The Electoral College

I’m not going to advocate for the Electoral College, but something I have yet to see discussed is the number of electors.  If the EC was as crucial as some would have you believe, you’d think they’d at least get the number of electors right.  However, the number of electors has been locked at 538 since 1929!  But, America’s population has grown since then, which means that the number of electors for each state might actually be incorrect.  Lucky for you, I’ve done the math so you don’t have to.

Every state gets two senators, while representatives are based on a state’s population.  That means, of the 538 electors, 100 are senators, and 3 belong to Washington D.C.  Right now, there’s some formula that I didn’t look up that assigns 435 electors to states proportionately… but it never goes above 435.  If we were to actually allocate electors based on population, it would follow that we’d do so by taking the state with the smallest population and give it one representative, then assign every other state representatives based on multiples of that number.
The least populated state is Wyoming.  It currently has 3 electors.  Obviously, under the new formula, this wouldn’t change.  It wouldn’t change for 13 other states (plus DC), either.  Rhode Island would actually lose one elector, and the remaining 36 would gain electors.
California – which already has 55 electors – would gain 16 more for a total of 77 electors!  The argument you’ve probably heard is that Wyoming has more than 3 times the voting power as California.  Let’s break that down:
Wyoming has a population of 577,737.  That means that each of its three electors represents 192,579 people.  Sure, California has more electors, but it has much more people.  California has 69 times the number of people, but only 18 times the number of electors.  Each elector in California represents 724,828 people, making each Californian elector represent 3.7 times more citizens than in Wyoming.  Why does this matter?
For the majority to win one elector in Wyoming, it needs to get 96,289 votes.  In comparison, one district of California needs 362,414 votes to win.  Wyoming is much more valuable for a presidential campaign because they only need to convince 96,000 voters instead of 362,000.

So what if we reapportioned representatives to match population?  Well, it doesn’t fix everything; a Wyomingite vote would still have 2.9 times as much voting power as a Californian’s,  But you can’t argue that the current system is better.

The full Google Sheet is here.

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens, or, Star Wars Episode IV in New Clothes

Let’s get this out of the way: The Force Awakens is fine. The acting, sets, music, effects, they are all well done and a return to the groundbreaking effects of the Original Trilogy.
Also, the casting is great. The inclusion of more women and racial minorities is a refreshing update for a series whose original run was very lacking in PoC and women. These are all great additions and I’m glad they are there.

Now for the bad: TFA is pretty much a reboot; nearly every single character is just an analogue for a previous character. The locations, the droids, the plot, the relationship between good and evil, it is all just a rehashing of the first film.  I feel like JJ Abrams and Disney are constantly feeding us the same candy in a different wrapper.

• It is a desert planet, but not Tatooine.
• It is an army of stormtroopers, but not the Empire.
• Scary force-user in a black mask, but not Darth Vader.
• Droid with something the bad guys want, but not R2-D2.
• Hot-shot pilot, but not Han Solo.
• Older mentor figure, but not Ben Kenobi.
• Small group of freedom fighters, but not the rebellion.
• Scary old bad guy in a hologram, but not the Emperor.
• Scary bad guy leading the army, but not Tarkin.
• Planet-destroying super weapon, but not the Death Star.

You get it.  They could have done anything, and instead, they just lifted the previous characters and stories and added minute changes that largely don’t matter to the story.
Why did they choose another desert planet? Why did they decide to give the MacGuffin to the droid? Why do the stormtroopers look the same?

These are all valid questions, but my biggest question – and what I believe to be the most-revealing question – is this:
What is the relationship between the First Order and the Resistance?

At the end of Return of the Jedi, we are led to believe that the Empire is defeated and the Rebels are going to restore power to the Galactic Republic. In TFA, the Republic is back in power, and is being attacked by a new group of rebels, the First Order. For some reason, this group of rebels is being fought by a different group of rebels, the Resistance.  The good guys have to be the underdogs, the bad guys have to be the oppressive fascists.
This (and the other choices) shows that the filmmakers clearly didn’t mean to add anything significant to the Star Wars universe.  They took the elements that worked and they combined them into a loose narrative and it worked.  And the fandom bought it.  And that, largely… is good.

Just don’t pretend that this movie is amazing.

Primer – A Textual Commentary (Warning! Spoilers Ahead!)

I’m going to try something new.

I’ve seen a lot of movie reviews and a lot of movie explanations, mostly either through someone’s blog (like this one!) or Youtube.
What I haven’t seen, and something I’ve been wanting more of, is something like a text commentary; something you can read along with that will help you understand what you are looking at in realtime, much like director’s commentary might.  Ya, you’ll probably end up pausing a lot, but if you are like me, you do that already.  Maybe this is just for me and no one else…
I’m thinking this should at least provide more information than a simple Wikipedia summary or a Youtube review.  This took a lot longer than I expected!

Now, with regards to Primer specifically, there are great explanations and charts and stuff already out there, and I encourage you to read them.
Where these charts fail is that they lay out everything that happens, both seen and unseen, chronologically.  With a movie like Primer, so much of the movie is unseen that these charts – while useful – don’t help connect the story with what you actually are seeing in real-time.  Reading these charts is a great way to read the story the film is telling, but I’ve been wanting something that relies more the film as we the audience see it, and isn’t so… dry in the way it lays out the simple sequence of events.

In case you didn’t read the full title, I’m going to spoil everything; this isn’t a review.  I’m going in as deep as possible to explain as much as I can.  I’ve included a more in-depth explanation of Aaron’s journey at the very end of this post.
With that said, let’s begin.

A Pair of Interim Reviews (No Spoilers)

The Primer Watchthrough is taking longer than expected, due to life and whatnot.  I may have bitten off more than I can chew.  So I’ll write about 2 movies instead.

First, Triangle.  6 friends set off on a sailboat, get stranded in a storm, and get rescued by a cruise ship with no one on it.  People start dying.  Things get weird.  I really enjoyed this.  It is weird and mysterious, but avoids a deus ex spills-all-its-guts ending.  It isn’t the most satisfying ending, but the journey is pretty great.  I’d recommend it if you like thrillers.

Next, Transcendence.  First, I feel that Johnny Depp has transcended any role he plays, and is now just Depp playing Depp.  He is distant, he mumbles, and he isn’t particularly charismatic.  This movie is no exception.  Johnny Depp is a genius computer scientist, and he uploads his mind into a computer.  He starts building nanobots that can do anything and people try to shut him down.  It is a little Outlast (the video game), a little Prey by Michael Crichton, and really isn’t that great.  The action isn’t action-y enough, the sci-fi isn’t sci-fi enough, the ending isn’t satisfying enough… it just isn’t great.  Would not recommend.

Still working on Primer!  Hopefully it’ll be done soon.  Stay tuned.

Interim Mini-Review

I’m still working on my Primer watchthrough, but I figured I’d finish the live-action FullMetal Alchemist on Netflix while I was on the treadmill and couldn’t type anyways.

So, first things first: FMA suffers from a case of So Much Source Material, So Little Time.
FMA has been told through the original manga, an anime based on the manga for the first 24 episodes, an anime based entirely on the manga, plus one film accompanying each anime… There’s a lot to go through here, and there’s really no way to adapt the manga or either anime to one 2-hour film.  So right off the bat, I’ll tell you the story is very disjointed and piecemeal, with little bits of the manga/anime sprinkled throughout in an attempt to make a cohesive 2-hour film.  It works, but only barely.  It really will only appeal to fans of the previous series, and even then, it is subpar in every way.  The blonde characters look like they are wearing wigs, the story is simply not cohesive enough, and the performances, while ok in places (I really enjoyed Major Hughes), rely too heavily on anime tropes (screaming at the sky, at another person, at themselves) that do not translate well to live-action.

To conclude: even if you are a fan of the animes or mangas, this movie will just leave you wanting more.  The story doesn’t come close to the breadth or depth of the previous series, the performances don’t translate well to live action, and the ending is very unsatisfying.

Post #3, or, Stay Tuned for My Next Post

Something I’ve always wanted to see that other people don’t really do is review or discuss something – a movie, specifically – as it is happening.  Kind of like a livetweet, but just written as one piece.

I think I’d like to try this, and I think the first movie I’d like to try it with is Primer.

Primer is one of the most dense time travel stories ever, and it gets really complicated and I LOVE IT.

I have no idea when I’ll actually get around to it, but… stay tuned?

Post #2, or, Just Trying Stuff Out

So I think I’ll mostly keep this content light, but I get really passionate about politics and the law and stuff like that.  So if there’s some current event that really excites me, it might end up here.  We’ll see how many fights I get into because of this…

So, I like to speak about issues from a Constitutional perspective, and kind of… educate people, I guess?  I don’t usually have answers, but I have ideas about how laws and the Constitution should work and I sometimes I post it on the Internet and fight people… I might have a problem.

Current issue: gun control.

And So It Begins…

Hello interwebs!  Welcome to this… blag… thing.
I thought I’d start off simple with one of my favorite topics:
RANKING THE STAR WARS FILMS!!!

Without further adieu:
1 – Star Wars. The Original. Can’t beat it.
2 – Empire. Deeper, darker (arguably better?) story. Suffers from being in the middle, but solid.
3 – Jedi. Ewoks are childish, sure, but the resolution is a great end to the trilogy.
4 – Last Jedi. Amazing, beautiful, wonderful. Different enough to be interesting, similar enough (specifically to the Dagobah scenes) without being a repeat (*cough*, Force Awakens).
5 – Rogue One. Doesn’t age well on repeated viewings, suffers from being a prequel to a story we know the ending to. Still, fresh and different.  Just rewatched.  Amazing film.  It isn’t perfect, but the performances are solid, the action is great, the sacrifice is heavy.  I appreciate this view of the Rebellion as a bunch of anti-heroes; Jyn isn’t interested in joining up until later in the film, and Cassian kills multiple allies and informants.  These are the ragtag roguish rebels fighting to bring down the stinking government.  What a fresh and fun adventure set in the Star Wars universe.
6 – Force Awakens. Total yawnfest, characters aren’t interesting, storyline is beat for beat identical to Star Wars. MEHHHH.  [Rewatched] It isn’t a terrible film, and it hits the tropes you’d expect.  Still, so many scenes are lifted directly from better films in the saga.  Sad.
7 – Sith. The best of the prequels is a pretty low bar, but the story is compelling, if crazy-flawed.
8 – Phantom. Big points for historical significance and context, but the story and performances are lacking.
9 – Clones. The most different from what we imagine Star Wars to be. The noir detective story was a big risk, and big failure. The love story is bizarre, the performances terrible. Gross.

Thanks for reading.