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britesparc · 11 months ago

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Weekend Top Ten #619

Top Ten Things That Might Happen in 2024

January is always the time I do kind of “year-end” style lists about the year just gone and the year that we’re all getting used to. After my mini review of 2023 last week, now I’m turning my gaze to the horizon and thinking about all the exciting-seeming things that I’m going to end up being disappointed by in 2024.

I think these lists used to be a little bit easier as there were huge “things” hanging over the horizon – an Avengers, a Halo, a bunch of comics – but whether it’s just fatigue, time, or my interests narrowing a little bit, I tend to be happier to wait and see. This is also because a lot of the things I really end up loving are ones that kind of come out of nowhere – Everything Everywhere All at Once, Only Murders in the Building, Driver’s Licence – and I couldn’t have predicted how much I’d fall for them beforehand. The big franchises tend to rumble on and I love them to bits – well, the MCU at least – but I’m happy just taking them as they come.

Despite all that, there are quite a lot of things that I’m excited about this year. I’ve tried not to just say “everything that’s on Game Pass” or whatever, and look in the nooks and crannies for things that really seem like they’re going to be incredibly cool. I remain, of course, a basic bitch; there’s Marvel stuff on here, Xbox games, a bunch of movies… same stuff as always. But it looks cool!

Anyway, that’s enough for now. Here we go, gazing into my Palantir of futureness to see what there is to see. Catch you on the flipside!

I’m Seeing Hamilton!: I’m a very big fan of the musical Hamilton, which I’ve only ever see on Disney+, and listened extensively to its soundtrack. So I’m obviously incredibly excited by the fact that next month I’m going to see the show here in Manchester. It’s going to be weird hearing the songs sung by people other than the famous Broadway cast, but I can’t wait to actually see it live and for real.

Great Films Set in Deserts: the two biggest films of the year to me are Dune: Part Two and Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga, follow-ups to two of my favourite films from their respective years. Dune I adored as a huge-screen epic adaptation on the scale of The Lord of the Rings – and in its own way just as earnest and successful an adaptation. The second half of the book is when things really kick off so I’m expecting some audacious IMAX action and Josh Brolin playing a baliset. And then Furiosa, the gonzo prequel to Fury Road, starring Anya Taylor-Joy as a young Charlize Theron, and an almost unrecognisable Chris Hemsworth. Fury Road is a landmark, stunning achievement in action cinema, so whatever George Miller wants to do in that world is of tremendous interest. And, yes, both these awesome films are set primarily in the desert. Who’d have thunk?

Doctor Who Continues to Return: pretty much my favourite thing about 2023 was the return to form of Doctor Who, one of my favourite shows which I felt had gone off the boil a wee bit. Ncuti Gatwa has already impressed in the Christmas special episode, and now we get to see a full season, with nice, enjoyable arcs and mysteries and weirdness. Russell T. Davies’ social conscience continues to ensure Who remains a terrifically progressive, forward-thinking show, which is also very nice; and we might even get some sexy spin-offs too.

Deadpool 3, aka The MCU’s Year Off: the MCU took a bit of a kicking last year; partly at the box office but especially from critics OD’ing on schadenfreude. This year is almost a bit of a reset, as the various strikes of ’23 have pushed back almost everything that was due out in the next twelve months. As such we have one film to look forward to, but what a doozy: Deadpool’s MCU debut, the first R-rated movie in the canon, with Hugh Jackman back as Wolverine to boot. And it appears it might be making fun of the entire Fox buyout and the end of their X-Men universe. True, there will be some shows – Echo, Agatha, maybe Daredevil – but it does feel like a chance for the studio to exhale, take stock, and kick everything down again in 2025. And Deadpool 3 could be utterly fantastic.

The Rohirrim Ride Once More: I’ve already mentioned the Lord of the Rings movies in this list, and here they are again. Basically, I think they’re the best movie trilogy of all time, the best literary adaptation of all time, and in general are just flippin’ fantastic. So I’m beyond excited for The War of the Rohirrim, an animated prequel focusing on my beloved pseudo-Celtic horse lords. Brian Cox is playing Helm Hammerhand, the visuals are based on Peter Jackson’s trilogy, and Miranda Otto narrates the whole thing as Eowyn. The Ride of the Rohirrim scene in The Return of the King is a stunning piece of cinema I rewatch time and again; I hope this can be just one-tenth as good.

Spider-Man Gets Hitched (Again): I don’t often talk about comics on here anymore as I’m not going into comic shops that regularly, so I just feel a bit out of the industry, so to speak. But this year we do get a new comic about Spider-Man that touches on one of my favourite aspects of the character: his married life. Ultimate Spider-Man – which launched this week but which I have yet to read – is a whole new universe and new take on the character; but as I do really like it when he’s a bit older, married to MJ, and has a kid, it’s definitely right up my street.

Great Games Incoming: last year I think I was most excited about Starfield, even if maybe it didn’t quite live up to expectations (I still really like it though!). This year I don’t think there’s one “big” game that’s frothing me up; but all the same, there’s a lot on it’s way. Next week, for instance, we’re going to see more of Hellblade 2, Avowed, and Indiana Jones just for starters; and personally I can’t wait for Ara: History Untold, Xbox’s Civ-a-like. And that’s before all the weird and quirky games that just look damn cool: Plucky Squire, for instance, and hopefully Lightyear Frontier, the Stardew-meets-Transformers game that was delayed from ’23. Despite having more than enough to play already, I think 2024 is going to drip-feed a steady stream of excellent games throughout the year.

…And a Whole New Console (Probably): the games are exciting enough, but it looks almost certain that we’re going to get a sexy new console too. The Switch 2 (Super Switch? Switch U? Switcheroo?) is probably coming out in 2024; I doubt I’ll be getting one right away, but it’s always incredibly exciting to finally see what Nintendo have up their sleeves. I imagine a refined, sexier, more umph-y Switch; how it lands price-wise and with issues regarding backwards compatibility really determines how crazy it’s going to make me. And on the subject of hardware, we may be getting a cool new Xbox controller, with haptic triggers and all sorts; that’s Christmas 2024 sorted, then.

A Good Year for Star Wars: I’ve gone a bit lukewarm on Star Wars recently; although it’s been in the news this week with the announcement of The Mandalorian and Grogu movie and it’s really made me want to catch up with the series I missed. Anyway, 2024 is a big year for the franchise; presumably we’re going to get at least one film finally in production, and on TV we should have (I believe) the second season of Andor and Skeleton Crew, the intriguing Jude-Law-is-a-Jedi-mentor-to-a-bunch-of-kids thingie. If that wasn’t enough, Ubisoft’s Star Wars: Outlaws looks like a bit of wish fulfilment in game form, and we’re getting an amazing-looking remaster of one of the best games in a galaxy far, far away, Dark Forces. More did you spake?

Transformers, at Last: I finally started reading Transformers by Daniel Warren Johnson, the new iteration of the franchise published by Skybound and Image. As it’s only three issues old, I’m really intrigued to see how its story plays out this year; its interesting tweaks on the old G1 Sunbow/Marvel storyline have enough contemporary wrinkles and the artwork is excellent. Yes, obviously, it’s nowhere near as good as the highs of IDW; but, really, we’re looking back nearly ten years to those fascinating stories. This is an intriguing start and I wanna see where it goes.

#top ten #movies #games #books #2024 #2024 preview #things that might happen in 2024 #dune #hamilton #star wars #transformers

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billconrad · 11 months ago

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Ethics Hinder My Writing

Five years ago, I created a report at Sundstrand and uncovered issues with our product. My boss asked me to change the conclusions, and I refused. To get around this dilemma, I re-wrote (faked) the conclusions, and somebody else submitted it under their name. Side note. Does this make me a ghostwriter?

That was the only time I compromised my work ethic. Incidentally, Sundstrand had extensive ethics training that everybody blatantly ignored. But what about my boss? He was fantastic, and upper management goals directed his choices. What about my coworkers? They said, “It’s what the boss wants. Just do it.”

The incident conflicted me. It was a minor lie, but my core personality hated lying. Before choosing to have a coworker submit the report, I considered quitting. Looking back, the whole thing was a minor fudge because of unrealistic requirements, and I should have been less rigid. Yet, the incident still simmers in the back of my bonkers mind.

I recently discussed the incident with a friend, which inspired me to think about my ethics. I came to an unexpected conclusion: I am a deeply ethical person. I thought my ethics were ordinary or perhaps a little below average. Sure, I do not steal or abuse people, but that is the baseline. I am not a saint, and there are people I know with higher ethics. However, my self-evaluation revealed that I have a higher sense of ethics than my peers.

I think it is a good thing to have high ethics. Society needs responsible people, and I am a trusted friend. Yet, high ethics presents a problem with my writing.

My good characters have strong morals, and the bad ones, meaning that even the bad ones have distinct ethical lines they never cross. A child abuser? Not in my book. Why? I feel it is essential for readers to connect with the bad characters as if they could be bad people in their own lives. The core of my problem is that I cannot make the bad character too bad, and the good character must be outstanding. For example, no character would ever use a racial slur. Yet, I know such terms are essential for authors to rouse the reader. They show ignorance and a lack of respect. And let’s not forget that a character/real person can use racial slurs and learn they are wrong. While true, I will never use such terms in life or writings.

Such ethical choices limit the story’s dynamic range and prevent me from ever creating an anti-hero. So, how do I write within my ethics? I mentally set a plotline and subject limit. This choice excludes horror stories where characters are poorly treated for the sake of being mistreated. My evil characters need a reason to be awful; they cannot simply be appalling. So, my villains never benefit from poor behavior.

Can I tell myself that writing is just fantasy? Go ahead, write a raw, gritty, and unsavory story. Readers will understand; they know the definition of fiction. The “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” author has killed; they only wrote a fictional story. This kind of story is a bridge too far for somebody like me. However, I appreciate stories that break ethical grounds, such as the Deadpool and Mad Max franchises.

Does this mean that my books will always be limited? Regrettably, yes. A large portion of literature and character types will be off-limits to me. Is this bad? Skilled writers challenge themselves to develop fantastic plots. They apply shock value and add excessive aggression to get readers out of their comfort zone. I know what my writing could be, but I have to live with myself. I do not want the sum of my achievements to be unethical, and I would much rather be a complete failure than be known as the author who created the award-winning Hannibal Lecter. Yet, I understand Hannibal Lecter is a fantastic character. Thomas Harris can be proud of that sadistic creation, but that character is not for me.

Since my life examination, I have better understood my ethics and how they affect my writing. I will push my envelope in the future. A tiny bit. I think there are many good ethical areas in my plot wheelhouse.

You’re the best -Bill

December 23, 2023

Hey book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

#writing #ethics #story #character development

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wozman23 · 1 year ago

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Alan Wake II - My Spiral into Its Madness

[THERE WILL BE SPOILERS HERE. AND THEORIES SURROUNDING THE ENDING. IF YOU PLAN ON PLAYING ALAN WAKE II, DON'T READ THIS. GO PLAY IT!!!]

After trudging through every square inch of The Dark Place, credits have rolled on Alan Wake II, and the platinum trophy is mine! It's such a phenomenal game! It's got so many qualities and small details that make it such.

First off, after a decade of hoping for a sequel, I'm just so happy that it has finally come to fruition! And I'm so pleased that its... RETURN... was in such a superb manner. Director Sam Lake himself said that he's “happy” that this is the Alan Wake II we got. It wasn't Remedy's first draft. Both Quantum Break and Control spun off of Alan Wake failed sequel concepts. Over the last 13 years Remedy has honed their skills, and introduced and iterated on many concepts since the original Alan Wake. And the result here is a culmination of all those years of hard work.

Connected universes and multiverses are hip right now. This has been a concept in video games for quite some time, with people suggesting that merely an Easter egg like a newspaper mentioning a “deadly virus” in Uncharted 3 means that The Last of Us and Uncharted coexist. Some people even go as far as to say that because there's also a Precursor Orb collectible in Uncharted, Jak & Daxter also reside in that universe. At a certain point, it becomes a bit absurd. But Remedy has really found unique and interesting ways to tackle the concept of a shared universe that always feels organic and never forced.

Remedy doesn't own all of its IP, particularly Max Payne or Quantum Break. Yet they've found creative ways to incorporate characters and ideas from both of those franchises. And it feels as if these plans have been in place since their Alan Wake's inception, if not earlier. I never played their Max Payne games (only Max Payne 3) but I'm hoping the talks of them remaking them changes that. Because I'm really excited to see not only what they were about, but how they'll almost uncertainly tie even more things to their connected universe.

Alex Casey is certainly a nod to Max Payne. They share many similarities, even down to the Sam Lake likeness. Yet within Alan Wake, he's also just the lead character of Alan's past novels. Does he even really exist? Was he simply birthed into the world by Alan's writing? Multiple times, events contradict themselves so that were never really sure what the truth is. And I think that's one of the most fascinating things about the Alan Wake franchise, and their other works by extension. Every single character in the world is a walking contradiction, an enigma. Alan Wake, Thomas Zane, Alex Casey, Saga Anderson, The Anderson brothers, Tim Breaker... every character intertwines like a chaotic ball of yarn.

I think this is never more clear than with Thomas Zane. At face value, he's an auteur, a muti-hyphenate, who became trapped in the Dark Place after his own events at Cauldron Lake. In the original game, he acts as Alan's guiding force, often a deus ex machina. Who or what exactly he is or was was one of my biggest questions entering the sequel. I'm still not sure. Oddly, he looks just like Alan. Ahti, an eccentric character we'll talk about later, even refers to Alan as Tom. And much of Tom's work is credited to Alan Wake, either through their Americanized names, or Finnish names. It wouldn't be crazy to say that Tom doesn’t even exist, and is merely a plot device, a character created by Alan himself to deal with his own situation. Yet somehow the inverse could also be completely true. Maybe Tom created Alan to deal with his own trials of being trapped in the Dark Place. Maybe he wants Alan to replace him in The Dark Place...? Then there's the Clicker, a switch that apparently was cut off of a lamp that Tom had, that Alan also had a kid to help him combat his own fears of the dark. It's also known as an OOP – an object of power – thanks to Control's Federal Bureau of Control, postulated to somehow act as the key to making written art come true. The ambiguity and overlapping with everything is both intriguing and maddening. And that nebulousness is exactly why I love Alan Wake and Remedy so much.

The same questioning could be applied to every other character. Has everything just been created by Alan to deal with his situation? Is that situation even real, or all in Alan's head? How do you tell the truth from the lies? At the end of the original game, The Dark Presence, manifested as Barbara Jagger, tries to convince Alan that his entire world is a delusion, a ruse created by him so that he doesn't have to deal with the fact that he was actually the one responsible for the death of his wife. It's a short interaction, and it's brushed off by Alan as an attempt by her to stop him from defeating her, but who's to say that it's not the truth? Maybe everything we're playing is merely a dream. Maybe Alan's bad temper or addictions either drove her away or got her killed...

Alan Wake II really doesn't answer a lot of questions. It more-so just doubles down on this approach of contradictions and confusion. I'm really no more certain who Alan, Tom, and Alice are, or whether or not they even all exist. And now we've just added more characters and more questions.

I tried to go in blind. I really only knew that Alan was in The Dark Place and there was a second playable character, Saga Anderson. I feel like I put a few details together early in the game as to who we were interacting with. I knew we'd be running into Tom. Yet despite knowing Saga's name, her lineage reveal took me by complete surprise! I think the differences in race from the Anderson brothers made me never even consider that. However, because of it, I do have a theory on one of the game's biggest unanswered questions: Who is Saga's father?

Mr. Door, Warlin, is a wild card. We really don't know anything about how he operates or what his motives are. But I have some theories! Some of which I came to. Others which I agree with after falling down the rabbit hole of internet debates. Warlin is Saga's father. There's really not much to go on. Tor and Door himself say a few things that seem to suggest it. Then there's the man researching Door, Tim Breaker, played by Shawn Ashmore – who also gave his likeness to the lead in Quantum Break, Jack Joyce. I don't remember a lot about Quantum Break, but his use of white boards can't be coincidence. Nor can his name which is one character shy of “time breaker.” This has to be another situation of skirting IP. Tim does have family in the world of Alan Wake via the Breaker family in the Bright Falls Sheriff Office. Are these two characters one in the same, mirror images in opposing universes? I'm curious to finding out more about this as well, and what role Tim plays in everything.

The internet also helped with with a few theories as well. Early on, Tim mentions a “redhead.” I assumed it was a reference to Jesse Faden, the protagonist from Control. But it would also reference Beth Wilder from Quantum Break. In these situations, both characters share character models, which isn't unheard of for multiple project from video game studios. But here it just feels like it has to mean more. Could they also be multidimensional counterparts? Clearly as is the case with Casey and Breaker, names don't have to be the same. Yet the person essentially is.

Then on the flip side of things, you have characters who don't look alike, but feel like they're counterparts as well. Mr. Door and Quantum Break's Mr. Hatch share some interesting similarities. Door... Hatch...synonymous...? The unfortunate thing here is that I'd assume Mr. Door was originally intended for Lance Reddick, the actor who played Mr. Martin Hatch, before his untimely death. (Lance is mentioned in the credits.) But a recast was required. Again Martin... Warlin... all to similar as well...?

One thing is for sure: I need to play Quantum Break again.

Details like that also make me consider some other absurd theories. Are Alan and Tom counterparts from differing dimensions? Perhaps either Alan or Tom doesn't truly belong in the dimension we're witnessing. Maybe that crossing of universes is responsible for so much of the chaos, similar to the show Fringe... which also featured multiple dimensions and Lance Reddick. Let's make it canon!

Ahti probably knows, and he's perhaps the most interesting character at this point. Appearing first in Control, as a janitor, he seems to be omnipresent and all knowing. He reminds me a lot of Tom from the original game. The janitor trope has come up many times before: Neil Flynn in Scrubs, Mop Girl in Disenchantment, Ahti... what's that about? Now, finding his way into the world of Alan Wake, he just creates more questions, straddling the line between eccentric old Finnish man and god. Him singing was great. Actor Martti Suosalo who portrays him won a BAFTA for his role in Control, and deserves so much praise here as well. I just watched a podcast with Sam Lake talking about how talented he is as an actor and singer in Finland.

Maybe I need to replay Control as well... There's also so much lore here about Altered World Events, Objects of Power, and parautilitarians to further explore. As well as plenty of direct references to Alan Wake that may now be a bit more enlightening. But back to the the all knowing and the omnipresent.

The Old Gods of Asgard occupied that role in the original game, and still do somewhat. Here we learn that they're immune to the effects of Alan's writing, and by extension so is Saga. While her mother, Freya, is dead in this time line, she would certainly be as well, should she or one of her doubles appear.

I love The Old Gods of Asgard so much, as characters. I'm curious to see what's in store for them considering the conclusion of the game. But I mainly like them for the musical contributions that come from the real life band Poets of the Fall! Remedy has done a terrific job commissioning music throughout the franchise. The songs that served as transitions between chapters in the first game were great. Here, they're even better! Not only is the Old Gods stuff amazing, but the other collection of artists really impressed even though they're outside of my typical genre of choice: rock. I'm not even sure what genre to put a lot of the stuff in. Many of the tracks feel kind of industrially, like a female version of Nine Inch Nails, or maybe Billie Eilish. And their excellence makes me want to explore more artist in that vein.

I talked about this last time when I wrote about Alan Wake. More games need to commission musicians to create unique songs for them. Everything here feels custom crafted for Alan Wake. Similarly, one of my other favorite games, Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy - which I'm still hoping somehow gets a sequel after nearly 20 years - also commissioned a band, Cold, to write the song "In My Mind," and it was also perfectly executed.

I think Remedy's dedication to partnering the project with excellent music is also indicative of another of the strengths of Alan Wake II. It's a story about an artist, that values artist. The overall art direction is beautiful despite it dire and macabre tone. It's intermingled with beauty. I just read today on twitter about how all of the graffiti scattered throughout The Dark Place was created in collaboration with graffiti artist, Irwin Suimuri. So many times, the art and artists in games do not get the credit they deserve, so it's lovely to see people appreciating some of the finer details in this large project.

This reliance on art and sound really comes to a head at the point that many are calling the game's best moment: it's musical section. Apparently it was almost cut because it was hard to execute, but Sam stubbornly stuck to his guns and made sure it shined. I had a grin on my face the entire time, especially watching both Alan and Sam dance. (Was it Casey or Sam himself since he's also appeared in the world?)

The first game had glimpses of humor, mainly through the comic relief that Alan's agent, Barry, provided. Because of that, he's one of my favorite comic characters in all of gaming. One of my only disappointments with Alan Wake II is that he never appears. Yet somehow the game is even funnier. It's also far darker and more gruesome. So that dichotomy is even more impressive.

There were also the Koskela Brothers, who made some genuinely gut bustingly funny videos. Jaakko's fumbling of the pronunciation of quinceañera was probably the most hilarious moment in the game. Their inclusion was much appreciated. And there's the whole other rabbit hole to go down about their parallel to the Huotari Well incident which makes one wonder who or what is exactly real in the world. Plus, the town of Watery and Coffee World were great additions as well. There's nothing better than a decrepit theme park. Pat Maine had some fun, odd radio shows as well, obsessing over Wendy Davis and her Family Beef Jerky. Hickory teriyaki! It could be that he's losing it, or maybe like the Anderson family, he's immune to the changes in the story and remembering the past.

Another common praise that I see coming up time and time again is how the game seems to project a love for Finland, and feel Finnish. The platinum trophy itself is labeled "Sisu," which is defined by Wikipedia as "a Finnish concept described as stoic determination, tenacity of purpose, grit, bravery, resilience, and hardiness... to express their national character. It is generally considered not to have a literal equivalent in English. In contemporary psychology, sisu is shown to have both beneficial and harmful sides which can be measured using a designated scale."

The Koskela Brothers, Ahti often slipping into Finnish and singing "Yötön Yö," Wake and Zane sometimes being referred to as Seine and Viekko. It all makes me want to move to Finland, or at the very least, learn the language just to see if they've tried or try to slip anything past us English speakers.

Another thing I did know was that the game was going to stray from its original design quite a bit, which was a concern for me going in. There was a lot more emphasis on exploration (and thankfully less collectibles). Combat wasn't as center stage as the original either, with encounters feeling fewer and farther between, in favor of new, unique investigating and writing mechanics. Overall it didn't feel anywhere near as action driven, and because of that combat seemed a bit more one dimensional. While there were probably just as many weapons, and more choices for explosives, it didn't feel as if the game was encouraging you to experiment with the combat mechanics as much. So I mainly relied of my favorite guns, and the occasional flare. Wolves, which were a scrapped enemy type from the first game were present, but with their middling execution, I think I'd have preferred keeping the uniqueness of the various possessed objects the original had, whether they were beams or barrels, or a menacing tractor or train. One feature that I'm glad got axed though was the driving mechanics, which were very unrefined in the original. I did really enjoy the inclusion of audiovisual “jump scares.” On more than one occasion I got spooked. And the atmosphere, particularly in the Overlaps, where worlds felt as if they were blending together was a really cool touch. I do think I'd have still been okay with a form more similar to the original, but I do know some criticized it. The changes did really encourage me to really take my time with everything. I tried to explore every nook and cranny over my leisurely 31 hour play though. Letting the game breathe more gave it a nice ebb and flow. I often didn't want to put it down, staying up way past my bedtime, exchanging my enjoyment within it for the tiredness I'd face the next day at work. I managed to find nearly every collectible, solve every rhyme, and close out most of Saga's cases. There were a few things I used the internet to track down, I missed petting one deer, and a few cases weren't closed. But I enjoyed every second of it! I also really enjoyed Alan's portrayal in this installment. In the first game, he was unwavering and pretty clear headed. But 13 years in The Dark Place and with The Dark Presence - regardless of how long it has felt to him - really started driving him mad. We started to see cracks. I assume even the smallest details are crafted by Sam Lake. I felt like the Alan Wake is and has always been Scratch twist was brilliant. There's this back and forth about who is who, and who is writing Return, and even Initiation. And early on to me it felt like Alan's flowery prose was swapped for clunkier lines of thought and sentence fragments. I thought, "Boy, Scratch is such a shit writer." Turns out, it's probably just Alan going crazy, or his mind being invaded by The Dark Presence. At some point it's also mentioned that no one has ever returned from Cauldron Lake unaffected, which should have been some foreshadowing that the real Alan was never going to return completely as himself. Yet up until seconds before Scratch escaped from his jail cell, I assumed an unaffected Alan. Then later, there's the ultimate payoff that the two are one-in-the-same when it's revealed that the thing tormenting Alice is actually not Alan's doppelganger who made it to her reality, but just Alan bleeding into that dimension.

It's not very often that I finish a game and question what the hell I'm going to do next. I've got Super Mario Bros. Wonder ready to go. Jusant is ready on Game Pass. And Spider-Man 2 - which despite being from my all-time favorite developer - which got put on the back burner because I wanted to prioritize Alan Wake II, should be on the way since I picked it up a few days ago thanks to Wario64 mentioning a sale online. But I really don't want to play anything right now. Its a odd phenomenon that happens every so often after a truly great game. I saw someone else online say this as well. The only other time I can think of this happening in recent memory is with The Last of Us, a series I regard as the best ever. I'm kind of sad Alan Wake has now come and gone. In listening to the soundtrack afterwards, I began to weep seconds into RAKEL's "Follow You into the Dark." It's nearly an alien feeling for me. But the finality of finishing up the game and being so grateful for it existence really got to me. And I think those companion music pieces probably exemplify best what makes the game so damn great. Whereas most games feel like games comprised of various works of art, broken down into chunks like art design, sound design, visual effects, etc., Alan Wake II feels like the inverse. It's a collection of beautiful works of art, like custom songs, and custom graffiti, and all of those other more mundane components that go into making a game, that somehow work together to form this amazing game with a riveting story.

I'm sure I'll pick up one of those other games soon. With Mario I expect a series of levels of varing degrees of difficulty. It's a tried and true formula that we've seen in gaming for 30+ years, with a fresh coat of paint. With Spider-Man 2 I expect the modern AAA game: fancy graphics and effects, a large open world, and plenty of side missions to keep me busy and extend play time. It will be Spider-Man 1 with a few more bells and whistles. In both cases, those experiences will probably be fairly "game-y." By contrast, Alan Wake II was created with such a bold vision, reckless ambition, and an overall love that made it feel completely unique, transcendental of video games, and more like an experience than a cliche video game.

Right now all I want to do is talk about Alan Wake II, and go down the rabbit hole of reading about others' experiences with it and their own theories.

It's such a treasure. It definitely wouldn't exist in its current state had it come out around 2013. The wait was horrendous. But like Sam, I'm so happy it exists in 2023. The thirteen years it took felt like an eternity. But during that eternity Remedy continued to toil away at quietly adding more to the Alan Wake lore even when they were busy with other projects, not working directly on the franchise. Alan Wake II feels like a great sequel that builds upon the strengths of a great game. But it also feels like it contains great elements from the projects that they've held us over with since the original. The seamless blend of live action videos feels like the evolution of ideas in Quantum Break. And the connected universe idea pulls heavily from Control. Without those games, Alan Wake II may just not have been quite as special as it turned out to be.

That being said, I hope it performs well commercially, enough to justify a sequel within a much shorter time period. Because I'm so obsessed with the world, and Remedy's grand schemes. I'd like to know who Mr. Door, Tim Breaker, and Ahti actually are. I'd like to get a better idea of what their motives are, as well as those of Tom. I'd like to see what the crazy old Old Gods are up to. I'd like to know if Logan is okay. I'd like to see if Alan and Alice can triumph and return to a normal life. I'd like to know if the Bookers, the latest artists to visit Bright Falls, will play a larger role. I'd like to learn more about all the cool little details and ways that Alan Wake, Control, Quantum Break, and Max Payne intersect. I don't expect much of that to actually be answered, because a lot of the fun of the franchise is pondering the unknowns and unknowables. So maybe I'm really just looking forward to another riveting story, more great music and art, and even more questions that make me wonder what the hell is really going on.

BRING ON ALAN WAK3!!! Hopefully before I'm 53.

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melonreads · 1 year ago

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SO many 3x3's. I love to overshare. Consider this an extension of my about

Left to right in order, my absolute fave: Comics, manga, anime, video games & albums

actual titles, authors, directors, artists, etc. under the cut :3

All titles in order from left to right!

Comics:

Snotgirl by Bryan Lee O'Malley & @milkmanner

Super Mutant Magic Academy by @jilliantamaki

Umbrella Academy by Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá

Pinky & Pepper Forever by Eddy Atoms

Funky Town by @mathilde-vg

Heat by @jean-wei

The Sprite & the Gardener by @riibrego & @obligatorymorningfart

This One Summer by @jilliantamaki & Mariko Tamaki

My Friend Dahmer by Derf Backderf

Manga:

Lucky Star by Kagami Yoshimizu

Her Majesty's Dog by Mick Takeuchi

Oyasumi Punpun by Inio Asano

Hellsing by Kouta Hirano

JJBA Steel Ball Run by Hirohiko Araki

Dorohedoro by Q Hayashida

Zombie Loan by PEACH PIT

Yotsuba by Kiyohiko Azuma

Berserk by Kentaro Miura

Anime:

FLCL

Space Dandy

JJBA Battle Tendency

Toradora!

Lucky Star

K-ON!!

Hellsing Ultimate

Magic User's Club OVA

One Piece (fml)

Video Games:

(if a specific title isn't mentioned then it's the franchise as a whole)

Animal Crossing

Hatsune Miku: Project Mirai/Diva

Monkey Ball

Mystic Messenger

Katamari

FFVII Crisis Core

Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days

Disgaea: Hour of Darkness

The World Ends With You

Movies:

Heathers Dir. Michael Lehmann

Parasite Dir. Bong Joon-Ho

The Breakfast Club Dir. John Hughes

Battle Royale Dir. Kinji Fukasaku

Carrie Dir. Brian De Palma

Mad Max Fury Road Dir. George Miller

Into the Spiderverse Dir. Peter Ramsey, Bob Persichetti & Rodney Rothman

Alien Dir. Ridley Scott

The Shape of Water Dir. Guillermo Del Toro

Albums:

Melodrama - Lorde

Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse - Daniel Pemberton

Fetch the Bolt Cutters - Fiona Apple

BTR - Big Time Rush

Keep on Truckin' - Surfbort

Bullets - My Chemical Romance

My Foot - The Pillows

Harry Styles - Harry Styles

Paramore - Paramore

#what to even tag this #mine #about me #about #if this inspires anyone to read/watch/listen to anything then my job here would be done #i'll probs link this post in my about too #also lmao you'd think i'd do books but the image format isn't very pleasing for book covers - it crops really badly and i don't like it #its different for comics and manga idk

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briannas-casebook · 2 years ago

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INTRODUCTION TO THE MAKING OF: CHARACTER DESIGN FROM PROMPTS.

As mentioned in a previous post, as part of my homework for the Introduction to 'Making Of' class, I was tasked with designing a character based on one of four prompts:

ninja cat

independent robot

emotional demon

insect warrior

I was drawn most to the "Insect warrior" prompt as I have previously done work on the anatomical components of insects for past projects. So I started by drawing various different types of insect faces and bodies. I knew I didn't want a character based on a praying mantis, as I felt using an insect best known for its fighting and prey-hunting abilities would be too predictable and cliched for an insect warrior character. A good example in pop culture is Master Mantis from the Kung Fu Panda franchise. I also wasn't drawn to the bee and dragonfly faces as they were too similar to a mantis head and I didn't want to evoke that for reasons stated previously. I drew one face that I did like; the upper middle face which I based loosely on crickets and katydid (large horned grasshopper native to North America) faces. There was something about the unique rectangular shape of the head and the particular intense look of katydid eyes and their tiny "pupils". So I decided to roll with the idea of a character based on a grasshopper.

I first just focused on the anatomy and proportions of the character, creating several iterations with slight differences until I was satisfied with the body. Although I did make the character upright walking, I also kept some insectoid traits like the extra pair of arms and had the "knees" of the character's legs which bend backward instead of forward to reflect the anatomy of grasshopper legs in real life.

I also modified the final body to have longer legs than the previous iteration as I wanted the proportions of the character to be less uniform. I also felt their height could give them a more imposing silhouette to add to the warrior aura I wanted to capture. Along with this, I modified the position of their second pair of arms to be tucked behind the back, as this would allow them to be used to protect the warrior from behind thus adding another asset to a warriors toolbox. I took some inspiration for this pose from the way the Skeksis in the Dark Crystal have a similar second pair of small arms hidden behind their backs.

To make sure I stayed consistent with my character's proportions when moving on to costume design, I used my light box to trace over the drawings I made on the previous page.

As I was designing a chracter based on crickets, I thought about the real life biology of the insects and how I could use that as inspiration for what kind of warrior specifically they'd be. I remembered the fun fact that crickets or grasshoppers are usually solitary creatures, and when a group of them forms, rubbing against each other causes a chemical change in the grasshoppers, turning them into swarming, crop-devouring creatures called locusts. I thought about how this would impact an alien species with similar anatomy and biology to grasshoppers and how this would affect their society. Perhaps this character, and by extension, the rest of their species would avoid physical contact with themselves or others - As should they touch, it would cause them to transform into ravenous monsters. If this were the case, I decided it would be fitting to make this character a long-range warrior or fighter such as, for instance, a lone sniper. so I went with this idea.

When designing the costume, I drew on a number of references and influences. I first used images of real-life sniper uniforms. experimenting with drawing the character in the different uniforms and their pieces to see what would work.

I also drew on fictional inspirations such as the character Ana from the videogame Overwatch (especially the concept art for her wasteland alternative skin) and the female characters of Mad Max, Fury Road. I wanted to convey that sense of the lone, nomadic, and stoic yet meditative warrior. I also focused on how much the clothes covered the body. As the character could not physically touch others, it would make sense for them to cover as much of their body as possible to avoid any chance of physical contact.

Eventually, I combined some of the elements I liked from each uniform, such as the real-life sniper hood, the knee pads from Ana's wasteland skin (with the round part of the kneepads on the back of the legs and not the front to accommodate the backward bending legs), Ana's coat and bulletproof vest, and the goggles from Mad Max's Furosia.

I will be creating a dedicated character sheet for this character to not only tweak their physical appearance but also to flesh out their backstory and personality as part of the character design brief. This has so far been my favorite exercise of my classes overall, as I'm genuinely proud of the character I've been able to come up with thus far through the character design process.

#character design #original character #crickets #insects #grasshoppers #overwatch #ana overwatch #mad max furiosa #mad max fury road #intro to the making of #animation

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frankendykes-monster · 3 years ago

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Space Jam: A New Legacy is content to be content.

The original Space Jam was a calculated marketing exercise. Michael Jordan was the biggest sports star of the nineties, and Space Jam capitalised on Jordan’s brand potential while also allowing the athlete to refashion his own narrative into a family-friendly mythology. Space Jam packaged Jordan for a generation, smoothing the wrinkles out of his story by presenting a wholesome family man making an earnest transition from basketball to baseball.

It also helped Warner Bros. to figure out what to do with their Looney Tunes characters, which had largely laid dormant within the company’s intellectual property vaults. There had been a conscious effort to revitalised the company’s animation with shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and even Animaniacs, but those classic and beloved cartoons were a merchandising opportunity waiting to happen. So the logic of the original Space Jam was clear, it was an excuse to tie together two potentially profitable strands of intellectual property.

Space Jam itself was something of an afterthought. The movie struggles to reach its ninety-minute runtime. It often feels like the production team have to utilise every scrap of film to reach that target, with extended riffs focusing on Bill Murray and Michael Jordan on the golf course and with a lot of the improvisation from the voice cast included in the finished film. The movie’s ending comes out of nowhere, and Space Jam struggles to hit many of the basic plot beats of a scrappy sports movie.

The movie itself was immaterial to the success of Space Jam as a concept. After all, the film only grossed $250m at the global box office, enough to scrape into the end of year top ten behind The Nutty Professor and Jerry Maguire. However, the film’s real success lay in merchandising, with the film generating between $4bn and $6bn in licensing and merchandising. Key to this was the success of the six-time platinum-certified soundtrack which remains the ninth highest-grossing soundtrack of all-time.

In some to trace a lot of modern Hollywood back to the original Space Jam. So much of how companies package and release modern media feels like an extension of that approach, the reduction of the actual film itself to nothing more than “content” that exists as a larger pool of marketable material. After all, the unspoken assumption underlying AT&T’s disastrous decision to send all of their blockbusters to HBO Max was the understanding that HBO Max itself was often packaged free with company’s internet. Movies would no longer be their own things, but just perks to be packaged and sold as part of larger deals.

In the decades since the release of Space Jam, the industry has become increasingly focused on the idea of packaging and repackaging intellectual property. It has become increasingly common for films to showcase multiple intellectual properties housed at the same studios. Simple crossovers like Alien vs. Predators or The Avengers now seem positively humble when compared to the smorgasbord of brand synergy on display in projects like The Emoji Movie or Ralph Breaks the Internet.

Interestingly, as Disney have steadily securing their intellectual property portfolio with additions like Pixar and Lucasfilm and Marvel Studios and 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros. have becoming increasingly bullish about showcasing the depth and breadth of their bench. The LEGO Movie imagines a wide range of properties consolidated under one brand. Ready Player One depicted a pop culture user space lost in nostalgia for properties and trinkets. However, those movies also managed to tell their own stories, even as they grappled with the weight of brand synergy pushing down on top of them.

Space Jam: A New Legacy has no such delusions. It understands that it does not exist as a story or as a feature film. Instead, it has distilled cinema down to a content-delivery mechanism. The plot of the movie finds basketball star LeBron James sucked into the “Serververse” and forced to ally with the Looney Tunes in order to play a basketball game with the fate of the world in the balance. However, while the original Space Jam ran a brisk and unfocused ninety minutes, A New Legacy extends itself to almost two hours. There is always more content to repackage and sell, after all.

A New Legacy slathers its cynicism in nostalgia, directly appealing to a generation of audiences who have convinced themselves that Space Jam was a good movie and a beloved childhood classic. A New Legacy is built around the understanding that the original Space Jam walked so that it might run, counting on the audience’s nostalgia for the original film to excuse a lot of its indulgences. After all, it would be a betrayal of the franchise if A New Legacy wasn’t a crash and vulgar cash-in. In many ways, A New Legacy does what most sequels aspire to do, scaling the original film’s ambitions aggressively upwards.

As with the original Space Jam, there is layer of irony to distract from the film’s clear purpose. In the original Space Jam, the villainous Swackhammer planned to abduct the Looney Tunes and force them to play at his themeparks. The implication was that the characters did not want to be sold into corporate servitude, stripped of their own identity and rendered as crass tools of unchecked capitalism. The irony of Space Jam lay in the fact that the entire movie was a variant on Swackhammer’s themepark and the Looney Tunes were dancing to that theme anyway as Daffy puckers up and kisses the Warner Bros. stamp on his own ass.

In A New Legacy, a sentient algorithm – Al G. Rhythm – is cast as the movie’s primary antagonist. The film gestures broadly at a satirical criticism of the modern film industry, with Al G. Rhythm shaping and warping the future of movie-making by suggesting things like computer-generating movie stars and producing a constant array of recycled intellectual property. A New Legacy recognises the machinations of Al G. Rhythm as unsettling and horrifying, with throwaway jokes about the theft of ideas and the violation of privacy, but the villain largely serves as a smokescreen to let the movie have its cake and eat it.

After all, A New Legacy revels in Al G. Rhythm’s plans. LeBron James is turned into an animated figure and dumped into classic Looney Tunes shorts like Rabbit Season and The Rabbit of Seville. The film understands that while the audience might be afraid of the algorithm, they also yearn for it. After all, it isn’t Al G. Rhythm who structures A New Legacy so that the film spends an extended sequence touring the company’s beloved intellectual properties.

A New Legacy is really just an investors’ day presentation that celebrates the sheer amount of content that Warner Bros. own. It’s not too difficult to imagine the film screened investors before the Discovery deal, as proof of just how many viable franchising opportunities existed within the copyright of the company itself. It’s a weird and unsettling showcase, in large part because it feels like that warning from Jurassic Park. The studio were so obsessed with whether they could do a thing that they never stopped to consider whether they should.

The film’s middle section includes a whirlwind tour of the properties owned by Warner Bros. After Bugs “plays the hits” with James, the two set off on an adventure to recover the other Looney Tunes from other beloved Warner Bros. properties. Some of these advertisements make sense: Daffy and Porky are living in the world of Superman: The Animated Series, while Lola seems to have found the Wonder Woman from the Bloodlines animated films. Others make much less sense in a movie aimed at kids, like the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote hiding in Mad Max: Fury Road or Yosemite Sam living in Casablanca.

Of course, it’s debatable how much of A New Legacy is aimed at kids, as compared to the kids of the nineties. Its target market seems to be kids in the late nineties who never grew up, because they never had to. Elmer Fudd and Sylvester are hiding out in Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me. Granny and Speedy have taken refuge in the opening scenes of The Matrix. While the original Space Jam featured odd pop cultural shoutouts to things like Pulp Fiction, at least that was somewhat contemporaneous.

To be fair, there is no art driving these choices. Many of these references serve to point the audience towards established properties. It is a sentient recommendation algorithm for HBO Max and a handy way of stoking audience interest in upcoming projects like The Matrix 4 (December 2021) or Furiosa (June 2023). It is a helpful reminder that Superman: The Animated Series has been remastered in high definition to stream on HBO Max. Foghorn Leghorn even rides a dragon from Game of Thrones to remind viewers that the show is streaming on HBO Max and that there are prequels coming.

It’s all very bizarre, but also strangely lifeless. The climax of the film finds the inevitable basketball game played in front of a crowd of familiar pop culture icons drawn from a wide range of sources: King Kong, The Iron Giant, Batman ’66, The Wizard of Oz, The Mask and many more. It feels very much like a surreal power play, a company showcasing the depth of its own vaults at a turbulent time in the industry. It leads to weird moments, like Al G. Rhythm even quoting Training Day, perhaps the film’s most unlikely draw from the “Warner Bros. Intellectual Property Vault.”

The most revealing aspect of the movie is its central conflict, with Al G. Rhythm cynically manipulating LeBron’s son Dom. Dom is convinced that his father doesn’t understand him, that his father is unable to see that his skill lies in video game coding rather than old-fashioned basketball. Rhythm is able to create a schism between father and son, using Dom’s code and his anger to attack and undermine LeBron James and the Looney Tunes. It’s a very broad and very archetypal story. There are no points for realising that Dom eventually comes around to his father and accepts that Rhythm is a villain.

However, it signals an interesting shift in these sorts of narratives. Traditionally, these sorts of generational conflicts played out between fathers and sons, with fathers presented as antagonistic and sons presented as heroic. The original Star Wars saga is built around Luke Skywalker trying to wrestle and grapple with his father Darth Vader. In Superman II, the eponymous superhero is forced to confront Zod, a representative of his father’s generation and the old world. Even in Batman Begins, Bruce Wayne is set against his surrogate father figure Ra’s Al Ghul.

The metaphor driving these sorts of stories was fairly simple and straightforward. Every generation needs to come into their own and take control of their own agency within the world. Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi ends with Darth Vader dead and Luke staring out into the wider universe. Times change, and each generation has an obligation to try to create a better world than the one left to them by their parents. In the conflict between parents and children, it has generally been children who have prevailed.

However, in recent years, the trend has swung back sharply. It’s notable that the villain in Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens is an errant child who doesn’t properly respect his parents, and that Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker ends with order restored when the protagonist takes the name of the beloved heroes of the older films. Shows like Star Trek: Picard are built around the idea that kids need their older generation of parents to swoop in and tell them how to properly live their lives.

A New Legacy is an interesting illustration of this trend. The movie ends with a reconciliation between LeBron and Dom, but it is very clearly on LeBron’s terms. Dom is manipulated and misled by sinister forces, and his father has to save him while realigning his moral compass. Father knows best. It demonstrates how the underlying logic of these stories has shifted in recent years, perhaps reflecting the understanding that perhaps the older generation won’t surrender the floor gracefully.

As with Ready Player One, there’s a monstrous Peter Pan quality to A New Legacy. It is a film about how the culture doesn’t have to change. It can be recycled and repurposed forever and ever and ever. At the end of Space Jam, Michael Jordan and Bugs Bunny parted ways. There was an understanding that the two worlds existed apart from one another. However, A New Legacy ends with the collapse of these worlds into one another; the “Serververse” manifesting itself in the real world. As LeBron walks home, Bugs asks if he can move in.

Of course, with HBO Max subscription, the audience can take Bugs home anytime they want

#long post

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changeling-rin · 5 years ago

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Hi! I was wondering, what are your thoughts on the different Zelda games? Not a ranking or anything, just what did you like/dislike in each game/franchise as a whole? And how did you come up with the personalities of the characters for DL? Thank you!

Oof. Oh, you’re gonna make me Longpost, aren’t you. Yeah, okay. You asked for it.

Skyward Sword/Gen

-I both love, and hate, the motion controls. On one hand, I have never felt more epic than when I personally stabbed my sword into Demise’s head. On the other hand, I have never felt more frustrated when my wiimote would misinterpret my swings and I would subsequently die. Contrary to popular opinion, I actually like Fi. Her design is beautiful, her theme is gorgeous, and her goodbye to Link is one of the most beautiful yet heartbreaking moments in the entire franchise. The origin of the Master Sword, in my opinion, might be one of the best things to come out of this game.

Gen’s personality came about mainly as the foil to Lore and Dusk’s pre-existing dynamic. Lore is the spastic one, and while Dusk is definitely somewhat of the straight-man, he’s much more likely to roll with it unless it’s drastically damaging. Gen, on the other hand, will avidly apply common sense to anything and everything, and since Lore very rarely follows common sense, Gen morphed into his ‘conscience’, so to speak. His predilection for healing was a side-effect of me dying a lot in his game and spending more on Red Potion than probably anything else, and also because the group needed a medic and Gen was definitely the most take-charge character I had who would do that sort of thing.

Minish Cap/Speck

The Picori are the cutest things, oh my gosh. I do, however, suspect their violent and painful end in BotW - if they’re the ones who put the Rupees and Bombs and stuff in the grass, and there’s no such things in BotW… Aside from that! I adored the concept of shrinking down and having the entire environment change on you. It was such a unique way to make an old area new again. On the flipside, I loathed the Kinstone sidequest with a passion. I never did manage to match them all.

Speck was basically me saying to myself, ‘He’s a tiny person. How do tiny people see the world?’ And then he turned into a quiet, shy kid who tries very hard not to be a bother and looks at problems from a completely different angle than most people. This is why he always second guesses his words - he’s by far the most frequent user of ‘um’, ‘uh’, ‘ah’, ‘oh’, etc, and this is entirely on purpose. Tiny people, by nature, will do whatever it takes to make sure the bigger people don’t get mad enough to smush them - a bit morbid, I know, but if you think about it… This is also where his habit of stabbing the eardrum came from. Where most people wouldn’t even think of it, Speck just saw a really good access point and a whole lot of convenient fabric handholds to get him there.

Four Swords/The Four

I have actually never been able to get my hands on a copy of the original Four Swords game. I know. I’m a disgrace to the fandom. However, I have done extensive research, and I can say that by far my favorite concept is being able to deploy a Bow-Wow in the direction of my enemies. I literally cannot imagine it without cackling.

The Four were the result of me having two sets of Four Sword Heroes and desperately needing some way to tell them apart. It took a very long time for me to decide to play up the hive mind aspect, but once I did everything clicked for them. Rather than being split individual aspects of the original Link, the Four are literally a copy-paste of OG Link’s personality with only tiny variations between them, which led to the decision to make them somewhat quiet and awkward about their synchronization. People rarely accept what’s unfamiliar to them, and to be honest the Four probably have one of the more ‘tragic’ backstories. They may or may not have been chased out of a town or two due to a couple misunderstandings about the source of their hive mind. (My babies, I’m so sorry I did this to you I’m a terrible author whyyyyyyyy)

Ocarina of Time/Ocarina

By far, one of the most investing stories in a game. Ganondorf is fabulously evil, 10/10 would thwart again. Music, of course, is beautiful. The travel mechanic, on the other hand, I am not a fan of. Trying to get somewhere before getting the respective warping Song is tedious at best, and the sheer amount of time it takes for me to swap between Young and Adult Link is just… it’s a hassle, is what it is.

Ocarina is a little kid in a Big Person’s body, and I write him accordingly. He’s the wide-eyed boy in a brand-new world. He’s naive to a lot of things and oblivious to several others. He and Mask have a bit of an odd dynamic because of this - Ocarina will basically gravitate to wherever Mask is as a sort of unconscious instinct, under the unrealized assumption that Mask means protection. The ‘Little Brother’ mentality, if you will.

Majora’s Mask/Mask

THE MOON. THE FREAKING MOON. I will never be able to play this game without feeling vaguely stressed and unsettled the entire time and THAT FREAKING MOON is the reason why. Very compelling plot, 10/10, but WHY. Aside from that, the music is fantastic, Majora is Creepy To The Max and we so rarely get that in Zelda games so I am on board, the transformation masks are probably my favorite mechanic, and your heartstrings get yanked on several times with the Goron Lullaby quest and Mikau’s entire storyline.

Mask evolved directly as the opposite to Ocarina, with the caveat that he is directly aware of Ocarina’s unconscious ‘Little Brother’ mindset - Mask just happens to be sincerely uncomfortable with the ‘Big Brother’ role. He’s more knowledgable, more experienced, and this was done explicitly to be in direct contrast with the fact that he looks like a little kid. He’s Ocarina’s opposite in every single way, and it’s fun to have them play off each other.

Twilight Princess/Dusk

Probably my favorite game, art-style-wise. There’s some things that Twilight Princess does fantastically well artistically, not to mention that it contains one of my favorite characters of all time. Midna is awesome and there’s nothing that will convince me otherwise. I actually think the wolf mechanic is a really good way to make new problems within old areas - but I will admit, the bug hunts can be tedious. And that one escort mission can go jump off a cliff. But I adore everything about the concept of a Twilight Realm, and even though Ganondorf comes in and kinda shafts Zant out of the way, he’s fabulous enough that I can accept it. They are, after all, both marvelously evil.

Dusk’s personality came from me thinking back on everything that happens in his game and promptly deciding that: he either went a little insane to deal with it all, or he had the lowest level of crap to give that I’d ever seen. Obviously, I decided on the latter, and I’m very glad I did, because from there that allowed me to build the faux-duo-actually-triad leadership between him, Lore, and Gen that works so very well. I kinda ended up putting a little of myself into Dusk, in that he’s very reserved and will think about what he says before saying it. Of course, I had to incorporate the wolf somehow, and the way that was the most fun for me was to bring some of those traits over into his hylan form. One of these was me interpreting the howling mechanic as Dusk being a naturally good singer, and we all know where that led.

Four Swords Adventures/Red, Blue, Green, and Vio

The loss of the Bow-Wow hits me deeply, but we do get horses so that helps a little. Also, it surprised me a little how similar this game is to the predecessor, Four Swords. There’s a couple plot differences, Shadow Link is a thing, but for the most part it follows a very similar pattern and I kinda wish something different had been done. It’s fun having more than one weapon to swing around, but not quite as much without other people to play with. The one thing I have to say about Zelda multiplayer games is that, without actual multiple players, it’s just… not as fun.

I freely admit that large parts of Green, Vio, Red, and Blue’s personalities came directly from the FSA manga - particularly, the subversion of color expectations by having Red be the timid one and Blue be the aggressive one. You never see that nowadays, and I immediately pounced on it. Vio and Green had slightly less large chunks of manga personality, but I basically ripped their inner-group dynamic wholesale. Their individual interactions though, those are all me. Blue and Vio just seemed like natural bicker partners. Red’s Adorable Puppy face evolved out of the sheer amount of times the manga had him on the verge of, or shedding, actual tears. And Green naturally needed to be the exasperated leader keeping them all in line. It all just sorta flowed from there.

Link to the Past/Lore

The originator of such musical classics like Kakariko Village, the Dark World theme, and Zelda’s Lullaby, and I thank this game for making these songs so good. I adore the way that the Dark World can take the entire freaking country of Hyrule and turn it into something completely new. But there were some times where I wasn’t sure where to go? I don’t know if it was me or not, and it could have been. I might just be bad at inferring destinations.

Lore is the direct result of being the target of four entire games, and me thinking to myself, ‘Now how does a normal person deal with something like that?’ The answer was, of course, that they throw normality out a window. Lore is my way to have fun, and also to let out every random impulse I’ve ever had but never acted on. In a way, Lore is me, but without all the inhibitions. Sometimes he ends up being a direct conduit between my brain-thoughts and the page. That aside, I also gladly seized the opportunity to bring something different to the group, which is how the different languages came in. He’s the only Link who actively, within his games, visits other countries, and there was no way I could pass that up.

Oracle of Ages/Oracle of Seasons

They remind me of Pokemon titles. “Here’s these two games! With the exception of some minor details, they’re exactly the same! Combine them for a special surprise!” I do think the Subrosians are adorable though. And of course, shout-out to Veran, the only explicitly female villain the Zelda franchise has ever seen. Maybe someday you’ll get a friend to help you out in that testosterone-filled mess. Maybe someday.

Link’s Awakening

Far sadder than I anticipated it being. Also, the Bow-Wow returns! Clearly the best thing in the game. On the bad side - I don’t remember which one it was - there was this one dungeon that just… for the life of me I could not get it to make sense in my brain. I don’t know why. I also don’t remember what the solution was. Very engaging story though, the Windfish mystery kept me engaged right up to the Big Reveal.

A Link Between Worlds/Sketch

The painting mechanic is just. It’s so clever. The entire landscape is transformed with a single dimension shift and I loved it. I was kinda skeptical about the same map as LttP, but then Lorule happened and I was pleased enough with that to accept it. Ravio and Hilda are fine additions to the LoZ family and I wholeheartedly accept them - also, the Lorule Castle theme is one of the best songs in the franchise, fight me. One thing I do remember is this one boss battle, I think with some sort of Manhandla plant? It took me at least ten or so tries to get past that thing. Really didn’t enjoy that one.

Everything intentional about Sketch evolved from his painting ability, this being his phobia of water, his tendency to use stealth in a confrontation, and his continued sidetracking with artistic ideas. At some point though, he turned into one of the most sarcastic Links in the bunch, and I’m really not sure how it happened. But it seemed to fit him for whatever reason.

The Legend of Zelda/Realm

I regrettably have not been able to get my hands on this one either, but I have watched a play-though. My observations are as follows: Where is the map. How did anyone figure out where they were going in this game. I don’t understand how that wall was supposed to indicate it was bomb-able. How did people play this game without getting too frustrated to continue. On the bright side, the dungeons seemed to be very well-laid-out, and the bosses, while repetitive, were pretty memorable. I suspect I would get lost within the first ten minutes, though.

Realm is directly based off of my above observations. I am firmly of the opinion that absolutely nobody can make it through the original LoZ game without getting lost at least once, and this resulted in Realm’s absolutely abysmal sense of direction. Consequently, I made him hopelessly optimistic and cheerful enough to make the sun jealous, because the only person who could put up with those sorts of mishaps is the person who can just get right back up and keep going. Also, the fact that I myself and severely directionally challenged means that writing Realm comes very easily.

The Adventure of Link

I have not played this one either. I apologize. That said, I dislike the switch from top-down to 2-D scroller. In comparison with literally every other game in the franchise, AoL feels the least like a ‘Zelda’ title. Though, for the invention of Shadow Link, I award at least few points.

Wind Waker/Wind

It’s adorable. It’s somehow a very dark and serious game disguising everything behind a cute and cartoony art style and even though I can recognize it I don’t actually care. The story is engaging, Tetra is the Best Pirate, and the ocean makes it feel so big. I do think the sailing mechanic can be a bit time-consuming before the warp travel kicks in, and I actually feel like Ganondorf went down too easily, maybe?

Wind is based off of sailing, basically. I took the amount of time it takes him, in-game, to get places and decided that he has the patience of a saint. Also the bafflingly ability to stay awake for three days straight, but that hasn’t come up in DL, so. Because of this, he’s usually pretty content to let conversations evolve without much input from him, unless he’s got something important to say. And of course, he’s got the Wind Waker, which resulted in me making up an entire magical classification system to explain why he’s so good at controlling the weather, accompanied by an entire chapter-length head canon about the relation between the weather and music. Ironically enough, for all that Wind has no instrument of his own, the fact that he’s a conductor means he’s actually the most musically talented of the whole group.

Phantom Hourglass

I wouldn’t call it a worthy sequel to Wind Waker, but I honestly don’t think it’s too bad - with the exception of the Temple of the Ocean King. First time, it was kinda fun. Second time, less fun, Third time, getting repetitive. Fourth time, getting annoying. Fifth time, and I was really done with that mechanic. The remixed Sailing Theme was good though, and once I got past Linebeck’s surface personality I liked him pretty well too.

Spirit Tracks/Steam

I have never played this one, but the concept seems fun. The riding-a-train song is amazing. This Zelda is probably the most fleshed-out that the character has ever been, and I dearly hope she can take the position of ‘companion guide’ again someday. Or maybe even ‘protagonist’, who knows? I do dislike how vague Malladus is, because as the Final Bad Guy I feel like he should have been solidified more than just “Demon sealed a long time ago”. And to be honest, why Trains? It just seems so random.

Steam, like several other Links, is based around his gameplay. As an engineer, he’s a pretty hands-on type of person, which is why he frequently gets distracted with the inner workings of other Links’ items. And due to the fact that Trains require very little input to control and a lot of travel time, he’s the least physical of all of them. This basically means that he runs the slowest, hits the lightest, and will likely bring the least to the table in a fight. This is one of the reasons I gave him the ‘I Like Trains’ summon, because even if he himself can’t hit very hard, his Train sure as heck can.

Oh my gosh I think this took me a solid hour to type out, I hope you’re very happy with this response Anon ;)

#Changeling Answers #Opinions #Headcanons #I had a lot of fun with this but my gosh writing it out took forever #Anonymous Replies #All the DL Links #Dimensional Links

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weekendwarriorblog · 5 years ago

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WHAT TO WATCH THIS WEEKEND September 20, 2019 - VILLAINS, BLOODLINE, DOWNTON ABBEY, AD ASTRA, RAMBO: LAST BLOOD

It’s hard to believe that September is almost over, and we’re just sailing through the September festival season with the New York Film Festival starting (for real) next week. There are three wide releases, but I will only have seen one of them before writing this, so instead, I’ll talk about a couple genre movies opening Friday, both of which played at Lincoln Center’s “Scary Movies XII” last month.

I remember writing quite extensively about VILLAINS (Alter/Gunpowder and Sky) when I was over at the Tracking Board, mainly about the casting of Bill Skarsgard from It, Maika Monroe from It Follows, as well as Jeffrey Donovan and Kyra Sedgwick. It’s the new movie from Dan Berk and Robert Olsen, who directed the horror sequel The Stakelander and have written a pretty amazing comedy-thriller twist on the home invasion movie. Skarsgard and Monroe play a young couple who hide out in a seemingly abandoned house after robbing a store. They soon learn that not only is it not abandoned, but there is a young girl chained in the basement. The owners of the home, played by Kyra Sedgwick and Jeffrey Donovan, then return and things go sideways for the young couple as they find that maybe their petty crimes make them the good guys in this scenario. Villains is getting a fairly hearty release into roughly 100 theaters across the country, so check your listings to see if/where it will be playing near you. (It mainly seems to be playing in Regal theaters across the country.)

Another interesting genre film opening Friday is Henry Jacobson’s psychological thriller BLOODLINE (Momentum Pictures), starring Seann William Scott as Evan, a high school social worker with a secret – he’s also a serial killer who tries to help his patients by ridding them of their issues. Evan is also experiencing a new baby with his wife, which might keep him from his killing habits, except that his mother (Dale Dickey) has shown up to help them, and she was the one who taught him his ways. This is a really dark and gory film that I quite enjoyed in a similar way as some of my favorite serial killer thrillers, from Hitchcock’s Psychoto Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer and others. It honestly can’t be a better time for this with all the true crime television we’re getting, and I was pretty blown away by Scott’s performance in this. Bloodlineisplaying at the IFC Center for Friday and Saturday late night screenings and probably will be available On Demand as well.

You can read my interview with Seann William Scott and the directors of VILLAINS over at The Beat, the latter posting Friday.

The one wide release I have seen this weekend is Focus Features’ DOWNTOWN ABBEY, a continuation of the PBS series with an absolutely amazing British cast that includes Dame Maggie Smith, Penelope Wilton and so many more that I won’t name all of them. I feel that I’m not the best person to properly review the movie since I haven’t seen a second of the series, but I generally liked what I saw and might give it a look if I can find a good streaming source on which to binge it. I actually liked the movie enough to recommend it without having any previous knowledge of the series.

Probably my biggest disappointment of this week is that I didn’t have a chance to see James Gray’s AD ASTRA (20thCentury Fox), starring Brad Pitt, before Thursday night, because I wasn’t able to get to the press screening. It’s been one of my more anticipated movies of the year, mainly because I generally love outer space movies, but I also have been interested in seeing what Gray and Pitt do with the material, especially with such a great supporting cast.

Another movie that I only got to see just before this column posts is Sylvester Stallone’s RAMBO: LAST BLOOD (Lionsgate), which I reviewed over at The Beat. I had very few expectations for the movie, as I’ve never been a huge Rambo fan. I’m not sure why, but I guess I just never got into the Rah! Rah! USA! Stuff that permeated the United States in the ‘80s, and I was more into music than movies at the time. Reading my review, it’s obvious that Stallone’s latest attempt to revive a franchise didn’t do much for me.

You can read what I think of the above’s box office prospects over at The Beat, as well.

LIMITED RELEASES

I’m not quite sure why there are so many limited releases this weekend –I count almost 30 (!!!!) over on Rotten Tomatoes– but I’ll see what I can get to this week since I’m already a little behind. If you missed, Rob Zombie’s 3 FROM HELL on Monday and Tuesday night and more importantly, missed my scathing review of it over at The Beat, well, then you’ve missed it since this column is posting after it played its last night before its blu-ray release next month. Sorry!

A fantastic documentary opening at the Metrograph this week is Jacqueline Olive’s directorial debut ALWAYS IN SEASON (Multitude Films), a stirring film about the history of lynching, circling around the death of 17-year-old Lennon Lacy from Bladenboro, North Carolina, which is ruled as a suicide but his mother Claudia is convince that her son was lynched. Olive’s powerful film provides a background for how lynching became so prevalent in the early part of the 20thCentury, including an eerie annual reenactment by the town of Monroe, Georgia that wants to make sure that the county’s atrocities aren’t forgiven or forgotten. Narrated by Danny Glover, Olive’s directorial debut is powerful and moving and a film that must not be missed – maybe it’s no surprise that it won a Special Jury prize at Sundance Film Festival for “Moral Urgency” earlier this year. I was pretty shaken up when I saw it at this year’s Oxford Film Festival.

The Metrograph is also screening two National Geographic shorts, Alexander A. Mora’s The Night Crawlers and Orlando von Einsiedel’sLost and Found, over the next week. The Night Crawlers looks at a group of Filipino journalists known as the “Manila Nightcrawlers” who seek to expose the truth about President Duterte’s war on drugs and the number of people who lost their lives over it. Lost and Foundi s a new doc short from the director of the Netflix doc The White Helmets which looks at the Myanmar’s ethnic violence against the Rohingya people through the eyes of a man in a refugee camp seeking to reunite children with parents.

Japanese animation house Studio TRIGGER’s first feature film PROMARE (GKIDS) will get a limited release on Friday, following Fathom Events showings on Tuesday (already passed) and Thursday (tonight). It will then be opening in New York at the Metrograph and AMC Empire on Friday for a one-week run. It’s an apocalyptic sci-fi thriller set in a world thirty years after a race of flame-wielding mutant beings called the Burnish set half the world on fire an the battle between the anti-Burnish Burning Rescue and Lio Fotia, leader of the aggressive new “Mad Burnish” mutants.

Paolo Sorrentino, director of the Oscar-winning The Great Beauty and its follow-up Youth, returns with LORO (Sundance Selects), about a young hustler named Sergio (Riccardo Scamarcio) managing an escort service who sets his sights on the egotistical billionaire Italian ex-Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (Tony Servillo) who is trying to bribe his way back into power. It will open at the IFC Center Friday.

A couple other docs opening this weekend, the first two opening at New York’s Film Forum…

Now playing is Hassan Fazili’s Midnight Traveler (Oscilloscope) about how the filmmaker received death threats from the Taliban in 2015 for running Kabul, Afghanistan’s Art Café, a progressive meeting place, so he, his wife and two young daughters must travel 3,500 miles over 3 years across four countries to get to Hungary, a journey documented via mobile phone cameras. It will open in L.A. on October 4.

Then on Friday, there’s Matt Tyrnauer’s new film WHERE’S MY ROY COHN? (Sony Pictures Classics) looks at the lawyer and power broker who was part of Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist activities and who was pivotal in molding a young Queens developer named Donald Trump. I wanted to like this movie more because Roy Cohn is such an interesting human being in such a despicable way, but this doc really didn’t do much for me.

Opening in New York (Cinema Village) and L.A. (Laemmle Glendale) is DIEGO MARADONA (HBO Sports), the new doc from Asif Kapadia (Amy, Senna), which will show on HBO on October 1. If you don’t know international football (or soccer), the Argentine Maradona is one of the most famous footballers of all time, a bit of a legend since signing to Naples in 1984 for a record-setting fee. I haven’t watched this yet but hope to soon.

Opening at New York’s IFC Center Friday is Max Powers’ Don’t Be Nice (Juno Films), focusing on the Bowery Slam Poetry Team as they head to the national championships, and there will be QnAs almost every night in its week-long run, and then it will open in L.A. on September 27.

Completely unrelated but also at the IFC Center is a full-week run of National Theatre Live: Fleabag, screening a pre-recorded performance of Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s one-woman show that inspired her hit Emmy-nominated show from the Soho Playhousein London’s West End. Heck, I might try to get to one of these since it won’t be on television or any other format for at least a year.

After opening for “one night only” on Tuesday, Louie (The Cove) Psihoyos’ new movie The Game Changers will get a release on New York this Friday and L.A. the 27th. Exec. produced by James Cameron, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jackie Chan, it explores the rise of plant-based eating in professional sports along with Special Forces trainer James Wilks and features segments on Schwarzenegger, Formula One racer Lewis Hamilton, tennis player Novak Djokovic and NBA star Chris Paul.

Demi Moore, Ed Helms, Karan Soni (from the “Deadpool” movies) and Jessica Williams star in the horror-comedy Corporate Animals (Screen Media), the new comedy from Patrick Brice (Creep, The Overnight) about a corporate team-building adventure that turns to cannibalism when an office group find themselves trapped in a cave system. The movie has a great cast but the strange concept and weak screenplay really keeps the movie from delivering.

Other movies out this weekend include James Franco’s Zeroville (MyCinema), co-starring Megan Fox and Seth Rogen; Nicolas Cage’s new movie Running with the Devil (Quiver DIstribution), a drug thriller co-starring Laurence Fishburne, Barry Pepper, Leslie Bibb and more; and the award-winning Chinese drama Send Me to the Clouds (Cheng Cheng Films), opening in L.A., NY, Toronto and Vancouver.

STREAMING AND CABLE

Maybe the movie I’m most excited for this week is Zak Galifianakis’ BETWEEN TWO FERNS: THE MOVIE (Netflix), which I’m sure is going to be silly, maybe even stupid, but I’m still amused by his style of humor. I also haven’t seen the new Netflix doc Inside Bill’s Brain: Decoding Bill Gates, and I also no absolutely nothing about the movie other than what’s in the title.

REPERTORY

METROGRAPH (NYC):

On Tuesday, the Metrograph began a series called “Bleecker Street: The First Five Years” running through Thursday withsingle screenings of Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace, Sebastian Lelio’s Disobediance and Brett Haley’s I’ll See You in My Dreams with talent doing QnAs. On the weekend, the theater has special screenings of the dance film The Red Shoes (1948) on Saturday with an introduction by Jillian McManemin – I honestly have no idea who that is. On Saturday, the Academy is back with its monthly series, this month showing Milos Forman’s 1979 musical Hair with actor Treat Williams and Annie Golden in person. On Sunday, there’s a similarly special screening of Martin Scorsese’s 1990 crime classic Goodfellas with producer Irwin Winkler and screenwriter Nick Pileggi -- $35 tickets, a little pricey for me. You also have just two more days (today and tomorrow) to see Satoshi Kon’s Millennium Actress on the big screen.

This weekend’s Welcome To Metrograph: Redux offering is Jean Vigo’s 1934 film L’Atalante, Late Nites at Metrograph is showing Fantastic Planet(again) and the Japanese horror film Hausu (1977). This weekend’s Playtime: Family Matinees is Alfonso Cuaron’s fantasy A Little Princess (1995)

ALAMO DRAFTHOUSE BROOKLYN (NYC)

The Alamo is also celebrating “Arthouse Theater Day” on Wednesday with Robert Downey Sr.’s Putney Swope. They’re also doing a “Rambo Marathon” on Sunday to tie-in with Stallone’s latest Rambo movie -- $35 for all five Rambo movies. Now THAT is a great deal, and there are a few tickets left. On Saturday afternoon, the Alamo is showing Almodovar’s 2000 classic All About My Mother to celebrate the Spanish filmmaker before the release of his newest film Pain and Glory. Monday’s “Out of Tune” is Lars von Trier’s 2000 film Dancer in the Dark, starring Bjork. Next week’s “Terror Tuesday” is the amazing Vera Farmiga thriller Orphan from 2009, and the Alamo is also playing Almodovar’s Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown from 1988. Next week’s “Weird Wednesday” is 1995’s Tank Girl, starring Lori Petty.

AERO (LA):

Wednesday is (or rather, was) a screening of the 1969 film Putney Swope as part of Art House Theater Day 2019, Thursday is a screening of the 1984 adaptation of Arthur C. Clarke’s 2010: The Year We Made Contact. In honor of Downton Abbey (I guess?), the Aero is beginning a series called “Upstairs, Downstairs,” beginning Friday with a 70mm print of 1993’s The Remains of the Day, starring Anthony Hopkins an Emma Thompson, then Saturday is a double feature of Hitchcock’s Rebecca (1940) and Carol Reed’s The Fallen Idol (1948), and then on Sunday is a double feature of Ruggles of Red Cap (1935) and By Candlelight (1933), as well as a separate free member screening of Downton Abbey with some of the cast in person.

FILM FORUM (NYC):

Robert Altman’s classic 1975 film Nashville will screen as a new 4k restoration for the next week with screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury appearing on Saturday night. This weekend’s “Film Forum Jr.” is Howard Hawk’s 1940 movie His Girl Friday, starring Cary Grant. Joseph Losey’s Holocaust drama Mr. Klein ends on Thursday.

QUAD CINEMA (NYC):

The Quad is back with another great series called “Laws of Desire: The Films of Antonio Banderas” beginning Wednesday, showing so many films starring the Spanish actor who is likely to get nominated for his first Oscar for Almodovar’s Pain and Glory. It will even show Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming The Laundromat, which premieres on Netflix next week. Instead of going through all 13 of the movies, click on the link above and get ready to be Banderasized!

IFC CENTER (NYC)

Weekend Classics: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is Tony Scott’s vampire flick The Hunger (1983), chosen by “Todd,” Waverly Midnights: Staff Picks Summer 2019 is the anime classic Akira, chosen by “Katie,” and Late Night Favorites: Summer 2019 is Satoshi Kon’s Paprika(again?)

MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE (NYC):

This weekend begins a “See It Big! Ghost Stories” series with the Japanese horror Ugetsu from 1953, then Saturday is The Phantom Carriage (1921) – this is with live piano accompaniment! --The Ghost and Mrs. Muir(1947), and then Sunday they’re screening Olivier Assayas’ more recent Personal Shopper (2006) with Kristen Stewart.

FILM AT LINCOLN CENTER (NYC):

Although Lincoln Center is preparing for next week’s New York Film Festival, this weekend it’s holding special screenings of two Gershwin films, Otto Preminger’s 1959 musical Porgy and Bess on Thursday (with panel) and then Vincente Minelli’s An American in Paris on Friday.

BAM CINEMATEK (NYC):

“The Purpose and Passion: the Cinema of John Singleton” ends on Friday, but there are screenings of his 2000 Shaft movie, starring Samuel L. Jackson, and another screening of Boyz n the Hood before then.

EGYPTIAN THEATRE (LA):

Thursday night is a screening of David Lean’s The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957), but the rest of the weekend is the “Guadalajara Film Festival.”

LANDMARK THEATRES NUART (LA):

Friday night’s midnight offering is John Waters’ 2004 movie A Dirty Shame, starring Tracey Ullman, Johnny Knoxville and Selma Blair.

THE NEW BEVERLY (L.A.):

The New Bev continues its “time out” at the bottom of this section as long as Tarantino uses his repertory theater to show Once Upon a Time … in Hollywood, and currently it’s booked through the end of September. Since this week’s column is late, you already missed the 1952 film The Narrow Marginas the Weds. matinee, the New Bev will also show the Hanna/Barbera animated feature Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear (1964) as this weekend’s “Kiddee Matinee.” Tarantino’s Jackie Brown is the Saturday night midnight movie, and then on Monday, the theater will show David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive (2000) in two matinees (the 2pm is already sold out).

A quieter week with only one wide release, the Universal/DreamWorks animation fantasy-adventure Abominable.

#WhatToWatchThisWeekend Movies Reviews Villains Bloodline Downton Abbey AlwaysInSeason

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wits-writing · 6 years ago

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The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part (Movie Review)

I’ve gone into how much I love The Lego Movie on multiple occasions in the past, so I won’t bother repeating myself here. It can go without saying that The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part had a lot to live up to in terms of what I expected out of it and I can safely say it mostly delivered on that front. The problem with discussing this is that the very premise of this movie relies on everything that was revealed at the end of the original, so I’ll throw out a spoiler warning. Though I won’t give away what twists get thrown on top of that on this time.

The Lego Movie 2, directed by Mike Mitchell with a screenplay by Phil Lord and Chris Miller, starts immediately after the cliffhanger from the original as the Bricksburg crew start fighting off aliens from the Systar System before skipping to five years later. Everything’s become bleaker with any traces of bright color and optimism stripped from the newly renamed Apocalypseburg as our plastic heroes continue to fight off the invaders. After most of the crew from the original movie, including Lucy (Elizabeth Banks), get kidnapped by the aliens, Emmett (Chris Pratt) needs to go off on his own to save them and possibly stop an event that will mean the end of existence as they know it.

[Full Review Under the Cut]

Since she spends most of the time in an outsider’s perspective of the Systar System for most of the movie, Lucy becomes more the main character of this installment than Emmett. Her transition to main character in this movie is also accomplished via lampshading how the first movie had her fall into the “Trinity Effect” of doing most of the work and Emmett still being the ultimate hero anyway. She’s set in this role early on as Banks does a great riff on a Mad Max style opening narration about how their world become the wasteland of Apocalypseburg. Since everything that’s bright and cheerful just seems to attract more aliens to attack them, she’s dedicated herself to being as brooding as possible. Emmett’s still acting the way he did five years ago and she’s asking him to grow up and stop with the “Everything is Awesome” attitude. It’s after being kidnapped and taken to the Systar System that her current worldview starts getting challenged as she keeps rejecting the attractive glittery charms of the setting to keep up the image she’s built for herself.

When the characters first get to the Systar System, new life gets breathed into the setup of the Lego world portions of the story with the introduction of two key elements. First is a new major character, Queen Whatevra Wa’Nabi (Tiffany Haddish), the shapeshifting leader of Systar. She brings a new element to the visuals of the Lego animation as she, in her own words, “changes every five seconds.” Watching what forms she takes to enhance a joke or sequence adds an extra bit of charm to the scene whenever she’s on screen. Her ultimate plan in this movie is to marry Batman (Will Arnett) to unify their worlds for purposes known only to her and her confidant, General Mayhem (Stephanie Beatriz). Though the crew from Bricksburg, mainly Lucy, are suspicious of her from the start, in part thanks to how she presents herself at first with the other best new element of The Lego Movie 2.

This is a musical!

youtube

The Lego Movie 2 is a full-on, animated musical, with songs popping in to tell the story and communicate mood and character motives, complete with emotional reprises. The song selection mainly hues close to the poppy style set down by “Everything is Awesome” in the first movie with one, literally called “Catchy Song”, taking the parodic elements of that and cranking them up. Though the highlights of the soundtrack both go to Whatevra Wa’Nabi, especially the song “Not Evil” which I’ve listened to multiple times since I saw the movie last night.

When it comes to returning characters from the previous movie, the supporting cast kind of get the shaft in terms of the material they’re given. Benny the Space Guy (Charlie Day), Unikitty (Alison Brie) and Metalbeard (Nick Offerman) all get sidelined quickly when the story requires Lucy to be more isolated in the Systar System. Batman gets it a little better, since he’s central to Wa’Nabi’s plans, even better since that means he gets to be in one of her songs, but it still feels like there’s less substance beyond the humor of Arnett’s performance to him being here than in the original movie. It’s especially apparent since his old role as the story’s representative for performative “maturity” has been taken over by a new supporting character, Rex Dangervest (Chris Pratt, again.)

The two Pratt characters are placed side-by-side early on when Rex rescues Emmett from crashing on the way to the Systar System. Rex is a grizzled heroic archetype playing off the types of roles Pratt has become known for in the time since the first Lego Movie, a galaxy defending raptor trainer/cowboy. What he has to offer Emmett is the chance to become the person he thinks Lucy has wanted him to become so he can survive in the wasteland. Rex promises that the best way to do this is to learn how to be a “Master Breaker”, destroying the creations of others. On the meta-level this franchise has been operating on, Emmett represents the potentially fading innocent optimism of youth while Rex is the aimless self-serious rage of adolescence. Over the course of their partnership in this movie, Emmett starts to lose the qualities that made him able to save the world from Lord Business, replaced with anger that lets him tear apart the environments of Systar. It starts making him someone Lucy doesn’t recognize.

Once the real-world meta-narrative becomes a more prominent part of the picture, and even before then it’s more prominent than previously, the intersection between Lucy and Emmett’s character arcs falls into place, along with the nature of the Systar System and a few other twists. The Lego Movie 2 uses the real-world narrative of a brother and sister disagreeing about how best to play with their toys into a thematic story of how optimism can be tempered with realistic expectations without falling into the trap of aimless cynicism. Everything can’t be awesome all the time, but that doesn’t mean not trying to make things better anyway. On that level, this makes a great thematic extension to the ideas set by the first movie and the pickup directly from the cliffhanger means they’ll make a fun double feature once this one’s available on home video.

If you like what you’ve read here, please consider throwing some support my way at either Ko-Fi.com or Patreon.com at the extension “/witswriting”

#The Lego Movie 2: The Second Part #The Lego Movie 2 #The Lego Movie #Wit's Writing #Movie Review #animation #Phil Lord #Chris Miller #Mike Mitchell

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therealkn · 6 years ago

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David’s Resolution - Day 6, Part 2

Day 6 (January 6, 2019)

Riddick (2013)

“Don’t know how many times I’ve been crossed off the list and left for dead. Guess when it first happens the day you were born, you’re gonna lose count. So this... this ain’t nothing new.”

The Chronicles of Riddick was a big deal for Universal in 2004. Sadly, the film didn’t do that well commercially, leaving the future of the franchise in doubt. However, Vin Diesel and writer/director David Twohy, the two minds behind the franchise and character, were still eager to continue the story of Richard B. Riddick and the universe he lives in. It’s clear that the two wanted to do more with him; two years after The Chronicles of Riddick, Vin agreed to cameo in The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift in exchange for Universal giving him the rights to the Riddick franchise and character so that he and Twohy could continue to do their thing.

They decided on a more reasonable approach for Riddick’s third film: to go back to basics, as it were, and make a more scaled-down and smaller-budgeted film than The Chronicles of Riddick. This film was also a personal gamble for Vin, who went as far as to leverage his house and spend most of his personal money to finance the film when they didn’t have enough to shoot the film in its entirety, and he even took a pay cut to make sure the film would not only get made, but that it would get an R-rating and not fall into the trap of a PG-13 action movie like The Chronicles of Riddick did. (I don’t hate PG-13 action movies, by the way, I just think they’re easy to screw up.) So say what you will about the movie, but the fact that he went that far to make this movie is something to admire. And fortunately, it paid off; although Riddick grossed less than its predecessor ($98 million to Chronicles’ ~$116 million), it still turned a profit as Riddick cost $38 million while Chronicles cost at least $105 million. So who knows, maybe lower budgets are where Riddick should go.

This film does play it safer than The Chronicles of Riddick and, in a way, is a retread of Pitch Black. Same basic premise of people on a barren planet with dangerous predators and one badass Riddick to turn to when the shit hits the fan. It begins five years after Chronicles, with Riddick left for dead on a barren planet. How did we get here? It begins back when Riddick was in command of the Necromonger army. Oh yeah, about that: the Necromongers follow the creed of “you keep what you kill”, and at the end of Chronicles, after Riddick delivers a fatality to the Lord Marshal, he “keeps” the Lord Marshal’s command of the Necromongers. Who knows what they’ve done since then, but Riddick decides he wants to go to his home planet of Furya, which got purged by the Necromongers many years ago. But all records of it were destroyed, and only one person knows where it is: Vaako (Karl Urban, reprising his role from Chronicles), who wants Riddick’s throne in exchange for leading him to Furya. Mutually beneficial for both of them, yes?

But the deal goes sour and Riddick ends up on a planet known as “not Furya” and ends up left for dead, where the movie begins. The first part of the movie shows him surviving on this planet: making his own weapons, fighting dangerous predators such as space wolf-jackals and big scary death scorpions that make any of Australia’s dangerous wildlife look like a joke, and even raising his own space wolf-jackal as a companion. It gave me some Mad Max 2 vibes, and it’s even more interesting when you consider that Vin based Riddick’s relationship with the dog on his own relationship with his dog Roman.

But then, like in Pitch Black, a natural phenomenon on the planet brings great danger. This time, it’s a rainstorm that apparently attracts tons and tons of big scary death scorpions, and even Riddick knows that the only option is to get the fuck out fast. He finds a mercenary station and sends out a beacon, knowing that it will attract nearby mercenaries by letting them know who’s there, and sure enough two ships full of mercs arrive. One is a rougher group led by Santana, an asshole played by Jordi Mollà whose sole purpose is to be the most unlikable asshole in the whole movie, and whose ranks include Dave Bautista one year before he broke out with Guardians of the Galaxy. The other is a more organized and disciplined unit whose boss, played by Matt Nable, has ties to Riddick’s past, and whose ranks include Katee Sackhoff as a “do-not-fuck-with-me” sniper who does not hesitate to break someone’s nose if need be. And then the hunt begins...

The film is probably the weakest of the three Riddick movies, but it still has a lot of good going for it. The creature designs are interesting and give you some idea of how dangerous this planet is, as well as how tough you’d have to be in order to survive. And despite several characters being underdeveloped and just there to be fodder for the big scary death scorpions (yes, I’m going to keep calling them that) to kill, the actors do the best with what they have and they do make it work a little more than you’d except from a movie like this. There’s not as much interesting camera work or editing as in the previous movies, but it’s still serviceable and there are some good shots in the movie (especially when it comes to nighttime).

As for what’s not so great about the movie... the plot doesn’t have that much going for it and is kind of bare-bones. The film feels kind of like eating lame snack cakes: feels kind of empty and you’re hoping there’s more to it, but no, there isn’t more to it. Pitch Black was like a good snack cake, a filling one, like those Little Debbie Cosmic Brownies that are tasty. ...I want snack cakes now.

Oh, right, the other problems. This movie also feels the most run-of-the-mill of the franchise if that makes sense. Again, I can understand the need/desire to play it safe after the gamble that was Chronicles, but it feels a little too formulaic. It’s more or less Pitch Black with elements of Chronicles. It hits many of the same beats as Pitch Black, and even if it handles them a little differently and with a slightly more fantastic edge like Chronicles, it makes us go “Seen it.” and that can drag the film some.

Like the other two Riddick movies, this one has an unrated director’s cut, and it’s not really anything that would deserve the “unrated” moniker, but its additions are more substantial than Pitch Black. The biggest change between the two versions are a couple of scenes with the Necromongers: one is an extended version of Riddick’s time as leader of the Necromongers, and the other is an extension of the ending that makes it more complete than the theatrical version by showing Riddick going back to the Necromongers to get back at those who betrayed him.

Overall... this movie’s alright. For what it is, it’s not too bad and is still enjoyable, even if we’ve seen some of it before. Here’s hoping we get a fourth Riddick movie soon, and here’s wondering how it’ll go if it gets made.

Next time: A movie where nobody comes away clean.

#David's resolution #Riddick

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jp-hunsecker · 2 years ago

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Like 2020’s Scorpion Revenge, Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is an unflinchingly violent, uncompromisingly brutal, traditionally animated little romp. Unlike Scorpion’s Revenge, though, Snow Blind — a western-flavored samurai tale (traditionally, it’s the other way around) complete with a six-fingered (pointer, middle, and thumb in each hand) blind swordsman (he doesn’t start out, mind you, either blind or six-fingered) whose face has quick-healing powers (it’s either that or lazy animators) — deviates enough (that is to say, quite a bit) from the MK formula to sustain viewer interest beyond the limb-ripping, skull-crushing splitting action. It’s also supremely silly — a character says “your souls are mine!” to what already is a whirlwind of souls (does he mean the souls’ souls?), and the hero’s training is equal parts Star Wars, Karate Kid, and Rocky (complete with the Chasing of the Chicken) — , but altogether a successful reinvention of the Mortal Kombat mythos.

Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind Review - IGN Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind is a movie that only die-hard Mortal Kombat fans are likely to appreciate. It's…www.ign.com

“But where Battle of the Realms presented itself as a straightforward battle royale between some of Mortal Kombat’s titans, Snow Blind feels like more of a Mad Max-styled post-apocalyptic thriller than an extension of a richly detailed video game universe.”

Like I mentioned in the overview, distancing itself from the video game is the best possible choice for this movie — and the wisest, considering that every MK film that follows the game’s blueprint has been an utter failure. Also, if you want “a straightforward battle royale between some of Mortal Kombat’s titans,” why not just play the damn video game? Overall, this review is contradictory in that it decries the movie for straying from the MK path while claiming that it “won’t resonate with audiences that aren’t die-hard fans,” when at least in my case it was the other way around.

REVIEW: Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind Delivers a More Intimate Martial Arts Adventure A bold vision of the Mortal Kombat franchise began with 2020's Mortal Kombat Legends: Scorpion's Revenge, an animated…www.cbr.com

“For those looking for the Mortal Kombat Legends series to scale back down to a more manageable story, Snow Blind absolutely delivers without compromising what makes the franchise great.”

I wasn’t like, actively looking for that in particular, but since I found myself watching the film, I’m glad that’s the way they went.

Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind (2022) Review - Voices From The Balcony Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind, is the third and latest installment of the Warner Bros. animated franchise following…www.voicesfromthebalcony.com

“Snow Blind unfortunately does have a cheap look to it in many scenes.”

Be that as it may, at least it’s not computer animation (which looks cheap even when it isn’t).

“If you don’t mind the occasional lapses in quality and a script that feels a bit too much like a generic post-apocalyptic thriller rather than a Mortal Kombat film at times, then there’s plenty of over-the-top fun to be had here. Franchise purists however may find it all a bit disappointing though.”

See, that’s more in line with the general impression this film makes. And again, not only do I not mind “a script that feels a bit too much like a generic post-apocalyptic thriller rather than a Mortal Kombat film,” but I believe that’s the movie’s main strength.

'Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind' Review: Action-Packed and Refreshing Directed and produced by Rick Morales, the 2022's 'Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind' takes place in the…fictionhorizon.com

“Like in video games, Shao Kahn [Sir Not-Appearing-in-this-Film] is nearly immortal and has defiled death multiple times.”

I knew there were necromancers in MK, but I didn’t know there were also necrophiles (I guess they meant to write ‘defied death’). Typos aside, I’m glad they bring up that “there are no tournaments,” as a result of which “The characters themselves push the plot forward.”

“Although the movie had some beige tones, it is redeemed by the fight scenes being full of life.”

Or, in this case, full of death (as it should be).

Review: Mortal Kombat Legends: Snow Blind - Bubbleblabber With Earthrealm now an apocalyptic wasteland, the greedy and power-mad, half-cyborg overlord King Kano (David Wenham)…www.bubbleblabber.com

“Predictably in stories like this, it plays into the typical relationship dynamics of Kuai Liang and Kenshi as master & student with Kuai teaching Kenshi to rely on his four remaining senses.”

And, later on, his six remaining fingers.

“ … the by-the-numbers training montage with Kenshi felt cliche at times.”

Yup, that’s pretty much what ‘by-the-numbers’ means.

“Overall, if you have already sat through the first two Mortal Kombat Legends movies, then go ahead and check this one out.”

Well, that’s encouraging.

#mortal kombat legends #snow blind #movie reviews #movie review

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tksitespeed · 2 years ago

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Mad max fury road movie

Tire tracks on the desert's gravel plains can take decades or more to disappear. The most arid parts of the desert receive less than half an inch of rain a year, making the plant and animal life dependent on fog that rolls in from the ocean. The pistol is seen in the hands of Max (Tom Hardy). The Namib Desert - the world's oldest, estimated at between 50 to 80 million years old - stretches from northern South Africa to Angola. A 2nd Generation Glock 17 is featured as the most prominent weapon in the War Rigs extensive arsenal. The crew was also accused of leaving tire tracks in previously untouched areas. Its extremely violent, with nonstop chase scenes, explosions, deaths, blood, shooting, and stabbing, as well as violence against women (including a bloody scene involving a pregnant woman. Much of the filming, which took place in 2012, was based in Dorob National Park near Swakopmund, a former German settlement and resort town on the southern Atlantic coast.Ī tour guide who works in the area accused the Mad Max crew of filming in a sensitive area of the park's sand dune belt, local media reported at the time.īest picture: 'Revenant,' 'Max' lead Oscar charge Parents need to know that Mad Max: Fury Road- the fourth film in the Mad Max series and the first in decades - is a reboot of sorts, with Tom Hardy taking over for Mel Gibson in the title role. Residents and environmentalists have complained that the film crew's work in the Namib Desert caused damage to sensitive areas, and potentially to the small reptiles and rare cacti that live there. The production relocated to Namibia from Australia after unusually heavy rains Down Under turned a normally dry landscape green.īut while parts of Namibia have the look of a wasteland, this rugged exterior hosts a fragile ecosystem. Action and blockbuster cinema simply does not get better than this, the bar has been set very high.Max Max: Fury Road, which on Sunday won six Oscars, was filmed in this desert's dusty dunes. Considering how great The Road Warrior was thats a hell of an accomplishment. He returned to the franchise he created, that had been dormant for some 30ish years, in his 70s, and produced not just one of the best action films of the decade but arguably the best Mad Max film. For once the hype and the reviews more than lived up to expectations. What George Miller accomplished doesnt get nearly enough praise. This one takes the cake for being the must watch movie of the year one that demands to be seen only on the biggest IMAX screen you can find. And it wouldn’t be an overestimation if I deem Fury Road (2015) superior to Road Warrior (1981) and as the best of the Mad Max series. George Miller proves why he’s a master filmmaker when it comes to staging epic stunts and, of course, chase sequences. To say this is the movie of the year would be an understatement, it’s quite simply a stunning work of art, filled with impressionistic visual splendour that stuns you from beginning to end. I mean if this film does not click with the audience and flops, that means it’s not the filmmakers’ fault, it’s the audience that will spell the end of innovating, original, fresh daring, bold blockbusters like these, which are already impossible to make in this day and age. I mean if this film does not click with the audience and flops, that means it’s not the filmmakers’ fault, it’s the audience that will spell the end of innovating, original, fresh daring, bold If this movie doesn’t set a new standard for blockbuster cinema, I don’t know what will. If this movie doesn’t set a new standard for blockbuster cinema, I don’t know what will.

#Mad max fury road movie

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yesterdanereviews · 6 years ago

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Mad Max: Fury Road (2015)

Film review #304

SYNOPSIS: Max is driving through the post-apocalyptic wasteland alone when he is captured by a gang of so-called “War Boys”. They take him back to their Citadel, where he is used as a blood bank for Nux, an injured War Boy. Immortan Joe, the leader of the Citadel, sends out Imperator Furiosa, one of his lieutenants, on a mission to retrieve oil from the nearby Gastown, but Furiosa ventures off course, and Joe realises she has taken his wives in oredr to liberate them from his tyranny. He takes his entire convoy to chase them down, including Nux, who takes Max along as his blood bank. Max manages to escape, and forms an uneasy alliance with Furiosa as they attempt to escape Immortan Joe’s army...

THOUGHTS/ANALYSIS: Mad Max: Fury Road is a 2015 post-apocalypse action film and the fourth film in the Mad Max series, with the previous film being released twenty years prior. The film opens up with Max standing alone overlooking the Wasteland, with an internal monologue recounting his living through the nuclear apocalypse, and the killing of his wife and child before his eyes that he failed to save (it doesn’t explicitly say they are his wife and child, but it is hinted that they are the same ones killed in the first film). Honestly the monologue did throw me off a bit, as I expect Max to say silent about his past and thoughts, and to have him convey them, even as thoughts in his head, is a bit off. The opening monologue worked in Mad Max 2 because it was someone other than Max, who was telling his legend, and it tied up the beginning and end. This is only a small issue I have, and ultimately, it would have been necessary to establish Max’s backstory a little for those who had not seen the earlier films in the series.

The film starts proper with Max being chased by a gang of War Boys, who capture him and take him back to the Citadel, a fortress ruled by Immortan Joe, where Max is to be used as a blood bank. Joe is sending one of his lieutenants, Imperator Furiosa, in a rig to collect petrol from Gastown, but she goes offcourse, as she has smuggled all of Joe’s wives onto the rig in an attempt to liberate them. Joe finds out and drives with his entire convoy to stop them. Max also gets dragged along as he is currently being used as a blood bank by Nux, one of the War Boys. Almost the entire film consists of this one large chase between the rig and Joe’s convoy, with Max ending up joining Furiosa and the rig along with Nux, who is convinced to help them. The extensive, continuous setup tells its story in one long action sequence; a chase that spans the entire length of the film. Vehicles get destroyed along the way and some more join the convoy, so things change up and there’s enough variety in the fighting to keep your attention. The story is simple, and that reflects what is happening fairly well: there is no big plan or grand narrative, it is simply an ad-hoc journey for survival, with all the improvising along the way. The simple story is augmented by a lot of complex themes including survival, humanity, redemption and feminism, and they are addressed in a natural way that doesn’t detract from the action. The story moves forward to a point where Max and everyone decide to go back to the Citadel where they came from, and collapse the only passage there to trap Joe’s convoy on the other side. I suppose there is something a bit anti-climatic about driving all that distance only to go back the way they came, but the film justifies it fairly well, and I don’t think it detracts from the experience much.

Max is played this time by Tom Hardy, who does a good job of being the rough, silent, tormented Road Warrior. His Australian accent leaves a bit to be desired, but other than that his performance is pretty solid. Charlize Theron as Furiosa very much serves as Max’s equal, and shares as much of the spotlight as him. Max is very much along for the ride for the first part of the film, with him being tied up or muzzled while everything is going on around him, and Furiosa is the one driving (literally and figuratively) the narrative. The relationship between the two is fractuous, but eventually draws some humanity out of both of them with it devolving into a typical romance relationship, which was refreshing to see. The supporting cast too are well defined, and have plenty of development, which showcases a large range of emotions and responses to the events in the film. The antagonists are all very varied with thhere own unique appearances, but they’re not elaborated on with regards to how they rule or what they do. This is very much a staple of Mad Max though: it does not focus on the grandstanding of the villains, but instead keeps things in the perspective of the survivors.

The world ceated by Fury Road is quite beautiful for a post-apocalyptic wasteland. The neverending desert is shot beautifully, and delivers a sense of a world without direction or purpose. The Citadel has a grand sense of scale with lots of intricate details with the use of salvaged technology repurposed for different uses. The vehicles are also detailed and there’s a definite physicality to how they interact and clash. The change of colour palettes marks the transition between different parts of the film and augment a change in mood, but the colours always remain strong throughout. The use of CGI is kept to a minimum, which I am thankful for, as it would definitely detract from the dirty, rough aesthetic of the Wasteland that can’t be replicated without physical props and sets. Overall, Mad Max: Fury Road revives the franchise by updating the themes of the series with more elaborate setups and action, while also not departing from those themes so that it feels completely alien to the previous films. The action is fluid and varied, and sustains attention all through the film, the characters are well defined and offers a good variety of different experiences and perspectives, and the various themes it addresses are strongly made without detracting from the overall experience. It’s a unique film with complex themes that still manages to be entertaining with a shot of adrenaline to please all types of viewers.

#movie #movie review #mad max fury road #sci-fi #post apocalypse #mad max #film #film review #2015 film

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