Angry birds :p

I havent posted in years because I felt the Nairaland community had fragmented and the site had gotten diluted to the low levels of common sense seen on 'Naija' forums on the web.

However the outpouring I'm seeing on bawomolo's tragic loss, which seems to have resurrected the old community spirit, and brought back many of the long-time regulars has really touched me.

I dont think I was active at the same time that he was, I'm sure he would have participated in some of the debates I've had involving the likes of davidylan, oyb and others on such topics as politics and/or religion. In any case the fact that i'll never experience this just adds to the tragedy.

RIP dude. The measure of a good man is the sorrow at his passing.

@everyone

1. No law was broken. It is legal to take pictures of anybody in a public place. It is illegal only on private property.

2. It is RUDE to take pictures of people without their permission in a public place. But it is not illegal.

3. It is STU.PID to be rude to the police in NIGERIA. I will say no more on that topic, anyone with half a brain can fill in the blanks.

@ishit4body

1. The pages you posted about the UK and US were discussing *proposals* to make it illegal to photograph police officers. It is not news that they don't like being photographed, and are trying to get laws passed that will reduce the likelihood of that happening.

2. You are perfectly justified in not wanting to be photographed by any random passer-by. However, please understand that you will be unable to sue such a person, and if you attack or 'spew' as you said, YOU will be liable. Besides, such conduct is unbecoming

3. If you don't want to be used for rituals/whatnot, then simply keep away from cameras in public places and do not attract attention to yourself in the company of strangers. That is simply common sense all over the world.

4. By now you are aware that a large number of male nairalanders have a semi-n.ude picture of you permanently stored on their computers, with the freedom to upload, photoshop, send via email,facebook, use for rituals/rich man's cooking pot or whatever. And you cannot stop them. Yes, Nairaland is a public place.

5. Ease up on the swearing. This has nothing to do with being ladylike or whatever. It simply does not speak well of you or anyone. I hope you know Nairaland is *not* an anonymous forum. We should all watch what we say and do in public.

A friend once said 'They will not curse me to have to look up to kiss my wife'

A lot of people just want to conform to the common image of a man with a woman on his arm. The taller you are, the fewer the men who would be able to easily cut that image with you.

However short guys have had to go after taller girls all their lives, so 5ft, 6ft, all the same to them, they are free from that stereotype already

Another reason is that a striking appearance means more eyes are on you at any given time. It will take more confidence for someone to risk getting rejected by you if you already stand out by being tall, fine or no fine. Even if a girl is drop dead gorgeous, being taller than her gives most guys a confidence boost, which they wont get from a tall lady.

blah blah blan. All na grammar at the end of the day anyway

Yesterday, after about 30 minutes configuring ICS, bluetooth tethering and Windows XP port forwarding, I went online with a prepaid account with an allowance of 50 megs and funded with 500 Naira for a sole purpose: To determine whether or not, as has been alleged by certain people, online gaming has indeed come to Nigeria in an affordable way. You probably know what the answer is already (since I took the pain to explain my setup, heh heh…) but this is such exciting news that I feel I need to drag my verdict out a little…, just to add a bit of drama!

I actually used MTN's 3G connection, which can be seen detailed on my blog here:

http://www.portlagos.com/?p=12

For the techie geeks, pinging the central dns is a consistent sub-300ms value, so games can be played online at acceptable (not prime) quality!!!!

Aloy

So if I publicly insult you and call you the b@stard son of a rat's misfired self-service-off and a drunken cock-a-roach, and then said that of course it is fiction, cockroaches cant be drunk, you would sit there and say 'ok, cool. I applaud you for taking notice of me even if it was to call me a b@stard rat-roach'


@bigbrovar

The misrepresentation of history in 300 is a major issue. However what happened there was that the original writer modified the history for entertainment effect, and the director stayed faithful to that vision.

This Lagos thing was just sloppy- they simply failed to do research. They didnt intentionally misrepresent the setting, they just pulled it out of their arses. If they needed diamonds in the script, for example, some research would have had them choosing a diamond-producing region like south africa.

@masterugwe

Yeah i understand that u dont like them straying from the source, BUT:

* in many cases the source is just impossible to adapt without making many changes. Look at speed racer- they tried to stay too close to the source and people just laughed at the silly graphics.

* in the case of superman, they chose the 1980 movies as the inspiration and NOT the comic books. If you go back and watch those movies you will see they had little or nothing to do with the comic books, like smallville. The possibility of superman having a son is VERY VERY REAL. In superman 2, superman got naked and had sex-out-of-wedlock with lois lane in a very long, very well emphasized scene. This led to the son in supes returns

in defence of the new 'deadpool-baraka':

The original deadpool was offered a cure to cancer by using wolvie's DNA, this instead disfigured him and drove him insane yet unable to die, even though he longed for death due to his disfigurement.

In the comics, weapon 11 was the next subject in the secret supersoldier project that produced wolvie (weapon x) and captain america (weapon 1). Stuff learned from wolvie's adamantium transformation was used to produce weapon 11.

of course, the first history of deadpool is too long to squash into a wolvie movie, and fox wanted to test the popularity of ryan reynolds as deadpool before greenlighting a deadpool movie. So they needed to fit him in, and what they did was adapt weapon 11 and take similarities from his story and deadpool's story, combine them and give us weapon-11-deadpool-baraka-superman

not pretty, but not too bad in my opinion. To go into the long story of 'the dead pool' game of death and dp's quest for suicide would have made a movie that was too long and too boring.

The way they did it, look at all the good things:

1. People LOVED the new deadpool, so there is a greenlight for the deadpool movie! EXCELLENT!
2. Deadpool has his 2 characteristics intact: healing factor and disfigurement, PLUS involvement in the weapon x program. the other stuff (baraka blades, teleporting and eyebeams) can easily be stripped from him due to the scientists saying he was not fully finished yet.
3. His head was cut off but he is alive. stay till after the credits and see.
4. Baraka blades allow them to let deadpool fight like a samurai without having to explain how he suddenly gets samurai blades out of nowhere, and allowing him to lock swords with wolvies adamantium blades without wolvie jus slicing thru.

I am one of the most vocal critics of the stupidities of this movie (Lagos, bleh) so you know I'm not just grasping at straws.

Why wont they continue to misrepresent when there are people on this very forum that support that kind of nonsense.

Their only justification being 'it is fiction'.

What a load of bolocks.

And u are entitled to do so.

Ah, God, if only all Nairaland arguments could end so amicably,

(yer still wrong though, )

Ok, I see where u are coming from.

Correct me if I'm wrong:

You feel a decision as to whether or not a movie is acceptable for an audience is a completely different topic from whether or not proper representation is required in a fictional movie?

For example, you feel a fictional movie depicting rampant sex and violence needs to be censored for reasons completely seperate from those relating to the accuracy/relevance of the movie's subject matter.

If I'm correct, I think I can relate to that stance. HOWEVER, I'd like to posit that u are mistaken in respect of subject matter: afterall movies are censored based on subject matter.

For example, 'birth of a nation' was banned for more than 5 decades mainly due to racist portrayals of black people and an attempt to paint a false image of the US civil war. This is despite the fact that it was clearly a work of fiction. The civil war was a setting, but it was deliberately misrepresented. This movie caused riots and lynchings in which several people died.

Of course this is an extreme example- but it is the same thing nonetheless. The point is that you cannot argue that the fictional nature of the story gives them license to misrepresent the locations.

Like I said in another thread, if they used a fictional African nation, we'd all be okay.

brand new/ fairly used?

also do u have ps3 versions?

*sigh*

*shaking head*

I was just about to give up, but let me ask elrazur a question.

If words become harmless when labeled fiction, why then does censorship exist for fictional works?

I disagree.

Movies have a profound effect on people's perceptions.

That's why there exists a stringent ratings and classifications board, and why several million dollars can go down the drain for simply making certain remarks in the dialogue of a movie.

Why do you think a work of fiction like the da vinci code got so much attention?

Wake up people: Mass media is the opiate of the masses. Ignore the power of information at your peril. Allow subversives to hide behind the banner of 'fiction' and you will be the worse for it.

haaaaaaa

see lack of research in action

why would i want to hide on sesame street when it is populated by BIG BIRDS and COOKIE MONSTERs?!?!??!?

or gotham city with the lowest life expectancy in the dc universe.

i can see u dont have my interests at heart. in fact u must be a blood diamond trafficker

ok we have heard

you are right

make we rest

if we shout too loudly the red berets will come into our village and shoot us for our diamonds

@Elrazur

I agree that it's nice to see the name of the country on the silver screen. Shows that there's more awareness of the region, which is good.

I also like the fact that they used a real Nigerian language, and that the SFX company outdid the producers by actually researching the region and basing the computer generated backgrounds on actual aerial photos of the Lagos skyline.

But this is a case of the bad outstripping the good. An average westerner watching this will just assume the region is another rwanda/blood diamond locale. And THAT is where the problem lies.

You mean everyone's favourite Ike Dubaku? He's south-african, dude.Grew up there, he's from there. Get your facts straight before running your mouth- but of course you wont do that since you advocate ignorance and stupidity.

And as for who gives a f&ck what anyone portrays Nigeria as, the answer is: Obviously not you.

Wolvie opening with 85m is a huge dissapointment considering its pedigree. It should do much more, as an x-men movie. Nonetheless it is passable. I am not criticising the whole film, just the Lagos section.

I am not defending Nollywood. Read my post please. I said Nollywood will spool crap when freaking idiots are happy to keep forking over cash for their poorly researched drivel. As long as people exist who have the kind of standards you are advocating, we will continue to see shit like this and the next X-men film will show your native tribe kept in cages and used as slaves by a white nigerian tribe called 'ubuntu'.

Bruce willis movie was an extreme case of this sort of shit.

Also please read before replying. I said THE STORY IS FICTIONAL BUT THE SETTING IS NOT. If the setting was Wakanda (fictional african nation in the fictional world of marvel comics) we would give them a free pass.

EVEN THEN they should still research the comics to portray wakanda properly! Its just high quality art, for people with standards.

Don't try to trivialise the issue with your sweeping generalizations.

If they did their research they would be able to recreate Lagos in bangladesh.

The fact remains that what they did was utter rubbish, completely cheap and amateurish, and the movie deserves any flak it gets for it.

The slumdog comparision is moot. They got the setting perfectly. Those complaining were complaining about the portrayals- and the screenwriter purposefully misrepresented reality in that case just to prove a point and shock his audience. For the wrong reasons, yes, but not for lack of research.

In this case, they were not trying to prove anything. Just being lazy and insipid.

Even in comic books they do more research. For gods sake I once read a marvel comic that featured Sango and several authentic yoruba gods and godesses. Research is nothing more than high quality art.

As for Nollywood, they remain so poor exactly because people like u let them get away with all sorts of rubbish. If people would just stop watching movies that inslt the intelligence, the producers would make better stuff. To the producer its all about the money. If he knows he will lose money by getting a white guy with a polish accent to play someone from britain, he will go the extra mile with casting.

If he thinks his viewers are all brainless cretins, then we get the nonsene 'spooled' from Nollywood on a regular basis today.

Not weird, dude.

The movie is fiction, the setting is not.

If they had said 'Sangala, Africa', we would all be happy.

Fictional movie in a nonfictional setting.  Inaccuracies are damaging no matter what. Thats why there are laws governing portrayals of certain public settings in Hollywood,  doesnt extend to foreign lands because who gives a damn about Naija

3 days journey from Lagos will land you in japan or malaysia.

There happens to be a road network in this country that can get you halfway across the country in half a day.

They just didnt research ANYTHING. What bullshit.

Plus 3 days journey will surely have you cross several hundred language borders easy. Def not speaking igbo by the time u get down from di bolekaja.

Ol boy, lets just enjoy the action scenes and excuse their halfwitted research.

@cabali

No it was not an empty rant.

Nigerian home movies do not have 300 plus million dollar budgets.

Neither do they have the kind of reach and influence that major hollywood blockbusters have. Call it dumb entertainment if you like, but many people's ideas are formed by what they see in movies.

The best movies do tons of research. The cast of DOUBT spent ages in the convents covered in the movie and the writer used his own experiences as a child to inspire the story. Much research was done for hotel rwanda, black hawk down and blood diamond and much care taken to ensure they didnt misrepresent the facts.

Even The Kingdom had the cast and crew spending a long time in Saudi Arabia despite the real dangers they would face in that region.

The makers of Valkyrie actually shot some scenes at the same locations that they took place in back in world war 2. A cowriting credit is given to a respected historian who has access to the actual documents that detail the real events behind operation valkyrie.

Even slumdog millionaire's screenwriter spent several weeks in Mumbai and bangalore, travelling around India and actually recruiting real slum dog kids who could not speak English for the roles.

All the movies above took liberties in the name of entertainment, changing stuff here and there, which is acceptable, but the makers of X-Men apparently did NO research AT ALL. Just copypaste from popular movies set in the same CONTINENT not even in the same region.

To their credit:

1) special effects company used real footage of Lagos from the air for the aircraft approach scene
2) real skyline was used as a backdrop for the UTTERLY FAKE AND ILL-RESEARCHED 'lagosian village'
3) the language chosen was a Nigerian language, thank God, but COMPLETELY and totally inappropriate and stupid.

Hey Orimili

FOX's version of the x-men has always been different from the comics. It just so happened that the genius of bryan singer's crew of childhood friend screenwriters made us love the first 2 movies so much.

You may notice that even though diehard comic maniacs dont like x3 and wolverine, both movies STILL appeal to the mass of non-comic fans that were lured in by the first 2 movies!

Also, they are both more accurate than you think. Many of us so-called comic geeks are actually pretty ignorant of the obscure sources of both movies, and they are further obscured by modifications.

Marvel productions appear to do a better job because they know the most prominent aspects of the superhero stories, and they focus on those, with as few changes as possible, and still provide a great script, so allthe comic nerds can watch iron man/hulk and feel happy at being able to name all the characters.

Case in point: many of us are annoyed at not having seen deathstrike, yuriko, alpha flight, vindicator, and a lot of the well known aspects of the origin, but THIS IS THE REAL ORIGIN that they showed. Wraith, silverfox, deadpool, agent zero, team X, these are the bases of this movie, and though many of us either do not know them, or only know the modified retconned versions, they are nonetheless pretty faithful, with a number of arbitrary changes here n there.

even the weapon x =weapon 10 stuff is real- a recent retcon by marvel letting us know captain america was weapon 1. weapon 11=deadpool is an invention, but weapon 11 AND deadpool both share similar backstories, both were upgraded by logan's DNA.

Gambit was a total invention, ms frost as silverfox's sister was an invention, the blob as member of team x was an invention also, and vindicator/heather showing up as old people and getting killed so quickly was also an invention (and a message that we will never see alpha flight) BUT these are no more jarring than iceman's age reduction.

What I'm saying is dont be so pissed off at the movie. Do some digging around the team X stuff and other obscure stuff and the next time u watch the movie ull be less offended. You will also appreciate the fun action scenes and brisk pace of the movie, both of which I was grateful for.

The Lagos stuff was shyte though.

Nairaland just transformed into a mass of noise and spam.

Plus all the constant posters just vanished all of a sudden! And my favourite section (Games) became a barren wasteland,

Meh, i dunno much about deadpool so I couldnt get pissed about that. Fom what Ive heard he's a wisecracking smartass, and the actor they chose for him was appropriate, giving the level of black-belt-level wisecrackery he assaulted us with in blade:trinity.

However he had little screentime, but his action scene was BAD ASS! lol.

Weapon 11=deadpool was rather silly, though. But it did give us a good enough 'last boss'. lol.

Singer did a good job but remember, he's the king of story mutilation (though in a good way, lol!!!!)

Also, remember he's the director not the writer. The direction of this movie wasn't the problem, I think.

I thought the movie was nice and entertaining. It was annoying that they changed so much, but at least what they showed was pleasant to the eye. Action scenes were good, dialogue wasn' shakespeare, but was good enough, and characters were adequately represented.

Only problem I really have are gambit and the teleporting black eyed peas guy. Killed so easily and stupidly by sabertooth,  what a waste. Plus the way sabertooth got him makes no sense. Did he put his hand there before or after the teleport? Cos if it was before the teleport what we should be seeing is Victor regenerating a massive stump where his arm once was. And if it was after, how the hell could victor smash thru the ribcage so fast without sending the guy flying, prolly unconscious? The writers just needed some cheap tragedy and perhaps needed to kill off will.i.am as fast as they could.

Then there's Gambit. Complete waste of a character. Apart from the fact that he contributes nothing to the story except an implausible and contrived story device to get logan onto the island, he also ensures that victor escapes after committing cold blooded murder for NO reason. Why sabotage Logan's attempt to defeat victor, when he wants him dead as well? More 'script rewrite hell' I reckon.


@spikey- yes, i saw the movie, yes, I still stay there occasionally but its my cousin thatll be there more often these days.

spiked cylinder

Why the sadfaces? I thought the chicks would did the new roided-up Chris! Lol

Thank goodness Sheva didn't get the silicone treatment, lol! She *does* have a bikini costume though,

ja, next origins movie will be about magnus but wolvie should get another movie if this one does well

tis all about the moolah

they skipped sooooooo much, but hey its x-men. The movies and cartoons are always bastardising the comics

as long as its interesting its ok!

The end is nigh for blasphemers! repent or face the wrath of Chris redfield's Biceps.