Snapshots from our excursion to the Chabot Space & Science Center in Oakland, CA over the weekend:
Here’s a pic I took of Lucas’s inspiration for the AT-AT walkers in Empire Strikes Back. They’re just a few of the many container-loading structures found in the Port of Oakland. Lucasfilm is just 20 miles north of Oakland.
It was Church Night at the Oakland Coliseum (Network Associates) last night. Church Night is when the A’s organization invites churches to a game and reserves for them a section of the stadium with seats at a discounted price. The invited churches also get their names flashed on the scoreboard. A bunch of us showed up to watch the Oakland A’s play against the Baltimore Orioles. The A’s won.
I brought cornick to the game.
Saw the eagerly-awaited Matrix sequel today on opening day. Surprisingly, lines weren’t long at all. Well I suppose it helped that we watched the 12:35 p.m. matinee show. Yes, I took the day off. I’ll have to make my hours up on Saturday.
[next: spoilers, possibly]
I’m not going to do a full movie review but I’ll just say that I wholeheartedly agree with this one here. The reviewer’s observation that some scenes look like a computer game is one I share (see also my Hulk post). The freeway scene was amazing, however, and was shot in nearby Alameda/Oakland. The concept of “programs” as figures in the Matrix intrigued me but I soon realized that Tron already made use of this concept a couple of decades ago. Isn’t underground Zion something we’ve seen before? Doesn’t it remind you of the mutant underground society in Beneath the Planet of the Apes? Or was it the regressed society in The Time Machine? Anyway, the Zion council meeting looked like a Haight-Ashbury neighborhood meeting, didn’t it? Multi-cultural Zion is refreshing although the “rave” scene has got to go. Seemed pointless. In the first movie the allegorical rise of a messianic figure had clear biblical reference. Eastern philosophy, also present in the first movie, is given more consideration in the sequel and indeed, pagan imagery, more prominence. Which is okay, for this shift serves to distance Neo’s reluctant messiah role from any true biblical analogy. All in all, an enjoyable movie.