The Dark Knight Rises

“I'm sorry, Master Wayne, I failed you...” -  Alfred J. Pennyworth

Okay, an off topic post from Rara and The Ricketies posts but, I think I need to jot it down.

I've always been waiting for a week after a particular movie was on theatre screen. I have had three main reasons why. On top of all, I'm too lazy to get into a very long queue and wait for another hour to see the movie. Other reason is that I'd prefer a more vacant auditorium than its premiere week-shows. And last, the ticket is always cheaper than its premiere. Haters gonna hate, haha!

Well, this time, it's The Dark Knight Rises (TDKR) I've been waiting for. My sister and brother had already watched it and they really adore how thrilling it was. Thank the gods, I also always expect less than other people talked about, it's just to make sure that it would blow me off and make me cheering or otherwise, I wouldn't disappoint too much (consider the movie really sucks). My expectation comes while the film is throwing premises. Clues. At least if your expectation was wrong, you'd like to be surprised and mind-blown in an entertaining way.

OK, haters gonna hate, with all due respects to Chris Nolan whom has had us great times with Inception and The Dark Knight, TDKR is ill-favoured. Perhaps The Dark Knight and Inception has had me subconsciously expect that TDKR should be like them or... I don't know.

Why do I claim so? Spoiler alert, mate. So please stop and close this note if you haven't seen the movie yet. Otherwise, you would have your expectations ruined by my utter nonsenses.

First of all, as I have claimed before, I always expect less. I don't want epic car-chasing or bullets whooshing around or explosions or some superheroes kick some arses. I just want the movie or particular scene has you GET INTO it. You want to feel the thrill, the joy, being fun at, the sadness, being punched or hurt by the villain, or you-name-them.

On the opening acts, we see Bane has an awesome mission (at least that was stuff I felt when I see how Bane hijacked an CIA aircraft). And also until Bane brings Wayne into the pit, I was hoping he will bring Gotham into chaos, panic amongst the residents of being cut off of the world. I wanted to feel like one of Gotham's resident, being in confusion and fear perhaps, because there were blasts all over the city, the 'Bastille prison' is happening, and a 'French-revolution-wannabe' starts.

Alas no. None of the feeling was present. Instead, I just saw the newsmen and football spectators gawked, watched Bane talking gibberish about a nuclear bomb at the stadium and reading Gordon's letter on top of some accustomed bat mobiles. What if the bomb is a fake? What if the letter is phony? What if...  -Okay you're thinking too much. Just enjoy it, yeah?-

Then we see Wayne was exiled into a godforsaken pit at an Arabic desert after being beaten to pulp by Bane in the Gotham sewer. Wayne was stripped off of his bat costume and left to die, both his soul and his body. It's a cool way to torture a person as naïve as Wayne though. No ID, no gadgets, no smartphones, no shoes, no Lucius Fox, and no Alfred while seeing Gotham's being destroyed slowly (for 5 months! Whoaa!). Yet Wayne conquers the tests and managed to escape the pit after about four months and dozens of efforts climbing the pit. Actually this is a good message to make you rise from failure!

But how the hell does he manage to get into Gotham in less than 10 hours and pops out then meet Selina???!? From Arabic desert? No ID? No smartphones? No Fox? No Alfred? Blablabla?

My possible explanation is that Wayne has had the auto-pilot codes patched into 'The Bat' software six months before and then helps him get out of Arabic desert. But how the hell does he call it?? He was stripped off of his bat costume (and of course, his gadgets) for gods' sake!!

Actually I was really hoping TO SEE Wayne outwits Bane get off the deserted land and get into Gotham after all the premises the movie had thrown at me. Batman is not Superman. He has gadgets, skills, determinations, fortunes, and above all, wits. He already did it when he escaped the pit without gadgets but... -Okay you're thinking too much. Just enjoy it, yeah?-

No, mate! My mind is blowing in an uncomfortable way! There are more stuff I'd like to talk about but I think it would be too long to read. Some of them are: Batman suddenly popped out of nowhere to save Blake,  Batman fire logo on the bridge, and there was a tunnel to go outside Gotham and apparently no one knows about it but Wayne and two members of League of Shadows (euh, I'm not sure about the name, CMIIW yeah?)...

If you let me compare this with TDK - despite some flops on its editing and I don't actually like or adore any superheroes – I could feel how evil and insane Joker was, more than anybody else told him so. Daggett clearly said, “You're pure evil” to Bane, but it sounded wrong. I suppose he did it as his loyalty to his duty, to his organization, to Ra's Al Ghul's ideology, and to his master, Thalia Al Ghul.

I think another comparison comes from Pixar's animated movie, Brave. It was hillarious, heart-warming, and I was nearly burst into tear, really. There were also two female college students sitting on my right, laughing a lot and having their eyes wet and their noses full of tears after the movie ended. These small clues brought me to conclude that 'Brave' has successfully had us GET INTO its world.

I know some of you would suggest that I shouldn't compare Brave and TDKR since they have different genre. Alas, genre is genre, a movie is a movie. If you went to see a thriller movie, you'd want to be thrilled. If you went to see a romance movie, you'd want your heart thumping and hold your-someone-you-love's  hand. If you went to see a horror movie, you'd want to be freaked out and had the ghosts of the movie terrorize your sleep.

But hey, I think Alfred left Wayne was a memorable scene of the movie, though I didn't really like the way he went emo.  I suppose Batman/Wayne needs someone to cling onto, an advisor, and a friend who mocks him gently when he fails and says, “Why do we fall, Master Wayne?” (okay, I forgot the next line - I think it's "so we can get ourselves up"? :D) instead of someone who leaves when having some different opinions about life and stuff. When Alfred left, Wayne lost another part of his soul, perhaps like he lost Rachel, and made anger conquers Wayne that leads him to failures.

And perhaps... 'failures' is one of TDKR's tag names.

Rara and Balak

This is Balak. A Sumatran elephant (Elephas maximus sumatranus). He's strong, quiet, and remembers almost everything he had encountered. He's actually kind-hearted but lazy for most of the time and sleeps a lot :D ...

I'm really enjoying an elephant character from a children magazine, 'Bona', which has pink skin, wide ear, and a very extensive and retractable snout. It's very attentive and somehow always appear in my mind when I created an elephant character. But no, Balak doesn't has a retractable snout and a very wide ear, but he has an incredible strength comes from his snout and body.

Aaand, this is Rara, our heroine. She's an adventurer (FYI, she hasn't taken an arrow to the knee yet :D ) and a researcher. She's looking for a thorium mineral to find the future's energy source for humankind and to redeem her incredible prosthetic left hand. She likes reading a lot and her color is green. "Green is good. Green is refreshing, and it's friendly," she said.

She also laughs a lot and wordlessly couldn't stand of being lonely venturing across the Insulinde, so it's a blessing in disguise when the rickety Wolai and lazy bum Balak joined her adventures though they frequently cause troubles for the gang.

You might want to download the images of Wolai, Balak, and Rara as your desktop wallpaper, I had them in 800x600 (Balak and Wolai) and 1366x768 (Rara). Please be free to do so. We're happy to have you gladly have them and enjoy our works.

enjoy!

Wolai The Yaki

Good morning!

We want to tell a bit of story about Wolai, a yaki from Sulawesi. Yaki is also known as Maccaca nigra. It's actually total black, but we chose blue as its fur color, simply because I like it blue. I think you've rarely seen this species eh? Neither do we.

We were looking for an unique species from Indonesia as one of characters appears on the Rara and The Ricketies series when we stumbled upon an article about yaki at NatGeo Indonesia. We were impressed by its instinct and behaviour while they were struggling to be the 'king' of their own kin. They really look like us, humans. They can be found at some of national parks at north Sulawesi, although their numbers are decreasing rapidly. They were only 3500 untill last March (the NatGeo article which we were reading).

Wolai has three plumes on its head, a yaki typical punk-like hairstyle :D ... It's agile, swift, lively, and perhaps is the merriest. It's the type of, "Hey, let's do it now!" - while it's jiggling around - and clumsy, so it makes Wolai the real fun member of the gang.

RIP R.A Kosasih

We read a news that one of Indonesian comic artist legends, R.A. Kosasih has passed away early this morning. It probably one big loss for us, when we recall where we were at 2004.

It was one morning when I came to an animation studio next to a paddy field. The breeze was refreshing and the studio was unlike any animation studio I had ever imagined. It was just a small house surrounded by lots of paddy field and it seemed, quiet.

Urakurek Studio was having an animated series - which I didn't know  of before - and that was the first time I touched the works of Kosasih's after Urakurek showed me what they were doing. Not that I'd never read his works, I did some of the times, but I had never had the books nor touched them, I read it over the internet  LOL.

To cut the story short, I learnt how to animate from the series' project from zero to hundreds of tricks. Basic drawing, anatomies, etc. I also met Kurnia and Chito - whom I worked with in KOEBUS - on that project, we learnt together in it, read a lot about Kosasih's works. It was awesome.

Have some rest, Sir. We will always remember you.

Left Hand

Good morning everyone!
I think this is one of our great days since wujudkan-dot-com posted our first crowdfunding project.

Couple of days ago there's been a misunderstanding when we said 'okay, we like the mock-up page' they thought it was our green light approval to post it online and start the crowdfunding campaign. Some friends of  ours had also already seen the link, so they eagerly helped us put the link on facebook before we managed to recall the page and then re-post it today :D. Sorry guys, you must be very confused.

The animation process (for this gag) was finished at Sunday evening, so we decided to mix it up with songs and effects to make it more awesome in the morning while doing sahur and awaiting Imshak. Are you guys fasting? Personally I'm not, but the mosque next door succesfully wake me up every morning (hey, i'm glad someone - or something - rings an unstoppable morning alarm lol).

We cry rainbow after this 30 seconds short gag is finished this morning :D. Aaand... we do happily present this for you, enjoy it, and please help us spread the word for our Rara and The Ricketies project. We need more people see our works and enjoy it!

enjoy!