of course, I didn’t plan on using any of these as feature images. The limit is grist for a blog post.

It’s when I get a knuckleheaded idea into my head about new main headers that I get into problems.

Which, heh heh, has been a bit of a time sink. But that’s the next post.

Oh, and for the curious, this is the feature image it created for this post:

Am I wrong, or isn’t that a little creepy?

The Big Three (II): That Strangely Innocent and Tragic Monster

On By Cullen M. M. WatersIn Monster Movies2 Comments

For me, Godzilla will always be a hero. The monster that stops the bad monsters from… well… being bad.

This, of course, plays hob with my watching some of his films. Especially the newer ones, which for some reason insist on making him the villain.

It’s not my fault. I grew up in the Seventies, during which time Godzilla really was a hero. When he appeared in his cartoon series everyone would cheer. Other heroes would fight him in the comics, but it was always a mistake to my mind. He didn’t mean to do bad things.

That was something a kid could understand. Other people made the rules, and they didn’t always tell you until after you broke them.

Now I understand and appreciate the movies where my big buddy is less than noble. I do. But I still root for him, deep down.

What’s the appeal? Outside of the face he’s a dinosaur that breathes fire?

Well for starters, he’s a very simple character. Very hard to get wrong, unlike, say, Spider-Man.

See, all Godzilla wants is to be. To do what he wants, when he want. If he wants to walk from Point A to Point B, that’s what he does.

Trouble is that he has a pesky habit of walking through cities. Literally.

That’s it. That’s really all there is to him. But with that you can have stories of him being a mindless beast, an antisocial creature, or a veritable demon, and they all work.

Some better than others, of course, but it’s not that hard to make a good Godzilla movie.

The other thing is that he’s unique in the fact that he has a cast. The opponents he faces are among the most memorable in film history. Dinosaurs galore. Flying three headed dragons. Bionic bounty hunters with blades in their belly. Giant insects. Even sentient sludge. Only his rival Gamera comes as close in terms of wildness (and technically has the King beat in pure weird monsters.)

Really, Godzilla’s the best.

Of the three, he’s the only one I’ve never fully parted with. There have been stories of his I won’t watch again willingly, but there was never a time I stopped watching the “modern” version of him.

Some of my favorite movies are Godzilla movies. I own entirely too many Godzilla action figures. Hats. Shirts. Tote bags.

Seriously, I might have a problem.

My hero, the King of the Monsters. Long may he reign.

Next, we travers time and space to talk about the final of my Big Three fictional heroes.