#he set a precedent and now it's all dark and edgy

[causeimanartist]

Carrie Kelley Robin for art request!! :)

This is either Carrie Kelley or Velma in cosplay, who could say

[ketuvamoon]

𝐈𝐜𝐨𝐧𝐢𝐜 𝐊𝐞𝐭𝐮𝐯𝐢𝐚𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐖𝐄 ☋

First, what is Ketu and what are Ketuvians?

In Vedic astrology, there are 9 recognized planets: Surya (Sun), Chandra (Moon), Kuja (Mars), Budha (Mercury), Guru (Jupiter), Shukra (Venus), Shani (Saturn), Rahu (North Node), and Ketu (South Node).

Each of which rules over 3 lunar mansions called nakshatras, bringing the total to 27.

The three nakshatras ruled by Ketu are Ashwini, Magha, and Mula. Ketuvian means having these nakshatras in your big 3 (Sun, Moon, Rising) or having Ketu conjunct one of your big 3. Ketu in the 1st house is included here as well. The signs your big 3 are in take precedence before the nakshatras, though.

The WWE is an untapped gold mine when it comes to seeing how certain nakshatras play out in TV and entertainment. The WWE is unique in the way that the roles they play can affect their lives, the lines becoming blurred in a way, who is the character and who is the real person? I think it's very Ketu-like how many wrestlers lose themselves in a persona or in trying to live up to one.

So I’m focusing on Ketu today, Ketu rules extremes, headlessness, and disillusion. In this list, you’re going to see themes such as dark/edginess, first of many/trailblazers, recklessness/carelessness, and/or behaving in a deranged or unhinged fashion. Honestly, what WWE is all about.

Foremost, is the former CEO and head of creative of WWE, Vince McMahon (Magha ♌︎ Sun + Mercury) who in the Attitude Era and onward (1997-), was known for being pretty controversial, to say the least. Starting his evil and mischievous character with the Montreal Screwjob, screwing Bret Hart in the process. Despite that, he was responsible for the company's huge success, after experiencing a rough patch in the early 90s. Bringing us the iconic Ruthless Aggression era, and playing up excessive violence, profanity, and sexual content. The chart for the WWE has (Magha ♌︎ Jupiter + Rahu), giving Vince perfect synastry with it to be the one to bring it to the next level.

Next, The Undertaker (Mula ♐︎ Moon), who is known for his “Deadman” persona. The usual attire is a long, black, trench coat, and a black top hat. He spent all of his career in this persona, though having a short stint as the “American Badass” biker. If I’m not mistaken he’s also the wrestler that took the longest to break kayfabe [the fact or convention of presenting staged performances as genuine or authentic]. He didn’t do interviews until fairly recently, and he now has a podcast, telling stories from his long career.

Now, The Rock (Mula ♐︎ Moon), and Stone Cold Steve Austin (Mula ♐︎ Sun + Mercury). They were each other's most iconic rivalry, defining the Attitude Era. The Rock is the charismatic babyface while Stone Cold is the rebellious heel, both are pretty unfiltered and disrespectful towards others, especially each other.

Next, Team Xtreme (lol), which consisted of the Hardy Boyz: Jeff Hardy (Revati Moon + Ketu), Matt Hardy (Mula ♐︎ Moon), and Lita (Ashwini ♈︎ Sun | Krittika Moon + Ketu). They were known for their extreme, high-flying stunts and innovative moves. Lita joined as their valet and quickly became an active participant in matches, marking the true formation of Team Xtreme. During this period, Lita and Matt were dating. They all had considerable solo success as well, with Jeff becoming WWE Champion in 2008.

The duo found fame in tandem with Edge (Mula ♐︎ Moon + Rahu | Ashwini ♈︎ Mars) & Christian (Ashwini ♈︎ Mars | Mula ♐︎ Rahu), their very risky tables, ladders, and chairs matches definitely set a new standard for any matches of its kind to follow.

With Lita only being part of the trio for 2 years, she found her success as a solo act with the help of two individuals, Trish Stratus (Mula ♐︎ Sun) and Edge. Her feud with Trish Stratus is each other’s biggest, and her real-life affair with Edge became a major storyline used in the show. She caught most of the heat for this affair, the hate from fans running her out of the company in 2006.

The affair with Lita, along with becoming ruthless in his pursuit to become champion, catapulted Edge into stardom, starting the best heel run of all time, IMO. Edge started with a dark and edgy (lol) persona, a “tortured” soul who didn’t speak much. He then moved into a duo with Christian and momentarily became the Brood, a trio of vampires with Gangrel. All before fully leaning into being loud, reckless, and careless, he became the legend he is today, the “Rated R” Superstar. He also had a noteworthy feud with John Cena (Ashwini ♈︎ Sun). He was my first "favorite" wrestler ever, as a Mula Moon myself. 🤭

Trish’s feud with Victoria (Magha ♌︎ Moon + Ketu | Mula ♐︎ Venus) was notable, with them having a Hardcore match at Survivor Series. This was during a time when it was extremely taboo for women to do anything even close to what they did, hitting each other with various objects.

Victoria’s persona was unhinged and edgy, nicknamed the “Black Widow”. I absolutely adored her aesthetic, I notice a lot of Ketu natives gravitate towards black, red, and purple.

Chyna (Mula ♐︎ Sun + Venus) was the one who encouraged Victoria to begin wrestling. Chyna got her start in the WWE acting as a bodyguard for Triple H and Shawn Michaels, forming D-Generation X. Chyna, more than any other woman in wrestling, showed that women can do what men can. She was very important for the women’s division, being the only woman to have held the Intercontinental Championship. She was a trailblazer and nicknamed the “Ninth Wonder of the World”. After being let go from the WWE at the end of 2001, she struggled with drug, alcohol addictions, and depressive tendencies. She unfortunately passed from a drug overdose in 2015. The way things turned out for her truly bothered me, she deserved better. Rest in Peace. 🕊️

Lastly, Sunny (Mula ♐︎ Moon) is known to most as the first major WWE Diva, becoming the most downloaded personality on AOL in 1996. She had a controversial tenure in WWE, having an affair with Shawn Michaels while being publicly involved with Chris Candido. She also struggled with addiction, eventually being let go by WWE in 1998 after too many no-shows. Sunny has since made appearances on independent circuits. Most recently, she has been arrested several times and is now serving a 17.5-year sentence for vehicular manslaughter.

All in all, Ketu has an almost insatiable need to be headless, expressing a sense of carelessness or detachment. It can be their success just as much as it can be their downfall. In the world of wrestling, men often channel this behavior into their work, which reduces the need to act out in their personal lives, though some still do, often through infidelity or drug use. However, Ketu-ruled women in wrestling, lacking similar outlets in their professional roles, tend to seek this detachment in their personal lives, frequently turning to substances as their medium of expression.

Found on Barbara Pijan's site:

"Ketu can have a strong influence on things in this way: 

It sometimes renders the mind unbalanced, disturbing social relationships and makes personal life difficult. 

Ketu makes itself felt in the psychology of an individual rather than on the material conditions of life."

[lord-squiggletits]

🌻

I'm familiar with Chris Metzen's writing style because of his work on World of Warcraft, which is the first media I was ever a huge fan of (started playing in the single digits of age, was making fanart and OCs and participating in gift exchanges before I was a teen). That might give me some bias in favor of his writing in IDW, but I honestly don't think so. The first time I read his trilogy was 2 years ago and I found it good if edgy at times. Then I got into the fandom and found out people didn't care for it, eh maybe they're right. Reread the Metzen trilogy again and NOPE I actually like it even more now that I understand more of IDW's story and don't get how it's supposed to be edgy or out of place.

The primary reason I love them is because I love Metzen's Optimus (I am not taking criticism on this), but to set aside my special boy for a moment, I just like Metzen's writing in general.

Autocracy/Monstrosity/Primacy have super high stakes. It feels dark and gritty and horrible (which I guess is why people call it edgy), but considering that the books cover the collapse of a tyrannical regime + the chaotic civil war and exodus from Cybertron + the worsening energon crisis + massive parts of Cybertron being destroyed, it's not edgy??? It's literally just depicting governmental collapse, impending war, and famine as seriously as they are??? Complaining about the Metzen trilogy for being edgy is like going to the beach and complaining that the water is salty, like bro this is what the environment entails

But besides that, it's NOT just about how horrible war is, the stories show the Autobots and Decepticons both being cool as fuck. Optimus is precious and trying so hard but not able to hold everything together on his own. Megatron is fucking brutal and absolutely unstoppable and I also love him. The narrative is perfectly balanced between action, character reflection, and some fucking COOL early war politics.

The character interactions are so fucking interesting. Dai Atlas is a cunt but I love how he serves as both ally and critic of Optimus at different points (until he leaves on bad terms with OP). The Dynobots are SO COOL: they're literally FORMER GLADIATORS but then Optimus convinces them they can be saved instead of isolating themselves as monsters! That leads to Grimlock having cool "jaded veteran + young rookie" interactions with Hot Rod! Megatron talking to Penitus which leads to him refining/doubling down on his already existing philosophy of monstrosity and tyranny! Starscream being evil but also lowkey being one of the only Decepticons with braincells who raises an eyebrow at pointless destruction!!!

Even the news media and general populace of Cybertron get to have their viewpoints represented! And it's fucking good representation because it makes Optimus a more believeable character! The news media is still unconvinced what Optimus' primacy will bring, normal civilians are scared the government won't protect them, fuck there's even a scene where Optimus shows up to a riot and people are terrified of him!!! It really fucking shows that Optimus fought an uphill battle with the existing populace knowing him for his role as Zeta's right hand man! When Cybertron goes to shit people leave instead of staying to fight!!! I fucking love how the Cybertron populace's reaction to Optimus/the Autobots reflects the tumultuous history that preceded the Autobot/Decepticon war! I fucking love how Optimus tries to protect everyone, tries to appeal to people to stay and fight for freedom and their homeland, but fails to keep most of the population from leaving! I FUCKING LOVE HOW IT'S MESSY AND CHAOTIC JUST LIKE IT WOULD BE IN REAL LIFE. I LOVE HOW OPTIMUS HAD TO STRUGGLE TO BE A LEADER AND STILL FAILED TO GET MOST PEOPLE TO HAVE FAITH IN HIM!!! I LOVE HOW ALL OF THE ACTION AND PLOT AND CHARACTERIZATION ISN'T JUST COOL IN ITS OWN RIGHT BUT IT ALSO MAKES OPTIMUS FEEL LIKE A COMPLEX AND FLESHED OUT FIGURE!

I fucking love the Metzen trilogy!!!!!!!!

[paradoxicalcurio]

Time to share one of my stories. This one follows my character Styx, a lich.

---

  It was Styx's day off from work today, and she was certain the other doctors and surgeons could deal with the injuries from any accident that happens. It had been a while since she had spent a night on the town, and she really didn't want to spend another quiet, sleepless night at home. So once the sun set and she was free to walk around without getting burned, she grabbed some essentials and headed out.

  Her usual outfit worked just fine for her destination: a long black cloak with a hood, and a silver necklace housing her phylactery. A quick glamour disguised her skeletal arm, and she was ready to go.

  The club she ended up at wasn't at all similar to what most people would think when they imagine a club. It was more suited to the goth subculture, and thus a perfect place for undead such as herself to blend in and meet interested people.

  Almost immediately after walking in, she was approached by a short purple-haired woman and a much taller, blonde man. "Cool arm." The woman said, smiling softly. "You do it yourself?"

  Without missing a beat, Styx raised her bone arm, now unglamoured, and nodded. "It's not my original arm, but I'm still rather attached to it." The joke elicited a chuckle from both the guy and the girl.

  So casually revealing her undead nature was risky, she knew. But hiding her true nature all th time was exhausting, she knew that these people would be more fascinated than terrified, and it was unlikely anyone they told outside of the goth culture would believe them even for a second.

  Perhaps she was a little careless, however.

  Styx spent a few hours dancing and telling stories about her unlife to those who were interested, and even got a few numbers and flirtatious gestures. It wasn't until almost four AM that she checked her watch and interrupted her current story about an encounter with a dragon.

  "Oh dear, I need to get home before the sun rises." She explained, standing up. Though it didn't show much, she could tell the others were disappointed, but nobody stopped her as she exited the club.

  As she approached her car, however, she heard someone coming up behind her at a brisk pace. She turned around to face them - and blinding light and agony exploded onto her face. She shrieked and recoiled, falling to her knees and clutching her face, feeling a cross-shaped mark burned across it.

  "I knew it." A voice spat. She could barely hear it, and couldn't see its source at all, too focused on the blinding, burning pain the cross had caused. "An unholy abomination, cursed by God himself."

  Styx shuddered at the name, and forced her vision back to normal. Slowly, the red darkness faded, revealing the blonde man who'd greeted her at the entrance - Lucifer, she remembered he introduced himself as. She thought it was just an edgy nickname, but the cross clutched in his hand and the hatred on his face indicated it was more fitting than she had originally assumed.

  "Stay down!" he barked as she tried to get to her feet, and pressed the tip of the cross into her forehead. It ignited into sheer agony, and she shrieked again and fell back onto the ground, barely supporting herself with her hands and knees.

  Faintly, she heard the sound of a gun cocking, and felt the barrel press against the top of her head. The man muttered something - she caught the word 'God' and shuddered again - then fired. The sound was oddly muffled, and she couldn't tell if it was because of her senses still being overwhelmed, or that there was a silencer on it. Maybe both.

  Everything went black.

  For a moment.

  It hurt. Dear lord, it hurt. The cross burn on her face, the ringing in her ears, the bullet hole in her skull, the bullet itself - silver? It felt like silver, or gold - still lodged somewhere in her head.

  Slowly, painfully slowly, she rolled over onto her back, feeling the liquid aether slowly oozing from the hole in her head. Lucifer had turned away from her, clearly believing his job done. Fool. This may have worked on a vampire, but liches were made of sturdier stuff.

  Strength returned to her limbs as she willed her injuries healed, expending as much energy as she could muster. The pain faded to a dull ache, and as she stood up, the bullet was pushed up out of her head by the regrowing tissue, and clattered to the pavement. Lucifer turned around at the noise, eyes wide.

  "What the fu-"

  He raised the gun in one hand and cross in the other, but Styx was too fast for him to recover from his shock. She closed the distance, grabbed his right hand and yanked it back. His yell of pain was joined by the crack of the bone, and the cross clattered to the ground. The gun followed a second later, preceded by the crack of Lucifer's other wrist.

  With both hands incapacitated, he couldn't stop her from forcing his mouth open and, with an inhumane rattling breath, begin drawing his soul out from his body. His eyes were wide with terror and fear, but only for a few seconds. They dulled as his soul was pulled out and consumed by the lich.

  She was tempted to keep going until the entire soul was devoured, wiping Lucifer completely from existence. But she knew that it would only prove him and other hunters right, that it would be the first step towards becoming a true monster. Something she'd spent the last five hundred years fighting. So she stopped, just before the last, most crucial piece of the goth's soul was pulled out, and dropped the now comatose human to the pavement. 

  Her eyes turned to the club. Nobody seemed to have seen or heard anything; likely the music was loud enough to cover the gunshots and screams. Speaking of the gun, she picked it up off the ground and pocketed it. Perhaps she could sell it later.

  He'd be fine eventually. It would take a few weeks of bedrest for his soul to recover, but he'd live. Might not be as dexterous as he once was, however, and hopefully not nearly so eager to kill people.

[okayohay]

I Just Wanted To Be Edgy Too (Chapter 2)

I wanted to post the second chapter of my fic here, because not everyone uses Wattpad. Please let me know if you would like me to keep posting it! If you want to read ahead - you can find the story on Wattpad here

Hope you guys enjoy!

I Just Wanted To Be Edgy Too

Chapter Two

Van

I needed a change...

We ended our soundcheck with Overlap because I was sick of playing the same song every night. I was sick of singing about things that mattered when I was sixteen but didn't matter to me anymore. I wanted to do something different, so I did what I do best, jump into things unannounced. There was no warning to it. Bondy slid into the opening chords like usual and I cut him off with a riff.

He raised his eyebrows at me as I played the chorus of Overlap instead of Tyrants. Steve crossed his arms over his chest from the lighting platform in the middle of the floor and narrowed his eyes at me, a smug look on his face.

"I want to end with something else." I didn't wait for anyone's response, I just started singing the first verse, forgetting half of the words.

"Whoa, whoa, why Overlap? Why not something else?" Benji scratched the side of his face.

I kept playing the riff on a shrug. "What else?"

"I don't know man...something off of two? Something the fans already love?"

I strummed my guitar again and hummed the words. Overlap meant something to me, that's why I wanted to play it, but I didn't want to tell them that. I zoned out the questions and continued playing, even when the rest of them stopped.

Steve crossed the floor and stood in front of the barricade by the stage. "I like that you're ready to retire Tyrants, but you're going to play something people connect with."

"They'll connect with this if you give them the chance." I heard the edge in my voice.

Bondy cleared his throat and shook his head at me. I knew he was silently telling me it wasn't worth it. Overlap wasn't worth pushing Steve and I into another fight.

"You'll end with Cocoon." Steve said bluntly before he walked off with a flick of his wrist. My jaw locked into place as I ground my teeth together.

"Van, leave it." Bondy whispered.

I shook my head and flicked my hair from my face. "We'll play it now for good measure. I want to hear it live." I spun my finger around signaling the start of the song. Bob struck his drumsticks together and Benji and Bondy exchanged glances I pretended not to notice.

The song started slowly, just as it did on the album, and by the chorus, Bondy's smile returned and he was clearly enjoying playing something new. Even Bob's snare sounded different, a little bit more life to it, perhaps. Steve paid us no mind as he continued to fiddle with the lights and the soundboards, but the few roadies watching in the back seemed to enjoy the change to the set.

I sang the last lines out quickly, adding a few more words in here and there, and dragging out the last sentence rather than cutting it off. We finished and were met with a round of applause from the back. Steve looked up then, taking notice of the compliments and then pausing as he shook his head at me.

A few people walked toward the stage, a mix of roadies and local radio station DJs who couldn't wait to nab another piece of us during an interview. I rolled my eyes, noticing one girl holding a camera and scratching down words on a small black book. She stepped into the blue glow of the lights Steve had been working on, and I froze as she neared the stage. I was in no state of mind to do an interview right now, and I definitely wouldn't be having an interview with a girl looking like that. Her long hair wasn't blonde or brown, but somewhere lost in between the two, and it hung in loose waves over her shoulders. Her eyes were dark, maybe even a little too intense. I glanced at Steve for backup. He hadn't told me anything about a scheduled interview today, and I surely didn't want to go into one prior to a gig.

She said nothing as she stood by the barricade and jotted a few more sentences into her notebook. Bondy glanced at her a few times but shrugged his shoulders when I motioned to her. She looked young, mid to late twenties maybe, and she never said a word to any of us, just kept scribbling quickly into her book. I frowned. If she had something to write about me, I'd like to be the one giving her the information.

She looked up and locked eyes with me then, a shudder rippled through me. She was dead gorgeous, but I've learned to never trust a writer, despite their looks. Never trust a writer at all; trust me.

I jutted my chin at her as I sat my guitar down. "Can we do ya a favor or somet?" My accent was thick, spewing out half word phrases from back home, something that only happened when I was mad, or full of feelings I couldn't get out.

Benji looked up instantly, recognizing my tone and how many times it preceded an argument or a shitty interview. He glanced from me, to the girl, and back to me.

"Van..." he raised his free hand at me but I shrugged it off.

"No, no, no I want to know what she wants from us. She's bloody good at jottin' it down in her book, I just want to know what she's gettin’ on at before I read about it in some magazine or on the internet later."

The nameless girl's face reddened, and she closed the black book and shoved it behind her into her camera bag. She didn't leave though, she just kind of stood there keeping her sites on me, like I was a ghost on the stage and she was looking right through me.

"Van, lad...ease up a bit. It's not what you think. That's her; Barns' girlfriend."

My gaze shifted back to the girl, leaning into a roadie and speaking in his ear. Well fuck.

I bit down on my lip, jumped off the stage and stood next to the barricade. "Sorry love, who did you say you were?"

She pressed herself into the barricade and began pulling her hair into a pony tail. "I didn't. I think you were too worried about me being a journalist to care."

I said nothing, which was a rarity for me. She picked up on my hesitation and sighed. "I'm Ellie." The redness returning to her cheeks.

"You're not a journalist?"

"Legally no, but in her free time she writes damn good articles for a blog." Barns stepped beside her and wrapped her in his arms, kissing her hard. She flinched at first, until she realized it was him and relaxed. I turned away and raked a hand through my hair.

Barns Courtney had been opening for us on and off for months. At first, it was all fun and games, whiskey and beers after shows, sitting around after gigs getting high on shitty weed he'd pull from his pocket. But it escalated into moments of him shattering the glass of a hotel window, or getting in a fight with Larry. It was shortly after that when Steve caught him with more than just weed. He dug him out of several moments of chaos and kept him out of jail in Dallas, but none of that calmed him down. He started bringing more girls around, and that's when I found out he had a girlfriend. I kind of shut down the friendship at that point. The drugs, the girls, all of it...I'd already lived that life and let it ruin me. I didn't need it to happen again. There was enough of me that liked the wild side too much. I'd spent too much time dabbling in hard liquor and cocaine, and it cost me my better judgment. That cost me a relationship, and my anger from the relationship ending cost me any chance at a friendship. I'd lost my way a bit, lost a lot of things, and I swore I'd never do that again.

Barns made me nervous. He had too much of an edge for me to want to be around. His words were stale and full of poison when he tossed them at me or any one of the lads. Watching him kiss the girl he'd been cheating on for weeks felt wrong. It all felt wrong. My stomach churned.

When he finished with her, he shifted his weight to his other leg and smirked. His signature red leather jacket was hanging loosely off him, no shirt underneath. "This is my girlfriend, Ellie." His tone harassed me, the corners of his lips pulling upwards. "She writes for a music blog, I told her to use whatever she wants from the tour."

I shifted my gaze back to the woman who was now biting at her fingernails nervously. "You're staying for the rest of the tour then?"

She nodded and looked back at Barns casually. Barns smiled at her before nodding at me. "I'll catch up with you in a bit babe, I need to talk to Van."

She smiled and stepped away quickly, turning back once to gaze at us both. She hesitated for a moment before opening her mouth. "You should play that song. Maybe don't end with it, but it's a real barn burner. It'd be good in your set." I blinked a few times as I contemplated what she was saying before she turned around again. When she was out of earshot Barns leaned in and pressed his hand into my shoulder. "Remember our deal, McCann. She doesn't need to know about the shit from last week, or the ones before that. I love her, I don't want to hurt her like that."

I laughed and shook my head. "Some deep love you got there, mate." I removed his hand from my shoulder and climbed back onto the stage.

"Come on, man. Be cool." Barns flashed his perfectly straight teeth at me, but there was no authenticity in his smile. It was forced, he was the big bad wolf and he was in sheep's clothing. This was a threat.

I nodded at him. "Yeah, man whatever."

Barns patted the top of the barricade with his hands and spun around quickly, leaving the four of us to our instruments and the last few minutes of soundcheck.

"What was that all about?" Bondy asked as he wiped down the neck of his guitar and motioned to Barns.

I shrugged as Barns disappeared from site. "Get rid of Rango and play Overlap in its spot. Don't tell Steve, just have Larry change the list."

"You wanna cut Rango?" Bob chimed in from the background, disbelief hanging off the vowels of his words.

I nodded once and picked my guitar up again, the first chords in the song echoed through the empty venue.

[smokeybrand]

Welcome Back

I am a card carrying geek. I was that nerd in grade school, reading comics, watching anime, and larping with his friends during recess. I’ve always loved things like books and film, mostly because my ma had a penchant for the sci-fi and we would share in her hobbies. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who since i was a wee lil’ Smokey and had a particular fondness for Max Headroom’s shenanigans. My chosen proclivities lend themselves to alternate universes, divergent timeless, and the interdenominational doppelganger or two. What i am trying to convey, here, is that i am not stranger to the revisit of a franchise. For me, rebooting an established work or expanding a loved lore is not a transgression. I am a fan of narrative. If you can tell a unique story, it really doesn’t even have to be that good, but something creativity and compelling, i am totally on board. This isn't as difficult a feat as you'd think considering how well Hollywood can adapt international films. The Ring and The Departed are effectively remakes of their original Asian fare and those films are spectacular. Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is the best example of this i can give. His deconstruction of the Batman mythos was one of the best cinematic and storytelling experiences I ever had. If you can take an established narrative, an established universe, and inject your own flavor into it, i am down for that, too. The Kelvin Star Trek timeline immediately comes to mind. Again, comic book guy, specifically a Spider-Man shill.

While i have years worth of alternate Spider-Men in the books to pull from, i think the most concise example i can give for a layman is to think Into the Spider-Verse, only with thousands more Spider-Men and Spider-Women. That’s the world I'm broaching this subject from, where there are decades worth of stories and reboots and remakes and reimagings, basically revisits, of a character that i absolutely love. Some are great like the Ultimate Spider-Man or the world of Renew Your Vows, and some are not so great, like that version Abrams’ kid came up with. That whole story was the worst. We have actually seen a little bit of this narrative reincarnation in the Spider-Man film franchise, itself, both good and bad. If we take the very first Spider-Man films, those campy, Raimi classics, as a starting point, then we had a terrible reboot in the Amazing franchise and a rather brilliant reimagining in the MCU outings. I really like the MCU retool. Tom Holland is THE onscreen Peter Parker and you can fight me about it all day.

Jurassic World and The Force Awakens are an interesting situation in the whole Revisit discourse. Both of these films are effectively reboots of the entire franchise and a whole ass remake of their initial entries. Beat for beat, theme for theme, these two films are basically the same as Jurassic Park and Episode IV, just less than they are in every conceivable fashion. Now, on paper, i should hate this but i don’t. There is a reason both of the imitations made billions for their respective franchise and that is simply nostalgia. We. as a culture, were starved for a Jurassic sequel and new Star War. When we got these movies in earnest, no one cared they were rehashes of the films that made them so important to the cultural zeitgeist. It was like seeing A New Hope and that initial outing to Isla Nublar for the first time, for a second time, but with much better effects. It had been decades since either of these movies had a proper release so we all just accepted that these were refresher courses in the lore. It was with the sequels that these things sh*t the bed so hard.

Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi skewed so far from what these franchises were, from the rules that had been established in the preceding films, including the first in their new trilogies, that they were offensive. Legitimately offensive. Jurassic World and The Force Awakens, as flawed as they were, left their worlds in respectable places. The narratives that could be built from those starting point were incredible. That potential was palpable. Lucas, himself, said that the stories should rhyme and you see that in his six films. Familiar yet different. Nostalgic yet original. Respectful yet original. None of that was recognized in the follow-ups and that is why these two franchises are on life support. It’s sad because there was potential there. Characters introduced were compelling and narrative threads left unties, could have become something great. Instead, expectations were subverted and the world completely sh*t on in an effort to be edgy, to distance itself from the established lore. That sh*t is whack. It’s not about being a fan of the franchise or a zealous istaphobe or whatever else the Twatter mob wants to accuse people of being. It’s about bad story telling. it’s abut a complete betrayal of a decades old franchise. It’s a bout being disingenuous with the property for personal gain.

I said at the beginning of this essay that i love a revisit. That’s why i went to see these sh*tty films. I also made very clear that i love storytelling. Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi lack in that fundamental aspect, that’s why they suck. They’ve done irreparable damage to the entire franchise and canon of these worlds that were so meticulously crafted by proper visionaries. Michael Crichton is rolling in his grave at what became of his Dinosaur Westworld and Lucas effectively bogarded his way into running Lucasfilm again after they sh*t on his legacy and that’s the thing; Legacy. These two franchises are part of American culture. They’re as revered as Apple Pie and Institutional Racism here. They’re not cash grabs or vehicles to push your politics. They’re modern fairy tales, myths, and should be respected as such. The thing is, though, i don’t believe there are actual creatives out there that have the vision to create like Crichton or Lucas anymore. Or, at least, Creatives that are willing to work within the constraints of this ridiculous studio system.

Modern film studios are disgustingly risk averse. That is a problem with anything making entertainment media nowadays but it’s most egregious in Hollywood. Films like Star Wars and Alien were made in a time when budgets didn’t swell to hundreds of millions of dollars so directors had to do what he could, with what they had, and that level of imagination birthed classics. It’s rare that creators get a blank check to deliver their vision nowadays, and even rarer that what they get to make if they receive that loot, is actually good. Zack Snyder and the train wreck that is Sucker Punch demonstrates my point perfectly. the new Lucases and Camerons are rare but there are a handful of directors who carry that torch. Denis Villeneuve is an incredible visual storyteller. He has a distinct vision for the grand and manages to craft proper worlds. Blade Runner 2049 is one of the best films i have ever seen in my life but it didn’t make money because people have been conditioned to ignore great storytelling for great effects. That sh*t is why people can say to me, with a straight face, that they think Batman v. Superman is better than The Dark Knight rises. That sh*t is stupid, shut the f*ck up. Deni was given the reigns to the Dune reboot and i think this might be the film that breaks him through to the mainstream.

Dune is a reboot. It looks like a revisit to the old David Lynch flick but with Deni’s penchant for the epic. This movie feels like what Jurassic World and The Force Awakens wanted to do; A respectful acknowledgment of what came before but an original take going forward. Dune is one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written and Deni is one of the most profound visionaries in the game right now.  I have no doubt the new film is going to be fantastic. This combination is a match made in heaven, similar to Alex Garland with Annihilation or, more accurately i think, Luca Guadagnino and Suspiria. Those two films are f*cking incredible and they adapt the source material in a very, specific, manner. Annihilation is a reimagining of the book and carries its own themes and tones while the new Suspiria is a complete reinterpretation of what came before, that i believe eclipses the original. Dune looks excellent but i don’t know that it will be well received. Deni has his work cut out for him because the world of revisits is riddle with the corpses of films that couldn’t care the weight of what came before or what could have been. Still, i don’t want Hollywood to stop. As unoriginal as remaking things is, i adore a fresh set of eyes on familiar fare. There are infinite ways to tell the same story and that’s the fun of revisiting an old tale.

[hexxwhat]

Hello friends, now that I have seen The Last Jedi twice and had time to process it all I thought I would give you all my thoughts! First things first, let me just say that I am not down for the visceral way Star Wars fans are lashing out at one another over this movie? Like if you liked it, good that’s valid! If you hated it, good that is also valid! But targeting other movies or other people’s opinions to just be nasty is so petty and so exhausting and I am just not for it. So if you’re not open to having critical dialogue about a film, or if you’ve already decided how you feel about the movie and aren’t interested in other people’s opinions then don’t even waste your time reading this? Because at the end of the day it’s just a movie and it’s supposed to be entertaining. And I am saying that as someone who has invested way too much time over the course of her entire lifetime to the Star Wars franchise, the EU and the general meta of the series.

No Star Wars film has EVER been perfect; every movie has its flaws. Let’s not act like this is news.

Now TL;DR version right up front: I didn’t hate it but I thought a lot of it was rushed and Rian Johnson just really disappointed me.

Now, spoilers below the cut of course.

Let’s get to my biggest issue first shall we?

The entire plot line between Holdo and Poe was extremely frustrating to me. Not just because of the way it portrayed Poe as an impulsive and insensitive child (I’ll get into that in more detail later) but because miscommunication as a driving plot point is one of the laziest tropes ever and I am so, so sick of seeing it in film. PLUS! It goes against how information was shared by the Rebels as established by EVERY ONE OF THE PREVIOUS STAR WARS FILMS??? Like in every single other film where there was a rebellion present (and therefore excludes the prequels) whenever there was a plan that affected the entire rebellion, every member was told about it.

To prove it, here are my sources:

·         A New Hope: When everyone was sitting around reviewing the Death Star plans and talking about how people were going to blow it up, the whole rebellion was there. Not just the officers, not just the pilots, everyone. Including Han Solo who was not a member of the rebellion and was really just there hanging out at the time? Han was informed of the plan for the Death Star even though everyone knew he and Chewie would be leaving. Nobody was kept in the dark about the plan!

·         The Empire Strikes Back: Everyone is getting ready to go fight the Empire’s forces landing on the surface of Hoth and everyone is standing around in a circle listening to Leia tell them their orders. Everyone heard everyone else’s orders, even if they didn’t apply to them. Everyone knew what everyone else was supposed to do so that nobody was confused, left in the dark and so nobody would get in any body else’s way!

·         The Return of the Jedi: Everyone is sitting around in a circle listening to Mon Mothma explaining about the new Death Star and what the plan is as a whole and then listening to all the other little plans! Everyone hears about what the plan is with Lando and his squad. Everyone hears about what the plans are with Han and his ground troops. Everyone knows what part they are playing in this grander scheme so that nobody is just standing around being wasted energy and nobody will be doing anything reckless that gets in the way of the rest of the mission!

·         The Force Awakens: Everyone standing around that glowing map once Han and Finn get to the Resistance base and Poe takes Finn to Leia. Everyone hears what Finn has to say about Starkiller Base. Everyone gets to hear what the plan is that they set up. Including Han Solo, who even gets to provide input to the plan even though he is clearly not an official member of the Resistance and has in fact been off dicking around for a couple of years not helping at all. Even he got to find out what the plan was. Again.

·         Rogue One: When the team finally got back to Yavin IV and was talking about the Death Star plans literally everyone who wanted to be was crammed into that room around that glowing table having a say and or hearing what everyone else had to say. Even Jyn and Bodhi, who by rights were not part of the rebellion and if anything they probably should have been super suspicious of Bodhi because who knows he could have been a double agent? (it hurts me to even say that of Bodhi but still) Everyone who wanted to know what the plan was, what the Rebellion’s next step was, was able to find out. Was able to hear and know.

So when Holdo took command of the Resistance and was standing there in the center of the circle with the entire remainder of the Resistance watching and listening…the fact that she didn’t say shit about the plan is bullshit. It was bullshit, it was lazy, and it was straight up the thing I hated the most about this movie. Hands down, no question about it, the worst piece of nonsense. There is a precedent for how this Resistance is run based on how the Rebellion is run because Leia was the bridge between the two movements. And it was already shown in TFA that she kept the whole ‘let’s share information thing so nobody feels lost’ movement alive. So if Holdo was so trustworthy and close to Leia then why the fuck didn’t she just tell everyone the plan? Things would have been so easy if she had just done what every leader before her had done when standing in a circle surrounded by the people she was supposed to lead! Ridiculous.

That being said, Holdo’s final moment was incredibly bad ass and visually stunning. Cinematically that cut to silence was so impactful and heart wrenching. Holdo was clearly a woman with a strong will and convictions and I honestly wanted to like her more but I couldn’t because RJ was like “Do you know what we need in a time of crisis? For the leadership to be petty and condescending to one of the main characters.” Like…it was so lazy. Holdo deserved better, Rian Johnson is invited to my funeral as a pall barer so he can let me down again when I die.

Which loops me around to my second biggest issue with the movie which is the Character Assassination of Poe and Luke and to an extent Rey. Now, anyone who knows me well knows that Characters often matter more to me then Story/Plot. I have read some awful books and watched some shitty shows and movies just for the sake of a character that I really love and identify with. So when I see writers and directors really misinterpreting characters, it bothers me. Because it is often purposefully done for the sake of ego. How hard is it to look at someone else’s work and be faithful to it? Why do you have to change character’s behaviors for the sake of doing something different or edgy? It’s exhausting and Rian Johnson really tried it with me.

Poe Dameron is a risk taker who often time puts himself into incredible amounts of danger for the sake of the cause. This is seen in TFA when he goes on a mission alone, it is seen in the short story released about his life prior to the start of TFA and it is seen in his solo comics run. Poe is reckless with himself. Not with others. The opening battle was actually brilliant, it made me feel a lot of things, and it also showed the toll of war. People always die in Star Wars movies. In a New Hope only about 3 members from Red Team made it back to the base on Yavin IV. The toll has always been high. And all the background evidence Disney and LucasFilms has provided for us up until TLJ came out showed that not only is Poe entirely cognizant of the cost of war, he is respectful of it. To turn Poe into a, and let us quote “A trigger happy fly boy” is degrading. Poe is part of the Resistance because he values people and he is living up to the memory of his mother and the sacrifices of his father. To turn him into someone seeking glory at the cost of others is honestly disgusting to me. And while his coup was conducted with the right intentions at heart, it shouldn’t have happened at all because to circle back around, miscommunication as a plot device is lazy as hell and I thought we were better than this. That being said every interaction Poe had with Finn was golden, his entire bond with the droids in his life is charming and pure, and the way he slams his hand against the side of his ship before doing a sharp turn at high speed to keep from slamming his head into the glass from the force of it all is one of the best subtle acknowledgments of physics in space that I have ever seen.

Now…let’s talk about Luke shall we? Luke Skywalker has been one of my favorite characters from the time I was five years old and can remember watching Star Wars for the first time with my Uncle and Mother. My first piece of Star Wars meta that I owned was a chapter book about Luke that took place just before A New Hope started and my mother used to read it to me while I was in the bathtub so that I would actually sit still in there. My Harry Potter phase was nothing really, I didn’t even read past book 3 until I was almost a High School graduate and I really don’t think the series is as good as people romanticize it. But the reason for that is because Star Wars was my Harry Potter and there was just no room in my heart for anything to be nearly as big. Luke Skywalker is one of the single most important characters in fiction to me. He is my hero, he is my moral line in the sand. He is someone with great power who was given the choice to rule or to lead and he chose to lead. And that is an incredibly important distinction. He is an optimist about everything and everyone, but he is also confident and self-assured. He is a loving person who cares and bonds with others despite what the way of the Jedi had said because he understood the value of people. He is dramatic and thoughtful and dedicated to being a balancing act in the universe. So it meant a lot to me that I was going to get to see Luke on the big screen. I never got to see that growing up. I was seven years old when episode I came out and I have seen every Star Wars movie that has come out in my lifetime in theaters, usually more than once. But I never got to see Luke until now and I was so very excited. And while Mark Hamill’s performance was stunning because he gave everything he had to give…you could tell in parts he was just as disappointed with the way Rian Johnson wrote Luke as I was. Now in the EU, Luke did at one time just straight up leave everyone. This was after his wife was murdered and he left after looking into the future and seeing that if he took vengeance for her death he would become a Sith and be pretty much unstoppable. And because Luke Skywalker is such a good and pure soul, he said ‘nope, not going to subject the universe to that’ and left! But him going away and turning into a grumpy old man who hates people is bullshit. Him not coming back because Leia called for him is bullshit. Him closing himself off from the Force entirely and therefore not having felt the exact moment when Han Solo died IS BULLSHIT! Also, Luke trying to rebuild the whole Jedi Order as it was when it was destroyed is nonsense. Luke Skywalker was a Gray Jedi who disavowed just as much of the teachings of the Jedi Order as he did of the Sith. So that was nonsense.

Luke Skywalker never would have taken a lightsaber down to his nephew’s tent. He learned the lesson of choice in Return of the Jedi and if he saw darkness in Ben he would have done something else about it. Anything else about it. But again it was Rian Johnson using miscommunication as a plot point which is once more…lazy af.

That being said, there were moments when Luke was Luke and it tore my heart to pieces.

Luke on the Falcon and his interaction with R2-D2 was incredible. And leave it to R2 to take such an effective low blow. What good timing and sense of human guilt that droid has.

Luke and his reunion with Leia was beautiful. The fact that it was apparently written by Carrie just adds to the pain of it all. But it was beautiful and also one of the only moments the movie got to take to breath. The rest of the film was so jam packed and rushed that we never got a chance to really appreciate the toll all of this had on people. So that scene was beautiful and emotional and perfectly illustrated the whole point of Luke never placing his ego as a Jedi before the safety of people.

The entire fight scene between Luke and Kylo Ren was honestly golden. The outfit Luke showed up in was perfect and harkened back to his Return of the Jedi look. The ease with which he did everything, the shoulder brush after the First Order shot at him, the way he just dropped backwards and spun away from Kylo when he tried to half in the first time. The audacity to throw Han’s death in Kylo’s face right before utterly and fully humiliating him in front of the entire First Order. THE ABILITY TO ASTRALLY PROJECT HIMSELF THERE JUST TO TEACH KYLO ABOUT HUMILITY AND TO SAVE THE RESISTANCE WAS SO GOOD! Like there was the characterization that was missing. There was Luke Skywalker standing on the plank of Jabba’s skimmer saying ‘Free us or Die’ with the nonchalance of asking a neighbor if you can get a ball out of their back yard. There was Luke Skywalker, with a great big FU to the fascists of the Universe that I grew up cherishing. The only thing that would have made that scene better was if he was using the green saber that he made for himself. Because it honestly didn’t make sense for him to be using the saber that Rey and Kylo had literally just destroyed. That was the biggest ‘wait’ moment of that whole scene and kinda took away from the impact of the whole ‘I’m not really here, haha!’ moment.

I’m okay with Luke dying. I really am. But only if he comes back in Episode IX as a Force Ghost. If he doesn’t then Rian Johnson really and truly wasted the gift he was given.

Rey stealing the Jedi Texts was brilliant, Rey learning how to figure out the Force based on what she was given by Luke was great. REY’S FIRST INSTINCT WHEN THE FORCE BOND HAPPENED WAS TO SHOOT KYLO LIKE GOD BLESS. But the cave scene was a huge let down. I was expecting something closer to when Luke said ‘nah Yoda I’m going to go into the sketchy part of the woods’ and he fought himself as Darth Vader in episode V. Instead we didn’t really get anything? I expected more from a sketchy portal in the ground that lead directly to the dark side TM. Reducing Rey’s journey to understanding and the Force into just redeeming Kylo is trite. And beautifully summed up with her whole ‘please don’t do this’ and look of utter disappointment after the fight scene with Snoke’s guards. (That Fight scene was very good! Very good! All the action scenes in this movie was very good!) Rey not letting the fact that Luke was being obstinate get in her way of her own training was good because it really shows that she values herself, she values the Force and she values what she can contribute to the Resistance. Rey’s arc stumbled in this movie but it was still good, and her optimism in Kylo was just as valid as Luke’s optimism in Vader.  

Question, why was Yoda like that? He was like…a CGI version of his puppet self from The Empire Strikes Back and he was a weird kale green color? They gave up on his iconic speech pattern like real quick. I was mostly unsettled by the fact that he was entirely wreathed in flame for 80% of the time he was on screen like some kind of goblin. And honestly I really wish it had been Obi-Wan who showed up to talk to Luke since out of the two of them Obi-Wan was the one most similar to Luke in how he conducted himself. That being said I was very happy to see Yoda, because it was a nice call back to how the Force Ghosts operate. Which also gives me hope to Luke being a Force Ghost. I’m really clinging to that guys.

LET’STALK ABOUT LEIA AND THE FORCE BECAUSE THAT WAS SIMULTANEOUSLY ONE OF THE MOST SATISFYING AND VALIDATING THINGS I HAVE EVER SEEN WHILE BEING EQUALLY FRUSTRATING!

Leia has used the Force in every movie we see her in. She generally only used it to sense others, mostly Luke, but that was because at the time Leia didn’t understand that feeling for what it was. Also if you watch Return of the Jedi when she is strangling Jabba in one shot the chain moves by itself and that is obviously Leia exerting her will over it with the Force as she viciously chokes the life out of the slug man. Leia doesn’t start to open herself up to the Force until after she finds out that Luke is her brother and Vader is her biological father. (I say biological because Bail Organa was Leia’s father and he deserves to be respected) In TFA she talks about the Force with the confidence of someone who has used it, and it is obvious that she is much more in tune with it then before when she feels Han die. So it was very satisfying to see her use the Force in such an overt way because it really shut up all the Fake Star Wars Fanboys who were always arguing that Leia never had any Force Sensitivity whatsoever. She had Skywalker blood in her. The fuck you mean Leia can’t use the Force. That being said…the science on what happens to an organic lifeform in the vacuum of space is pretty clear. So the way RJ decided to show Leia using the Force was just…silly. It was more funny in the moment than anything else. Like really…she’s turning to ice, she had no oxygen, she dead…but okay. I’ll take it because Leia could have been a Jedi if she had made it to Obi-Wan and we all know that’s the real reason why Bail sent Leia when he could have sent anyone.

Snoke and Phasma were wasted, let’s not pretend that they weren’t. The Phasma / Finn fight should have been longer, more fighting, less one liners. I loved the fight scene, I just really wanted more from it because like….she raised and trained all the troopers, you would think she would have been a bit more brutal? And Snoke?? Why did they even take the time to build him up the way they did if we were never going to find out jack shit about him? Like come on guys what was that? But like also Snoke’s robe was fabulous and I kind of want it? The color was great and the neckline was great. The costume designer on this movie did a hell of a job. I loved it.

RIP the boyfriend jacket, lost in space when Finn and Rose changed into the Imperial Uniforms on Snoke’s ship. Rose never got to wear the jacket which is a tragedy since everyone wore the jacket in TFA.

Side note, Disney is a pack of cowards for not giving us Gays in Space and trying to shoehorn the Finn/Rose romance in at the last minute. Like bless them for an interracial couple that didn’t include a white person in it but Finn/Poe is also an interracial couple that doesn’t include a white person. But Rose Tico is a gift and anyone who shits on her for the sake of a ship is a child and can leave. Like she is a passionate and dedicated part of the Resistance. She is down in the metal and the dirt making sure the ship is running and people are being honorable. She lost her sister to this fight and she was ready to keep fighting regardless. She gave up the one token she had for the sake of the mission because she is a selfless hero. Rose Tico is a gift, we don’t deserve her vicious little spirit. I just thought the kiss came out of nowhere and was unnecessary? Her line was beautiful. Saving what we Love is at its core the whole point of everything in the Star Wars Universe. But they didn’t need to kiss. And this isn’t just because I prefer Finn/Poe. It just wasn’t necessary in that moment.Also I can not wait for the part in EP IX when Rey and Rose meet and become best friends BECAUSE THEY ARE BOTH SUCH VICIOUS LIGHTS OF HOPE AND LIFE AND UGH I LOVE EM.

I’m not here to talk about Kylo Ren, Reylo shippers or any of that. I’m too much of an adult to have a problem with people who like villains and people who ship the villain with the female protagonist. Like leave people alone. Don’t be coming into people’s DM’s acting like liking something in fiction automatically means they are okay with it in real life. Don’t act like this whole shipping the hero with the villain thing is new. It’s not, it happens, people always wants a redemption arc for the villains even if they don’t deserve it. Let people live. I don’t like Kylo Ren, I don’t ship him with Rey.  I’m not here for that discourse.

I am here to tell all you assholes who are going hard on Adam Driver for his portrayal of Kylo and his appearance to step the fuck off. You all need to learn how to separate character from actor. And you need to learn that insulting someone’s appearance just because they are the bad guy is hypocritical to the whole body positivity movement that most of you people are praising with your second breath. Adam Driver is an incredible actor, you know why I say that? Because if he wasn’t such a good actor then we wouldn’t have the violent, deep rooted responses we have to Kylo Ren. Adam Driver doesn’t deserve the shit you people throw at him. And that’s fact.

And lastly….I really don’t like the Porgs. I don’t and I’m sorry. I now understand how my dad feels about the Ewoks, I get it. I mean they were cute like the first few times I saw them but then they just…got obnoxious? It was too much to the point that it got stale. My dad is really bothered by the fact that they are birds but they have fur and like honestly that doesn’t bother me. It’s just the noise they make, it pierces my very soul and I just…I’m sorry but the little furry penguins didn’t do it for me.

….I loved the Crystal Critters tho…

But the overuse of the Porgs brings me to my biggest issue with the general humor of the movie. A lot of it got repetitious and was just not funny to me. The movie never took the time to slow down and take a breath like previous films, it was just constantly go, go, go. Which meant at times the jokes butted up against serious moments in a way that just didn’t work for me. They seemed ill timed and just didn’t always land with me.

The hardest I laughed was when Rey threw the lightsaber to Kylo and he used it to kill the guard that was choking him out. I saw the movie twice and both times I fucking died laughing at that part. That was funny to me and it wasn’t supposed to be, which really tells you something about the humor of the film.

But yeah…so if you made it all the way to the end of my long ass complex dissection of the Last Jedi, congratulations. Feel free to message me if you want to talk about anything in more depth. I am happy to talk about anything as long as it’s respectful. If you didn’t agree with something I said here, let’s talk about it. Let’s just be civil about it mkay?

Thanks friends. Here’s hopping Episode IX is better.

[smokeybrandreviews]

Welcome Back

I am a card carrying geek. I was that nerd in grade school, reading comics, watching anime, and larping with his friends during recess. I’ve always loved things like books and film, mostly because my ma had a penchant for the sci-fi and we would share in her hobbies. I’ve been a fan of Doctor Who since i was a wee lil’ Smokey and had a particular fondness for Max Headroom’s shenanigans. My chosen proclivities lend themselves to alternate universes, divergent timeless, and the interdenominational doppelganger or two. What i am trying to convey, here, is that i am not stranger to the revisit of a franchise. For me, rebooting an established work or expanding a loved lore is not a transgression. I am a fan of narrative. If you can tell a unique story, it really doesn’t even have to be that good, but something creativity and compelling, i am totally on board. This isn't as difficult a feat as you'd think considering how well Hollywood can adapt international films. The Ring and The Departed are effectively remakes of their original Asian fare and those films are spectacular. Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy is the best example of this i can give. His deconstruction of the Batman mythos was one of the best cinematic and storytelling experiences I ever had. If you can take an established narrative, an established universe, and inject your own flavor into it, i am down for that, too. The Kelvin Star Trek timeline immediately comes to mind. Again, comic book guy, specifically a Spider-Man shill.

While i have years worth of alternate Spider-Men in the books to pull from, i think the most concise example i can give for a layman is to think Into the Spider-Verse, only with thousands more Spider-Men and Spider-Women. That’s the world I'm broaching this subject from, where there are decades worth of stories and reboots and remakes and reimagings, basically revisits, of a character that i absolutely love. Some are great like the Ultimate Spider-Man or the world of Renew Your Vows, and some are not so great, like that version Abrams’ kid came up with. That whole story was the worst. We have actually seen a little bit of this narrative reincarnation in the Spider-Man film franchise, itself, both good and bad. If we take the very first Spider-Man films, those campy, Raimi classics, as a starting point, then we had a terrible reboot in the Amazing franchise and a rather brilliant reimagining in the MCU outings. I really like the MCU retool. Tom Holland is THE onscreen Peter Parker and you can fight me about it all day.

Jurassic World and The Force Awakens are an interesting situation in the whole Revisit discourse. Both of these films are effectively reboots of the entire franchise and a whole ass remake of their initial entries. Beat for beat, theme for theme, these two films are basically the same as Jurassic Park and Episode IV, just less than they are in every conceivable fashion. Now, on paper, i should hate this but i don’t. There is a reason both of the imitations made billions for their respective franchise and that is simply nostalgia. We. as a culture, were starved for a Jurassic sequel and new Star War. When we got these movies in earnest, no one cared they were rehashes of the films that made them so important to the cultural zeitgeist. It was like seeing A New Hope and that initial outing to Isla Nublar for the first time, for a second time, but with much better effects. It had been decades since either of these movies had a proper release so we all just accepted that these were refresher courses in the lore. It was with the sequels that these things sh*t the bed so hard.

Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi skewed so far from what these franchises were, from the rules that had been established in the preceding films, including the first in their new trilogies, that they were offensive. Legitimately offensive. Jurassic World and The Force Awakens, as flawed as they were, left their worlds in respectable places. The narratives that could be built from those starting point were incredible. That potential was palpable. Lucas, himself, said that the stories should rhyme and you see that in his six films. Familiar yet different. Nostalgic yet original. Respectful yet original. None of that was recognized in the follow-ups and that is why these two franchises are on life support. It’s sad because there was potential there. Characters introduced were compelling and narrative threads left unties, could have become something great. Instead, expectations were subverted and the world completely sh*t on in an effort to be edgy, to distance itself from the established lore. That sh*t is whack. It’s not about being a fan of the franchise or a zealous istaphobe or whatever else the Twatter mob wants to accuse people of being. It’s about bad story telling. it’s abut a complete betrayal of a decades old franchise. It’s a bout being disingenuous with the property for personal gain.

I said at the beginning of this essay that i love a revisit. That’s why i went to see these sh*tty films. I also made very clear that i love storytelling. Fallen Kingdom and The Last Jedi lack in that fundamental aspect, that’s why they suck. They’ve done irreparable damage to the entire franchise and canon of these worlds that were so meticulously crafted by proper visionaries. Michael Crichton is rolling in his grave at what became of his Dinosaur Westworld and Lucas effectively bogarded his way into running Lucasfilm again after they sh*t on his legacy and that’s the thing; Legacy. These two franchises are part of American culture. They’re as revered as Apple Pie and Institutional Racism here. They’re not cash grabs or vehicles to push your politics. They’re modern fairy tales, myths, and should be respected as such. The thing is, though, i don’t believe there are actual creatives out there that have the vision to create like Crichton or Lucas anymore. Or, at least, Creatives that are willing to work within the constraints of this ridiculous studio system.

Modern film studios are disgustingly risk averse. That is a problem with anything making entertainment media nowadays but it’s most egregious in Hollywood. Films like Star Wars and Alien were made in a time when budgets didn’t swell to hundreds of millions of dollars so directors had to do what he could, with what they had, and that level of imagination birthed classics. It’s rare that creators get a blank check to deliver their vision nowadays, and even rarer that what they get to make if they receive that loot, is actually good. Zack Snyder and the train wreck that is Sucker Punch demonstrates my point perfectly. the new Lucases and Camerons are rare but there are a handful of directors who carry that torch. Denis Villeneuve is an incredible visual storyteller. He has a distinct vision for the grand and manages to craft proper worlds. Blade Runner 2049 is one of the best films i have ever seen in my life but it didn’t make money because people have been conditioned to ignore great storytelling for great effects. That sh*t is why people can say to me, with a straight face, that they think Batman v. Superman is better than The Dark Knight rises. That sh*t is stupid, shut the f*ck up. Deni was given the reigns to the Dune reboot and i think this might be the film that breaks him through to the mainstream.

Dune is a reboot. It looks like a revisit to the old David Lynch flick but with Deni’s penchant for the epic. This movie feels like what Jurassic World and The Force Awakens wanted to do; A respectful acknowledgment of what came before but an original take going forward. Dune is one of the greatest sci-fi novels ever written and Deni is one of the most profound visionaries in the game right now.  I have no doubt the new film is going to be fantastic. This combination is a match made in heaven, similar to Alex Garland with Annihilation or, more accurately i think, Luca Guadagnino and Suspiria. Those two films are f*cking incredible and they adapt the source material in a very, specific, manner. Annihilation is a reimagining of the book and carries its own themes and tones while the new Suspiria is a complete reinterpretation of what came before, that i believe eclipses the original. Dune looks excellent but i don’t know that it will be well received. Deni has his work cut out for him because the world of revisits is riddle with the corpses of films that couldn’t care the weight of what came before or what could have been. Still, i don’t want Hollywood to stop. As unoriginal as remaking things is, i adore a fresh set of eyes on familiar fare. There are infinite ways to tell the same story and that’s the fun of revisiting an old tale.

[megabadbunny]

Star Wars ramble

I have thoughts about the new Star Wars, and this is where I shall barf them out. Spoilers ahead!

Holy hell this movie is a mixed bag. There were things I utterly adored, and things I absofuckinglutely hated. I saw the movie at a preview screening Thursday night and it has seriously taken me the last four days to really parse through stuff in my head, because this bag is so mixed, it’s like the overturned candy bucket of an overenthusiastic trick-or-treater whose neighborhood contains the best of the best and the bottom-of-the-barrel-est of the worst. In short, as far as I’m concerned, The Last Jedi is brimming with full-size Snickers bars and stale candy corn alike.

First, I wanna start out with some pros (gimme those sweet sweet Reese cups and boxes o’ Nerds, pleez!):

- ALL THE LEIA. Every single bit of Leia. 

- And no, it’s not just nostalgia/grief/rose-tinted glasses coloring my view here. Her character is just so excellent. Was her floating-through-space thing super cheesy? It sure fucking was, and I fucking loved every cheesy-ass second of it, because how fucking awesome is that??? Getting to see Leia use the Force in the weirdest, magical-est of ways?? Especially because, given Carrie Fisher’s passing, I was afraid they might have to cut Leia’s part short in the movie, so for a few minutes, I genuinely thought she might have been dead during the space battle. So seeing her come back just flooded me with happiness--and seeing her come back using the Force, surviving the motherfucking vacuum of space using the Force, was just one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen onscreen.

- Also, goddamn, Carrie Fisher’s acting is underrated. The moments where she could sense her son’s presence, the exchange with Luke, just, gah. All so beautifully done. And watching her butt heads with Poe was so satisfying. AND SEEING HER WITH A BLASTER AGAIN??? BE STILL MY FRANTICALLY HAMMERING NERDY HEART.

- Luke’s character arc in this was brilliant. Depressing? Yep. Heartbreaking? You betcha. But brilliant. I can definitely see why Mark Hamill took issue with it. All of our previous exposure to Luke (in the films, anyway) has shown us someone full of optimism, positive to the point of recklessness, brash and impulsive but caring and dedicated and overall committed to making the galaxy a better place. So to see him so bitter and closed-off--it hurt. But it also made sense. A person can only take so much heartbreak and pain and failure before they seal themselves off. And his return to form at the end of the movie was so much sweeter. I won’t lie, in many ways, I would have preferred things to have gone differently for the Skywalker family--not that everything has to be peaches and roses and sunshine all the time, but it feels like JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson might have shat on the Skywalkers a bit more than necessary for the sake of making things *~*dark*~* or *~*edgy*~* or *~*gritty*~*, a la Rowling in the seventh Harry Potter. But more on that later...and in the meantime, given the circumstances, I very much appreciated Luke’s portrayal.

- The Luke and Yoda parallels, I love them. 

- I appreciated seeing repercussions for the brash actions of certain characters, particularly Poe. I really liked Poe in this movie, and I really enjoyed seeing him be both right and horribly horribly wrong, since so many movies tend to idolize that type of character. It was refreshing for the movie to acknowledge the death toll involved in harebrained schemes gone wrong. It’s really easy to overlook the casualties of unnamed background characters in any war movie, but especially fantasy war movies; this movie didn’t shy away from letting us know that war is not glamorous, people do die, and it all takes a toll. I was deeply appreciative that Poe really took some of Holdo’s stuff to heart near the end of the movie.

And now, some cons, i.e., root beer barrels and Hubba Bubba gum:

- Gonna get the biggest one out of the way right upfront: The fuck is up with Rey’s parentage reveal. The actual fuck. Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate, in many ways, that this is a broadening of the Star Wars universe, and that the entire Star Wars universe does not revolve around the Skywalkers. I don’t have a problem with that. I have a problem with what feels like a bait-and-switch pulled by Rian Johnson. It really feels like TFA set things up to reveal that Rey was Luke’s kid--see this post for more on that, if you wanna go full nerd (and I doooooo), but long story short, why bother with Maz’s line about how the lightsaber was Luke’s, and his father’s before him, and “now it calls to you,” why when Rey touched the lightsaber would she have visions about events for which this particular lightsaber was not present, why have the TFA trailer voiceover with Luke saying “The Force runs strong in my family, my father has it, I have it, my sister has it, you have that power too,” why all the parallels between Anakin and Luke and Rey, why why why? Why show Rey’s memories of her family leaving interspersed with visions of Luke’s personal trauma? Why show her family leaving the planet only to reveal that they apparently drank themselves to death right on Jakku?

Rian Johnson claims he wants to subvert tropes and expectations, and while I can respect that, there’s a huge difference between subverting audience expectations and flat-out lying to your audience. At worst, he’s guilty of the latter; at best, he’s guilty of some very poorly-planned and lazy writing.

I know I have read before that originally, JJ Abrams was going to reveal Rey’s parentage in TFA but Rian Johnson asked him not to, and between that and bits of the TFA screenplay (”He looks at Rey. A kindness in his eyes, but there's something tortured, too. He doesn't need to ask her who she is, or what she is doing here. His look says it all”) and the fact that Daisy Ridley thought “it was obvious” and “the question was already answered” in TFA, not to mention that Rian Johnson talks about “making a choice” re: Rey’s parents--long story short, I would not be surprised to find out that JJ Abrams had originally planned to reveal that Rey was Luke’s daughter, but Rian asked him not to so he could pursue his own agenda. It just feels like a move worthy of Moffat-- “Ha ha, you thought this one thing because I all-but-explicitly said it was so, but actually, nope! Here’s something else! Ha ha!”

Like, Luke’s projection at the end of the film? That’s actually a great example of the subversion of audience expectations. We assume that Luke is actually there in-person, because why wouldn’t we? But hindsight shows viewers that the film actually contains a fair bit of precedent, hints, and setup for Luke to project his presence rather than show up in-person; for one thing, this isn’t the first time we’ve seen Force-projection in the film. For another thing, Luke says in the film, repeatedly, that nothing Rey can say or do will get him to leave his island, and it ends up being technically true (whoo foreshadowing). Then there’s the matter of how he looks different than he has for the majority of the film, and how his boots don’t leave imprints on the planet surface like everyone else’s.

Does the film want us to assume that Luke is there in-person? Yep! Is the film playing on our own presumptions and expectations and letting our brains fill in the blanks, even if they do it incorrectly? Sure is! But does the film lie to us? No. The clues are there, even if you don’t know to look for them on first watch. This subversion is earned. But this same well-crafted storytelling is simply nowhere to be seen as far as the reveal of Rey’s parentage is concerned. 

I’m sure some will argue that stuff like Rey’s weird endless-mirror-thing on the island offers enough hints that her parents are nobodies (showing her only herself when she asks about her family), that the film isn’t lying or retconning stuff from TFA. But for a film that relies so heavily on its predecessor in some ways, picking up literal moments, it seems, after the end of TFA, The Last Jedi just doesn’t seem all that interested in furthering a lot of TFA’s plot points. Who’s Snoke? Who cares! Finn and Rey have an intriguing and compelling relationship? Let’s put that on the backburner and introduce an entirely new person instead. Remember all the things in TFA that suggest a connection between Luke and Rey, whether familial or not? How’s about we give literally zero shits about that personal connection, at all, and pursue one between Rey and Kylo Ren instead? Let’s just drop a whole bunch of shit from the first movie, then come in with a battering-ram and say, “Oh, by the way, this thing isn’t what you thought it was. Psych!” 

Long story short, it would have been different if the deep Force connection between Luke and Rey had been explored in TLJ, to the point where you could tell that Rey is genuinely starting to wonder if Luke could actually be her father. It wouldn’t be too much of a stretch for her to wonder that, given the circumstances! But if you had tiny hints and foreshadowings sprinkled throughout, suggesting that maybe, possibly, she’s not from this famous, important family after all, no matter how desperately she wishes it--imagine, growing up thinking you’re nobody, and then realizing you could be the ultimate somebody!--then the final revelation that her parents aren’t just no-names, they’re despicable shitheads who sold their daughter for drinking-money--that would be absolutely crushing. As it is, it’s just sort of frustrating. The movie had ample opportunity to tie in her attachment to Luke with her familial issues; finding out that Luke isn’t her father, that they’re not family, would be a powerful potential breaking point for her. Especially if, at some point near the end of the film, Rey realizes that her garbage biological family doesn’t matter--it’s the family she has chosen for herself, Luke and Leia and particularly Finn, that’s important.

I’m not saying Rey has to be a Skywalker--I’m saying that the movie did a very bad job revealing the fact that she isn’t. The setup makes for a very unsatisfying payoff, not to mention it kind of feels like the audience was lied to. It feels like Rian Johnson sacrificed storytelling for the sake of putting his own *~*dark*~*~ and *~*~gritty*~*~* and *~*~*realistic*~*~* spin on the Star Wars story. To me (and I’m sure to many others), this revelation did not feel earned, but rather slapped on.

- Not a huuuge fan of the gritty grimdark trend, especially not a huge fan of it in Star Wars. Does the Star Wars saga as a whole have its dark moments? Certainly, and most of them are well-earned. But the whole “Look, another Vader” + Luke’s self-imposed exile + Han and Leia’s separation + Han’s death + the dissolution of the Rebellion/Resistance + being sent right back to square one with the Empire, mark II + Rey’s even-more-tragic-than-we-initially-believed backstory all starts to feel like a bit much after a while. Like “Look how dark and depressing we are, look how edgy, look how subversive.” In an age where the cinema seems obsessed with ultragrittygrimdark stuff and unfettered cynicism, this is not subversive or new; this is part of the new status quo.

- STOP SAYING THE WORD “HOPE” IT’S LOSING ALL MEANING DEAR SWEET BABY JEBUS

Mmmkay back to some Skittles-pros, because those cons were rough and now it’s good candy time again:

- Finn exists in this movie. And I luff him. Ahhhhhhhhhhhh <3 <3 <3

- LIGHTSABER FIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIGHTS ermergerd the lightsaber fiiiiiiiiiiiights

- Super fun aerial battles, woot woot

- Kylo’s character development is sooo interesting. I enjoy how on one hand he’s a petty entitled manbaby, but on the other hand, that unbridled rage makes him super unstable and kind of terrifying??? Like even to the point of just slaughtering the fuck out of his Master? Like holy shit dude, you need some therapy like nobody’s business. I waffled on whether I trusted Kylo--which makes sense, given that Kylo himself doesn’t seem entirely certain of his affiliations, except that he’s ultimately looking out for No. 1. The movie did a great job of making me very curious to see where they’ll take Kylo next!

- Rose is adorable and I really loved watching her geek out at the beginning of the movie. And her sister’s death, and her response to it, was just heartbreaking.

And now back to the cons, aka toothbrushes and pennies:

- The casino planet was kind of cool to look at, but ultimately a waste of time. Like a huge waste of time. Cut the casino and Del Toro’s character out of the movie and barely anything is affected. 

- The whole “It’s salt” bit. Why does it matter. Why did this need to be pointed out. Was Disney afraid people would think the red stuff was blood...? Also why did the guy feel compelled to put dirt/salt in his mouth. People’s shoes have been there. Dat’s nasty. 

- The movie did Phasma dirty. Both movies did. Again, you could have taken Phasma out of both films and it wouldn’t really have made much of a difference. Phasma is like the Boba Fett of this trilogy, except even less impactful, somehow??? Which is just a shame because she’s so fucking cool! Not to mention the only real female villain in the Star Wars filmverse! as;dlkfja;oseirja;weoraie;jr

Some more treats, perhaps?

- Yoda’s scene really got me. At first I was a little iffy, but as it went on, I liked it more and more. And his message about learning from failure was just particularly poignant. And I’m so glad they used puppet-Yoda. I don’t care if you can tell it’s a puppet. It still looks a hundred times better than full-CG-Yoda. :P

- As always, the music is wonderful--but I feel like that goes without saying! It’s John Williams, of course it’s wonderful!

- Also as always, the production design is just so frikkin’ good. The costumes, the sets, the ships, and a much better blend of animatronics/models + CG than we’ve seen just about anywhere else in recent years. Everyone on the creative team did a fabulous job of bringing new ideas to the table while also making it still feel like this is all set in the same galaxy that we first saw and fell in love with in the original trilogy. Also thank you to the costume designer for not giving Leia Dracula-butt-shaped hair in this movie. <3

Another stick or two:

- Why the hint of romance between Finn and Rose...? Why the kiss...? They’ve known each other for literally less than a day, why are they talking about love and kissing on the mouth????

- Is it just me or did Chewie kind of get sidelined...? Like completely...? And why is it necessary to suspend Leia in a coma for a goodly chunk of the movie? This movie suffers from multiple instances of “characters can’t or won’t reveal their plans or thoughts to others, mostly for highly contrived reasons if reasons are even given at all, so a bunch of dumbfuck misunderstandings ensue that could and should have easily been resolved, all because we took the easy/lazy way out,” and, bleh. Lazy writing.

- Too many new characters dividing our attention and investment. Del Toro’s character should have been removed and Rose should have been our code-breaker; Holdo’s character traits and actions should have been split up between Leia and Poe. (Not that I want to see Poe die, but in a film with such strong themes of failure, loss, and learning, it would have been more impactful and made more sense for Poe to learn from his earlier recklessness and sacrifice himself rather than endanger others, as opposed to a one-off character we didn’t have any time or inclination to emotionally invest in.) A movie is like a pie; the more characters who take a slice, the smaller each slice is, and characters like Leia, Finn, Rose, and Chewie all deserved bigger pieces than they got, dammit.

- Seriously why the fuck didn’t Holdo just tell Poe what she was planning???? The mutiny side plot was interesting, I guess, but mostly it just seemed like her character--for all that she was actually highly intelligent--was suddenly too stupid to realize that you can’t effectively execute a plan if your officers don’t know what that fucking plan is.

- Friend-spouse said this film gave very little payoff for anything set up in the first; work-spouse said this film’s dialogue was written like that of a comic book; spouse-spouse said this film reminded him of Return of the Jedi, in that it has some of his very favorite moments in the series, and some of his very least favorite. I am tempted to agree with all of the spouses.

- Overall this movie almost feels like a filler episode in a TV series. A few things happen to push the story forward--Luke, Kylo, and Poe’s character development, for example--but so much stuff just sort of seemed to happen for the sake of happening, and could have been trimmed, if not excised completely, to make for a stronger movie.

And to end the post on a positive note:

- Luke’s moments of punking his nephew/generally being a sassy bitch = amazeballs

-  DAT JUMP TO HYPERSPACE RIGHT THRU THE ENEMY SHIP THOUGH as;dlkfjasofijASLEIRJWOEIRJEORIlskdjfaoierjw;aeorijLASJIEFORIWEJ ER MER GERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD

- Stupid cute adorable Porgs, arrrrrgh, we hates them, precious, yes we do

And that’s it! I definitely want to watch it again, will for sure own it, certainly enjoyed it more than Rogue One. But yeah, not gonna lie: I’m actually looking forward to JJ Abrams’ return for Ep IX.

[crystalnet]

Favorite 5 Consoles of All Time

Consoles are fun to think about. This is a given for any gamer. Beyond just being the things that we play our favorite games on though, consoles can offer a unique experience unto themselves based mostly on the games they offer, but also in the way their individual characteristics set them apart from what comes before and after. When a console is successful, I believe that it has a sum-greater-than-its-parts effect, and feels like one big cohesive platform with something unique to offer. Without further ado, let’s get into it (this one is long)...

1. PS2

In my mind this one is almost indisputably one of the top three consoles of all time and the only way I can imagine it not being included in your top 3 or even your number 1 is if you either never owned one and never so much as played any of its classics, or maybe if you're way more into SNES or N64 having grown up with those. Or maybe the Dreamcast is preferable if you're kind of freaky (I get that), or you prefer OG playstation because of the plethora of dank, god-level JRPGs. As for other 6th gen consoles, maybe you are a Halo and Fable freak so you go for the OG Xbox (only Microsoft machine I respect) or you just have a weird thing for the Gamecube's comparatively skimpy but eclectic offering of 1st party titles and others (Sunshine, Mansion, Melee, MGS Twin Snakes, the "Capcom 5", yeah, I get that too). So yeah, basically you're wrong if you don't say PS2 is the greatest of all time unless you have a weird but understandable fetish for any of those several other consoles I mentioned.

For me though,  PS2 was my very first console. I was a bit late to the party due to only owning a Gameboy Color and later Advance throughout the 90s, so lucky me, I was rewarded for my patience with this beast of a console, going straight from 32-bit handheld titles like Mario Kart Grand Prix-- skipping right over the polygonal, blocky era of N64/Sega Saturn/PS1 that have unfortunately aged pretty poorly for me-- straight to the rich graphical prowess of this unstoppable machine. I couldn't have asked for a better introduction to console gaming, for in the following years I would have my formative experiences with some of the most eclectic and deep games I have ever played to this day.

Exclusives on this thing are, in my opinion, probably the best of any console ever, beating out even most if not all Nintendo consoles in terms of its exclusives which is no mean feat given that exclusives are  Nintendo's bread and butter. But everything from Tekken 4, to Final Fantasy X, to Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter, to Kingdom Hearts, to Persona 3 and 4, to Katamari Damacy, to MGS 2 and 3... to...to... I could keep going for a while but probably should avoid devolving into listing, but a lot of those games are still to this day my favorite experiences, and they run the gambit in terms of genre, with everything from fighters and platformers to JRPGs and puzzle games and tactical espionage survival-shooters (or I should just say MGS3) being represented excellently. To me, these games and a few others might just be the peak of gaming as far as I’m concerned. PS2 is that perfect sweet spot for me, before things got maybe a tad too complicated and loaded down with overworked graphical spectacle but after the unbridled potential that SNES and PS1 games teased at, with the 6th generation's best titles delivering on that promise and then some.

It's especially impressive to me and worth noting that this console doesn't have anything in the way of a mascot like a certain plumber or hedgehog, while also not having a single killer-app, must-own title either, like Halo was for Xbox. Unlike Gamecube or Xbox, there wasn't a single game that you just knew a person was going to own if they had a PS2 back in the day, whereas Smash Melee or Halo seemed like default games for their respective consoles. This speaks to the eclecticism of the console's lineup. It had pretty much anything that was conceivably multi-platform while also having tons of unique games made by devs that were loyal to Sony and pretty much only Sony during this time. Square Soft (still Soft for just a bit longer..) and Konami bolstered the system by putting out some of the greatest Final Fantasy and Metal Gear games in the franchise while lighter platforming fare like Jak and Daxter and Ratchet and Clank from Insomniac and Naughty Dog made good on the promise of previous genre's 3D platforming excellence. Indeed this was the last time 3D platforming would really be a big thing, but the genre went out on a great note due to these two series’ and the Sly Cooper titles to a lesser extent (stealth platforming).

With Crash out of the game, Sonic's cache quickly fading and others like Spyro or Rayman being relegated c-list status, these two titles combined sand-box gaming (in Jak's case) and inventive shooting-centric combat (in Ratchet and eventually Jak's case) with the now classic tenets of the genre that Super Mario 64, Crash and Banjo Kazooie set precedents for. And both of these power-duos kind of vie for a role as Sony's mascot, but I think it pretty quickly became apparent that the whole idea of a mascot was by then both passe and unnecessary, unless he was Mario or Master Chief (indeed Mario is kind of so uncool that he has always remained cool unlike Sonic or Crash, while Master Chief with his sci-fi para-militaristic edginess made older leading characters shrivel upon comparison (save for like Solid Snake or that Half-Life 2 guy maybe)).

That's kind of a tangent though, but I think the way that the console doesn't have any single one game or franchise that everyone hails as the quintessential  PS2 is part of what makes the console's line-up so strong. There was also an especially strong presence of combo-heavy hack-and-slash titles like God of War and Devil May Cry which aren’t really in my wheelhouse but I do respect them. More relevant to the purposes of this blog and my own penchant for JRPGs, this console is far and away the best console for JRPGs during this generation. Dreamcast comes in 2nd place probably for JRPGs this gen, with Gamecube just on its heels, and while they both have their fair share of titles, PS2 comes out on top easily almost based solely on that fantastic run of Final Fantasy games, from X, to XI, to XII (XI is multiplat but good lord, I spent hundreds and hundreds of hours on this MMO, and it was kind of a big deal to even be playing an MMO on a console, not to mention the greatest MMO of all time). Add in the SMT/Persona games and you have one of the top 3 consoles for JRPGs of all time, alongside the PS1 and SNES, based almost solely off of two franchises. But then there's also the excellent Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy games from Level 5, the Kingdom Hearts games (say what you will, they're solid), stand-outs like Odinsphere from VanillaWare, and the sort-of-trashy but sort-of-brilliant games like the Dot Hack titles (okay those are only brilliant to me), and these and many more round out a very strong presence for the genre, including stuff like Xenosaga and Dragon Quest VIII, both of which I still need to get to. There’s literally probably 1000+ hours worth of solid JRPG experiences on this console given the sheer amount of them.

So yeah, this console is just kind of god-level all around. Multi-platform titles like SSX3 and Resident Evil 4 have a strong presence as well. Throw in pretty decent online functionality back when that wasn't a given and DVD/CD compatibility and you have something that truly felt like an all-purpose entertainment console. Oh and the Dual-Shock 2 was the best controller at the time, and probably at that moment was the best controller so far (I would say it still is but the Dual-Shock 4 is a strong contender despite slightly lacking battery life). So yeah, this thing is a beast. I could talk about it all day because I feel like it deserves that but I should move on before I start doing extended commentary on each and every unique 5-star game this thing offered. I'll leave you with this... Picture it... Christmas morning 2002. Kingdom Hearts came out in March and you've been patient all year. Biding your time. This Xmas, your mother is finally coming around to the idea of a console and you know what you must do... for your first games you carefully select Tekken Tag Tournament, Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 and Tactics (respect discounted PS1 gold) and a certain goofy-as-hell, but beautiful crossover game.. all year you've been pining over the ad-spot that played during Toonami featuring that unstopable J-Pop Utada Hikaru song and now... at last, in front of your whole family, you boot up the PS2 for the first time and behold, your just desserts...  Dame Utada. And yes, the whole family is on board with this otaku dreamscape. Dream on gamerz.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKsX02Zc9eE

2. Wii

Moving right along. We jump ahead in time all of 4 years from when I first got PS2 and 6 years total from when PS2 first dropped and we arrive at the undoubtedly troubled but still deeply worthwhile 7th gen. And while Microsoft and Sony were unveiling they're grotesquely expensive bionic bastardizations of a console, strapped down with overly pricey bells-and-whistles that put the focus on everything but actual gameplay, Nintendo had cooked up something drastically different with the Wii-- a weird, slightly under-powered, quirky-as-hell at best, gimmicky-as-fuck at worst, and comparatively compact and cheap console simply called the Wii (originally titles the Revolution). It's fun to think back to the excitement and promise in the months leading up to the launch of the Wii... a whole new kind of controller and way of playing. A console that seemed to have a real philosophy that wasn't based solely around pretty as fuck graphics that would make your eyes bleed. And that excitement lasted well into the first year or so of the console. Wii Sports is a behemoth of cross-generational accessibility, and made for some very fun Christmas mornings across the planet, I imagine. Twilight Princess, though in actuality a delayed Gamecube title, was super solid and one of the better launch games of all time. Then there were other lighter, motion-control heavy titles early on like WarioWare Smooth Moves, Rayman Raving Rabbids or Super Monkey Ball Banana Blitz that were fun if uneven and a little jank-y. Rounding it out were games like Red Steel (ghetto but kinda fun!) and Excitebike (underrated!) that round out the genre diversity. So yeah, not a bad launch really. The big problem with the Wii though, was keeping up the impressive momentum that it started with. 

The gestalt of the system was always very strong. An impressive interface that was fun and easy to use with relaxing "zen" feeling ambiance added to the relaxing and intuitive feeling of the console. The stark white and minimal presentation of the menus and the console itself, clearly inspired by Apple products and pre-figured by the gorgeous Nintendo DS-lite by about a year, were preferable to what Sony and Microsoft were doing. And the whole anti-graphical prowess, pro-innovation thing-- especially in retrospect-- seem kind of punk rock. In my mind, things got kind of nasty for gaming around this time, with the rise of Madden and Halo gamer bros, and the ridonculous price-tags of  PS3 and 360 making things feel both played-out and overwrought. But with the Wii, Nintendo offered a panacea. One that came with its own unique flaws and pitfalls mind you, but a panacea nonetheless.

The great Achilles heel of the console though, was the slow trickle of games. I think it's a shame that the console had this problem, but it's also pretty damn understandable. With lower graphical prowess, big triple-A titles had trouble living on this console, and devs were a bit reticent to develop for such a strange, motion-control-centric console. The whole idea of the wii remote and motion-control was brand new, and to my knowledge only existed before this in Kirby Tilt-&-Tumble (a really dope Gameboy Advance gyroscopic pinball riff). Nintendo should have realized that this was going to be an issue and either ramped up their 1st party projects or figured out a better way of courting third-party devs. The weird thing is, that by the end of the console's lifetime, the line-up actually comes outlooking pretty damn strong. And it's easily in my top 5 libraries of all time (is top console and top console library a different list?). But it's just that it took all 6 years of its life to get there. And as a gamer in high school, I felt this slow-trickle of strong releases very acutely. And when I look back, I realize it may simply have to do with a nearly-fatal lack of JRPGs initially and for much of its lifetime. Now this whole generation is kinda stinky for JRPGs and I'm just about to write a whole post on that, but still, I shouldn't have had to rely on the impressive albeit well-worn selection of Gamecube and Virtual Console titles to get my JRPG kicks while I waited.

The thing is, this console actually has 2 of the best JRPGs of the era, but they came out very late and almost not at all. It's all thanks to X-Seed's fantastic localization efforts that we even have the fantastic Xenoblade Chronicles and Last Story-- both of which Nintendo was frustratingly hesitant to even release in the west. So again, even though it took a while, the console ends up with super strong offerings in the long-run. First-party games were more the story of this console than any other Nintendo console, which is really saying something given their habit of relying on them. But here, they were especially dependent on their flagship franchises. Indeed, Mario Galaxy and Metroid Prime 3 are some of the best games of their respective franchises, not to mention Twilight and eventually Skyward, which I much prefer but paradoxically didn't like initially (plus it came at the tail-end like a lot of the other good ones). It seems like there's a big stretch there between the end of the first year and the last couples years of the console where pickings were just a bit too slim. But quirky third-party titles like No More  Heroes and Muramasa were excellent and proved that other developers like Suda51 and Vanillaware could knock games out of the park on the console, showing that Nintendo themselves weren't the only ones capable of this.

Indeed, by the end of the console, shit is solid as hell. My favorite version of Resident Evil 4. A very solid Fire Emblem game, when those were still kind of new to the states. Smash Brawl. Like you can't fuck with these games. So while I might seem like I'm spending a lot of time talking about the slight lack of high-quality games just to say that by the end that said library is actually super strong, it's because I can't overlook the flaws this thing had for a decent stretch of time there. It's just that I really love the Wii at this point in my life, but that I am still aware of my issues it had-- hell I'd even say I had a bit of a love-hate relationship with it. I simultaneously scorned the hardcore experience I felt I was missing out on while also wishing at least some of those games could exist on the Wii. At their worst, games could feel cheaply made and gimmicky, but then the very best games made the Wii and its unique controls feel like the pinnacle of gaming that gen. In retrospect though, even it's "flaws" at the time almost seem like strengths.

Yes, this console could be gimmicky, and roughly a third of the 1200 some odd titles are shovel-ware. It probably should have been like $50-100 dollars more expensive for the purposes of having a more impressive graphics card and Nintendo really needed to figure out how to either have more third-party exclusives or just more third-party support in general. BUT, despite all of that, this thing has ascended to legendary status in my mind. And I think it's strengths, and even some flaws, make it shine even brighter in my mind when I think of the ways that it represents something pure. With the Wii, Nintendo wanted simply to innovate and entertain. They didn't seek to blow us away with sheer processing power, and big, Hollywood-esque triple-A shooters that were as polished as they were soulless. No, instead they gave us something truly unique-- almost aggressively so, and everyone and their grandma and baby cousin benefited from it. And in a landscape where a lot of the glaring issues with big, dumb humdrum triple-A day-one DLC-baring titles continue to lack substance or anything remotely resembling a soul or anything in the way of spunk, the Wii and its philosophy on gaming is more valuable than ever. It prefigures what Nintendo continues to do with the next two consoles (to varying degrees of success) and it functions as a line drawn in the sand by Nintendo, by which they made more clear than ever before their goal to sing their own tune (N64 chose not to jump on the CD game and Gamecube has those mini-discs but were otherwise pretty regular comparatively). Moving forward, I think people have begun to realize that Nintendo's project is far more important than what Sony and Microsoft are doing in terms of sheer innovation and principles. While individual games on Sony and Microsoft games are still capable of being fantastic, those consoles lack a certain personality or cohesive aesthetic, whereas the Wii has it in spades. Nintendo had real guts for this, and a lot of it payed off very well, and I'll certainly be playing some of these games well into my septuagenarian years, as I imagine most of my generation will spend their retirement community days playing either Wii Fit/Sports or else maybe like PS8 Virtual Reality. And you know what? That sounds like a good time to this gamer.

3. Sega Dreamcast

Speaking of consoles with spirit and spunk. There's just something about the Dreamcast, and I know so many people would know exactly what I mean by that. Some kind of X-factor that is nigh impossible to pin point. Of course, the fact that it died off so pre-maturely and tragically certainly helps with the cult status. In fact I bought mine used 2 years after it ceased being sold new in stores (the Xmas after the big PS2 score), partly because of the ideal price-tag and cheap back-catalog of games, partly because I think I was going through my last Sonic the Hedgehog phase. But beyond it's unfortunate and rapid decline, the console is just special in a way almost no consoles seemed ever again after this generation save for like yeah probably the  Wii, or maybe the Switch and that's all. I love me some Sony to this day, but PS3 and PS4 feel more like the default consoles rather than like something unique and special like the Dreamcast was. Nintendo I think are the only ones that appreciate the idea of a console having a unique gestalt and philosophy, but whether it was intentional or not, Dreamcast also had that in spades. I don't know if it was intentional but there's something kind of... "urban" feeling about this console. Games like Jet Set Radio, Crazy Taxi and Sonic Adventure seemed to sport this specific kind of 90's lite-edginess that was a lot of fun and went well with the strong offering of sports games.

Then there are legendary games like Shenmue or Marvel vs Capcom 2 (eventually ported) that retain an arcade-y feel while also offering depth. Throw in some solid JRPGs including the first iteration of Phantasy Star Online (online on a console in 2000???), along with a solid Resident Evil entry, and a modded bootleg version of Metal Gear Solid 1, and you have a well-rounded winner of a console, with personality to spare. Of course, due to its untimely death, most of its games would be ported to the other more lucky gen-6 consoles, but certain titles-- most of which I've mentioned-- will always belong on the Dreamcast as far as I'm concerned. It's just one of those consoles where you weren't just playing a game that happened to be on Dreamcast. You were playing a Dreamcast game. Big difference.

The first of its gen, it was ahead of its time, with online functionality and a freakin browser(!!!), along with a unique controller that had a screen-baring memory card slot right there in the controller. In a way, it kind of vaguely pre-figures the Wii U a decade before tablet-centric gaming. Four controller slots made it more party-friendly than the PS2 (damn you multi-tap add-on) and I also just generally like the way the actual console itself looks compared to every other console around this time save for maybe the Gamecube, for what that's worth. In fact, I feel like Dreamcast kind of passed its torch off to Gamecube in the way that that console got a lion-share of Dreamcast ports including Sonic Adventure 2 Battle and Phantasy Star Online. Plus GC was the only other console in the gen to have the same kind of spunky individuality. PS2′s library was eclectic as fuck, but the console itself never felt as unique as the Dreamcast or Gamecube if only in terms of its sheer appearance or in terms of that ever-elusive x-factor. Hell, Gamecube has a much stronger library if I'm honest, but I already included the Wii which has backwards compatibility, and I never owned a Gamecube. But not to get derailed into changing my mind to include a console whose games I only ever played on my Wii while waiting for new Wii games to come out, I stand by the Dreamcast for what it represents and in a perfect world Sega, Nintendo and Sony will always be the holy trinity of console developers and Xbox never came along and eventually made things dumb and bro-y by the late aughties. Like I know it's not Microsofts fault, but ugh, what a bummer for the Dreamcast to be effectively replaced by the Xbox (I know Dreamcast's decline didn't have to do with Xbox per se, but still (indeed Microsoft helped Sega build the Dreamcast in the first place, in the process learning how to make their own watered-down bullshit console (truth be told, even though I'm a J-gamer through and through, I actually have a soft-spot for OG Xbox))).

But yeah, I just want the Dreamcast to know that I love it, and will always be here for it. Corny Sonic games and all (Sonic Shuffle is sick and underrated fyi). Dreamcast, you were not made for this world, but I will always love you despite the fact that there's only like 6 games on you that I'd ever want to revisit~

ps Also, it's just the best name for a console hands down. Like what even does "Dreamcast" mean (oh like broadcast I guess?)? It sounds cool and rolls off the tongue, and at least on some nights, is truly is the console of my dreams. Also, big ups to the modding community that kept this baby alive and still does.

4.  Nintendo Switch

Oh boy... now this is a bit ballsy seeing as this thing is all of 6 months old, but I can't deny how much enjoyment I've already gotten out of it already,-- or more importantly-- how much unbridled potential this thing has in every iota of its tidy little package. I feel I can include this because of some of the same reasons I raved about the Wii. In a landscape where PS4 and 360 seem a bit weight down by the sheer technical prowess of their most over-developed games, the slick and sporty and versatile Switch is a life-raft that does nothing less than breathe life into gaming in a time when pumping new ideas into the landscape is rare and ever essential, especially so given that triple-A developers are want to roll-out homogenized, open-world, over-the-shoulder uber-genre show-piece titles ad nauseum. The Switch is everything PS4 and 360 aren't while not being nearly as drastically outpaced technologically as the Wii was by its respective peers. Indeed, part of Nintendo's advantage is that they are essentially the sole inhabitants of the 9th generation (unless you count PS4 Pro or the whatever the deluxe Xbone is...). The Switch comes much closer to the graphical capability of PS4 and Xbone than the Wii did to it's respective peers while also offering unique handheld versatility, motion-controlling joy-cons, a touchscreen a la the problematic-if-promising Wii U AND the goldmine that is Nintendo's 1st party titles.

If Nintendo had a kind of uneven and weaker lot of 1st-party games on the Wii U, it seems like the Switch has them feeling inspired if Breath of the Wild is any indication. And yes, BotW is essentially a Wii U game, but good lord that game is fun to play in handheld mode, and what I have learned from the console, is that for me at least, most games are made exponentially better by simply having the option to be played on the go. Time will tell if the first-party entries will keep up the success of BotW though, but Mario Odyssey is almost certainly a slam-dunk for a 6-month old console, and Metroid Prime 4, the inevitable Pokemon and Animal Crossing games in 2018 seem to suggest that we won't have to worry about a lack of high-quality tiles. Really the only thing Nintendo has to worry about is that they keep a consistent flow of games coming out, namely good multi-platform and third-party titles in addition to the strong 1st party flagship titles that are probably on lock. And so far, so good on that front. There's been at least one big title every month, and the 3rd party and indie support seems to be strong in this one. Throw in some vintage-style JRPGs already on the console, and new big-budget ones like Xenoblade, and things seem to be infinitely promising for this little handheld/console combo that could. I think this shows that Nintendo has learned from the issues the Wii had, and that the Wii u had to an even larger extent, and are addressing it. 

The whole idea of creating a machine that effectively merges their predilection with handheld gaming with their big new console effort is a masterstroke on Nintendo's party. They have created a console in which big budget, triple-A titles can exist in a way that is arguably superior to the way their counterparts exist on PS4/XBO/PC simply because of handheld functionality. In this way, Nintendo can put big, pretty 1st and 3rd party tiles on it, while also putting a whole mess of good indie and low-budget and/or retro-style games like Spelunker World, Sonic Mania or I Am Setsuna (ported from PS4 but so much better on Switch (JRPGs are want to be played on the go when that is called for)). This has me most excited for what this means for JRPGs on the console, with things like Lost Sphere and Octopath making it seem like this might be Nintendo's best console for JRPGs since well Wii and Gamecube (JRPGs skipped N64 and basically Wii U entirely save for like Mario RPG and Tokyo Mirage Sessions/Xenoblade Chronicles X) and I write about that more elsewhere, but the fact that this range of kinds of titles can exist on the Switch may be a crucial boon for the console. So the next year or so will be proving ground for Nintendo, and these next few quarters are especially crucial, but things are looking very solid when you consider Mario Odyssey and Xenoblade 2 are just about to drop, closing out a super solid year 1 (calendar year that is, next March will be a true year).

So yeah, I'll have to check back in at the end of 2018, but assuming as many amazing first-party titles come out in 2018 as we have reason to believe they will, + RPG Factory’s Octopath, and I think next year will be just as strong as these initial months have been. It's a good time to be a gamer, and this is the most hopeful thing about this current era, so once again, Nintendo seems to be back on top in terms of promise and potential after a slightly problematic Wii U (problematic mostly just in terms of library. Wii U is fine but sports Nintendo's worst library since the NES or OG gameboy for my money). So yeah, this thing is great and kind of exciting in a way that gaming hasn't been since maybe the Wii. Your ducks are all in a row Nintendo, now it's time to slay.

5. SNES

I'll be honest upfront. Never owned one of these bad boys. In fact, as far as retro-gaming goes, I kinda suck. Not only have I not played as many retro classics as I should, I'm just generally not a good admirer of games that proceed PS2 or those classic PS1 JRPGs. And that's why this list has skewed so much toward the 6th generation and beyond. BUT I'm not fool enough to not be able to see just how many knock-out state-of-the-art masterpieces exist on this single, pixelated-sprite rendering bastion of a console. Like seriously, I always knew that this was kind of the advent of modern gaming, or represented a moment when things went from black-and-white if you will, to fully fleshed out, deep, and colorful experiences like Link to the Past and Super Metroid, but it wasn't until perusing the titles selected for the recently-released SNES Classic. Like seriously, the library on this thing is incredibly strong. Super Castlevania and Super Metroid and the Super Mario games alone make this the single greatest console for side-scrolling platformers and the beloved Metroidvania genre. Now it was only competing against the older NES and Sega's consoles basically but still, the fact that it didn't have all that much competition makes it even that much more impressive that it didn't skimp on games at all. It's also got fighting and racing in spades (Street Fighter II, F-Zero and Super Mario Kart) for multiplayer sessions and as if that wasn't enough, it also sports a handful of the greatest JRPGs of all time. Indeed, if not for the games Square Soft released for this console, the JRPG may not have taken off in the way it did by the time FFVII came out. Behold games including Final Fantasy 4, 5, 6, Chrono Trigger, and Secret of Mana (a multiplayer JRPG???) just to name the ones that must absolutely be mentioned,  all of which are paragons of JRPG excellence. They set a very high precedent for the genre going forward and all of their statuses have been securely enshrined in the halls of fantasy greatness.

Indeed, these 5 games alone force my hand in terms of including this console, and that means a lot for someone who is a bit of plebeian when it comes to the 16-bit era. It would be an obvious inclusion if I ever actually owned it, but even having missed out on it originally, I have the utmost respect for it and its games. So many of these games over the decades have gotten ported and re-released and remastered (esp on PS1 and Gameboy Advance) to the point where most gamers have encountered at least some of these games to some extent even if they got into gaming way after this generation. They are quite simply the gold-standard in gaming, and truly some of the most "classic" titles of all time, providing a truly inspiring precedent for what games can be. Sega Genesis/Master Drive had fantastic Sonic and Phantasy Star games, but Mario, Metroid, Castlevania, Zelda and the golden age Final Fantasy games are staggering individually and also when lined up next to each other, all of them offering perfectly archetypal iterations of their respective genres, containing within their cartridge's circuit-boards the sheer essence of gaming itself~ Shout-out/Runner-ups:

-Gamecube- again, never owned one but this thing is unstoppable (and I owned many essentials once I got a Wii), but with Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, Melee, Windwaker, Metroid Prime, Metal Gear Solid: Twin Snakes, Killer7 and other oddities, this is nearly tied with my other favorite Nintendo library, the Wii, which might only have a slight edge because the Wii has better JRPGs (even though it's only really 3 or so JRPGs, but still they're fantastic while the Gamecube is lacking any truly excellent JRPGs amongs its modest smattering of titles, including Tales of Symphonia, Evolution Worls and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles). Also, the lunchbox design and portability is really sweet. Solid controller also, with the Wavebird being my second favorite controller of all time after the Dual-Shock 2 (and then the Wii remote probably).

-PS1- My first couple years of owning a PS2 I was spending the bulk of my time playing Final Fantasy 7, 8, 9 and Tactics, and those along with several other of the dankest JRPGs of all time, make this the greatest console for JRPGs of all time imo (especially because most of the best SNES JRPGs save for Secret of Mana were ported decently to the PS1 (Chrono Trigger gets Toriyama-animated cut scenes!). And so while that genre is really the only draw for me to the PS1, there's obviously a wealth of other fantastic titles on it, and bless the PS2 for allowing me to play all of them).

-PS4- It feels stupider to put this than it did the Switch and the Switch is way newer, but still, I couldn't actually put this in the top 5 because most of the games that I really love on it are either also on Xbox One, PS3 or PC, so almost nothing on it feels truly exclusive but I still wanted to mention it. Like really, two of my favorite JRPGs of all time-- Persona 5 and Nier Automata-- came out for this thing this year but both are also available on PS3 and PC respectively. So yeah, I love this thing and use it literally all the time, and in the past year or so it seems to finally be coming into its own in terms of offering a unique experience that is remotely different than Xbox One, but these days the exclusive title is becoming more and more rare with only certain Final Fantasy games (the excellent Zodiac Age and decent Type-0 (and the twee World of..)) and like Bloodborne and Gravity Falls being true exclusives. But more are surely to come with Kingdom Hearts 3 and FF7R eventually coming out at long last sometime in the next few years (maybe??). Ni No Kuni 2 and Dissidia next January will also be exclusive. But yeah, beyond the mostly non-exclusive library, this thing has a good controller, good interface, good functionality and is just generally a good/ideal system. We did it, go team! -Wii U- Only mentioning this because I kind of ripped on this earlier and want to clarify: I have a soft spot for the Wii U, and appreciate that it kind of prophesizes what Nintendo would do with the Switch what with the way you could play games on the pad. It’s a really neat and functional idea hindered only by the fact that you can’t leave the room (minor for me since I basically never need to play a handheld anywhere except my house). I’d say this thing had two big problems though: One, it felt way more like an expansion or attachment for the Wii than a brand new console. And second and more importantly, they were not able to correct the issue the Wii had with third-party and it got even worse on this thing. The console has a handful of fantastic flagship games, with a couple of promising new franchises popping up (like Splatoon or the newly Nintendo-loyal Bayonetta) but even these first-party games lack the strength to sustain the entire console on their own. Really, this thing ends up being a bit of a bust unless your a Smash fanatic, or really love the HD Zelda releases (and eventually BotW) or if you are way into Xenoblade Chronicles X. And that’s how I am, so that’s literally 5 games. In like 5 years... I mean yeah there’s some solid old-school platformers, and Mario Kart and Splatoon but it just doesn’t quite come together for me. I figure it might grow on me in the same way the Wii did, but to a lesser extent because of the way the Switch feels like a superior version of it (or else an ideal hybrid of the Wii and Wii U) Whew, that was longer than I thought it'd be. But I love thinking about consoles! They're like the album of gaming or something. And the games on them are the songs? Idk that's a weird metaphor, but anyway, coming tomorrow: The Awkward 7th Generation and Mistwalker games~