forrest-gump
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Forrest Gump gets translated to appropriate video game genre
If there's one thing video games can teach us, it's that it's never too late to bring an intellectual property back from the grave. Judge, jury, may we direct your attention to Exhibit A: Run Forrest Run, a free iOS game starring Forrest Gump. Yes, that Forrest Gump. The game is a cartoonishly-styled endless runner, because of course it is. According to the app's description, players will recreate the scene from the 1994 film where Gump runs across the country. Players will dodge traffic, use power-ups and collect coins; you know, like in the movie. The game is currently only available in New Zealand, but we won't be surprised if it manages to jog its way home to Alabama and the rest of the United States. But the iOS store is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you're gonna get. [Image: Genera Mobile]
There's a Forrest Gump game on the way, and it's not pretty
That's it, everyone. The "endless runner" genre has officially become a parody of itself, and there's no reason to care about it any longer. Need some proof? Check out the upcoming officially licensed Forrest Gump game based on the 20-year-old movie. The game, called Run Forrest Run (groan) is currently available in New Zealand, which is a market many larger app outfits use as something of a beta testing ground. That means it'll probably make it to App Stores around the world in short order, but if you're for some reason anticipating its release, let me put that fire out right now: It's not good. I took the game for a spin using the old "pretend you're from a different country" Apple ID trick, and I can safely say it's not only a breathtakingly average entry into the endless runner category, it's also kind of a gross app all around. For starters, it takes the Forrest Gump character -- which, in the film, was touching and dramatically portrayed -- and reduces it to a goofy caricature with an awkward gait. He's not the good-natured, intellectually challenged man from the films, he's just an idiot who runs down the middle of a road until he gets hit by a truck or slams into a sign. It almost borders on offensive. On top of that, the game mechanics are about as basic as you could possibly imagine. You can jump and duck, and your movement is restricted to just a few running lanes. There's no opportunity to experiment with your approach to each obstacle since there's typically one solution and one solution only. As has become a trend with the genre, the game is also dependent on microtransactions, allowing you to take shortcuts and shell out real-world cash for the in-game currency. You can buy helmets and bonus items, but nothing is particularly interesting and the game is so poorly conceived that you probably won't play it long enough to care about progressing anyway. Needless to say, avoid this one whenever it makes its way to your region's marketplace.
Apple would have made Forrest Gump a multi-billionaire
Everyone loves Forrest Gump, but thanks to Apple's role in the character's life being relegated to a simple letter in the mail, it's easy to forget that the non-fictional company made this fictional man very, very rich. Gump notes in the film that he "doesn't have to worry about money anymore," but just how much cash did Apple make him, and how much would it translate to today? Let's find out. A version of this calculation appeared a couple of years back, but used a seemingly random dollar figure as its starting point. This time around we'll use actual historical data to find out how much cash Gump and Lieutenant Dan Taylor might have had saved up for their initial investment. It all starts with shrimp. Keeping his promise to Bubba, Gump invests nearly all of his money into a shrimp boat, named Jenny, in either late 1973 or early 1974. Things are rough at the start, but once the vessel survives Hurricane Carmen in September of 1974, the shrimp are easy pickings. It's roughly a year later that Gump -- having returned home to take care of his sick mother -- receives a (historically inaccurate) letter from Apple, thanking him for his early investment in the company. Between September of 1974 and September of 1975, Gump and Taylor's modest vessel would have hauled in approximately 400 lbs of shrimp per 12 hours of effort -- though as Jenny was the only ship left after the hurricane, this figure could have actually been much, much higher. Giving the two-man crew the weekends off, we have 263 shrimping days, which comes to 105,200 lbs over the course of a year. Multiply that by an average per-pound price of $2.30, and we get an income of just over $240,000. If we allow enough money for reasonable living for two people (by 1970s prices), fuel, and maintenance costs, it's not unreasonable to think that Lieutenant Dan still had $140,000 of the pair's cash left over for investment by the time Apple was raising its first outside round of funding. According to John Wilson's book The New Venturers, this funding didn't take place until 1978, but since the movie's historical goof puts the Apple Computer Inc name and logo on a letter from 1975 (when it didn't actually exist until 1977), we can extrapolate that the Gump/Taylor investment would have likely been part of Apple's first round. Apple sought $500,000 from various investors for a 15% share of the company. $140,000 of that would have given Gump and Taylor a 5.25% share of the company. Yum! When Apple went public on December 12, 1980, there was a total of 54,215,332 shares in existence, 4,600,000 of which were offered to the public. This gives our shrimping buddies 2,604,804 shares of AAPL, and when the first day of trading closed at $29, the haul would have been worth $75,539,316. A trio of 2:1 stock splits have taken place since AAPL went public, and if Gump and Taylor refused to touch their holding, they would currently own 20,838,432 shares of the company's stock. Today, AAPL opened trading at $528.36, giving the two former brothers-in-arms a mind-boggling $11,010,193,931.52. That's $11 billion, with a "B." According to Forbes, this would make Gump/Taylor partnership the 106th richest in the world. All thanks to a hurricane and a fruit company. Note: There are, of course, a number of things that we can't predict with this calculation, like how much of the stock the duo would have sold/bought along the way, any potential dilution of shares prior to the IPO, etc. Still, in almost any case, the net result would still have been pretty much the same, i.e. a couple of extremely rich shrimpers.
Paramount launches Sapphire Series line of premium Blu-ray releases
Promising the finest Corinthian Leather picture and sound, Paramount is launching its Sapphire Series, two disc high definition releases of some of its greatest films, starting with Gladiator and Braveheart September 1 followed by Forrest Gump in November. That means a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 audio track for Braveheart and DTS-HD MA for Gladiator, while both will have a slew of exclusive new extras. For Gladiator that includes the ability to tag elements while watching the main disc, which will then automatically queue up more information once the second supplemental disc is loaded into the player, while Braveheart's extras focus mostly on the history of the Scottish Rebellion with 3D models and interactive timelines. Paramount didn't mention how much viewers would be paying for these new feature packed editions but they both show a $39.99 MSRP / $27.99 preorder price on Amazon. The press release runs down the extras, though we suspect you'll have to be a pretty big fan (of which there should be plenty for these multiple Oscar winning flicks) to pay the premium over typical catalog releases instead of waiting for them to hit the bargain bin.[Via The HD Room]
WoW Moviewatch: Forrest GumpDK
I didn't originally think I'd feature Forrest GumpDK. Mojorising created the video to help celebrate the four year anniversary of his guild, The Enigma Order. While I like seeing these videos, it's usually not the kind of thing that appeals to an audience-at-large. After watching it through, however, the warm-hearted nostalgia grew on me. I actually found "Forrest GumpDK" to not only be a "happy anniversary!" card, but also a fond retrospective of raiding since Vanilla WoW.The video is based off a certain Robert Zemeckis film from the mid-90s. At the end of GumpDK, the main actor is credited as "Tom Tanks." Hey, it's the little jokes that make things work. Basically, the movie starts off following a feather as it drifts down to a tuxedo-wearing Death Knight, sitting on a bench in Stormwind. The DK then begins telling the tale (in subtitles) of how The Enigma Order has been raiding over the past years.While Forrest GumpDK is talking about his Guild, I think we all remember the days of fighting that big guy who's made of fire, then a dragon, then another dragon. And then, shooting off into "space!" That sense of wonder might have worn thin for some of us veterans, but Mojorising's Forrest gave me a gentle, rosy-glass view of the old times. For that, I thank Forrest GumpDK for a job well done.If you have any suggestions for WoW Moviewatch, you can mail them to us at machinima AT wowinsider DOT com.Previously on Moviewatch ..
All the World's a Stage: Inspiration
All the World's a Stage is a source for roleplaying ideas, suggestions, and discussions. It is published every Sunday evening.You've probably heard that no story is completely original, that everything is copied from somewhere, and nothing anyone ever thinks or says is really unique. It's an awfully pessimistic way of looking at the creative endeavor, but there's a degree of truth in it.Any time you make up a new character, you are sure to be inspired by something you observed somewhere else. Perhaps you wondered, "What if there were a dwarven rogue, whose personality was a mix between Sherlock Holmes and Jack Sparrow?" or "My undead warrior is a lot like Frankenstein's monster, not evil so much as tragically neglected and rejected. He also likes to play with dolls." All this is fine and good for roleplaying, as long as you recognize the essential differences between your character and his or her inspirational anscestors. After all, every creative endeavor basically consists of mix-and-matching pre-existing knowledge in new and useful ways. In the same way a painter doesn't need to invent new colors, color palettes, or even new color matching techniques to make an beautiful, a storyteller doesn't need to create entirely new characteristics for each character in his or her story, only mix-and-match qualities real people already have in order to create someone compelling and interesting for other characters to interact with. Jump on in to find some great inspirations for WoW characters.
