Bert Vandecasteele

Month: April 2008

  • Ep. 09 – A Shape of Things to Come

    The Episode…
    The first of the post-strike LOST episodes was everything I had expected: compressed, filled with riddles, action-packed and… effng “shock and awe”. In case you’re not the avid fan (or you’re reading this at some point in the future), let me fill you in: season 4 was planned to have 16 episodes. Due to the strike, however, three episodes got dropped, causing thirteen episodes in total instead of sixteen, but with the same storyline (minus some flashbacks). For an already dense show like LOST, this basically means a very hectic, but fun, ride.

    And boy, no time was wasted in this episode. About three minutes in, we get a telephone call – the beginning of the end. About three minutes later, redshirts are getting killed all over the place, pump action shotguns are pulled from piano seats, Claire gets blown up and rescued by the heroic Sawyer… and then, in the not-so-distant future, effing Ben wakes up in the middle of the effing desert wearing an effing Dharma parka! Seriously, even you even so much as blinked during this episode, you’re sure to havemissed something.

    Now that Alex is dead (great acting by Michael Emerson by the way), I’m really starting to fear that Danielle Rousseau is truly gone. What a shame. I hope I’m wrong on this, because telling the story of one dead character through others (Libby) is already enough. My hopes are that John and the gang will run into her on the way to the cabin and save her life or something. Or maybe the island? I don’t know.
    Apparently, team Darlton have learned something from JJ Abrams’s Cloverfield when coming up with this episode. Smokey, our island’s resident monster, was really, really creepy this time around. It just flew in and devoured everything in sight. So it appears Ben has a certain amount of control over it – I didn’t really see that coming. The monster’s turning into an ever more complicated enigma with every page we turn.
    The Questions…
    Jeez… nothing!
    In all…
    Yeah, shock and awe pretty much sums it up. Also, apparently Ben and Widmore are playing a game. What kind of game? Is it like Settlers of Catan? Or more like Risk? …Or Grand Theft Island? Stay tuned for next week’s episode, where Jack… gets apendicitis.
    Favourite Quote: Jack: “Were you ever going to get us off this island?!”
    Daniel: “…No.”

  • Ep. 08 – Meet Kevin Johnson

    The Episode…

    Have we ever seen a darker episode of LOST? Does it get any worse than this? This episode finally delivered on what the cast list had been showing since Januar 31st: the return of Michael on LOST. How he pulled it off, we found out in Meet Kevin Johnson. Or did we? In the first flashback, Michael’s already back on the island. So, an integral part of the storyline has been skipped: how Michael and Walt sailed their boat home. A shame!

    On the other hand, here’s what we did find out: the fact that Michael can’t kill himself as he has unfinished business (and all of a sudden it dawns to me why Michael has to be the man in the coffin – why else would Jack commit suicide, other than knowing he’s finally free?), the fact that Walt is back in Manhattan (but, in fact, he is not), the fact that Sayid is making a huge mistake by blowing Michael’s cover (remember Ben saying “remember the last time you thought with your heart instead of with your gun” back in The Economist?), the fact that Karl (and probably Rousseau) are dead, the fact that Widmore is behind it all and how he did it (or is he?), and the fact that Mr Friendly is gay (“Believe me Kate, you’re not my type”).
    I personally loved the scene where Michael pins a note to his chest, gears up the car and tries to kill himself. There’s something about the visuals and the audio (another Mama Cass song) that just works. Kudos for whoever thought that out! I would have liked to have seen more of Libby though; this episode felt like they weren’t really using her to her fullest – but you can’t have it all. Personally, I seem to be kind of a Michael fan whereas everyone else around me seems to hate his guts. I think that he’s just about the most tragic character on this show – and through no fault of his own. You could blame Locke for being to gullible towards Anthony Cooper, but you can’t blame Michael anything pre-island. He’s just a poor guy whose wife made his life a living hell, and when he tries to fix her mistakes, he ends up in the crash. I don’t know why, but I always feel sorry for him. I feel sorry for other characters when I see what they are going through in their  flashbacks… but Michael and his demon wife just always manages to make me furious and sad at the same time. He’s one of the only characters not to have gained anything by coming to the island. On the contrary, the thing he has built up has been entirely shattered.

    The Questions…

    Another piece of the ever-expanding puzzle that is question one. Yes, Michael got off the island. So did Walt. They’re not part of the Oceanic Six group though. We didn’t find out anything about Walt (question 2) apart from the fact that he was in Manhattan. So how did he get back on the island while growing so fast? We get another look at question 6: Ben didn’t want Jack to place the call because he knew it would lead the freighter to the island. And, seeing those pansies use a submachine gun to fire at projectiles for fun… I can’t really blame him. Question 9 is undoubtedly the most fun question. What’s up with Rousseau. Well… she might be dead, for one. What a shame – I really liked her. I hope she’s still alive. As for question 10: I’m starting to get a sneaky suspicion that it’s Michael in that mysterious coffin after all…


    In all…
    This episode was heavily criticized by some people on the internet. It didn’t deliver, they said. I tend to disagree: it really delivered, but in typical LOST-fashion. It went a step further than we would have thought. We would have figured that we’d see how Michael and Walt got home, but this step got skipped… meaning, in my opinion, that something really did happen on their trip home. The only thing I didn’t like was the end: I thought Sayid revealing Michael to the ship’s captain was a better cliffhanger than unknown people killing Karl (and possibly Rousseau). I was really disappointed when the episode just ended like that. But maybe that just was because I had a six week’s worth wait ahead of me…

    Last but not least, there’s some good news on the horizon. We’ll be getting a three-episode finale to season 4 this year! Apparently, there was simply too much info to divide into two fourty minute episodes. Isn’t that wonderful news? The sad thing is that we’ll have to wait another week for the final two finale parts. But that’s not that bad considering what we’ve gained, now ain’t it?
    Favourite Quote: Minkowski: What, you going Nicholson on us?

  • Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII

    Crisis Core(Note: this review was originally written in two pieces.)

    Since, in between of writing papers, going to some classes and waiting for my thesis correction to arrive, there isn’t much to do for me around here, I spend most of my free time either going swimming or playing video games. Most games just don’t manage to really suck me in like they used to, but it’s good enough to pass my time with, I guess. One of these games is Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core – on PSP. And I’m impressed.
    When I first played Final Fantasy VII (the original game), I was about fifteen years old. I remember it as being the video game that left the biggest impression on me during my high school years. It’s this strange kind of being flawed that makes this game so legendary: there’s certain unexplained plot devices, and just because they are not or very poorly explained they work so well. You can fill in the blanks and create your own story. And this is basically what Crisis Core is all about: it takes one of these plot holes and expands it.

    (If you haven’t played Final Fantasy VII and plan on doing so, you might want to skip this)

    In the original game, we have Cloud – our protagonist – and ex-military officer in a group with amongst others a high school friend of his. When he left his little town, he went on and on about “making it in the big city” and becoming famous. And when he comes back all these years later, his head is filled to the brim with stories about big wars, great villains, strange occurances… none of which he actually experienced. In fact, he become so obsessed with an other member of the army – Zack – that he took what happened to Zack and made it into his own story.

    The thing is that, whatever happened to Zack is explained in side notes: you activate little cut scenes when you’re at the right place at the right time. There’s not much to these scenes nor do they contribute to the main storyline in Final Fantasy VII. There’s pieces of a bigger puzzle you just can’t figure out.


    And this plot hole is exactly what Crisis Core is all about: Zack’s story from A to Z. Some things you already know (his relationship with Aeris, his parents at home, his showdown with Sephiroth, his escape with Cloud… and his death at the edge of Midgar). It’s like you’ve been given a road map with waypoints, but what the route is going to be, you
    have no idea.

    You might think it’s entirely insane to make a prequel to a game 10 years after it’s been released. But really: it makes
    perfect sense. It entered the porcelain store that was FF7’s story and added some vases. Really pretty, tragic looking vases. And maybe, just maybe, it’s so good because I know it’s going to end badly?

    How do you write a story if you know your target audience knows the ending? There are American Beauty, or 300 – both stories of which we kind of knew the ending (or great plot twist, in American Beauty’s case) beforehand. Neither of those had me begging that the end would never come. Neither of them grabbed me on an emotional level. Then, how do you do it? Apparently, Final Fantasy VII: Crisis Core knows. It knows how to walk into a porcelain store without breaking anything and make one of the most beautiful vases in that place even more beautiful.
    Needless to say, Crisis Core’s ending tore me apart. We knew that after the Nibelheim incident, Zack and Cloud were offcially labeled dead. But they aren’t. We knew they would escape their lab and go back to Midgar. But what we didn’t really know was why: we didn’t know Zack wanted to go back to see his girlfriend, Aeris (yes, exactly, her). We knew they’d get waylayed along the way, and that Zack would come to a most tragic end. But… we didn’t know that it would hurt this much.

    What is the answer to my question? I’m not quite sure myself – yet. But Zack’s final battle against his own company tore me apart. I never quite understood the use of the DMW (which is in essence a slot machine displaying all of your friends – if three line up, you get a power up), but during that battle it finally made sense: one by one Zack’s friends start fading away, until no one remains – except for, exactly, her. Every fade is accompanied by a short movie in which the fading friend says good bye. When, in the end, only Aeris remains, and the DMW starts glitching all over the place, she doesn’t say good bye…

    She says she’ll be waiting for him until he finally comes back. And, well, if you’ve got someone waiting for you… that just breaks your heart. And that… that’s how it’s done. It had been a while since I was last moved by a story like this.

    Square Enix – you just regained my trust!

  • Ep. 07 – Ji Yeon

    The episode…
    Finally! Something I saw coming! I knew from the instance they introduced the flashforwards in LOST that we had not seen the last of the broken line storytelling. And Ji Yeon confirmed my sneaky suspicion: we got a  flashback and a flashforward, and both in one episode. Wonderful! I’m absolutely delighted to see this kind of storytelling. It’s a bit more complicated and it probably confused and infuriated a lot of viewers. But hey, if you can’t handle not being fed what is going on on screen, you shouldn’t be watching this anyway.

    So, now we know the identity of the Oceanic Six. I can’t help but feeling a bit disappointed here. This is the list: Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sayid, Sun… and Aaron. In my opinion, having Aaron as the last of the Oceanic Six is a bit disappointing: we knew he made it off the island back in Eggtown, but because the writers wanted to keep the suspense going (due to the suspense in this episode) they just couldn’t rub it in our faces. Maybe I’m too stupid for this show too?
    In other news, the whole adultery story arc for Sun and Jin has finally come to a close. Thanks, Bernard! Jin and Sun are very touching as a couple, but I am starting to think that Jin’s become a bit too much of a good guy. I mean, he was a demon off-island, but now he’s practically a saint… which, for a strong and confident woman such a Sun, is a bit… stretched. Sun is obviously not without  flaws, but in the end, she got away with it. Am I exaggerating? Or am I right thinking this was all a bit … naive?


    So Michael’s the man on the boat. Whoa, what a surprise. I like how they brought Michael back – it was a really nice touch and I didn’t see it coming at the start of season 4, but it’s still a bit of a dodgy execution: Harold Perrineau’s name has been in the cast list since Episode 1. You could see it coming from miles away. But hey, I’ll forgive them – I’m just too curious to see how and why Michael made it back to the island of doctor Moreau… erm, I mean Jack.

    The questions…

    Question 1 has been answered. We know all of the Oceanic Six. Obviously, there are going to be more people that make it off the island (Desmond wasn’t on the plane, but he’s on the freighter now nonetheless), but we have got the “main list”. Question six (Ben’s motivation) got hinted at again: it has something to do with Widmore. What Widmore wants, we do not yet know. And that’s about it. Slowly, but steadily, we’re getting somewhere. New questions are arising though, so I’ll have to post a new list of questions after reviewing episode eight.

    In all…


    I really liked this episode. If you watch it a second time, the whole Jin story feels really useless, but just remembering how confused you were the first time around is enough. It was an entirely tragic episode: Jin and Sun are a wonderful couple and I don’t think anyone wants to see them separated. That’s why I’m sure that Jin is still alive! He has to be! Pretty please, Lost Writers?
    Favourite Quote: Sun: I’m two months pregnant.
    Dan: Oh, you’re… Wow, that’s… Congratulations!