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World Wrestling Entertainment

2008-01-22T08:38:00.000-08:00

World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (WWE) is a publicly traded, privately controlled integrated media (focusing in television, Internet, and live events) and sports entertainment company dealing primarily in the professional wrestling industry, with major revenue sources also coming from film, music, product licensing, and direct product sales. Vince McMahon is the majority owner and Chairman of the company and his wife Linda McMahon holds the position of Chief Executive Officer (CEO). Together with their children, Executive Vice President of Global Media Shane McMahon and Executive Vice President of Talent and Creative Writing Stephanie McMahon-Levesque, the McMahons hold approximately 70% of WWE's economic interest and 96% of all voting power in the company.

The company's global headquarters are located at 1241 East Main Street in Stamford, Connecticut. It has offices in Los Angeles and in New York City; its international offices are located in both London and Toronto. The company was previously known as Titan Sports before changing to World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc., and most recently becoming World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc.

WWE's business focus is on professional wrestling, a simulated sport and performing art which combines wrestling with theater. It is currently the largest professional wrestling promotion in the world, and holds an extensive library of videos representing a significant portion of the visual history of professional wrestling. The promotion previously existed as the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, which promoted under the banner of the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF), and later the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). WWE promotes under three brands; RAW, SmackDown! and ECW. WWE is also home to two of the three current world heavyweight championships recognized by Pro Wrestling Illustrated.

WWE's revenue in fiscal 2006 (from May 2005 to April 2006) was approximately US$400 million, with a net profit of approximately $47 million. As of August 2006, the company's market capitalization is over $1 billion. Its stock is traded on the NYSE as WWE.

Contents [hide]
1 Company history
1.1 Capitol Wrestling
1.2 World Wide Wrestling Federation
1.3 World Wrestling Federation
1.3.1 Golden Age
1.3.2 New Generation
1.3.3 Attitude Era
1.3.4 Business advances
1.3.5 Acquisition of WCW and ECW
1.4 World Wrestling Entertainment
2 Wellness Program
3 Expansion beyond wrestling
4 Key people
4.1 Executive officers
4.2 Board of directors
5 Current title holders
5.1 Current champions
5.2 Current accomplishments
5.3 Current developmental territory champions
5.4 Defunct championships
5.5 Defunct accomplishments
5.6 Defunct developmental territory championships
6 References
7 External links

Company history
Main article: History of World Wrestling Entertainment

Capitol Wrestling
Roderick James "Jess" McMahon was a boxing promoter whose achievements included co-promoting a bout in 1915 between Jess Willard and Jack Johnson. In 1926, while working with Tex Rickard (who actually despised wrestling to such a degree he prevented wrestling events from being held at Madison Square Garden between 1939 and 1948), he started promoting boxing in Madison Square Garden in New York. The first match during their partnership was a light-heavyweight championship match between Jack Delaney and Paul Berlenbach.

Around the same time, professional wrestler Joseph Raymond "Toots" Mondt created a new style of professional wrestling that he called Slam Bang Western Style Wrestling to make the sport more appealing to spectators. He then formed a promotion with wrestling champion Ed Lewis and his manager Billy Sandow. They persuaded many wrestlers to sign contracts with their Gold Dust Trio. After much success, a disagreement over power caused the trio to dissolve and, with it, their promotion. Mondt formed partnerships with several other promoters, including Jack Curley in New York City. When Curley was dying, Mondt moved to take over New York wrestling with the aid of several bookers, one of whom was Jess McMahon.

Together, Roderick McMahon and Raymond Mondt created the Capitol Wrestling Corporation (CWC). The CWC joined the National Wrestling Alliance in 1953. Also in that year, Ray Fabiani, one of Mondt's associates, brought in Vincent J. McMahon to replace his father Jess in the promotion. McMahon and Mondt were a successful combination, and within a short time, they controlled approximately 70% of the NWA's booking, largely due to their dominance in the heavily populated Northeast region. Mondt taught McMahon about booking and how to work in the wrestling business.

Due to the dominance in the Northeast by the promotion, AWA legend & WWE Hall of Famer Nick Bockwinkel referred to the CWC as the "Northeast Triangle" in The Spectacular Legacy of the AWA DVD to signify a triangle-like shape covering the CWC's territory; Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and Maine being the "points" of the triangle.

World Wide Wrestling Federation
The NWA recognized an undisputed NWA World Heavyweight Champion that went from wrestling company to wrestling company in the alliance and defended the belt around the world. In 1963, the champion was "Nature Boy" Buddy Rogers.

The rest of the NWA was unhappy with Mondt because he rarely allowed Rogers to wrestle outside of the Northeast. Mondt and McMahon wanted Rogers to keep the NWA World Championship, but Rogers was unwilling to sacrifice his $25,000 deposit on the belt (title holders at the time had to pay a deposit to insure they honored their commitments as champion). Rogers lost the NWA World Championship to Lou Thesz in a one-fall match in Toronto, Ontario on January 24, 1963, which led to Mondt, McMahon and the CWC leaving the NWA in protest, creating the World Wide Wrestling Federation (WWWF) in the process.

In April, Rogers was awarded the new WWWF World Championship following an apocryphal tournament in Rio de Janeiro. He lost the title to Bruno Sammartino a month later on May 17, 1963, after suffering a heart attack shortly before the match. To accommodate Rogers' condition, the match was booked to last under a minute.

Mondt left the company in the late sixties.

Although the WWWF had withdrawn from the NWA, Vince McMahon Sr. still sat on the NWA Board of Directors, no other territory was recognized in the Northeast, and several "champion vs. champion" matches occurred (usually ending in a double disqualification or some other non-decisive ending).

In March 1979, the WWWF became the World Wrestling Federation (WWF). The change was purely cosmetic, and the ownership and front office personnel remained unchanged during this period.

World Wrestling Federation
In 1980, the son of Vincent J. McMahon, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, founded Titan Sports, Inc. and in 1982 purchased Capitol Wrestling Corporation from his father. The elder McMahon had long since established the northeastern territory as one of the most vibrant members of the NWA. He had long since recognized that professional wrestling was more about entertainment than actual sport. Against his father's wishes, McMahon began an expansion process that fundamentally changed the sport.

The WWF was not the only promotion to have broken ranks with the NWA; the American Wrestling Association (AWA) had long ago ceased being an official NWA member (although like the WWF, they seldom left their own territory). But in neither instance did the defecting member attempt to undermine the territory system that had been the foundation of the industry for more than half a century.

Other promoters were furious when McMahon began syndicating WWF television shows to television stations across the United States, in areas outside of the WWF's traditional northeastern stronghold. McMahon also began selling videotapes of WWF events outside the Northeast through his Coliseum Video distribution company. He effectively broke the unwritten law of regionalism around which the entire industry had been based. To make matters worse, McMahon used the income generated by advertising, television deals, and tape sales to poach talent from rival promoters. Wrestling promoters nationwide were now in direct competition with the WWF.

Hulk Hogan, due to his appearance in Rocky III had a national recognition that few other wrestlers could offer, which is what led McMahon to sign him. Roddy Piper was brought in, as well as Jesse Ventura (although Ventura rarely wrestled in the WWF at that point due to the lung disorder that caused his retirement, moving to the commentator booth alongside Gorilla Monsoon). André the Giant, Jimmy Snuka, Don Muraco, Paul Orndorff, Greg Valentine, Ricky Steamboat and the Iron Sheik rounded out the roster. Hogan was clearly McMahon's biggest star, but there was debate as to whether the WWF could've achieved national success without him.

According to several reports, the elder McMahon warned his son: "Vinny, what are you doing? You'll wind up at the bottom of a river." In spite of such warnings, the younger McMahon had an even bolder ambition: the WWF would tour nationally. However, such a venture required huge capital investment; one that placed the WWF on the verge of financial collapse.

The future of not just McMahon's experiment, but also the WWF, the NWA, and the whole industry came down to the success or failure of McMahon's groundbreaking concept, WrestleMania. WrestleMania was a pay-per-view extravaganza (in some areas; most areas of the country saw WrestleMania available on closed-circuit television) that McMahon marketed as being the Super Bowl of professional wrestling.

The concept of a wrestling super card was nothing new in North America; the NWA had been running Starrcade a few years prior to WrestleMania, and even the elder McMahon had marketed large Shea Stadium cards viewable in closed-circuit locations. However, McMahon wanted to take the WWF to the mainstream, targeting the public who were not regular wrestling fans. He drew the interest of the mainstream media by inviting celebrities such as Mr. T and Cyndi Lauper to participate in the event. MTV, in particular, featured a great deal of WWF coverage and programming at this time, in what was termed the Rock 'n' Wrestling Connection.

Golden Age
The original WrestleMania, held in 1985, was a resounding success. This event is sometimes credited as the debut of what McMahon called "sports entertainment", in contrast to his father's preference of pure wrestling. The WWF did incredible business on the shoulders of McMahon and his all-American babyface hero, Hulk Hogan, for the next several years, creating what some observers dubbed a second golden age for professional wrestling. The introduction of Saturday Night's Main Event on NBC in mid-1985 marked the first time that professional wrestling had been broadcast on network television since the 1950s. In 1987, the WWF would also produce what was considered to be the pinnacle of the 1980's wrestling boom altogether, WrestleMania III .[3]

New Generation
The WWF hit a low point in the wake of allegations of steroid abuse and distribution made against it in 1994; there were also allegations of sexual harassment made by WWF employees. McMahon was eventually exonerated, but it was a public relations nightmare for the WWF. The steroid trial cost the WWF an estimated $5 million at a time when revenues were at an all-time low. To compensate, McMahon cut the pay of both wrestlers and front office personnel – close to 40% in the latter case (and about 50% for top level managers such as Bobby Heenan and Jimmy Hart, who both left). This helped drive many WWF wrestlers to its only major competition, World Championship Wrestling (WCW), between 1993 and 1996. During this period, the WWF promoted itself under the banner of "The New WWF Generation," featuring Shawn Michaels, Diesel, Razor Ramon, Bret Hart, and The Undertaker. In an effort to promote them and other young talent as the new superstars of the ring, the WWF began to play on the age restrictions which former WWF wrestlers such as Hulk Hogan and Randy Savage (who by now were working for WCW) now faced. This is best seen in the "Billionaire Ted" parodies of early 1996 (a reference to WCW's owner and patron, media mogul Ted Turner) which culminated in a "rasslin'" match during the warm-up to WrestleMania XII.

Attitude Era
Main article: The Attitude Era
Steve Austin became the new face of the company, starting with his Austin 3:16 speech, shortly after defeating Jake Roberts in the tournament finals at the 1996 King of the Ring pay-per-view.[4] The WWF began broadcasting more violence, swearing, and more edgy angles in its attempt to compete with World Championship Wrestling. After Bret Hart left for WCW following the Montreal Screwjob incident,[5] Vince McMahon used the resulting backlash in the creation of his "Mr. McMahon" character, a dictatorial and fierce ruler who favored heels who were "good for business" over "misfit" faces like Austin. This, in turn, led to the Austin vs. McMahon feud, which, along with the formation of D-Generation X, laid the foundation for the Attitude Era. The Attitude Era also featured the established Monday Night Wars, where both WCW and the WWF had Monday night shows that competed against each other in the ratings. Many new faces came into the WWF such as Mankind (known then as Cactus Jack from Extreme Championship Wrestling), Chris Jericho, The Rock (then known as Rocky Maivia), Kane, and the 1996 Olympic gold medalist, Kurt Angle.

Business advances
On April 29, 1999, the WWF made its return to terrestrial television by launching a special program known as SmackDown! on the fledgling UPN network. The Thursday-night show became a weekly series on August 26, 1999.

On the back of the success of the Attitude Era, on October 19, 1999 the WWF's parent company, Titan Sports (by this time renamed World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc.) became a publicly traded company, offering 10 million shares priced at $17 each.[6] WWF announced its desire to diversify, including creating a nightclub in Times Square, producing feature films, and book publishing.

In 2000 the WWF, in collaboration with television network NBC, announced the creation of the XFL, a new professional football league that debuted in 2001.[7] The league had surprisingly high ratings for the first few weeks, but initial interest waned and its ratings plunged to dismally low levels (one of its games was the lowest-rated primetime show in the history of American television). NBC walked out on the venture after only one season, but McMahon intended to continue alone. However, after being unable to reach a deal with UPN, McMahon shut down the XFL.[8]

Acquisition of WCW and ECW
WCW was in dire straits with the WWF consistently beating them in the ratings war. It only survived because Ted Turner retained control over it as a result of Turner Broadcasting System's merger with Time Warner. However, after Time Warner merged with AOL, Turner's power was considerably reduced, and the newly merged company decided to get rid of WCW entirely. In March 2001, WWF Entertainment, Inc. acquired World Championship Wrestling, Inc. from AOL Time Warner for a number reported to be around $7 million.[9] With this purchase, WWF was now the largest wrestling promotion in the world, and the only one in North America with mainstream exposure. It remained so until the launch of Total Nonstop Action Wrestling in 2002.

The assets of Extreme Championship Wrestling (ECW), which had folded after filing for bankruptcy protection in April 2001, were purchased by WWE in mid-2003.

World Wrestling Entertainment
In 2000, the World Wildlife Fund (also WWF), an environmental organization now called the World Wide Fund for Nature, sued the World Wrestling Federation. A British court agreed that Titan Sports had violated a 1994 agreement which had limited the permissible use of the WWF initials overseas, particularly in merchandising.[10] On Sunday May 5, 2002, the company quietly changed all references on its website from "WWF" to "WWE", while switching the URL from WWF.com to WWE.com. The next day, a press release announced the official name change from World Wrestling Federation Entertainment, Inc. to World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc., or WWE, and the change was publicized later that day during a telecast of Monday Night RAW, which emanated from the Hartford Civic Center in Hartford, Connecticut. For a short time, WWE used the slogan "Get The 'F' Out."[11] The company had also been ordered by court to stop using the old WWF Attitude logo on any of its properties and to censor all past references to WWF, as they no longer owned the trademark to the initials WWF in 'specified circumstances'.[12] However, despite litigation, WWE is still permitted use of the original WWF logo, which was used from 1984 through 1997, as well as the "New WWF Generation" logo, which was used from 1994 through 1998. Furthermore, the company may still make use of the full "World Wrestling Federation" and "World Wrestling Federation Entertainment" names without consequence.

In April 2002, about a month before the name change, WWE decided to create two separate rosters, one on RAW, the other on SmackDown! due to the overabundance of talent left over from the Invasion storyline (which involved talent from the absorbed ECW and WCW rosters interacting in WWF storylines). This is known as the WWE Brand Extension. Following the Brand Extension, a yearly Draft Lottery was instituted to exchange members of each roster and generally refresh the lineups.

WWE superstars performing for the Coalition troops at Camp VictoryIn late 2005 WWE RAW returned after a brief 5-year stint on TNN (now Spike TV) to its original home USA Network. In the TNN days, WWE got all advertising revenue during commercial breaks into their own pockets, now on USA Network, USA Network gets all advertising revenue[citation needed]. So, WWE had to invest into other lines of products introducing WWE 24/7, an on-demand subscription-only channel which shows classic wrestling matches from WWE's vast video library (more than 80,000 hours) and WWE produced content other than wrestling.

In 2006, due to contracts with NBC Universal, parent company of USA Network, WWE had the chance to revive its classic Saturday night show WWE Saturday Night's Main Event (SNME) on NBC after a 13-year hiatus. WWE had so the chance to promote the company on a national network and not only on cable channels like The CW and USA Network. SNME airs occasionally on NBC as a WWE special series.

On May 26, 2006, WWE revived Extreme Championship Wrestling as its third brand. The new ECW program airs Tuesday nights, on the Sci Fi Channel.[13] On September 26, 2007, it was announced that WWE would be expanding its international operations. Alongside the current international offices in London and Toronto, a new international office would be established in Sydney.[14]

Wellness Program
The WWE Talent Wellness Program is a comprehensive drug, alcohol, and cardiac screening program exclusive to World Wrestling Entertainment, initiated in February 2006, shortly after the sudden death of one of their highest profile talents, 38 year old Eddie Guerrero.[15] The policy tests for recreational drug use and abuse of prescription medication, including anabolic steroids.[15] Under the guidelines of the policy, talent is also tested annually for pre-existing or developing cardiac issues. The drug testing is handled by Aegis Sciences Corporation. The cardiac evaluations are handled by New York Cardiology Associates P.C.[15]

The program has recently been defended heavily by WWE and its employees in the wake of several illegal pharmacy busts that link WWE performers to steroid purchases even after the policy was put into place. WWE openly suspended/released 11 performers immediately following release of their names in conjunction with anabolic steroid purchases.[16][17] The program has fallen under intense scrutiny from branches of the media and professionals in the field of doping,[attribution needed] who claim that not only has WWE overlooked, if not, encouraged steroid use prior to these pharmacy busts, but that the steroid testing itself is blatantly misleading. Under WWE drug testing policy, positive test thresholds for anabolic steroids are more than twice that of all other major sporting outfits including the Olympic committee.

WWE is currently under investigation by the United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform regarding their talent wellness policy, after the death of one of their performers, Chris Benoit, possibly being linked to steroid abuse.[18]

In August 2007, WWE made the decision to suspend ten professional wrestlers for violating their Wellness Policy after it emerged they were all customers of Signature Pharmacy in Orlando, Florida. According to a statement attributed to WWE attorney Jerry McDevitt, an eleventh wrestler was later added to the suspension list.[19]

On the other hand, it has been failed to be mentioned in public outside WWE.com that because of the Wellness Policy, physicians were able to diagnose one of their performers with a heart ailment that otherwise would've likely gone unnoticed until it was too late. In August 2007, reigning U.S. Champion MVP was diagnosed with Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome[20], which if gone undiagnosed can be potentially fatal. The ailment was discovered while MVP was going through a routine Wellness Policy checkup.

Expansion beyond wrestling
In addition to licensing wrestling and performers' likenesses to companies such as Electronic Arts, THQ and Jakks Pacific to produce video games and action figures, WWE has moved into other areas of interest in order to market their product.

WWE Films: A subsidiary of WWE created in 2002 to create and develop feature film properties for the professional wrestlers within the company.
WWE Niagara Falls: A retail and entertainment establishment that is located in Niagara Falls, Ontario and owned by WWE.
WWE Records: A subsidiary that specializes in compilation albums of WWE wrestlers' entrance themes. Also releases titles that have been actually performed by the wrestlers themselves.
WWE Home Video: A subsidiary that specializes in distributing compilation VHS and DVD copies of WWE pay-per-view events, compilations of WWE wrestlers' performances, and biographies of WWE performers.
WWE Books: A subsidiary of WWE that serves to publish autobiographies of and fiction based on WWE personalities, behind-the-scenes guides to WWE, illustrated books, calendars, young adult books, and other general nonfiction books.

Key people

Executive officers

World Wrestling Entertainment headquarters, Stamford, ConnecticutVincent K. McMahon (Chairman) [21]
Linda E. McMahon (CEO) [22]
Michael Sileck (Chief Operating Officer) [23]
Shane B. McMahon (Executive Vice President, Global Media) [24]
Kevin Dunn (Executive Vice President, Television Production) [25]
Frank G. Serpe (Chief Financial Officer) [26]
Donna Goldsmith (Executive Vice President, Consumer Products) [27]
Geof Rochester (Executive Vice President, Marketing) [28]
Stephanie McMahon-Levesque (Executive Vice President, Talent and Creative Writing) [29]
Edward L. Kaufman (Executive Vice President and General Counsel) [30]
John Laurinaitis (Senior Vice President, Talent Relations) [31]
Michael Lake (President, WWE Films) [32]

Board of directors
Vincent K. McMahon (Chairman of the Board of Directors - WWE) [21][33]
Linda E. McMahon (Chief Executive Officer - WWE) [22][33]
Michael Sileck (Chief Operating Officer - WWE) [33]
Lowell P. Weicker, Jr. (Former Governor of the State of Connecticut and United States Senator) [33]
David Kenin (Executive Vice President of Programming - Hallmark Channel) [33]
Joseph Perkins (President - Communications Consultants, Inc.) [33]
Michael B. Solomon (Managing Principal - Gladwyne Partners, LLC) [33]
Robert A. Bowman (Chief Executive Officer - Major League Baseball Advanced Media) [33]

Current title holders
Main article: List of current champions in WWE

Current champions
Brand Championship Current Champion Date won Date aired
RAW WWE Championship Randy Orton October 7, 2007 October 7, 2007
WWE Intercontinental Championship Jeff Hardy September 2, 2007 September 3, 2007
WWE Women's Championship Beth Phoenix October 7, 2007 October 7, 2007
World Tag Team Championship Hardcore Holly and Cody Rhodes December 10, 2007 December 10, 2007
SmackDown! World Heavyweight Championship Edge December 16, 2007 December 16, 2007
WWE United States Championship Montel Vontavious Porter May 20, 2007 May 20, 2007
WWE Cruiserweight Championship Vacant September 25, 2007 September 28, 2007
WWE Tag Team Championship John Morrison and The Miz November 13, 2007 November 16, 2007
ECW ECW Championship CM Punk September 1, 2007 September 4, 2007

Current accomplishments
Brand Accomplishment Latest winner Date won
RAW, SmackDown!, ECW Royal Rumble The Undertaker January 28, 2007
Money in the Bank Edge May 7, 2007
Diva Search Eve Torres October 29, 2007

Current developmental territory champions
Promotion Championship Current champion(s) Date won Date aired
OVW OVW Heavyweight Championship Matt Sydal December 5, 2007 December 8, 2007
OVW Television Championship James Curtis November 14, 2007 December 1, 2007
OVW Southern Tag Team Championship Paul Burchill and Stu Sanders January 2, 2008 January 5, 2008
OVW Women's Championship Roucka September 19, 2007 September 22, 2007
FCW FCW Southern Heavyweight Champion Ted DiBiase, Jr. December 18, 2007 N/A (House show)

Defunct championships
WWE Hardcore Championship (1998-2002)
WWE European Championship (1997-2002)
WCW World Heavyweight Championship (2001)²
WCW World Tag Team Championship (2001)²
WWF Light Heavyweight Championship (1981-2001) (recognized officially 1997-2001)
WWF Million Dollar Championship (1989-1992, 1995-1996)
WWF Intercontinental Tag Team Championship (1991)
WWF Women's Tag Team Championship (1983-1989)
WWF Canadian Championship (1985-1986)
WWF International Heavyweight Championship (1959-1963, 1982-1985)
WWF Junior Heavyweight Championship (1967-1985)
WWF International Tag Team Championship (1969-1985)
WWF World Martial Arts Heavyweight Championship (1978-1985)
WWF North American Heavyweight Championship (1979-1981)
WWWF United States Championship (1970-1975)
WWWF United States Tag Team Championship (1963-1967)
²Acquisition of WCW and ECW.

Defunct accomplishments
King of the Ring (1985-89, 1991, 1993-2002, 2006)

Defunct developmental territory championships
OVW Hardcore Championship (2000 - 2001)
OVW Light Heavyweight Championship (1999-2001)

50 Cent

2008-01-22T08:35:00.001-08:00

Curtis James Jackson III (born July 6, 1975),[1] better known by his stage name50 Cent, is an American rapper. He rose to fame following the release of his albums Get Rich or Die Tryin' and The Massacre. 50 Cent achieved multi-platinum success with both albums, selling over twenty-one million records worldwide.[2]

Born in South Jamaica, Queens in New York, 50 Cent began drug dealing at the age of twelve during the 1980s' crack epidemic.[3] After leaving drug dealing to pursue a rap career, he was shot nine times in 2000. After releasing his mixtape Guess Who's Back? in 2002, 50 Cent was discovered by rapper Eminem and signed to Interscope Records. With the help of Eminem and Dr. Dre—who produced his first major commercial successes—he became one of the highest selling rap artists in the world. In 2003, he founded the record label G-Unit Records, which signed successful rappers such as Young Buck, Lloyd Banks, and Tony Yayo. 50 Cent has engaged in numerous feuds with other rappers including Ja Rule, The Game, and Fat Joe.

50 Cent has also pursued an acting career, appearing in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin' in 2005 and the Iraq War film Home of the Brave in 2006.

Life and music career

Early life
50 Cent, born Curtis James Jackson III, grew up in the South Jamaica neighborhood of Queens in New York City. He grew up without a father, and was raised by his mother Sabrina Jackson, who gave birth to him at the age of fifteen. Sabrina, a cocaine dealer, raised Jackson until the age of eight, when she was murdered. Twenty-three at the time, she became unconscious after someone drugged her drink. She was then left for dead after the gas in her apartment was turned on and the windows shut closed.[4][5] After her death, Jackson moved into his grandparents house with his eight aunts and uncles.[1][6][7] He recalls, "My grandmother told me, 'Your mother's not coming home. She's not gonna come back to pick you up. You're gonna stay with us now.' That's when I started adjusting to the streets a little bit."[8] Jackson grew up with his younger cousin, Michael Francis, who earned the nickname "25 Cent" for being his younger counterpart. Francis raps under the stage name "Two Five".[9]

50 Cent's mug shot on August 23, 1994.
Jackson began boxing around the age of eleven. At fourteen, a neighbor opened a boxing gym for local kids. "When I wasn’t killing time in school, I was sparring in the gym or selling crack on the strip", he recalled.[10] In the mid 1980s, he competed in the Junior Olympics as an amateur boxer. He recounts, "I was competitive in the ring and hip-hop is competitive too... I think rappers condition themselves like boxers, so they all kind of feel like they're the champ."[11] At the age of twelve, Jackson began dealing narcotics when his grandparents thought he was at after-school programs.[12] He also took guns and drug money to school. In the tenth grade, he was caught by metal detectors at Andrew Jackson High School. He later stated, "I was embarrassed that I got arrested like that... After I got arrested I stopped hiding it. I was telling my grandmother [openly], 'I sell drugs.'"[8]

On June 29, 1994, Jackson was arrested for helping to sell four vials of cocaine to an undercover police officer. He was arrested again three weeks later when police searched his home and found heroin, ten ounces of crack cocaine, and a starter gun. He was sentenced to three to nine years in prison, but managed to serve six months in a shock incarceration boot camp, where he earned his GED. Jackson said that he did not use cocaine himself, he only sold it.[1][13][14] He adopted the nickname "50 Cent" as a metaphor for "change".[15] The name was derived from Kelvin Martin, a 1980s Brooklyn robber known as "50 Cent". Jackson chose the name "because it says everything I want it to say. I'm the same kind of person 50 Cent was. I provide for myself by any means."[16]

Early career
50 Cent started rapping in a friend's basement where he used turntables to record over instrumentals.[17] In 1996, a friend introduced him to Jam Master Jay of Run-DMC who was organizing his label Jam Master Jay Records. It was the first time he entered a studio. Jay taught him how to count bars, write choruses, structure songs, and make a record.[18][19] 50 Cent's first official appearance was on a song titled "React" with the group Onyx on their 1998 album Shut 'Em Down. He credited Jam Master Jay as an influence who helped him improve his ability to write hooks.[11] He produced 50 Cent's first album, however it was never released.[4] In 1999, after leaving Jam Master Jay, the platinum-selling producers Trackmasters took notice of 50 Cent and signed him to Columbia Records. They sent him to a studio in Upstate New York, where he produced thirty-six songs in two weeks.[5] Eighteen were included on his unofficially released album, Power of the Dollar in 2000.[20] He also started the now-defunct company with former G-Unit member Bang 'Em Smurf called Hollow Point Entertainment.[21][22]

"How to Rob"

50 Cent's first underground single in which he comically describes robbing celebrity musicians.

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50 Cent's popularity started to increase after the successful but controversial underground single, "How to Rob", which he wrote in half an hour while in a car on the way to a studio.[15][23] The track comically explains how he would rob many famous artists. He explained the reasoning behind song's content as, "There’s a hundred artists on that label, you gotta separate yourself from that group and make yourself relevant."[15] Rappers Jay-Z, Big Pun, DMX, and the Wu-Tang Clan replied to the song[23] and Nas, who received the track positively, invited 50 Cent to travel on a promotional tour for his Nastradamus album.[7] The song was intended to be released with "Thug Love" featuring Destiny's Child, but two days before he was scheduled to film the "Thug Love" music video, 50 Cent was shot and confined to a hospital due to his injuries.[24]

Shooting
On May 24, 2000, 50 Cent was attacked by a gunman outside his grandmother's former home in South Jamaica, Queens. He went into a friend's car, but was asked to return to the house to get jewelry. His son was in the house while his grandmother was in the front yard.[5] On returning to the back seat of the car, another car pulled up nearby. An assailant then walked up to 50 Cent's left side with a 9mm handgun and fired nine shots at close range. He was shot nine times—in the hand (a round hit his right thumb and came out of his pinky), arm, hip, both legs, chest, and left cheek.[4][8][25] The face wound resulted in a swollen tongue, the loss of a wisdom tooth, and a small slur in his voice.[7][8][26] His friend also sustained a gunshot wound to the hand. They were driven to the hospital where he spent thirteen days in recovery. The alleged shooter was killed three weeks later.[27]

50 Cent recalled the incident saying, "It happens so fast that you don't even get a chance to shoot back... I was scared the whole time... I was looking in the rear-view mirror like, 'Oh shit, somebody shot me in the face! It burns, burns, burns.'"[8] In his memoir, From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens, he wrote, "After I got shot nine times at close range and didn't die, I started to think that I must have a purpose in life... How much more damage could that shell have done? Give me an inch in this direction or that one, and I'm gone."[1] He used a walker for the first six weeks and recovered after five months. When he left the hospital, he stayed in the Poconos with his then-girlfriend and son. His physical workout regimen helped him attain his muscular physique.[4][8][28]

While in the hospital, 50 Cent signed a publishing deal with Columbia Records. However, he was dropped from the label and "blacklisted" in the recording industry after it was discovered he was shot. Unable to find a studio to work with in the U.S, he traveled to Canada.[29][30] Along with his business partner Sha Money XL, he recorded over thirty songs for mixtapes, with the purpose of building a reputation. 50 Cent's popularity rose, and in early 2001, he released material independently on the mixtape, Guess Who's Back?. Beginning to attract interest, and now backed by G-Unit, 50 Cent continued to make songs. They released the mixtape, 50 Cent Is the Future, revisiting material by Jay-Z and Raphael Saadiq.[20]

Rise to fame
"In da Club"

The breakthrough single from Get Rich or Die Tryin'.
"Window Shopper"

"Window Shopper".

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In 2002, Eminem listened to a copy of 50 Cent's Guess Who's Back? CD. He received the CD through 50 Cent's attorney, who was working with Eminem's manager Paul Rosenberg.[24] Impressed with the album, Eminem invited 50 Cent to fly to Los Angeles, where he was introduced to Dr. Dre.[4][18][24] After signing a one million U.S. dollar record deal,[18] 50 Cent released the mixtape, No Mercy, No Fear. It featured one new track, "Wanksta", which was put on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack.[20] He was also signed to Chris Lighty's Violator Management and Sha Money XL's Money Management Group.

In Bangkok, Thailand, February 26, 2006
On February 6, 2003, 50 Cent's commercial debut album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' was released. All Music Guide described it as "probably the most hyped debut album by a rap artist in about a decade."[31]Rolling Stone noted the album for its "dark synth grooves, buzzy keyboards and a persistently funky bounce" with 50 Cent complementing the production in "an unflappable, laid-back flow."[32] The album debuted at number one on the Billboard 200, selling 872,000 copies in the first four days.[33] The lead single, "In da Club", which The Source noted for its "blaring horns, funky organs, guitar riffs and sparse hand claps"[34] broke a Billboard record as the 'most listened-to' song in radio history within a week.[35]

(from left to right) With Olivia, Lloyd Banks & Young Buck in Bangkok, Thailand, February 26, 2006Interscope then granted 50 Cent his own label, G-Unit Records in 2003.[36] He signed Lloyd Banks, Tony Yayo, and Young Buck as the established members of G-Unit. The Game was later signed under a joint venture with Dr. Dre's Aftermath Entertainment. On March 3, 2005, 50 Cent's second commercial album, The Massacre was released. The album sold 1.14 million copies in the first four days (the highest in an abbreviated sales cycle)[33] and peaked at number one on the Billboard 200 for six weeks.[37] He became the first solo artist to have three singles on the Billboard top five in the same week with "Candy Shop", "Disco Inferno", and "How We Do".[38]Rolling Stone noted that "50's secret weapon is his singing voice - the deceptively amateur-sounding tenor croon that he deploys on almost every chorus."[39]

After the departure of The Game, 50 Cent signed singer Olivia and rap veterans Mobb Deep to G-Unit Records. Spider Loc, M.O.P., and Young Hot Rod later joined the label.[40][41] 50 Cent expressed interest in working with rappers outside of G-Unit, such as Lil' Scrappy of BME, LL Cool J from Def Jam, Mase from Bad Boy, and Freeway of Roc-A-Fella, some of whom he recorded with.[42] In September 2007, he released his third album Curtis, which was inspired by his life before Get Rich or Die Tryin'.[43] It debuted at number two on the Billboard 200, selling 691,000 units in the first week.[44]

Personal life
On October 13, 1997, 50 Cent's then-girlfriend Shaniqua Tompkins gave birth to a son, Marquise Jackson.[3][45] The birth of his son changed his outlook on life, "when my son came into my life, my priorities changed, because I wanted to have the relationship with him, that I didn’t have with my father."[46] He credited his son for inspiring his career and being "motivation to go in a different direction."[47] 50 Cent has a tattoo of "Marquise" with an axe on his right bicep. "The axe is 'cause I'm a warrior. I don't want him to be one, though,"[30] he explains. He also has "50", "Southside", and "Cold World" inscribed on his back because "I'm a product of that environment. It's on my back, though, so it's all behind me."[30] 50 Cent dated actress Vivica A. Fox in 2003. After a few months, he announced their split up on the The Howard Stern Show when pictures from a photo shoot they did together ended up on the cover of Today's Black Woman magazine without his knowledge.[48][49]

Promotional poster for Curtis.50 Cent expressed support for President George W. Bush in 2005 after rapper Kanye West criticized him for the slow response in assisting the victims of Hurricane Katrina.[50] If his felony convictions did not prevent him from voting, he claimed that he would have voted for Bush.[51] He later stated that Bush "has less compassion than the average human. By all means, I don’t aspire to be like George Bush."[52] In 2007, 50 Cent was recognized for his wealth by Forbes, placing him second behind Jay-Z in the rap industry.[53] He resides in Farmington, Connecticut, in the former mansion of ex-boxer Mike Tyson.[54] He put the mansion for sale at US$18.5 million to move closer to his son who lives in Long Island with his ex-girlfriend.[55] On October 12, 2007, the Mayor of Bridgeport, Connecticut declared it "50 Cent Curtis Jackson Day." He was honored with a key to the city and an official proclamation.[56]

Business ventures
50 Cent has established himself in a wide variety of fields outside of his rapping career. In November 2003, he signed a five year deal with Reebok to distribute a G-Unit Sneakers line as part of his G-Unit Clothing Company[57][58]. He provided the voice-over as the protagonist in the video game 50 Cent: Bulletproof, which was released for PlayStation 2, Xbox, and the PlayStation Portable. He worked with glacéau to create and market a grape flavored Vitamin Water drink called Formula 50. In 2007, Coca-Cola purchased glaceau for US$4.1 billion. 50 Cent, who owns a stake in the company, was estimated by Forbes to have earned $100 million after taxes.[59] He also launched a condom line and plans to donate a part of the proceeds to HIV awareness.[60]

Vitamin Water billboard ad on the Book-Cadillac Hotel.
In 2005, 50 Cent made a cameo appearance on The Simpsons episode "Pranksta Rap", in which he makes light of his legal troubles. The same year, he starred alongside Terrence Howard in the semi-autobiographical film Get Rich or Die Tryin'. He also starred in the 2006 film Home of the Brave as a soldier returning home from the Iraq War, traumatized after killing an Iraqi woman.[61] 50 Cent is working on a role as a fighter in an Angola State Prison in The Dance alongside Nicholas Cage, and is set to star opposite Robert De Niro in 2008's Righteous Kill, a movie regarding a police death.[62] He also started a production company called G-Unit Films.[63] On August 21, 2007, 50 Cent announced plans to launch a dietary supplement company in conjunction with his movie The Dance.[64][65]

Shortly before appearing in Get Rich or Die Tryin', 50 Cent released a memoir about his life and how he became successful titled From Pieces to Weight: Once upon a Time in Southside Queens. On January 4, 2007, he launched his G-Unit Books imprint at the Time Warner Building in New York.[66] He also co-wrote The Ski Mask Way, a novel about a small-time drug dealer who attempts to rob his employers, which is to be turned into a film before 2008.[60] 50 Cent said he was reading The 33 Strategies of War by Robert Greene and worked with the author on a book titled The 50th Law, an urban take on The 48 Laws of Power.[60][67]

Controversy

Murder Inc.

An anti-50 Cent billboard in Tribeca, New York.Before signing with Interscope, 50 Cent engaged in a well-publicized dispute with rapper Ja Rule and his label Murder Inc. Records. The rappers engaged in numerous mixtape "disses". 50 Cent claimed the feud began in 1999 after Ja Rule spotted him with a man who robbed him of his jewelry.[48] However, Ja Rule claimed the conflict stemmed from a video shoot in Queens because 50 Cent did not like seeing him "getting so much love" from the neighborhood.[68] In March 2000, while at The Hit Factory studio in New York, 50 Cent had an altercation with associates of Murder Inc. Records. He was treated for three stitches after receiving a stab wound.[48][69] Rapper Black Child claimed responsibility for the stabbing, saying he acted in self-defense because he thought someone was reaching for a gun.[70]

An affidavit by an IRS agent suggested that the label had ties to Kenneth "Supreme" McGriff, a New York drug lord who was suspected of being involved in the murder of Jam Master Jay and the shooting of 50 Cent. An excerpt of the affidavit read:

The investigation has uncovered a conspiracy involving McGriff and others to murder a rap artist who has released songs containing lyrics regarding McGriff's criminal activities. The rap artist was shot in 2000, survived and thereafter refused to cooperate with law enforcement regarding the shooting. Messages transmitted over the Murder Inc. pager indicate that McGriff is involved in an ongoing plot to kill this rap artist, and that he communicates with Murder Inc. employees concerning the target.[29]

New York rappers
Before releasing The Massacre, 50 Cent recorded a song, "Piggy Bank", which was leaked before the album's release. The song "disses" rappers including Fat Joe, Nas, and Jadakiss.[71] Fat Joe responded with a song, "My Fo, Fo", accusing 50 Cent of taking steroids, hiding in his home, and being jealous of The Game. Jadakiss also responded with a song, "Checkmate", and said that 50 Cent was trying to "create a buzz for his new album".[72] The music video for "Piggy Bank" portrays animated caricatures of Jadakiss (as a Ninja turtle), Fat Joe (as an overweight boxer who receives a knockout), Nas (as a kid chasing a "milkshake" truck in a Superman costume), and The Game (as Mr. Potato Head).[73]

"Piggy Bank"

A track in which he takes aim at numerous rappers.

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50 Cent spoke negatively about Bad Boy Entertainment mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs and recorded a song, "Hip-Hop", revealing the reasons behind his negative feelings: primarily, a contract dispute over Ma$e. In the song, he implied that Diddy knew about The Notorious B.I.G.'s murder and threatened to expose him through former associates.[74] The feud was resolved, with both rappers appearing on MTV's TRL and Sucker Free, respectively, stating that there were no longer problems.[75]

On February 1, 2007, Cam'ron and 50 Cent had a live argument on The Angie Martinez Show on Hot 97 radio. 50 Cent commented that Koch Entertainment was a "graveyard", meaning major record labels would not work with their artists.[76] Cam'ron then ridiculed the record sales of G-Unit members Lloyd Banks and Mobb Deep by stating that Jim Jones outsold their albums despite being signed to an independent label and that his group, The Diplomats, had a distribution deal from several labels.[76] Both rappers released "diss" songs with accompanying videos on YouTube. 50 Cent suggested in "Funeral Music" that Cam'ron is no longer able to lead The Diplomats and that Jim Jones should take his place. Cam'ron responded with "Curtis" and "Curtis Pt. II", in which he makes fun of 50 Cent's appearance, calling him "a gorilla, with rabbit teeth".[77] 50 Cent responded by releasing "Hold On" with Young Buck.[78]

The Game
Main article: G-Unit vs. The Game feud
In early 2005, 50 Cent began a feud with The Game, whom he was close to before releasing his debut album The Documentary. After its release, 50 Cent felt The Game was disloyal for saying he did not want to participate in G-Unit's feuds with other rappers and even wanting to work with artists they were feuding with. He also claimed that he wrote six songs on the album and was not receiving proper credit for his work, which The Game denied.[79]

50 Cent later dismissed The Game from G-Unit on Hot 97 radio. After the announcement, The Game, who was a guest earlier in the evening, attempted to enter the building with his entourage. After being denied entry, one of his associates was shot in the leg during a confrontation with a group of men leaving the building.[80][81] When the situation escalated, both rappers held a press conference to announce their reconciliation.[82] Fans had mixed feelings as to whether the rappers created a publicity stunt to boost the sales of the albums they had just released.[83] Nevertheless, even after the situation deflated,[84] The Game's street credibility was criticized by G-Unit. The group denounced The Game and announced that they will not feature on his albums. During a performance at Summer Jam, The Game launched a boycott of G-Unit called "G-Unot".[85]

After the Summer Jam performance, The Game released a track, "300 Bars and Runnin'", which addresses 50 Cent and G-Unit.[86] He continued his attacks with a DVD titled Stop Snitchin, Stop Lyin'. After numerous songs aimed at G-Unit, 50 Cent responded to The Game's rebuttals on mixtapes. One track, "Not Rich, Still Lyin'", imitates The Game, attacks his credibility, and mentions his feud with his brother, Big Fase 100.[87]

The Game also released mixtape covers parodying the rap group. After he displayed pictures of G-Unit dressed up as the Village People, 50 Cent posted a cover of The Game's head on the body of a male stripper.[88] Although he was signed to Aftermath Entertainment, The Game left the label and signed with Geffen Records to terminate his contractual obligations with G-Unit.[89]

Lawsuit
On July 21, 2007, 50 Cent filed a US$1 million lawsuit against advertising company Traffix Inc. of Pearl River, New York for using his image in a promotion which he says threatens his safety. He learned about the internet ad after one of his staff members saw it on a MySpace page. According to court documents, the ad features a cartoon image of the rapper and the message: "shoot the rapper and you will win $5000 or five ring tones guaranteed." Though the ad did not use his name, the image allegedly intended to resemble him, suggesting he endorsed the ad. The lawsuit calls it a "vile, tasteless and despicable" use of 50 Cent's image that "quite literally calls for violence against him". The lawsuit also seeks for unspecified punitive damages and a permanent injunction against the use of his image without permission.[90][91]

Discography
Main article: 50 Cent discography
Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003)
The Massacre (2005)
Curtis (2007)
Before I Self Destruct (2008)

Awards
Main article: List of 50 Cent awards

Luciano Pavarotti

2008-01-22T08:29:00.000-08:00

Luciano Pavarotti, Cavaliere di Gran Croce OMRI[1] (October 12, 1935 – September 6, 2007) was an Italian operatic tenor, who crossed over into popular music and became one of the world's most famous vocal performers. He was one of The Three Tenors and was well known for his televised concerts and media appearances. Pavarotti was also noted for his charity work benefiting refugees, the Red Cross and other causes.

He was born in Modena to the family of a baker. After abandoning the dream to become a professional football goalkeeper, Pavarotti spent seven years in vocal training and began his career as a tenor in 1961 in Italy. He sang in houses in The Netherlands, Vienna, London, Ankara, Budapest and Barcelona. The young tenor earned valuable experience and significant recognition while touring on the invitation of soprano Joan Sutherland and during his 1965 US debut in Miami on her recommendation. His position was solidified in the years between 1966 and 1972, during which Pavarotti first appeared at Milan's La Scala, other major European houses and, in 1968, NYC's Metropolitan Opera to great acclaim.

By the mid-1970s, the tenor became known worldwide, famed for the brilliance and beauty of his tone, especially into the upper register.[2] His "high C" became one of his trademarks. The late 1970s and 1980s saw Pavarotti making significant appearances in the world's opera houses and establishing himself as one of the great singers of the era.

Popular stardom came at the 1990 World Cup in Italy with the performances of Nessun Dorma,sample (help·info) from Turandot and as one of The Three Tenors in their famed first concert held on the eve of the final match of the tournament (repeated at later Cups). Pavarotti sang together with fellow star tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras and brought to the much wider audience hits previously confined to the opera world. Appearances in advertisements and with pop icons in concerts around the world furthered his influence. Pavarotti always maintained his identity as an opera star, unlike many crossover artists.

The later years brought a decline in ability to perform on stage due to a weight gain and lack of mobility. Pavarotti's final appearance in an opera was at the Met in March 2004. The 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin, Italy saw him performing for the last time. Pavarotti sang Nessun dorma, with the crowd as its Chorus, and got a thunderous standing ovation. On September 6, 2007, he died at home in Modena from pancreatic cancer.

[edit] Biography

[edit] Earlier life and musical training
Luciano Pavarotti, was born on the outskirts of Modena in north-central Italy, the son of Fernando Pavarotti, a baker and singer, and Adele Venturi, a cigar factory worker.[3] Although he spoke fondly of his childhood, the family had little money; its four members were crowded into a two-room apartment. According to Pavarotti, his father had a fine tenor voice but rejected the possibility of a singing career because of nervousness. World War II forced the family out of the city in 1943. For the following year they rented a single room from a farmer in the neighboring countryside, where young Pavarotti developed an interest in farming.

Pavarotti's earliest musical influences were his father's recordings, most of them featuring the popular tenors of the day — Beniamino Gigli, Giovanni Martinelli, Tito Schipa and Enrico Caruso. Pavarotti's favorite tenor and idol was Giuseppe Di Stefano[4] and Jan Kiepura. He was also deeply influenced by Mario Lanza, saying, "In my teens I used to go to Mario Lanza movies and then come home and imitate him in the mirror."[5] At around the age of nine he began singing with his father in a small local church choir. Also in his youth he had a few voice lessons with a Professor Dondi and his wife, but he ascribed little significance to them.

After what appears to have been a normal childhood with a typical interest in sports — in Pavarotti's case football (soccer) above all — he graduated from the Schola Magistrale and faced the dilemma of a career choice. He was interested in pursuing a career as a professional football (soccer) goalkeeper, but his mother convinced him to train as a teacher. He subsequently taught in an elementary school for two years but finally allowed his interest in music to win out. Recognizing the risk involved, his father gave his consent only reluctantly, the agreement being that Pavarotti would have free room and board until age 30, after which time, if he had not succeeded, he would earn a living by any means that he could.

Pavarotti began the serious study of music in 1954 at the age of 19 with Arrigo Pola, a respected teacher and professional tenor in Modena who, aware of the family's indigence, offered to teach him without remuneration. Not until he began these studies was Pavarotti aware that he had perfect pitch.

In 1955, he experienced his first singing success when he was a member of the Choral Rossini, a male choir from Modena that also included his father, which won first prize at the International Eisteddfod in Llangollen, Wales; he later said that this was the most important experience of his life, which had inspired him to turn professional.[6] At about this time Pavarotti first met Adua Veroni, whom he married in 1961.

When his teacher Arrigo Pola moved to Japan, Pavarotti became a student of Ettore Campogalliani, who at that time was also teaching Pavarotti's childhood friend, Mirella Freni, whose mother worked with Luciano's in the cigar factory. Like Pavarotti, Freni was destined to operatic greatness; they were to share the stage many times and make memorable recordings together.

During his years of musical study Pavarotti held part-time jobs in order to sustain himself — first as an elementary school teacher and then, when he failed at that, as an insurance salesman. The first six years of study resulted in only a few recitals, all in small towns and without pay. When a nodule developed on his vocal cords causing a "disastrous" concert in Ferrara, he decided to give up singing. Pavarotti attributed his immediate improvement to the psychological release connected with this decision. Whatever the reason, the nodule not only disappeared but, as he related in his autobiography, "Everything I had learned came together with my natural voice to make the sound I had been struggling so hard to achieve."

[edit] Career

[edit] 1960s–1970s
Pavarotti began his career as a tenor in smaller regional Italian opera houses, making his debut as Rodolfo in La bohème at the Teatro Municipale in Reggio Emilia in April 1961.

Very early in his career, on February 23, 1963, he debuted at the Vienna State Opera with the same role. In March and April 1963 Vienna saw Pavarotti again as Rodolfo and as Duca di Mantova in Rigoletto. The same year saw his Royal Opera House debut, where he replaced an indisposed Giuseppe di Stefano as Rodolfo.[7]

While generally successful, Pavarotti's early roles did not immediately propel him into the stardom that he would later enjoy. An early coup involved his connection with Joan Sutherland (and her conductor husband, Richard Bonynge), who in 1963 had sought a young tenor taller than herself to take along on her touring to Australia.[8] At well over 6 feet tall and with his commanding physical presence, Pavarotti proved ideal.[9]. The two sang some forty performances over two months, and Pavarotti later credited Sutherland for the breathing technique that would sustain him over his career.[10]

Pavarotti made his American début with the Greater Miami Opera in February 1965 singing in Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor opposite Joan Sutherland on the stage of the Miami-Dade County Auditorium in Miami. The tenor scheduled to perform that night was ill and had no understudy. As Sutherland was traveling with him on tour, she recommended the young Pavarotti as he was well acquainted with the role.

Shortly after, on April 28, Pavarotti made his La Scala debut in the revival of the famous Franco Zeffirelli production of La bohème, with his childhood friend Mirella Freni singing Mimi and Herbert von Karajan conducting. Karajan had requested the singer's engagement. After an extended Australian tour he returned to La Scala where he added Tebaldo from I Capuleti e i Montecchi to his repertoire on March 26, 1966, with Giacomo Aragall as Romeo. His first appearance as Tonio in Donizetti's La fille du régiment took place at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden on June 2 of that year. It was his performances of this role that would earn him the title of "King of the High Cs".

He scored another major triumph in Rome on November 20, 1969 when he sang in I Lombardi opposite Renata Scotto. This was recorded on a private label and widely distributed, as were various recordings of his I Capuleti e i Montecchi, usually with Aragall. Early commercial recordings included a recital of Donizetti (the aria from Don Sebastiano was particularly highly regarded) and Verdi arias, as well as a complete L'elisir d'amore with Sutherland.

His major breakthrough in the United States came on February 17, 1972, in a production of La fille du régiment at New York's Metropolitan Opera, in which he drove the crowd into a frenzy with his nine effortless high Cs in the signature aria. He achieved a record 17 curtain calls. He began to give frequent television performances, starting with his performances in the of role as Rodolfo (La bohème) in the first Live From The Met telecast in March 1977, which attracted one of the largest audiences ever for a televised opera. He won many Grammy awards and platinum and gold discs for his performances. In addition to the previously listed titles, his La favorita with Fiorenza Cossotto and his I puritani (1975) with Sutherland stand out.

In 1976, Pavarotti debuted at the Salzburg Festival appearing in a solo recital on July 31 accompanied by pianist Leone Magiera. Pavarotti returned to the festival in 1978 with a recital and as the Italian singer in Der Rosenkavalier, in 1983 with Idomeneo, and both in 1985 and 1988 with solo recitals.

In 1977, he was profiled in a cover story in the weekly magazine, Time. That same year saw Pavarotti's return to the Vienna State Opera after an absence of 14 years. With Herbert von Karajan conducting, Pavarotti sang Manrico in Il trovatore. In 1978, he appeared in a solo recital on Live from Lincoln Center.

He made his international recital début at William Jewell College in Liberty, Missouri in 1973 as part of the college’s Fine Arts Program, now known as the Harriman-Jewell Series. Perspiring due to nerves and a lingering cold, the tenor clutched a handkerchief throughout the début. The prop became a signature part of his solo performances.

[edit] 1980s–1990s

Luciano Pavarotti in the role of Rodolfo from La Boheme (1988)
Bronze sculpture of Luciano Pavarotti, made by Serge Mangin in 1987[11]At the beginning of the 1980s, he set up The Pavarotti International Voice Competition for young singers, performing with the winners in 1982 in excerpts of La bohème and L'elisir d'amore. The second competition in 1986 staged excerpts of La bohème and Un ballo in maschera. To celebrate the 25th anniversary of his career, he brought the winners of the competition to Italy for gala performances of La bohème in Modena and Genoa and then to China where they staged performances of La bohème in Beijing. To conclude the visit, Pavarotti performed the first ever concert in the Great Hall of the People before 10,000 people, receiving a standing ovation for nine effortless high Cs. The third competition in 1989 again staged performances of L'elisir d'amore and Un ballo in maschera. The winners of the fifth competition accompanied Pavarotti in performances in Philadelphia in 1997.

In the mid-1980s, Pavarotti returned to two opera houses that had provided him with important breakthroughs, the Vienna State Opera and La Scala. Vienna saw Pavarotti as Rodolfo in La bohème with Carlos Kleiber conducting and again Mirella Freni was Mimi; as Nemorino in L'elisir d'amore; as Radames in Aida conducted by Lorin Maazel; as Rodolfo in Luisa Miller; and as Gustavo in Un ballo in maschera conducted by Claudio Abbado. In 1996, Pavarotti appeared for the last time at the Staatsoper in Andrea Chenier.

In 1985, Pavarotti sang Radames at La Scala opposite Maria Chiara in a Luca Ronconi production conducted by Maazel, recorded on video. His performance of the aria "Celeste Aida" received a two-minute ovation on the opening night. He was reunited with Mirella Freni for the San Francisco Opera production of La bohème in 1988, also recorded on video. In 1992, La Scala saw Pavarotti in a new Zeffirelli production of Don Carlo conducted by Riccardo Muti. Pavarotti's performance was heavily criticized by some observers and booed by parts of the audience. The singer never returned to La Scala again.

Pavarotti became even more well-known throughout the world in 1990 when his rendition of Giacomo Puccini's aria, "Nessun dorma" from Turandot, became the theme song of the BBC TV coverage of the 1990 FIFA World Cup in Italy. The aria achieved pop status and remained his trademark song. This was followed by the hugely successful Three Tenors concert held on the eve of the World Cup final at the ancient Baths of Caracalla in Rome with fellow tenors Plácido Domingo and José Carreras and conductor Zubin Mehta, which became the biggest selling classical record of all time. A highlight of the concert, in which Pavarotti hammed up a famous portion of di Capua's "O Sole Mio" and was mimicked by Domingo and Carreras to the delight of the audience, became one of the most memorable moments in contemporary operatic history. Throughout the 1990s, Pavarotti appeared in many well-attended outdoor concerts, including his televised concert in London's Hyde Park which drew a record attendance of 150,000. In June 1993, more than 500,000 listeners gathered for his performance on the Great Lawn of New York's Central Park, while millions more around the world watched on television. The following September, in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower in Paris, he sang for an estimated crowd of 300,000. Following on from the original 1990 concert, The Three Tenors concerts were held during the Football World Cups; in Los Angeles in 1994, in Paris in 1998, and in Yokohama in 2002.

Pavarotti's rise to stardom was not without occasional difficulties, however. He earned a reputation as "The King of Cancellations" by frequently backing out of performances, and his unreliable nature led to poor relationships with some opera houses. This was brought into focus in 1989 when Ardis Krainik of the Lyric Opera of Chicago severed the house's 15-year relationship with the tenor.[12], [13] Over an eight-year period, Pavarotti had cancelled 26 out of 41 scheduled appearances at the Lyric and the decisive move by Krainik to ban him for life was well-noted throughout the opera world, after the performer walked away from a season premiere less than two weeks before rehearsals began, saying pain from a sciatic nerve required two months of treatment.

On December 12, 1998 he became the first (and, to date, only) opera singer to perform on Saturday Night Live, singing alongside Vanessa L. Williams. He also sang with U2, in the band's 1995 song Miss Sarajevo.

In 1998, Pavarotti was presented with the Grammy Legend Award. Given only on special occasions, as of 2007 it has only been awarded 15 times since its first presentation in 1990.

[edit] 2000s
In 2002, Pavarotti split with his manager of 36 years Herbert Breslin. The breakup, which was acrimonious, was followed in 2004 with the publication of Breslin's book, The King & I,[14] seen by many as sensationalist and largely critical of the singer's acting (in opera), his inability to read music and learn parts, and of his personal conduct, although acknowledging their mutual success. In an interview in 2005 with Jeremy Paxman on the BBC, Pavarotti rejected the allegation that he could not read music, although acknowledging he sometimes had difficulty following orchestral parts.

He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2001. He also holds two Guinness World Records: one for receiving the most curtain calls (165) and another for the best-selling classical album (In Concert by The Three Tenors). (The latter record is thus shared by fellow tenors, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras.)

In late 2003, he released his final compilation, Ti Adoro, where Pavarotti sings in more of a "popera" style. Most of the 13 songs were written and produced by the Michele Centonze who had already helped produce the "Pavarotti and Friends" concerts between 1998 - 2000. The tenor described the album as a wedding gift to Nicoletta Mantovani.

On 13 December 2003 he married his former personal assistant, Nicoletta Mantovani, with whom he already had a daughter, Alice.[15] He started his farewell tour in 2004, at the age of 69, performing one last time in old and new locations, after over four decades on the stage. Pavarotti gave his last performance in an opera at the New York Metropolitan Opera on March 13, 2004 for which he received a 12-minute standing ovation for his role as the painter Mario Cavaradossi in Giacomo Puccini's Tosca. On December 1, 2004, he announced a 40-city farewell tour to be produced by Harvey Goldsmith.

In March 2005, Pavarotti underwent neck surgery to repair two vertebrae. In June 2005, he had to cancel a Three Tenors concert in Mexico due to laryngitis.

In early 2006, he had back surgery and contracted an infection while in the hospital, forcing cancellation of concerts in the U.S., Canada and the UK.[16]

On February 10, 2006, Pavarotti sang "Nessun Dorma" at the 2006 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony in Turin, Italy at his final performance. The final act of the opening ceremony, his performance received the longest and loudest ovation of the night from the international crowd.

[edit] Death and family
Wikinews has related news:
Opera singer Luciano Pavarotti dead at 71While undertaking an international "farewell tour," Pavarotti was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in July 2006. The tenor fought back against the implications of this diagnosis, undergoing major abdominal surgery and making plans for the resumption and conclusion of his singing commitments.[17] On September 6, 2007, however, in an e-mail statement, his manager, Terri Robson, wrote, "The Maestro fought a long, tough battle against the pancreatic cancer which eventually took his life. In fitting with the approach that characterized his life and work, he remained positive until finally succumbing to the last stages of his illness."[18][19]

According to several reports, just before he died, the singer had received both the sacraments of reconciliation and the Anointing of the Sick from the Roman Catholic Church.[20]

Pavarotti's funeral was held in Modena Cathedral.[21] The Vienna State Opera and the Salzburg Festival Hall flew black flags in mourning.[22] Tributes were published by many opera houses, such as London's Royal Opera House.[23] The Italian football giant Juventus F.C., of which Pavarotti was a life long fan, was represented at the funeral and posted a farewell message on its website which said: "Ciao Luciano, black-and-white heart" referring to the team's famous stripes when they play on their home ground. A tribute concert featuring many talents trained by Pavarotti himself will be held on Valentine's Day 2008 at New York City's Avery Fisher Hall.[24]

Pavarotti was survived by four daughters: three, Lorenza, Cristina and Giuliana with first wife Adua, to whom he was married for 34 years; and one, Alice, with second wife Nicoletta Mantovani. At the time of his death, he had one granddaughter. His first will was opened the day after his death and a second will, within the same month of September.[25] His fortune was estimated to be roughly between 20-120 million United States dollars with about 20m in the U.S. and included an estate outside his native Modena, a villa in Pesaro, an apartment in Monte Carlo, a villa in Barbados and three apartments in New York City.[26]

Shortly after his death, on what would have been Pavarotti's 72nd birthday, Google exhibited a logo using a cartoon of Pavarotti as the letter l in its name.

[edit] Quote
Pavarotti himself summarized his life as follows: "Penso che una vita per la musica sia una vita spesa bene ed è a questo che mi sono dedicato." (English translation: "I think a life in music is a life well spent, and this is what I have devoted myself to.") [1]

[edit] Other work

[edit] Film and television
Pavarotti's one venture into film, a romantic comedy called Yes, Giorgio (1982), was roundly panned by the critics. He can be seen to better advantage in Jean-Pierre Ponnelle's adaptation of Rigoletto for television, released that same year, or in his more than 20 live opera performances taped for television between 1978 and 1994, most of them with the Metropolitan Opera, and most available on DVD.

[edit] Humanitarian
Pavarotti annually hosted the "Pavarotti and Friends" charity concerts in his home town of Modena in Italy, joining with singers from all parts of the music industry, including Eric Clapton, Elton John, Sting, Bono and Sheryl Crow, to raise money for several UN causes. Concerts were held for War Child, and victims of war and civil unrest in Bosnia, Guatemala, Kosovo, and Iraq. After the war in Bosnia, he financed and established the Pavarotti Music Center in the southern city of Mostar to offer Bosnia's artists the opportunity to develop their skills. For these contributions, the city of Sarajevo named him an honorary citizen in 2006.[27]

He performed at benefit concerts to raise money for victims of tragedies such as an earthquake in December 1988 that killed 25,000 people in northern Armenia.[28]

He was a close friend of Diana, Princess of Wales. They raised money for the elimination of land mines worldwide. He was invited to sing at her funeral service, but declined, as he felt he could not sing well "with his grief in his throat". Nonetheless, he attended the service.

In 1998, he was appointed the United Nation's Messenger of Peace, using his fame to raise awareness of UN issues, including the Millennium Development Goals, HIV/AIDS, child rights, urban slums and poverty.[29]

In 1999, Pavarotti performed a charity benefit concert in Beirut, to mark Lebanon's reemergence on the world stage after a brutal 15 year civil war. The largest concert held in Beirut since the end of the war, it was attended by 20,000 people who traveled from countries as distant as Saudi Arabia and Bulgaria. It was the tenor's only concert in the Middle East.[30]

In 2001, Pavarotti received the Nansen Medal from the UN High Commission for Refugees for his efforts raising money on behalf of refugees worldwide. Through benefit concerts and volunteer work, he has raised more than any other individual.[31]

In 1978 Pavarotti was initiated as an honorary member of the University of Miami's Beta Tau Chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, a fraternity dedicated to the advancement of music in America. Other honors he received include the "Freedom of London Award" and The Red Cross "Award for Services to Humanity", for his work in raising money for that organization, and the 1998 "MusiCares Person Of The Year", given to humanitarian heroes by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences.[32][33]

Cloverfield

2008-01-22T08:27:00.000-08:00

Cloverfield is a 2008 American monster movie produced by J. J. Abrams, directed by Matt Reeves, and written by Drew Goddard. First publicized in advance screenings of Transformers, the project is slated for a January 17 release in New Zealand and Australia, a January 18 release in the United States, and a February 1 release in the United Kingdom. Paramount Pictures is carrying out a viral marketing campaign to promote the film.

Synopsis
"Five young New Yorkers throw their friend a going-away party the night that a monster the size of a skyscraper descends upon the city. Told from the point of view of their video camera, the film is a document of their attempt to survive the most surreal, horrifying event of their lives."[4]

Cast
Michael Stahl-David as Robert Hawkins[5]
Mike Vogel as Jason "Hawk" Hawkins[5]
Odette Yustman as Beth McIntyre[5]
Lizzy Caplan as Marlena Diamond[5]
Jessica Lucas as Lily Ford[5]
T. J. Miller[6] as Hudson "Hud" Platt[5]
Greg Grunberg[7]
Blake Lively[8]
To prevent the leaking of plot information, instead of auditioning the actors with scenes from the film, scripts from Abrams's previous productions were used, such as television series Alias. Some scenes were also written specifically for the audition process, not intended for use in the film. Despite not being told the premise of the film, Lizzy Caplan stated that she accepted a role in Cloverfield solely because she was a fan of the Abrams-produced television series Lost, and her experience of discovering its true nature initially caused her to state that she would not sign on for a film in the future "without knowing full well what it is." She indicated that her character was a sarcastic outsider, and that her role was "physically demanding."[9]

Production
J. J. Abrams conceived of a new monster after he and his son visited a toy store in Japan. He explained, "We saw all these Godzilla toys, and I thought, we need our own monster, and not King Kong, King Kong's adorable. I wanted something that was just insane and intense."[10] In February 2007, Paramount Pictures secretly greenlit Cloverfield, to be produced by Abrams, directed by Matt Reeves, and written by Drew Goddard. The project was produced by Abrams' company, Bad Robot Productions.[11]

The poster for Escape from New York (1981) inspired the scene of the decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty in CloverfieldThe casting process was carried out in secret, with no script being sent out to candidates. With production estimated to have a budget of $30 million, filming began in mid-June in New York.[11] One cast member indicated that the film would look like it cost $150 million, despite producers not casting recognizable and expensive actors.[9] Location filming, shot in digital video using hand-held video cameras,[12] took place on Coney Island, with scenes being shot at Deno's Wonder Wheel Amusement Park and the B&B Carousel.[8] Some interior shots were filmed on a soundstage at Downey, California.[13] The film was edited to look like it was filmed with one hand-held camera, including jump cuts similar to ones found in home movies. Director Matt Reeves described the presentation, "We wanted this to be as if someone found a Handicam, took out the tape and put it in the player to watch it. What you're watching is a home movie that then turns into something else." Reeves explained that the pedestrians documenting the severed head of the Statue of Liberty with the camera phones was reflective of the contemporary period. "Cloverfield very much speaks to the fear and anxieties of our time, how we live our lives. Constantly documenting things and putting them up on YouTube, sending people videos through e-mail - we felt it was very applicable to the way people feel now," the director said.[14]

The decapitated head of the Statue of Liberty was inspired by the poster of the 1981 film Escape from New York, which had shown the head lying in the streets in New York despite not appearing in the film itself. According to Reeves, "It's an incredibly provocative image. And that was the source that inspired [producer] J.J. [Abrams] to say, 'Now this would be an interesting idea for a movie.'"[15]

The film was titled Cloverfield from the beginning, but the title changed throughout production before it was finalized as the original title. Matt Reeves explained that the title was changed frequently due to the hype caused by the teaser trailer, "That excitement spread to such a degree that we suddenly couldn't use the name anymore. So we started using all these names like Slusho and Cheese. And people always found out what we were doing!" The director said that "Cloverfield" was the government's case designate for the monster, comparing the titling to that of the Manhattan Project. "And it's not a project per se. It's the way that this case has been designated. That's why that is on the trailer, and it becomes clearer in the film. It's how they refer to this phenomenon [or] this case," said the director.[16]

Visual effects supervisor Phil Tippett and his company Tippett Studio were enlisted to develop the visual effects for Cloverfield.[17] Since the visual effects were incorporated after filming, cast members had to react to a non-existent creature during scenes, only being familiar with early conceptual renderings of the beast.[18]

Marketing
Filmmakers decided to create a teaser trailer that would be a surprise in the light of commonplace media saturation, which they put together during the preparation stage of the production process. The teaser was then used as a basis for the film itself. Paramount Pictures encouraged the teaser to be released without a title attached, and the Motion Picture Association of America approved the move.[14] As Transformers showed high tracking numbers before its release in July 2007, the studio attached the teaser trailer for Cloverfield that showed the release date of January 18, 2008 but not the title.[11] A second trailer was released on November 16, 2007, which confirmed the title.[19]

The studio had kept knowledge of the project secret from the online community, a cited rarity due to the presence of scoopers that follow upcoming films. The controlled release of information on the film has been observed as a risky strategy, which could succeed like The Blair Witch Project (1999) or disappoint like Snakes on a Plane (2006), the latter of which had generated online hype but failed to attract large audiences. Chad Hartigan of Exhibitor Relations Co. viewed the several issues with the potential of the film, including a lack of major stars, the underwhelming performance of Godzilla-style films in America, and the film's slated release in January, considered a "dumping ground for bad films".[20]

Plot speculation
The sudden appearance of the untitled trailer for Cloverfield fueled media speculation over the film's plot. USA Today reported the possibilities of the film being based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, a live-action adaptation of Voltron, a new film about Godzilla, or a spin-off of the TV show Lost.[21] The Star Ledger also reported the possibility of the film being based on Lovecraft lore or Godzilla.[5] The Guardian also reported the possibility of a Lost spin-off,[22] while Time Out reported that the film was about an alien called The Parasite.[23] IGN also backed the possibility of the same premise, with The Parasite rumored to be a working title for the film.[16] Online, Slusho and Colossus had also been discussed as possible titles.[24] Entertainment Weekly also disputed reports that the film would be about a parasite or a colossal Asian robot such as Voltron.[12]

Visitors of the website Ain't It Cool News have pointed out 9/11 allusions based on the destruction in New York City such as the decapitated Statue of Liberty. The film has also drawn alternate reality game enthusiasts that have followed other viral marketing campaigns like those set up for the TV series Lost, the video game Halo 2, the Nine Inch Nails album Year Zero, and the upcoming Batman film The Dark Knight. Members of the forums at argn.com and unfiction.com have investigated the background of the film, with the "1-18-08" section at Unfiction generating over 7,700 posts in August 2007. The members have studied photographs on the film's official site, potentially related MySpace profiles, and the Comic-Con teaser poster for the film.[20]

Viral tie-ins
Puzzle websites containing Lovecraftian elements, such as Ethan Haas Was Right, were originally reported to be connected to the film.[21][22] On July 9, 2007, producer J. J. Abrams stated that, while a number of websites were being developed to market the film, the only official site that had been found was 1-18-08.com.[25] At the site, a collection of time-coded photos are provided to visitors to piece together a series of events and interpret their meanings.[26] As part of the viral marketing campaign, the drink Slusho! has served as a tie-in. The drink had previously appeared in producer Abrams' previous creation, the TV series Alias.[27] Viral websites for Slusho! and a Japanese drilling company were launched to add to the mythology of Cloverfield.[28] When Cloverfield was hosted at Comic-Con 2007, gray Slusho! t-shirts were distributed to attendees.[29] Fans who had registered at the Slusho! website for Cloverfield received e-mails of fictional sonar images prior to the film's release that showed a deep-sea creature heading toward Manhattan.[30]

Producer Bryan Burk explained the viral tie-in, "[It] was all done in conjunction with the studio... The whole experience in making this movie is very reminiscent [of] how we did Lost."[28] Director Matt Reeves described Slusho! as "part of the involved connectivity" with Abrams' Alias and that the drink represented a "meta-story" for Cloverfield. The director explained, "It's almost like tentacles that grow out of the film and lead, also, to the ideas in the film. And there's this weird way where you can go see the movie and it's one experience... But there's also this other place where you can get engaged where there's this other sort of aspect for all those people who are into that. [...] All the stories kind of bounce off one another and inform each other. But, at the end of the day, this movie stands on its own to be a movie. [...] The Internet sort of stories and connections and clues are, in a way, a prism and they're another way of looking at the same thing. To us, it's just another exciting aspect of the storytelling."[27]

YouTube

2008-01-22T08:25:00.000-08:00

YouTube (pronounced /juːtuːb/ or /juːtjuːb/[1]) is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid-February 2005 by three former PayPal employees.[2] The San Bruno-based service uses Adobe Flash technology to display a wide variety of video content, including movie clips, TV clips and music videos, as well as amateur content such as videoblogging and short original videos. In October 2006, Google Inc. announced that it had reached a deal to acquire the company for US$1.65 billion in Google stock. The deal closed on November 13, 2006.[3]

Unregistered users can watch most videos on the site, while registered users are permitted to upload an unlimited number of videos. Some videos are available only to users of age 18 or older (e.g. videos containing potentially offensive content). The uploading of pornography or videos containing nudity is prohibited. Related videos, determined by title and tags, appear onscreen to the right of a given video. In YouTube's second year, functions were added to enhance user ability to post video 'responses' and subscribe to content feeds.

Few statistics are publicly available regarding the number of videos on YouTube. However, in July 2006, the company revealed that more than 100 million videos were being watched every day, and 2.5 billion videos were watched in June 2006. 50,000 videos were being added per day in May 2006, and this increased to 65,000 by July.[4]

In August 2006, The Wall Street Journal published an article revealing that YouTube was hosting about 6.1 million videos (requiring about 45 terabytes of storage space), and had about 500,000 user accounts.[5] As of January 6, 2008 , a YouTube search for "*" returns about 64,000,000 videos (the asterisk is a commonly used wildcard character in search engines, therefore showing all videos)[6]. On January 2, the number was 61.7 million, showing an average of 825,000 new videos every day the past 4 days.

Domain name problem
YouTube's immense success has unintentionally affected the business of an American company, Universal Tube & Rollform Equipment Corp., whose website, utube.com, was frequently overloaded and shut down by extremely high numbers of visitors unsure about the spelling of YouTube's domain name, but now utube.com is up and running again.[7] At the beginning of November 2006, Universal Tube filed suit in federal court against YouTube,[8] requesting that the youtube.com domain be transferred to them.[9]

Recent events

Political campaigning
Political candidates for the 2008 U.S. Presidential election have been using YouTube as an outlet for advertising their candidacies. Voters can view candidate statements and make videos supporting (or opposing) presidential candidates (e.g., videos for Ron Paul, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden).[10] [11] Third Party presidential candidates have also made extensive use of YouTube. Libertarian Steve Kubby's campaign debuted a short animated film, featuring the faces and voices of campaign contributors who financed its production, on YouTube on September 29th, 2007.[12] The U.S. media has often commented that YouTube played a significant role in the 2006 defeat of Republican Senator George Allen due to a video clip of him making allegedly racist remarks that was continuously replayed by YouTube viewers during the campaign.[13] [14] [15] [16] [17] Political commentators such as James Kotecki have also joined the YouTube world of politics. Many commentators make videos on YouTube critiquing a presidential candidate's YouTube videos, or simply using YouTube as a medium to get their opinions heard. Recently, French and Italian politicians, such as Antonio Di Pietro, have also been using the site as part of their campaigns. YouTube has also been used by Australian Prime Minister John Howard in the lead up to the 2007 federal election.

CNN-YouTube Presidential Debates

the CNN-YouTube Republican Debate on 2007-11-28Main article: CNN-YouTube presidential debates
In the run up to the 2008 Presidential elections, CNN aired a debate in which candidates fielded questions selected from a pool submitted by users of YouTube. Because of the use of technology to aggregate questions from a wide range of constituents, the forum has been referred to as "most democratic Presidential Debate ever"[18].

Copyright infringement and controversial material

Copyright
YouTube policy does not give permission for anyone to upload content not permitted by United States copyright law, the organisation frequently removing upon request a vast quantity of infringing content.

Despite this, a large amount of potentially infringing content continues to be uploaded (e.g., television shows/clips, film clips, commercials, or music videos). This is despite a decision in October 2007 to allow media companies to block their copyrighted video content loaded onto YouTube without seeking any prior permission.[19], You Tube does not 'pre-screen' videos uploaded to its site (This is partly due to such pre-screening creating additional liabilities in respect of infringing material[citation needed])

Until 2007, unless a copyright holder reported violation or infringement, YouTube generally discovered such content via indications within the YouTube community through self-policing. For a brief time, individual members could also report on one another. The flagging feature, intended as a means of reporting questionable content, has been subject to considerable abuse; for a time, some users were flagging other users' original content for copyright violations out of spite. YouTube proceeded to remove copyright infringement from the list of flaggable offenses.

Since 2007, changes to the interface mean that only rights holders are able to directly report copyright violations, even if they are obvious to casual viewers.

YouTube generally identifies video content through search terms that uploaders associate with clips. Some deceptive users create alternative search terms when uploading specific file types (similar to the deliberate misspelling of band names on MP3 filesharing networks).

Hollywood remains divided on YouTube, as "'the marketing guys love YouTube and the legal guys hate it.'"[20] Further,

While lawyers are demanding filtering technology, many Hollywood execs actually enjoy the fact that YouTube only takes down clips when they request it. "If I found part of a successful show up on YouTube today, I'd probably pull it down immediately .... If I had a show that wasn't doing so well in the ratings and could use the promotion, I wouldn't be in a rush to do that."[20]

Content owners are not just targeting YouTube for copyright infringements, but are also targeting third party websites that link to infringing content on YouTube and other video-sharing sites, for example, QuickSilverScreen vs. Fox,[21] Daily Episodes vs. Fox,[22] and Columbia vs. Slashfilm.[23] The liability of linking remains a grey area with cases for and against. The law in the U.S. currently leans towards website owners being liable for infringing links[24] although they are often protected by the DMCA providing they take down infringing content when issued with a take down notice. However, a recent court ruling in the U.S. found Google not liable for linking to infringing content (Perfect 10 v. Google, Inc.).

Examples of infringement complaints
On October 5, 2006, the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers (JASRAC) finalized their copyright complaints regarding Japanese media on YouTube. Thousands of media from popular Japanese artists (such as Tokyo Jihen and other music including Jpop) were removed.

When CBS and Universal Music Group signed agreements to provide content on YouTube, they announced a new technology to help them find and remove copyrighted material.[25]

TV journalist Robert Tur filed the first lawsuit against the company in the summer of 2006, alleging copyright infringement for hosting a number of famous news clips without permission. The case has yet to be resolved.[26] [27]

On November 9, 2006, Artie Lange said that his lawyers were in talks with YouTube, after Lange learned that his entire DVD, It's the Whiskey Talking, was available for free on the website. He added that he will either demand money from them, or will sue.[28]

Viacom and the British Broadcasting Corporation both demanded YouTube to take down more than 200,000 videos.[29]

Wikinews has related news:
Viacom sues YouTube, Google, for more than 1 billion dollarsViacom announced it was suing YouTube, and its owner Google, for more than $1 billion in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Viacom claims that YouTube posted over 160,000 of their videos on the website without their permission.[30][31]

In 2007 a 15-year-old Australian boy managed to get YouTube to delete over 200 YouTube videos belonging to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation using a fake DMCA take down notice. When the fake DMCA notice arrived, the ABC already had in place a long-standing deal with YouTube to freely share its videos. In his hand-written letter, the boy claimed that he was acting on behalf of the "Australian Broddcasting[sic] Corperation[sic]", giving his own Hotmail address as his business contact and demanded that hundreds of videos from ABC's The Chaser's War on Everything television program be deleted from YouTube's servers. Despite the boy not having any affiliation with the ABC and the spelling errors on his hand-written form, YouTube did delete all of the videos at the boy's request and replaced each with a message stating "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Australian Broadcasting Corporation".[32]

Use of acoustic fingerprints
On October 12, 2006, YouTube announced that because of recent agreements with high-profile content creators, they are now required to use antipiracy software, which uses an audio-signature technology that can detect a low-quality copy of licensed video. YouTube would have to substitute an approved version of any clip or remove the material immediately. Industry analysts speculated that removal of content with such a system might reduce overall user satisfaction.[33][33]

On April 16, 2007, Google's CEO Eric E. Schmidt presented a keynote speech at the NAB Convention in Las Vegas. During the Q&A session, Schmidt announced that YouTube was close to enacting a content filtering system to remove infringing content from the service. The new system, called "Claim Your Content", will automatically identify copyrighted material for removal.[34]

Google spokesperson Ricardo Reyes stated on June 13, 2007 that the company was seeking "a way to make video identification technology a reality" when they began to test the system in the next few days.[35][36]

Violence
Main articles: Cyber-bullying#Influence and Cyber-bullying
Wikinews has related news:
New Zealand school children put fight videos on YouTube
Anthony Anderson
On June 1, 2006, the evening ITV News bulletin reported that YouTube and similar sites were being used by teenagers who were recording fights on mobile phones. In July 2007, a similar incident happened at a school in Hayling Island, U.K.[37] Additionally, in July 2007, Anthony Anderson urinated on a dying woman while a friend made a video of the incident. He is reported to have yelled "This is YouTube material!"[38]

Finland School Shootings
YouTube appears to have removed 89 videos linked to an 18-year-old gunman who on November 7, 2007 killed at least eight people in Finland. Many of the videos featured Nazi imagery. One of the videos, called "Jokela high school massacre 11/7/2007", showed a picture of a building by a lake and two photos of a young man holding a gun.[39].

Corruption

Criminal charges in Honduras
An unknown individual posted various recordings of high government officials in Honduras on YouTube, including of the President Mel Zelaya, implicating them in a corruption scandal concerning Hondutel, the state run telephone service[40]. After Zelaya made a complaint to the police they launched an investigation to find who had made the recordings, which are considered espionage and a violation of Honduras' privacy laws, that included searching the mansion of the CEO of Hondutel, Marcelo Chimirri[41], an action condemned by Zelaya[42]. On November 14 Chimirri appeared in court and was charged with various crimes related to the appearance of these clips on YouTube[43].

Animal abuse
YouTube has been criticized for hosting hundreds of videos of real-life animal cruelty made specifically to be shown on the site. In spite of these videos being flagged as inappropriate by many users, YouTube has generally failed to take the same policing actions to remove them that they have with videos containing copyright infringement or sexual content.[44] [45]

White House National Drug Control involvement
In September 2006, the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) began running anti-drug messages through YouTube.[46] In response, many YouTube users began uploading rebuttals and low rating the public service announcements. Consequently, since mid-September, the ONDCP has removed the ability to evaluate any of their messages.[citation needed]

New York Times reports anti-U.S. attack videos
On October 5, 2006, The New York Times reported on the proliferation of what they considered to be anti-U.S. Iraqi insurgent attack videos on YouTube.[47]

Neo Nazis on YouTube
On December 18, 2007, CNN reported about the prevalence of Neo-Nazi Propaganda and Holocaust Denial videos on YouTube.[48] Hundreds of Nazi and SS glorifying, Holocaust denying, anti-semitic and racist videos have been brought to the attention of both YouTube and its parent company Google Inc. by the German Zentralrat der Juden ("Central Council of Jews"), which did "not get any response". The first reports about the violation of YouTube own rules surfaced in August 2007 after the German TV-magazine Report Mainz reported that even over a hundred complaints by the federal Jugendschutz.net watchdog to YouTube about videos forbidden by German law, had not been answered and that the flagged content had not been removed by YouTube.[49][50] [51] [52] Some of the flagged videos have been online for over a year. CNN contacted Google specifically about a 6 part video series of Holocaust Denial videos, which Google promised to "block immediately", but twenty days later (and as of January 3rd, 2008) are still available.[53][54].

Banning
Main article: Blocking of YouTube
YouTube has been blocked in several countries since its inception, including Morocco, Thailand (ban now lifted) and Iran. Certain video pages have been banned as of October 1, 2007 in Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

Schools have begun to block access to YouTube as some students have uploaded videos of bullying behavior, school fights and racist behavior as well as increased bandwidth usage.[55]

Spamming
Main article: Spam (electronic)#Spam targeting video sharing sites
With recent improvements to e-mail spam filtering technology and their wider use, spammers have begun using YouTube as way to advertise: popular videos frequently have comments with links to irrelevant (and more often than not, pornographic) external sites, usually with some enticing statements (such as "Great video, go to for the full version"). They may also send messages to a user's inbox (essentially in the form of a plain-text spam email). The users who send the spam comments generally use automatically generated user names, making it difficult to block them.[citation needed]. Some of these spam accounts also posted pornographic videos on YouTube.

A slightly newer feature of YouTube is the ability to send invites to people through email by using the "Invite Your Friends" feature. Originally, this feature was indeed a useful feature to build a bigger community using YouTube. When spammers became aware of this, they decided to give it a try and found every email address possible to send random email invites. More so, they've now been able to cheat the system even more.

"The messages came from service@youtube.com." "The messages look like a legitimate YouTube invite, except they include typical spam content like stock pump-and-dump promotions and links to spam Web sites. Many of them use Microsoft's recent XBox 360 hit "Halo 3" as bait, telling the recipient they have won a free copy of the game and to go to a Web site. If they take the bait and click on "winhalo3.com," the Web site infects them with the Storm worm, which has been hanging around since August."

(YouTube's Not-so-'Friendly' Spam)

Spammers have used this route more often nowadays because they can use it to defeat spam filters, gain more readers and possibly customers. "They just do as all spammers do..."

Terms of service
See also: censorship by YouTube
According YouTube's terms of service,[56] users may upload videos only with permission of the copyright holder and of the depicted persons. Pornography, nudity, defamation, harassment, commercial advertisements and material that encourages criminal conduct is prohibited. The uploader grants YouTube a license to distribute and modify the uploaded material for any purpose; this license terminates when the uploader deletes the material from the site. Users may view videos on the site as long as they agree to the terms of service; downloading through one's own means or copying of the videos is not permitted. There is now a download option where one can download the videos through YouTube.

Google aims to compete with local videosharing websites like DailyMotion in France. It also made an agreement with local television stations like M6 and France Télévisions to legally broadcast video content.

On October 17, 2007 it was announced that a Hong Kong version had been launched. YouTube's Steve Chen said its next target will be Taiwan.[63][64]

On October 22, 2007 YouTube New Zealand had its launch party, stating that its aim was to help create YouTube celebrities within New Zealand. This was quickly evident with the rise of such New Zealand YouTube shows as Three Best Friends That Live Together.

YouTube was blocked from Mainland China from the 18th October due to the censorship of the Taiwanese flag. URLs to YouTube were redirected to China's own search engine, Baidu. It was subsequently unblocked on the 31st of October.[65]

Technical notes

Video format
As of November 2007 YouTube plays back videos limited in both size and quality. The size is limited to pixel dimensions of 320 by 240 and the quality is limited to a bitrate of around 314kbit/s with a frame rate dependent on the uploaded video.[66]YouTube limits the playback size and quality by re-encoding the user's uploaded video at the time of upload. In 2006 YouTube permitted playback at higher quality, larger sizes, and in stereo, but some time after January 2007 YouTube applied quality reductions to new uploads.[67]

YouTube's video playback technology is based on Macromedia's Flash Player 7 and uses the Sorenson Spark H.263 video codec. This technology allows the site to display videos with quality comparable to more established video playback technologies (such as Windows Media Player, QuickTime and RealPlayer) that generally require the user to download and install a web browser plugin in order to view video. Flash also requires a plug-in, but Adobe considers the Flash 7 plug-in to be present on about 90% of online computers.[68] The video can also be played back with third-party media players such as GOM Player, gnash, VLC as well as some ffmpeg-based video players.

YouTube converts videos into .FLV (Adobe Flash Video) format after uploading.[69] The extension is then stripped from the file (Extension can be found again with TrID[citation needed] or from the server's MIME Type). The different files are stored in obscurely named subdomains, accessible either directly or through YouTube's get_video PHP script. YouTube also converts content to other formats so that it can be viewed outside of the website. See below.

YouTube officially accepts uploaded videos in .WMV, .AVI, .MOV, MPEG and .MP4, formats[70]

Users can view videos in windowed mode or full screen mode and it is possible to switch modes during playback without reloading it due to the full-screen function of Adobe Flash Player 9.

Audio format
YouTube files contain an MP3 audio stream. By default, it is mono-encoding with a 65kbit/s rate at 22050 Hz. However, it is possible to get a stereo audio track if the movie file is manually converted to FLV format using a program such as ffmpeg for Linux, ffmpegX for Macintosh or the commercial Riva FLV Encoder for Windows.

Content accessibility

On YouTube
As noted above, YouTube accepts common file formats and converts them to the H.263 variant of Flash Video, and makes them available for online viewing. Beginning in June 2007, newly uploaded videos will also be encoded using the H.264 video standard to enable streaming of YouTube videos on the Apple TV and the iPhone.

On Apple TV
Apple Inc. announced on 20 June 2007 that YouTube is accessible on the Apple TV after installation of a free software update. Functionality includes browsing by category, searching videos, and the ability for members to log onto their YouTube accounts directly on Apple TV. Access to thousands of the most current and popular YouTube videos will be available, with plans to add thousands more videos each week. The entire catalog is targeted to be available in fall 2007. According to Apple VP David Moody, the reason for the delay is the need for all current YouTube content to be transcoded to Apple's preferred video standard, H.264. All content uploaded in and after June, however, will be automatically encoded into H.264, rendering additional transcoding unnecessary for these newer files.

On mobile
YouTube launched its mobile site, YouTube Mobile on 15 June 2007. It is based on xHTML and uses 3GP videos with H263/AMR codec and RTSP streaming.

On TV
YouTube TV Channel will on Information TV 2 on January 7, 2008. The channel will air video sharing content from the YouTube website.

On iPhone and iPod touch
Apple announced Wednesday, 20 June 2007 that YouTube would be available on iPhone at launch. Streaming is over WiFi or EDGE.

Videos on YouTube for the iPhone are encoded in Apple's preferred H.264 format. All videos are viewed in the horizontal orientation of the phone. As YouTube videos have 4:3 aspect ratio and the iPhone is 3:2, videos must be viewed with black bars on the side (pillarboxed) or may be zoomed to trim some of the top and bottom to fill the screen.

Not all videos are available on iPhone yet because not every video has been reencoded to H.264. There are two versions of each video on YouTube, one is higher bandwidth for WiFi use, and one is lower resolution for EDGE use.

Unlike the Apple TV version, users cannot log in to their own YouTube accounts, but can create a separate favorites list just for the iPhone.

Outside YouTube
Each video is accompanied by the full HTML markup for linking to it and/or embedding it within another page, unless the submitter of a video chooses to disable the embedding feature. A small addition to the embeddable markup will allow the video to play automatically when the webpage loads. These simple cut-and-paste options are especially popular with users of social-networking sites. Poor experiences, however, have been cited by users of such sites,[71] where autoplaying embedded YouTube videos has been reported to slow down page loading time or even to crash internet browsers.

The YouTube Player is the name of another embeddable applet (with a different interface), designed for browsing YouTube videos on an iGoogle homepage.

YouTube itself does not make it easy to download and save videos for offline viewing or editing nor for viewing in external players, but several third-party web sites, applications, browser extensions (such as Firefox extensions) exist for that purpose. Alternatively, most .flv files can be copied from the 'Temporary Internet Files' folder in Windows, or the /tmp directory in GNU systems, to a permanent folder. The .flv files can then be viewed and edited directly or converted to other formats using various applications.

YouTube Remixer
On June 18, 2007, YouTube launched its online video editing tool, YouTube Remixer. The tool allows users to edit their YouTube videos online, although the editing tools are very limited.

Channel type
Members of YouTube.com are offered to be a part of groups called "Channel Types" that make their channel more distinctive. The types are:

YouTuber, a general viewer of YouTube.
Director, movie makers displaying their videos for YouTube viewers.
Musician, musicians or bands covering songs or displaying originals or giving lessons on songs, scales, chords, etc.
Comedian, comedians displaying their comedy bits for YouTube viewers.
Guru, people who are experienced in a certain field make videos of what they do.

Social impact

Internet celebrities and breaking boundaries
Main article: YouTube celebrities
YouTube's popularity has led to the creation of many YouTube Internet celebrities, popular individuals who have attracted much publicity in their home countries (and sometimes world renown) due to their videos.[72] The most subscribed YouTube member, as of October 18, 2007, is Smosh.[73] For some users, Internet fame has led to unexpected results and, in some cases, crossovers into traditional media or entertainment avenues. Former receptionist Brooke Brodack (Brookers) from Connecticut has been signed by NBC's Carson Daly for an 18-month development contract in June 2006; Brodack was among the first individuals to transition into mainstream media through YouTube.[74][75] Another discovery was the uncovered fictitious blog of lonelygirl15, now known to be the creation of New Zealand actress Jessica Rose and some film directors. In 2007, a Dutch vocalist and songwriter named Esmée Denters (esmeedenters) was signed to a recording contract by Billy Mann based on her YouTube performances.[76][77] On January 31, 2007, Fox announced that Lisa Donovan (LisaNova) would appear as a cast member during the 12th season of its sketch comedy show MADtv.[78] Terra Naomi (terranaomi) has been signed with Island Records, a division of the Universal Music Group, one of the Big Four record labels. Brandon Hardesty (ArtieTSMITW), known for a popular reenactment series among his work, is currently in a GEICO television commercial[79] running nationally in the U.S. and it consists mostly of a segment taken from his Strange Faces and Noises I Can Make III video. Brandon has also been contracted by an agent and was hired for a role in the independent film, Bart Got a Room.[80] Ysabella Brave (ysabellabrave and ysabellabravetalk) announced in two videos on June 3, 2007, in connection with a Los Angeles Times feature article[81] about her on the same day, that she has been signed by Cordless Recordings, a division of the Warner Music Group, also one of the four major records labels. TheReceptionist announced in a video on July 9, 2007 that he will be providing content for Comedy Central's website.[82] Daniel Geduld (everyonesvoice) now works in the voice-over business and he credits his discovery to his popular Skeletor remixes, which change an originally serious animation series into comedy.[83] SamProof appeared on November 18th, 2007on Adult Swim's Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job![84]

Band and music promotion
YouTube has also become a means of promoting bands and their music. One such example is OK Go which got a huge radio hit and an MTV Video Music Awards performance out of the treadmill video for Here It Goes Again.[85][86] In the same light, a video broadcasting the Free Hugs Campaign with accompanying music by the Sick Puppies led to instant fame for both the band and the campaign, with more campaigns taking place in different parts of the world. The main character of the video, Juan Mann has also achieved fame, being interviewed on Australian news programs, even appearing on The Oprah Winfrey Show.[87] Singer-songwriter Tay Zonday's video of "Chocolate Rain" had such play that it led to a music video promoting a Dr Pepper product.[88]

Sharing revenue with popular users
In May 2007, YouTube invited some of its most viewed users to become "YouTube Partners." This exclusive status, previously only offered to commercial content providers, allows users to earn revenue from advertisements placed next to videos.[89] Participants include Ben Going (boh3m3), Paul Robinett (renetto), Lisa Donovan (LisaNova), Jessica Rose (lonelygirl15), Kevin Nalty (Nalts) Tony Huynh (thewinekone), Brandon Hardesty (ArtieTSMITW), Christine Gambito (HappySlip) and Yousef Abu-Taleb (Danielbeast), among the 100 partners.[90]

YouTube gatherings
YouTubers periodically hold public gatherings to celebrate the video sharing community.[91] One of the earliest of such gatherings, the recurrent and international As One, was first held in January 2007 in Hollywood, California by Cory Williams of smpfilms. The second As One, also hosted by Cory Williams, was held on February 17, 2007 at Pier 39 in San Francisco, California, managed to attract many of YouTube's highest viewed individuals.[92] Notable attendees included: Caitlin Hill; Ben Going; and Yousef Abu-Taleb, the actor who plays DanielBeast in the YouTube serial lonelygirl15. A third gathering took place on July 7, 2007, at Washington Square Park in New York City. A singing invitation to the event, posted on YouTube by Christine Gambito, YouTube's Happyslip, gained over 2.6 million views.[93] Notable attendees included: Brooke Brodack; Caitlin Hill; Philip DeFranco aka "sxephil"; Charles Trippy; wpgpeanut; and Kevin Nalty. Yet another took place in Washington D.C. on September 8, 2007. Another two gatherings are planed by smpfilms at the beginning of 2008.[94]

The Economy of YouTube
Before being purchased by Google, YouTube declared that its business model was advertisement-based, making 15 million dollars per month. Some industry commentators have speculated that YouTube's running costs – specifically the bandwidth required – may be as high as 5 to 6 million USD per month,[95] thereby fueling criticisms that the company, like many Internet startups, did not have a viably implemented business model. Advertisements were launched on the site beginning in March 2006. In April, YouTube started using Google AdSense[citation needed]. YouTube subsequently stopped using AdSense but has resumed in local regions.

Advertising is YouTube's central mechanism for gaining revenue. This issue has also been taken up in scientific analysis. Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams argue in their book Wikinomics that YouTube is an example for an economy that is based on mass collaboration and makes use of the Internet. "Whether your business is closer to Boeing or P&G, or more like YouTube or flickr, there are vast pools of external talent that you can tap with the right approach. Companies that adopt these models can drive important changes in their industries and rewrite the rules of competition"[96] "new business models for open content will not come from traditional media establishments, but from companies such as Google, Yahoo, and YouTube. This new generation of companies is not burned by the legacies that inhibit the publishing incumbents, so they can be much more agile in responding to customer demands. More important, they understand that you don't need to control the quantity and destiny of bits if they can provide compelling venues in which people build communities around sharing and remixing content. Free content is just the lure on which they layer revenue from advertising and premium services".[97]

Tapscott and Williams argue that it is important for new media companies to find ways of how to make profit with the help of peer-produced content. The new Internet economy that they term Wikinomics would be based on the principles of openness, peering, sharing, and acting globally. Companies could make use of these principles in order to gain profit with the help of Web 2.0 applications: “Companies can design and assemble products with their customers, and in some cases customers can do the majority of the value creation”.[98] Tapscott and Williams argue that the outcome will be an economic democracy.

There are other views in the scientific debate that agree with Tapscott and Williams that value creation is increasingly based on harnessing open source/content, networking, sharing, and peering, but that argue that the result is not an economic democracy, but a subtle form and deepening of exploitation, in which labour costs are reduced by Internet-based global outsourcing.

Video rankings

An example of rating, honors, and other information on a videoYouTube awards videos with honors, the most popular of which is "most viewed"[99] which are divided into four categories: today, this week, this month and all time. Honors include:

Most Viewed topped by Judson Laipply's Evolution of Dance
Top Rated
Most Discussed
Top Favorites
Most Linked
Recently Featured
Most Responded

YouTube Video Awards
Starting in 2006, YouTube has presented the annual YouTube Video Awards. Categories include "'most adorable' video ever" and "most creative." YouTube nominates the contenders, and users decide the winners. Only original, user created videos are nominated. Nominees for the 2006 awards included Peter Oakley (geriatric1927), LonelyGirl15, thewinekone, Renetto and Chad Vader.[100][101]

2006 Awards:[102]

Most Creative - Here It Goes Again OK Go
Best Comedy - Smosh Short 2: Stranded Smosh
Best Commentary - Hotness Prevails / Worst Video Ever thewinekone
Best Series - Ask A Ninja digtalfilmmaker
Best Music Video - Say It's Possible Terra Naomi
Most Inspirational - Free Hugs Campaign PeaceOnEarth123
Most Adorable - Kiwi Madyeti47

America's Next Top Model

2008-01-22T08:23:00.000-08:00

America's Next Top Model (often shortened to Top Model or abbreviated as ANTM) is a reality television show created and hosted by television personality, former supermodel and talk-show host, Tyra Banks, who also serves as the lead judge and executive producer of the show. The first "cycle" premiered in May 2003 and was one of UPN's highest rated shows. The show's seventh cycle was the first of the shows among regular programming on UPN's successor network, The CW, and thus far is the network's highest rated series.[2][3] The show will continue until at least the 2009-10 season.[4] The opening theme is performed by Tyra Banks and is produced by Rodney "Darkchild" Jerkins. Banks co-produces the show with Ken Mok and Anthony Dominici.[5] For the 2006-2007 television season, ANTM was the #1 show in average viewers on The CW.[6]

Show format
Each season of America's Next Top Model has from 9-13 episodes and starts with 10-14 contestants. Each episode, one contestant is eliminated, though in rare cases a double elimination or no elimination was given by consensus of the judging panel. Makeovers are administered to contestants early in the season (usually after the first or second elimination in the finals), and a trip to an international destination is scheduled at about two-thirds of the way through the season (usually with five or six contestants remaining).

Each episode of Top Model covers the events of roughly a week of real time (however, while overseas, an episode roughly covers three to four days, totaling two weeks of filming abroad), and features a fashion challenge, photo shoot or commercial, a critique of each contestant and her performance by the judging panel led by Tyra Banks, and the elimination of one or more contestants. As of Cycle 10, the current panel will include fashion photographer Nigel Barker, runway coach J. Alexander and Czech supermodel Paulina Porizkova. [7]. Previous judges included fashion icon Twiggy, supermodel Janice Dickinson, fashion stylist Nolé Marin, designer Kimora Lee Simmons and fashion editors Beau Quillian and Eric Nicholson. Photo shoot director Jay Manuel, though not a permanent judge, is featured every episode. Usually, an additional guest judge will sit in on the panel every week. Each episode is usually associated with a theme in the world of modeling, such as dealing with the press in interviews, selling a commercial product, appearing in a runway show or going on "go sees".

An episode usually begins with the contestants receiving training in an area concurrent with the week's theme. For example, contestants may get coached in runway walking, improvisational acting, or applying make-up to suit various occasions. A related challenge soon follows, such as a mock runway show or interview, and a winner is chosen by a judge. She receives some prize, such as clothing, a night out, or an advantage at the next photo shoot, and she is usually allowed to share the benefits with a certain number of other contestants of her choice.

The next segment is a photo shoot, and each contestant's performance will reflect heavily on her judging for that week. Each season features photo shoots such as bikini or lingerie shots, beauty shots, posing nude or semi-nude, posing with a male model, and posing with animal(s). Usually one photo shoot per season (excluding Cycle 4) is replaced with a commercial shoot, though in Cycles 2 and 9, a photo shoot was replaced by a music video for Tyra Banks and Enrique Iglesias respectively.

The final segment of each episode is judging. During judging, contestants are often given a challenge in some area such as posing, selling a product, runway walking, or choosing a representative outfit or make-up to satisfy a given prompt, known as a pre-evaluation task. Each contestant's photo is then shown and evaluated by the judging panel. After all photos have been evaluated, the contestants leave the room as the judges deliberate. The elimination process is ceremonious, as Tyra reveals and hands out the photos of the contestants that have not been eliminated one-by-one, in order of merit, each time saying, "Congratulations. You are still in the running towards becoming America's Next Top Model". The last two contestants who have not received their photos are brought up as "the bottom two", and Tyra critiques each one before revealing which of the two has been eliminated. However, there have been three exceptions, as Cycle 4 had a double elimination, Cycle 5 had a non-elimination, and in Cycle 9, the original eliminee was saved by another contestant's decision to quit.

The format varies slightly when only three contestants remain. With the exception of Cycles 1 and 2 where there were no commercials, the three remaining contestants compete in one last photo shoot and commercial for CoverGirl, followed by a judging session in which the judges eliminate the contestant they feel to be the weakest. The final two then compete in a runway show in front of the judges and a live audience, before both their performances there and during the entire competition is considered when the judges declare a winner.

ANTM Crossovers
Kim Stolz and Furonda Brasfield were given a small guest-starring role on episodes of Veronica Mars. Kim and Furonda's roles were cameos in the same series.
CariDee English (Cycle 7), who won the acting challenge in Episode 9, guest-starred in an episode of the series One Tree Hill. More recently, she guest-starred in an episode of Gossip Girl.
For Cycle 8, the acting-themed episode had Tia Mowry of CW's The Game give the girls a crash course in acting, although the "crossover" was limited to Mowry's appearance, as the challenge winner was not given a guest role as a prize. However, Natasha Galkina won a correspondent job for The Tyra Banks Show

ANTM with The CW
It was announced on January 24, 2006, that Top Model would be part of the new The CW network, a merger between UPN and The WB, when the next cycle started in September airing on Wednesdays. Prior to the announcement of merging with The CW, UPN had committed to renewing the series through its ninth cycle on January 20, 2006, [8] for which casting was conducted throughout mid-2006.

ANTM Writers' Labor Dispute
On July 21, 2006, the writers of America's Next Top Model went on strike while working on Cycle 7, set to premiere on the new CW Network in September 2006. The writers sought representation through the Writers Guild of America, west, which would allow them regulated wages, access to portable health insurance, and pension benefits. These benefits would be similar to those given to writers on scripted shows. The strike was the focus of a large rally of Hollywood writers coinciding with the premiere of the new network on September 20, 2006.[9] The dispute was chronicled in a July 24 interview on the website Television Without Pity with Daniel J. Blau, a former TWoP recapper who covered the series, and at the time was an ANTM show producer.[10] In November 2006, the writers on strike were taken off payroll.[11]

Criticism
Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld, commenting on ANTM and Project Runway in the September 2006 issue of Harper's Bazaar, slammed it as "trash that is funny for five minutes if you're with other people. If you're alone, it's not funny. Those girls will never be the next Gemma Ward. There is no justice in the fashion business." Ironically, Ward was discovered while as an audience member in Australia's Search for a Supermodel, a similarly-themed model reality show. Lagerfeld served as a photographer for the French version of ANTM.[12]

Allure magazine criticized the show in its October 2006 issue, saying that ANTM "hasn't exactly produced any actual supermodels." Compared to ANTM, participants in American Idol are thought to have a better chance at a good career in their field, even if they don't actually win the contest.[13]

Ken Mok and Tyra Banks noticed that Cycle 8's girls were unusually heavy smokers. "Tyra and I understand the influence 'Top Model' has on a generation of young people, and we want to make sure we get the right message to our audience," Mok said, which then prompted the "Green" theme of Cycle 9.[14]

After Saleisha Stowers' win in Cycle 9, there has been controversy regarding her eligibility to appear on the show. The rules state that a contestant must not have appeared as a model in a national advertising campaign during the last five years. There is debate among viewers of the show over whether Stowers' 2006 commercial for Wendy's could be considered an advertising campaign, and whether her past experience as a model and connections with Tyra Banks could be considered unfair advantages. Other viewers reason that many past contestants, including Jaslene Gonzalez, had some experience in modeling before being on the show. The CW said in a statement that Stowers did disclose her participation in the Wendy's spot, and "after reviewing the commercial, it was determined that her appearance did not amount to "modeling" experience, and therefore did not exclude her from participating in the show."

Bleach (manga)

2008-01-22T08:22:00.000-08:00

Bleach (ブリーチ, Burīchi?, romanized as BLEACH in Japan) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Tite Kubo that has appeared in Weekly Shonen Jump magazine since August 2001.

Bleach follows the adventures of Ichigo Kurosaki, a high school student with the ability to see ghosts, and Rukia Kuchiki, a shinigami (Soul Reaper or, literally, "death god"). The early parts of the story focus mainly on the characters. As events unfold, the story begins to delve deeper into the world of these gods of death.

The manga series has been adapted into an animated television series, two OVAs, two animated feature films, a rock musical, numerous video games and a TCG (Trading Card Game). Compilation volumes of the manga have sold over 40 million copies in Japan, and have reached the top of manga sales charts in the United States. The manga received the Shogakukan Manga Award for shōnen in 2005,[1] and the anime has been nominated for several American Anime Awards.

Introduction
See also: List of Bleach chapters and List of Bleach episodes

Ichigo facing an attacking hollow, Fishbone D.The story opens with the sudden appearance of Rukia Kuchiki, in Ichigo Kurosaki's bedroom. She is surprised at his ability to see her, but their resulting conversation is interrupted by the appearance of a hollow, an evil spirit. After Rukia is severely wounded while trying to protect Ichigo, she intends to transfer half her powers to Ichigo, hoping to give him the opportunity to face the hollow on equal footing. Ichigo unintentionally absorbs almost all her powers instead, allowing him to defeat the hollow with ease.

The next day, Rukia appears in Ichigo's classroom as a transfer student. Much to his surprise, she appears to be a normal human. She theorizes that it was the unusual strength of Ichigo's spirit that caused him to absorb almost all her powers, thus leaving her stranded in the human world. Rukia has transferred herself into a gigai — an artificial human body — while waiting to recover her abilities. In the meantime, Ichigo must take over her job as a shinigami, battling hollows and guiding lost souls to Soul Society.

[edit] Characters
All Bleach characters are "souls". Living humans contain souls within their bodies, while disembodied souls, or spirits, have a form composed of particles of spiritual energy called ectoplasm (霊子, reishi?), which otherwise mimics human anatomy, aside from slowed aging. This form encompasses all of the spirit's being; there is no distinction between spirit and body. There are a variety of different types of spirits in Bleach, each with a different visual theme and approach to combat.

In addition to being a world of several species with supernatural ability, Bleach also has a great variety of characters, personalities, as well as power. At the beginning, the story focused largely on Ichigo and his beginnings as a soul reaper in his hometown of Karakura. Later on, the story centered around not only on Ichigo and his friends, but also a myriad of shinigami. Unlike the modern description of a "death god," the shinigami in Bleach have very eccentric characters with such variety that are only matched on how each of them look. Most of them play significant roles in Ichigo's quest to protect his loved ones and friends as well as providing motives for Ichigo's increasing power to truly be his namesake; "the one who protects."

[edit] Main characters
See also: List of Bleach characters
Ichigo Kurosaki (黒崎一護, Kurosaki Ichigo?) Voiced by: Masakazu Morita (Japanese), Johnny Yong Bosch (English)
The primary protagonist of Bleach, orange haired high school junior Ichigo Kurosaki is forced to become a substitute shinigami after unwittingly absorbing most of Rukia's powers. His cynical nature at first makes him ill-disposed towards the duty, but with the passage of time he comes to accept and welcome it, recognizing that even if he is not able to save everyone, he can at least use his skills to protect those close to him.
Rukia Kuchiki (朽木ルキア, Kuchiki Rukia?) Voiced by: Fumiko Orikasa (Japanese), Michelle Ruff (English)
Rukia Kuchiki is a cool-tempered shinigami who was sent on a hollow extermination patrol in Ichigo Kurosaki's hometown. Though her physical appearance is that of a teenage girl, in reality she is around 150 years old. Rukia is forced to transfer her power to Ichigo and assume a temporary lifestyle as a regular human. She registers at the local high school and takes up residence in Ichigo's closet, while teaching him how to be a substitute shinigami in her place.
Orihime Inoue (井上織姫, Inoue Orihime?) Voiced by: Yuki Matsuoka (Japanese), Stephanie Sheh (English)
Orihime Inoue is a long-time classmate of Ichigo, closely linked to him by mutual friend Tatsuki Arisawa. She is effectively an orphan, as she and her elder brother Sora ran away from their abusive home at a young age, and her brother later died. Though initially devoid of spiritual powers, she begins to develop spiritual awareness and later obtains one of the most powerful healing abilities in the Bleach universe, able to completely restore a body to its previous state regardless of how severely it is wounded.
Yasutora "Chad" Sado (茶渡泰虎, Sado Yasutora?) Voiced by: Hiroki Yasumoto (Japanese), Jamieson Price (English)
Yasutora Sado, better known as Chad, is one of Ichigo's few friends at school. He is a biracial (Japanese/Mexican) student who towers over his classmates. Despite his imposing appearance he is quite meek, and refuses to fight unless it is for the sake of another. He does not have awareness of ghosts at first, but this changes when he witnesses a group of children being attacked by a hollow. He discovers a unique ability that strengthens and armors one of his arms, enabling him to fight hollows. He later develops the ability to shoot energy from his armored arm.
Kisuke Urahara (浦原喜助, Urahara Kisuke?) Voiced by: Shinichiro Miki (Japanese), Michael Lindsay (English)
A mysterious and cheery man characterized by his hat that shadows his eyes and the sandals he wears, Kisuke Urahara runs the Urahara Shop, a candy store that also sells supernatural items to shinigami. Despite his sanguine nature he is one of the most significant figures in the Bleach universe, bearing immense knowledge of the spiritual realms which he uses to mastermind the operations of the protagonists.
Uryū Ishida (石田雨竜, Ishida Uryū?) Voiced by: Noriaki Sugiyama (Japanese), Derek Stephen Prince (English)
Though on the surface nothing more than the solitary class genius, Uryū Ishida is actually a Quincy, descendant of a line of priest-like hollow-hunting archers. He bears a deep grudge against all shinigami, including Ichigo, but comes to view Ichigo differently over time, eventually becoming an ally and friendly rival.
Renji Abarai (阿散井恋次, Abarai Renji?) Voiced by: Kentarō Itō (Japanese), Wally Wingert (English)
Renji Abarai is an elite shinigami bearing the rank of 6th Division lieutenant, making him second in command of a sub-branch of the shinigami armed forces. Although first introduced as a deadly enemy, he has conflicting loyalties between his duties and Rukia, whom he grew up with. A rash and driven man, he holds both a deep respect and animosity towards his immediate superior, 6th Division captain Byakuya Kuchiki.

[edit] Character types
Human: The humans of Bleach are much like the residents of modern Japan, and most cannot see or sense disembodied spirits in any way. Spirits can, however, inhabit artificial human bodies called gigai which are visible to ordinary humans. One in 50,000 humans is a medium with some awareness of nearby spirits, but only a third of these are able to see them clearly, and only the strongest of mediums are able to speak with or touch spirits.[2] Certain unique humans naturally have both the power to sense and the strength to fight with spirits. Ordinary humans can gain the ability to interact with spirits by spending time around a large source of spirit energy.[3]
Plus: Benign spirits in Bleach are known as pluses (wholes in the official English editions). A plus is the spirit of a person who has died.[4] A chain, known as the Chain of Fate (因果の鎖, inga no kusari?), protrudes from the chest and binds the plus to a location, object or person that they felt close to in life.[5] The soul can move about freely if the chain is broken, but this also causes the chain to corrode.[5] Normally, pluses are sent to Soul Society by shinigami in a ritual called soul burial (魂葬, konsō?) before this corrosion becomes significant. If the Chain of Fate is corroded entirely before a soul burial can be performed, a hole will form in the chest of the soul where the chain was once anchored. Such souls are driven mad and become evil spirits known as hollows.[5] If the Chain of Fate is torn out deliberately, this also leads to spiritual degradation.[6]
Shinigami: Shinigami (Soul Reapers in the official English editions, Death Gods in most subtitled versions) are the psychopomps of Bleach. They are souls with inner spiritual power, recruited from the ranks of the residents and nobility of Soul Society. Like all spirits, they cannot be detected by normal humans. Shinigami use their zanpakutō, supernatural swords that are the manifestation of their owners' power, to perform soul burials on pluses.[4] Shinigami also use zanpakutō and magic known as kidō to fight their archrivals, the hollows.[4] A group of shinigami known as the vizard have obtained hollow powers, gaining removable masks and access to certain hollow abilities.
Hollow: The hollows are the major antagonists of Bleach. They are evil spirits who reside in Hueco Mundo but travel to the living world to feed on the souls of the living and dead alike. Like shinigami, hollows are made of spiritual matter and cannot be detected by ordinary humans. While the majority of hollows can be overcome by the average shinigami, there are some which surpass even the most elite shinigami in strength. All normal hollows wear white masks,[5] but a small group of hollows have broken them, becoming arrancar. By shattering their masks, these hollows regain the ability to reason, sometimes obtain a humanoid form, and gain access to shinigami powers.[7]

Quincy with their distinctive bows.Quincy: The Quincy are a clan of spiritually aware humans who once fought against the hollows, using bows composed of spiritual energy to slay them.[8] As opposed to shinigami, Quincy absorb and channel energy from their surroundings to fight.[9] Unlike the shinigami method of killing hollows which allows the hollow to enter Soul Society, the Quincy technique simply destroys the hollow's soul entirely.[8] This method has the propensity to shatter the balance of the universe, because when souls are destroyed, the number of souls entering and leaving Soul Society cannot remain equal.[10] This issue prompted the shinigami to conduct a campaign to exterminate the Quincy about 200 years before the main storyline.[11] At least two Quincy still remain.
Artificial soul: Artificial souls (Also known as Modified Souls, or Mod Souls) are a type of soul mass-produced by the shinigami.[12] Issued in pill form, they are used to force shinigami out of their gigai during protracted stays in the living world, and also to evict pluses that refuse to leave their bodies after death.[12] They come with a pre-programmed personality that animates the host body until the owner returns.[12] In addition to the mundane versions, a series of experimental souls authorized and created by shinigami researchers exists.[13] Known as modified souls, these were meant to hunt hollows by possessing soulless human bodies and supercharging a particular aspect of them (for example, strength or speed).[13] The shinigami decided to scrap the project due to the inhumanity of forcing dead bodies to fight, and ordered the destruction of all modified souls.[13] Only one modified soul exists in the manga (Kon), but there are three more such characters in the anime.
Bount: Exclusive to the anime, the Bounts are a clan of human beings with high spiritual energy and special powers. They were accidentally created by shinigami scientists looking for a way to create eternal life. Bounts consume the souls of human beings to survive; theoretically, a Bount could live forever by doing so. Although the Bounts have a strict rule to consume only the souls of the dead, the final group of Bounts chose to drain souls from living humans in order to become more powerful. Each Bount uses a "doll" in combat, a type of familiar possessing its own special abilities. Every doll is unique and is a manifestation of the user's power. If the doll is destroyed, its owner is destroyed as well.

[edit] Setting

A view of Seireitei in Soul Society.The planes of existence in the Bleach universe broadly correspond to the life and afterlife of human belief systems. The living humans of Bleach reside in a world resembling present-day Japan; buried souls live in a kind of Heaven called Soul Society; evil souls are sent to Hell. Once in Soul Society, a spirit is able to live longer than humans in the living world, with many aging into the thousands of years. Once a spirit dies in Soul Society, its soul is sent back to the living world and reborn as a new human. This provides the two worlds with balance.

Human world: The human world of Bleach is modern Japan, specifically, a fictional area of Western Tokyo called Karakura Town.[14] In this world, Ichigo attends school and fights hollows. Places of note are the high school, the Urahara Shop, the river where Ichigo's mother was killed, the cemetery, Karakura Hospital, and Ichigo and Orihime's homes.
Soul Society: Soul Society consists of an expansive walled city Seireitei (瀞霊廷, Court of Pure Souls?), in the center and four regions, each with 80 districts, outside of it. The districts outside of the Seireitei are known as the Rukongai (流魂街, Town of Wandering Spirits?) and are the place where non-shinigami and commoners live.[15] The district number of the Rukongai (ranging from 1 to 80) also describes its conditions.[16] District 1, the closest to Seireitei, is peaceful and orderly, while the most distant District 80 is filled with criminals and has the poorest living conditions.[16] A king resides in another realm within Soul Society. [17]
Hueco Mundo: Hueco Mundo is the area between the human world and Soul Society. Literally meaning "hollow world" (the word hueco can also mean "hole"), it is where hollows reside, and are undetectable as long as they remain inside. Entrances to Hueco Mundo are created by ripping the dimensional fabric between the two worlds. Hueco Mundo is divided into three sections. On the surface is a desert-like realm, held in perpetual nighttime and home to the strongest hollows and the Las Noches palace. Directly underneath is the Forest of Menos, home to general menos and almost all the Gillian. A third layer, below the Forest of Menos, is explored in the anime, but is only mentioned in the manga. [18]

Gates of HellHell: Hell is the destination of those who committed unforgivably evil acts during their lives in the human world. When a hollow whose mortal soul is too wicked to enter Soul Society is slain by a zanpakutō, the gates of hell (giant doors held by skeletons) appear and begin to open. A giant, laughing spiritual being with a blade spears the wicked spirit and drags it into hell.[19]
Bleach characters move from world to world by several means. Shinigami open passages between worlds by means of their zanpakutō. Butterflies created during soul burial, called hell butterflies (地獄蝶, jigoku-chō?), make these routes safe. Human souls usually cross between planes only through birth into the human world or soul burial by shinigami. Living humans can also use special portals to move between worlds, but this is dangerous. While hollows are portrayed as able to move between planes at will by opening rifts in space, they usually remain in Hueco Mundo due to the risk of discovery in Soul Society or the human world. Encounters between characters crossing realms are a driving plot force in Bleach.

[edit] Media information
Main article: Bleach media and materials
Since its first appearance in August 2001, the Bleach manga has appeared weekly in Shueisha's Shonen Jump magazine. Shueisha also compiles the chapters into bimonthly tankōbon volumes.

The Bleach animated TV series is broadcast on Wednesdays by TV Tokyo and affiliated stations throughout Japan. It is co-produced by TV Tokyo, Dentsu and Studio Pierrot and directed by Noriyuki Abe, with character designs by Masashi Kudō and music by Shiro Sagisu.[20] The series premiered on October 5, 2004. The first 63 episodes were based on the manga, and they were followed by 46 original episodes. Beginning with episode 110, the anime has returned to the manga storyline, incorporating elements from the filler episodes. In addition, two OVAs have been produced and an animated film, Bleach: Memories of Nobody, premiered in Japan on December 16, 2006. The second Bleach film, Bleach: The DiamondDust Rebellion, was released on December 22, 2007.[21]

Viz Media has released 21 English-language volumes of the manga in North America, and numerous scanlation groups continue to release unofficial English translations of new chapters.

On March 15, 2006, Viz Media obtained foreign television, home video, and merchandising rights to the Bleach anime from the TV Tokyo Corporation and Shueisha.[22] Subsequently, Viz Media contracted Studiopolis to create the English dub of the anime,[23] and has licensed its individual Bleach merchandising rights to several different companies.[24]

The English version of the Bleach anime premiered on Canada's YTV channel in the Bionix program block on September 8, 2006. Cartoon Network's Adult Swim began airing Bleach the following evening. As of October 20, 2007, the show is on hiatus on Adult Swim, being replaced with another Viz series, Death Note. However, on November 10, 2007 at a Tandokucon panel, Kyle Hebert stated that they had fallen behind on their dubbing schedule, and that the show should be returning as soon as Death Note finishes its run. According to Adult Swim's T.V. schedule new episodes of Bleach will return on March 1, 2008 at 21:00 EST. In the UK, Bleach premieres new episodes every day at 21:00 on AnimeCentral, premiering episode one on September 13, 2007.

[edit] Reception
This short section requires expansion.

The first volume of the manga has sold over 1.25 million copies in Japan,[25] and the manga series as a whole has sold over 40 million volumes.[26] In 2005, Bleach was awarded the prestigious Shogakukan Manga Award in the shōnen category.[27]

In a 2006 internet poll by TV Asahi, Bleach was ranked as Japan's seventh-favorite anime program.[28]

North American sales of the manga have been high, with Volume 16 placing in the top 10 graphic novel sales in December 2006[29] and Volume 17 being the best-selling manga volume for the month of February 2007.[30][31]

The English version of Bleach was nominated for the "best manga" and "best theme" awards at the 2006 American Anime Awards, but did not win either category. It was nominated again in 2007 in the fields of "best manga", "best actor", "best DVD package design", and "best theme", but failed to win any awards.[32]

Hypertext Transfer Protocol

2008-01-22T08:21:00.000-08:00

Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is a communications protocol used to transfer or convey information on intranets and the World Wide Web. Its original purpose was to provide a way to publish and retrieve hypertext pages. Development of HTTP was coordinated by the W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) and the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force), culminating in the publication of a series of RFCs, most notably RFC 2616 (June 1999), which defines HTTP/1.1, the version of HTTP in common use.

HTTP is a request/response protocol between a client and a server. The client making an HTTP request—such as a web browser, spider, or other end-user tool—is referred to as the user agent. The responding server—which stores or creates resources such as HTML files and images—is called the origin server. In between the user agent and origin server may be several intermediaries, such as proxies, gateways, and tunnels. HTTP is not constrained to using TCP/IP and its supporting layers, although this is its most popular application on the Internet. Indeed HTTP can be "implemented on top of any other protocol on the Internet, or on other networks. HTTP only presumes a reliable transport; any protocol that provides such guarantees can be used."

Typically, an HTTP client initiates a request by establishing a Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection to a particular port on a host (port 80 by default; see List of TCP and UDP port numbers). An HTTP server listening on that port waits for the client to send a request message.

Upon receiving the request, the server sends back a status line, such as "HTTP/1.1 200 OK", and a message of its own, the body of which is perhaps the requested file, an error message, or some other information.

Resources to be accessed by HTTP are identified using Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) (or, more specifically, Uniform Resource Locators (URLs)) using the http: or https URI schemes.

Request Message
The request message consists of the following:

Request line, such as GET /images/logo.gif HTTP/1.1, which requests the file logo.gif from the /images directory
Headers, such as Accept-Language: en
An empty line
An optional message body
The request line and headers must all end with (that is, a carriage return followed by a line feed). The empty line must consist of only and no other whitespace. In the HTTP/1.1 protocol, all headers except Host are optional.

[edit] Request Methods
HTTP defines eight methods (sometimes referred to as "verbs") indicating the desired action to be performed on the identified resource.

HEAD
Asks for the response identical to the one that would correspond to a GET request, but without the response body. This is useful for retrieving meta-information written in response headers, without having to transport the entire content.
GET
Requests a representation of the specified resource. By far the most common method used on the Web today. Should not be used for operations that cause side-effects (using it for actions in web applications is a common misuse). See 'safe methods' below.
POST
Submits data to be processed (e.g. from an HTML form) to the identified resource. The data is included in the body of the request. This may result in the creation of a new resource or the updates of existing resources or both.
PUT
Uploads a representation of the specified resource.
DELETE
Deletes the specified resource.
TRACE
Echoes back the received request, so that a client can see what intermediate servers are adding or changing in the request.
OPTIONS
Returns the HTTP methods that the server supports. This can be used to check the functionality of a web server.
CONNECT
Converts the request connection to a transparent TCP/IP tunnel, usually to facilitate SSL-encrypted communication (HTTPS) through an unencrypted HTTP proxy.[1]
HTTP servers are supposed to implement at least the GET and HEAD methods and, whenever possible, also the OPTIONS method.

[edit] Safe Methods
Some methods (e.g. HEAD, GET, OPTIONS, and TRACE) are defined as safe, which means they are intended only for information retrieval and should not change the state of the server (in other words, they should not have side effects). Unsafe methods (such as POST, PUT and DELETE) should be displayed to the user in a special way, typically as buttons rather than links, thus making the user aware of possible obligations (such as a button that causes a financial transaction).

Despite the required safety of GET requests, in practice they can cause changes on the server. For example, a Web server may use the retrieval through a simple hyperlink to initiate deletion of a domain database record, thus causing a change of the server's state as a side-effect of a GET request. This is discouraged, because it can cause problems for Web caching, search engines and other automated agents, which can make unintended changes on the server. Another case is that a GET request may cause the server to create a cache space.

[edit] Idempotent Methods and Web Applications
Methods PUT and DELETE are defined to be idempotent, meaning that multiple identical requests should have the same effect as a single request. Methods GET, HEAD, OPTIONS and TRACE, being safe, are inherently idempotent.

The RFC allows a user-agent, such as a browser to assume that any idempotent request can be retried without informing the user. This is done to improve the user experience when connecting to unresponsive or heavily-loaded web servers.

However, note that the idempotence is not assured by the protocol or web server. It is perfectly possible to write a web application in which (e.g.) a database insert or update is triggered by a GET request - this would be a very normal example of what the spec refers to as "a change in server state."

This misuse of GET can combine with the retry behavior above to produce erroneous transactions - and for this reason GET should be avoided for anything transactional - and used, as intended, for document retrieval only.

[edit] HTTP Versions
HTTP has evolved into multiple, mostly backwards-compatible protocol versions. RFC 2145 describes the use of HTTP version numbers. The client tells in the beginning of the request the version it uses, and the server uses the same or earlier version in the response.

0.9
Deprecated. Supports only one command, GET, which does not specify the HTTP version. Does not support headers. Since this version does not support POST, the client cannot pass much information to the server.
HTTP/1.0 (May 1996)
This is the first protocol revision to specify its version in communications and is still in wide use, especially by proxy servers.
HTTP/1.1 (June 1999)[2][3]
Current version; persistent connections enabled by default and works well with proxies. Also supports request pipelining, allowing multiple requests to be sent at the same time, allowing the server to prepare for the workload and potentially transfer the requested resources more quickly to the client.
HTTP/1.2
The initial 1995 working drafts of the document PEP — an Extension Mechanism for HTTP (which proposed the Protocol Extension Protocol, abbreviated PEP) were prepared by the World Wide Web Consortium and submitted to the Internet Engineering Task Force. PEP was originally intended to become a distinguishing feature of HTTP/1.2.[4] In later PEP working drafts, however, the reference to HTTP/1.2 was removed. The experimental RFC 2774, HTTP Extension Framework, largely subsumed PEP. It was published in February 2000.

[edit] Status Codes
See also: List of HTTP status codes
In HTTP/1.0 and since, the first line of the HTTP response is called the status line and includes a numeric status code (such as "404") and a textual reason phrase (such as "Not Found"). The way the user agent handles the response primarily depends on the code and secondarily on the response headers. Custom status codes can be used since, if the user agent encounters a code it does not recognize, it can use the first digit of the code to determine the general class of the response.[5]

Also, the standard reason phrases are only recommendations and can be replaced with "local equivalents" at the web developer's discretion. If the status code indicated a problem, the user agent might display the reason phrase to the user to provide further information about the nature of the problem. The standard also allows the user agent to attempt to interpret the reason phrase, though this might be unwise since the standard explicitly specifies that status codes are machine-readable and reason phrases are human-readable.

[edit] Persistent Connections
Main article: HTTP persistent connections
In HTTP/0.9 and 1.0, the connection is closed after a single request/response pair. In HTTP/1.1 a keep-alive-mechanism was introduced, where a connection could be reused for more than one request.

Such persistent connections reduce lag perceptibly, because the client does not need to re-negotiate the TCP connection after the first request has been sent.

Version 1.1 of the protocol made bandwidth optimization improvements to HTTP/1.0. For example, HTTP/1.1 introduced chunked transfer encoding to allow content on persistent connections to be streamed, rather than buffered. HTTP pipelining further reduces lag time, allowing clients to send multiple requests before a previous response has been received to the first one. Another improvement to the protocol was byte serving, which is when a server transmits just the portion of a resource explicitly requested by a client.

[edit] HTTP session state
HTTP is a stateless protocol. The advantage of a stateless protocol is that hosts do not need to retain information about users between requests, but this forces web developers to use alternative methods for maintaining users' states. For example, when a host would like to customize content for a user while visiting a website, the web application must be written to track the user's progress from page to page. A common method for solving this problem involves sending and requesting cookies. Other methods include server side sessions, hidden variables (when current page is a form), and URL encoded parameters (such as /index.php?userid=3).

[edit] Secure HTTP
There are currently two methods of establishing a secure HTTP connection: the https URI scheme and the HTTP 1.1 Upgrade header, introduced by RFC 2817. Browser support for the Upgrade header is, however, nearly non-existent, hence the https URI scheme is still the dominant method of establishing a secure HTTP connection.

[edit] HTTPS URI Scheme
Main article: HTTPS
HTTPS: is a URI scheme syntactically identical to the http: scheme used for normal HTTP connections, but which signals the browser to use an added encryption layer of SSL/TLS to protect the traffic. SSL is especially suited for HTTP since it can provide some protection even if only one side of the communication is authenticated. This is the case with HTTP transactions over the Internet, where typically only the server is authenticated (by the client examining the server's certificate).

[edit] HTTP 1.1 Upgrade header
HTTP 1.1 introduced support for the Upgrade header. In the exchange, the client begins by making a clear-text request, which is later upgraded to TLS. Either the client or the server may request (or demand) that the connection be upgraded. The most common usage is a clear-text request by the client followed by a server demand to upgrade the connection, which looks like this:

Client:

GET /encrypted-area HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
Server:

HTTP/1.1 426 Upgrade Required
Upgrade: TLS/1.0, HTTP/1.1
Connection: Upgrade
The server returns a 426 status-code because 400 level codes indicate a client failure (see List of HTTP status codes), which correctly alerts legacy clients that the failure was client-related.

The benefits of using this method for establishing a secure connection are:

that it removes messy and problematic redirection and URL rewriting on the server side,
it allows virtual hosting (single IP, multiple domain-names) of secured websites, and
it reduces user confusion by providing a single way to access a particular resource.
A weakness with this method is that the requirement for secure HTTP cannot be specified in the URI. In practice, the (untrusted) server will thus be responsible for enabling secure HTTP, not the (trusted) client.

[edit] Sample
Below is a sample conversation between an HTTP client and an HTTP server running on www.example.com, port 80.

Client request (followed by a blank line, so that request ends with a double newline, each in the form of a carriage return followed by a line feed):

GET /index.html HTTP/1.1
Host: www.example.com
The "Host" header distinguishes between various DNS names sharing a single IP address, allowing name-based virtual hosting. While optional in HTTP/1.0, it is mandatory in HTTP/1.1.

Server response (followed by a blank line and text of the requested page):

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Mon, 23 May 2005 22:38:34 GMT
Server: Apache/1.3.3.7 (Unix) (Red-Hat/Linux)
Last-Modified: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 23:11:55 GMT
Etag: "3f80f-1b6-3e1cb03b"
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Content-Length: 438
Connection: close
Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8
The ETag (entity tag) header is used to determine if the URI cached is identical to the requested URI on the server. Content-Type specifies the Internet media type of the data conveyed by the http message, while Content-Length indicates its length in bytes. The HTTP/1.1 webserver publishes its ability to respond to requests for certain byte ranges of the document by setting the header Accept-Ranges: bytes. This is useful if the client needs to have only certain portions[6] of a file sent by the server, which is called byte serving. When Connection: close is sent in a header, it means that the web server will close the TCP connection immediately after the transfer of this package.

Vanessa Anne Hudgens

2008-01-22T08:20:00.000-08:00

Vanessa Anne Hudgens (born December 14, 1988), also known simply as Vanessa Hudgens, is an American actress and singer. She made her screen debut in 2003 and appeared in the Hollywood films Thirteen and Thunderbirds, before reaching fame in the 2006 hit Disney Channel film High School Musical. Hudgens also began a music career and released her debut album, entitled V, in 2006. In 2007, Hudgens became the spokesperson for Neutrogena.

Hudgens was born in Salinas, California, the daughter of Gina (née Guangco) and Greg Hudgens.[2][3] She has a younger sister, Stella Hudgens, who is also an actress. Hudgens's father is an American of Irish and Native American descent, and her mother, who grew up in Manila, is a Filipina of Spanish and Chinese ancestry.[3][4] Hudgens has been home-schooled since after her seventh-grade year at the Orange County High School of the Arts.[3]

Starting at the age of eight, Hudgens performed in musical theater as a singer, and appeared in local productions of Carousel, The Wizard of Oz, The King and I, The Music Man, and Cinderella, among others.[5] Hudgens successfully auditioned for a commercial and subsequently moved to Los Angeles with her family, with whom she is still close.

Career

Film and television
Hudgens began performing at an early age, appearing in musicals starting at age eight, by taking over a friend who couldn't go to the audition, and moved to Los Angeles after winning an audition for a commercial. She scored roles on shows such as Quintuplets, Cover Me, and Still Standing, then made her feature debut in Thirteen as Noel and appeared in the 2004 film Thunderbirds as Tintin. In both her first two films Hudgens appeared alongside Brady Corbet.

Her television appearances include guest roles on Quintuplets, Still Standing, The Brothers Garcia and The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, as Corrie, a classmate of Maddie and London. Hudgens also appeared on Drake & Josh, playing Drake's girlfriend, Rebecca.

Hudgens' largest role among teenage audiences has been starring in the Disney Channel movie High School Musical, which premiered in January 2006; BBC News said that the film's success turned Hudgens into a "household name" in North America.[6] Hudgens and Efron had won "Best Chemistry" award at the Teen Choice Awards for their roles.[7]

As a result of the film's popularity, Hudgens was offered a contract by Old Navy to appear in multiple commercials for the company. Hudgens had previously appeared in a swimwear commercial for the company in 2005.[8] She also appeared in a Blockbuster commercial for no late fees, as the teenage daughter. Also, Hudgens is set to be the new face of Neutrogena in 2007, appearing in both film and print ads. Hudgens is also an endorser of the Ecko line. Hudgens participated in the Disney Channel Games 2006, which was filmed in April 2006 and aired two months later.

Hudgens finished filming High School Musical 2 on April 13, 2007, in St. George and Salt Lake City, Utah. In both films, Hudgens stars as shy, intelligent Gabriella Montez. The film premiered on the Disney Channel on August 17, 2007. The first High School Musical spawned a hit soundtrack, a worldwide concert tour, a show at Walt Disney World, and even a book series that helped Hudgens land in Forbes magazine's list of top-earning stars under 21." In the list, the 18-year-old Hudgens was No. 7 with estimated earnings of $2 million.[9]

On January 11, 2008, The Hollywood Reporter announced that that Hudgens will star in the comedy, Will. Hudgens will play 15-year old Sam. The story is about an outcast, Sam, and a popular girl who develop mutual bond through their love of music. The duo gather up their friends to form a rock group to compete in the school's battle of the bands. Shooting is stated to start in Febuary in Austin, Texas. Hudgens will still be in the third installment of High School Musical, even while filming Will.[10]

V (2006-2007)
Hudgens' debut album, entitled V, was released in early September 2006. She is signed with Hollywood Records, a Disney-owned record label. A music video for her first single, "Come Back To Me", debuted after the world premiere of The Cheetah Girls 2 in late August. The official music video for her second single, "Say OK", was first shown following the premiere of Disney's Jump In! "Let Go" and "Let's Dance" have both been used in commercials for ABC, "Let Go" for a Desperate Housewives commercial,[11] and "Let's Dance" for Dancing With The Stars. "Say OK" has also been used in commercials for ABC Family's Lincoln Heights.

In August 2007 at the 2007 Teen Choice Awards, Hudgens was named the Choice Breakout Singer - Female, beating out other noteworthy nominees including American Idol contestant Katharine McPhee, Amy Winehouse, Corrine Bailey Rae and Lily Allen.[citation needed]

Second album (2008)
Hudgens has been seen stepping into the recording studio for work on her upcoming album which is expected to have a late May/early June release date. So far, two title tracks have been revealed - “Whisper” which is described as a sexy new style for Vanessa, and “It Feels Right”. Also, a song titled “I Will” which has been written by Hilary Duff has also been confirmed.[12]

Personal life
Hudgens confirmed in an interview with Teen Magazine that, as of October 2007, she was dating her High School Musical co-star Zac Efron.[13][14]

Photo scandal
On September 6, 2007, controversy erupted after nude photos of Hudgens surfaced online. A statement from her publicist claims that the photo was taken privately and it was "unfortunate" that they were released on the Internet.[15] Hudgens later apologized, saying that she was "embarrassed over the situation" and regretted having "taken [those] photos".[16] Disney Channel spokeswoman Patti McTeague indicated that Disney will still be working with Hudgens, stating, "Vanessa has apologized for what was obviously a lapse in judgment. We hope she's learned a valuable lesson."[17][18].

Filmography
Year Title Role Notes
2002 Still Standing Tiffany episode "Still Rocking"
Robbery Homicide Division Nicole at 10 episode "Had"
2003 Thirteen Noel
The Brothers Garcia Lindsey episode "New Tunes"
2004 Thunderbirds Tintin
2005 Quintuplets Carmen episode "Coconut Kapow"
2006 Drake & Josh Rebecca episode "Little Sibling"
The Suite Life of Zack & Cody Corrie 4 episodes
High School Musical Gabriella Montez made for television (Disney Channel).
2007 High School Musical 2 Gabriella Montez made for television (Disney Channel).
2008 Will Sa5m (the 5 is silent) pre-production
High School Musical 3 Gabriella Montez pre-production

Discography
Main article: Vanessa Anne Hudgens discography
2006:V

Concert tours
2006-2007: High School Musical: The Concert (Vanessa Anne Hudgens with High School Musical)

DVDs
2007: High School Musical: The Concert- Extreme Access Pass

Halo 3

2008-01-21T15:48:00.000-08:00

Halo 3 is a first-person shooter video game developed by Bungie Studios exclusively for the Xbox 360. The game is the third title in the Halo series and concludes the story arc that began in Halo: Combat Evolved and continued in Halo 2.[8] The game was released on September 25, 2007 in Australia, Brazil, India, New Zealand, North America, and Singapore;[4] September 26, 2007 in Europe; and September 27, 2007 in Japan. On the day before its official release, 4.2 million units of Halo 3 were in retail outlets.[9] Halo 3 holds the record for the highest grossing opening day in entertainment history, bringing in US$170 million in its first 24 hours,[10] going on to gross US$300 million in its first week.[11] More than one million people played Halo 3 on Xbox Live in the first twenty hours.[12] As of January 3, 2008, Halo 3 has sold 8.1 million copies,[13] and is the best-selling video game of 2007 in the U.S.[14]

Halo 3's story centers on the interstellar war between 26th century humanity, led by the United Nations Space Command, and a collection of alien races known as the Covenant. The player assumes the role of the Master Chief, a cybernetically enhanced supersoldier, as he wages war in defense of humanity, assisted by human Marines as well as allied alien Elites led by the Arbiter. The game features vehicles, weapons, and gameplay not present in previous titles of the series,[15] as well as the addition of saved gameplay films, the Forge map editor (which allows the player to perform unlimited modifications to levels), and file sharing. Overall, the game was well-received by critics, with the Forge and multiplayer offerings singled out as strong features; on Game Rankings, Halo 3 ranks as the sixth highest rated Xbox 360 game to date.[16]

Contents [hide]
1 Gameplay
1.1 Campaign
1.2 Multiplayer
2 Synopsis
2.1 Setting
2.2 Characters
2.3 Plot
3 Development
3.1 Graphics
3.2 Audio
3.3 Cast
4 Marketing and release
4.1 Leaks
4.2 Versions
4.3 Sales
5 Content for download
6 Critical reception and impact
6.1 Awards
7 References
8 External links

Gameplay

Master Chief aims his assault rifle at a group of Grunts. An activated Bubble Shield can be seen.The gameplay of Halo 3 builds upon the previous iterations of the franchise; it is a first-person shooter which takes place on foot, but also includes segments focused on vehicular combat. The balance of weapons and objects in the game was adjusted to better adhere to what Bungie Studios Multiplayer Designer Lars Bakken describes as the "Golden Triangle of Halo".[17] These are "weapons, grenades, and melee",[17] which are available to a player in most situations. Halo 3 contains the ability to dual-wield, where a player forgoes both grenades and melee attacks in favor of the combined firepower of two weapons simultaneously. Most weapons available in previous installments of the series return with minor cosmetic and power alterations. Unlike previous installments, all weapons a player is carrying are visible; weapons not in use are holstered or slung across the player's back.[18] Halo 3 introduces "support weapons", which are exceptionally large, powerful, and cumbersome two-handed weapons which drastically limit the player's normal combat options and slow them significantly, offering greatly increased firepower in return.[19] In addition to new weapons, the game contains a new class of usable items called Equipment;[20] these items are found like weapons and have various effects and functions, ranging from defensive screens to shield regeneration and enemy confusion. Only one piece of equipment can be carried at a time.[21] Like the previous games, Halo 3 features a strong vehicular component,[22] with new vehicles added to the series. Most of the vehicles can be controlled by the player, but some are A.I.-controlled. Certain vehicles usable in campaign are not available by default in multiplayer due to balance concerns;[23] conversely, some vehicles are only found in multiplayer.[24]

Besides refinements, Halo 3 also brings entirely new features to the series. One such feature, known as 'Forge', is a map-editing tool that enables players to insert game objects, such as weapons and crates, into existing multiplayer maps.[23] Almost all weapons, vehicles, and interactive objects can be placed and moved on maps with Forge.[25] Forge allows multiple players to work on maps at the same time, players can turn into a Forerunner Monitor and edit and manipulate objects in-game.[26] Another new feature is 'Saved films', which allows players to save up to 100 films of gameplay to their Xbox 360's hard drive,[27][28] viewing the action from any angle and at different speeds. The Saved Films are only game data (not an actual video) and this allows the file sizes to be smaller than a true recording. Saved films are played back at whatever resolution the Xbox 360 is currently set to, regardless of which resolution was used when the film was recorded. All games are recreated in real-time on the Xbox 360 using the Halo 3 engine.[29] Halo 3 offers a form of file sharing, where items such as saved films, screenshots, custom game modes, and Forge settings can all be uploaded to the 'File Share'. Anyone can browse user created content that has been uploaded to Bungie's website on a personal computer and tag it to automatically download to their console next time they sign into Xbox Live.[21][30]

Campaign
Halo 3's campaign contains nine levels, which complete the storyline of the Halo trilogy. The campaign can be played through alone, or played cooperatively with other players via Xbox Live or System Link.[31] Instead of having each player be an identical Spartan as in previous Halo games, the first player plays as Master Chief, the second player plays as the Arbiter and the other two players control two other Elites; N'tho 'Sraom and Usze 'Taham, each with their own backstories. No matter which character is played, each player has identical abilities.[31] A.I. behavior was improved over Halo 3's predecessors, occasionally drastically changing gameplay; for example, the behavior of enemy Brutes the player faces has been modified, giving them a "pack mentality" that causes the aliens to perform similar actions at the same time.[20][32] There are various Forerunner computer terminals hidden throughout the campaign which can be accessed and provide background storyline information.[33]

Halo 3's campaign features a scoring method called the "meta-game", which introduces a competitive aspect to cooperative play. Players are awarded points for defeating enemies while completing a level in the campaign. Extra points are awarded for certain actions (such as performing headshots or defeating multiple enemies in rapid succession), and are lost if the player dies or kills a cooperative team-mate. Hidden skulls (based on the Easter egg skulls in Halo 2) can be found on each level; these can be activated to cause changes in gameplay, such as giving the enemies extra health, changing in-game dialogue, or modifying the enemy behavior.[34] These skulls, as well as the difficulty level and the speed at which the level is completed, provide multipliers to the total score.[21] Players are awarded gamerscore points for successfully reaching a certain score in each level,[35] and medals are awarded for specific accomplishments.

Multiplayer
On a single console, up to two players can play campaign and up to four can participate in a versus multiplayer match through use of split screen. Through use of LAN or Xbox Live, up to four players can play together in campaign and up to sixteen can participate in versus multiplayer matches. (Each console must retain their respective split screen limitations.) A public beta test of the game's online multiplayer features, as well as saved films and file share, occurred between May 16, 2007 and June 10, 2007.[36]

Like other multiplayer Xbox 360 titles, Halo 3 uses a customized version of TrueSkill ranking system for 'matchmaking', or the automated grouping of players of similar skill. Halo 3's matchmaking system is based on two different measures of player ranking, skill and experience (based on the number of 'rating points' or EXP, respectively). Skill is the numerical TrueSkill rank of the player in a given multiplayer mode. The TrueSkill ranking is affected by both wins and losses; wins against a much higher ranked opponent will rank a player up faster, while losses against players with lower ranks will cause a player to drop in rank faster. The experience system is linear, with a player gaining experience for winning a game and losing experience for quitting or otherwise leaving a game, with no effect for losing a game.[37] To help players have an enjoyable time online, a new feature dubbed the "A-hole button" allows players to mute annoying players in the game quickly and easily from the in-game scoreboard view.[38] Like Halo 2, Halo 3 supports downloadable content and updates.[39]

Synopsis

Setting
Halo 3, like its predecessors, is set in the fictional Halo universe, taking place during the year 2553. According to the backstory, humans developed faster-than-light travel and colonized hundreds of planets before encountering the alien Covenant in 2525.[40] The Covenant declared humanity an affront to their gods and began destroying human colonies by turning the planet's surface into glass. Despite efforts to keep the Covenant from finding Earth, a Covenant fleet discovered humanity's homeworld during Halo 2.[41] By the beginning of Halo 3, the Covenant have arrived in full force on Earth, with most human resistance crushed.

The titular 'Halo' refers to massive ringworlds several hundred kilometers in diameter that are scattered across the galaxy. These rings were constructed thousands of years ago by an enigmatic race known as the Forerunners as a weapon of last resort against the parasitic alien species known as the Flood. When activated, the seven Halos would destroy all sentient life in the galaxy, thereby depriving the Flood of its food.[42] The ringworlds were activated once in the distant past, and the Forerunners are believed to have perished.[43] In Halo: Combat Evolved, a small human ship fleeing the Covenant stumbled upon one of these ringworlds, Installation 04. The humans manage to destroy the ring, stopping the Flood once again; the Covenant, unaware of the destructive nature of the rings, attempt to fire another ring during Halo 2 in order to fulfill their religious prophecy.[44] One race in the Covenant, the Elites, learn the truth about the rings, and join forces with their onetime enemies, humanity, in order to stop the firing of the ring. Though they are successful, the unexpected shutdown of the installation triggers a failsafe protocol—all the rings are ready to fire from one single location, referred to as the Ark.[45] Still oblivious to the true nature of the rings, the Covenant High Prophet of Truth and the remaining loyalist Covenant proceed to head to Earth, where they believe the Ark is buried.

Characters
Main article: List of Halo characters
Halo 3's protagonist is the Master Chief, a cyborg supersoldier who is one of the last surviving members of the SPARTAN Project, and one of humanity's greatest warriors. The Chief fights alongside the Arbiter, a disgraced former Covenant Elite commander who, along with his race, breaks from the Covenant during Halo 2. Two new Elite characters, N’tho ‘Sraom and Usze ‘Taham, appear as the third and fourth players in co-op play.[46] Most of supporting characters that were introduced in previous games return; this includes Sergeant Major Avery Johnson, a veteran human commander, as well as Commander Miranda Keyes, who prevents the firing of Installation 05 in Halo 2.[47] The Forerunner Monitor 343 Guilty Spark, who tries and fails to stop the Master Chief from destroying his ringworld in Halo, also makes an appearance.[47] Filling an alternating antagonistic/helpful role to the player is the large Flood entity known as "Gravemind"; encountered during Halo 2, the leader of the Flood escapes from confinement on Halo by invading the Covenant city of High Charity and capturing Cortana, a human-created A.I., in the process.[47]

Plot
Taking place shortly after the events of the comic mini-series, Halo: Uprising,[48] Halo 3 begins with the Master Chief entering Earth's atmosphere and smashing to the ground, where he is found by Sergeant Major Avery Johnson and the Arbiter. The Chief, Johnson, and company fight their way to a UNSC outpost. Here, Commander Keyes and Lord Hood plan a last-ditch effort to stop the Covenant leader, the High Prophet of Truth, from activating a Forerunner (an extinct, highly advanced race) artifact uncovered in the ruins of Mombasa, Kenya. The Chief is ordered to clear a way into the city of Voi, and destroy all anti-air Covenant defenses so that Hood can lead the last of Earth's ships against the Prophet.[49] Using the opening caused by the ground attack, Hood mounts an offensive against Truth's ship, but the Prophet activates the buried artifact and creates an enormous, stable slipspace portal which he and his followers enter. As the human ships recover from the shock wave, a ship controlled by the Flood, a parasitic race which caused the destruction of the Forerunners, arrives via slipspace and crash-lands nearby.[50] Covenant Elite forces, now allied with humanity, arrive on Earth, and glass Flood-infected areas of Earth, neutralizing the parasitic threat. Following the cryptic message from the human A.I. construct Cortana left aboard the Flood cruiser, the Master Chief, Arbiter, Elites, Johnson, Keyes and a handful of marines follow Truth through the portal. Joining them is the Forerunner construct 343 Guilty Spark, who decides to aid the Master Chief, since his ringworld was destroyed in Halo: Combat Evolved.[51]

Traveling through the portal, the humans and Elites discover an immense artificial structure—the Ark—which is well outside the Milky Way galaxy. Here, the Prophet can activate all the Halos and purge the galaxy of all sentient life. The Halos were created by the Forerunners as a last ditch effort to combat the Flood, by destroying all sentient life in the galaxy. The Chief and company quickly activate the installation's Cartographer to find Truth; in the process, Guilty Spark discovers that the Ark is creating a new ringworld to replace his destroyed installation. Guided by Guilty Spark, the Chief and the Arbiter make their way towards the control room of the Ark. During their journey, the Flood arrive on the former Covenant Holy City High Charity via slipspace, and they begin infesting the installation.[52] Johnson is captured by Truth to activate the Ark because only a human can utilize the Forerunner technology. The Flood controlling intelligence Gravemind forges a truce with the Chief and Arbiter in an effort to stop Truth. Though Keyes is killed by the Prophet, the installation's firing is halted. After Truth is killed by the Arbiter, Gravemind quickly turns on the Chief and Arbiter, but Johnson flies away while the Chief and Arbiter fight their way out. Master Chief decides to activate the new ring being built at the Ark, sparing the galaxy at large while eliminating the local Flood. Before he can activate Halo, he needs an Activation Index, which Cortana had acquired in Halo.[53] The Chief saves Cortana from High Charity, and overloads its main reactor to destroy the ship and Gravemind with it.

Master Chief and Cortana escape the ArkArriving on the new Halo, Cortana warns that the Gravemind is trying to rebuild itself on the ring. The Chief, the Arbiter, and Johnson make their way to the control room, where they will activate Halo's weapon. Guilty Spark explains that since the ring is not yet completed, a premature activation will destroy it and the Ark.[54] When Johnson ignores his warning, Guilty Spark kills him in order to protect "his" ring.[55] Master Chief destroys Guilty Spark, activates the ring, and barely manages to escape with the Arbiter and Cortana to Forward Unto Dawn, a UNSC ship, as Halo fires.

Back on Earth, the front half of Forward Unto Dawn crashes into the ocean, and workers cut the Arbiter out of the wreckage. A memorial service is held for the fallen heroes of the human and Covenant war; the Master Chief appears to have perished as well. After the memorial service, the Arbiter departs for his home planet, where the Elites are finally free of the Prophets' hegemony.[56] If the player waits through the closing credits, a scene reveals that the Master Chief and Cortana have survived Halo's firing in the rear section of the ship and await rescue, drifting helplessly through space. If the game is completed on the "Legendary" difficulty level, the scene continues and depicts the severed section of the Dawn drifting towards what appears to be an unidentified planet.

Development

Storyboard sketches for the Halo 3 announcement trailerInitial conception for Halo 3 was done before the game's predecessor, Halo 2 was released in 2004.[57] For a period after this, much of the staff were still preoccupied in making extra content for Halo 2, while others continued with the groundwork for the development of Halo 3. Bungie remained almost completely silent as to what their new project was for the next year and half, occasionally leaving comments in their weekly update alluding to a "new project."[58] Due to the cliff-hanger ending of Halo 2, many observers correctly speculated that Bungie's new project was indeed, Halo 3.

The game was officially announced with a real-time cinematic trailer at E3 2006.[8] Similarly to the development of Halo 2, Bungie kept the public informed on game development via "Bungie Weekly Updates". During development, the game was divided into single player and multiplayer builds; this made debugging and testing the much smaller multiplayer files quicker.[59] While details of Halo 3's multiplayer were widely disseminated in the sixteen months leading up to the release,[18] the single-player aspect of the storyline was kept relatively secret throughout much of the development to build up interest. The first campaign screenshots did not appear until a year after the announcement trailer, on July 5, 2007, as a "tease" for the planned pace of marketing.[60]

Graphics
Halo 3 utilizes a proprietary, in-house graphics engine, often referred to as the "Halo 3 Engine".[2]As detailed on the Bungie Studios website, it employs advanced graphics technologies such as High Dynamic Range, global lighting and depth of field effects within cutscenes.[61] Motion blurring was absent from the beta, but was added to the final game.[62] Most of the dynamic objects in the game cast real-time shadows on themselves and the environment around them, including the game's plant life. Halo 3 uses normal, bump, and parallax mapping to give surfaces more detail without dramatically increasing the number of polygons. Players can see distances of up to ten miles away, all fully three-dimensional.[63] Real time reflections were written into the engine, however they are often unused as Bungie consider it a waste of resources.[64]

After the game was released, speculations arose that Halo 3 did not natively render at true HD resolution (at least 720 lines of vertical resolution).[65] In a Bungie Weekly Update, it was confirmed that the game was rendered at 1152×640 resolution instead of the usual 1280×720 (HD) resolution that most Xbox 360 games use.[1] The choice for this design was conscious on Bungie's part, due to the fact that Halo 3 uses two frame buffers instead of the usual one, and that this choice would allow Bungie to preserve as much of the dynamic range as possible for the game's lighting, as well as maintaining a smooth frame rate. The picture could be upscaled all the way up to 1080p by the Xbox 360.[1]

Audio
As with all titles on the Xbox 360, Halo 3 fully supports 5.1 surround sound audio.[66] In the game, there are over 50,000 pieces of audio, with nearly 40,000 of those being NPC dialogue.[21] This is far more than in either of the preceding Halo titles; Halo 2 had over 15,000 pieces of dialogue. The AI controlling this dialogue is designed to ensure the exchanges flow naturally and convincingly.[63] Separate recordings were made for nearby and distant gunfire to make for a more believable sound experience.[67] Distant gunfire sounds, which may first seem like prerecorded ambient sound, may often be the result of an actual firefight happening elsewhere in the game.[68]

Marty O'Donnell again composed the original score for the game.[69] Some pieces of the game's music are produced with a much larger real orchestra than any pieces in the prior two games. For example, the music for the announcement trailer was recorded with a 60-piece orchestra and a 24-piece choir.[8] Halo 3 is the first game in the series to feature custom soundtracks, allowing players to replace in-game music with their own choices.[70] The Halo 3 Original Soundtrack was released on November 20, 2007.[71] Included on the soundtrack is an original composition submitted by fans and judged by Nile Rodgers, Michael Ostin, and Marty O'Donnell.[72]

Cast
Voice actors returning to reprise their roles in Halo 3 include Jen Taylor as Cortana, David Scully as Sergeant Johnson and the Elites, Keith David as the Arbiter, Tim Dadabo as 343 Guilty Spark, Ron Perlman as Lord Hood, Robert Davi as Rtas Vadum, and Steve Downes as the voice of Master Chief. The game also features new voices, with Terence Stamp and Justis Bolding replacing Halo 2 voice actors Michael Wincott and Julie Benz as the Prophet of Truth and Miranda Keyes respectively.[73] Additional voices include celebrity presenter Jonathan Ross,[74] Nathan Fillion, Adam Baldwin, Alan Tudyk, Katee Sackhoff, and John DiMaggio.[73] Members of the Halo machinima Red vs. Blue (Burnie Burns, Gus Sorola, Matt Hullum, Jason Saldaña, Geoff Ramsey, and Joel Heyman) had a cameo role.[47]

Marketing and release

A Halo 3 launch event was held at the NASDAQ building in New York City on September 25.Main article: Marketing for Halo 3
Various marketing techniques have been employed in promoting the release of Halo 3. This has included various trailers of the game; real-time cinematics, recorded gameplay sequences, pre-rendered CGI, and even live action film.[75] Throughout the course of development four "developer documentaries" were released, which explain the processes behind creating parts of the game. A large scale multiplayer Beta test was played on Xbox Live with more than 800 000 members of the public being able to take part and experience the game for themselves.[75] Beginning in June 2007, Iris, an alternate reality game, began on the internet, designed to create hype for the game while involving players in slowly revealing background information for the game.[75] The actual release was met with numerous launch parties across the United States and Europe.[76]

Numerous interviews with Bungie staff were conducted by gaming press establishments, covering a vast range of subjects dealing with the game. Magazines and journals also occasionally ran stories revealing new information. Pepsi-Cola announced a new line of soft drink, a variant of Mountain Dew named Game Fuel, branded with the Halo 3 logo and the Master Chief.[77] Much of the advertising focused on appealing to the general public, rather than just hardcore fans of the game; for example, some 7-Eleven stores advertised Halo 3 and sold specialty cups and copies of the game.[78] On September 12, 2007 the "Believe" Halo 3 ad campaign, focused on the epic nature of the story and heroism told through dioramas and third party accounts of Master Chief's service, began with the video "Museum" and continued on past the game's release.[79]

Leaks
Months before the release of Halo 3, the game's final testing copy before its gold release (codenamed Epsilon and confirmed by Bungie to be 99.9% complete),[80] was leaked to the Internet. Microsoft reacted to this leak by having the Xbox Live accounts of gamers caught playing the Epsilon copy banned until the year 9999.[81] Two weeks before Halo 3 was due to be released, full retail copies of the game complete with photographs of the open game box started to appear on the internet auction site eBay.[82] A week before Halo 3 was due for release, major UK catalog retailer Argos accidentally released some of their final retail copies of Halo 3. Microsoft's Entertainment and Devices division were quoted as being "disappointed that it happened" but that "it was just an honest mistake" and that Microsoft had no intention of punishing Argos for the error.[83]

Halo 3's final retail copy was leaked online over a week before its official release. The 6.14 gigabyte file of the game was hacked and downloaded by "thousands" of people within 24 hours of the leak.[84] Videos of the ending of Halo 3, obtained from the leaked copy, were captured and posted on popular file sharing sites, such as YouTube.[84]

Versions
Features Standard Limited Legendary
Image of contents
Game disc & manual Yes Yes Yes
Interactive Xbox 360 disc No Yes Yes
Beastiarum No Yes (book) Yes (DVD)
Legendary DVD No No Yes
Master Chief helmet case No No Yes
Halo 3 was released in three separate versions. The Standard Edition contains the game disc and a manual. The Limited Edition, contained in a metal case, contains the game disc, manual, interactive Xbox 360 bonus disc with several featurettes, and a hard cover bound "Beastiarum", which is a collection of information and art covering the species, cultures, and civilizations of Halo 3. The final version was marketed as the "Legendary Edition", which contains the game disc, manual, interactive bonus disc, Beastiarum (on one of the DVD discs), Legendary DVD containing special content exclusive to the Legendary Edition, and a scale replica of the Master Chief's helmet as a case for the three discs.[85] Gamestation stores in the UK also offered a limited edition Master Chief figurine only available to the first 1000 pre-orders.[86]

Upon release, some of the Limited Edition versions of Halo 3 were found to have a defect in the hub that kept the discs in place, which could lead to scratched discs. Microsoft confirmed the problem and offered to replace scratched Halo 3 game discs free of charge until the end of 2007.[87] This was not a problem in either the Legendary Edition or the Standard Edition.[88]

Sales

Bill Gates sold copies of the game at the launch in Bellevue, WA.According to Microsoft, first-day sales of Halo 3 reached $170 million in the U.S., setting the record for highest gross of an entertainment product within 24 hours of its release. The performance beat the previous record setter, predecessor Halo 2, which earned $125 million within 24 hours after its launch.[89] Halo 3 has beaten other records as well; at least four million copies of Halo 3 were pre-ordered globally, making it the fastest pre-selling game to date.[90] Worldwide more than US$300 million worth were sold in the first week, helping to more than double the sales of the Xbox 360 when compared with the weekly average before the Halo 3 launch.[11] In the U.S., Halo 3 sold 3.3 million copies in its first 12 days on sale,[91] increasing to 3.7 million copies by November 15, 2007.[92] On October 4, 2007, Reuters UK estimated that Halo 3 may have sold up to 5.2 million copies worldwide in the first two weeks after launch.[11] By November 30, 2007, Halo 3 had sold 5 million copies worldwide, and as of that point, was the best-selling video game of 2007 in the U.S., even though the game is only available on one console.[93] On January 3, 2008, Microsoft announced that Halo 3 has sold 8.1 million copies.[13] Halo 3 is the best-selling video game of 2007 in the U.S., with 4.82 million units sold.[14] The game drew over a million Xbox Live members to play online in the first 20 hours, making it the biggest day for Xbox Live gaming in history.[12]

On October 15, 2007, Advertising Age reported that movie studio executives were convinced the release of Halo 3 harmed box office receipts; the week's take was 27% less than the previous year's yield.[94] While some executives decided the disparity in estimated and actual gross for films like The Heartbreak Kid was due more to the film's poor reception, other analysts believed that "the audience on [Halo 3] is the 18-to-34 demographic, similar to what you'd see in cinemas" and that this led to a decrease in receipts.[95] Later research suggested that the Halo 3 players still watched the same amount of television and movies, regardless of the time they spent playing the game.[96]

Content for download
The week before release, Bungie announced that additional content for download would be inevitable.[97] A new multiplayer map pack was released via Xbox Live on December 11, 2007. The "Heroic Map Pack" costs 800 Microsoft Points (US$10) and consists of three maps, entitled Standoff, Rat's Nest, and Foundry.[98] The maps have additional features in Forge, including placeable man cannons (large gravity lifts) and shield doors,[98] objects which were static parts of the environment in the game's original maps. The map pack will eventually be available for free.[99]

On January 4, 2008 it was confirmed by Bungie that a new set of multiplayer maps would be released on an undetermined date.[100] The code names for the maps are currently O.K. Corral, Purple Reign, and Cottonball.[101] A fourth map has been mentioned to be in development, code named Moonbase Alpha,[102] but does not appear to be included in this map pack.

Critical reception and impact
Reviews
Publication Score
1UP.com 10/10
Edge 10/10
Eurogamer 10/10
Famitsu 37/40
Game Informer 9.75/10
GameSpot 9.5/10
IGN 9.5/10
Official Xbox Magazine 10/10
Compilations of multiple reviews
Compiler Score
Metacritic 94%
Game Rankings 93%
Awards
Spike TV Awards: Best Multiplayer Game, Most Addictive Video Game Fueled by Dew
TIME: Game of the Year
Critical reception of the game has generally been positive. On the review aggregator Game Rankings, the game has an average score of 93%, based on 82 reviews, making it the sixth best reviewed Xbox 360 game to date.[16] On Metacritic, the game has an average score of 94 out of 100, based on 74 reviews.[103]

Pro-G assured readers in its review that Halo 3 lived up to the hype, saying that the game "is everything we hoped it would be, and much, much, more".[104] Many publications, including Eurogamer and Games Radar stated that the "winning formula" of Halo and Halo 2 was unchanged, but the addition of new features and weapons prevented any stagnation.[105][106] Most publications agreed that multiplayer was by far one of the best features; IGN said that the multiplayer map lineup was the strongest of the series,[107] and Gamespy added that the multiplayer offering will make "Halo [veterans] weep big sloppy sobs of joy".[108] The Forge level editor and saved films features were singled out as particularly strong features,[109][22] in addition to superb voice acting and Martin O'Donnell's rich score.[108][110]

Reception of the single-player aspect varied greatly. Pro-G said that while the cliffhanger ending of Halo 2 was disappointing, the campaign of Halo 3 "is anything but";[104] Gamespot and GameSpy, meanwhile, said that the campaign was too short, especially on easier difficulty levels.[22][108] IGN was highly critical of the eighth level, stating "the penultimate chapter is so bad, just thinking about it puts a rotten taste in my mouth." The New York Times said the game had a "throwaway" plot and Total Video Games judged the single-player aspect ultimately disappointing.[111][112]

Other complaints focused on the artificial intelligence; critics praised the enemy AI but bemoaned that the intelligence of the player's allies was far poorer.[22][20][113][114] Bryan Vore of Game Informer said that human faces and some textures were just "embarrassing".[110] IGN and Cinemablend.com both said that they thought a part of the story was lost by not having the Arbiter featuring as prominently as the character was in Halo 2.[115][20]

Awards
Halo 3 was nominated for seven awards from the Spike TV Awards,[116] of which it won "Best Multiplayer Game" and "Most Addictive Video Game Fueled by Dew".[117] The game was also nominated eleven times for the 2008 GameStooge Awards.[118] It won TIME magazine's "Game of the Year" and IGN chose it as the Best Xbox 360 Online Multiplayer Game and Innovative Design of 2007.[119][120][121]

Harry Potter

2008-01-21T15:47:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter is a series of seven fantasy novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The books chronicle the adventures of the eponymous adolescent wizard Harry Potter, together with Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger, his best friends. The story is mostly set at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, an academy for young wizards and witches. The central story arc concerns Harry's struggle against the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents in his quest to conquer the wizarding world.

Since the release of the first novel Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone in 1997, which was retitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States, the books have gained immense popularity, critical acclaim and commercial success worldwide.[2] The series has spawned films, video games and Potter-themed merchandise. As of April 2007, the first six books in the seven book series have sold more than 400 million copies[3] and have been translated into more than 64 languages.[4] The seventh and last book in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, was released on 21 July 2007.[5] Publishers announced a record-breaking 12 million copies for the first print run in the U.S. alone.[6]

The success of the novels has made Rowling the highest-earning novelist in history.[7] English language versions of the books are published by Bloomsbury in the United Kingdom, Scholastic Press in the United States, Allen & Unwin in Australia and Raincoast Books in Canada.

Thus far, the first five books have been made into a series of motion pictures by Warner Bros. The sixth, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, began filming in September 2007, with a scheduled release of 21 November 2008.[8]

Contents [hide]
1 Overview
1.1 Plot summary
1.2 Universe
1.3 Chronology
2 Series
2.1 Origins and publishing history
2.2 Completion of the series
2.3 After Deathly Hallows
2.4 Translations
3 Literary analysis
3.1 Structure and genre
3.2 Themes
3.3 Motifs
4 Achievements
4.1 Cultural impact
4.2 Awards and honours
4.3 Commercial success
5 Criticism, praise, and controversy
5.1 Literary critics
5.2 Controversy
6 Other media
6.1 Films
6.2 Games
6.3 Theme park
6.4 Theatre
7 See also
8 References
9 Harry Potter books
10 External links

Overview

Plot summary
The story opens with the conspicuous celebration of a normally secretive wizarding world. For many years, it had been terrorised by the evil wizard, Lord Voldemort. The previous night, on October 31st, Voldemort discovers the Potter family's hidden refuge, killing Lily and James Potter. However, when he attempts to murder their toddler son, Harry, the Avada Kedavra killing curse he casts rebounds upon him. Voldemort's body is destroyed, but his spirit survives: he is neither dead nor alive. Meanwhile, the orphaned Harry is left with a distinctive lightning bolt-shaped scar on his forehead, the only physical sign of Voldemort's curse. Harry is the only known survivor of the killing curse, and Voldemort's mysterious defeat causes the wizarding community to dub Harry "The Boy Who Lived".

On November 1, Hagrid, a 'half-giant', delivers Harry to his only living relatives, the cruel and magic-phobic Dursleys, comprising Uncle Vernon, a bad-tempered uncle with hardly any neck; Aunt Petunia, a long-necked woman who appears to absolutely loathe Harry; and Dudley, their spoiled, overweight son. They attempt in vain to rid him of his magical powers, hide his magical heritage, and severely punish him after any strange occurrences.

However, as his eleventh birthday approaches, Harry has his first contact with the magical world when he begins receiving letters from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, which are delivered by owls. Unfortunately, his uncle confiscates the letters before he can read them. Much to the Dursely's chagrin, Hogwarts is aware that Harry is not receiving his letter and send a representative of the school to meet with him and explain his heritage. At the stroke of midnight on Harry's 11th birthday, Rubeus Hagrid, Hogwarts' gamekeeper, appears and informs Harry that he is a wizard and has been invited to attend the school. Each book chronicles one year in Harry's life, which is mostly spent at Hogwarts. There he learns to use magic and brew potions. Harry also learns to overcome many magical, social, and emotional hurdles as he struggles through his adolescence, Voldemort's second rise to power, and the Ministry of Magic's corruption and incompetence. After facing many obstacles, forging lasting friendships, and losing countless loved ones, Harry Potter confronts the Dark Lord for the last time.

For a detailed synopsis of the novels, see the relevant article for each book.

Universe
Main article: Harry Potter universe

Hogwarts school, as depicted in the first film.The wizarding world in which Harry finds himself is both completely separate from and yet intimately connected to our own world. While the fantasy world of Narnia is an alternative universe and the Lord of the Rings’ Middle-earth a mythic past, the wizarding world of Harry Potter exists alongside that of the real world and contains magical elements similar to things in the non-magical world. Many of its institutions and locations are in towns and cities, including London for example, which are recognisable in the real world. It possesses a fragmented collection of hidden streets, overlooked and ancient pubs, lonely country manors and secluded castles that remain invisible to the non-magical population (known as "Muggles"; e.g. The Dursleys). Wizard ability is inborn, rather than learned, although one must attend schools such as Hogwarts in order to master and control it. However, it is possible for wizard parents to have children who are born with little or no magical ability at all (known as "Squibs"; e.g., Mrs. Figg, Argus Filch). Since one is either born a wizard or not, most wizards are unfamiliar with the Muggle world. The magical world and its many fantastic elements are depicted in a matter-of-fact way. This juxtaposition of the magical and the mundane is one of the principal motifs in the novels; the characters in the stories live normal lives with normal problems, for all their magical surroundings.

Chronology
Main article: Chronology of the Harry Potter stories
The books mainly avoid setting the story in a particular real year; however, there are a few references, which allow the books, and various past events mentioned in them to be assigned corresponding real years. The time line is sufficiently set in Chamber of Secrets, in which Nearly-Headless Nick remarks that it is the five-hundredth anniversary of his death on October 31, 1492; thus, Chamber of Secrets takes place from 1992 to 1993. This chronology was again reiterated in Deathly Hallows, in which the date of death on James and Lily Potter's gravestone is October 31, 1981. Thus, as Harry was a year old at the time of his parents' murders, his year of birth is 1980 and the main action of the story takes place from 1991 (the second chapter of Philosopher's Stone) to 1998 (the end of Deathly Hallows). Interviewed for an ITV documentary broadcast in December 2007, Rowling stated that the final battle with Voldemort's forces takes place on 2 May 1997, however, this would seem to be a mistake, and that the actual date should be 2 May 1998, in fitting with the dates given in Chamber of Secrets and Deathly Hallows.

Series
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (26 June 1997) (titled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in the United States)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2 July 1998)
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (8 July 1999)
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (8 July 2000)
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (21 June 2003)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (16 July 2005)
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (21 July 2007)
All seven books in the series have been released in the English language as audiobooks. The UK editions are performed by Stephen Fry, the American versions by Jim Dale.
Supplementary books

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (2001)
Quidditch Through the Ages (2001)
The Tales of Beedle the Bard (2007)

Origins and publishing history

Cover of the UK children's edition of the first Harry Potter novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone; a more austere design was later made available for adult readersIn 1990, J. K. Rowling was on a crowded train from Manchester to London when the idea for Harry suddenly formed in her mind. Rowling gives an account of the experience on her website saying:[9]

“ I had been writing almost continuously since the age of six but I had never been so excited about an idea before. I simply sat and thought, for four (delayed train) hours, and all the details bubbled up in my brain, and this scrawny, black-haired, bespectacled boy who didn't know he was a wizard became more and more real to me. ”

In 1995, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone was completed and the manuscript was sent off to prospective agents. The second agent she tried, Christopher Little, offered to represent her and sent the manuscript to Bloomsbury. After eight other publishers had rejected Philosopher's Stone, Bloomsbury offered Rowling a £2,500 advance for its publication.[10]

Despite Rowling's statement that she did not have any particular age group in mind when she began to write the Harry Potter books, the publishers initially targeted them at children age nine to eleven.[11] On the eve of publishing, Joanne Rowling was asked by her publishers to adopt a more gender-neutral pen name, in order to appeal to the male members of this age group, fearing that they would not be interested in reading a novel they knew to be written by a woman. She elected to use J. K. Rowling (Joanne Kathleen Rowling), using her grandmother's name as her second name, because she has no middle name.[12]

The first Harry Potter book was published in the United Kingdom by Bloomsbury in July 1997 and in the United States by Scholastic in September of 1998, but not before Rowling had received $105,000 for the American rights – an unprecedented amount for a children's book by a then unknown author.[13] Fearing that American readers would not associate the word "philosopher" with a magical theme (as a Philosopher's Stone is alchemy-related), Scholastic insisted that the book be given the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone for the American market.

Rowling's publishers were able to capitalise on this buzz by the rapid, successive releases of the first four books that allowed neither Rowling's audience's excitement nor interest to wane while she took a break from writing between the release of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and also quickly solidified a loyal readership.[14] The series has also gathered adult fans, leading to two editions of each Harry Potter book being released (in markets other than the United States), identical in text but with one edition's cover artwork aimed at children and the other aimed at adults.

Completion of the series
In December 2005, Rowling stated on her web site, "2006 will be the year when I write the final book in the Harry Potter series." Updates have since followed in her online diary chronicling the progress of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, with the release date of 21 July 2007.

The book itself was finished on 11 January 2007 in the Balmoral Hotel, Edinburgh, where she scrawled a message on the back of a bust of Hermes. It read: “JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11 January 2007.”[15]

Rowling herself has stated that the last chapter of the seventh book (in fact, the epilogue) was completed "in something like 1990".[16][17]

In June 2006, Rowling, on an appearance on the British talk show Richard & Judy, announced that the chapter had been modified as one character "got a reprieve" and two others who previously survived the story had in fact been killed. She also said she could see the logic in killing off Harry to stop other writers from writing books about Harry's life after Hogwarts.[18]

On March 28, 2007, the cover art for the Bloomsbury Adult and Child versions and the Scholastic version were released.[19]

After Deathly Hallows
Rowling spent seventeen years writing the seven Harry Potter books. In a 2000 interview through Scholastic, her American publisher, Rowling stated that there is not a university after Hogwarts. Concerning the series continuing past book seven, she stated, "I won't say never, but I have no plans to write an eighth book."[20] She has since said that if she does write an eighth book Harry Potter will not be the central character, as his story has been told, and that she would not begin such a project for at least ten years.[21]

When asked about writing other Harry Potter-related books similar to Quidditch Through the Ages and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, she has said that she might consider doing this with proceeds donated to charity, as was the case with those two books. Another suggestion is an encyclopaedia-style tome containing information that never made it into the series, also for charity.[22] She has revealed she is currently penning two books, one for children and one not for children.[23]

In February 2007 Rowling issued a statement on her website about finishing the final book, in which she compared her mixed feelings of "mourning" and "incredible sense of achievement" to those expressed by Charles Dickens in the preface of the 1850 edition of David Copperfield, "a two-years' imaginative task." "To which," she added, "I can only sigh, try seventeen years, Charles…"

On July 24, 2007, Rowling announced in an interview that she "probably will" write an encyclopaedia of the Harry Potter world, which would include background information cut from the narrative as well as post-Deathly Hallows information, including details of what happens to the other characters, who the new Hogwarts headmaster is, and more.[24] Rowling refers to the encyclopedia as the "Scottish Book", a take on the Scottish play.[25]

In a 90-minute live Web chat, Rowling revealed[26] what several of the characters did in the years between the conclusion of the book and the epilogue.

Translations

The cover of Harry Potter en de Steen der Wijzen—the Dutch language translation of the first book, jointly published by De Harmonie and Standaard.Main article: Harry Potter in translation
The series has been translated into 65 languages,[27] placing Rowling among the most translated authors in history.[28] The first translation was into American English, as many words and concepts used by the characters in the novels would have been misleading to a young American audience. Subsequently the books have seen translations in languages as diverse as Ukrainian, Hindi, Bengali, Welsh, Afrikaans and Vietnamese. The first volume has been translated into Latin and even Ancient Greek,[29] making it the longest published work in that language since the novels of Heliodorus of Emesa in the 3rd century AD.[30]

The high profile and huge public demand for a decent local translation means that a great deal of care is often taken in the task. In some countries such as Italy, the first book was revised by the publishers and issued in an updated edition, in response to feedback from readers. In countries such as China and Portugal, the translation is conducted by a group of translators working together to save time. Some of the translators hired to work on the books were quite well known prior to their work on Harry Potter, such as Viktor Golyshev, who oversaw the Russian translation of the series' fifth book. Golyshev was previously best known for translating William Faulkner and George Orwell;[31] his tendency to snub the Harry Potter books in interviews and refer to them as inferior literature may be the reason he did not return to work on later books in the series. The Turkish translation of books two to seven was undertaken by Sevin Okyay, a popular literary critic and cultural commentator.[32] For reasons of secrecy, translation can only start when the books are released in English; thus there is a lag of several months before the translations are available. This has led to more and more copies of the English editions being sold to impatient fans in non-English speaking countries. Such was the clamour to read the fifth book that its English language edition became the first English-language book ever to top the bestseller list in France.[33]

Literary analysis

Structure and genre
See also: Harry Potter influences and analogues
The novels are very much in the fantasy genre; in many respects they are also bildungsromans, coming of age novels. The stories are predominantly set in Hogwarts, a British boarding school for wizards, where the curriculum includes the use of magic. In this sense they are "in a direct line of descent from Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days and other Victorian and Edwardian novels of British public school life".[34] They are also, in the words of Stephen King, "shrewd mystery tale[s]",[35] and each book is constructed in the manner of a Sherlock Holmes-style mystery adventure; the books leave a number of clues hidden in the narrative, while the characters pursue a number of suspects through various exotic locations, leading to a twist ending that often reverses what the characters had been led to believe. The stories are told from a third person limited point of view; with very few exceptions (such as the opening chapters of Philosopher's Stone and Deathly Hallows and the first two chapters of Half-Blood Prince), the reader learns the secrets of the story when Harry does. The thoughts and plans of other characters, even central ones such as Hermione and Ron, are kept hidden until revealed to Harry.

The books tend to follow a very strict formula. Set over the course of consecutive years, they each begin with Harry at home with the Dursleys in the Muggle world, enduring their ill treatment. Subsequently, Harry goes to a specific magical location (Diagon Alley, the Weasleys' residence or Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place) for a period before beginning school, which he commences by boarding the school train at Platform 9¾. Once at school, new or redefined characters take shape, and Harry overcomes new everyday school issues, such as difficult essays, awkward crushes, and unsympathetic teachers. The stories reach their climax near or just after final exams, when Harry confronts either Voldemort or one of his Death Eaters. In the aftermath, he learns important lessons through exposition and discussions with Albus Dumbledore. This formula was completely broken in the final novel, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, in which Harry and his friends spend most of their time away from Hogwarts, and only return there to face Voldemort at the climax.[HP7]

In addition, Harry is present during in some manner (physically, via a dream or via a vision) for every scene during the first four novels, other than the opening pages of Philosopher's Stone. In the later books, he is present for the majority of scenes. This structure allows the reader to unravel each mystery as he does, receiving clues only when he does.

Themes
According to Rowling, a major theme in the series is the theme of death. She says:[36]

“ My books are largely about death. They open with the death of Harry's parents. There is Voldemort's obsession with conquering death and his quest for immortality at any price, the goal of anyone with magic. I so understand why Voldemort wants to conquer death. We're all frightened of it. ”

Rowling has stated that the books comprise "a prolonged argument for tolerance, a prolonged plea for an end to bigotry" and that also pass on a message to "question authority and… not assume that the establishment or the press tells you all of the truth".[37] [38]

While the books could be said to comprise many other themes, such as power/abuse of power, love, prejudice, and choice, they are, as J.K. Rowling states, "deeply entrenched in the whole plot"; the writer prefers to let themes "grow organically", rather than sitting down and consciously attempting to impart such ideas to her readers.[39] Along the same lines is the ever-present theme of adolescence, in whose depiction Rowling has been purposeful in acknowledging her characters' sexualities and not leaving Harry, as she put it, "stuck in a state of permanent pre-pubescence".[40]

Rowling said that, to her, the moral significance of the tales seems "blindingly obvious." The key for her was the choice between what is right and what is easy, "because that, that is how tyranny is started, with people being apathetic and taking the easy route and suddenly finding themselves in deep trouble."[41]

Motifs
Blood purity
Wizards in general tend to view Muggles with a combination of condescension and suspicion; however, for a few, this attitude has evolved into bigotry. These characters tend to class those around them based on the number of magical ancestors they had, with "pure-blood" wizards (those with an entirely-magical bloodline) at the top of the hierarchy, "half-blood" wizards in the middle (those with both wizard and Muggle ancestry), and "Muggle-borns" (those with no magical ancestors) at the very bottom. Supporters of blood purity believe pure-bloods should control the wizarding world, and do not consider Muggle-borns real wizards. Some have even gone so far as to murder them or demand that they should not be taught magic. Most blood-purity-believers are pure-blood themselves, though it should be noted that Voldemort, one of the most radical supporters of blood purity ever known, is himself half-blood. In addition, very few, if any, true "pure-blood" families actually exist as many have intermarried into the Muggle-born population to stop the families from dying out. Many of these families have covered this up, however. One example of this is the removal of certain members from the Black family tree.[HP5]
Owls
Owls are perhaps the most visible aspect of the Wizarding world. They appear at the start of the first novel, presaging what is to come, and play a very visible role in every novel following, except for the last. They act as the principal form of communication among wizards (somewhat like carrier pigeons) and also as pets. Harry's snowy owl is called Hedwig.
Houses
Like most boarding schools, Hogwarts is divided into four separate houses, named after the four Hogwarts founders, and students are sorted into their respective houses at the start of their first year. They are Gryffindor, named after Godric Gryffindor, which favors courage; Ravenclaw, named after Rowena Ravenclaw, which favors cleverness; Hufflepuff, named after Helga Hufflepuff, which favors fairness and loyalty; and Slytherin, named after Salazar Slytherin, which favors ambition and Blood Purity (See above). Upon arrival, Harry, along with his friend Ron, and Hermione, who would later become their friend, are sorted into Gryffindor.[HP1]
Quidditch
A spectator sport in the Wizard world, played up in the air on brooms, Quidditch is similar in style to polo and association football. Harry is a great player at Hogwarts and has helped lead Gryffindor to a number of wins. Harry is the Seeker for his team whose role is to try to find and catch the Golden Snitch.[HP1] The Quidditch matches at Hogwarts were commentated by Lee Jordan until he graduated from school. Unlike in all previous books, Quidditch does not appear in the final book.[HP7]

Achievements

Cultural impact
For more details on this topic, see Harry Potter fandom.
Since the publishing of Philosopher's Stone a number of societal trends have been attributed to the series.

The most notable trend attributed to Harry Potter has been an increase in literacy among the young. Anecdotal evidence suggesting such an increase was seemingly confirmed in 2006 when the Kids and Family Reading Report (in conjunction with Scholastic) released a survey finding that 51% of Harry Potter readers ages 5–17 said that while they did not read books for fun before they started reading Harry Potter, they now did. The study further reported that according to 65% of children and 76% of parents, they or their children's performance in school improved since they started reading the series.[42] Charlie Griffiths, director of the National Literacy Association, said "Anyone who can persuade children to read should be treasured and what [Rowling has] given us in Harry Potter is little short of miraculous."[43] British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a long time fan, said, "I think JK Rowling has done more for literacy around the world than any single human being."[44][45]

Indeed as the series progresses, each book gets progressively longer, developing along with the reader's literary abilities. A word-count comparison shows how each book, save the sixth, is longer than its predecessor, requiring greater concentration and longer attention spans to complete. This fact in itself can be seen as contributory to improved literary abilities in children who tackle the series.[46]

In 2005, doctors at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford reported that their research of the weekends of Saturday 21 June 2003 and Saturday 16 July 2005 (the release dates of the Order of the Phoenix and the Half-Blood Prince, respectively) found that only 36 children needed emergency medical assistance for injuries sustained in accidents, as opposed to other weekends' average of 67.[47]

Crowds wait outside a Borders store in Newark, Delaware for the midnight release of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood PrinceNotable also is the development of a massive following of fans. So eager were these fans for the latest series release that bookstores around the world began holding events to coincide with the midnight release of the books, beginning with the 2000 publication of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. The events, commonly featuring mock sorting, games, face painting, and other live entertainment have achieved popularity with Potter fans and have been incredibly successful at attracting fans and selling books with nearly nine million of the 10.8 million initial print copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince sold in the first 24 hours.[48][49] Among this large base of fans are a minority of "super-fans", similar to the trekkies of the Star Trek fandom. Besides meeting online through blogs, podcasts, and fansites, Harry Potter super-fans can also meet at Harry Potter symposia. These events draw people from around the world to attend lectures, discussions and a host of other Potter themed activities.

The Harry Potter books have inspired the "wizard rock" movement, where a number of bands were formed whose names, image and song lyrics relate to the Harry Potter world. Examples include Harry and the Potters and The Cruciatus Curse.[50]

Harry Potter has also brought changes in the publishing world, one of the most noted being the reformation of the New York Times Best Seller list. The change came immediately preceding the release of Goblet of Fire in 2000 when publishers complained of the number of slots on the list being held by Harry Potter and other children's books. The Times subsequently created a separate children's list for Harry Potter and other children's literature.[51]

The word muggle has spread beyond its Harry Potter origins, used by many groups to indicate those who are not aware or are lacking in some skill. In 2003, "muggle", entered the Oxford English Dictionary with that definition.[52]

There is an accredited course at California State University, Bakersfield devoted to the literature of Harry Potter titled "The World of Harry Potter."[53]

The 2007 Iowa State Fair featured a statue of Harry Potter sculpted entirely out of butter. The sculpture was based on Harry's appearance in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, and featured sculptures of Harry's owl Hedwig and his school trunk as depicted at the beginning of the book.

Awards and honours
J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter series have been the recipients of a host of awards since the initial publication of Philosopher's Stone including four Whitaker Platinum Book Awards (all of which were awarded in 2001), three Nestlé Smarties Book Prizes (1997–1999), two Scottish Arts Council Book Awards (1999 and 2001), the inaugural Whitbread children's book of the year award, (1999), the WHSmith book of the year (2006), among others. In 2000, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban was nominated for Best Novel in the Hugo Awards while in 2001, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire won said award. Honours include a commendation for the Carnegie Medal (1997), a short listing for the Guardian Children's Award (1998), and numerous listings on the notable books, editors' Choices, and best books lists of the American Library Association, New York Times, Chicago Public Library, and Publishers Weekly.[54]

Commercial success
In November 2007, the magazine Advertising Age estimated the total value of the Harry Potter brand at roughly $15 billion (£7 billion).[55] The popularity of the Harry Potter series has translated into substantial financial success for Rowling, her publishers, and other Harry Potter related license holders. This success has made Rowling the first and thus far only billionaire author.[56] The books have sold over 325 million copies worldwide and have also given rise to the popular film adaptations produced by Warner Bros., all of which have been successful in their own right with the first, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, ranking number four on the inflation-unadjusted list of all-time highest grossing films and the other four Harry Potter films each ranking in the top 20.[57] The films have in turn spawned five video games and have in conjunction with them led to the licensing of over 400 additional Harry Potter products (including an iPod) that have, as of July 2005, made the Harry Potter brand worth an estimated 4 billion US dollars and J.K. Rowling a US dollar billionaire,[58] making her, by some reports, richer than Queen Elizabeth II.[59][60]

On 2007, 12 April, Barnes & Noble declared that Deathly Hallows has broken its pre-order record, with over 500,000 copies pre-ordered through its site.[61]

A Maine bookseller said she had to sign a legal form stating that she wouldn't open the boxes of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince until their official release date at midnight, and that she would cover the boxes with blankets in her back room so they would not be seen.[62] For the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, extra security was added by limiting the number of librarians who handle the book prior to its release. Those who failed to comply with the written agreement, which employees were required to sign, would jeopardise those libraries' access to "future embargoed titles."[63] Prior to the release of Deathly Hallows, the BBC reported that some booksellers and libraries may have been tempted to break the embargo for publicity, as there were no future Potter books to be banned from selling.[64]

For the release of Goblet of Fire, 9000 FedEx trucks were used with no other purpose than to deliver the book.[65] Together, Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble pre-sold more than 700,000 copies of the book.[65] In the United States, the book's initial printing run was 3.8 million copies.[65] This record statistic was broken by Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, with 8.5 million, which was then shattered by Half-Blood Prince with 10.8 million copies.[66] 6.9 million copies of Prince were sold in the U.S. within the first 24 hours of its release; in the United Kingdom more than two million copies were sold on the first day.[67] The initial print run for Deathly Hallows was 12 million copies, and over a million were pre-ordered through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.[68][69]

Others have claimed that sales of the Harry Potter books have not been highly profitable for book retailers. Intense competition to offer the best price on the popular novels has whittled away expected revenue. The suggested retail for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was $35 but Amazon.com offered the book at a discounted price of $18, with other major chains following suit to remain competitive. Some hope that the frenzy associated with the book will create sales of other items when customers are drawn to bookstores. Other small, independent sellers have tried to protect revenues necessary to keep them in business by selling the book at the suggested cover price but offering other "add-on" items like Potter memorabilia or coupons towards other purchases.[70]

Criticism, praise, and controversy

Literary critics
Early in its history, Harry Potter received overwhelmingly positive reviews, which helped the series to quickly grow a large readership. Upon its publication, the first volume, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, was greatly praised by most of Britain's major newspapers: the Mail on Sunday rated it as "the most imaginative debut since Roald Dahl"; a view echoed by the Sunday Times ("comparisons to Dahl are, this time, justified"), while The Guardian called it "a richly textured novel given lift-off by an inventive wit" and The Scotsman said it had "all the makings of a classic".[71]

By the time of the release of the fifth volume, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the books began to receive strong criticism from a number of literary scholars. Yale professor, literary scholar and critic Harold Bloom raised pungent criticisms of the books' literary merits, saying, “Rowling's mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing."[72] A. S. Byatt authored a New York Times op-ed article calling Rowling's universe a “secondary world, made up of intelligently patchworked derivative motifs from all sorts of children's literature … written for people whose imaginative lives are confined to TV cartoons, and the exaggerated (more exciting, not threatening) mirror-worlds of soaps, reality TV and celebrity gossip".[73]

The critic Anthony Holden wrote in The Observer on his experience of judging Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban for the 1999 Whitbread Awards. His overall view of the series was very negative—"the Potter saga was essentially patronising, very conservative, highly derivative, dispiritingly nostalgic for a bygone Britain," and he speaks of "pedestrian, ungrammatical prose style[74]."

By contrast, author Fay Weldon, while admitting that the series is "not what the poets hoped for," nevertheless goes on to say, "but this is not poetry, it is readable, saleable, everyday, useful prose".[75] The literary critic A.N. Wilson praised the Harry Potter series in 'The Times', stating: "There are not many writers who have JK’s Dickensian ability to make us turn the pages, to weep – openly, with tears splashing – and a few pages later to laugh, at invariably good jokes…We have lived through a decade in which we have followed the publication of the liveliest, funniest, scariest and most moving children’s stories ever written." [76] Charles Taylor of Salon.com, who is primarily a movie critic,[77] took issue with Byatt's criticisms in particular. While he conceded that she may have "a valid cultural point—a teeny one—about the impulses that drive us to reassuring pop trash and away from the troubling complexities of art", he rejected her claims that the series is lacking in serious literary merit and that it owes its success merely to the childhood reassurances it offers. Taylor stressed the progressively darker tone of the books, shown by the murder of a classmate and close friend and the psychological wounds and social isolation each causes. Taylor also pointed out that Philosopher's Stone, said to be the most lighthearted of the seven published books, disrupts the childhood reassurances that Byatt claims spur the series' success: the book opens with news of a double murder, for example.[78]

Stephen King called the series "a feat of which only a superior imagination is capable," and declared "Rowling's punning, one-eyebrow-cocked sense of humor" to be "remarkable." However, he wrote that despite the story being "a good one," he is "a little tired of discovering Harry at home with his horrible aunt and uncle," the formulaic beginning of all seven books.[35] King has also joked that "[Rowling]'s never met an adverb she didn't like!" He does however predict that Harry Potter "will indeed stand time's test and wind up on a shelf where only the best are kept; I think Harry will take his place with Alice, Huck, Frodo, and Dorothy and this is one series not just for the decade, but for the ages."[79] Orson Scott Card wrote a review of Deathly Hallows in which he said, "J.K. Rowling has created something that . . . deserves to last, to become a permanent classic of English literature, and not just as 'children's fiction.'"[80] Tina Jordan of Entertainment Weekly called Deathly Hallows "stunningly beautiful" and predicted that "these books are going to be on my grandchildren's shelves, and my great-grandchildren's, and maybe even further down the line than that."[81] A Telegraph review of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince and of the series as a whole, observed that Rowling's success was entirely self-made and not due to hype of her books by the publishing world, which has instead followed in her wake.[82]

The books have also spawned studies investigating the saga's literary merit. One collaboration by a number of critics is The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter. In this volume, Amanda Cockrell concludes, "Harry Potter is not the lightweight imitation of such serious high fantasy as A Wizard of Earthsea or The Lord of the Rings, but a legitimate descendant of the darker and more complicated school story," and suggests that "we need to take a deeper look into Harry Potter, who is deeper than we think."[83] She points to Rudyard Kipling, C.S. Lewis, Jill Murphy, Anthony Horowitz, Diana Wynne Jones, Thomas Hughes, Roald Dahl, and others as legitimate literary predecessors to the Harry Potter saga.[84] Lana A. Whithead, editor of the book, notes that Rowling "appears to be very seriously attempting a literary achievement."[85] John Granger, a conservative Orthodox Christian and English Literature professor at Peninsula College, writes that the "Harry Potter books are classics—and not just 'kid-lit' but as classics of world literature," and believes the books carry a "mother-lode" of deeper literary and symbolic meaning than meets the eye.[86]

Controversy
Main articles: Legal disputes over the Harry Potter series, Religious debates over the Harry Potter series, and Politics of Harry Potter
The books have been the subject of a number of legal proceedings, largely stemming either from claims by the American religious groups that the magic in the books promotes witchcraft among children, or from various conflicts over copyright and trademark infringements.

The books' immense popularity and high market value has led Rowling, her publishers, and film distributor Warner Bros. to take legal measures to protect their copyright, which have included banning the sale of Harry Potter imitations, targeting the owners of websites over the "Harry Potter" domain name, and suing author Nancy Stouffer to counter her accusations that Rowling had plagiarised her work.[87][88][89]

Vatican City's official newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano said that Harry Potter, who promotes witchcraft and occult, was the wrong kind of hero and poses a danger to children across the world.[90] Various religious conservatives have claimed that the books promote witchcraft and are therefore unsuitable for children,[91] while a number of critics have criticised the books for promoting various political agendas.[92][93] Her outing of the character Dumbledore as homosexual has increased the political controversies surrounding the series. [94]

Other media

Films
Main article: Harry Potter film series
In 1999, Rowling sold the film rights to the first four Harry Potter books to Warner Bros. for a reported £1 million (US$1,982,900).[95] A demand Rowling made was that the principal cast be kept strictly British, nonetheless allowing for the inclusion of many Irish actors such as the late Richard Harris as Dumbledore, and for casting of French and Eastern European actors in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire where characters from the book are specified as such.[96] After considering many directors such as Steven Spielberg, Terry Gilliam, Jonathan Demme, and Alan Parker, on March 28, 2000, Chris Columbus was appointed as director for Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (titled "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" in the United States), with Warner Bros. citing his work on other family films such as Home Alone and Mrs. Doubtfire as influences for their decision.[97] After extensive casting,[98] filming began in October 2000 at Leavesden Studios and in London itself, with production ending in July 2001.[99] Philosopher's Stone was released on November 16, 2001.

Just three days after Philosopher's Stone's release, production for Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, also directed by Columbus, began, finishing in Summer 2002.[100] The film was released on November 15, 2002.

Chris Columbus declined to direct Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, only acting as producer. Mexican director Alfonso Cuarón took over the job, and after shooting in 2003, the film was released on June 4, 2004. Due to the fourth film beginning its production before the third's release, Mike Newell was chosen as the director for Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire,[101] released on November 18, 2005. Newell declined to direct the next movie, and British TV director David Yates was chosen for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which began production on January 2006,[102] and was released on July 11, 2007. Yates is confirmed to direct Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince,[103] for release on November 21, 2008.[8] Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows has its production confirmed with release set for 2010.

The Harry Potter films were huge box office hits, with all five on the 50 highest-grossing films worldwide.[104]

Games
Electronic Arts has so far released five video games movies based on the books and movies storylines, Philosopher's Stone, Chamber of Secrets, Prisoner of Azkaban, Goblet of Fire, and Order of the Phoenix. EA also produced a Quidditch simulation game, Harry Potter: Quidditch World Cup, released in 2003.

Theme park
On 31 May 2007 Warner Bros., Universal Studios and Leavesden Studios announced that a Harry Potter area will be built in Orlando, Florida at Universal Orlando's Islands of Adventure.[105] The announcement described "The Wizarding World of Harry Potter" as "the world's first immersive Harry Potter themed environment." According to the Warner Bros. press release, the section is "Expected to open in late 2009. The new environment will feature immersive rides and interactive attractions, as well as experimental shops and restaurants;."[106] In an online announcement it was revealed that plans have been in place for over a year and a half; with contributions from J.K. Rowling and Stuart Craig.[105]

Theatre
A musical based on the series is currently being planned, tentatively scheduled for a 2008 run in London's West End. The Sunday Mirror reports that producers are hoping to have a "big-name composer" write the music. It has not yet been decided whether the production will tell the entire story, or focus on one particular subplot, though they do hope to include "spectacular flying scenes, live Quidditch and big showdowns with Voldemort".[107]

See also
Wizarding World of Harry Potter—Theme park
List of Harry Potter parodies
J. K. Rowling—The author

Transformers (film) movie

2008-01-21T15:44:00.000-08:00

Transformers is a 2007 live action film adaptation of the Transformers franchise. The film stars Shia LaBeouf as Sam Witwicky, a teenager involved in the war between the heroic Autobots and the evil Decepticons. The Decepticons intend to possess the All Spark, the very object that created their robotic race, and use it to build a new army by giving life to the machines of Earth. Also starring are Megan Fox, Josh Duhamel, Tyrese Gibson, Jon Voight and John Turturro, as well as the voices of Peter Cullen and Hugo Weaving as Optimus Prime and Megatron respectively. The film was directed by Michael Bay, executive produced by Steven Spielberg, and written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

Development of the film began with a 2003 treatment written by producers Don Murphy and Tom DeSanto. Spielberg acquired the treatment the following year and Orci, Kurtzman and Bay joined the project in 2005. The filmmakers wanted a realistic depiction of the story and, therefore, created a complex design aesthetic for the robots. Stressing their alien nature, the computer-generated characters were designed to have thousands of mechanical pieces move as they transformed and maneuvered. The United States military and General Motors lent support during filming, which saved money, provided vehicles, and added verisimilitude to the battle scenes.

Hasbro organized an enormous promotional campaign for the film, making deals with hundreds of companies. This advertising blitz included a viral marketing campaign, coordinated releases of prequel comics books, toys, and books, as well as product placement deals with GM and eBay. Transformers was a box office success despite mixed fan reaction to the radical redesigns of the characters and reviews criticizing the focus on the humans at the expense of the robots. It became the twenty-eighth most successful film released, grossing approximately US$706 million worldwide. The film revitalized media interest in the franchise, and a sequel is expected for release on June 26, 2009.

Contents [hide]
1 Plot
2 Production
2.1 Development
2.2 Design
2.3 Filming
2.4 Effects
2.5 Music
3 Cast and characters
3.1 Humans
3.2 Autobots
3.3 Decepticons
4 Release
4.1 Marketing
4.2 Home video
5 Reaction
5.1 Box office performance
5.2 Critical reception
5.3 Awards
6 Sequel
7 References
8 External links

[edit] Plot
The film begins with Optimus Prime explaining Cybertron's destruction at the hands of Megatron and his quest to obtain the All Spark. Megatron found it on Earth, but crash-landed in the Arctic Circle and was frozen in the ice. Captain Archibald Witwicky and his crew of explorers stumbled upon Megatron's body in 1897. Captain Witwicky accidentally activated Megatron's navigational system, and his eye glasses were imprinted with the All Spark's coordinates. Sector 7, a secret United States government organization, discovered the All Spark and built the Hoover Dam around it to mask the energy emitted by the Cube. The still-frozen Megatron was moved into this facility, and was reverse engineered to further advance human technology.

In the present day, the rest of the Decepticons — Blackout, Scorponok, Frenzy, Barricade, Starscream, Devastator and Bonecrusher — have landed on Earth and assumed the disguise of Earth vehicles (except Scorponok, who hides within Blackout). Blackout and Scorponok attack the U.S. SOCCENT FWD military base in Qatar and try to hack into the U.S. military network to find the location of Megatron and the All Spark. They fail when the base staff manually sever the cable connections. While Blackout destroys the rest of the base, Scorponok chases a small group of survivors who have photographic evidence of the robots, but he is eventually repelled. In this battle, the military discovers their only effective weapon against the Transformers' armor is high-heat sabot rounds.

After Blackout's failure, Frenzy infiltrates Air Force One to try again to hack into the military network, and in doing so also plants a virus. He finds the map imprinted on Captain Witwicky's glasses, which his descendant Sam intends to sell on eBay for money. Frenzy and Barricade begin tracking Sam's location. The Autonomous Robotic Organism (shortened to "Autobot") Bumblebee is also on Earth, disguised as a 1976 Chevrolet Camaro,[2] and is bought by Sam, out shopping for his first car. He helps him try to woo his crush, Mikaela Banes. Bumblebee leaves at night to send a homing signal to the rest of the Autobots, and Sam sees him in robot mode. Barricade confronts Sam and demands Archibald's spectacles. Bumblebee rescues him and Mikaela from Barricade. They leave to rendezvous with the rest of the Autobots. The Autobots — Optimus Prime, Jazz, Ironhide, and Ratchet — land on Earth and take on the forms of Earth vehicles. Sam, Mikaela, and the Autobots return to Sam's home to retrieve the glasses. Although the Autobots manage to get the glasses, agents from Sector 7 arrive and capture Sam, Mikaela and Bumblebee.

Frenzy, disguised as a cellphone, secretly accompanies the group to the Hoover Dam and releases Megatron from suspended animation. Locating the All Spark, he sends an alert to the other Decepticons. Sam convinces the Sector 7 agents to release Bumblebee so that he can get the All Spark to Optimus Prime. Frenzy's virus shuts down government communications, so the Autobot-human convoy go to the nearby Mission City, to get a radio that can communicate with the air force into taking the All Spark away. The Decepticons attack, and in the ensuing battle, Bonecrusher, Frenzy, Jazz, Devastator and Blackout are killed, before Sam rams the All Spark into Megatron's chest. Optimus takes a fragment of the All Spark from Megatron's corpse, but realizes that with it destroyed, Cybertron cannot be restored. He sends a signal to other surviving Autobots in the universe, directing them to their new home, Earth. Sector 7 is closed, and the dead Decepticons are dumped into the Laurentian Abyss. The surviving Starscream escapes into space.

[edit] Production

[edit] Development
"In all the years of movie-making, I don't think the image of a truck transforming into a twenty-foot tall robot has ever been captured on screen. I also want to make a film that's a homage to 1980s movies and gets back to the sense of wonder that Hollywood has lost over the years. It will have those Spielberg-ian moments where you have the push-in on the wide-eyed kid and you feel like you're ten years old even if you're thirty-five."
— Tom DeSanto on why he produced the film[3]
Producer Don Murphy had been planning a film adaptation of G.I. Joe, but when the United States invaded Iraq in March 2003, Hasbro suggested the Transformers instead.[4] Tom DeSanto joined the project because he was a big fan of the characters,[5] and they wrote a treatment featuring the Autobots Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Jazz, Prowl, Ratchet, Wheeljack, and Bumblebee, and the Decepticons Megatron, Starscream, Soundwave, Ravage, Laserbeak, Rumble, Skywarp and Shockwave.[6] DeSanto and Murphy met with comic book writer Simon Furman, and cited the Generation 1 cartoon and comics as their main influence.[4] They made the Creation Matrix their plot device, though Murphy felt it would have to be renamed because of the The Matrix film series.[7] DeSanto chose a human point-of-view in his treatment to engage the audience,[8] while Murphy wanted it to feel realistic, with a tone reminiscent of a disaster film.[7]

Steven Spielberg, a fan of the comics and toys,[5] signed on as executive producer in 2004, and John Rogers was hired to write the script.[9] His draft pitted four Autobots against four Decepticons,[10] and featured the Ark spaceship.[11] Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, fans of the cartoon,[12] were hired in February 2005 to begin a rewrite.[13] Spielberg suggested a focus of "a boy and his car".[14] This appealed to Orci and Kurtzman because it conveyed themes of adulthood and responsibility, "the things that a car represents in [the United States]".[15] Sam and Mikaela were the sole point-of-view given in their pass.[16] The Transformers had no dialogue, the producers fearing speaking robots would look ridiculous. The writers, however, felt that even if they did look silly, not having speaking robots would be a betrayal of the fanbase.[12] Spielberg read each of their drafts and gave notes on improvement.[14] Orci and Kurtzman remained throughout production, even rewriting robot dialogue during the sound mixing after finding unexpected quirks in the characters's animation.[17]

Michael Bay was asked to direct by Spielberg on July 30, 2005,[1] but he dismissed it as a "stupid toy movie."[18] Nonetheless, Bay wanted to work with Spielberg, and, upon visiting Hasbro, he gained a new respect for the mythology.[1] Bay considered the first draft "too kiddie", so he increased the military presence for greater realism.[19][1] The writers sought inspiration from G.I. Joe for the soldier characters, though they were careful not to mix the brands.[20] They also experimented with numerous robots, ultimately selecting the characters most popular among the filmmakers to form the final cast.[5] Bay acknowledged most of the Decepticons were selected before their names or roles were developed, as Hasbro needed to start designing the toys quickly.[21] Optimus, Megatron, Bumblebee and Starscream were the only characters present in the rewrites from start to finish.[12] Arcee was a female Transformer introduced by Orci and Kurtzman, but she was cut because they found it difficult to explain robotic gender; Bay also disliked her motorcycle form, thinking it too small.[20] An early idea to have the Decepticons simultaneously strike multiple places around the world was also dropped.[16]

[edit] Design

The filmmakers incorporated valid physics into their designs, establishing the necessity for a robot's size to correspond to that of its disguise. The layout of Optimus Prime's robotic body within his truck mode is seen here.A major design decision was to ensure that the size of the robot correspond to that of the vehicle form it adopted as a disguise. This supported the Transformer's rationale for disguise-choice made during the voyage to Earth.[22] The concept of traveling protoforms was developed by Roberto Orci while wondering why "aliens who moonlight as vehicles need other vehicles to travel."[23] This reflected a desire to move to a more alien look, away from the "blocky like Generation 1 Transformers."[24] Another major influence in the designs was samurai armor, returning full-circle to the Japanese origins of the toy line.[22]

A product placement deal with General Motors supplied alternate forms for most of the Autobots, which saved $3 million.[25] GM also provided nearly two hundred cars destined for destruction in the climactic battle scene.[26] The United States military provided significant support, enhancing the film's realism: the film features F-22s, F-117s, and V-22 Ospreys, the first time these aircraft have been used for a film; soldiers served as extras, and authentic uniforms were provided for the actors.[1] A-10 Thunderbolt IIs and Lockheed AC-130s also appear. Captain Christian Hodge joked that he had to explain to his superiors the film wanted to portray most of their aircraft as evil Decepticons: however, he remarked "people love bad guys".[27]

[edit] Filming

Director Michael Bay filming at Holloman Air Force BaseMichael Bay planned an eighty-three day shooting schedule, and to save money he cut his usual fee by 30%.[1] He maintained the necessary pace by doing more camera set-ups per day than usual, and shot the film in the United States with a crew familiar to him.[19][25][1] A pre-shoot took place on April 19, 2006, and principal photography began on April 22 at Holloman Air Force Base,[2] which stood in for Qatar.[1] To film an attack by Scorponok on a village set at White Sands Missile Range, a sweep was performed to remove unexploded ordnance before set construction; ironically, the village would ultimately be blown up. The scene was broken down for the pilots flying the AWACS aircraft, who improvised dialogue as if it were an actual battle.[28][1]

The company also shot at the Hoover Dam and The Pentagon, the first time since the September 11, 2001, attacks that film crews had been allowed into these locations.[2] The external Hoover Dam scenes were shot before tourists arrived daily at 10:00 a.m., with shooting moving inside for the remainder of the day.[28] Production in California was based at Hughes Aircraft at Playa Vista, where the hangar in which Megatron is imprisoned was built.[28] Six weekends were spent in Los Angeles, California shooting the climactic battle, and elements of the battle were also shot on the Universal backlot and in Detroit.[2][28] The crew was allowed to shoot at Griffith Observatory, which was still closed for renovations begun in 2002.[2] Filming wrapped on October 4, 2006.[19]

[edit] Effects
Spielberg encouraged Bay to restrict computer-generated imagery to the robots and background elements in the action sequences.[1] Stunts such as Bonecrusher were performed live, while cameras were placed into the midst of car crashes and explosions to make it look more exciting.[26] Work on the animatics began in April 2005.[10] Bay stated Industrial Light & Magic made three-fourths of the film's effects, while Digital Domain made the rest,[1] including the Arctic discovery of Megatron, Frenzy's severed head, a vending machine mutated by the All Spark, and the Autobots' protoforms.[29] Many of the animators were big Transformers fans and were given free rein to experiment: a scene where Jazz attacks Devastator is a reference to a scene in The Transformers: The Movie where Kup jumps on Blitzwing.[30]

"I just didn't want to make the boxy characters. It's boring and it would look fake. By adding more doo-dads and stuff on the robots, more car parts, you can just make it more real."
—Michael Bay[31]
ILM created computer-generated transformations over six months in 2005, looking at every inch of the car models.[32] Initially the transformations were made to follow the laws of physics, but it did not look exciting enough and was changed to be more fluid.[33] Bay rejected a liquid metal surface for the characters' faces, instead going for a "Rubik's Cube" style of modeling.[1] He wanted numerous mechanical pieces visible so the robots would look more interesting, realistic, dynamic and quick, rather than lumbering beasts.[31][1] One decision made was that the wheels should stay on the ground for as long as possible, allowing the robots to cruise around as they changed.[34] Bumblebee uses a piece below his faceplate as an eyebrow, and pieces in his cheeks swivel to resemble a smile; all the characters' eyes are designed to dilate and brighten.[34] Bay instructed the animators to observe footage of two martial artists and numerous martial arts films to make the fights look graceful.[1]

Due to the intricate designs of the Transformers, even the simplest notion of turning a wrist needs 17 visible parts;[2] each of Ironhide's guns are made of ten thousand parts.[31] Such detail needed 38 hours to render each frame of animation,[2] which meant ILM had to increase their processing facilities.[35] Each rendered piece had to look like real metal, shiny or dull, which became difficult to model because the aged and scarred robots had to transform from clean cars. Close-up shots of the robots were sped up to look cool, but in wide shots the animation was slowed down to convincingly illustrate a sense of weight. Photographs were taken of each set and had a lighting environment produced within a computer so the robots would look like they were convincingly moving there. Bay, who has directed numerous car commercials, understood ray tracing was the key to making the robots look real, in which the CG models would look realistic based on how much of the environment was reflecting on their bodies.[30] Numerous simulations were programmed into the robots, so the animators could just focus on animating the particular areas needed for a convincing performance.[35]

[edit] Music
See also: Transformers: The Album and Transformers: The Score
Composer Steve Jablonsky, who collaborated with Bay on The Island, scored music for the trailers before work began on the film itself. Recording took place in April 2007 at the Sony Scoring Stage in Culver City, California. The score uses six major themes across ninety minutes of music, including the teaser music.[36] The Autobots have three themes, one named "Optimus" to represent their friendship with Sam, and another played during their arrival on Earth. The Decepticons have a chanted theme, which relies on electronics, unlike most of the score. The All Spark has its own theme as well.[37] Hans Zimmer, Jablonsky's mentor, also helped compose the score.[1]

[edit] Cast and characters

[edit] Humans
Shia LaBeouf starred as Sam Witwicky, who unwittingly buys Bumblebee as his first car. The character is based upon the mechanic Spike from the television series,[38] but the nickname was considered inappropriate because they dropped the character's profession.[39] Bay stated he wanted to make Sam be an average Joe, and not a geek. Bay initially considered LaBeouf too old, having only seen his performance in Constantine, but he was bowled over by the actor's enthusiasm.[1] A Transformers fan,[5] LaBeouf also reminded the filmmakers of the young Tom Hanks.[18] He worked out five days a week for three months and gained twenty-five pounds of muscle to prepare for the role, but realized during shooting that his role required agility rather than strength.[2] LaBeouf performed his own stunts, including a scene where Sam clings to a statue as Megatron approaches, with only a safety harness to protect him. "There are action stars who wouldn’t have been as dumb", he joked.[2]

Megan Fox plays Sam's crush, Mikaela Banes, whom he woos with Bumblebee's help. She is mechanically skilled because her father was a car thief. She had auditioned for Bay's production of The Amityville Horror. To make her give a tough performance, Bay often threatened to repeatedly film takes of scenes at night so she would appear frustrated and tired.[1] Fox gained ten pounds of muscle during shooting due to the physicality of the role.[2]

Josh Duhamel and Tyrese Gibson play the soldiers, Captain William Lennox and Technical Sergeant Robert Epps, respectively. The characters are part of a seven-man Joint Special Operations Command team in Qatar, who survive Blackout's attack on the base. Lennox has a wife and newborn daughter in the United States. Duhamel and Gibson were fans of the toy line as children,[5] and the latter even paid the filmmakers so he could be in the film.[40] They spent three days in boot camp to prepare for the role. Gibson met combat controller Ray Bollinger, and spent time learning technical terms and military code to make his dialogue sound convincing.[5]

John Turturro played Agent Reggie Simmons of Sector 7. Bay wanted Steve Buscemi for the role, but he was busy, so Turturro, whom Bay had wanted to work with ever since seeing The Big Lebowski, was cast instead.[1] Turturro gave a slapstick performance, which was intended to be in contrast to the serious military scenes, so that a sense of fun would not completely disappear.[20] The actor claimed to have based his performance on the director, although Bay himself stated he cannot see anything of himself in Turturro's performance. A backstory was fashioned for Simmons, explaining his family had served in Sector 7 for generations, giving him a mother's boy personality. Bay deleted these many jokes as they were too crude.[1] Michael O'Neill played Simmons's superior, Tom Banachek.

Rachael Taylor played Maggie Madsen, who assists the Department of Defense in decoding the virus left by Frenzy. She realizes that those hacking into the government's data files cannot be human, due to the ease with which they made the attack. The writers had initially envisioned Maggie as quirkier and more cyberpunk.[20] The filmmakers opted for Taylor's natural Australian accent to give the film a global sensibility.[2] She found many of her scenes difficult because of the high heels she had to wear.[40] Anthony Anderson played Glen Whitmann, a computer hacker and friend of Maggie, while Jon Voight played the United States Secretary of Defense John Keller.

Other characters include Kevin Dunn and Julie White as Sam's parents, Ron and Judy, while Bernie Mac cameoed as Bobby Bolivia, a used car dealer from whom Sam purchases Bumblebee.

[edit] Autobots
Peter Cullen voices Optimus Prime, the Autobot leader who comes to Earth to destroy the All Spark in order to end the war, even if this means merging with it and killing himself to do so. Don Murphy decided after discussions with fans on his website that they wanted the surviving voices from the 1980s cartoon.[7] Cullen described reprising the role as easy as "slipping into an old pair of very comfortable shoes that you haven't worn for a while", and was grateful to the fans for wanting him back.[41] His vocal performance consisted of much improvisation with Bay, and portraying the traditional heroism of the character as well as bringing a sense of humor.[42] Bay told the animators to seek inspiration from Liam Neeson to inspire Optimus's body language.[1] Optimus transforms into a Peterbilt truck. The original cab over design was rejected because that would only transform into a twenty-feet tall model of the character, because the filmmakers wanted him to stand twenty-eight feet tall.[1] Optimus has red flame artwork on his blue body. This acted as a compromise between Hasbro, who wanted to retain the character's iconic red chest, and Bay, who felt red alone would not photograph well.[26] Hasbro rejected early designs as there was too much blue.[22] Optimus's head was also built on set.[1]

Optimus's scout Bumblebee transforms into a 1976 Chevrolet Camaro, and upgrades into the 2009 model.[2] Bay rejected the G1 form of the Volkswagen Beetle, as it reminded him of Herbie the Love Bug. Hasbro did not mind as long as the car remained yellow. In reference to his original form, the Beetle is parked next to Bumblebee when Sam is buying it.[26] The modern Camaro was chosen for its friendly appearance,[2] while the old model was chosen to show that Sam's father could only buy him the cheapest, lamest car. In the film, Bumblebee upgrades because of Mikaela calls his choice of form "a piece of crap".[26] Bumblebee communicates with radio soundbites because of his damaged vocal processor. The decision was inspired by Spielberg's E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, as the writers wanted to show that his bond with Sam was beyond words.[43] They had considered using lines from various Paramount films, including "I feel the need for speed!" from Top Gun, but it was considered too obvious.[44] Credited clips used in the film include John Wayne from El Dorado and Nichelle Nichols as Uhura from the Star Trek television series. Mark Ryan voiced the character for his two lines at the film's end, when he regains his voice. He had acted as a stand in for the robots during filming, giving actors someone to react to, both physically where appropriate and providing dialogue.[45] A full-size puppet was also used,[2] while the animators modeled the character on Michael J. Fox.[1]

Darius McCrary voices Jazz, a lieutenant who develops a fondness for urban culture. McCrary said he was honored to follow in the footsteps of Scatman Crothers, who voiced Jazz on television. "When I was actually [recording], I really did feel Scatman's presence," he said.[46] Mark Ryan had tried out numerous voices for Jazz, including a Sean Connery impersonation, before McCrary was cast.[45] Jazz transforms into a Pontiac Solstice, a car the director considered too small, but he decided not to argue with GM.[21] Hasbro felt it was still a "cool silver sports car" reminiscent of his G1 Porsche 935 form.[26] The screenwriters chose to kill off Jazz as they felt he was the most likeable character after Optimus and Bumblebee.[47]

Alternate modes. Top: Starscream.
Mid, left to right: Optimus Prime, Ironhide, Ratchet and Barricade.
Bottom, left to right: Bumblebee, Jazz.Jess Harnell voices Ironhide, who transforms into a GMC Topkick pick-up truck. He is the grumpy weapons specialist of the group. Peter Cullen voiced Ironhide on television and also auditioned to reprise the role.[48] When Ryan was voicing the character on set, he had used a Southern accent as Cullen did.[45]

Robert Foxworth voices Ratchet, the team's medical officer. He transforms into Search and rescue Hummer H2. The writers had wanted to keep his G1 ambulance form, but the producers wanted something else. Hasbro did not mind if the character was either an ambulance or a fire apparatus.[10]

[edit] Decepticons
Hugo Weaving voices Megatron, the Decepticon leader who crash-landed in the Arctic thousands of years ago in his quest to obtain the All Spark. When he is defrosted, he keeps his original alien jet form out of vanity.[27] Frank Welker, who played the part on television opposite Peter Cullen, auditioned to reprise the role. Bay considered his voice too soft, and he also felt it would be disrespectful to ask Welker to change his voice. Weaving's voice had been part of the inspiration Bay had given to his animators for the character, and the character's voice had become that of Weaving in the director's imagination. The actor recorded his lines in Australia, where he was directed by Bay through iChat.[1] The change from Megatron's G1 Walther P38 pistol form was done to avoid morphing. Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman also felt it would be "the equivalent to Darth Vader [becoming] his own lightsaber and having someone else swing him around."[27] Fans disliked leaked images of the character's head design, which was much narrower, so it was redesigned during filming.[22] Optimus calls Megatron his brother; Cullen interpreted this line literally,[49] but while the writers state this was the case in early drafts, they consider the line in its final context to be metaphorical.[20]

Reno Wilson voices Frenzy, a small and vicious spy who transforms into a boombox and later into a mobile phone. Frenzy was primarily animated by a French man who gave the character quirky movements: Bay could tell which shots were not done by him and felt the character totally changed in those scenes.[1] A puppet was also used on set.[2] Frenzy was originally named Soundwave, but the writers decided to rename him as he was too different from the original character.[27] Jess Harnell voices Barricade, (a Saleen Mustang police car), whom Frenzy guides to Sam. The character was inspired by the G1 Autobot Prowl, as the writers thought a Decepticon seeking authority would use the police car form.[27]

Blackout transforms into a MH-53 Pave Low helicopter, with his minion Scorponok attaching to him. Soundwave had been considered for this role,[50] with Ravage as his minion,[43] but Hasbro insisted Soundwave have a music-based role.[10] Scorponok was chosen after the writers discovered him in the pages of The Ultimate Guide, and felt he was appropriate to the setting.[51] A model of his tail was built,[52] while primacord explosives were used for his ripple movements in the sand. This was potentially dangerous to cast members, therefore creating genuine terror in the film's shots.[1]

Charlie Adler voices Starscream, Megatron's second-in-command. Despite being a popular character, his role is limited because of the film's running time.[20] Nonetheless, a post-credits scene of him escaping Earth was added because audiences at test screenings wanted to know what happened to him.[1] He transforms into an F-22 Raptor, which serves to update his G1 form of the F-15 Eagle, which used to be the most technologically advanced jet. This continues the character's role as the powerful air commander.[1]

Jim Wood voices Bonecrusher, who attacks Optimus on the highway to Mission City. The animators modelled his fighting styles on hockey and football players,[1] and his alternate form of the Buffalo H Mine-Protected vehicle was altered with a larger fork.[27] For Devastator, the crew chose to use an M1 Abrams tank prop built for xXx: State of the Union.[2] The character was intended to be named Brawl, but the subtitled line where the character names himself in Cybertronian reads "Devastator reporting". It was not fixed despite being pointed out by the writers twice.[53]

[edit] Release
Transformers had its worldwide premiere at N Seoul Tower on June 11, 2007.[54] It premiered at the Los Angeles Film Festival on June 27 via digital satellite feed,[55] and in Rhode Island on June 28. The Rhode Island premiere was a freely available event offering fans to buy tickets for $75 to benefit four charities: the Rhode Island Community Food Bank, the Autism Project of Rhode Island, Adoption Rhode Island, and Hasbro Children's Hospital.[56] The film was released on IMAX on September 21, 2007,[57] with an additional two minutes that were not seen elsewhere.[58]

Mountain Dew sidewalk chalk advert featuring Bumblebee on a New York City pavement, by Julian Beever
[edit] Marketing
Further information: Transformers movie toy line, Transformers: Movie Prequel, Transformers: Movie Adaptation, Transformers: Ghosts of Yesterday, and Transformers: The Game
Hasbro made deals with 200 companies across 70 countries to promote the film.[59] Their toy line for the film was created over two months over late 2005/early 2006, collaborating heavily with the filmmakers.[24] A pair of preview toys, Protoform Optimus Prime and Starscream, were released in the U.S.A. on May 1, 2007, before the first wave of figures were released on June 2.[24] The line featured characters not in the film, including Arcee.[22] A second wave of toys set for late 2007 is labeled the "Allspark Power" line, which includes ordinary vehicles in the film turned into Transformers, and repaints of existing toys.[60] The toys feature "Automorph Technology" in which moving parts of the toy allow other parts to shift automatically.[61] Michael Bay directed tie-in commercials for General Motors, Burger King and PepsiCo,[62] while props including the Chevrolet Camaro used for Bumblebee and the Allspark, were put up for charity on eBay.[63] A viral marketing alternate reality game was employed through the Sector 7 web site, which presented the film and all previous Transformers toys and media as part of a cover-up operation called "Hungry Dragon," perpetrated by a "real life" Sector 7 to hide the existence of "real" Transformers. The site featured several videos recording "evidence" of Transformers on Earth, with cameos by G1 characters Grimlock and Bumblebee.[64]

[edit] Home video
Transformers was released in Region 1 territories on October 16, 2007 on DVD and HD DVD formats. The standard DVD was released in single disc and two disc editions.[65] The Wal-Mart edition of the DVD included an animated version of the prequel comic book, entitled Transformers Beginnings. Mark Ryan, Peter Cullen and Kevin Dunn reprised their roles, while Frank Welker played Megatron.[66] The Target casing is a transformable two-dimensional image of Optimus Prime,[67] and it contained a prequel comic book focusing on the Decepticons.[66] The DVD sold 8.3 million copies in its first week, making it the fastest-selling DVD of 2007 in North America, and it sold 190 thousand copies on HD DVD, which was the biggest debut yet on the format.[68] The DVDs altogether sold 13.74 million copies, becoming the most popular DVD of 2007.[69]

[edit] Reaction
Transformers fans were initially divided over the film due to the radical redesigns of many characters, although the casting of Peter Cullen was warmly received.[22] Transformers comic book writer Simon Furman and Beast Wars script consultant Benson Yee both warmly received it as spectacular fun, but Furman argued there were too many human storylines.[70] Yee felt that being the first in a series, the film had to establish much of the fictional universe and therefore did not have time to focus on the Decepticons.[71] Nonetheless, the film created a greater awareness of the franchise and drew in many new fans.[72] Transformers' box office success led to development of films based on Voltron and Robotech,[73] as well as a Knight Rider remake.[74]

[edit] Box office performance
The film was released in ten overseas markets on June 28, 2007, including Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and the Philippines. Transformers made $29.5 million in its first weekend, topping the box office in ten countries including a $1.7 million four-day weekend gross in Singapore, the biggest yet.[75] It grossed $5.2 million in Malaysia, becoming the most successful film in the country's history.[76] Transformers opened in China on July 11, setting a record for the biggest foreign language film opening there, with $3 million.[77] It became the second highest-grossing foreign film behind Titanic, making $37.3 million.[78] The film was officially released in the United Kingdom on July 27, making £8.7 million, and helped contribute to the biggest attendance record ever, for that weekend. It was second at the U.K. box office, behind The Simpsons Movie.[79] The film has grossed $706.3 million worldwide, including $319 million in the United States, making it Michael Bay's highest grossing film to date, not adjusting for inflation.[80]

The film was released in the U.S. and Canada on July 3, 2007, with 8 p.m. preview screenings on July 2. The previews earned $8.8 million,[81] and in its first day of general release it grossed $27.8 million, a record for Tuesday box office attendance. It broke Spider-Man 2's record for the biggest July 4th gross, making $29 million.[82] On its opening weekend, Transformers grossed $70.5 million, amounting to a $155.4 million opening week, giving it the record for the biggest opening week for a non-sequel.[83] The opening's domestic gross was 50% more than what Paramount Pictures expected, with one executive attributing it to word of mouth, telling parents that "it's OK to take the kids." A Cinemascope poll indicated the film was most popular with children and parents, including older women, and attracted many African American and Latino viewers.[84]

[edit] Critical reception
56% of the 195 reviews of the film listed on Rotten Tomatoes were favorable. 68% of the thirty-six reviews from major news outlets listed in the "Cream of the Crop" section were positive.[85] It earned a Metacritic score of 61/100 (generally favorable) from thirty-five reviews.[86] IGN's Todd Gilchrist found it Michael Bay's best film, and "one of the few instances where it's OK to enjoy something for being smart and dumb at the same time, mostly because it's undeniably also a whole lot of fun."[87] The Advertiser's Sean Fewster found the visual effects so seamless that "you may come to believe the studio somehow engineered artificial intelligence".[88] The Denver Post's Lisa Kennedy praised the depiction of the robots as having "a believably rendered scale and intimacy"[89] and ABC presenter Margaret Pomeranz was surprised "that a complete newcomer to the Transformers phenomenon like myself became involved in the fate of these mega-machines."[90] Ain't It Cool News's Drew McWeeny felt most of the cast grounded the story, and that "it has a real sense of wonder, one of the things that’s missing from so much of the big CGI lightshows released these days."[91] Author Peter David found it ludicrous fun, and that "[Bay] manages to hold on to his audience's suspension of disbelief long enough for us to segue into some truly spectacular battle scenes."[92]

Despite the praise for the visual effects, there was division over the human storylines. The Hollywood Reporter's Kirk Honeycutt liked "how a teen plot line gets tied in to the end of the world,"[93] while Empire's Ian Nathan praised Shia LaBeouf as "a smart, natural comedian, [who] levels the bluntness of this toy story with an ironic bluster."[94] Ain't It Cool News founder Harry Knowles found the military storylines distracting from Sam, a conflict of Bay and Steven Spielberg's styles.[95] James Berardinelli hated the film as he did not connect with the characters in-between the action, which he found tedious.[96] Los Angeles Times's Kenneth Turan found the humans "oddly lifeless, doing little besides marking time until those big toys fill the screen,"[97] while ComingSoon.net's Joshua Stames felt the Transformers were "completely believable, right up to the moment they open their mouths to talk, when they revert to bad cartoon characters."[98] Daily Herald's Matt Arado was annoyed that "the Transformers [are] little more than supporting players", and felt the middle act was sluggish.[99] CNN's Tom Charity questioned the idea of a film based on a toy, and felt it would "buzz its youthful demographic... but leave the rest of us wondering if Hollywood could possibly aim lower."[100]

[edit] Awards
Before its release, Transformers was voted "Best Summer Movie You Haven't Seen Yet" at the 2007 MTV Movie Awards.[101] Entertainment Weekly named Bumblebee as their fourth favorite computer generated character,[102] while The Times listed Optimus Prime's depiction as the thirtieth best film robot, citing his coolness and dangerousness.[103] Visual effects supervisor Scott Farrar was honored at the Hollywood Film Festival and Hollywood Awards Gala Ceremony on October 22, 2007 for his work on the film.[104]

[edit] Sequel
Michael Bay and Steven Spielberg are expected to return as director and executive producer for Transformers 2, and Paramount has announced a June 26, 2009 release.[105] Shia LaBeouf,[106] Megan Fox[107] and Peter Cullen are signed on to return.[108] Before Transformers was released, Bay expressed interest in an aircraft carrier character,[109] while producer Tom DeSanto was interested in the Dinobots, Constructicons, and Soundwave.[110] Ehren Kruger was hired to write the script, alongside the returning Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.[111] The script is incomplete due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, but filming is expected to begin on June 2, 2008.[112] Meanwhile, IDW Publishing will release its own sequel to the film, Transformers Movie Sequel: The Reign of Starscream, the first issue of which is due in April 2008.[113]

Heroes (TV series)

2008-01-21T15:38:00.000-08:00

Heroes is an American science fiction serial drama television series created by Tim Kring. It premiered on NBC on September 25, 2006.[1] The show tells the story of several people who "thought they were like everyone else... until they realized they have incredible abilities." These people soon realize they have a role in preventing catastrophe and saving humanity. The series emulates the style of American comic books in aesthetic, as well as storytelling (i.e. short, multi-episode story arcs that build upon a larger, more encompassing arc). Kring said "we have talked about where the show goes up to five seasons."[2]

The first season attracted an average of 14.3 million viewers in the United States and received the highest rating for any NBC drama premiere in five years.[3] The first season's run consisted of 23 episodes; 24 episodes were ordered for the second season.[4] The second season of Heroes premiered on September 24, 2007,[5] but only eleven episodes have been broadcast,[6] due to the current WGA strike.[7][8] The dispute also led to the postponement of a six episode spin-off, Heroes: Origins, which was originally expected to air in April and May of 2008.[9][10]

Contents [hide]
1 Production
1.1 Conception
1.2 Episode format
1.3 Production notes
1.4 Music
1.5 DVD releases
1.6 Heroes: Origins
2 Cast and characters
2.1 Main characters and cast
2.2 Casting
3 Season synopses
3.1 Season one
3.1.1 Volume one: "Genesis"
3.2 Season two
3.2.1 Volume two: "Generations"
3.2.2 Volume three: "Villains"
4 Recurring elements and symbols
5 Impact
5.1 Awards
5.2 Criticisms and responses
5.3 Comparisons to other works
5.4 Ratings
5.5 Legal and copyright issues
6 Other media
6.1 Television
6.2 Internet
6.3 Radio
6.4 Video game
6.5 Mobile game
6.6 Books and publications
6.7 Action figures
7 Promotions and fandom
7.1 San Diego Comic-Con
7.2 Heroes World Tour
7.3 Nissan cross-promotions
7.4 Other promotions
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Production

[edit] Conception
The series began development during pilot season in 2006, when Tim Kring, then creator of NBC's Crossing Jordan came up with the concept for Heroes. Kring wanted to create a "large ensemble saga" that would connect with the audience. He began thinking about how big, scary and complicated the world is, and wanted to create a character driven series about people who could do something about it. Kring felt that a cop, medical, or Lost-type drama didn't have characters that were big enough to save the world. He came up with the thought of superheroes; ordinary people who would discover extraordinary abilities, while still rooted in the real world and in reality. Milo Ventimiglia described the pilot as a "character drama about everyday people with a heightened reality." Kring wanted the series to have touchstones that involved the characters and the world they lived in.[11][12] Before Kring began putting his ideas for Heroes together, he spoke with Lost executive producer Damon Lindelof, who had worked with Kring for three years on Crossing Jordan. Kring credits Lindelof for giving him ideas on how to pitch the series to the networt and advice on the lessons he (Lindelof) learned about working on a serialized drama. Kring and Lindelof still speak to this day and support each others projects.[13][14][15] When it came time for Kring to pitch the idea for Heroes to the NBC network, he describes the networks reaction as "excited...very supportive." Kring comments that he has been partners with NBC for some time based on his six year run as showrunner for Crossing Jordan. [16] When he pitched the pilot, he described every detail, including the cliffhanger ending. When NBC executives asked him what was going to happen next, Kring responded, "Well, you’ll just have to wait and find out."[17]

[edit] Episode format
Episodes have a distinct structure: following a recap of events relevant to the upcoming episode, each show begins with a cold open. At a dramatic juncture, the screen cuts to the title graphic, which is a eclipse of sun by the earth, with the Heroes logo and a dramatic musical interlude. The opening credits generally appear alphabetically by last name over the scenes that immediately follow. Throughout the episode, several characters stories are shown. Sometimes these stories are stand alone events, while at other times, character stories intertwine and cross over. The majority of episodes end with a suspenseful twist or cliffhanger, revealed just seconds before a smash cut to a "to be continued" graphic. Sometimes the next episode begins exactly where the previous episodes cliffhanger ended, although this is not always the case.

[edit] Production notes
The series is filmed in Los Angeles, California and Santa Clarita, California.[18]

When the writing team works on an episode, each writer takes a character and writes the individual scenes surrounding that character. These stories are then combined and given to the episode writer, allowing every writer to contribute to every episode.[19] This also permits the writing team to finish scripts faster, so the filming crew can shoot more scenes at a location.[20] Tim Kring describes the writting process as a collaborative process. This collaboration is important because production need to shoot several scenes at single location, and in order to do this, several scripts have to be ready. Jesse Alexander, co-producer and writer, explain that this process is important in a serialized drama because you have to know where each characters development is heading.[21]

A special 73-minute version of the pilot was first screened to a large audience at the 2006 Comic Con in San Diego.[22] Initially it was reported that this unaired pilot would not be released, however it was included on the first season DVD set.[23]

In keeping with the comic book thematic elements used in the show, professional comic book artist Tim Sale was brought in to provide the artwork used as the work of Isaac Mendez, including Mendez's comic book, the 9th Wonders!.[24] Additionally, the font used in captions and credits for the show is reminiscent of traditional hand-rendered comic book lettering. It was created by Sale and is based on his handwriting style.[25]

[edit] Music
Music from the first season is composed by Wendy Melvoin and Lisa Coleman, with vocals provided by Shenkar. The second season brought the addition of Manon Dave to the music team.[26]

The Rogue Wave song "Eyes" from the Just Friends soundtrack is featured in the Season 1 episodes "Genesis" and "Collision".[27]

Additionally, singer-songwriter Imogen Heap recorded a song entitled "Not Now But Soon" for the show's soundtrack which she stated is expected to be released in February 2008.[28]

In France, the theme music of Heroes is composed by Victoria Petrosillo. Her song, "Le Héros d'un autre", is used by television network TF1 to replace the show's original incidental music. The network created a new opening credit sequence in order to play Petrosillo's theme song.

[edit] DVD releases
DVD name Release date Number of episodes Number of discs
Season 1, Episode 1 August, 2007
1 1
Season 1, Part 1 October 1, 2007

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November 28, 2007
11 4
Season 1, Part 2 December 10, 2007

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February 13, 2008
12 3
Season 1 August 28, 2007

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September 19, 2007

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October 2, 2007

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October 17, 2007

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October 18, 2007

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December 2, 2007

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December 10, 2007

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February 13, 2008
23 7
September 3, 2007
23 6
September 27, 2007

UK Region 2 split Heroes into two halves on initial release, part one being released on October 1, 2007 and part two on December 10, 2007. However, when the second part was released, the full season was released as one collection as well.

The DVD release includes an extended 73-minute version of the pilot episode, 50 deleted scenes, behind the scenes featurettes and an audio commentary by Kring.

[edit] Heroes: Origins
Main article: Heroes: Origins
On May 14, 2007, NBC announced that during the 2007-2008 season, the network would air a six-episode Heroes spin-off called Heroes: Origins.[29] The show was to introduce a new character each week, and viewers were to select which one would stay for the following season of the regular series.[30] The show was to air after the completion of the second season of Heroes. However, on October 31, 2007, reports in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter indicated that Origins had been put on hold, because of a strike by the Writers Guild of America.[9][10]

[edit] Cast and characters
Main article: List of characters in Heroes
Originally, Kring designed the series to have an ever-shifting cast, however, his motivation changed when he realized how big the original cast hit with audiences and most of the first season cast was brought back for the second season, with a few additions receiving a star billing. [31] In its first season, the show features an ensemble cast of twelve main characters making it the third largest cast in American primetime television behind Desperate Housewives and Lost. Although NBC's cast page lists only ten characters,[32] Leonard Roberts (D.L. Hawkins), who first appeared in the series' fifth episode, was an additional member of the original full-time cast. In episode eleven of the first season, Jack Coleman (Noah Bennet) was upgraded from a recurring role to become the twelfth full-time cast member as of "Fallout".[33] The series also features many guest and recurring characters, including friends and family of the main cast, criminals and villains, and other individuals with remarkable powers.

Zachary Quinto[34] and James Kyson Lee,[35] who were recurring cast members in the first season, join the main cast for the second season. They are joined by new cast members David Anders,[36] Kristen Bell, Dana Davis[37] and Dania Ramírez.[38] Anders was originally hired as a recurring cast member, and then upgraded to a regular before the season began. He was listed as a guest star until the fifth episode of season two, when he was listed as a main cast member. Santiago Cabrera, Tawny Cypress, and Leonard Roberts were no longer listed as part of the main cast at the start of the second season.[39]

[edit] Main characters and cast
Name Star billing seasons Recurring billing seasons Played by Summary
Claire Bennet 1, 2 — Hayden Panettiere A high school cheerleader formerly of Odessa, Texas, now living in Costa Verde, California, who has a regenerative ability. She is Noah Bennet's adopted daughter, as well as Nathan Petrelli's biological daughter.
Noah Bennet 1, 2 — Jack Coleman More commonly referred to as "Mr. Bennet" or "the Man in Horn-Rimmed Glasses (H.R.G.)", initially worked for the Primatech Paper Company, which is actually a cover operation for an organization that investigates people with superhuman abilities.
Elle Bishop 2 — Kristen Bell A 24 year old woman who works for The Company. Her father, Bob Bishop, is head of The Company. She has the power of electric manipulation.
Monica Dawson 2 — Dana Davis[37][40] A restaurant worker at the Burger Bonanza in New Orleans. She is D.L. Hawkins' niece and Micah's first cousin. Monica has the ability of adaptive muscle memory: she can replicate any physical motion she witnesses.
Simone Deveaux 1 — Tawny Cypress An art dealer and gallery owner whose skepticism and complicated romantic life are tested.
D.L. Hawkins 1 2 Leonard Roberts A former construction worker and gang leader with the power to alter his physical tangibility and phase through solid objects. He is Niki's husband and Micah's father.
Maya Herrera 2 — Dania Ramirez[38] From Central America, is wanted for murder and is on the run to the United States. Under stress, Maya can create a deadly illness when she cries which is fatal to those around her, except her twin brother Alejandro, who can heal it.
Ando Masahashi 2 1 James Kyson Lee[35] Hiro Nakamura's friend, coworker, and traveling companion. He has no known superhuman abilities.
Isaac Mendez 1 — Santiago Cabrera An artist living in New York who can paint future events during precognitive trances. He also writes and draws a comic book called 9th Wonders! which has also been shown to depict the future.
Adam Monroe/Takezo Kensei 2 — David Anders[36] An Englishman who originates the role of legendary warrior Kensei in feudal Japan. Monroe has a spontaneous regenerative ability which has made him effectively immortal.
Hiro Nakamura 1, 2 — Masi Oka A programmer[41] from Osaka with the ability to manipulate the space-time continuum. He is convinced that he is a hero, and with other "special persons", he can change the future.
Matt Parkman 1, 2 — Greg Grunberg A former Los Angeles police officer with the ability to hear other people's thoughts, though his powers are developing further, such as his ability to control people's actions. He is currently an NYPD detective and the guardian of Molly Walker.
Nathan Petrelli 1, 2 — Adrian Pasdar A former New York Congressional candidate with the ability of self-propelled flight.
Peter Petrelli 1, 2 — Milo Ventimiglia A former hospice nurse with the ability to absorb the powers of others he has been near and recall them.
Micah Sanders 1, 2 — Noah Gray-Cabey A child prodigy and technopath, he has the ability to "talk" to electrical devices, giving him control of machines and electronic devices.[42] He is D.L. and Niki's son.
Niki Sanders 1, 2 — Ali Larter A former internet stripper from Las Vegas who exhibits superhuman strength and has multiple personalities. She has shown two alternate personalities: Jessica, the name of Niki's dead sister and Gina, who appeared in Four Months Ago.... She is D.L.'s wife and Micah's mother.
Mohinder Suresh 1, 2 — Sendhil Ramamurthy A professor of genetics from India who travels to New York to investigate the death of his father, Chandra. Through his investigations, he comes into contact with people his father listed as possessing superhuman abilities. Mohinder's blood contains antibodies against a virus which only infects people with special abilities.
Sylar 2[34] 1 Zachary Quinto Real name Gabriel Gray, a former watchmaker with an intuitive understanding of how things work. He is a serial killer who seeks out superhuman individuals, killing them in order to take their powers. Sylar has multiple acquired abilities. Sylar takes his alias from the brand name of a watch company.

[edit] Casting
Tim Kring describes the casting process as an "incredibly simple and easy process." He states that everyone that production wanted to go after came in and read for the respective part.[43] Jason La Padura, the casting director for Heroes stated that when casting for a new character, major or minor, his company puts out a script breakdown and post it to a breakdown service. He then receives resumes and photos and looks for potential actors to cast. When it comes to guest stars, "we need to really be able to see what the people have done, what they're about, we pay a lot of attention to people's training, their previous credits." When it comes to co-stars, La Padura says that it is an easier process, that can be done through an online service used by casting directors. When it comes to well-known actors, Padura submits their names to production, and if they (production) are interested, they may offer a role that was already planned or write-in a new role for that actor.[44]

Sendhil Ramamurthy's character of Mohinder Suresh was one of only a few characters that was changed based on casting. Suresh was originally designed to be a 55-year old professor, however, due to Ramamurthy's audition, the part was rewritten to fit him.[45] Hayden Panettiere was cast by Marc Hirschfeld, executive vice president of casting for NBC Universal Television. Hirschfeld explained that when they were trying to decide who the cheerleader should be, he literally picked up the phone and said to the producers, "You got to meet Hayden Panettiere."[46] Dania Ramirez was cast on the series based on her work on The Sopranos. She was notified by Kring that he was creating a Latin character and wanted her to come and test. Ramirez was the only actress called in to test for the role.[47] Kristen Bell was first approached about being cast in July 2007, during a train ride back from the San Diego Comic Con with Heroes actors Zachary Quinto and Masi Oka, and writers from the series. The writers had mentioned that if Bell "ever want[ed] to come on Heroes, give us [writers] a call", to which Bell said she would love to. Bell had several casting options, including ABC's Lost, however it was officially announced that she was cast in August 2007.[48] David Anders auditioned for the role of Takezo Kensei. He read his scenes, impersonating Peter O'Toole, in which the producers responded by asking his to tone down the impression on his second audition. He was contacted two weeks later and given the part. Anders was aware at the time that his role was a recurring role that had the possibility of being promoted to a main cast role, however, he did not find out until the filming of episode five that he would be portraying Monroe, and that his character would be moving into the present.[49][50]

Jack Coleman was originally cast to only be in the pilot, with an open-ended contract. The connection between the characters of Claire and Mr. Bennet, and Kring's approval of Coleman performance led to him being upgraded to a recurring character, before being promoted to the main cast roster.[51] Dana Davis received the Heroes script during the 2007 pilot season. She auditioned once for the role and was cast.[52][53] Casting director Jason La Padura stated that the character of Peter Petrelli was the hardest to cast due to conflicts regarding the Petrelli brother's ages. La Padura states the the Petrelli brothers were originally written to be twins, and it became obvious in the production process that in order to have correct dynamic between the two characters, Peter had to be the younger brother. Adrian Pasdar was cast first. According to La Padura Milo Ventimiglia's role as Peter was the last to be cast and the most difficult.[44] Greg Grunberg came in and originally auditioned for the role of one of the Petrelli brothers. It wasn't a fit for him, but the production liked him so much, they rewrote the role of Matt Parkman to fit him. Originally Parkman's character was to be much younger. La Padura was originally casting a Ryan Phillippe-type actor for the role.[44] La Padura also states the Masi Oka was the easiest actor to cast although casting the character was difficult due to a small pool of Japanese-speaking actors. Masi walked in the door and production knew he was "terrific" and "ideal" for the role.[44] Ali Larter was cast for the show after reading several pilots during the 2006 pilot season. She auditioned for the role and was brought in a second and third time to meet with the studio and network respectively before being officially cast.[54] Tawny Cypress also auditioned for the role of Niki, but was not awarded the part. Instead, Kring rewrote the role of Stella for her and renamed the character Simone Deveaux.[55] Zachary Quinto auditioned for the role of Sylar, during the time when the series was currently airing. Tim Kring was not present at his first audition, but after a five day process, Qunito was awarded the role of Sylar.[56] Santiago Cabrera was cast through an interview process. When he auditioned for the production team, he went all out, doing the scene from the pilot when he was under the influence with heroin. After the scene, the producers ask, "Well thank you very much for that. Maybe you would try it now not so on the effects of drugs." He eventually landed the role.[57]

[edit] Season synopses
See also: List of Heroes episodes and List of Heroes graphic novels
The plot of Heroes is designed to be similar to the stories of comic books. The series has large, overall plot arcs and minor story arcs within. No matter what characters exist and what events make up a season, each season of Heroes is planned to involve ordinary people who discover their abilities and their reactions to that discovery.

Season 2 was going to be comprised of three volumes. Volume 2 was "Generations", Volume 3 was called "Exodus", Volume 4 was called "Villains." This plan changed due to the writers strike.[58]

[edit] Season one

[edit] Volume one: "Genesis"
Season 1 began in the United States and Canada on September 23, 2006 and featured 23 episodes that aired on Mondays at 9:00pm. The series went on hiatus twice; first from December 4, 2006 to January 22, 2007, and again from March 5 to April 23, 2007, with the season finale airing on May 21, 2007. The series begins as a seemingly ordinary group of people gradually become aware that they have special abilities. Events illustrate their reactions to these powers, and how the discovery affects their personal and professional lives. At the same time, several ordinary individuals are investigating the origins and extent of these abilities. Mohinder Suresh, a geneticist, continues his late father's research into the biological source of the change, while Noah Bennet represents a secret organization known only as "The Company".

While coping, each of the characters is drawn - willingly or not - into the Company's conspiracy to control superpowered people, and into a race to stop an explosion from destroying New York City and millions of its inhabitants. Throughout the season, the predatory stalkings of the serial killer Sylar and continued manipulations from casino-owner and mobster Mr. Linderman affect the characters directly and indirectly. The characters' individual stories, Peter Petrelli's abilities, his brother Nathan's campaign for Congress, Claire Bennet's search for her biological parents, Hiro Nakamura's adventurous journeys, Niki Sanders' multiple personalities, and the precognitive visions of Isaac Mendez all culminate in a climactic meeting of the characters at Kirby Plaza in New York.

[edit] Season two

[edit] Volume two: "Generations"
Season 2 began in the United States and Canada on September 24, 2007 and has thus far featured 11 out of the planned 24 episodes. It aired on Mondays at 9:00pm. The season was broken down into volumes, and the first volume completed its finale on December 3, 2007, followed by a hiatus until the end of the writers' strike. The second season of Heroes begins four months after the events of Kirby Plaza. Peter Petrelli, Matt Parkman, Nathan Petrelli, and Sylar have all survived the events of the season one finale, and are trying to return to ordinary lives despite their extraordinary abilities, with the exception of Sylar who is on a quest to regain the use of his abilities. The main plot arc of volume two deals with the Company and its research on the Shanti virus. This research is explored through the company's founders, whose identities are revealed, as well as through the effects of various strains of the virus on The Haitian, Niki Sanders, Sylar, and others. An amnesiac Peter Petrelli observes the potential devastation of the virus in a future New York City. The heroes ultimately come together in an attempt to stop the release of a deadly strain of the virus and avert a global pandemic.

Interwoven with the main plot are several secondary plots. These include Nathan Petrelli's recovery following the events at Kirby Plaza; the journey of new characters Maya and Alejandro from Honduras to the United States, and their interaction with a powerless Sylar; Claire and Noah Bennet and their family adapting to a new life in southern California; Claire's relationship with her boyfriend West; Monica Dawson discovering her powers in New Orleans, with the help of her cousin Micah; Matt Parkman's reunion with his estranged father, leading to discovery of new abilities; The Company's manipulation of Mohinder Suresh; Ando Masahashi trying to piece together what happened to Hiro; and Hiro Nakamura's journey to Feudal Japan, where he meets his childhood hero, Takezo Kensei.

[edit] Volume three: "Villains"
The lead-in to the third volume, "Villains", features Sylar. Throughout Volume Two, his powers are suppressed by the Shanti virus.[59] After using Mohinder's cure, he regains his abilities, delivering the first line of the volume: "I'm back." Tim Kring has claimed that the new volume will bring a cadre of villains to the show, hence the name.[60]Tim Kring has also suggested that the series will begin at around Autumn 2008.

[edit] Recurring elements and symbols

The helix
Activating EvolutionThere are several elements and symbols that appear repeatedly throughout the series: the helix, the scar, the eclipse, the cockroach, and Chandra Suresh's book, Activating Evolution.

The "helix,"[61] as it is referred to by the writers, is a symbol that first appears in the episode "Don't Look Back". Writer and co-producer Aron Coleite has stated that it literally means "God sending great ability."[61] The symbol frequently appears as a pattern formed by mundane objects, but it also recurs on certain plot-significant items and on several characters. In an interview on The Post Show on G4, Kring stated that the secret behind the meaning of the Helix was to be revealed in the first episode of Heroes: Origins, however, due to the Writer's Strike and Origins postponement, Kring stated that the secret may have to be revealed down the line.

A scar consisting of two black parallel lines has been shown close to the neck of multiple super-powered characters. The scar is the mark left by the two-pronged needle of a pneumatic injection device,[62][63] which, as revealed in a biography of Hana Gitelman in the Heroes 360 experience, injects a radioisotope to allow tracking.[64]

A solar eclipse has been a recurring image in the series itself, and is also used as the series' logo. A terrestrial eclipse (an eclipse in which the Earth covers the Sun, as viewed from an observation point away from the Earth) is used in the series' title sequence.

Cockroaches have appeared and have been mentioned several times in the series, particularly in relation to the villain Sylar. Tim Kring has stated in an interview that the cockroach represents survival.[65]

Activating Evolution is a fictional book written by Chandra Suresh. It describes Chandra's discoveries and predictions about the emergence of humans evolved with special abilities. It has been read by or given to many of the characters within the series and is considered a source of information in regards to their abilities.

[edit] Impact

[edit] Awards
After completing only half of its first season, Heroes had already collected an assortment of honors and accolades. On December 10, 2006, the American Film Institute named Heroes one of the ten "best television programs of the year."[66] On December 13, 2006, the Writers Guild of America nominated the program for "best new series" of 2007.[67] On (December 14), the Hollywood Foreign Press Association nominated the program for a Golden Globe Award for "best television drama", and nominated Masi Oka (Hiro Nakamura) for Best Supporting Actor on a TV Series.[68] On January 9, 2007, Heroes won the award for Favorite New TV Drama at the 33rd People's Choice Awards.[69] The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People nominated Heroes on January 9, 2007 for an Image Award in the "Outstanding Drama Series" category.[70] On February 21, 2007, it was announced that Heroes was nominated for five Saturn Awards. The nominations included "Best Network Television Series", "Best Supporting Actor in a Television Series" for both Greg Grunberg and Masi Oka, and "Best Supporting Actress in a Television Series" for Hayden Panettiere and Ali Larter.[71]

On July 19, 2007, the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences announced their nominations for the 2007 Primetime Emmy awards. Heroes was nominated in eight categories, including Outstanding Drama Series. The first episode, "Genesis", earned six nominations: Outstanding Directing (David Semel), Outstanding Art Direction for a Single-Camera Series, Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing for a Drama Series, Outstanding Sound Mixing for a Comedy or Drama Series, and Outstanding Stunt Coordination. The episode "Five Years Gone" also received a nomination for Outstanding Visual Effects for a Series. Masi Oka was nominated for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series.[72] On September 16, 2007, the 59th Primetime Emmy Awards were held and Heroes failed to win a single Emmy award despite the eight nominations. On July 21, 2007, the Television Critics Association awarded Heroes with the prestigious Outstanding Program of the Year title during their 23rd Annual TCA Awards ceremony.[73] The cast of Heroes was named in the 2006 Time Magazine's Person of the Year issue under "People Who Mattered".[74]

[edit] Criticisms and responses
The second season of Heroes was criticized by commentators and fans for a much slower pace, less engaging storyline and lack of focus compared to the first season. Milo Ventimiglia stated that "when there's a little bit of a delay, there's not that instant, rewarding scene or moment or episode… people get impatient, so it has been extremely important for them to strike a balance between giving and getting."[75]

In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Heroes creator Tim Kring commented on criticisms of season two, and the series' 15% decline in ratings.[7] Kring said that he felt he had made mistakes with the direction of season two. He had thought that the audience was looking for a "build-up of characters and the discovery of their powers", similar to that of season one, when viewers were instead looking for "adrenaline."

Kring also outlined what he felt were problems with plot development, stating that the second season "took too long to get to the big-picture story",[7] explaining that Peter's vision of the viral armageddon should have occurred in the first episode instead of the seventh. He feels that it would have been better to introduce new characters within the context of the main storyline, as with Elle, rather than in unattached arcs such as that of Maya and Alejandro. Kring also admitted that he should have resolved the "Hiro in Japan" storyline much more quickly, and that the romantic stories aren't working well. With regards to Claire and West, and Hiro and Yaeko, he said "I've seen more convincing romances on TV. In retrospect, I don't think romance is a natural fit for us."[7]

On February 7, 2007, Jesse Alexander, writer and co-producer of Heroes and former executive consultant of Lost went on record stating, "I worked on two other shows before this, (Lost and Alias) and we had the structure of an old writers room and it hurt us creatively." Jeph Loeb a, a former superving producer on Lost has also commented on the show, stating, "On Lost someone new would just walk up and say Hi, I’ve been here the whole time;" a reference to Nikki and Paulo. [76]

[edit] Comparisons to other works
The show's creators have answered criticism over similarities between elements of the show and the X-Men in their live blog, saying "I think there is a shorthand to compare it to X-Men when you have not yet seen the show. However, my guess is that that comparison will go away once you have seen what we are doing."[77][78]

On February 7, 2007, Jeph Loeb, co-executive producer of Heroes and the other creators compared Heroes to 24, stating, that like 24, each season would conclude and the next season would introduce a new plotline. In the same interview, Tim Kring compared Heroes to Eternal Sunshine and The Incredibles, stating the characters in Eternal Sunshine were "ordinary...and unexpected," but well responded to; and the characters in Disney/Pixar's The Incredibles were superpowered people who had to deal with the stresses and problems that arose when they attempted to live a normal life.[79]

[edit] Ratings
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Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)

Australia: The first season aired on the Seven Network Wednesday nights at 8:30 pm. The series debuted strongly, attracting more than 2 million viewers in the five capital cities. Viewership settled closer to 1 million nearing the end of the first season and the show was moved to Thursdays at 8:30 pm, successfully attracting more viewers. In an effort to keep viewer numbers high the Seven Network began showing the second season on Thursday nights at 9:30pm, a week after the US screening.[80] The network has aired only nine of the eleven episodes released from the second season, the ninth being incorrectly described as the season finale.[81] It is unknown when the remaining episodes will be aired.
Brazil: The series airs on 2 channels: on pay television Universal Channel (season 2) and on broadcast television on Rede Record (season 1). It is the most-watched show on pay television, and on open television it is the second most-watched show at 9:00 pm.
Finland: The series premiere aired on October 17, 2007 and according to Finnpanel, had 614 000 viewers.
France: The first season aired over the summer of 2007 on TF1, with three episodes each Saturday night beginning at 8:50 pm. The series debuted strongly, with the premiere attracting just over 6 million viewers in France.[82] Over the summer viewership fell to under 4 million, disappointing TF1.[83] Nonetheless, TF1 will be presenting season 2 as VOD only, one day after the US broadcast each week.[84]
Germany: The series currently airs on RTL 2. It premiered on October 10, 2007, attracting 2.90 million viewers (17.3% of share in the 18-49 years old target) on its first showing, making it a huge success. After 24, this is the most successful premiere on RTL 2 ever.[85]
Hong Kong: The series airs on TVB Pearl.[86]The first three episodes of season 1 become three of the top 100 rating programs on English channels in Hong Kong in 2007, each attracting 309,000 to 346,000 viewers. [87]The series was also voted as the second most popular drama series on TVB Pearl.[88]
Italy: The series aired on Italia 1. The series premiered on September 2, 2007 drawing an average of 2.4 million viewers with 15 percent of share in the 18-49 years old target demographic. The first four episodes of the series attracted an average audience of 2.4 million viewers. On October 25, 2007 Italia 1 changed the show time slot because of low ratings.
Netherlands: The series currently airs on RTL5.[1] The series premiere had low ratings (405,000 viewers), though a replay drew 572,000 viewers (8.6% market share).[89] Currently the series draws some 350,000 viewers each episode.
New Zealand: Both volumes 1 and 2 have been aired.
Philippines: Solar aired the series through its terrestrial channel RPN, making it one of the more popular programs shown on TV. It has aired on terrestrial TV twice and on Cable-TV Crime/Suspense, also owned by Solar. Because of its popularity, Heroes will be shown on both RPN and C/S with a 2-3 week delay in October and November of 2007.
Portugal: Heroes season 1 is aired on FOX channel.
Singapore: Heroes season 1 started in November 2007, on Mediacorp Channel 5. Due to exccesive promotions on this series, including sponsorships from 3 corporate companies, Heroes has seen an average of 1 million viewers tuning in every week, a significant amount of audiences for a country with a small population like Singapore.
South Africa: Season 1 aired on SABC 3. The acclaim and ratings overseas were so high that the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) bought the rights to air Heroes before Multichoice (Africa's leading and South Africa's only pay TV channel) could bid for it. The SABC does not release TV ratings but it is expected close to 3 million viewers tune in weekly.
Sweden: Started to air September 4, 2007. The first episode had 965,000 viewers, which is roughly 1/10 of Sweden's population.
United Kingdom: The series first aired on February 19, 2007 on Sci Fi UK.[1] The premiere attracted 579,000 viewers on its first showing; with three repeat showings averaging 150,000. The series averaged 450,000 viewers, almost four times more than any other viewership for a program on this channel.[90] Terrestrial airing began on BBC Two on July 25, 2007, and in HD in the UK on BBC HD. It attracted an audience of 4.3 million viewers.[91] Season 1 finished on December 5, 2007, with season 2 set to air in 2008. The first season finale managed to get 3.5 million viewers up from the penultimate episode (which was shown on the same night) 2.7 million.
United States: Heroes was NBC's top-rated scripted show for the 2006-2007 television season, and the most successful of the shows debuting in that period. It ranked twenty-first in the ratings, with an average of 14.3 million viewers in the United States.[92] U.S. Television network MOJO HD also began airing Heroes episodes in High Definition in October 2007.
India: Heroes is currently being aired in India on Star World. The finale on Season One was aired on 11th Jan 2008. A repeat of 5 episodes was being re-run on Saturday afternoons. Season Two is set to go on air from 22nd Jan 2008.

[edit] Legal and copyright issues
On October 2, 2006, Emerson Electric Company, an appliance market competitor of NBC's owner General Electric, filed suit in federal court against NBC. The suit was in regard to a scene that appeared in "Genesis", the first episode of season one, when Claire Bennet reached into an active garbage disposal unit—labeled "InSinkErator"—to retrieve a ring and severely mangled her hand. Emerson claimed the scene "casts the disposer in an unsavory light, irreparably tarnishing the product" by suggesting serious injuries would result "in the event consumers were to accidentally insert their hand into one." Emerson had asked for a ruling barring future broadcasts of the pilot, which was previously available on NBC's website and had already aired on NBC Universal-owned cable networks USA Network and The Sci Fi Channel. It also sought to block NBC from using any Emerson trademarks in the future.[93]

On February 23, 2007, the case against NBC was dropped. NBC Universal and Emerson Electric reached an agreement to settle the lawsuit outside of court.[94] The episode in question was briefly unavailable in the iTunes Store, but an edited version was soon made available for download. A non-edited version of the episode was shown in the BBC Two premiere on July 25, 2007. The DVD and HD DVD releases contain an edited version where the "InSinkErator" label has been removed from the scene.

On March 19, 2007, Clifton Mallery and Amnau Karam Eele, artist and writers for the NBC series Crossing Jordan, filed suit against NBC and Tim Kring claiming that the idea for an artist who can paint the future was stolen from a short story, painting and short film that they had produced. The lawsuit is centered around the character of Isaac Mendez. NBC called the suit without merit and defended their case. On December 11, 2007, the New York Law Journal reported on Mallery v. NBC Universal, quoting from Southern District Judge Denise Cote's opinion that "the line between mere 'ideas' and protected 'expression' is 'famously difficult to fix precisely'", and stating that Heroes wasn't close to infringing.[95][96]

[edit] Other media

[edit] Television
See also: Heroes Unmasked and The Post Show
Heroes Unmasked is a series on BBC that goes behind-the-scenes of the production of Heroes. Many details of Heroes are revealed, including set design, props, special effects and costuming, as well as blue and green screen animation.

In November 2007 the BBC made 4 short '2 Dimensional' films where actors from the series look through a '2' shaped hole into a room which reflects the character they play in Heroes.[97]

U.S. network G4 began airing Heroes episodes on November 3, 2007, along with an American version of Heroes Unmasked entitled The Post Show. The series, which will air following Heroes, includes interviews, live viewer commentary, interactive polls, behind-the-scenes footage and other Heroes content. U.S. Network MOJO HD also airs Heroes episodes in High Definition.

[edit] Internet
See also: Heroes Evolutions
Heroes Evolutions is a digital extension of the series released on January 19, 2007 which explores the Heroes universe and provides clues to the show's mythology. It was entitled Heroes 360 Experience throughout the first season and rebranded for the second season.

Complete episodes of Heroes are available online, to US residents only, along with downloads through the "NBC Direct" service.[98] NBC's site also hosts episode commentaries, featuring producers and cast and crew members. Episodes were also available on iTunes, although this arrangement ceased in December 2007 as NBC and Apple Inc. were unable to come to a renewal deal.[99] Series 1 and 2 are currently available for streaming on Netflix, which requires a paid subscription.

Heroes writers Joe Pokaski and Aron Coleite hold a weekly "Question and Answer" column hosted by comicbookresources.com entitled "Behind the Eclipse".[100] Every week, since October 23, 2006, Joe Pokaski and Aron Coleite have answered questions regarding the previous weeks episodes, before the airing of the Monday night episode. Questions are submitted by fans and CBR editors. Currently, the column is on hold until the end of the writers' strike.

Show producer and director Greg Beeman also posts weekly on his blog where he discusses how the episode is filmed and gives spoilers for the upcoming episode. This is usually posted on Mondays, prior to the airing of Heroes on NBC. The Beeman blog began on August 4, 2006.[101]

Heroes Interactive is an interactive website which began operation on January 29, 2007, during the airing of "The Fix". Hosted at NBC.com, it offers behind the scenes information, polls, trivia, and quizzes, as well as recent posts by Hana Gitelman. The features air once a week, and are designed to be viewed concurrently with that week's episode.

[edit] Radio
BBC7 radio broadcast "Heroes - The Official Radio Show" with Jon Holmes, every Saturday at 7:30 on BBC7 DAB digital radio. The program is also available as a podcast. [102]

[edit] Video game
Ubisoft has announced that they have licensed the rights to produce an as yet untitled Heroes video game. The game is expected to be offered for PCs and console gaming platforms.[103]

[edit] Mobile game
Gameloft released the first Heroes mobile game on October 5, 2007. It consists of 8 levels and playable characters includes Hiro Nakamura, Niki Sanders and Peter Petrelli. All three characters are played in their present and future forms as shown in "Five Years Gone". The mobile game has released the names of several members of the Company founders, including Arthur Petrelli and Maury Parkman.[104][105]

[edit] Books and publications
Each week, NBC releases a Heroes webcomic. The comics give additional character background and plot information not shown in the television episodes. The graphic novels continued on a weekly basis during the show's 2007 summer hiatus. Wildstorm, a subsidiary of DC Comics, released them in published form on November 7, 2007.[106] The collected volume included novels 1-34, and featured two different covers by Alex Ross and Jim Lee as well as an introduction by Masi Oka and artwork by Tim Sale.[107]

On December 26, 2007, the first Heroes novel was published, entitled Saving Charlie. Written by Aury Wallington, who wrote the book with the full cooperation of the Heroes writing staff, the novel revolves around the relationship of Hiro Nakamura and Charlie Andrews, when Hiro went back in time six months to attempt to save her.[108]

Titan Magazines released the first issue of Heroes Magazine on November 20, 2007. It is the first of a series of six, slated to be released bi-monthly. The first issue is a 100 page premiere issue. Feature articles include a cast group interview, a secret origins featurette, and a season one episode guide.[109] Greg Beeman, executive producer of Heroes has confirmed that this is an official Heroes release, with the full support and cooperation of Tim Kring and the rest of the Heroes production team.

[edit] Action figures
Mezco announced at Toy Fair 2007 that they will be producing a line of action figures based on the television show Heroes. The figures will have at least 8 points of articulation, and feature central accessories. Along with action figures, Mezco announced a collection of Screen Grabs, non-articulated 3 3/4" figures on a display recreating a pivotal scene of the series.[110]

[edit] Promotions and fandom

[edit] San Diego Comic-Con
In 2006 and 2007, Heroes hosted a panel at the San Diego Comic-Con to promote the upcoming season. In previous years, major announcements have been made during the panel, and sneak peaks of the forthcoming season have been presented. In 2006, the Heroes panel presented the entire season one 72-minute pilot. In 2007, major announcements were made about Heroes: Origins. Comic-Con also allows the cast and crew to answer questions from the press and from fans.[111][112]

[edit] Heroes World Tour

Billboard for Heroes World Tour, Changi Airport, Singapore.On July 21, 2007, Tim Kring announced that cast and crew members of Heroes would travel the world for the Heroes World Tour to promote the season one DVD release and the forthcoming season two. The tour took place in North America (New York and Toronto), Asia (Singapore, Tokyo, and Hong Kong) and Europe (Munich, Paris and London). The tour began on August 26, and ended on September 1, 2007. Most principal cast members attended in three groups; one group for each country. Tim Sale, Jeph Loeb, and Dennis Hammer attended from the production crew. Principal cast members who did not attend were David Anders, Kristen Bell, Dana Davis, Leonard Roberts and Tawney Cypress.[113]

[edit] Nissan cross-promotions
Nissan Motors has been involved in several Heroes promotional campaigns, including sponsorship of the "Heroes World Tour",[114] online contests,[115] and supplying vehicles for the show.[116]

[edit] Other promotions
On November 12, 2007, the "Create Your Own Hero" promotion was unveiled. Heroes fans can go online on their computer or mobile phone and select characteristics for a new "hero", who will be built based on the most-picked traits. Each week, the character will evolve based on the fans' input, and he or she will be shown on air every Monday.

USA - United States of America

2008-01-21T15:35:00.000-08:00

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south. The state of Alaska is in the northwest of the continent, with Canada to its east and Russia to the west across the Bering Strait, and the state of Hawaii is in the mid-Pacific. The United States also possesses several territories, or insular areas, that are scattered around the Caribbean and Pacific.

At 3.79 million square miles (9.83 million km²) and with over 300 million people, the United States is the third or fourth largest country by total area, and third largest by land area and by population. The United States is one of the world's most ethnically diverse nations, the product of large-scale immigration from many countries.[7] The U.S. economy is the largest national economy in the world, with a nominal 2006 gross domestic product (GDP) of more than US$13 trillion (over 19% of the world total).[4]

The nation was founded by thirteen colonies of Great Britain located along the Atlantic seaboard. Proclaiming themselves "states," they issued the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. The rebellious states defeated Britain in the American Revolutionary War, the first successful colonial war of independence.[8] A federal convention adopted the current United States Constitution on September 17, 1787; its ratification the following year made the states part of a single republic. The Bill of Rights, comprising ten constitutional amendments, was ratified in 1791.

In the nineteenth century, the United States acquired land from France, Spain, Mexico, and Russia, and annexed the Republic of Texas and the Republic of Hawaii. Disputes between the agrarian South and industrial North over the expansion of the institution of slavery provoked the American Civil War of the 1860s. The North's victory prevented a permanent split of the country and led to the end of slavery in the United States. The Spanish-American War and World War I confirmed the nation's status as a military power. In 1945, the United States emerged from World War II as the first country with nuclear weapons and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. The sole remaining superpower in the post–Cold War era, the United States is the dominant economic, political, cultural, and military force in the world.[9]

Contents [hide]
1 Etymology
2 Geography
3 Environment
4 History
4.1 Native Americans and European settlers
4.2 Independence and expansion
4.3 Civil War and industrialization
4.4 World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
4.5 Superpower
5 Government and politics
6 States
7 Foreign relations and military
8 Economy
8.1 Income, human development, and social class
8.2 Science and technology
8.3 Transportation
9 Demographics
9.1 Language
9.2 Religion
9.3 Education
9.4 Health
9.5 Crime and punishment
10 Culture
10.1 Popular media
10.2 Literature, philosophy, and the arts
10.3 Food
10.4 Sports
11 See also
12 References
13 External links

Etymology
The term America, for the lands of the western hemisphere, was coined in the early sixteenth century after Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer and cartographer. The full name of the country was first used officially in the Declaration of Independence, which was the "unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America" adopted by the "Representatives of the united States of America" on July 4, 1776.[10] The current name was finalized on November 15, 1777, when the Second Continental Congress adopted the Articles of Confederation, the first of which states, "The Stile of this Confederacy shall be 'The United States of America.'" Common abbreviations of the United States of America include the United States, the U.S., and the U.S.A. Colloquial names for the country include America and the States. Columbia, a once popular name for the Americas and the United States, was derived from Christopher Columbus. It appears in the name District of Columbia. A female personification of Columbia appears on some official documents, including certain prints of U.S. currency.

The standard way to refer to a citizen of the United States is as an American. Though United States is the formal adjective, American and U.S. are the most common adjectives used to refer to the country ("American values," "U.S. forces"). American is rarely used in English to refer to people not connected to the United States.[11]

Geography
Main articles: Geography of the United States and Territorial evolution of the United States

Topographic map of the contiguous United States
Climate zones of the contiguous United StatesThe United States is situated almost entirely in the western hemisphere: the contiguous United States stretches from the Pacific on the west to the Atlantic on the east, with the Gulf of Mexico to the southeast, and bordered by Canada on the north and Mexico on the south. Alaska is the largest state in area; separated from the contiguous U.S. by Canada, it touches the Pacific on the south and Arctic Ocean on the north. Hawaii occupies an archipelago in the central Pacific, southwest of North America. The United States is the world's third or fourth largest nation by total area, before or after China, depending on how two territories disputed by China and India are counted; including only land area, the United States is third in size behind Russia and China, just ahead of Canada.[12] The United States also possesses several insular territories scattered around the West Indies (e.g., the commonwealth of Puerto Rico) and the Pacific (e.g., Guam).

The coastal plain of the Atlantic seaboard gives way further inland to deciduous forests and the rolling hills of the Piedmont. The Appalachian Mountains divide the eastern seaboard from the Great Lakes and the grasslands of the Midwest. The Mississippi-Missouri River, the world's fourth longest river system, runs mainly north-south through the heart of the country. The flat, fertile prairie land of the Great Plains stretches to the west. The Rocky Mountains, at the western edge of the Great Plains, extend north to south across the continental United States, reaching altitudes higher than 14,000 feet (4,300 m) in Colorado.[13] The area to the west of the Rockies is dominated by deserts such as the Mojave and the rocky Great Basin. The Sierra Nevada range runs parallel to the Rockies, relatively close to the Pacific coast. At 20,320 ft (6,194 m) , Alaska's Mount McKinley is the country's tallest peak. Active volcanoes are common throughout the Alexander and Aleutian Islands and the entire state of Hawaii is built upon tropical volcanic islands. The supervolcano underlying Yellowstone National Park in the Rockies is the continent's largest volcanic feature.[14]

Because of the United States' large size and wide range of geographic features, nearly every type of climate is represented. The climate is temperate in most areas, tropical in Hawaii and southern Florida, polar in Alaska, semiarid in the Great Plains west of the 100th meridian, desert in the Southwest, Mediterranean in coastal California, and arid in the Great Basin. Extreme weather is not uncommon—the states bordering the Gulf of Mexico are prone to hurricanes, and most of the world's tornadoes occur within the continental United States, primarily in the Midwest.[15]

Environment

The bald eagle has been the national bird of the United States since 1782Main article: Environment of the United States
U.S. plant life is very diverse; the country has more than 17,000 identified native species of flora.[16] More than 400 mammal, 700 bird, 500 reptile and amphibian, and 90,000 insect species have been documented.[17] The Endangered Species Act of 1973 protects threatened and endangered species and their habitats, which are monitored by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The U.S. has fifty-eight national parks and hundreds of other federally managed parks, forests, and wilderness areas.[18] Altogether, the U.S. government regulates 28.8% of the country's total land area.[19] Most such public land comprises protected parks and forestland, though some federal land is leased for oil and gas drilling,[20] mining, or cattle ranching.

The energy policy of the United States is widely debated; many call on the country to take a leading role in fighting global warming.[21] The United States is currently the second largest emitter, after China, of carbon dioxide from the burning of fossil fuels.[22]

History
Main article: History of the United States

Native Americans and European settlers
Main articles: Native Americans in the United States, European colonization of the Americas, and Thirteen Colonies
The indigenous peoples of the U.S. mainland, including Alaska, migrated from Asia. They began arriving at least 12,000 and as many as 40,000 years ago.[23] Several indigenous communities in the pre-Columbian era developed advanced agriculture, grand architecture, and state-level societies. European explorer Christopher Columbus arrived at Puerto Rico on November 19, 1493, making first contact with the Native Americans. In the years that followed, the majority of the Native American population was killed by epidemics of Eurasian diseases.[24]

The Mayflower transported Pilgrims to the New World in 1620, as depicted in William Halsall's The Mayflower in Plymouth Harbor, 1882Spaniards established the earliest European colonies on the mainland, in the area they named Florida; of these, only St. Augustine, founded in 1565, remains. Later Spanish settlements in the present-day southwestern United States drew thousands through Mexico. French fur traders established outposts of New France around the Great Lakes; France eventually claimed much of the North American interior as far south as the Gulf of Mexico. The first successful British settlements were the Virginia Colony in Jamestown in 1607 and the Pilgrims' Plymouth Colony in 1620. The 1628 chartering of the Massachusetts Bay Colony resulted in a wave of migration; by 1634, New England had been settled by some 10,000 Puritans. Between the late 1610s and the revolution, the British shipped an estimated 50,000 convicts to its American colonies.[25] Beginning in 1614, the Dutch established settlements along the lower Hudson River, including New Amsterdam on Manhattan Island. The small settlement of New Sweden, founded along the Delaware River in 1638, was taken over by the Dutch in 1655.

In the French and Indian War, the colonial extension of the Seven Years War, Britain seized Canada from the French, but the francophone population remained politically isolated from the southern colonies. By 1674, the British had won the former Dutch colonies in the Anglo-Dutch Wars; the province of New Netherland was renamed New York. With the 1729 division of the Carolinas and the 1732 colonization of Georgia, the thirteen British colonies that would become the United States of America were established. All had active local and colonial governments with elections open to most free men, with a growing devotion to the ancient rights of Englishmen and a sense of self government that stimulated support for republicanism. All had legalized the African slave trade. With high birth rates, low death rates, and steady immigration, the colonies doubled in population every twenty-five years. The Christian revivalist movement of the 1730s and 1740s known as the Great Awakening fueled interest in both religion and religious liberty. By 1770, the colonies had an increasingly Anglicized population of three million, approximately half that of Britain itself. Though subject to British taxation, they were given no representation in the Parliament of Great Britain.

Independence and expansion
Main articles: American Revolution, American Revolutionary War, and Manifest Destiny

Declaration of Independence, by John Trumbull, 1817–18Tensions between American colonials and the British during the revolutionary period of the 1760s and early 1770s led to the American Revolutionary War, fought from 1775 through 1781. On June 14, 1775, the Continental Congress, convening in Philadelphia, established a Continental Army under the command of George Washington. Proclaiming that "all men are created equal" and endowed with "certain unalienable Rights," the Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence, drafted largely by Thomas Jefferson, on July 4, 1776. In 1777, the Articles of Confederation were adopted, uniting the states under a weak federal government that operated until 1788. Some 70,000–80,000 loyalists to the British Crown fled the rebellious states, many to Nova Scotia and the new British holdings in Canada.[26] Native Americans, with divided allegiances, fought on both sides of the war's western front.

U.S. growth by date of statehood and ratification of the ConstitutionAfter the defeat of the British army by American forces, who were assisted by the French, Great Britain recognized the sovereignty of the thirteen states in 1783. A constitutional convention was organized in 1787 by those who wished to establish a strong national government with power over the states. By June 1788, nine states had ratified the United States Constitution, sufficient to establish the new government; the republic's first Senate, House of Representatives, and president, George Washington, took office in 1789. New York City was the federal capital for a year, before the government relocated to Philadelphia. In 1791, the states ratified the Bill of Rights, ten amendments to the Constitution forbidding federal restriction of personal freedoms and guaranteeing a range of legal protections. Attitudes toward slavery were shifting; a clause in the Constitution protected the African slave trade only until 1808. The Northern states abolished slavery between 1780 and 1804, leaving the slave states of the South as defenders of the "peculiar institution." In 1800, the federal government moved to the newly founded Washington, D.C. The Second Great Awakening made evangelicalism a force behind various social reform movements.

Territorial acquisitions by dateAmericans' eagerness to expand westward began a cycle of Indian Wars that stretched to the end of the nineteenth century, as Native Americans were stripped of their land. The Louisiana Purchase of French-claimed territory under President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 virtually doubled the nation's size. The War of 1812, declared against Britain over various grievances and fought to a draw, strengthened American nationalism. A series of U.S. military incursions into Florida led Spain to cede it and other Gulf Coast territory in 1819. The country annexed the Republic of Texas in 1845. The concept of Manifest Destiny was popularized during this time.[27] The 1846 Oregon Treaty with Britain led to U.S. control of the present-day American Northwest. The U.S. victory in the Mexican-American War resulted in the 1848 cession of California and much of the present-day American Southwest. The California Gold Rush of 1848–1849 further spurred western migration. New railways made relocation much less arduous for settlers and increased conflicts with Native Americans. Over a half-century, up to 40 million American bison, commonly called buffalo, were slaughtered for skins and meat and to ease the railways' spread. The loss of the bison, a primary economic resource for the plains Indians, was an existential blow to many native cultures.

Civil War and industrialization
Main articles: American Civil War, Reconstruction, and Spanish-American War

Battle of Gettysburg, lithograph by Currier & Ives, ca. 1863Tensions between slave and free states mounted with increasing disagreements over the relationship between the state and federal governments and violent conflicts over the expansion of slavery into new states. Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the largely antislavery Republican Party, was elected president in 1860. Before he took office, seven slave states declared their secession from the United States, forming the Confederate States of America. The federal government maintained secession was illegal, and with the Confederate attack upon Fort Sumter, the American Civil War began and four more slave states joined the Confederacy. The Union freed Confederate slaves as its army advanced through the South. Following the Union victory in 1865, three amendments to the U.S. Constitution ensured freedom for the nearly four million African Americans who had been slaves,[28] made them citizens, and gave them voting rights. The war and its resolution led to a substantial increase in federal power.[29]

Immigrants landing at Ellis Island, New York, 1902After the war, the assassination of President Lincoln radicalized Republican Reconstruction policies aimed at reintegrating and rebuilding the Southern states while ensuring the rights of the newly freed slaves. The resolution of the disputed 1876 presidential election by the Compromise of 1877 ended Reconstruction; Jim Crow laws soon disenfranchised many African Americans. In the North, urbanization and an unprecedented influx of immigrants hastened the country's industrialization. The wave of immigration, which lasted until 1929, provided labor for U.S. businesses and transformed American culture. High tariff protections, national infrastructure building, and new banking regulations encouraged industrial growth. The 1867 Alaska purchase from Russia completed the country's mainland expansion. The Wounded Knee massacre in 1890 was the last major armed conflict of the Indian Wars. In 1893, the indigenous monarchy of the Pacific Kingdom of Hawaii was overthrown in a coup led by American residents; the archipelago was annexed by the United States in 1898. Victory in the Spanish-American War that same year demonstrated that the United States was a major world power and resulted in the annexation of Puerto Rico and the Philippines.[30] The Philippines gained independence a half-century later; Puerto Rico remains a commonwealth of the United States.

World War I, Great Depression, and World War II
Main articles: American Expeditionary Force, Great Depression, and Military history of the United States during World War II

An abandoned farm in South Dakota during the Dust Bowl, 1936At the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the United States remained neutral. Americans sympathized with the British and French, although many citizens, mostly Irish and German, opposed intervention.[31] In 1917, the United States joined the Allies, turning the tide against the Central Powers. Reluctant to be involved in European affairs, the Senate did not ratify the Treaty of Versailles, which established the League of Nations. The country pursued a policy of unilateralism, verging on isolationism.[32] In 1920, the women's rights movement won passage of a constitutional amendment granting women's suffrage. In part due to the service of many in the war, Native Americans gained U.S. citizenship in the Indian Citizenship Act of 1924.

During most of the 1920s, the United States enjoyed a period of unbalanced prosperity as farm profits fell while industrial profits grew. A rise in debt and an inflated stock market culminated in the 1929 crash that triggered the Great Depression. After his election as president in 1932, Franklin D. Roosevelt responded with the New Deal, a range of policies increasing government intervention in the economy. The Dust Bowl of the mid-1930s impoverished many farming communities and spurred a new wave of western migration. The nation would not fully recover from the economic depression until the industrial mobilization spurred by its entrance into World War II. The United States, effectively neutral during the war's early stages after the Nazi invasion of Poland in September 1939, began supplying materiel to the Allies in March 1941 through the Lend-Lease program.

On December 7, 1941, the United States joined the Allies against the Axis powers after a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan. World War II cost far more money than any other war in American history,[33] but it boosted the economy by providing capital investment and jobs, while bringing many women into the labor market. Among the major combatants, the United States was the only nation to become richer—indeed, far richer—instead of poorer due to the war.[34] Allied conferences at Bretton Woods and Yalta outlined a new system of international organizations that placed the United States and Soviet Union at the center of world affairs. As victory was achieved in Europe, a 1945 international conference held in San Francisco produced the United Nations Charter, which became active after the war.[35] The United States, having developed the first nuclear weapons, used them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August. Japan surrendered on September 2, ending the war.[36]

Superpower
Main articles: Cold War, African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968), and War on Terrorism

Martin Luther King, Jr. delivering his "I Have a Dream" speech, 1963The United States and Soviet Union jockeyed for power after World War II during the Cold War, dominating the military affairs of Europe through NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The United States promoted liberal democracy and capitalism, while the Soviet Union promoted communism and a centrally planned economy. The Soviet Union supported dictatorships, as did the United States, and both engaged in proxy wars. United States troops fought Communist Chinese forces in the Korean War of 1950–53. The House Un-American Activities Committee pursued a series of investigations into suspected leftist subversion, while Senator Joseph McCarthy became the figurehead of anticommunist sentiment.

The Soviet Union launched the first manned spacecraft in 1961, prompting U.S. efforts to raise proficiency in mathematics and science and President John F. Kennedy's call for the country to be first to land "a man on the moon," achieved in 1969.[37] Kennedy also faced a tense nuclear showdown with Soviet forces in Cuba. Meanwhile, America experienced sustained economic expansion. A growing civil rights movement headed by prominent African Americans, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., fought segregation and discrimination, leading to the abolition of Jim Crow laws. Following Kennedy's assassination in 1963, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed under President Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson and his successor, Richard Nixon, expanded a proxy war in Southeast Asia into the unsuccessful Vietnam War.

President Ronald Reagan (1981–89) challenges Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall, 1987As a result of the Watergate scandal, in 1974 Nixon became the first U.S. president to resign, rather than be impeached on charges including obstruction of justice and abuse of power; he was succeeded by Gerald Ford. During the Jimmy Carter administration in the late 1970s, the U.S. economy experienced stagflation. The election of Ronald Reagan as president in 1980 marked a significant rightward shift in American politics, reflected in major changes in taxation and spending priorities.[38] In the late 1980s and 1990s, the Soviet Union's power diminished, leading to its collapse. The leadership role taken by the United States and its allies in the United Nations–sanctioned Gulf War, under President George H. W. Bush, and later the Yugoslav wars helped to preserve its position as the world's last remaining superpower. The longest economic expansion in modern U.S. history—from March 1991 to March 2001—encompassed the administration of President Bill Clinton.[39] In 1998, Clinton was impeached by the House on charges relating to a civil lawsuit and a sexual scandal, but was acquitted by the Senate and remained in office.

The controversial presidential election of 2000 was resolved by a Supreme Court decision that effectively awarded the presidency to Texas governor George W. Bush, son of George H. W. Bush. On September 11, 2001, terrorists struck the World Trade Center in New York City and The Pentagon near Washington, D.C., killing nearly three thousand people. In the aftermath, President Bush launched the War on Terrorism under a military philosophy stressing preemptive war now known as the Bush Doctrine. In late 2001, U.S. forces led a NATO invasion of Afghanistan, removing the Taliban government and al-Qaeda terrorist training camps. Taliban insurgents continue to fight a guerrilla war against the NATO-led force. In 2002, the Bush administration began to press for regime change in Iraq on controversial grounds. Lacking the support of NATO, Bush formed a Coalition of the Willing and the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, removing President Saddam Hussein from power. Although facing both external[40] and internal[41] pressure to withdraw, the United States maintains its military presence in Iraq.

Government and politics
Main articles: Federal government of the United States, Elections in the United States, Politics of the United States, and Political ideologies in the United States

The west front of the United States Capitol, which houses the United States CongressThe United States is the world's oldest surviving federation. It is a constitutional republic, "in which majority rule is tempered by minority rights protected by law."[42] It is fundamentally structured as a representative democracy, though U.S. citizens residing in the territories are excluded from voting for federal officials.[43] The government is regulated by a system of checks and balances defined by the United States Constitution, which serves as the country's supreme legal document and as a social contract for the people of the United States. In the American federalist system, citizens are usually subject to three levels of government, federal, state, and local; the local government's duties are commonly split between county and municipal governments. In almost all cases, executive and legislative officials are elected by a plurality vote of citizens by district. There is no proportional representation at the federal level, and it is very rare at lower levels. Federal and state judicial and cabinet officials are typically nominated by the executive branch and approved by the legislature, although some state judges and officials are elected by popular vote.

The north side of the White House, home and work place of the U.S. presidentThe federal government is composed of three branches:

Legislative: The bicameral Congress, made up of the Senate and the House of Representatives makes federal law, declares war, approves treaties, has the power of the purse, and has the rarely used power of impeachment, by which it can remove sitting members of the government.
Executive: The president is the commander-in-chief of the military, can veto legislative bills before they become law, and appoints the Cabinet and other officers, who administer and enforce federal laws and policies.
Judiciary: The Supreme Court and lower federal courts, whose judges are appointed by the president with Senate approval, interpret laws and can overturn laws they deem unconstitutional.
The House of Representatives has 435 members, each representing a congressional district for a two-year term. House seats are apportioned among the fifty states by population every tenth year. As of the 2000 census, seven states have the minimum of one representative, while California, the most populous state, has fifty-three. Each state has two senators, elected at-large to six-year terms; one third of Senate seats are up for election every second year. The president serves a four-year term and may be elected to the office no more than twice. The president is not elected by direct vote, but by an indirect electoral college system in which the determining votes are apportioned by state. The Supreme Court, led by the Chief Justice of the United States, has nine members, who serve for life.

The front of the United States Supreme Court building.All laws and procedures of both state and federal governments are subject to review, and any law ruled in violation of the Constitution by the judicial branch is overturned. The original text of the Constitution establishes the structure and responsibilities of the federal government, the relationship between it and the individual states, and essential matters of military and economic authority. Article One protects the right to the "great writ" of habeas corpus, and Article Three guarantees the right to a jury trial in all criminal cases. Amendments to the Constitution require the approval of three-fourths of the states. The Constitution has been amended twenty-seven times; the first ten amendments, which make up the Bill of Rights, and the Fourteenth Amendment form the central basis of individual rights in the United States.

Politics in the United States have operated under a two-party system for virtually all of the country's history. For elective offices at all levels, state-administered primary elections are held to choose the major party nominees for subsequent general elections. Since the general election of 1856, the two dominant parties have been the Democratic Party, founded in 1824 (though its roots trace back to 1792), and the Republican Party, founded in 1854. The current president, George W. Bush, is a Republican; following the 2006 midterm elections, the Democratic Party controls both the House and the Senate. The Senate has two independent members—one is a former Democratic incumbent, the other is a self-described socialist; every member of the House is a Democrat or Republican. An overwhelming majority of state and local officials are also either Democrats or Republicans. Since the Civil War, only one third-party presidential candidate—former president Theodore Roosevelt, running as a Progressive in 1912—has won as much as 20% of the popular vote.

Within American political culture, the Republican Party is considered "center-right" or conservative and the Democratic Party is considered "center-left" or liberal, but members of both parties have a wide range of views. In an August 2007 poll, 36% of Americans described themselves as "conservative," 34% as "moderate," and 25% as "liberal."[44] On the other hand, a plurality of adults, 35.9%, identify as Democrats, 32.9% as independents, and 31.3% as Republicans.[45] The states of the Northeast, Great Lakes, and West Coast are relatively liberal-leaning—they are known in political parlance as "blue states." The "red states" of the South and the Rocky Mountains lean conservative.

States
Main article: U.S. state
The United States is a federal union of fifty states. The original thirteen states were the successors of the thirteen colonies that rebelled against British rule. Most of the rest have been carved from territory obtained through war or purchase by the U.S. government. The exceptions are Vermont, Texas, and Hawaii; each was an independent republic before joining the union. Early in the country's history, three states were created out of the territory of existing ones: Kentucky from Virginia; Tennessee from North Carolina; and Maine from Massachusetts. West Virginia broke away from Virginia during the American Civil War. The most recent state—Hawaii—achieved statehood on August 21, 1959. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that the states do not have the right to secede from the union.

The states comprise the vast bulk of the U.S. land mass; the only other areas considered integral parts of the country are the District of Columbia, the federal district where the capital, Washington, is located; and Palmyra Atoll, an uninhabited but incorporated territory in the Pacific Ocean. The United States possesses five major territories with indigenous populations: Puerto Rico and the United States Virgin Islands in the Caribbean; and American Samoa, Guam, and the Northern Mariana Islands in the Pacific. Those born in the territories possess U.S. citizenship.

Foreign relations and military
Main articles: Foreign relations of the United States and Military of the United States

President George W. Bush (right) with UK prime minister Gordon Brown.The United States has vast economic, political, and military influence on a global scale, which makes its foreign policy a subject of great interest around the world. Almost all countries have embassies in Washington, D.C., and many host consulates around the country. Likewise, nearly all nations host American diplomatic missions. However, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Bhutan, and Sudan do not have formal diplomatic relations with the United States.[46]

American isolationists have often been at odds with internationalists, as anti-imperialists have been with promoters of Manifest Destiny and American Empire. American imperialism in the Philippines drew sharp rebukes from Mark Twain, philosopher William James, and many others. Later, President Woodrow Wilson played a key role in creating the League of Nations, but the Senate prohibited American membership in it. Isolationism became a thing of the past when the United States took a lead role in founding the United Nations, becoming a permanent member of the Security Council and host to the United Nations Headquarters. The United States enjoys a special relationship with the United Kingdom and strong ties with Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and fellow NATO members. It also works closely with its neighbors through the Organization of American States and free trade agreements such as the trilateral North American Free Trade Agreement with Canada and Mexico. In 2005, the United States spent $27.3 billion on official development assistance, the most in the world; however, as a share of gross national income (GNI) , the U.S. contribution of 0.22% ranked twentieth of twenty-two donor states. On the other hand, nongovernmental sources such as private foundations, corporations, and educational and religious institutions donated $95.5 billion. The total of $122.8 billion is again the most in the world and seventh in terms of GNI percentage.[47]

The USS Ronald Reagan aircraft carrierThe president holds the title of commander-in-chief of the nation's armed forces and appoints its leaders, the secretary of defense and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The United States Department of Defense administers the armed forces, including the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Air Force. The Coast Guard falls under the jurisdiction of the Department of Homeland Security in peacetime and the Department of the Navy in times of war. In 2005, the military had 1.38 million personnel on active duty,[48] along with several hundred thousand each in the Reserves and the National Guard for a total of 2.3 million troops. The Department of Defense also employs approximately 700,000 civilians, disregarding contractors. Military service is voluntary, though conscription may occur in wartime through the Selective Service System. The rapid deployment of American forces is facilitated by the Air Force's large fleet of transportation aircraft and aerial refueling tankers, the Navy's fleet of eleven active aircraft carriers, and Marine Expeditionary Units at sea in the Navy's Atlantic and Pacific fleets. Outside of the American homeland, the U.S. military is deployed to 770 bases and facilities, on every continent except Antarctica.[49] Due to the extent of its global military presence, scholars describe the United States as maintaining an "empire of bases."[50]

U.S. military spending in 2006, over $528 billion, was 46% of the entire military spending in the world and greater than the next fourteen largest national military expenditures combined. (In purchasing power parity terms, it was larger than the next six such expenditures combined.) The per capita spending of $1,756 was approximately ten times the world average.[51] At 4.06% of GDP, U.S. military spending ranked 27th out of 172 nations.[52] The official Department of Defense budget in 2006, $419.3 billion, was a 5% increase over 2005.[53] The estimated total cost to the United States of the war in Iraq through 2016 is $2.267 trillion.[54] As of December 14, 2007, the United States had suffered 3,889 military fatalities during the war and over 28,600 wounded.[55]

Economy
Main article: Economy of the United States
Economy of the United States
National economic indicators
Unemployment 4.7% November 2007[56]
GDP growth 3.3% 2005–2006[4]
CPI inflation 4.3% November 2006–November 2007[57]
National debt $9.174 trillion December 12, 2007[58]
Poverty 12.6% or 13.3% 2005[59][60]
Monetary value
Exchange rate (per €) 1.4591 December 13, 2007[61]
Exchange rate (per £) 2.0395 December 13, 2007[61]
Exchange rate (per ¥) .0089 December 13, 2007[61]
The United States has a capitalist mixed economy, which is fueled by abundant natural resources, a well-developed infrastructure, and high productivity. According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States GDP of more than $13 trillion constitutes over 19% of the gross world product.[4] The largest national GDP in the world, it was slightly less than the combined GDP of the European Union at purchasing power parity in 2006.[62] The country ranks eighth in the world in nominal GDP per capita and fourth in GDP per capita at purchasing power parity.[4] The United States is the largest importer of goods and second largest exporter. Canada, China, Mexico, Japan, and Germany are its top trading partners.[63] The leading export commodity is electrical machinery, while vehicles constitute the leading import.[64] The national debt is the world's largest; in 2005, it was 23% of the global total.[65] As a percentage of GDP, U.S. debt ranked thirtieth out of 120 countries for which data is available.[66]

The private sector constitutes the bulk of the economy, with government activity accounting for 12.4% of the GDP.[67] The economy is postindustrial, with the service sector contributing over 75% of GDP. The leading business field by gross business receipts is wholesale and retail trade; by net income it is finance and insurance.[68] The United States remains an industrial power, with chemical products the leading manufacturing field.[69] The United States is the third largest producer of oil in the world, and its largest consumer.[70] It is the world's number one producer of electrical and nuclear energy, as well as liquid natural gas, aluminum, sulfur, phosphates, and salt. Agriculture accounts for only 1% of GDP but 60% of the world's agricultural production.[71] The country's leading cash crop is marijuana, despite federal laws making its cultivation and sale illegal.[72] Coca-Cola and McDonald's are the two most recognized brands in the world.[73]

Wall Street is home to the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE)Three quarters of U.S. business firms have no payroll, but they account for only a small fraction of business receipts. Firms with payrolls of 500 or more employ 49.1% of all paid workers; in 2002, they accounted for 59.1% of business receipts.[74] The United States ranks third in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business Index.[75] Compared to Europe, U.S. property and corporate income taxes are generally higher, while labor and, particularly, consumption taxes are lower.[76] The New York Stock Exchange is the world's largest by dollar volume; the exchange's parent company, NYSE Euronext, represents over $29 trillion in total market capitalization of listed securities.[77]

In 2005, 155 million persons were employed with earnings, of whom 80% worked in full-time jobs.[78] The majority, 79%, were employed in the service sector.[1] With approximately 15.5 million people, health care and social assistance is the leading field of employment.[79] About 12% of American workers are unionized, compared to 30% in Western Europe.[80] The U.S. ranks number one in the ease of hiring and firing workers, according to the World Bank.[75] Americans tend to work considerably more hours annually than workers in other developed nations, taking fewer and shorter vacations. Between 1973 and 2003, a year's work for the average American grew by 199 hours.[81] Partly as a result, the United States maintains the highest labor productivity in the world. However, it no longer leads the world in productivity per hour as it did from the 1950s through the early 1990s; workers in Norway, France, Belgium, and Luxembourg are now more productive per hour.[82] Spending on the social safety net is relatively low: the United States redistributes between 8 and 9% of GDP through social protection programs, slightly under the Japanese rate and less than half the estimated 19% of the European Union.[83]

Income, human development, and social class
Main articles: Income in the United States, Income inequality in the United States, Poverty in the United States, Affluence in the United States, and Social class in the United States
Income and wealth in the United States
Income and earnings (2005)
(change from 2004 in constant dollars) [59]
Median income $46,326 per household (+1.1%)
Per capita income (mean) $25,036 per capita (+1.5%) [84]
Median earnings (age 15+)
(working full-time, year-round) $41,386 per male (-1.8%)
$31,858 per female (-1.3%)
Median earnings (age 25+) $39,336 per worker (FT, YR) [85]
$32,140 per worker (all workers) [86]
Income distribution (2005)
(change from 1967 in constant dollars) [86][6]
Top 5% $100,000 per individual
$166,000 per household (+76.4%)
Top 20% $52,500 per individual
$91,705 per household (+56.4%)
Bottom 20% $12,500 per individual
$19,178 per household (+29.1%)
Gini index 46.9 (1967: 39.7)
Median net wealth (2004)
(change from 1995 in constant dollars) [87]
Overall $93,100 per household (+31%)
Top income quartile $422,400 per household (+97%)
Second income quartile $124,500 per household (+71%)
Third income quartile $44,740 per household (0%)
Bottom income quartile $9,960 per household (+5%)
According to the Census Bureau, the pretax median household income in 2005 was $46,326.[88] The two-year average ranged from $60,246 in New Jersey to $34,396 in Mississippi.[89] Using purchasing power parity exchange rates, these income levels are similar to those found in other postindustrial nations. Approximately 13% of Americans were below the federally designated poverty line.[59][60] The number of poor Americans, nearly 37 million, was actually 4 million more than in 2001, the bottom year of the most recent U.S. recession.[90] The United States was ranked eighth in the world in the UNDP's 2006 Human Development Report.[91] A 2007 UNICEF study of children's well-being in twenty-one industrialized nations, covering a broad range of factors, ranked the U.S. next to last.[92]

Between 1967 and 2005, median household income rose 30.6% in constant dollars, largely due to the growing number of dual-earner households. In 2005, median income for nonelderly households declined for the fifth consecutive year.[90] Though the standard of living has improved for nearly all classes since the late 1970s,[93] income inequality has grown substantially.[94][95] The share of income received by the top 1% has risen considerably while the share of income of the bottom 90% has fallen, with the gap between the two groups being roughly as large in 2005 as in 1928.[96] According to the standard Gini index, income inequality in the United States is higher than in any European nation.[97] Some economists, such as Alan Greenspan, see rising income inequality as a cause for concern.[98]

While American social classes lack defined boundaries,[95] sociologists point to social class as a crucial societal variable. Occupation, educational attainment, and income are used as the main indicators of socioeconomic status.[99] Dennis Gilbert of Hamilton College has proposed a system, adapted by other sociologists,[100] with six social classes: an upper, or capitalist, class consisting of the wealthy and powerful (1%) , an upper middle class consisting of highly educated professionals (15%) , a middle class consisting of semiprofessionals and craftsmen (33%) , a working class consisting of clerical and blue-collar workers who conduct highly routinized tasks (33%) , and two lower classes—the working poor (13%) and a largely unemployed underclass (12%).[95] Where it was once common for middle-class households to employ domestic servants, many domestic tasks are now outsourced to the service industry.[101] Wealth is highly concentrated: The richest 10% of the adult population possesses 69.8% of the country's household wealth, the second-highest share of any democratic developed nation.[102] The top 1% possesses 33.4% of net wealth, including more than half of the total value in publicly traded stocks.[103] Though the American Dream, or the perception that Americans enjoy high social mobility, played a key role in attracting immigrants to the United States, particularly in the late 1800s,[104] some analysts find that the United States has relatively low social mobility compared to Western Europe and Canada.[105]

Science and technology
Main articles: Science and technology in the United States and Technological and industrial history of the United States

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin during the first human landing on the Moon, 1969The United States has been a leader in scientific research and technological innovation since the late nineteenth century. In 1876, Alexander Graham Bell was awarded the first U.S. patent for the telephone. The laboratory of Thomas Edison developed the phonograph, the first long-lasting light bulb, and the first viable movie camera. In the early twentieth century, the automobile companies of Ransom E. Olds and Henry Ford pioneered assembly line manufacturing. The Wright brothers, in 1903, made what is recognized as the "first sustained and controlled heavier-than-air powered flight."[106] The rise of Nazism in the 1930s led many important European scientists, including Albert Einstein and Enrico Fermi, to immigrate to the United States. During World War II, the U.S.-based Manhattan Project developed nuclear weapons, ushering in the Atomic Age. The Space Race produced rapid advances in rocketry, materials science, computers, and many other areas. The United States largely developed the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet. Today, the bulk of research and development funding, 64%, comes from the private sector.[107] The United States leads the world in scientific research papers and impact factor.[108] Americans enjoy high levels of access to technological consumer goods.[109] Almost half of U.S. households have broadband Internet service.[110] The country is the primary developer and grower of genetically modified food; more than half of the world's land planted with biotech crops is in the United States.[111]

Transportation
Main article: Transportation in the United States

Interstate 80, the second-longest U.S. Interstate highway, runs from California to New JerseyAs of 2003, there were 759 automobiles per 1,000 Americans, compared to 472 per 1,000 inhabitants of the European Union the following year.[112] Approximately 39% of personal vehicles are vans, SUVs, or light trucks.[113] The average American adult (accounting for all drivers and nondrivers) spends 55 minutes behind the wheel every day, driving 29 miles (47 km).[114] The U.S. intercity passenger rail system is relatively weak.[115] Only 9% of total U.S. work trips employ mass transit, compared to 38.8% in Europe.[116] Bicycle usage is minimal, well below European levels.[117] The civil airline industry is entirely privatized, while most major airports are publicly owned. The five largest airlines in the world by passengers carried are all American; American Airlines is number one.[118] Of the world's thirty busiest passenger airports, sixteen are in the United States, including the busiest, Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL).[119]

Demographics
Main articles: Demographics of the United States and Immigration to the United States

Largest ancestry groups by county, 2000On October 17, 2006, the United States population was estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau to be 300,000,000.[120] The U.S. population included an estimated 12 million unauthorized migrants,[121] of whom an estimated 1 million were uncounted by the Census Bureau.[122] The overall growth rate is 0.89%,[1] compared to 0.16% in the European Union.[123] The birth rate of 14.16 per 1,000 is 30% below the world average, while higher than any European country except for Albania and Ireland.[124] In 2006, 1.27 million immigrants were granted legal residence. Mexico has been the leading source of new U.S. residents for over two decades; since 1998, China, India, and the Philippines have been in the top four sending countries every year.[125] The United States is the only industrialized nation in which large population increases are projected.[126]

The United States has a very diverse population—thirty-one ancestry groups have more than a million members.[127] Whites are the largest racial group, with German Americans, Irish Americans, and English Americans constituting three of the country's four largest ancestry groups.[127] African Americans, mostly descendants of former slaves, constitute the nation's largest racial minority and third largest ancestry group.[60][127] Asian Americans are the country's second largest racial minority; the two largest Asian American ancestry groups are Chinese and Filipino.[127] In 2005, the U.S. population included an estimated 4.5 million people with some Native American or Alaskan native ancestry (2.4 million exclusively of such ancestry) and nearly 1 million with some native Hawaiian or Pacific island ancestry (0.4 million exclusively).[60][128]

Race/Ethnicity (2005) [60]
White 73.9%
African American 12.4%
Asian 4.4%
Native American and Alaskan Native 0.8%
Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander 0.1%
Other/multiracial 8.3%
Hispanic or Latino (of any race) 14.8%
Hispanic American population growth is a major demographic trend. The approximately 44 million Americans of Hispanic descent constitute the largest ethnic minority in the country. About 64% of Hispanic Americans are of Mexican descent.[129] Between 2000 and 2004, the country's Hispanic population increased 14% while the non-Hispanic population rose just 2%.[130] Much of this growth is due to immigration: As of 2004, 12% of the U.S. population was foreign-born, over half that number from Latin America.[131] Fertility is also a factor: The average Hispanic woman gives birth to three children in her lifetime. The comparable fertility rate is 2.2 for non-Hispanic black women and 1.8 for non-Hispanic white women (below the replacement rate of 2.1).[126] Hispanics accounted for nearly half of the national population growth of 2.9 million between July 2005 and July 2006.[132] It is estimated on the basis of current trends that by 2050 whites of non-Hispanic origin will be 50.1% of the U.S. population, compared to 69.4% in 2000.[133] They are currently less than half the population in four "majority-minority states"—California,[134] New Mexico,[135] Hawaii,[136] and Texas[137]—as well as the District of Columbia.[138]

About 83% of the population lives in one of the country's 363 metropolitan areas.[139] In 2005, 254 incorporated places in the United States had populations over 100,000, nine cities had more than 1 million residents, and four global cities had over 2 million (New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Houston).[140] The United States has fifty metropolitan areas with populations greater than 1 million.[141] Of the fifty fastest-growing metro areas, twenty-three are in the West and twenty-five in the South. Among the country's twenty most populous metro areas, those of Dallas (the fourth largest), Houston (sixth), and Atlanta (ninth) saw the largest numerical gains between 2000 and 2006, while that of Phoenix (thirteenth) grew the largest in percentage terms.[139]

New York CityFive most populous incorporated places in the United States (2006) [140][141]
Rank City Population
within
city limits Metropolitan
Area Region[142]
population rank
1 New York City 8,214,426 18,818,536 1 Northeast
2 Los Angeles 3,849,378 12,950,129 2 West
3 Chicago 2,833,321 9,505,748 3 Midwest
4 Houston 2,144,491 5,539,949 6 South
5 Phoenix 1,512,986 4,039,182 13 West

Language
Main articles: Languages of the United States and Language Spoken at Home (U.S. Census)
Languages (2003) [143]
English (only) 214.8 million
Spanish, incl. Creole 29.7 million
Chinese 2.2 million
French, incl. Creole 1.9 million
Tagalog 1.3 million
Vietnamese 1.1 million
German 1.1 million
Although the United States has no official language at the federal level, English is the national language.

In 2003, about 215 million, or 82% of the population aged five years and older, spoke only English at home. Spanish, spoken by over 10% of the population at home, is the second most common language and the most widely taught foreign language.[143][144] Immigrants seeking naturalization must know English. Some Americans advocate making English the country's official language, as it is in at least twenty-eight states.[145] Both Hawaiian and English are official languages in Hawaii by state law.[146] Several insular territories also grant official recognition to their native languages, along with English: Samoan and Chamorro are recognized by Samoa and Guam, respectively; Carolinian and Chamorro are recognized by the Northern Mariana Islands; Spanish is an official language of Puerto Rico. While neither has an official language, New Mexico has laws providing for the use of both English and Spanish, as Louisiana does for English and French.[147] Other states, such as California, mandate the publication of Spanish versions of certain government documents including court forms.[148]

Religion
Main articles: Religion in the United States, History of religion in the United States, Freedom of religion in the United States, Separation of church and state in the United States, and List of religious movements that began in the United States

A church in the largely Protestant Bible Belt.The United States government does not audit Americans' religious beliefs.[149] In a private survey conducted in 2001, 76.5% of American adults identified themselves as Christian, down from 86.4% in 1990. Protestant denominations accounted for 52%, while Roman Catholics, at 24.5%, were the largest individual denomination.[150] A different study describes white evangelicals, 26.3% of the population, as the country's largest religious cohort;[151] evangelicals of all races are estimated at 30–35%.[152] The total reporting non-Christian religions in 2001 was 3.7%, up from 3.3% in 1990. The leading non-Christian faiths were Judaism (1.4%), Islam (0.5%), Buddhism (0.5%), Hinduism (0.4%), and Unitarian Universalism (0.3%). Between 1990 and 2001, the number of Muslims and Buddhists more than doubled. From 8.2% in 1990, 14.1% in 2001 described themselves as agnostic, atheist, or simply having no religion,[150] still significantly less than in other postindustrial countries such as Britain (2005:44%) and Sweden (2001:69%, 2005:85%).[153]

Education
Main articles: Education in the United States and Educational attainment in the United States

The University of Virginia, designed by Thomas Jefferson, is one of 19 American UNESCO World Heritage SitesAmerican public education is operated by state and local governments, regulated by the United States Department of Education through restrictions on federal grants. Children are obliged in most states to attend school from the age of six or seven (generally, kindergarten or first grade) until they turn eighteen (generally bringing them through 12th grade, the end of high school); some states allow students to leave school at sixteen or seventeen.[154] About 12% of children are enrolled in parochial or nonsectarian private schools. Just over 2% of children are homeschooled.[155] The United States has many competitive private and public institutions of higher education, as well as local community colleges of varying quality with open admission policies. Of Americans twenty-five and older, 84.6% graduated from high school, 52.6% attended some college, 27.2% earned a bachelor's degree, and 9.6% earned graduate degrees.[156] The basic literacy rate is approximately 99%.[1][157] The United Nations assigns the United States an Education Index of 99.9, tying it with twenty other nations for the top score.[158]

Health
Main article: Health care in the United States
The American life expectancy of 77.8 years at birth[159] is a year shorter than the overall figure in Western Europe, and three to four years lower than that of Norway and Switzerland.[160] Over the past two decades, the country's rank in life expectancy has dropped from 11th to 42nd place in the world.[161] The infant mortality rate of 6.37 per thousand likewise places the United States 42nd out of 221 countries, behind all of Western Europe.[162] Approximately one-third of the adult population is obese and an additional third is overweight;[163] the obesity rate, the highest in the industrialized world, has more than doubled in the last quarter-century.[164] Obesity-related type 2 diabetes is considered epidemic by healthcare professionals.[165] The U.S. adolescent pregnancy rate, 79.8 per 1,000 women, is nearly four times that of France and five times that of Germany.[166] Abortion in the United States, legal on demand, is a source of great political controversy. Many states ban public funding of the procedure and have laws to restrict late-term abortions, require parental notification for minors, and mandate a waiting period prior to treatment. While the incidence of abortion is in decline, the U.S. abortion ratio of 241 per 1,000 live births and abortion rate of 15 per 1,000 women aged 15–44 remain higher than those of most Western nations.[167]

The United States healthcare system far outspends any other nation's, measured in both per capita spending and percentage of GDP.[168] Unlike most developed countries, the U.S. healthcare system is not fully socialized, instead relying on a mix of public and private funding. In 2004, private insurance paid for 36% of personal health expenditure, private out-of-pocket payments covered 15%, and federal, state, and local governments paid for 44%.[169] Medical bills are the most common reason for personal bankruptcy in the United States.[170] In 2005, 46.6 million Americans, or 15.9% of the population, were uninsured, 5.4 million more than in 2001. The primary cause of the decline in coverage is the drop in the number of Americans with employer-sponsored health insurance, which fell from 62.6% in 2001 to 59.5% in 2005.[90] Approximately one third of the uninsured lived in households with annual incomes greater than $50,000, with half of those having an income over $75,000.[59] Another third were eligible but not registered for public health insurance.[171] In 2006, Massachusetts became the first state to mandate health insurance;[172] California is considering similar legislation.[173]

Crime and punishment
Main articles: Policing in the United States, Law of the United States, Crime in the United States, Prisons in the United States, and Capital punishment in the United States

Homicide rates in selected countries, 2004 (2000 for Russia)Law enforcement in the United States is primarily the responsibility of local police and sheriff's departments, with state police providing broader services. Federal agencies such as the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the U.S. Marshals Service have specialized duties. At the federal level and in almost every state, jurisprudence operates on a common law system. State courts conduct most criminal trials; federal courts handle certain designated crimes as well as appeals from state systems.

Compared to countries in the European Union and the Commonwealth of Nations, the United States has an average overall crime rate.[174] Among developed nations, it has above-average levels of violent crime and particularly high levels of gun violence and homicide.[175] In 2005, there were 5.6 murders per 100,000 persons, compared to 1.0 in Germany[176] and 1.9 in Canada.[177] The U.S. homicide rate, which decreased by 36% between 1986 and 2000, has been roughly steady since.[178] Some scholars have associated the high rate of homicide with the country's high rates of gun ownership, in turn associated with U.S. gun laws which are very permissive compared to those of other developed countries.[179]

The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate[180] and total prison population[181] in the world and by far the highest figures among democratic, developed nations: in 2006, 750 out of every 100,000 Americans were jailed during the year, more than three times the figure in Poland, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) country with the next highest rate.[182] The current U.S. rate is almost five-and-a-half times the 1980 figure of 139 per 100,000.[183] African American males are jailed at over six times the rate of white males and three times the rate of Hispanic males.[180] The country's extraordinary rate of incarceration is largely due to changes in sentencing and drug policies.[180][184] Though it has been abolished in most Western nations, capital punishment is sanctioned in the United States for certain federal and military crimes, and in thirty-seven states. Since the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, there have been over 1,000 executions in the United States.[185] In 2006, the country had the sixth highest number of executions in the world, following China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan.[186]

Culture
Main article: Culture of the United States
The United States is a culturally diverse nation, home to a wide variety of ethnic groups, traditions, and values.[7][99] The culture held in common by the majority of Americans is referred to as "mainstream American culture," a Western culture largely derived from the traditions of Western European migrants, beginning with the early English and Dutch settlers. German, Irish, and Scottish cultures have also been very influential.[7] Certain Native American traditions and many cultural characteristics of enslaved West Africans were absorbed into the American mainstream.[187] Westward expansion brought close contact with the culture of Mexico, and large-scale immigration in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries from Southern and Eastern Europe introduced many new cultural elements. More recent immigration from Asia and especially Latin America has had broad impact. The resulting mix of cultures may be characterized as a homogeneous melting pot or as a pluralistic salad bowl in which immigrants and their descendants retain distinctive cultural characteristics.[7]

While American culture maintains that the United States is a classless society,[188] economists and sociologists have identified cultural differences between the country's social classes, affecting socialization, language, and values.[189] The American middle and professional class has been the source of many contemporary social trends such as feminism, environmentalism, and multiculturalism.[190] Americans' self-images, social viewpoints, and cultural expectations are associated with their occupations to an unusually close degree.[191] While Americans tend to greatly value socioeconomic achievement, being ordinary or average is generally seen as a positive attribute.[192] Women, formerly limited to domestic roles, now mostly work outside the home and receive a majority of bachelor's degrees.[193] The changing role of women has also changed the American family. In 2005, no household arrangement defined more than 30% of households; married childless couples were most common, at 28%.[100] The extension of marital rights to homosexual persons is an issue of debate, with more liberal states permitting civil unions and Massachusetts recently having legalized same-sex marriage.[194]

Popular media
Main articles: Cinema of the United States, Television in the United States, and Music of the United States

The famous Hollywood signIn 1878, Eadweard Muybridge demonstrated the power of photography to capture motion. In 1894, the world's first commercial motion picture exhibition was given in New York City, using Thomas Edison's Kinetoscope. The next year saw the first commercial screening of a projected film, also in New York, and the United States was in the forefront of sound film's development in the following decades. Since the early twentieth century, the U.S. film industry has largely been based in and around Hollywood, California. Director D. W. Griffith was central to the development of film grammar and Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941) is frequently cited in critics' polls as the greatest film of all time.[195] American screen actors like John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe have become iconic figures, while producer/entrepreneur Walt Disney was a leader in both animated film and movie merchandising. The major film studios of Hollywood are the primary source of the most commercially successful movies in the world, such as Star Wars (1977) and Titanic (1997), and the products of Hollywood today dominate the global film industry.[196]

Americans are the heaviest television viewers in the world,[197] and the average time spent in front of the screen continues to rise, hitting five hours a day in 2006.[198] The four major broadcast networks are all commercial entities. Americans listen to radio programming, also largely commercialized, on average just over two-and-a-half hours a day.[199] Aside from web portals and search engines, the most popular websites are eBay, MySpace, Amazon.com, The New York Times, and Apple.[200] Twelve million Americans keep a blog.[201]

The rhythmic and lyrical styles of African American music have deeply influenced American music at large, distinguishing it from European traditions. Elements from folk idioms such as the blues and what is now known as old-time music were adopted and transformed into popular genres with global audiences. Jazz was developed by innovators such as Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington early in the twentieth century. Country music, rhythm and blues, and rock and roll emerged between the 1920s and 1950s. In the 1960s, Bob Dylan emerged from the folk revival to become one of America's greatest songwriters and James Brown led the development of funk. More recent American creations include disco and hip hop. American pop stars such as Elvis Presley, Michael Jackson, and Madonna have become global celebrities.

Literature, philosophy, and the arts
Main articles: American literature, Visual arts of the United States, Theater in the United States, and American classical music

Mount Rushmore, a massive sculpture of four prominent American presidentsIn the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American art and literature took most of its cues from Europe. Writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allan Poe, and Henry David Thoreau established a distinctive American literary voice by the middle of the nineteenth century. Mark Twain and poet Walt Whitman were major figures in the century's second half; Emily Dickinson, virtually unknown during her lifetime, would be recognized as America's other essential poet. Eleven U.S. citizens have won the Nobel Prize in Literature, most recently Toni Morrison in 1993. Ernest Hemingway, the 1954 Nobel laureate, is often named as one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century.[202] A work seen as capturing fundamental aspects of the national experience and character—such as Herman Melville's Moby-Dick (1851), Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925)—may be dubbed the "Great American Novel." Popular literary genres such as the Western and hardboiled crime fiction developed in the United States.

The transcendentalists, led by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thoreau, established the first major American philosophical movement. After the Civil War, Charles Peirce and then William James and John Dewey were leaders in the development of pragmatism. In the twentieth century, the work of W.V.O. Quine and Richard Rorty helped bring analytic philosophy to the fore in U.S. academics.

In the visual arts, the Hudson River School was an important mid-nineteenth-century movement in the tradition of European naturalism. The 1913 Armory Show in New York City, an exhibition of European modernist art, shocked the public and transformed the U.S. art scene.[203] Georgia O'Keeffe, Marsden Hartley, and others experimented with new styles, displaying a highly individualistic sensibility. Major artistic movements such as the abstract expressionism of Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning and the pop art of Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein have developed largely in the United States. The tide of modernism and then postmodernism has also brought American architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Philip Johnson, and Frank Gehry to the top of their field.

One of the first notable promoters of the nascent American theater was impresario P. T. Barnum, who began operating a lower Manhattan entertainment complex in 1841. The team of Harrigan and Hart produced a series of popular musical comedies in New York starting in the late 1870s. In the twentieth century, the modern musical form emerged on Broadway; the songs of musical theater composers such as Irving Berlin, Cole Porter, and Stephen Sondheim have become pop standards. Playwright Eugene O'Neill won the Nobel literature prize in 1936; other acclaimed U.S. dramatists include multiple Pulitzer Prize winners Tennessee Williams, Edward Albee, and August Wilson.

Though largely overlooked at the time, Charles Ives's work of the 1910s established him as the first major U.S. composer in the classical tradition; other experimentalists such as Henry Cowell and John Cage created an identifiably American approach to classical composition. Aaron Copland and George Gershwin developed a unique American synthesis of popular and classical music. Choreographers Isadora Duncan and Martha Graham were central figures in the creation of modern dance; George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins were leaders in twentieth-century ballet. The United States has long been at the fore in the relatively modern artistic medium of photography, with major practitioners such as Alfred Stieglitz, Edward Steichen, Ansel Adams, and many others. The newspaper comic strip and the comic book are both U.S. innovations. Superman, the quintessential comic book superhero, has become an American icon.

Food
Main article: Cuisine of the United States

American cultural icons: apple pie, baseball, and the American flagMainstream American culinary arts are similar to those in other Western countries. Wheat is the primary cereal grain. Traditional American cuisine uses ingredients such as turkey, white-tailed deer venison, potatoes, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, and maple syrup, indigenous foods employed by Native Americans and early European settlers. Slow-cooked pork and beef barbecue, crab cakes, potato chips, and chocolate chip cookies are distinctively American styles. Soul food, developed by African slaves, is popular around the South and among many African Americans elsewhere. Syncretic cuisines such as Louisiana creole, Cajun, and Tex-Mex are regionally important. Characteristic dishes such as apple pie, fried chicken, pizza, hamburgers, and hot dogs derive from the recipes of various immigrants. French fries, Mexican dishes such as burritos and tacos, and pasta dishes freely adapted from Italian sources are widely consumed.[204] Americans generally prefer coffee to tea. Marketing by U.S. industries is largely responsible for making orange juice and milk ubiquitous breakfast beverages.[205] During the 1980s and 1990s, Americans' caloric intake rose 24%;[204] frequent dining at fast food outlets is associated with what health officials call the American "obesity epidemic." Highly sweetened soft drinks are widely popular; sugared beverages account for 9% of the average American's daily caloric intake.[206]

Sports
Main article: Sports in the United States

The Pro Bowl (2006), American football's annual all-star gameSince the late nineteenth century, baseball has been regarded as the national sport; football, basketball, and ice hockey are the country's three other leading professional team sports. College football and basketball also attract large audiences. Football is now by several measures the most popular spectator sport in the United States.[207] Boxing and horse racing were once the most watched individual sports, but they have been eclipsed by golf and auto racing, particularly NASCAR. Soccer, though not a leading professional sport in the country, is played widely at the youth and amateur levels. Tennis and many outdoor sports are also popular.

While most major U.S. sports have evolved out of European practices, basketball, skateboarding, and snowboarding are American inventions. Lacrosse and surfing arose from Native American and Native Hawaiian activities that predate Western contact. Eight Olympic Games have taken place in the United States. The United States has won 2,191 medals at the Summer Olympic Games, more than any other country,[208] and 216 in the Winter Olympic Games, the second most.[209]

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

2008-01-21T15:32:00.000-08:00

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the seventh and final of the Harry Potter novels written by British author J. K. Rowling. The book was released on July 21, 2007, ending the series that began in 1997 with the publication of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. This book chronicles the events directly following Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2005), and leads to the long-awaited final confrontation between Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort.

Deathly Hallows is published in the UK by Bloomsbury Publishing, in the USA by Scholastic Press, in Canada by Raincoast Books and in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin. Released globally in ninety-three countries, Deathly Hallows broke sales records as the fastest-selling book ever, selling more than eleven million copies in the first twenty-four hours following its release. The previous record, nine million in its first day, had been held by Half-Blood Prince.

Epigraph
All the books in the Harry Potter series have dedications, but Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is the only one to include an epigraph. It contains two quotes relating to death and friendship. The first quotation is an English translation from Ancient Greek of a passage from The Libation Bearers, by the 5th century BC playwright Aeschylus.[2] The second quotation is from More Fruits of Solitude (1682) by William Penn, the Quaker author and founder of the American Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.[3]

Plot

The final summer
Lord Voldemort and his followers plan to ambush Harry Potter when he leaves the protected Dursley home with the Order of the Phoenix for the final time. Voldemort also seeks a new wand to defeat Harry's. As members of the order escort Harry to a safe house, they are attacked en route by Death Eaters. Harry narrowly escapes, but George Weasley loses an ear, while Hedwig and Mad-Eye Moody are killed.

At the Burrow, Minister for Magic Rufus Scrimgeour arrives to give Harry, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger bequests from Albus Dumbledore's will. Ron receives a Deluminator, and Hermione is left a children's book, The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Harry inherits Godric Gryffindor's Sword and the Snitch he caught in his first-ever Quidditch match, although Scrimgeour withholds the sword. The trio, while puzzled, presume the items will help them in their Horcrux hunt.

The search begins
At Bill Weasley and Fleur Delacour's wedding reception, Kingsley Shacklebolt's Patronus arrives, announcing that Scrimgeour is dead and the Ministry of Magic has fallen under Voldemort's control. As Death Eaters approach, Harry, Ron and Hermione Disapparate, escaping to a Muggle cafe, where they are attacked by more Death Eaters. They take refuge in 12 Grimmauld Place, the former Order of the Phoenix headquarters.

While at Grimmauld Place, Harry deduces that Sirius Black's brother Regulus was the "R.A.B" who removed the Locket Horcrux from the sea cave.[HP6] Hermione recalls seeing a locket amongst house-elf Kreacher's possessions.[HP5] Kreacher admits that he placed the Locket Horcrux in the cave for Voldemort, and Regulus later died retrieving it. The Horcrux has since fallen into Dolores Umbridge's possession via Mundungus Fletcher. The trio successfully infiltrate the Ministry of Magic and recover the locket, but Grimmauld Place is compromised during their escape, forcing them to flee to the countryside.

The trio learn that the Gryffindor Sword confiscated by the Ministry is a fake. They must find the real one to destroy Horcruxes with, but a frustrated Ron leaves the group. Harry and Hermione seek the sword in Godric's Hollow, but they are ambushed by Voldemort and his snake, Nagini. During their retreat, Hermione accidentally breaks Harry's wand with a defensive spell.

In the Forest of Dean, a doe-shaped Patronus leads Harry to an icy pond containing the real Sword. As Harry attempts to retrieve it, the Locket Horcrux tightens around his neck, strangling him. He is saved by Ron, who was guided back by Dumbledore's Deluminator. Ron destroys the Locket with the sword. He warns that Voldemort's name is now Tabooed: speaking it reveals the speaker's location to bounty hunters, known as Snatchers.

The Deathly Hallows

The mysterious recurring symbol is revealed to represent the legendary Deathly Hallows.The trio learn from Xenophilius Lovegood, Luna's father, that the cryptic symbol they have repeatedly encountered represents the three Deathly Hallows: the Elder Wand, given to Cadmus Peverell, Resurrection Stone which were given to Antioch Peverell and Invisibility Cloak, given to Ignotus Peverell. When pressed about Luna's absence, Lovegood admits that Death Eaters abducted her in retaliation for supporting Harry in his paper, The Quibbler. Hoping for Luna's return, he has alerted Death Eaters of the trio's whereabouts, but they escape.

Snatchers later capture them when Harry utters Voldemort's tabooed name. Taken to Malfoy Manor, the trio join the imprisoned Luna, Dean, Ollivander and Griphook. Finding Gryffindor's Sword among the trio's possessions, Bellatrix Lestrange fears they have broken into her Gringotts vault, and tortures Hermione for information. Dobby Apparates into the cellar and rescues Luna, Dean and Ollivander. The noise prompts Peter Pettigrew to investigate. He throttles Harry, but reminded of his life debt,[HP3] Pettigrew loosens his grip, causing his own silver hand to choke him to death in retribution. Harry and Ron rush upstairs. Ron disarms Bellatrix and Harry takes Draco's wand. Dobby reappears, and they Disapparate to Bill and Fleur Weasley's cottage. Dobby is killed by Bellatrix's knife during the escape.

At the cottage, Ollivander confirms the Elder Wand's existence and says that a wand can transfer allegiance if its owner is defeated or disarmed. Ollivander also utters a caveat: although the Elder Wand is undefeatable, its master is not and must always guard against a surprise attack. Bellatrix's behaviour convinces the trio that another Horcrux is hidden in the Lestrange vault. Aided by Griphook, they penetrate Gringotts' defences and retrieve Hufflepuff's Cup Horcrux, though they lose the sword in the process.

Meanwhile, Voldemort steals the Elder Wand from Dumbledore's tomb, believing it is the only wand that can defeat Harry. Dumbledore captured it after defeating the Dark wizard Grindelwald in a duel. Voldemort also realises that his Horcruxes are being destroyed; his mind link with Harry unintentionally reveals that another Horcrux is hidden at Hogwarts.

The Battle of Hogwarts
In Hogsmeade, Aberforth Dumbledore smuggles the trio into Hogwarts. Harry's return reignites Dumbledore's Army and members prepare to fight. Harry had no intention of leading an all-out revolt against Voldemort; he only planned to find the Horcrux, and leave. But when word is sent that Harry is at Hogwarts, more D.A. and Order of the Phoenix members arrive, and battle is imminent.

Harry alerts the Hogwarts staff to Voldemort's impending invasion, as allies continue arriving. Harry, meanwhile, must find the final Horcrux. Luna Lovegood suggests it could be Ravenclaw's lost diadem. Harry recalls seeing the diadem in the Room of Requirement when he hid his Potions book there.[HP6] Meanwhile, Hermione destroys the Cup Horcrux with a basilisk fang that she and Ron retrieve from the Chamber of Secrets.[HP2] The trio go to the Room of Requirement and are attacked by Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle. Crabbe mishandles the powerful Fiendfyre spell, killing himself and destroying the diadem, but the others escape unharmed.

Harry glimpses Voldemort's mind again and leads the trio to the Shrieking Shack. They witness Voldemort kill Snape with Nagini, believing it will make him the Elder Wand's master. As Snape dies, he gives Harry memories that prove Snape's loyalty to Dumbledore, motivated by his lifelong love for Harry's mother Lily. After being cursed by Gaunt's Ring Horcrux, a doomed Dumbledore had ordered Snape to kill him at a strategic time, sparing Draco from carrying out Voldemort's order to murder him. It was Snape who sent the doe Patronus. The memories also show that Harry himself is a Horcrux; he must die in order to destroy Voldemort.

Resigned to death, Harry approaches Voldemort's camp in the Forbidden Forest. Along the way, he finds the Resurrection Stone inside the Snitch and summons the spirits of his parents, Sirius Black and the recently killed Remus Lupin, who accompany him to Voldemort's camp. Voldemort strikes him with Avada Kedavra.

Awakening in an ethereal place, Harry is unsure whether he is alive or dead. Dumbledore appears and explains that Voldemort's Horcrux within Harry has been destroyed. He says that just as Voldemort cannot die while his soul fragments remain, Voldemort cannot kill Harry because he used Harry's blood in his resurrection.

Harry revives, but feigns death. Voldemort orders Narcissa Malfoy to check Harry. Although she realises that Harry is alive, she declares him dead, hoping it will help her to search for Draco inside the castle. Harry is carried to Hogwarts as Voldemort's trophy by the captured Hagrid. When Neville Longbottom defies Voldemort, the Sorting Hat is thrust aflame onto his head; pulling it off, he withdraws Gryffindor's sword from inside it and beheads Nagini, destroying the final Horcrux. As the battle resumes, many magical folk join in combat against the Death Eaters. Knowing that he is the Elder Wand's true master, Harry confronts Voldemort. When Draco Malfoy disarmed Dumbledore on the Astronomy Tower,[HP6] he unknowingly became the Elder Wand's master; this allegiance was then transferred to Harry when he captured Draco's wand at Malfoy Manor. Voldemort casts another Killing Curse at Harry, but the wand refuses to attack its master and the spell rebounds on Voldemort, killing him.

Among the casualties are Fred Weasley, Remus Lupin, Nymphadora Tonks, Colin Creevey and Bellatrix Lestrange. After the battle, Harry tells Dumbledore's portrait that he is keeping the Invisibility Cloak, but the Resurrection Stone will remain lost in the forest. The Elder Wand shall be returned to Dumbledore's tomb, where its power will be extinguished if Harry dies undefeated. Dumbledore approves. Before returning the Elder Wand to the tomb, Harry uses it to repair his own wand.

Epilogue
Nineteen years later, Harry and Ginny Weasley are married and have three children: James, Albus Severus and Lily. Ron has married Hermione and they have two children, Rose and Hugo. The families meet at King's Cross station, where a nervous Albus is departing for his first year at Hogwarts. Harry's nineteen-year-old godson, Teddy Lupin (Remus and Tonks's orphaned son), is found kissing Victoire Weasley (Bill and Fleur's daughter) in a train compartment. Teddy is a frequent visitor to the Potters, coming to dinner several times a week. Harry sees Draco Malfoy and his unnamed wife with their son, Scorpius; Malfoy acknowledges Harry with a curt nod, then turns away. Neville Longbottom is now the Hogwarts Herbology professor and is still close friends with Harry. Harry comforts Albus, who is worried he will be sorted into Slytherin. He tells his son that one of his two namesakes, Severus Snape, was a Slytherin and the bravest man he had ever met. He adds that the Sorting Hat takes one's own choice into account. The book concludes: "The scar had not pained Harry for nineteen years. All was well."

Rowling's commentary and supplement
In an interview[4], online chat,[5][6][7], Wizard of the Month section of her website, and during her 2007 U.S. Open Book Tour, Rowling revealed additional character information that she chose not to include in the book. She stated that:

Harry becomes an Auror for the Ministry of Magic, and is later appointed head of the department. He keeps Sirius's motorcycle, which Arthur Weasley repaired for him, but he can no longer speak Parseltongue after Voldemort's soul fragment inside him was destroyed.
Ginny Weasley plays for the Holyhead Harpies Quidditch team for a time, leaves to establish a family with Harry and later becomes the lead Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet.
Ron Weasley works at George's store for a time, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, then joins Harry as an Auror.
Hermione finds her parents in Australia and removes the memory modification charm she had put on them for safety. She initially works for the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, greatly improving life for house elves and their ilk. She later moves to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and assists in eradicating oppressive, pro-pureblood laws.
Dumbledore's relationship with Gellert Grindelwald extended beyond mere friendship; indeed, Rowling has revealed that Dumbledore was gay, and harbored romantic feelings for Grindelwald.[8]
Rowling also explained the fates of several secondary characters:

George Weasley continues his successful joke shop and names his first child Fred, in memory of his late twin brother.
Luna Lovegood searches the world for odd and unique creatures. She eventually marries Rolf, a grandson of the famed naturalist Newt Scamander.[7] Her father's publication, The Quibbler, has returned to its usual condition of "advanced lunacy" and is appreciated for its unintentional humour.
Firenze is welcomed back into his herd, who finally acknowledge the virtue of his pro-human leanings.
Dolores Umbridge is arrested, interrogated, and imprisoned for crimes against Muggle-borns.
Cho Chang went on to marry a Muggle.[9]
Neville Longbottom eventually marries Hannah Abbott and lives in a flat above the Leaky Cauldron, when she becomes its new landlady.[10]
There have been transformations in the wider wizarding world:

Kingsley Shacklebolt is the permanent Minister for Magic, with Percy Weasley working under him as a high official. Among the reforms introduced by Shacklebolt, Azkaban no longer uses Dementors. Consequently, the world is now a "much sunnier place". Harry, Ron, and Hermione have also been instrumental in reforming the Ministry.
At Hogwarts, Slytherin House has become more diluted and is no longer the pureblood bastion it once was, although its dark reputation lingers.
Voldemort's jinx on the Defence Against the Dark Arts position is broken with his death. There is now a permanent Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher. Harry comes to the Defence Against the Dark Arts class to lecture a few times out of the year.
A portrait of Snape, who briefly served as Hogwarts Headmaster, does not appear in the headmaster's office as he abandoned his post. Harry ensures the addition of Snape's portrait, and publicly reveals Snape's steadfastness.

Pre-release history

Choice of title
Shortly before releasing the title, J. K. Rowling announced that she had considered three titles for the book.[5][11] The final title, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was released to the public on December 21, 2006 via a special Christmas-themed hangman puzzle on Rowling's website, confirmed shortly afterwards by the book's publishers.[12] Asked during a live chat as to the other titles she had been considering, Rowling mentioned Harry Potter and the Elder Wand and Harry Potter and the Peverell Quest.[5]

Marketing campaigns

Jacket art of Scholastic (US) edition.Scholastic's Seven Questions
In the build-up to the book's release, American publisher Scholastic released seven questions that fans would find answered in the final book:[13]

Who Will Live? Who Will Die?
Is Snape Good or Evil?
Will Hogwarts Reopen?
Who Winds Up With Whom?
Where are the Horcruxes?
Will Voldemort Be Defeated?
What are the Deathly Hallows?

The launch was celebrated by an all-night book signing and reading at the Natural History Museum in London, which Rowling attended along with 1700 guests chosen by ballot.[14] Rowling intends to tour the USA in October 2007, where another event will be held at Carnegie Hall in New York with tickets allocated by sweepstake.[15]

Scholastic Inc., the American publisher of the Harry Potter series, launched a multi-million dollar "THERE WILL SOON BE 7" marketing campaign with a 'Knight Bus' travelling to forty libraries across the United States, online fan discussions and competitions, collectible bookmarks, tattoos, and the staged release of seven Deathly Hallows questions most debated by fans.[16]

Scholastic also hosted "Harry Potter Place" — a magical and interactive street celebration at Scholastic headquarters in New York City, where the first U.S. signed edition of Deathly Hallows were unveiled on July 20, 2007.[17] The festivities included a 20 foot (6 metre)-high Whomping Willow, face-painting, wand-making, fire-eaters, magicians, jugglers and stilt-walkers.

Several bookstores set up small kiosks displaying free-to-take bookmarks. The bookmarks show reasons why Severus Snape should be considered a friend or a foe on opposite sides along with the Deathly Hallows logo at the bottom.[18]

J. K. Rowling arranged with her publishers for a poster bearing the face of the missing Madeleine McCann to be made available to book sellers when Deathly Hallows was launched on 21 July and said that she hoped that the posters would be displayed prominently in shops all over the world.[19]

Rowling on finishing the book
Rowling completed the book while staying at the Balmoral Hotel in Edinburgh in January 2007, and left a signed statement on a marble bust of Hermes in her room which read: "JK Rowling finished writing Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in this room (652) on 11 January 2007".[20] In a statement on her website, she said, "I've never felt such a mixture of extreme emotions in my life, never dreamed I could feel simultaneously heartbroken and euphoric." She compared her mixed feelings to those expressed by Charles Dickens in the preface of the 1850 edition of David Copperfield, "a two-years' imaginative task." "To which," she added, "I can only sigh, try seventeen years, Charles..." She ended her message, "Deathly Hallows is my favourite, and that is the most wonderful way to finish the series."[21]

When asked before publication about the forthcoming book, Rowling stated that she could not change the ending even if she wanted to. "These books have been plotted for such a long time, and for six books now, that they're all leading a certain direction. So, I really can't."[22] She also commented that the final volume related closely to the previous book in the series, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, "almost as though they are two halves of the same novel."[23] She has said that the last chapter of the book was written "in something like 1990", as part of her earliest work on the series.[24]

Spoiler embargo
Rowling made a public request that anyone with advance information about the content of the last book should keep it to themselves, in order to avoid spoiling the experience for other readers.[25] To this end, Bloomsbury invested GB£10 million in an attempt to keep the book's contents secure until the July 21 release date.[26] Arthur Levine, U.S. editor of the Harry Potter series, denied distributing any copies of Deathly Hallows in advance for press review, but two U.S. papers published early reviews anyway.[27][28]

Online leaks and early delivery
In the week prior to its release, a number of texts purporting to be genuine leaks appeared in various forms. On July 16, a set of photographs representing all 759 pages of the U.S. edition was leaked to the Internet and was fully transcribed prior to the official release date.[29][30][31][32] The photographs later appeared on websites and peer-to-peer networks, leading Scholastic to seek a subpoena in order to identify one source.[33] This represented the most serious security breach in the Harry Potter series' history.[34] Rowling and her lawyer admitted that there were genuine online leaks.[35] Reviews published in both The Baltimore Sun and The New York Times on July 18, 2007 corroborated many of the plot elements from this leak, and about one day prior to release, The New York Times confirmed that the main circulating leak was real.[36]

Scholastic announced that approximately one ten-thousandth (0.01%) of the U.S. supply had been shipped early — interpreted to mean about 1,200 copies.[37] One reader in Maryland received a copy of the book in the mail from DeepDiscount.com four days before it was launched, which evoked incredulous responses on the part of both Scholastic and DeepDiscount. Scholastic initially reported that they were satisfied it had been a "human error" and would not discuss possible penalties.[38] However, the following day Scholastic announced that it would be launching legal action against DeepDiscount.com and its distributor, Levy Home Entertainment.[39] Scholastic has filed for damages in Chicago's Circuit Court of Cook County, claiming[40] that DeepDiscount engaged in a "complete and flagrant violation of the agreements that they knew were part of the carefully constructed release of this eagerly awaited book." Some of the early release books soon appeared on eBay, in one case being sold to Publishers Weekly for US$250 from an initial price of US$18.[41]

Price wars and other controversies
ASDA,[42] plus several other UK supermarkets, had already taken pre-orders for the book at a heavily discounted price. ASDA then sparked a further price war two days before the book's launch by announcing they would sell it for just GB£5.00 a copy (about US$10). Other retail chains also offered the book at discounted prices.[43] In Malaysia, a similar price war brought about controversy regarding sales of the book.[44] The book's early Saturday morning release in Israel was criticised for violating the Sabbath.[45]

Sales

Queue in London at Waterstone's near Picadilly Circus; some people camped outside the bookseller for over two days to be among the first to receive the book.On 21 July 2007, all English language editions, except for the American and Canadian editions, were released at one minute past midnight (00:01) BST; the American and Canadian editions were released at one minute past midnight (00:01), local time.[46][47] It was released globally in 93 countries.[48] The book reached the top spot on both the Amazon.com and Barnes and Noble best-seller lists just a few hours after the date of publication was announced on 1 February 2007.[49] In July 2007 the U.K. newspaper the Daily Telegraph reported that it had been bought by more than 10% of the British population in the 5 days since its release.[50]

Retailers such as Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Borders reported that more orders had been placed for this book than for any other in history,[51] with Amazon.com stating that advance orders of the book reached 2.2 million worldwide,[52] breaking the record set by the sixth book of 1.5 million.[53] Scholastic announced an unprecedented initial print run of 12 million copies.[16]

A bookstore in the United States just before the midnight release.On the book's first day of sales, it sold 11 million copies in the UK and U.S., breaking the record of 9 million held by the sixth book.[54] In the U.S., 8.3 million hardcovers were sold during the first 24 hours, breaking the record of 6.9 million set by the sixth book.[55] In addition 400,000 copies were sold in Germany in the first 24 hours,[50] all 250,000 copies made available in the Netherlands and Belgium,[50] 170,000 in India,[56] and just over 573,000 copies in Australia;[57] while in Canada over 800,000 copies were sold in the first two days.[58] Barnes & Noble, the largest U.S. book chain, reported all-time record sales of 1.8 million copies in the first two days including 560,000 in the first hour - a rate of more than 150 copies per second. The audiobook broke records as well, with 225,000 copies sold in the first two days, according to Random House Audio's Listening Library.[59] Borders reported record sales of 1.2 million copies on the first day, breaking the record of 850,000 set by the sixth book.[60]

During the run-up to the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Bloomsbury's stock lost more than £151M in value. Investors were reacting to the end of the publisher's key product.[61] In the last financial year in which no Harry Potter book was released, Bloomsbury's profits dropped by 75%.

Critical reception
The Baltimore Sun's critic, Mary Carole McCauley's, praised the entire Harry Potter series as "a classic bildungsroman, or coming-of-age tale." She noted that "[b]ook seven... lacks much of the charm and humor that distinguished the earlier novels. Even the writing is more prosaic", but then observed that given the book's darker subject matter, "[h]ow could it be otherwise?"[62]

Reviewer Alice Fordham from The Times writes that "Rowling’s genius is not just her total realisation of a fantasy world, but the quieter skill of creating characters that bounce off the page, real and flawed and brave and lovable." Fordham concludes, "We have been a long way together, and neither [Rowling] nor Harry let us down in the end."[63]

By contrast, Jenny Sawyer of the Christian Science Monitor says that while "There is much to love about the Harry Potter series, from its brilliantly realized magical world to its multilayered narrative," however, "A story is about someone who changes. And, puberty aside, Harry doesn't change much. As envisioned by Rowling, he walks the path of good so unwaveringly that his final victory over Voldemort feels, not just inevitable, but hollow."[64]

Stephen King criticised the reactions of some reviewers to the books, including McCauley, for jumping too quickly to surface conclusions of the work.[65] He felt this was inevitable, because of the extreme secrecy before launch which did not allow reviewers time to read and consider the book, but meant that many early reviews lacked depth. Rather than finding the writing style disappointing he felt it had matured and improved. He acknowledged that the subject matter of the books had become more adult, and that Rowling had clearly been writing with the adult audience firmly in mind since the middle of the series. He compared the works in this respect to Huckleberry Finn and Alice in Wonderland which also achieved success and have become established classics, in part by appealing to the adult audience as well as children.

Speed-reading world champion Anne Jones read the book's 199, 900 words in 47 minutes and 1 second. She said, "Without being too critical, the plot does seem to be a bit complicated, but I would not change a word. Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows is a real page-turner."[66]

Translations
Main article: Harry Potter in translation
Following a pre-release question from the Swedish publisher about the difficulty of translating the two words "Deathly Hallows" without having read the book, Rowling revealed an alternative title from which non-English editions could be translated: Harry Potter and the Relics of Death.[67]

The first translation to be released was the Ukrainian translation, on September 25, 2007 (as Гаррі Поттер і смертельні реліквії). [68] Translation of the book is still underway in a range of languages. Expected publication dates for various translations:

Turkish (as Harry Potter ve Ölüm Yâdigarları), released on October 9, 2007 [1]
Russian (as Гарри Поттер и Дары Смерти), released on October 13, 2007 [2]
Chinese (as 哈利波特－死神的聖物, Pinyin: Hālìpōtè - Sǐshéndeshèngwù), released on October 20, 2007 [3]
Croatian (as Harry Potter i darovi smrti), released October 26, 2007 [4]
French (as Harry Potter et les reliques de la mort), released on October 26, 2007 [5]
German (as Harry Potter und die Heiligtümer des Todes), released on October 27, 2007 [6]
Vietnamese (as Harry Potter và bảo bối tử thần), released on October 27, 2007 [7]
Greek (as Ο Χάρι Πότερ και οι κλήροι του θανάτου), released on November 3, 2007 [8]
Brazilian Portuguese (as Harry Potter e as Relíquias da Morte), released on November 10, 2007
Portuguese, (as Harry Potter e os talismãs da Morte), released on November 16, 2007 [9]
Dutch (as Harry Potter en de Relieken van de Dood), released on November 17, 2007 [10]
Romanian (as Harry Potter şi Talismanele Morţii, [11]), released on December 1, 2007
Norwegian (as Harry Potter og Dødstalismanene), released on December 1, 2007 [12]
Hebrew (as הארי פוטר ואוצרות המוות), released on December 5, 2007 (Chicago Jewish Star, July 27, 2007)
Thai (as แฮร์รี่ พอตเตอร์ กับเครื่องรางยมทูต, [13]), released on December 7, 2007
Bulgarian (as Хари Потър и Даровете на Смъртта, [14]), released on December 13, 2007
Serbian (as Hari Poter i relikvije smrti), released on December 23, 2007
Italian (as Harry Potter e i doni della morte), expected release date January 5, 2008 [15]
Polish (as "Harry Potter i Insygnia Śmierci"), expected release date January 25, 2008
Hungarian (as "Harry Potter és a Halál ereklyéi"), expected release date February 9, 2008 [16]
Spanish (as "Harry Potter y las Reliquias de la Muerte"), expected release date February 21, 2008
Finnish (as Harry Potter ja kuoleman varjelukset, [17]), expected release date March 7, 2008 [18]

Film adaptation
A film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows is planned. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint and Emma Watson will reprise their roles as Harry, Ron and Hermione,[69] while Helena Bonham Carter and David Thewlis have confirmed they will reprise their roles as Bellatrix Lestrange and Remus Lupin respectively.[70] Imelda Staunton wishes to reprise the role of Dolores Umbridge.[71] Alfonso Cuarón, director of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, has said that he would be "tempted" to return to direct,[72] Chris Columbus, director of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and David Yates, director of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince have also expressed interest in returning if time and scheduling allowed it.[73] Guillermo Del Toro, who passed on Prisoner of Azkaban, has also expressed interest in directing Deathly Hallows.[74] The screenplay will be written by Steve Kloves,[75] while John Williams, who composed the scores to the first three films, has expressed interest in returning to score the film.[76] In response to rumours that the film may be split in two, Warner Bros. announced that "no decision has been made". This is because due to the 2007-08 Writers Guild of America strike, Kloves has not been allowed to start work on the script.[75]

Editions

Stack of the Scholastic version displayed at Comic Con 2007.Bloomsbury (United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, South Africa, etc.)
ISBN 0-7475-9105-9 Hardcover
ISBN 0-7475-9106-7 Hardcover (adult edition)
ISBN 0-7475-9107-5 Hardcover (special edition)
Scholastic (United States, etc.)
ISBN 0-545-01022-5 Hardcover
ISBN 0-545-02937-6 Deluxe Hardcover; Raincoast (Canada, etc. - Same as Bloomsbury editions)
ISBN 1551929767 Hardcover
ISBN 1551929783 Hardcover (adult edition)

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock

2008-01-21T15:31:00.000-08:00

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the third full installment in the Guitar Hero series (the fourth title overall). The game is published by Activision and RedOctane, with Neversoft as the developer for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Wii consoles, and Aspyr Media as the developer for the PC and Macintosh computers. Due to the acquisition of RedOctane by Activision, Harmonix Music Systems is no longer involved in developing titles in the Guitar Hero series; instead, they developed the competing Rock Band.

As with the previous Guitar Hero games, the player uses a guitar-shaped controller to simulate the playing of varying genres of rock music by playing notes as they scroll in-time with the music. Gameplay from the previous installments of the series has remained mainly intact, except for the addition of a new cooperative career mode. The game features over 60 total songs, many of which, in contrast to previous games, are master tracks. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is available both individually and in bundles packaged with wireless controllers. Previous Guitar Hero controllers are compatible with this title. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the first game in the series to feature online play, in addition to existing game modes.

Furthermore, the game includes Tom Morello (of Rage Against the Machine/Audioslave) and Slash (of Guns N' Roses/Slash's Snakepit/Velvet Revolver) as in-game characters. The Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC versions also include Bret Michaels (Poison).

Development history
In May 2006, RedOctane, the publisher of Guitar Hero, Guitar Hero II and Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s, was purchased by Activision,[1] while MTV bought the developer of previous Guitar Hero games, Harmonix in September of the same year.[2] As a result of both purchases, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was instead published by Activision, with development responsibilities shifting from Harmonix to Neversoft Entertainment.[3] Neversoft president Joel Jewett noted that his company was asked to perform the development work based on a humorous conversation that Jewett had with RedOctane's founders Kai and Charles Huang at the 2006 E3 Convention, describing how Guitar Hero helped to reduce the stress in the Neversoft offices during their development of Tony Hawk's Project 8; months later, Jewett was contacted by the Huangs, requesting them to work on Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock.[4]

Activision initially stated that the game was planned for release in the fiscal year of 2008, which stretches from March 2007 to March 2008.[5] On April 9, 2007, RedOctane clarified this by unofficially stating on their website that "Guitar Hero 3 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and Wii are currently scheduled for release in the United States in Fall of 2007."[6][7] On April 16, 2007, RedOctane founder Kai Huang revealed that all versions of the game will feature wireless controllers as well as online multiplayer and downloadable content.[8]

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock was officially announced by Activision and RedOctane on May 23, 2007 for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii and Xbox 360. The fall 2007 release date was reconfirmed. New wireless controllers shaped like a Gibson Les Paul (PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360) and Kramer (PlayStation 2) models were also confirmed, along with removable faceplates that will allow players to personalize their guitar. Activision also avoided all mention of the title "Guitar Hero III," instead referring to the game as "the next Guitar Hero."[9] Also promised by Dusty Welch, head of publishing at RedOctane, are "new online and multi-player game play modes," and that "many of the top bands and songs we've tried to get in the past are now on board, and we've definitely got some giant aces in the hole to say the least."[10] The online play feature will also extend to the Wii version, as announced by Nintendo at the 2007 E3 conference.[11] A week later, IGN revealed the wireless Les Paul controller, which will feature a removable neck for travel purposes. Additionally, new gameplay videos and screenshots were revealed.[12][13][14][15]

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock introduced three new characters modeled after real-life musicians. Slash is one of the "bosses" and an unlockable playable character in the game. Slash did motion capture with RedOctane to record his movements for the game, and by beating him in a one-on-one competition (playing an original composition of his),[16] he will be unlocked as a playable character. The master track of "Welcome to the Jungle" appears as an encore song which is playable with Slash.[17] Similarly, Tom Morello is also a boss and unlockable character within the game. Bret Michaels appears as non-playable vocalist for certain songs, providing his voice for these master tracks.

A demo of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock appeared in Tony Hawk's Proving Ground for the Xbox 360, as well as being available as both a Xbox Live Marketplace download[18] and an ISO image that could be created through a PC to use on the Xbox 360.[19] The demo features five songs ("Lay Down," "Rock You Like a Hurricane," "Even Flow," "Hit Me with Your Best Shot," and "The Metal") played within the Desert Rock Tour venue.[20]

On September 11, 2007, Aspyr Media and Activision announced that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock will also be developed for both the PC and Macintosh platforms.[21] The PC and Mac versions of the game are expected to ship bundled together on November 12,[22] slightly after the release of the console versions, and will include the same USB-based Gibson X-Plorer guitar controller included with the Xbox 360 version of Guitar Hero II. However, Windows users with the Xbox 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows will be able to use the Xbox 360 Gibson Les Paul wireless guitar controller as well, though this is not supported by Aspyr Media.[23]

On November 29, 2007, the Australian release of the hybrid Mac and PC version of Guitar Hero III was pushed back to 2008. This was confirmed by local Aspyr Media distributor Try & Byte and Activision Australia.[24]

Gameplay
See also: Common gameplay elements in the Guitar Hero series
The Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock gameplay remains unchanged from previous titles in the series; the player must hit notes as they scroll towards the bottom of the screen in time with music in order to maintain their performance and to score points. Hitting notes using the guitar controller requires strumming the strum bar while holding down the correct fret button(s). Playing with the standard controller only requires the correct button to be pressed. Notes can be sustained (in which the fret button(s) must remain held until the note is complete) and can also form a chord (2 or 3 notes played together). The game also simulates hammer-ons and pull-offs for sections with a rapid series of notes. Missing a note will cause a performance meter to drop; if this meter drops too low, the player will fail the song, represented in-game by the band being booed off the stage. A string of 10 consecutive correct notes earns a multiplier to increase the player's score (up until four times), and special sections, marked by starred notes, can be used to build Star Power; when released (by tilting the guitar controller up vertically or hitting a button on a standard controller), the player's multiplier is doubled, and there is less of a penalty for missing notes. As with the previous games in the series, Guitar Hero III contains four difficulty levels: Easy (which uses three of the fret buttons); Medium (which makes use of four of the fret buttons); Hard (which utilizes all five fret buttons); and Expert (which adds no new fret buttons, but increases the number of notes and the general difficulty).

Career mode
As with previous Guitar Hero games, a player will progress through multiple tiers of songs, unlocking new songs along the way. The single player career mode in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock features 8 tiers with 42 songs total. The player is required to complete a number of songs in each tier, the number depending on the difficulty level, and then is offered an encore performance with one additional song. After a tier is complete, a new tier is introduced. New in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock are career mode boss battles; at three points during the career mode, the player is required to compete against a boss character: Tom Morello, Slash, and Lou the Devil, in order to progress; however, after three attempts, the player is given the option to skip the battle if they so choose.[citation needed] Each successfully completed song earns in-game money that the player can use at the game's store to unlock new characters, outfits, guitars and finishes, bonus songs, and videos. Additionally, beating a song in career mode unlocks it for play in all other game modes.

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock is the first game in the series to feature a storyline for the Career mode, portrayed through animated cartoon scenes in between venues. The band starts out as a neighborhood sensation, before hooking up with a record producer named Lou at one of their shows. After a successful music video hits the web, the band travels to England, and then performs at an island jail (despite Lou encouraging them to 'sell out'), which ends up boosting the band's popularity. As a result, they are invited to headline the Desert Rock Tour festival. After a botched performance in Japan (thanks to Lou) they attempt to break free of their contract with Lou, who then reveals himself to be the Devil and the contract as ownership of their souls. The band is dragged down to Lou's "Inferno", where the final showdown comes. In this final showdown, the player must defeat Lou in a boss battle to earn back the band's souls, and the title of "Guitar Legend".

Co-op career mode
Two players using the same console can participate in Co-op Career Mode, which is arranged similarly to the single player Career mode, with one player on lead guitar and the other on bass or rhythm guitar. There are only 6 tiers of songs, with each encore song being unique to the co-op mode. There are no boss battles in this mode. Co-op Career mode cannot be performed through networked players.[citation needed]

The co-op storyline portrays the vocalist and drummer looking for a guitarist and bassist. After their first performance, the drummer has the idea of making a video to make a name for the band. The video skyrockets the band's popularity, earning them a gig in Japan, but differences between the core members put the band on a three-month hiatus. In the band's comeback performance, the pyrotechnics start a fire in the neighborhood, and the members are sent to jail, where Lou bails them out as long as they perform for the inmates. As soon as the band leaves prison, though, they are sent to Lou's "Inferno", where they must find their way out by playing a live show.

Battle mode

A screenshot demonstrating Battle Mode and Slash as a playable character.Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock introduced Battle Mode, a competitive mode between two players either locally or over network play.[25] The mode puts a twist on the Pro Face-off mode introduced in Guitar Hero II. Two players compete against each other, trying to make his or her opponent fail or lose by successfully playing "Battle Power" sequences (which replaces Star Power) to earn attacks that can be used against the opponent. Players can store three attacks at a time. To activate these temporary attacks, the player tilts his or her guitar upward, presses the select button (PlayStation 2 and PlayStation 3 releases) or back button (Xbox 360 release). If neither player fails the song, they will face each other in a Sudden Death segment, where all further "Battle Powers" attainable are Death Drain attacks, which inevitably makes the opponent fail by draining his or her Rock Meter.

Wii exclusive features
The Wii version of the game has several exclusive features, since a Wii Remote must be inserted into the guitar controller. The game utilizes the Wii Remote's wireless capabilities and accelerometer, as well as making use of the rumble feature and the internal speaker:[26] The internal speaker on the Wii Remote is used to emit an effect when incorrect notes are hit; and the Wii Remote's rumble feature is utilized when Star Power mode is activated. While the Wii version has online play utilizing game-specific friend codes, downloadable content was not available at launch, although it expected to be available in 2008.[27] The Wii and PS2 versions also use slightly different graphics and sounds from those on the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions, such as a different typeset, loading screen, and the Wii version featuring "miss" sounds more akin to Guitar Hero I and II.

Character cast

Bret Michaels' in-game character will sing vocals while the player performs "Talk Dirty to Me."Neversoft lead developer Alan Flores revealed that Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock has a cast of thirteen characters.[28] Characters returning from previous titles are Johnny Napalm, Judy Nails, Axel Steel, Izzy Sparks, Casey Lynch, Lars Ümlaüt, and Xavier Stone. Midori is an original playable character that can be selected; additionally, each system has two additional playable characters that can be unlocked: the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions include the characters of Metalhead and Elroy Budvis, while the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions include The God of Rock and The Grim Ripper.

In addition, the player can unlock the three boss characters: Tom Morello,[29] Slash,[30] and Lou the Devil, once they have completed their respective boss battles in career mode. While Bret Michaels appears in the game and sings specific songs, he is not a playable character in the game. Michaels is only included in the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game. However, his motion-captured movements are all done for the in-game fictional singer for all versions, including the Wii and PlayStation 2 versions.

Soundtrack
Main article: List of songs in Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock
Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock features 71 playable songs - 40 are "main setlist" songs, 6 are exclusive to co-op career mode, and the remaining 25 are "bonus tracks." In total, 51 of the game's songs are master recordings (the highest total of any Guitar Hero release). In addition, the career mode includes three guitar battles: one each against Slash, Tom Morello, and Lou (The Devil). Slash and Morello both wrote and recorded original battle music for the game.

The soundtrack features such songs as "Paint It, Black" by The Rolling Stones, "Cherub Rock" by The Smashing Pumpkins, "Sabotage" by Beastie Boys, "The Metal" by Tenacious D, "My Name is Jonas" by Weezer, "Knights of Cydonia" by Muse, "Rock and Roll All Nite" by Kiss, "School's Out" by Alice Cooper, "Slow Ride" by Foghat, "One" by Metallica, and "Barracuda" by Heart.[31] It also features re-recordings of "Anarchy in the U.K." by Sex Pistols and "Cult of Personality" by Living Colour specifically for Guitar Hero III, as the original master tracks could not be found.[32] This game is the first in the series to feature a bonus track ("She Bangs the Drums") that is not an original recording.

Xbox 360 players that purchase the compact disc soundtrack (which contains select tracks from the game) will have access to a code that can be redeemed for 3 exclusive playable tracks on Xbox Live Marketplace.[33]

Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock also supports future downloadable tracks. Since the game's release, downloadable songs from the Die Fantastischen Vier, Extremoduro, Foo Fighters, Linkin Park, Mastodon, The Used, Trust, Velvet Revolver, the game's boss battles, and a metal version of the Christmas carol (technically an Epiphany carol) "We Three Kings" (by Steve Ouimette) were made available for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 releases. The Halo theme song was only made available for the Xbox 360 release.[34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]

It has been announced that Activision will be releasing downloadable content for the Wii in the first quarter of 2008.[43]

Reception
Publication Score
Electronic Gaming Monthly 25.5 of 30
Game Informer 8.75 of 10
GameDaily 8 of 10
GameSpy (360, Wii, PS3) 4.5 of 5
GameSpy (PS2) 4 of 5
Hardcore Gamer 3.75 of 5
IGN (360 and PS3) 8.9 of 10
IGN (Wii) 8.6 of 10
IGN (PS2) 8.0 of 10
GameSpot (360, PS3, Wii) 8 of 10
GameSpot (PS2) 7.5 of 10
GameSpot (PC) 7.0 of 10
Nintendo Power 9 of 10
Official Nintendo Magazine 9 of 10
PlayStation: The Official Magazine 9 of 10
Official Xbox Magazine 8 of 10
X-Play 4 of 5
On average, Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock received strong review scores, although it generally scored lower than its predecessors.[44]

In the October issue of Game Informer, the magazine gave a full review of Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock a month before the game's release. It rated the game a 8.75/10, with a 9.0/10 as a second opinion,[45] while Official Xbox Magazine awarded it an 8/10. The game was praised for its graphics and fun, addictive gameplay that was the staple of the Guitar Hero series. IGN.com also scored the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions an 8.9/10, while GameSpot gave the game a 8/10 score. In addition, the Gibson Les Paul controller included with bundled version of the game received particular praise; GameSpy, in a five page review of all four console versions, praised, "GH3's new Les Paul model kicks ass in every way imaginable. It's wireless, the shape feels more comfortable, and the fret buttons and strum bar are as smooth as butter." The same review also called the Wii guitar the best of the guitar peripherals, praising the vibration option.[46] Most critics have also praised the soundtrack for its song selection and quantity of master tracks.

The game has also been subject to criticisms. For example, IGN's review of the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions noted, "…there's not really a whole lot new here. We understand that this was Neversoft's first take at the franchise, but it's a pretty safe effort as the basic formula remains exactly the same." The review also criticized the lack of customizable rockers.[47] IGN's review of the Wii version noted the game's presentation and art direction feeling "forced" and, as a result, less visually appealing than previous installments.[48] GameDaily stated, "While playing through the songs—one question stayed at the forefront of our minds—what's up with the white boy soundtrack? We would have liked to see more from legends like Jimi Hendrix and Prince in the mix."[49] GameSpy criticized some of the tweaks, stating, "the Star Power phrases tend to be so long, if you have enough skill to get them you can beat the song anyway" ... "the sequences are a little too much of a trial-by-fire compared to past Guitar Hero games. From the first tier, Medium simply feels like Hard-minus-the-orange-button."[46] GameSpot criticized the "heavy dose of in-game advertising" in its reviews.[50] GameSpy stated that the PlayStation 2 version got "the short end of the stick" due to a lack of online play.[51] Official Xbox Magazine has also criticized the game for being, "...too competitive and not in the spirit of the previous two installments."

Activision has called Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock its "largest product launch ever," selling over USD $100 million in the first week after release in North America alone.[52] As such, Activision reported concerns of being unable to meet the demand for the game for the 2007 holiday season.[53]

Technical problems
1UP reported that none of the versions allow players to play offline Co-Op Quickplay mode, a feature which was included in Guitar Hero II. Instead, Co-Op mode is only available in "Co-Op Career" Mode, which uses a different setlist from the main career and therefore does not provide Co-Op multiplayer for the entire soundtrack. However, the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 version does include offline Co-Op Quickplay mode via a patch. No further information has been given regarding similar treatment on the Wii and PlayStation 2, so far.[54]

GameSpy had some technical issues with the PlayStation 3's controllers and online matchmaking, noting "...[the included USB dongle] functions on 2.4 GHz wireless, rather than the console's built-in Bluetooth. You won't be able to use the PlayStation button on the guitar to turn on your console; instead, you'll have to use a Sixaxis or physically turn it on... The Les Pauls will power down after a period of disuse ... online multiplayer for PS3 is fairly incompetent in presentation... As of the time we're reviewing this, the PS3 Quick Match option is completely broken."[46]

Some users of the PlayStation 3 wireless Les Paul guitar controller have reported issues surrounding fret buttons not registering when pushed, wrong fret buttons registering, and the tilt sensor always registering tilt. These apparently stem from the quality of the electrical connections between the pins on the guitar body and the contacts on the detachable neck.[55]

Separate from the detachable neck problems, many PS3 users are reporting problems with the strum bar's ability to register quick alternate strumming, even claiming that the low scores recorded by PS3 users compared to Wii and 360 users indicate that there's a problem with all of the PS3 guitars.[citation needed] There has been no official statement from Activision, RedOctane or Neversoft addressing these reported issues.

Though the Wii version of the game was advertised as supporting Dolby Pro Logic II, users have reported that the game outputs in neither Pro Logic II nor stereo, providing only mono sound. Activision will offer free replacement remastered game disks that correct this issue in early 2008.[56]

Players attempting to upload their scores to the official Guitar Hero website have also experienced difficulties. According to Neversoft, "the launch of Guitar Hero III has produced heavy amounts of traffic to the website, and this traffic has caused a number of users to have problems with linking their accounts and uploading scores. We are well aware of these issues, and we our working as fast as we can to fix both problems."[57]

The PC version has been criticized for having very high system requirements, but still suffering from lag and slowdowns, even on high-end systems with the graphics tuned down to a minimum,[58] supposedly due to the PC version being a near-direct port of the Xbox 360 version.