Happy Friday Cougs, and as we steamroll into Father's Day weekend we wish the best to you and yours. And to you geeks out there like me? It's MAN OF STEEL weekend! After all the hype and trailers and TV spots and such, finally the movie is out. Like many of you, we will venture out into the great unwashed at some point this weekend and check it out, as yet another superhero movie hits the big screen in all it's "epic-ness".
So far the reviews have been somewhat mixed, in that it edges more towards the Dark Knight trilogy in terms of tone (darkness?) vs. the fun popcorn style fun approach like last summer's Avengers. Personally I like the origin stories of characters like this, from Batman Begins and Spiderman to even Iron Man and Thor. And I like it a little on the dark/serious side vs. the ridiculousness approach of some of these things. But hey, it's a superhero movie after all – it's gotta be somewhat ridiculous?
What's somewhat interesting is that in a lot of these superhero movies, the hero is usually 1) an only child, and 2) has had some sort of tragedy as a youngster, robbing them of their innocence along the way. Batman had his parents murdered in cold blood right in front of him as a youth, and clearly he has issues dealing with their loss for, well, the rest of his life. Superman lost his real parents when he was an infant, then was raised by foster parents who did their best instilling strong, Midwest family values in young Clark Kent. But he still struggles to figure out who he is and why he is here. Spiderman had his parents disappear on him as a young child, only to be raised by his aunt and uncle and then saw his uncle murdered, sending him on his path against crime.
Superman has always been kind of tough to wrap your arms around though. I mean Batman, at least he's a human being who had some tough times. Sure he's a billionaire in his real life and a huge part of what he can do is based on untold amounts of cash on hand! But at the same time he's human and you can feel for him and his loss. Superman is an alien, and essentially a GOD sent here to protect the world. It's kind of hard to feel for him at times, I mean he's SUPERMAN, ya know?
But I think that's the big challenge that this new movie has for it, in how it is going to try and establish the idea of getting the audience to actually care about Clark Kent/Kal-El and feel for his angst. That approach was a huge win when Christopher Nolan took over the Batman franchise and in Batman Begins, spent the first hour or so of building the back story and establishing Bruce Wayne's real-world struggle of dealing with his painful loss. They reeled in the audience by getting you to care about Bruce Wayne more than the guy in the costume (go back and watch the first Batman movie from 1989, literally the first 5 minutes you see Michael Keaton as Batman before you know anything about Bruce Wayne!).
Anyway, we're ready to see how it all goes. At least my youngest has his old Superman suit all ready to go!
Alrighty then, on to today's links…
Yesterday, NCAA Football 14 player ratings leaked out of the E3 convention in LA. Here's a pic of WSU's top ten players:
Looks like guys like Andrew Furney, Connor Halliday, Dominique Williams and Deone Bucannon are some of the top rated guys. Cougcenter asked a good question though, who the hell is WR #7 and how does he have 96 speed? For #7 is supposed to be retired, Mel Hein's number. Maybe it's newcomer Vince Mayle, who wore #6 in JC ball last year but #7 just happened to be the closest available number? Who knows, but it doesn't really matter anyway. The roster creators out there will have everything updated about a week or so after release so any number issues will be quickly corrected!
The game really does look great so far, and there are some interesting gameplay videos here and here. The demo comes out next week, on the 18th, so we'll be able to get a first-hand taste for what's ahead. Still haven't heard if all the Martin Stadium changes made it in to the game for this year or not, but I guess we'll find out next month when the game launches on July 9th.
Moving on, Athlon's ranked the Pac-12 stadiums. Yes, the Cougs are last (shocker). So many changes to these stadiums make it hard to keep up though (we ran through all the Pac-12 stadium changes earlier in the week) but to each his own I guess. When the Cougs were good, Martin Stadium was a tough place to play, no question about it. And we even had referees try and call a penalty on the home team based on crowd noise! Remember the Arizona game back in 1997, when the refs twice stopped the game to warn the crowd of excessive noise?
Whatever. All I know is that Martin Stadium is a great place to watch a game, and there's not a bad seat in the house!
Finally, Pac-12 media day is July 26th. Here's a list of the players who will be in attendance, via Ted Miller.
All for now. Enjoy the Father's Day weekend, RISE 'N GRIND AND GO COUGS!
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
