It’s not every day you come to Boracay and run into Academy Award winner Jeremy Renner. Anyway, he was sitting in the cabana behind my hotel and was gracious enough to let me take a picture with him. So far, I’ve run into two celebrities on the South East Asia Trek. I have a feeling we’ll run into a third in Singapore.

Hit the jump for pictures of the hotel itself.

There are two seasons in Boracay: hot and hottest. Our hotel was appropriately named Two Seasons, a clever twist on the Four Seasons brand.

I’m in a room with six people. It’s the one on the right with the balcony.

Behind the hotel, there is a large koi pond. Beyond that is a beach cabana. I had lunch here today and met Jeremy Renner.

Behind the cabana is the beach itself. There are a lot of lawn chairs out.  However, umbrellas are limited. My goal tomorrow is to arrive early and claim an umbrella.

I did end up laying out in the sun for a little bit. One of the hotel workers was offering massages so I took her up on her offer: 500 pesos for an hour of Swedish massage. Due to the presence of sand everywhere, the experience can be best described as exfoliating.

Of course, I later walked around town and realized that most massage places were charging 320 pesos. Hmm… I should do more comparison shopping. Still, it could have been worse. One of the workers straight up followed my friend Peter into his room and started massaging him. At that point, there’s no turning back.

Happy Halloween! This year, I decided to combine the concept of Joker with the Occupy Wall Street movement. In reality, I didn’t want to pay $90 for a full Joker outfit. What can I say? I’m part of the 99% and we’re in a recession.

I first watched The Empire Strikes Back on VHS with my brother and father. It was family movie night. I was 10. I was one of those lucky kids who hadn’t been spoiled about Luke’s relationship with Vader. So when the big moment revealed itself on Cloud City, my jaw dropped. When the movie ended, I desperately wanted to watch the last movie. My mom came into the room. “Oh don’t worry. Luke and Leia are brother and sister.” Thanks mom, for the spoilers.

Everything ended well, of course. Vader turned to the light and saved Luke from the Emperor. Leia rescued Han from Jabba the Hutt. The Empire got defeated by teddy bears in a forest. The audiences in 1980 must have felt so frustrated when Empirefirst came out. They had to wait three years to find out what happened!

Whenever I think of Empire, I’m reminded of how groundbreaking the film was. This movie introduced audiences to the Imperial March. It had an ice planet, swamp planet, and a cloud city! Moreover, Empire was a movie where the villains thoroughly defeated the heroes from beginning to end.

After reading The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, I gained enormous respect for Kershner.

It’s obvious that the movie was incredibly difficult to make. The actors were drama-queens and/or using drugs during filming. An on-set accident nearly killed Mark Hamill. The movie was behind schedule and underfunded.

Perhaps familiar to those who dislike the Star Warsprequels, George Lucas had some pretty interesting ideas that needed to be reined in (such as a gargoyle castle for Vader). Kershner wanted to make a darker, more serious film that focused on character development. The series is stronger because of this decision.

Irvin Kershner, may the force be with you.

The Greek gods and prayers
In the movie, the gods require the prayers of mortals to fuel themselves. No such concept exists in the myths. Rather, the gods are petty and violent and screw with the lives of mortals with no consequence. God of War captures this aspect particularly well.

Hades is not a villain
In the movie, Hades is antagonistic to the other gods as well as humankind. He seeks to usurp Zeus, dresses in all black, and is pretty much Voldemort with a beard.

In the myths, Hades is the most fair, just, and politically neutral of all the gods. He never actively tries to kill people, as he is just a ruler of the dead, not its messenger. Death is personified as Thanatos. As for Hades’ appearance, the ancient Greeks believed gems and minerals come from Hades’ domain (the underground). So the god was often depicted as very wealthy. Also, in the myth of Perseus, Hades actually lets him borrow his helmet of invisibility.

Danae and Acrisius are daughter/father
In the movie, King Acrisius rebelled against the gods and tried to attack Olympus. So Zeus decided to be tricky and impregnate Queen Danae, resulting in the conception of Perseus. Zeus later struck down Acrisius with a lightning bolt and Hades turned him into a demon. Perseus cut off his hand and his blood spawned scorpions. Eventually, he is killed by Perseus.

In the myths, Danae was actually King Acrisius’ daughter, not his wife. Motivated by a prophecy that his grandson would one day cause his death, Acrisius locked his daughter in a tower so she could never conceive a child. But Zeus visited her as a shower of gold (ewww) and impregnated her. When Acrisius discovered this, he threw them into the sea. Both mother and child survive and Acrisius is never punished by Zeus. But he is eventually killed by Perseus in a random discus throwing accident, fulfilling the prophecy.

Who the hell is Io?
In the movie, Perseus’ love interest is Io, a woman who resisted a god’s advances and was cursed with immortality. Io accompanies Perseus along the journey, often times showing up to save his ass and offer sage advice. They live happily ever after.

In the myths, Io is completely unrelated to Perseus’ journey. She’s a woman that Zeus slept with and then turned into a cow to hide from his wife Hera. Rather, Perseus’ female guide is the armor-clad war goddess Athena and they do not have a romantic relationship.

The motivation for hunting Medusa
In the myths, Perseus slays Medusa and obtains her head at the request of some dick named Polydectes who was actually trying to get him killed so he could marry his mom. Perseus returns and turns him to stone. In the movie, the goal is an elaborate plan to defy the gods and save Argos from destruction. Yeah, I think I can see why this plot point was changed.

Pegasus’ origins
In the movie, the winged horse Pegasus comes out of nowhere and aids Perseus. In the myths, Pegasus literally flies out of Medusa’s headless corpse. He is Medusa’s child. You see, Medusa was a mortal woman who was cruelly transformed into a monster after being raped by a horse (who was actually Poseidon in disguise). So that’s why her child is a winged horse. Makes sense, sort of.

The Kraken
In the myths, Zeus didn’t “release the Kraken” to destroy Argos for its insolence. The Kraken isn’t even in Greek myths. It comes from later folktales and resembles a giant octopus (i.e. Pirates of the Caribbean).

What prompts the unleashing of the sea monster?
In the movie, Queen Cassieopia of Argos boasts that her daughter Andromeda is more beautiful than Aphrodite, prompting Hades to go batshit crazy. In the myths, Queen Cassieopia is from Ethiopia and compares her daughter to the Nereids (sea nymphs). This causes Poseidon (god of the sea) to get pissed off and release a whale-like monster called Cetus. It certainly makes more sense for a sea god to release a sea monster to uphold the honor of his sea nymphs than for Hades to do it because he’s eeeeeevil.

Andromeda is black
In the myths, Andromeda is the princess of Ethiopia. So technically, she’s supposed to be black.

Perseus and Andromeda’s relationship
Another difference is that everything in the movie leads to Andromeda’s sacrifice. In the myths, Perseus never even met Andromeda prior to rescuing her. He was actually just flying around with Pegasus (or winged sandles in some versions) for a completely unrelated reason and notices her chained to a rock. Then they get married. The end.

Djinns
These ‘genies’ are actually from Arabic folklore. Aladdin summons one from a magic lamp. They seem to have been added to the movie in order to sell toys.

Stygian Witches
In the movie, Perseus finds the Stygian Witches to learn the location of Medusa. In the myths, there are no Stygian Witches. Rather, he visits the Graeae (gray ones) who are beautiful sea goddesses in the guise of old ladies. They lead him to Hera’s orchard to obtain some epic weapons.

Wow, that’s a pretty long list of changes. So in the end, what did Clash of the Titans do right? Well, they did manage to depict Hades with a beard.

Have you ever wondered what happened to Jake Lloyd, the boy who played Anakin Skywalker in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace? SciFi’s Australia Blog caught up with the young actor in a recent interview and revealed that he’s now a 20 year old film student. Lloyd doesn’t really watch the movie anymore but does enjoy the games.

The video is interesting because Lloyd recalls his experiences in high school and college as a minor celebrity. At times, he clearly appears agitated. I’m sure having millions of nerds telling you that you ruined their favorite film franchise has that effect.

It’s clear that Jake Lloyd grew up to look nothing like Hayden Christensen (the guy who played Anakin in Episode II and III). But the thing that really struck me is how much he resembles Sebastian Shaw, the original Anakin actor from Episode VI. Here lies the irony of George Lucas’ casting and subsequent film revisions.

Take a look:

If Lucas had waited a few years for Lloyd to grow up and kept him in the role, he wouldn’t have needed to replace Shaw’s ghost Anakin with Christensen’s ghost Anakin in Episode VI. Lucas could have also used the downtime to polish the script, wait for technology to improve, and make something that didn’t, you know, suck.

Maybe everything turned out for the best. Star Wars will forever be a case study for what not to do when making a prequel trilogy and Jake Lloyd can still find marginal fame as a Susan Boyle lookalike. George Lucas still makes millions from licensing deals.

First of all, they managed to make Moon Bloodgood look hideous. That’s not easy to do. Secondly, they made Chris Klein look like Nicolas Cage. Also, Chris Klein’s face apparently absorbs sunlight differently from a regular human since the light illuminates the left side of everyone’s face except his.

The cut and paste job on Kristin Kreuk is terrible. Look at the lines around her legs and the unnatural glow. Also, the skin tone of the face is far less saturated than the rest of the body. I wonder whose body they decided to paste her face on. If the body comes from a different Kristin Kreuk picture, then they clearly shopped her boobs to make them huge. Nice use of the burn and dodge tools there, buddy. Speaking of unnatural, did you notice that her left arm (our right) looks lopsided? It’s like they shrunk her hand, but forgot to shrink everything above her wrist.

Also, why the hell would anyone want to buy a 3-disc ‘unleashed and unrated’ version of this movie except to prank a friend? if anyone buys me this movie for any reason, our friendship is over.