#judging from the trailer its 4 main characters and 4 side characters which really is a tiny ass cast lol

[gunsatthaphan]

I just realized that THK actually has only 4 main characters! Which is good tbh...and that is why I think this trailer looks neat and all the characters got good screentime 😊😇

not sure if this is sarcastic or not fdjkgh but in case it's not then yes I agree!!! Like I love bigger ensemble shows for their variety but having a smaller cast opens the doors for a more detailed storytelling and more character depth so I'm happy that it's just the 4 of them for this more complex storyline. which probably does not mean less chaos lol - but I'm expecting them to dive a little deeper into everything.

xxx

[mllemaenad]

So – Bethesda broke Fallout 4's script extender. Because of course they did. What better way to celebrate the release of your new TV show than to stall people's ongoing playthroughs? Excellent work. I don't even want an Enclave quest. It's Creation Club nonsense, so it won't actually be a proper quest anyway.

I want to finish my Sim Settlements 2 playthrough. Ugh.

So while I'm waiting for the dust to settle on that, I thought I'd give Fallout 76 another go. I am rebuilding my mod list for Fallout 3, but that's a work in progress. And Fallout 76 is right there.

I created a new character, because I haven't played this thing in ages and I know they've changed a bunch of the mechanics. And oh - ha. I mean, I had thought from the beginning that creating a game without NPCs was a terrible idea, because it's hard to invest in saving an empty world. But the addition of them makes playing the game's original main quest a distinctly bizarre experience.

I don't mean that I'm suddenly pro-empty world. Not at all. In general the presence of factions and personalities and people you can care about it a good thing.

But when they made this game, the writers and quest designers were given "empty world" as a parameter within which they had to work. And they did.

It's sort of an interesting, even bold, choice for a storyline because it does not allow you to feel good about yourself at all. Most Fallout games do. Oh, you can play evil if you want, sure, and there are a handful of side quests that are genuinely no win scenarios. But mostly? You can save the world. And you will probably have a better experience if you try to: there's more to do when you talk to the NPCs and deal with their problems rather than just murdering everyone and taking their stuff.

But Fallout 76 is just judging you.

I keep thinking about its promotional song – that really upbeat cover of Take Me Home, Country Roads, and all the imagery in the old trailer, about rebuilding and looking to the future. But all of that is functionally a lie, and the key lines in that song come towards the end:

I hear her voice in the mornin' hour, she calls me The radio reminds me of my home far away Drivin' down the road, I get a feelin' That I should've been home yesterday, yesterday – Take Me Home, Country Roads

You should have been home yesterday. You should have been home a thousand yesterdays ago. This story is all about the past, and a rebuilding effort you neglected to join. It hits you with the guilt straight away, as the very first place the game takes you is an old outpost of emergency service personnel who just kept on doing their jobs after the bombs fell. It's their notes and recordings that teach you how to survive.

Of course you encounter less pleasant people later: raiders and Enclave, and honestly I have little patience for any iteration of The Brotherhood of Steel. But even there, you can see that the misunderstandings and conflicts and general fuck ups might have been resolved with a competent mediator.

And that is exactly what you are. You're a Fallout protagonist. You don't have the time to spend ten years sitting in a lab, but you excel at travelling from town to town and dealing with whatever obstacle is stopping a faction from moving forward. Fallouts 1-4 and assorted spin offs have taught us all that.

Even in universe, Vault 76 is stated to be full of literal geniuses. It is packed with doctors and scientists and engineers: exactly the people the world needed to deal with a combination of plague and environmental crisis.

If you were there, you could have fixed this.

But you were not there. You were sitting comfortably in a vault, while other, better people tried to save the world.

And they were almost there. They had a vaccine. Even with everything, they had a vaccine. They did the work, they had a plan. As you play through this quest, you stand upon the shoulders of giants at almost every stage, implementing the very last step in a plan that really does work. Had they lived, even a few months longer ... but they didn't, and you did nothing to help them.

It wasn't even necessary to spend 25 years in that vault, as it is abundantly clear that the area around 76 has been habitable this whole time. Challenging, sure: I am in no way suggesting that it was an easy existence. But it was not instant irradiated death.

Every other Fallout protagonist steps out of their vault (or other entry scenario) in time to make things right. Maybe just in time, but nevertheless. They walk into a fractured world and get to work. But not you. You took the easy route.

How proud are you of that Best Dental Hygiene award now?

Given that it is set so close to the Great War, and deals with first generation survivors, it gives one of the best looks at the cynical cruelty of Vault-Tec: when they talk about rebuilding the world, it only means rebuilding for its own benefit and profit. Anyone not part of their plan is more than welcome to die in a hole.

It ties in very nicely with the television series, actually. Lucy laments that she was waiting to rebuild the world, but it all happened without her - and Vault-Tec actively tried to destroy that new world (and at least up to a point, seems to have succeeded). Her people waited over 200 years, but it didn't take that long. Twenty-five were quite enough.

But with the new version ... I mean, it really takes the sting out of it. It looks like everybody had a few rough years there, but it's all turned out fine. There's a burgeoning civilisation here, with homesteads and caravans and trade. I can't go two steps without an NPC asking to borrow a bobby pin, and even the raiders are more territorial than outright destructive (although – is nobody going to go up that completely safe little hill and give poor Miguel a funeral? Come on guys, clean up the damn corpses).

The tragedy of the whole thing, and the weight of your own inaction, is largely gone. You can't reshape the world and still make the same impact with that narrative.

I don't know, I guess I just can't quite get behind the whole multiplayer-ness of the thing. The world can't really change as you complete quests. You can't really rebuild. But likewise, if the world does change, it has to change for everyone at the same time, regardless of where they are in the story.

It could still work, I think, if you could play through that story and then see the caravans come over the hill, and start to rebuild the world.

Because that might feel a bit like redemption.

[ruiyuki]

wow yall blew up my Turning Red and Representation post over night...

Here's a more detailed compilation of Torontonian and Chinese Canadian easter eggs I found after dissecting the Turning Red teaser to highlight the detail in this film:

1. We had diversity representation with the gay couple walking down the street, diabetic classmate, Sikh security guard and POC classmates of all shapes and sizes. I'd also like to point out this one:

Wheelchair accessibility at Mei's school. Toronto passed a motion in 2000 to make all public buildings accessible by 2008. Since Lester B Pearson (who was one of our former prime ministers) Middle School says it was established in 1914, they probably added the accessibility ramp in the early 2000s judging by the different colour in cement (it's more white meaning its newly installed).

2. Graffiti on the roofs of buildings and graffiti mural in the basketball alley.

An aesthetic of Toronto is that most Downtown homes were built in the 1930s 1940s and 1950s. By the 1980s, homes on the main streets were refurbished to become store fronts hence why Chinatown looks half residential and half retail. But even with refurbishing a lot of graffiti is left on the walls of buildings and by the 2000s there was a revitalization effort (at least from what I remember) to create art pieces out of it. Full murals are painted the side of building walls and we even have a Graffiti Alley (literally a dinky back alley way off Queen Street full of graffiti) as an official art installment and city tourist spot.

3. Signature Toronto buildings.

From my previous post, the temple like structure is probably situated somewhere along the Dundas Street section that runs East-West through of Chinatown. The rooftop shot of Mei running is a South facing camera angle (probably not exactly from Spadina Avenue, but the smaller residential streets next to it) that gives a nice view of the SkyDome (now called the Rogers Centre) where the Toronto Blue Jays play their home games.

The cluster of tall skyscrapers next to the CN Tower from the Spadina Avenue angle is the Toronto Financial District (basically Toronto's Wall Street). There more condos now (bottom photo, 2016 taken by me) around that skyline but the tallest white building in the title shot is the Bank of Montreal Tower (one of our Canadian Banks).

4. More Toronto aesthetic details.

Posted speed limit in residential areas and alley ways are 30km/hr across the city.

Toronto silver garbage bins in from the 2000s. Newer public garbage bins are blue and gray and have a foot pedal to step on for opening, I don't remember seeing those installed around the city until 2008 at earliest.

Canada Post box. Have not changed.

Lots of Chinese characters on signage in Chinatown.

They even got the license plates correct. Ontario licence plates are white with blue text where plate numbers are 3 or 4 letters preceding 3 number digits with a crown in between ("ABCD 123"). Newer plates since 2018-2019 are blue with white text because the government decided to change it.

5. Chinese Canadian household details.

Book on Chinese Gardens and a Chinese newspaper in the top right. Toronto has a local Chinese Newpaper press called "Sing Tao" headquartered in Downtown Chinatown. I don't doubt this old man went to pick up a copy every Sunday for $2 in 2002 while stopping by the Tim Hortons the next building over to pick up a small coffee.

Chinese talisman hanging on the door to bring fortune and ward off bad luck entering the home.

THE BROOM. Loose straw style broom is sold at the Chinese Supermarket or speciality housewares shop which there were two of along Dundas Street. I literally have this same broom at home 😂

Just from this 1 minute 50 second trailer alone, Director Shi and the Pixar team really added in so much Chinese Canadian and Torontonian nuance. Not only does it capture the experience, it is time-period accurate. I'm so happy this story is finally being told on a big screen to showcase the distinct features of Toronto and its multiculturalism. Because growing up Chinese Canadian, we were never fully a Canadian stereotype nor were we fully just Chinese. I was taught in school that America is a melting pot of cultures but Canada is a multicultural mosaic and 20+ years later, I still stand by that.

To say it again, Representation Matters.

[theexpanse]

DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! That alert is for the people of Earth, considering that the last shot we saw on season 4 of The Expanse was of Belter villain Marco Inaros (Keon Alexander) sending cloaked asteroids hurling toward our fair planet.

The impending arrival of those asteroids in season 5 of the show — which premieres Dec. 16 on Amazon Prime Video — is especially bad timing given that one of our favorite Earthlings, burly Rocinante mechanic Amos Burton (Wes Chatham), just happens to be on his way to Earth himself. And judging by this exclusive first-look season 5 photo we have of a blood-splattered Amos (above), things are not looking too hunky-dory for the bearded wonder in his hometown of Baltimore.

What awaits Amos down on the surface? What will happen when Naomi (Dominique Tipper) finds out her long-lost son Filip (Jasai Chase Owens) is an active part of daddy Marcos' team? And why should we be keeping our eyes on Mars for clues as to what's to come? We chatted with Expanse showrunner Naren Shankar to get the scoop on season 5.

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: So is season 5 just going to be book 5, Nemesis Games, or are we going to see some season 6 in there, or some new bridge material like you did last season? What are we looking at?

NAREN SHANKAR: You know how it's worked over the years. It's like certain story lines get pulled forward, other stuff gets pushed back sometimes. Character elements get combined into other stuff. There's definitely some elements of book 6 in this season, I would say, but it's largely drawn from book 5.

Let's start big picture, and then we'll drill down on a few things. If I just walked in and said, "What's the big crux of season 5? What's the big story you're telling here?" What would you say to that?

I'll give you the theme, because that's probably the easiest way to look at it. The theme really is about the sins of the past. To one extent or another, that's every single story line, whether it is Naomi personally confronting the fact that she had a son with this very charismatic, and now quite violent, revolutionary-type leader. Whether it's Amos connecting to his past, or going back to Earth for reasons that we're not quite sure of. Whether it's Holden's past with unleashing the protomolecule. Whether it is the past geopolitical history of the Belt, and its relationship with the inner planets, which we see through Avasarala.

That's really what the season is about. It is connecting all of the things that we have done in our lives to the moment of the present that we are in. It's like everything comes to a head all at the same time.

We ended season 4 with Marco letting these asteroids off towards Earth. What do you want to say about that impending arrival?

Well, it's coming. It's coated in stealth, so it's very hard to see, and there's a whole bunch of them. From the end of season 4, the last image that we left with was Marco looking at the plotted trajectory of all of these asteroids. The last image that you see is a whole lot of them that are lined up to hit Earth in its orbit. So, they're coming.

Let's segue from that to Naomi. What's Naomi's mission here? We see a little bit in the trailer with Marco, and her son. What is she going to look to do here in season 5?

Well, I think at the end of season 4, the message she sent to Fred Johnson was, "I need to get in contact with my son. I'm calling in that favor that we set up way back in season 1. I'm calling in that favor. I really need to find my son, because I'm afraid that his father is going to get him killed."

It's that she understands, or she's seeing that Marco is on the rise, and she knows the kind of person that he is. After years of feeling like, "I can't reconnect. I abandoned him. I left my kid," she's determined to reach out to him, and try to save him from somebody that she thinks is really a terrible person.

What is awaiting her when she gets in contact with her son and sees who he has become?

Well, I think maybe the way to answer that is, the reunion that she is hoping for is probably not the one that she's going to get.

I mean, we saw what happened with that airlock at the end of last season.

He doesn't bake her a cake.

What's Holden's take going to be on Naomi and the spot she's in, and this mission that she's on?

The two of them are together. The question marks of, "An Earther and a Belter, can we be together?" They have chosen each other. They've chosen to be on the Roci. They've gone through a tremendous amount. That's true for the whole family. That's true for Amos. It's true for Alex, the group. It's like the most warmest and connected beginning for them that we've ever seen. I think that that's an interesting outgrowth of the fact that we really took our time building up that family unit from season 1 on.

After the events of season 4, after everything they went through on Ilus, it's like they are a bonded group that… It's just their chosen family. It has that feel to it. There's a connectedness and warmth to the relationships of all of our four main people on the Roci, and that's reflected in Holden and Naomi.

It's part of the fun of getting into deep runs of shows if you do them properly, is that you really do develop the relationships. If you think about where these guys started in season 1 to where they start in season 5, it's a pretty interesting change. And it feels believable, because you're taking the time to actually set it up. We're starting Holden and Naomi from, I think, a very warm and supportive place at the beginning of season 5.

I want to ask you what's happening on Mars, and if there's anything there that might be something that might connect later to, say, book number 7 and what we may be seeing down the line a bit on The Expanse? Obviously, there's some long-term stuff happening in Mars that you may be planting some seeds for.

Yes! Absolutely. See, this is spoken like a book reader. There absolutely is, and we actually teed it up at the end of last season, as Bobbi got involved in the black-market arms trade. There are little pieces of it that are popping through the surface even then.

Part of what was going on at the very end of season 4 was they were selling stealth composites to Belters. Those are the stealth composites that Marco uses to coat the asteroids. And, if you look really carefully at the end of season 4, it's Filip who's one of the Belters that is blowing up things on Mars.

Bobbi doesn't know who that is, but that's Filip who helps blow up that salvage yard at the end of season 4. But, absolutely the tip of that conspiracy that we started at the end of last season plays an incredibly important role in season 5.

As you talk about the Belters, I gather that we are going to be seeing more Belter factions. What it was like to think of all these different subgroups that we're going to see, and the different motivations and things they might have? I imagine that was pretty fun to put together.

It really was. Again, I think one of the things that we've really tried hard to do to really dimensionalize the conflict. It's like, you're seeing every side of it. We've driven down into Earth. We've driven down into Mars. We've driven down into Belt. We've driven down into the independent faction of Holden and the Roci gang.

In terms of the Belt specifically, at the end of season 4, Drummer walked away from the OPA. She walked away from politics and Fred Johnson, and didn't take Ashford up on his offer of being his XO. She struck out on her own, trying to create a life for herself in this very tumultuous world. Well, politics, and war, and strife, they have a way of finding you. It's hard to avoid them. What we're going to find from her in season five, her story line speaks to that very directly.

One of my favorite stories in all the books is Amos going to Baltimore. I'm really excited to see that. What can you say about his time back on Earth?

I think you're going to love it. It's one of the things that I have been looking forward to doing for years. We talked a lot about it because The Churn is a fantastic novella. What we've done over the course of the series is, we have found a way to express these novellas into our narrative in a way that they're not really done in the novels proper.

You're going to get that. I think people who have read that novella, especially, but I think fans in general, even people who've never seen the show, they're just going to love this. It really is one of my favorite story lines we did this season.

What can you just say about what he's facing there, or why he's going there?

Well, without giving too much away, there have been times when Amos has had a chance to go back to Earth, even at the beginning of season 4, when the Roci was in orbit around Earth. Amos didn't go back down there.

Reaching back into season 3, when that reporter Monica Stuart was interviewing him. She was talking about, "Isn't it funny that you got the name of a mob boss?" He said, "Oh, it's a common name in Baltimore." And, "Oh, yeah, how'd you get out there? You ended up in the lottery really fast." There's a lot of mystery attached to Amos' backstory around Baltimore. Without telling specifically why he heads back, you're going to get a lot of answers to it. Things are going to feel really, really satisfying because it illuminates a side of him that nobody else on the Roci gets to see. Nobody else really knows, but the audience is going to get to go with Amos to experience it.

Speaking of Amos on Earth, what can you say about the possibility of seeing Clarissa Mao again in season 5?

I don't want to spoil anything. [Laughs] She's down there, I suppose.

I think I know where she is too.

We did see at the beginning of season 4 that she's in prison. The story lines in particular this season have such depth to them, and it feels like you're just getting really into these characters' skin in a way that we haven't done to this extent before. So we're really excited for people to see it.

[psyga315]

The problem of "I Watch RWBY For The Fight Scenes" and how to account for when that logic fails.

“I watch RWBY for the fight scenes.”

You heard these words before at some point in the RWBY community. Ever since the Red Trailer back in 2012, there was a huge emphasis on fights as shown with the titular “Red” doing nothing but battling proto-typical Beowolves. No huge emphasis was put on story bits like how she was visiting her mother’s grave or on the music (Red Like Roses pt. 1 has only 4 verses and most of it’s instrumental), and Ruby isn’t even voiced in the trailer. Hell, for a good chunk of RWBY’s pre-production stage, fans perceived Ruby as a stoic girl. RWBY’s core has been the fight scenes… Right?

Well, it doesn’t really take a rocket scientist to figure out that isn’t true. While an argument can be made of how RWBY’s fights are what makes the show, the case can’t be held true for its quantity and quality. Volume 3 is the only Volume in RWBY where there’s at least a fight scene per episode (the sole exception being Episode 8, Destiny), some even having two or three packed into one episode, making the Volume more of a roller coaster, especially in the last quarter. Conversely, Volumes 4 & 5 are the volumes with the fewest amount of fights, both totalling to 5 spread out across their 12 and 14 episode run, respectively, with Volume 5’s feature fight, the Battle of Haven, being the subject of massive ridicule to the point where a two-hour video was made to detail all the errors made, among them being that the core climax of that fight occurs off screen.

However, the reverse can be held true. Some criticisms for Volume 3 include that the fight scenes were either extraneous or had poor quality to them while the highlights of Volumes 4 & 5 were things that they made up for in spite of having the fewest amount of fight scenes. So, this begs quite a few questions towards RWBY.

Most of them, however, can be summed up into one: “What feature of RWBY can match or even rival its alleged selling point in case the viewer encounters a drought or lack of quality in fight scenes?” For these, we’ll break them down into some categories. I will try to be as fair as possible for this.

The first, obvious thing, would be:

Plot, Setting and Theme

Can a viewer enjoy RWBY for its plot when the fights prove lacking, evocative themes or even its rich environment? It depends. One of the biggest things that fans enjoyed about Volume 3 was its development of the plot. Suddenly, the world expanded and there’s tons of depth and lore to an otherwise standard “wake up, go to school, save the world” deal.

However, later complaints of RWBY involve the plot in some way. One of the biggest conflicts between fans in RWBY’s 7th Volume was the execution of its cliffhanger which involves the main villain flying in with her army of monsters, many arguing that at that point, the plot has entered a phase known as “only the author can save them now”, which causes some fans to even beg for an explanation as to why Salem never did something like what she did before.

While the setting in RWBY has been interesting, at times, they end up with the short end of the stick. No case is this more truer than when Mistral, reputed as a two-faced Kingdom which had both a cultured surface and a seedy underworld, was reduced to a few paintings and a couch and only now have the people at Rooster Teeth decided to shed more light on it as a setting for their Dungeons and Dragons campaign.

The themes are extremely interesting to dissect, especially since there’s a meta layer to some of them with the passing of Monty Oum leaking into some of the plot developments and even music decisions. This, too, however, is subjective to taste, though due to the nature of themes themselves and not because of execution. One person could have a completely different interpretation of what RWBY’s core theme is compared to another’s, and that leads to their opinions. For instance, a common theme that critics picked up on in RWBY is “Kids vs. Adults” as they end up reading the conflicts that occur in RWBY and Ruby’s wording in her speech to Qrow as “kids rule, adults drool”, something they took contention with.

While plot, setting, and theme are there, it isn’t enough to supplant fights should they fail too… So, what about…

Characters and Relationships

Can a viewer enjoy RWBY for its characters and relationships? I feel like this would be a strong case to make, but at the same time, this is also a bit of an oxymoron. While the characters can sometimes feel interesting and their relationships even more, the problem is that the characters sometimes lack the focus necessary to be fleshed out and their relationships even less.

You might heard these complaint before: “Bumblebee came out of nowhere”, “Black Sun/Fair Game was bait”, or even “RWBY has too many characters!” and that is, in of itself, a bit of a problem with RWBY. When it takes the time to do character arcs and relationship progression, it is pulled off masterfully, though whose arc it was is also subjective. A key contributor to the problem is how RWBY’s focus is spread too thin.

There’s, on average, 13 characters that make their first appearance in each Volume of RWBY, about half to three quarters of them go on to make reappearances in other Volumes and even a few of them become major characters. This becomes a balancing act for RWBY to juggle all the characters and developments, leading to two characters getting a massive shaft: Ruby, the main character of RWBY, and Oscar Pine, a plot important character.

Ruby has the criticism of being a flat character. While there’s no inherit problem in of itself, the fact that the plot has been shifting and stakes become raised while the most we got out of Ruby before Volume 6 is that, sometimes she expresses sadness, was concerning. Even after Volume 5, a common complaint is that her “character development” consists of her delivering speeches.

Oscar’s problem is that the most pivotal moments of his character are relegated to the background, to the point where his nickname is “Offscreen Pine”, as every Volume since his first in Volume 4, there has always been some moment of his story that happened off screen and, often, it was that moment that makes his character arcs of those Volumes incomplete.

That is also a bit of a problem with relationships as well. Sometimes they end up being complete without any actual set up or they do have set up, but it’s either a red herring for the actual ship or, most infamously, it was never intended to be a ship to begin with. Now, there are ships that have been well-developed, but, again, it’s subjective. One such example is Bumblebee, which, to this day, has been hotly debated as whether it’s the best ship RWBY’s done, a rushjob of a ship that was only made to appease the fans after a lackluster Volume, or, at worst, a ship so polarizing, that merely criticizing it would have you accused of being a homophobe.

In fact, some characters develop at different rates, to the point where it is almost whiplash and requires a fan to actively point out how the development was foreshadowed from the start of RWBY (which, itself, leads to a common criticism). Two infamous examples of this are Adam Taurus, who only appeared in a short trailer before making his full debut appearance three years later and showing a completely different side to him, and General Ironwood, whose status as an antagonist is still being debated to this day.

So, these two fields are also wild cards in terms of enjoying RWBY… So, what then? Perhaps we could turn to…

The Community

Watching RWBY is one thing, but talking about RWBY with other people might make it worth it, right? … Yeah, depends. RWBY has become a rather… interesting subject matter. Trawl around the internet enough and you’ll find people in a fight about whether RWBY was good or not… though it’s more often one side calling the other side names and insults nowadays.

No example is truer than Youtube, which if you ask a RWBY fan, is a minefield and that, if you watch just one video of a person saying how they dislike even one aspect of RWBY, you’re suddenly swarmed with videos on “RWBY sucks and here’s why” essays… Even though that’s not how the Youtube algorithm works.

Even RWBY’s Reddit isn’t safe from this. Since the end of Volume 6, it had fractured into a smaller subreddit, RWBY Critics, where people freely share their opinions of RWBY that they would otherwise be judged harshly on the main Reddit. It feels like, when you traverse through the RWBY community and interact with it, you either love it or hate it and your first impressions could mean the difference between getting welcomed or rejected.

It doesn’t help that, with every hiatus in RWBY, the fanbase becomes more and more unstable, to the point where a contest made in good fun with the purpose to help Rooster Teeth with designs for Grimm (a win-win) was eventually turned into a toxic environment simply because one of the artists chose to base a Grimm off something that people found culturally insensitive and made even worse when endorsements were made in favor of and against this aforementioned Grimm, eventually forcing Rooster Teeth’s hand in removing the public’s ability to vote and judging on the three remaining Grimm designs (two of them ended up being removed for different reasons).

I know that was a very specific example, but it highlights just how broken the community has become. It bears repeating: a fan contest where Rooster Teeth would use the winning design in RWBY ended up becoming a flame war because one of the designs was determined to be problematic and a couple of people promoted/denounced the design, effectively rigging the contest to be centered around this one design. I will not be surprised if, years down the line, when someone else chronicles the worst dramas in RWBY, this would at the very least get an honorable mention.

And then there are where you stand on certain characters or plots. Should you ever find that your opinion differs from the majority’s opinion on a certain matter, prepare for a world of hurt or even being asked “why do you even watch RWBY?” That said, I doubt the entire community is as dark as I put it. I think there’s parts of the fandom you can enjoy, like fanmade content or even just a simple conversation with a close-knit group, especially if you enjoy RWBY…. Which, I guess leads to…

So… What do you watch RWBY for?

The point of this article was to see what part of RWBY one can find enjoyable when fight scenes prove to not work and, given what I said, you might expect me to say that there’s nothing enjoyable… Though, surprisingly, my conclusion is a lot more optimistic than that.

If you watch RWBY solely for the fight scenes, then prepare for droughts or lack of quality, or even just watch fight compilations. However, if you watch RWBY solely for the plot, setting, themes, characters, relationships, or even the community itself, then you’ll need to be prepared for similar problems.

There’s two keys to enjoying RWBY: having tolerance or patience, and having more than one thing to watch RWBY for. I think a major reason why you usually have a bunch of people drop RWBY after a volume is because they were disappointed with how RWBY did something or how RWBY lacked in something and decided to quit while they were ahead. For the most part, it might be that they took all they could get from RWBY and decided they had enough.

That said, I’ve seen people sing praises for RWBY’s story, setting, theme, characters, relationships, and even community. It’s led me to think of this struggle to find enjoyment in RWBY to be similar to a theme found in the show: the theme of persevering in the face of despair. Several characters in the show have become bitter, cynical, or even evil because they had enough of the hardships that the world threw at them while the heroes are those who try desperately to keep moving forward in spite of that.

And it’s not easy, I will admit that. It’s not easy to come back to enjoying RWBY once you begin to feel contempt for it. After the finale of Volume 5, I felt confused. Before, I had wanted to enjoy every episode of the Volume, but this one felt so rushed and so incomplete that I found myself thinking “that’s it?”. While I started to become cynical about RWBY after Volume 4 and had temporarily dropped RWBY in between “The First Step Pt. 1”’s release and sometime after “Breach”’s premiere, it was Volume 5 that made me begin to lose enjoyment. Just knowing that Rooster Teeth could do something like Volume 5 again had me lose faith.

However, there are moments that made RWBY enjoyable for me. Certain episodes were hailed as being good watches, there were a few plots, characters, and relationships I enjoyed (even ones I normally wouldn’t got some delights), settings I wished would be better explored, and I’m always going to examine themes of RWBY since that’s one thing I enjoy about it.

And, true enough, RT has done stuff that even the more hardened of critics enjoy. It’s all about patience, tolerance, and perseverance.

I know this isn’t a straight and narrow answer, but there are no easy answers. The major takeaway from this is that “I watch RWBY for the fight scenes” has the potential to backfire and you need backup reasons to enjoy RWBY and a little bit of patience in order to appreciate RWBY.

[scatterpatter]

Breath of the Wild (and Hyrule Warriors) take place in the Child Timeline [Theory]

This is 100% Theory and I could be Totally Wrong but hear me out, because this makes perfect sense from my perspective and all it involves is considering Hyrule Warriors as a “main game”, talking about it under the cut cuz this is a long one

Okay so everyone knows that the Zelda timeline is a bit wonky, and should be taken with a grain of salt, but ever since Breath of the Wild came out the biggest question is “What timeline does it fall under?” And at first it seems like it should be an easy answer... except not. Ritos and Zoras co-exist, locations are named after characters that reside in any of the three timelines(even TERMINA), so on and so forth, it seems like it somehow dips into every timeline, which should be impossible... until I blow your mind.

Well one big thing we know is that wherever Breath of the Wild takes place, it takes place at the end of its timeline. So for BotW to have references to each timeline, it seems like there was some sort of... timeline convergence? Except that’s not how time works. Timelines can be split, but not thrown back together.

Here’s where I blow your mind, just roll with me because this’ll make sense once I explain: Breath of the Wild takes place in whatever timeline Hyrule Warriors takes place. I’ll go into detail why I’m convinced of this in a short bit.

First, I just want to throw the canon timeline from the Zelda Encyclopedia on here so we’ve got all our other games into one basket:

The only inconsistency note I’ll make is that Hyrule Historia places Oracles of Ages+Seasons before Link’s Awakening, though I believe this was retconned later on, and since Zelda Encyclopedia came out well after Hyrule Historia, we should believe this version more. But that’s a moot point anyways since that won’t affect my theory, just thought I’d mention regardless

So if we’re going to follow my theory on the fact that BotW is the same timeline as Hyrule Warriors, we need to find out which timeline Hyrule Warriors falls under.

First off, we know that Hyrule Warriors takes place sometime after Ocarina of Time, because Impa recognizes the name “Ruto”, so the events of OoT already happened. Therefore, HW has to take place in one of the three split timelines

I’m convinced that Hyrule Warriors does not take place in the Adult Timeline for the following reasons: 

We don’t see much of the land of HW’s Hyrule, but it seems like a solid continent and not a series of islands, so this likely cannot take place before Spirit Tracks

The Triforce, Ganon, and the Master Sword are not seen since Wind Waker in the Adult Timeline, so this likely does not take place after Wind Waker

While Spirit Tracks is a new continent and a new Hyrule is established, Spirit Tracks introduces a new insignia, which involves a Force Gem, but everywhere in Hyrule of Hyrule Warriors we see the “traditional” insignia with the Triforce. 

So with the Adult Timeline rendered nearly impossible, this leaves the Fallen Timeline and the Child Timeline, and I’m about to explain why HW most likely takes place in the Child Timeline

You see, Hyrule Warriors is an... interesting plot. In that the main antagonist, Cia, opens what’s called the “Gate of Souls”, or “the doorway to time itself”. With her powers, she essentially opens rifts in time and space so that areas such as Skyloft, Death Mountain(OoT’s), and Twilight Field(Hyrule Field from TP) are now within Hyrule Warrior’s world

So we have worlds from Skyward Sword, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess opened. The reason why these worlds specifically are because of Ganon. Before the events of Hyrule Warriors, in one of Link’s lifetimes we haven’t seen in any Zelda game(yet), after Ganon was defeated, he was split into four pieces. 3 pieces were scattered across time and space, the fourth sealed away with the master sword that Link eventually uses in Hyrule Warriors. Now let’s take a look at where each piece of Ganon was sealed:

Lake Hylia(Ocarina of Time)

Sealed Grounds(Skyward Sword)

Palace of Twilight(Twilight Princess)

Master Sword(Hyrule Warriors)

What’s VERY important to note here is that while, yes, Skyward Sword and Ocarina of Time exist in every timeline, Twilight Princess only occurs in the Child Timeline. It was at this point I realized: the main story of Hyrule Warriors only covers these settings/characters, and makes a Majora’s Moon reference one time, but all other instances of characters from other timelines occur as DLC. And we’ll get to the DLC stuff shortly, but let’s focus on the “main” story first.

It’s quite possible that this Link before Hyrule Warriors, when splitting Ganon into 4 pieces, only had access to his own timeline to seal Ganon away. It isn’t until we get the powerful sorceresses Lana and Cia do we start opening rifts to other timelines. This makes me believe that Hyrule Warriors takes place in the Child Timeline

Side note: Goron Forces appear to be a mix of OoT Gorons with TP Gorons, judging by their tattoos

Also, no Sheikah appear in any of the games of the Fallen Timeline, whereas we have Sheik and Impa(who are both Sheikah) in Hyrule Warriors. This still lines up because even though not-explicit, Impaz from Twilight Princess is implied to be a Sheikah, implying Sheikah traditions are passed down through the Child Timeline and eventually to HW

“But Scatter!” You cry out, frustration setting in “What the hizzity heck does this have anything to do with Breath of the Wild?!”

*Leans in close to you and grabs you by the collar*

~This is the part where I blow your mind~

So now that we’ve established Hyrule Warriors most likely takes place during the Child Timeline, yeah? And I said earlier we’d get to the DLC?

Let’s talk about the DLC.

So we now know that Cia and Lana are capable of opening and closing rifts to other times, even other timelines. Let’s look at some of the DLC characters that are playable in HW as a result:

Marin(Link’s Awakening- Fallen Timeline)

Ravio and Yuga(A Link Between Worlds- Fallen Timeline)

Toon Link, Tetra, King Daphnes, Medli(Wind Waker- Adult Timeline)

Toon Zelda(Spirit Tracks- Adult Timeline)

Skull Kid, Tingle, Young Link(Majora’s Mask- Child Timeline)

These, combined with the SS+OoT+TP characters from the main game, and we have access to settings and characters from all three timelines. 

Now we could assume that after the events of Hyrule Warriors, the main characters never open a portal to another timeline again... but we could also assume the opposite. It could be entirely possible that the people of Hyrule Warriors regularly looked into these other timelines to learn from them. To study their past and alternate timelines really isn’t a farfetched idea when you have the power to do so. 

With these portals opening, it’s quite possible that yes, Zoras and Ritos began living in the Hyrule Warriors world, explaining the co-existing of both races by BotW. With the technology that Spirit Tracks provides, the people of Hyrule Warriors could have eventually learned to build their own vehicles and machines, eventually leading to the Guardians and Divine Beasts. The ancient robots of Skyward Sword could have also contributed to these, alongside possibly paving the way for Sheikah technology, such as the Sheikah Slate, to be developed. Twili technology could also contribute to this, as well as whatever the heck is going on with Ganon in the BotW2 trailer. 

With knowledge and access to other timelines, it makes perfect sense that the Child Timeline would face an immense industrial/technological boom in a very short time, leading to the Sheikah Towers, the Sheikah Slate, the Divine Beasts, the Pillars under the Castle, the Guardians, the Shrines, and more to be made for the battle 10,000 years before the events of Breath of the Wild. Sometime between then and the Great Calamity this technology was mostly lost(Zelda Wiki says this was due to fear over the power of such technology leading the Sheikah to hide their tech away, though I’m not sure where exactly in-game this info is revealed), paving the way for Breath of the Wild to occur.

There is no timeline convergence. Breath of the Wild takes place in a Child Timeline that obtained the ability to open rifts to other timelines.

Also one last little detail- this isn’t solid enough to be “evidence” but doesn’t hurt my theory either: Hyrule Warriors Link is the first Link to wear blue, meanwhile Breath of the Wild Link wears an entirely blue tunic

While this can’t be concrete evidence that the 2 are linked(HAH GET IT BECAUSE LI-), it could be possible that HW-Link started the trend of heroes wearing blue accessories. Again, a bit more of a stretch, but doesn’t hurt my theory either

So there you have it! I firmly believe that Hyrule Warriors and Breath of the Wild are both in the Child Timeline due to this evidence! And I’m so mad that of all games, Hyrule Warriors was the one to tie it all together XD

[yumeka36]

WARNING: MAJOR FROZEN 2 SPOILERS AHEAD

The ending for Frozen 2 was leaked last night and I wanted to post my thoughts. 

–IF YOU DON’T WANT TO BE SPOILED, SKIP THIS POST AND DO NOT READ FURTHER–

But if you’ve also read the leaks and want to know what I think, proceed…

*************************************

In less than two days of me posting this where I describe the apprehension I have about learning the plot of Frozen 2, possibly in less than a week due to the merchandise release on the 4th, and how my fandom may dwindle if the ending doesn’t satisfy me and Disney offers no certainty of future sequels, the ending of the movie was suddenly leaked last night. I won’t post the pictures but you can find the link here if you want to see.

As expected, fan reactions have been mostly negative, but some more positive and some trying to be neutral until we have more information. I’ve read through many comments and understand the emotions on all sides @justlookatthosesausages @hereisisa @tenshichan1013 @breckstonevailskier @basssuperpower @jabs-wocks @beingpassionateabout @bigfrozenfan @mike5579-t3a I had to take some time to get my thoughts together and let the shock process in my mind. But my initial reaction was and still is, yes, I’m disappointed now, but I don’t want to throw in the towel until I see the movie myself, or at least learn more information from other sources that describe the plot a bit better, like some of the books that will release on the 4th. What we have in these leaked pages is very vague and begs tons of questions: What are the “sacrifices” each of them has to make? Is going their separate ways the sacrifice, or something else? How do they destroy the dam? Can’t Elsa just easily destroy it with a bunch of ice pillars? I can’t imagine just destroying a dam would be the big, epic conclusion. What is Pabbie’s “prophecy”? In the trailer he just tells Elsa to find who’s calling her, we didn’t see him prophesize anything. The leaks say that Elsa leaves Anna and Olaf, but where are Kristoff and Sven when all this is going on? I can understand Elsa being the only one who can cross the sea but why would Anna have to be totally alone for her journey? How does the dam harm the Northuldra and how would King Runeard benefit from it? What is the “curse” exactly and why is it now becoming a problem as opposed to the 3 years after the events of the first movie? There are many more questions than answers that the leaks provide, which shows how we really need more information to judge the quality of this ending.

But yes, the major facts that we do learn are Anna becomes queen of Arendelle and Elsa becomes the fifth spirit/Snow Queen. But again, there are just so many things we still don’t know: what does being the “fifth spirit” even mean? Is she just gonna hang out in the enchanted forest all day doing…what? Does the “Snow Queen” mean the queen of the Northuldra? Of Ahtohallan? Of the other four spirits? Of the world in general? The leak fails to mention where Elsa will be residing in the end. Being with the other spirits in the enchanted forest makes sense, but if she’s the fifth one who’s supposed to be the bridge between the two worlds, it would make more sense if she’s somewhere different, like maybe just living in her ice palace between Arendelle and Northuldra. Heck, wouldn’t it be funny if she ends up staying in Arendelle with Anna after all, and the reason Anna becomes queen is because Elsa can’t be the queen of both worlds so she decides she’s more fit for being the Snow Queen. Or she’s just too busy doing “fifth spirit” stuff to rule a kingdom…again, until we know what kind of duties being a spirit entails, confirming her status at the end of the movie is still very up in the air. But the bottom line is that there’s no inference that they won’t be able to see each other again even if they end up living in separate places. Now that there’s peace between the two lands, that’s even more reason to conclude that they can freely visit each other whenever they want. The leaks state that Anna and Elsa are the ones who create the bridge between the two worlds…isn’t that what bridges are for, keeping people together? @taniahylian I also have to wonder what this will mean for Frozen’s representation at Disney Parks - I think this is the first time such popular characters have gone through such a radical change in canon material (since this is their only official sequel beside Rescuers Down Under and Wreck-It Ralph, and even the direct to video sequels didn’t have this level of change) so representing Anna and Elsa the way they have in Disney Parks, with Elsa being the queen of Arendelle, their outfits, etc., will become obsolete, plus Frozen 2 merchandise will clash with merchandise from the first movie, so will they get rid of the old stuff? I’m really curious how Disney Parks will address this, if they feel the need to.

One part of the leak that made me a little nervous is that Elsa has “transformed” in the end, which leads to Anna changing her role. I’m assuming it means more of a figurative transformation and not to the extent that she’s no longer human or becomes immortal or takes the form of that snowflake compass in the movie poster. Anything that infers that Anna can no longer interact with her normally would be terrible…that’s an ending for an anime, not a Disney movie!

But personally I think we’ll see a more happier ending like what I mentioned earlier where they’ll still see each other and have their same relationship, just not live together. I recall something Jennifer Lee said at D23 Expo where she said “nothing will ever be the same” and then, more lightly, “but some things will” which I feel illustrates this kind of ending. But we also have to wonder about the fate of the other main characters: will Olaf end up staying with Anna or Elsa? And the leaks say nothing about Kristoff and the engagement ring, which makes sense since it’s from a book focused purely on the mythology of the movie, so we have to wonder if Anna ends up accepting his proposal or not, and if she does, does that make him king or prince consort? If Disney intends to make this the final installment of the Frozen franchise, I can’t imagine them leaving Anna and Kristoff’s relationship so open ended (the elsanna fans are already disappointed, at least satisfy the kristanna fans, lol). I’m kind of imagining an epilogue that, after we get solid confirmation that they’ll be able to visit each other freely in their separate lands whenever they want, we get a scene after the end credits, maybe 5+ years later, of Anna and Kristoff visiting Elsa in the enchanted lands (of course Olaf and Sven are there too), and after a heartfelt reunion, they show her a baby and say “we thought you’d like to see your niece/nephew,” then que scenes of all of them playing and hanging out together. I think this route of closing Anna’s relationship with both Elsa and Kristoff while still reinforcing their togetherness and family dynamic would satisfy me.

To conclude, I agree with many others that this was definitely not my first choice for an ending and would have preferred this be the ending of Frozen 3, with Frozen 2 focusing on Anna and Elsa getting to know each other as sisters. But at the same time, this does not mean it will be bad. As I described in this post, there are way too many details we don’t know to make major claims like “Elsa and Anna won’t be together” and “Elsa becomes a goddess.” It does seem like the separation ending is a new trend, or perhaps it’s just coincidence that Frozen 2 is following Ralph 2 and Toy Story 4 which also had this kind of ending. I recall an article from a while back stating that Jennifer Lee and team planned the ending of Frozen 2 first before the rest of the story, so maybe this is really the route they wanted without any big corporate suits pulling the strings (Jennifer Lee is the head of Disney Animation after all). I’m now more interested than ever to see that Frozen 2 documentary on Disney+ to understand why she chose this ending. Even if books released on the 4th shed more light, seeing the movie for real with all its many details in dialogue, character interactions and expressions, visual illustration of plot and setting, etc., is the only way to make true judgement. I’m hopeful I won’t have to eat these words two months from now~

[burnouts3s3]

Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid, a review

(Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit unprofessional blog post written by an unprofessional blog poster. All purported facts and statement are little more than the subjective, biased opinion of said blog poster. In other words, don’t take anything I say too seriously.) Just the facts 'Cause you're in a Hurry! Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP): 50 USD Digital Copy (MSRP): 17.99 USD How much I paid: 50 USD. Animation Studio: ARMS Licensed and Localized by: Funimation Entertainment Audio: Japanese Audio with Subtitles and English Dub available.   English Cast: Kayla Hardwick as Mamori, Morgan Garrett as Mirei, Brittney Karbowski as Meifon, Janelle Lutz as Akira Hiragi, Monica Rial as Charlotte Scharsen, Roseanne Palmer as Kasumi Shigure, Tia Ballard as Rain Hasumi, Jamie Marchi as Lady J and Cynthia Cranz as Torino. Number of Episodes: 12 Episodes Length per Episode: 25 Minutes on average. 21 Without Intro and Ending song. Number of Discs: 4 Discs in Total. 2 DVD Discs and 2 Blu-ray discs. Episodes per Disc: Episodes 1-7 on the 1st DVD disc. Episodees 8-12 on the 2nd DVD disc. Episodes 1-9 on the first Blu-ray disc with Episodes 10-12 on the second Blu-ray disc along with the special features. Does this come a digital voucher to redeem?: No. This only has the Physical DVD and Blu-ray discs. Also on: Amazon Video, Funimation Now, Funimation’s streaming service that requires a subscription. Bonus Features: Textless Openings, Textless Ending and Trailers for other Funimation Licensed Shows. Episode 3 Commentary. Notable Localization Changes: Meifon, the smuggler character who wears a pink cowboy hat, is given a southern accent by her voice performer, Brittney Kowbalski.   My Personal Biases: I never really invested in the Valkyrie Drive franchise before and never played any of the games the anime is adapting. Sorry. My Verdict: Trashy, lurid, gaudy and with enough fanservice to make even the most perverted of us blush, Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid is sure to give its intending audience the happy ending they want. It’s too bad that in 12 short episodes, there’s just not enough there, emotionally or lore wise, to get invested in unless you’ve already have backhand knowledge of the games. Wait for a sale. A/N: Okay, since I don’t want the moderators to flag this post, I’m going to have to put an explicit warning here. So while I won’t post any nudity, I will have to Age restrict this post just so I don’t get any flak. Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid. a review 

Girls from all over the world have been infected with a mysterious virus known as the A Virus (Armed Virus). These girls are divided into two classes; Extars, who can transform into weapons when sexually aroused, and Liberators, who have the power to wield an Extar's weapon form, known as Liberator Arms, through a process known as Drive. These girls are brought to separate islands to spend their days completely isolated from the rest of the world until the islands' Observers, authorized by the government Organisation AAA, ostensibly deem them ready to rejoin society again. Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid follows an Extar named Mamori Tokonome who forms a partnership with the Liberator Mirei Shikishima on the island called Mermaid.(For our friends not fluent in Japanese, Tokonome shares a very similar writing as the word ‘Virgin’ in Japanese, which Togonome is.). Mamori and Mirei are caught between a conflict between the Wärter, the island’s government that lives the castle, Veste, and those fleeing it. With Governor Akira (a supposed male Liberator that’s actually female) trying to be fair, Charlotte getting delusions of grandeur and wanting to rule with an iron fist and Kasumi attempting to be fair to the girls, the Wärter is in constant conflict. Those attempting to flee join up with Ms. Torumi, a kind soul who offers shelter for girls looking for freedom. Meanwhile, a sneaky smuggler by the name of Meifon is trying to earn a profit from the war. Along the way, Mamori and Mirei meet other Liberators and Extars, such as the team Lady J and Lady Rain in which one transforms into a ridable motorcycle. Other liberators, such as Charlotte, have their own harem of Extars and arouse multiple ones to form a multi-part weapon. Let’s get this out of the way. Yes, it IS in fact Soul Eater but with Lesbians. And the show isn’t afraid of being explicit about it. We are talking full-on nudity with lots of exposed breasts flopping around, bouncing and lots and lots of shots of nipples erecting… and hardening… Christ, this makes fanservice driven series like Kannazuki no Miko or Strawberry Panic look like the chaste Maria-Sama ga Miteru. On the technical side, everything is very well done. The animation for both the action and fanservice scenes is well animated, the music flows scene to scene (even if I couldn’t really remember any pieces that stood out) and the voice acting for both the Original Japanese and English dub is well-done. So, if you’re looking for lots and lots of scenes of girls kissing each other, breasts flopping around with the viscosity of jello and scenes of action with naked girls, have I got a show for you. Story wise, I found the series rather lacking. Seasonal shows really need to be careful with their pacing. With a limited 12 episode run, VD:M is already bursting at the seams with an overly long 4 episode prologue establishing the characters, the setting, the divide between the girls going along with Charlotte and Akira’s lawful order, Kasumi’s wavering allegiance and Torumi’s group of rebels and Meifon’s smuggling between the 2 sides. There’s a sense of urgency that the peace can’t last and conflict is unavoidable. But, not so urgent that we couldn’t have two light-hearted episodes involving one girl becoming Kaiju sized and another episode with a beauty contest in a cultural festival.

Boy, this season of Attack on Titan got WEIRD. When the main big bad does rear her head near the final 4 episodes, the show does a good ‘enough’ job establishing the backstory between her and Mirei, but you get the sense that maybe, had the show paced itself better, it would mean more. Yes, the final battle with all the girls joining together at the end is impressive to look at, but emotionally, I just wasn’t feeling it. If the show were as committed to giving me emotional turning points as it was fan service, I would’ve been more impressed. The characters are also rather lacking (writing wise). While Mirei is certainly admirable and one of the most likable of the cast, Mamori doesn’t really change much (character wise). Granted, the show pays lipservice (no pun intended) to the idea that the more courageous Mamori is, the more powerful the weapon she becomes, but there’s never that moment where Mamori ‘saves’ Mirei or gives her the comfort Mirei needs like the way Himeko comforted Chikane at the end. They instead fuse to one super being. It feels like at one point Mamori was supposed to have the final turning point and be the one to rescue Mirei, but Mamori just ends up being captured and put into the damsel role again. I also liked Kasumi and her dubious allegiance with the rebels as well as Meifon, getting into all sorts of trouble for some cash. I’m told by fans of the franchise that in peripheral media, some of the other couples get more character development. For example, the team of Lady Rain and Lady J were actually on opposite sides of a war but intentionally got themselves captured just to be together or that Governor Akira actually has a female lover back on the mainland and longs to be with her. Again, I am not here to judge what’s in an appendix. What’s in the show is in the show and it’s clear the TV producers weren’t interested in those stories to begin with, so why should I?   Funimation Entertainment did the localization for the show. And for the most part, the dub script stays as close as it does to the original Japanese version. Granted, Funimation has always played it loose with dubbing scripts and this is no exception. The English script contains lots of innuendos and sex jokes to make the English viewers chuckle (i.e. “I caught and she pitched.” “Let’s go digging for treasure” “I’m gonna let it all hang out!”) Karbowski adopts a southern accent for Meifon so thick, I thought I was listening to Nico Robin from the 4Kids dub of One Piece. (I’m aware that localizers tend to translate those with Kansai dialect and give them a Southern accent and Karbowski seems to be doing this accent winking to the audience and having fun with it). Special credit should go to Janelle Lutz as Akira Hiragi, managing to perform dual roles as both masculine and feminine variations of the character. The rest of the cast does a good job voicing their perspective roles. Monica Rial does with she can with Charlotte and Cynthia Cranz as Torumi seems to especially fit the role of a motherly caretaker for lost girls. (Yes, I find the fact that one of the characters is voiced by the same performer as Chi-chi and Botan very disconcerting). THE ORIGINAL JAPANESE AUDIO WITH SUBTITLES IS AVAILABLE FOR THOSE WHO PREFER IT. The package includes the OVAs (Original Video Animation) which are short videos of each of the girls revealing motivation and backstory as well as a lot of nudity with nipples becoming more and more erect. Lots of them. What’s weird is that the OVAs are also dubbed with the cast members. Funimation didn’t even dub the OVA for Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. CAVEAT: It’s very strange that the series suddenly wants to take a more dramatic turn with emphasis on character development and history, but still plays out in a very fanservice driven anime. In some ways, I was enjoying the show more when it wasn’t really about anything and just amped the fanservice up to 11. With the exception of a few characters, I wasn’t invested in the goings on and 12 episodes is too short for me to have nostalgic feelings for Mermaid Island. For 50 USD, Valkyrie Drive: Mermaid is a bit on the steep end. While the animation, music, fight scenes and… PLOT are all well done, emotionally, it doesn’t have much to offer. Then again, I don’t expect emotional substance out of show where half the teenagers become sexually aroused and transform into weapons. Those looking for a happy ending (in both senses of the term) will enjoy this. Verdict: Wait for a sale or rental.  

[meladis]

The Boys: Season 1/ Spoiler Free Review

So, I just finished watching the new TV-show (which I have been waiting pretty much since its very announcing) and, boy (haha), it’s was diabolical.

That a very bad feeling, when you’re waiting for something for too long, getting excited for every piece of information you receive and then when it comes out, you realize that your expectations were much bigger than this show/movie/book can offer you. Fortunately, watching this show (especially first 5 episodes of it) I couldn't stop but feeling some kind of relief as the show was surprisingly good. 

Without any further discussion let me try to tell you what good and bad sides of the show are.

1. Visual effects

Though I believe the show didn’t have a big budget, the visual effects were pretty good, all this blood and supe’s “stuff” looked very cool and pleasant for eyes to watch. Moreover, I really liked the colouring the creators decided to use which gives this show its very unique style. And every “the boys” opening was just as perfect as you can only imagine it to be. That’s all I can say, like, really.

2. Music

Oh, boi. I can’t describe how AWESOME the music in the show was. I’m not talking about the original soundtrack which really suits the whole atmosphere but the songs that were used there. It not only introduces every character with his/her own character-describing theme but makes every shot diabolically stylish. I mean I’m listening to those songs on repeat. Very cool stuff. Even better than The Umbrella Academy’s, though, it’s very hard for me to admit it. 

Btw, my favs are “Iggy Pop - The Passenger”, “Daniel Pemberton - Take You Down”, “R.E.M. - Everybody Hurts” and “Bill Withers - Ain't No Sunshine”.

3. Characters

That’s gonna be a very big topic, prepare yourselves to this. 

Billy Butcher. Played by diabolical Karl Urban this character stole my attention with the first trailers, promos etc. Man, he’s good. He’s awesome. Though I can’t tell that while watching the show itself Bucher was my favourite because there were some moments (especially with his wife) that weren’t emotional enough (comparing to the more or less the same theme in Punisher, for example). I wasn’t on his side fully. That’s why the ending didn’t play to me as it supposed to. Though yeah, he’s diabolical.

Hugh "Hughie" Campbell. So, Hughie was definitely the one who had a character developing line in the show and with that said he was growing as a person throughout the whole season. I really like what the creators did with him, and his line was never boring, always understandable and interesting. Really into what is going to happen with him in the 2nd season.

John/Homelander. Antony Starr did an amazing job showing this very complex character. My thoughts towards him were changing constantly during the process of watching. Closer to the end he was stealing every scene. What a character, what a story. You bought me, I’m waiting for the 2nd season.

Annie January/Starlight. I was afraid her line wouldn’t be as complex as it could have been, comparing to the others. I was wrong. I really sympathized her, her story was actually sad and inspiring at the same time. Cool. 

Frenchie. That was a “surprise” character for me. I mean, I didn’t expect to worry about him, but his line turned out to be very interesting and very enjoyable to watch. 

A-Train. I hate this character from the beginning to the end. Maybe the final episode’s stuff changes him and I won’t be so certain about my feelings? We’ll see. 

“Can you teach me to run out cancer?”

Marvin "Mother's Milk". I don’t know if it were just my thoughts but while watching I felt like Marvin was really left out. Maybe it was because of the number of the characters the show had or the creators decided to leave something for the 2nd season, but there wasn’t a lot of him on the screen and his character's development. I don’t know him that much.

Kimiko / the Female. Her storyline was actually something very new to me. I was into her story and every new piece of information we were given gave her a very new perspective look. Hoping to see more of her in the future.

Queen Maeve. As in the situation with Marvin, there is something in her, and we were shown her character changing (the plane scene and its consequences) but still, could have been more? 2nd season, ha?

Kevin/The Deep. That was a very weird part of the story, I didn’t get it, really. So I have very mixed up feelings about this character and... cough *gills* cough scene.

Madelyn Stillwell. She was a person with her own motivation, she had her view on everything, she knew what she wanted. Maybe, that’s why I considered her as the main villain of the season.

Hugh Campbell. They got Simon Pegg!!! Yaaas.10 unexpected cameos out of 10.

There are much more characters, some of which were more interesting than the others, but everybody felt like they belonged there. Diabolical cast.

4. The Main Plot

Attention! I haven’t read the comics, so all that I’m going to talk about is the show. I don’t know what’s going in comics and I’m judging just by what I’ve seen in the show.

As you could have noticed, I said at the very beginning that the first 5 episodes were good. I didn’t lie. In fact, they were perfect. The structure, the dynamic, character’s development, their relations with each other, diabolical actions scenes, blood and stuff. 

The first 5 episodes were iconic, very stylish, unique. The authors really decided to make a satirical story on superheroes and the real situation in the world, showing some stuff that is happening or more likely to happen within the circumstances. The people, events were so down to earth it was very easy to believe that such things really could have happened. 

And the plot. It was interesting, so much mystery, unknown and I was sitting, asking myself a bunch of questions and hoping to find astonishing answeres later in the season.

And the Spicy Girls’ reference - I laughed so hard. Awesome.

Unfortunately, something went a little bit wrong and starting with the 6th episode it wasn’t as exciting as it was before. I can’t tell that everything went wrong and it was impossible to watch, no. Just the tone and the style were gone, for some reason, plot twists didn’t work for me that much (not all of them, of course). I just found myself looking on the timeline of the episode (you know what I mean). 

Also, I thought, in the end, there would be a big diabolical fight between two characters (spoiler-free, hehe), but there was a scene of them just talking. Don’t get me wrong, I like talking stuff, it just didn’t feel like those character’s actions. Maybe again, the budget. But first five episodes worked with it, so why?

In the end, it was a very diabolical TV-show, and I’m going to watch the 2nd season, hoping that the creators won’t lose their style and motives closer to the end of it, ‘cause people are likely to remember last moments than the first ones)

Gonna give it 8,5 diabolical supes out of 10 (for the first five episodes).

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

the sun smashers are important y’all

so i was rewatching bahroo’s zane stream please dont judge me i just wanted to see how he screamed when he got set on fire

and i noticed something funky about the main quests

tl;dr: the main quest levels are really weird, we go from a level 1 quest, to 2, to 2 (no that’s not a mistake), to 4, to 10!!, to 14, to 13. I theorize that either there is a hidden mission somewhere, or the quests were oddly leveled for the demonstrations and should have been spread out like so: (1, 2, 4, 7, 10, 14) and give my reasoning for that. its still a pretty big jump from 4 to 7 and so on, but its more reasonable to think they wanted to fit in some side quests there

i then go talk about the Sun Smashers! and these guys are fun :)

y’all when we show up at the HBC, we’re already on a mission to “Find the Sun Smashers”. the first time we hear about them during the footage we’re shown is when Tyreen mentions them. The theory is that the sun smashers stole the vault key from the recruitment center (we offered them a place in our family = we recruited them) and they just wanted guns and cash (they betrayed the family = they stole our vault map) and Vaults are a source of both guns and cash

i think when we go fight Shiv, the room back there with monitors is going to give us information on who the sun smashers are and where the vault key is (the HBC) and lilith tells us we NEED to go get it. I don’t think there is any power stealing here and now. Probably later. but not now!

Tyreen also says in the hologram “Like i said, that vault map is super busted”. but she had never talked to us before in the footage we’re shown. I’m thinking there is a point where we do speak with the twins, or we “overhear” something and then they see us, etc, and that’s the reason they cut the footage.

so i think the timeline is: 

Get attacked by CoV, head to RC, save Clappy, meet Lilith, learn about Sun Smashers stealing key from RC, maaayybe some talk/introduction with the twins?? idk, head to the HBC, beat up Mouthpiece, get the Vault Map, Hologram time (hi again), Lilith gets her powers stolen and the Vault Map too, we get Sanctuary III (either we find the ship itself on pandora (my vote: we’re probably going to have to clear it of wildlife ew), or we take a shuttle up), head to Promethea to stop the twins cuz they got to teleport with lily’s powers and had time to set up that sweet alliance with maliwan because they have a grudge against atlas for experimenting on them while we’re fumbling on a sand planet looking for an escape

is that good? are we good?

i think we’re good.

so the first quest is level 1, that’s a given

second quest

level 2

also a given

the third quest???

also? level 2?

which is weird cuz im pretty sure the demo streamers were around level 4 for that quest, but the enemies were levels 6-7 so… i imagine the actual level for the quest is about 5?

the fourth quest is level 4, but it might actually be around level 7.

the reason i’m bumping the levels up is because when you get to the fifth quest in the game

the quests jump from level 4 requirement to level 10

and that’s one huge-ass leap to make all of a sudden

not to mention the jump from 10 to 14

slightly better than 4 to 10, but its still a big jump, especially since the characters are starting to level up more. I could believe there’s no gap between 5 and 6 because the streamers start the level at lvl 10, but then the enemies are scaled to level 10/11 so… what the heck. from the HBC footage it’s clear the enemies don’t scale directly to player level (as a lvl 4 amara was taking on level 6/7 enemies) so im wondering if they changed the levels to make it look earlier in the game than i actually is

it’s even weirder because the quest you get when you finish the demo is level 13

usually when you get mainline quests, they try to make it so that they’re in order level-wise. these two are… very much not in order. and i understand that Congratulations was put in solely for the demo players, but the fact that it’s actually a lower level than the quest preceding it is really bizarre. I think the quest log for Hostile Takeover was supposed to be scaled down to level 10/11/12 (take ur pick) for the demo and it wasn’t.

Same for Sanctuary. I think it was supposed to be scaled down as well. That would leave a smaller, less noticeable gap between quests 

So we’d have a level 1 quest, TWO level 2 quests, a level 4 quest, a level 8ish quest, then a level 11 quest. Not bad. There’s still the huge gap between quests 4 and 5 but it could be much worse. Could be the 6 level gap we had before.

I do think it could also be that the third and fourth quests were pulled forwards in level. Example being that the third quest isn’t supposed to be level 2, it should be level 4. Then the fourth quest would be around 6/7 and then we’d have 5 coming in at 10, which is just on the mark.

There’s still a lot of awkward leveling here and there but its borderlands? so it’s possible they wanted to fit in some side quests at this point to pad it out. I prefer the theory that there’s a quest that was taken out of the quest logs. 

so you’d have something like (and this is going by the original, demo-ordering of the quests):

level 1

level 2

level 2

level 4

level 7 (hidden quest)

level 10

level 14

i just don’t understand why from the ground up and cult following are apparently the same level. I suppose that’s where they’re making us believe Lilith gets her powers stolen so maybe its because we don’t get to do a lot of combat at the time so we’re still level 2 when we head over to the HBC? Which… is weird because when they get to the recruitment center, even though Cult Following is supposedly a level 2 quest, the player characters are level 4 while the enemies are ranging from 5-7

it’s possible they scaled this quest up since amara would later be playing with Zane (though she levels up to 5 almost immediately when entering), but i’m thinking of something else.

i want to propose something

I think the sun smashers stole the vault key from the recruitment center. the quest objectives for Cult Following are these:

“Find the Sun Smashers”

Tyreen talks about them a little bit when we first meet her in the hologram but we’ll get to that in a second

so obviously the sun smashers are those purple corpses we’ve been seeing all throughout the HBC. im uncertain if Mouthpiece is a part of their subsect of the cult or not (Tyreen didn’t kill him sooo), as the objective changes to “Kill Mouthpiece” once you enter the arena. I imagine if he is, maybe he’s their leader? Maybe he asked them to steal the Vault Map to prove themselves to the twins by opening a vault by themselves or some shit. I dunno if he is though. Maybe Tyreen left him alive to prove a point to us because she knew we were coming for the busted-ass Vault Map. Like she let him continue to protect it (even though it was broke) because she knew we’d come to get it and kill him on the way. I digress.

Mouthpiece says, when he dies: “I see it… The Great Vault” which I think is once again proving the theory that the twins are saying they’re going to lead the bandit clans to salvation through the Red Vault. Unsure if that’s the wicked Vault symbol we see in the trailers (you know, the biological looking one) or if that’s just a symbol for the first Vault on Promethea, or if they’re the same thing. I dunno, I can’t imagine we’d reach the so-called “Great Vault” by chapter 6/7/8 in the game, but its possible that Vault unleashes a wealth of alien horrors for us to defeat annnd, yeah, you know the drill. Twins either die or join our side to help us defeat whatever comes out of it. Or, the so-called “Great Vault” is a bust and it either can’t be opened yet and other Vaults need to be opened first, or some other inane shit to pad time. I am most curious as to why they’re going to the Vault on Promethea first, though. Randy says Tyreen wants to absorb the Vault Monsters’ powers so she can become the most powerful living being or whatever so going to a Vault that was (possibly) already opened by Atlas seems like a weird choice (still not sure if Atlas ever actually opened the Vault on Promethea or not. Never actually said if it was the Vault or just some Eridian ruins they found themselves that boosted their company up so high. We know Typhon found the actual Vault and Key, though!). Also going for the salvation bit ASAP when u kinda need ur cult to get the other Vaults is really weird.

anyway. I got kinda off topic here. … again.

i imagine our first interaction with the twins is in the recruitment center, but I don’t think they actually show up. More holograms, or an ECHO stream, or whatever. I’m gonna stand by what I said in that one lilith post (one of many ugh) that when we enter the room Shiv came out of, a broadcast is going to start.

I think maybe the twins (or mouthpiece) … (or both) will be broadcasting something detailing where the Vault Key went (stolen by the Sun Smashers) and where they’re all headed (the HBC). that would explain why Tyreen starts out with “did you come all this way just to see me?” and not some sorta greeting like “oh who the heck are you?” (also can I point out that she asks us to thank lilith for the Firehawk powers not during this scene, but during the Promethean scene. just another point in the “they steal lilith’s powers after we retrieve and fix the vault map” box). 

She goes on to show off her powers (yay for “we’ve never seen her use her powers before, not even on lilith”)

and then immediately goes on to say “so i offered the sun smashers a place in our family, but they just wanted guns and cash, they betrayed the family” then we get “Gods don’t negotiate” (hell yeah). She goes into this like we have context for who exactly the Sun Smashers are, which is where my theory comes into play. What was the betrayal? Well, we all know Vaults are (supposedly) a source of kick-ass loot. Of guns, and cash. They stole the Vault Map from the twins after they had let them into the “family”. That’s how we know who the sun smashers are before this demo. We have an objective to find the “sun smashers”. why do we need to find them? they took the vault key. lilith thought the vault key was in the recruitment center (where the sun smashers were being recruited!!!) but they had stolen it and brought it to the HBC. The twins show up to make a demonstration out of them and Ty rock-ifies all of them. She knows the Vault Hunters are coming to get the key, and that the crimson raiders were the ones with the vault key in the first place (from when Sanctuary had fallen… in theee upcoming dlc). she probably understands that we have a better idea of how to work it than she does. And I’m betting, the reason she decides to steal Lilith’s powers is because Lilith knows how to work it. So even if we do meet the twins in flesh-and-blood before the HBC? They wouldn’t have a reason to steal her powers then. It’s only after we fix the Vault Map that they decide to come get it back and get the key that will make it work (lilith’s powers. in case that part wasn’t clear lmao). 

oh and tyreen talking about the whole sun smashers thing in general is interesting:

Like, she hadn’t mentioned the sun smashers before so… I assume this was mentioned the first time we meet her (or at least during the climb up to the HBC). maybe we witness the twins in conversation (either in-person or through an ECHO stream/hologram/whatever) and they don’t realize (or don’t care) that we’re watching? and ty mentions something about being annoyed they have to get the Map back because it’s broken, anyway and then they’re like “oh! hello! we were waiting for you guys! that was quick!” but they totally knew we were watching because they WANTED us to get the Vault Key, its all part of their master plan

because Ty does say at the end: “go ahead and take it! I’ll swing by later to pick it up. you’re my most loyal follower, Vault Thief :) you just don’t know it yet :)”

i imagine she knows we’re a “vault thief” because we tell her we’re vault hunters and she’s all like “well… that sucks, those vaults are ours, they’re our birthright, you thief”

anyway

uh

i got a little into this lmao

ttyl

[coolgreatwebsite]

Cool Games I Finished In 2018 (In No Real Order)

Man! Wow! 2018! 2018 was a wild year for me. I managed to deliver those elbow drops I talked about last year and ended up doing a lot of of things. I left my job and moved cross-country in the span of like 2 and a half weeks! I took a new job in the video game industry (play Ninjin and Override)! I took a trip to Vegas a week after that! I got in a relationship! I got out of a relationship! It’s been a ride. A ride that hasn’t left me a ton of time to play video games or write about video games, but I’m like 1000 times happier now so it’s probably a fair trade. No matter what though, I will always be here at the end of the year to make a bunch of terrible MSPaint banners and provide you with another one of these. Here’s a bunch of cool games I experienced for the first time in 2018.

Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne (PlayStation 2, 2004)

Nocturne is a game that I haven’t been able to get out of my head since I beat it. It’s so damn cool. It starts with you witnessing a demonic apocalypse where only you, your two friends, your teacher, a reporter, and the man with the world’s wildest widow’s peak survive. These people are, with a couple of notable exceptions, the only real characters in the entire game. You barely see them, and when you do your meetings are usually pretty brief. Sure, you talk to and recruit a horde of demons to your side as party members, and you interact with a handful of demonic antagonists and various demonic NPCs, but for the most part the game is just you. You, alone, wandering the weird hellscape remnants of Tokyo. It’s one of the most solitary-feeling video games I’ve ever played, and it nails this atmosphere flawlessly. The music, the visuals, the writing, every element gels with every other element so smoothly to create a prevailing, almost overbearing feeling of loneliness. The combat and gameplay mechanics are what I understand this series to mostly be like (this being the only mainline SMT I’ve played), and are fun and engaging in a way that’s not too dissimilar from the Persona series. The only knock I have against Nocturne is that the dungeon design super sucks. I’m fine with endless corridors, my love of the PS2 Persona games can attest to that, but almost every dungeon in Nocturne has an annoying gimmick to it, and they all essentially boil down to different takes on a teleporter maze. I was kind of almost dreading navigating dungeons by the time I got to the last fourth of the game, but my intense love for literally everything else saw me through. For those of you who like JRPGs and haven’t played Nocturne, I’m sure you’ve heard this plenty of times, and I was like you once. I didn’t listen. But now I’m on the other side of the tunnel, so I get to say it. You should really, really play Nocturne. It’s good.

Splatoon 2 Octo Expansion (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

Octo Expansion is what Splatoon 2′s single player mode should have been from the start. Don’t get me wrong, the packed in single player campaign is fine, but it’s basically a level pack for Splatoon 1′s. Octo Expansion, on the other hand, is 100% fresh. Structurally it’s much more diverse, with the campaign taking place over 80 mostly-bite-sized missions with varying objectives. There’s a couple of stinkers in there, but overall the quality of the missions is much higher than what was in the original single player campaign. They can actually be pretty tough sometimes too! It was fun to see some actual challenge in a Splatoon campaign. Everything wrapped around the core gameplay of Octo Expansion is kind of phenomenal. The setting and visual design is super weird, the music is way more mellow than anything else that’s come out of the series and creates a great sense of atmosphere, and the writing is actually genuinely pretty great. There’s a lot of funny dialogue and good character moments. They made me like Pearl! The weird gremlin that eats mayo! She’s my friend now! The last half an hour or so of Octo Expansion is also straight up my favorite sequence from a game I played this year too. Don’t sleep on this thing just because it’s DLC. It’s legitimately great.

Monster Hunter: World (PlayStation 4, 2018)

At the outset I was incredibly skeptical of Monster Hunter: World. This wasn’t entirely fair to the game, as a lot of this feeling was based on its initial E3 reveal trailer kinda sorta matching up to some mostly not true pre-E3 leaks, namely that it would be much more action heavy to cater to Western audiences and tie into the then unannounced Monster Hunter movie (which, as an aside, looks like a trainwreck that I desperately want to see). You can probably pretty easily find some tweets and posts from me around that time saying that the game looks like trash because of some misinterpreted new game mechanic. I am here to say that I am a big wrong dumbass and Monster Hunter: World is very good. You might be surprised to hear this, but it’s Monster Hunter! With a bunch of good and well-executed gameplay refinements! And graphics that aren’t repurposed from a PS2 game! It’s a ton of fun and I put a lot of time into it, but it’s not without its flaws. The number of monsters and weapons is comparatively way lower than in previous games, mostly due to that whole not repurposing PS2 models thing. It’s still kind of clunky in a lot of the places Monster Hunter has been historically clunky in, but also in some pretty big new ways, mainly around playing multiplayer. Also the story, while it’s as bland as it’s ever been, is exponentially more intrusive thanks to the addition of voiced cutscenes (which need to be triggered before the game lets you bring other players into story missions, causing a lot of that clunk I mentioned earlier). It’s all nothing game-ruining, of course. The game wouldn’t be on the list if it was! Monster Hunter: World exceeded my expectations, and I’m super looking forward to playing the recently announced G Rank expansion when it comes out next year.

Contra: Hard Corps (Sega Genesis, 1994)

I wish I could go back in time and kick my own stupid ass for not playing this sooner. I’d written off Contra: Hard Corps for the longest time based solely on some bullshit I read on the internet at an age where I just took other peoples’ opinions and made them my own. This and Castlevania Bloodlines were the bad ones, the ones some weird b-team crapped out for the Genesis while the SNES got the good stuff like Contra 3: Alien Wars. Well, it turns out... they were right about Bloodlines. But MAN were they wrong about Hard Corps. Hard Corps is the best Contra game. It fucking rules. I would have gone on with my life never giving the game a glance if not for this excellent Giant Bomb feature happening, and a couple of episodes in I knew I had to play it for myself. Contra: Hard Corps is fucking nuts. It’s balls to the wall 100% of the time. There’s so many unique enemies and wild bosses and they’re all never not exploding. The game has four characters with unique weapons and multiple different level paths that have totally different levels, bosses, and story beats. Oh, and the soundtrack fucking rips. Sometimes it’s a little too much, and there are definitely some sequences and boss attacks that are total gotchas that you can’t survive without prior knowledge of how they work. I’d also be remiss not to give a special shoutout to level 4′s awful, tedious, unskippable-on-any-route boss. But god damn if the rest of Hard Corps doesn’t outshine these flaws. It’s the high water mark for insane non-stop 16-bit action.

Deltarune (PC, 2018)

Does this count? It’s a demo for a full game that won’t be out for a real long time... I suppose it does, it’s self-contained enough. Deltarune, the free demo for the sort of but also sort of not sequel to Undertale, is unsurprisingly good as hell. Less surprising for sure, as Undertale is a known quantity these days, but I’m still way into it. The story is interesting and full of charming characters, and the battle system has been overhauled to include things like multiple party members with different abilities while still keeping all the things that made Undertale’s battles novel. The music is, of course, fantastic, and the visuals look much nicer while adhering to the same general style as the previous game. It’s fairly short, and some character development feels a little rushed because of it, but again, it’s a small chunk of the beginning of a much larger game. I can’t imagine any of this stuff wouldn’t be expanded upon. It’s hard to judge this thing story-wise due to the nature of it being a demo. I thoroughly enjoyed what is there, though, and look forward to playing the rest of the game in 50 years or whatever.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (Nintendo Switch, 2018)

This game is so much. Even though the first thing I learned about this game was “everyone is here”, I still wasn’t ready for how much it is. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is maybe too much. Of course, as previously stated, everyone (meaning every single previous playable Smash Bros. character) is here. Most of the previous stages are also present. This was all known. Where the game really, truly goes overboard though is in the single-player content. There’s the usual classic mode for every character, this time specifically structured around a theme for each character, but the vast majority of it is actually comprised of the all-new spirits system. Spirits are non-playable video game characters that you can collect and equip to your fighters for special abilities, sort of like a less terrible version of Smash Bros. Brawl’s stickers. You collect these spirits through spirit battles, which are fights themed around the character the spirit represents via extremely clever usage of already existing fighters and mechanics. These battles range from the obvious (Big the Cat’s battle tasks you with fighting a giant purple Incineroar), to the obscure (fight the main characters from Zangeki no Reginleiv as represented by Link and female Robin while you’re giant-sized), to the creative (Porygon’s spirit puts you in a fight against wireframe Little Mac and Akira from Virtua Fighter, normally an assist trophy), to the downright in-jokey (the spirit of Ness’s Father, displayed as the telephone spirte from Earthbound, makes you fight an invisible Solid Snake). There are like 1200 spirits. The vast majority of them have an associated battle. And you don’t just experience these battles through a menu, at least half of them are implemented into the 30 hour long adventure mode, World of Light, which has you fighting spirits, navigating dungeons, and facing bosses. It’s insane. They focused on spirits in lieu of collectible trophies this time around and they absolutely made the correct choice. The trophies in the last two Super Smash Bros. games were fine, but easier access to existing 3D models of most represented characters made them inherently less exciting than Melee’s tailor-made collection of high quality (considering the time period) renders, many of which would never receive a 3D model again. The spirits system manages to be exciting in the same way Melee's trophies were, fostering a genuine sense of anticipation to see what they cooked up next, but in the context of gameplay. They completely knocked it out of the park. Smash 4 made it on one of these lists long ago, and I essentially just said “it’s more Smash Bros. and that’s good”. Smash Ultimate is also more Smash Bros., but it’s SO much more Smash Bros. It’s so much more extremely good Smash Bros. The only things I can ding it for are some totally subjective stage preferences (where the hell is Poké Floats) and some slightly less than optimal music sorting decisions. Super Smash Bros. Ultimate is, ultimately, the ultimate Super Smash Bros.

These games were also cool, I just had less to say about them:

Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon (Nintendo Switch, 2018): Remember Castlevania 3? Inti Creates sure did! This prequel to the still unreleased Koji Igarashi Kickstarter project Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night is an unabashed love letter to Castlevania 3, and it’s pretty good. Mom Hid My Game! (Nintendo Switch, 2017): A charming little game in the style of those old escape the room Flash games. It even looks like one (in the literal sense, not the pejorative). It’s not tough or replayable really, but it is $5 and consistently absurd and surprising. Yakuza 6: The Song of Life (PlayStation 4, 2018): Yakuza 6 is kind of a weird juxtaposition. It’s the final chapter of Kazuma Kiryu’s story, but also the first game to use the Yakuza team’s new Dragon Engine. The story end of things is a good, solid sendoff for a bunch of characters I’m going to miss very dearly, but the gameplay feels very formative and limited in a way that sort of reminds me of Yakuza 1. I had a good time with it overall, but I hope they manage to dial it in like they did with the previous decade of Yakuza games and make something truly excellent again. Looking at you, Judge Eyes. Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (Nintendo 3DS, 2017): Etrian Odyssey V is a return to basics for the series, ditching things like overworlds and sub-dungeons and just pitting your party against one big labyrinth. Honestly, gotta say, I miss the stuff they left behind! The core of Etrian Odyssey is still super strong so I had fun regardless, but the overall simplicity of the game and the changes to how classes work had me missing EOIV more often than not. Soundtrack’s great though, as expected. Sonic Mania Plus (Nintendo Switch, 2018): To be completely honest, most of the stuff they added to Sonic Mania in Plus really isn’t that fantastic. Mighty’s spike and projectile immunity is fun, but Ray’s flying is more interesting than effective. Encore mode is largely disappointing, with most of it feeling identical to the base game outside of its all-new (and too hard for their own good) special stages. HOWEVER, Sonic Mania Plus was an exceptional excuse to play through Sonic Mania another six or so times. Congratulations to Sonic Mania for being game of the year for two years in a row. WarioWare Gold (Nintendo 3DS, 2018): A good compilation game, executed much better than in the team’s previous Rhythm Heaven Megamix, but lacking in reasons to come back after you’ve played all the games. There’s the usual toy room stuff WarioWare has had since Touched!, but it’s bogged down by reliance on a currency system and the fact that sooooo many things you unlock are just parts that feed into a larger, not that interesting thing. The part where you play WarioWare is great though, and the new visuals make it all feel fresh even though it’s mostly older games. Mario Tennis Aces (Nintendo Switch, 2018): I had a brief, passionate love affair with Mario Tennis Aces. The core gameplay is rad as hell and more like a fighting game than a tennis game, with multiple different special shots and a focus on meter management. I played like 40+ hours of it between the full game and the demo and never even touched the single player (which makes it technically not count for this list, but, shut up). I got 2nd place at its very first tournament at CEO 2018. Then I... stopped playing. It had some weird balance issues, sure, but I think it was more a victim of circumstance rather than anything else. I moved basically right after CEO and just never went back to it. It’s still incredible though. I hope this game’s systems are the standard for Mario Tennis games going forward.

We made it! Bottom of the list! It was a shorter trip this time, but I’m still proud of you for making it here all the same. Thank you for reading the words I typed about video games. I’m looking to get this web page back into gear in 2019, so you can probably expect part 2 of The Best Babies sometime in January. Hopefully I’ll actually play some video games too so I can bring back Breviews on the first of February. Until then!

[fangzeronos]

SDCC 2018 wrap up

Ok now that SDCC is over, I feel like I should do a little wrap up for the weekend. I got to sit and wait for all the trailers and news to come out since I couldn’t afford to go, so this is gonna be strictly from the “Nerd on the Couch” perspective. I’m putting a read more in case anyone wanna skip this.

 Titans: The trailer was alright. Robin’s in a bad place because of Batman so his “Fuck Batman” line is justified. Starfire and Beast Boy could still use some work, but it was only the first trailer, so we’ll have to reserve judgement until the show comes out. I’m looking forward to it anyway.

 Young Justice Outsiders: It’s actually real. I thought for the last two years we’ve all been thinking it’s not coming and that we’ve all been living in a dream about wanting it back. I was in the middle of the store when I saw the trailer and my heart stopped. Two minutes of Season 2 recap, including Wally’s ‘death’ (HE ISN’T DEAD ALRIGHT!? HE’S JUST IN THE SPEED FORCE AND NOBODY CAN CONVINCE ME OTHERWISE DAMMIT!!!) before we get the new footage. The new characters look amazing, Geoforce looks like he’s going to be a good character, hopefully we’ll get Terra since she’s “been missing for two years”. Still waiting to see M’gann, Kaldur, Beast Boy, and the rest of the season 2 cast, but I’m excited for this one more then Titans.

 And since both shows above are going to be on the DC Universe Online service, I can see paying $75 a year for it if we’re going to get more Young Justice. With all the shows coming out on DCUO, like Harley Quinn, Stargirl, Swamp Thing, Doom Patrol, and all of the older shows like Batman The Animated Series, Wonder Woman, the older DC movies and the comics, I can justify paying that much for a yearlong subscription.

 Supergirl: Season 4 looks like it’s going to be interesting. Agent Liberty seems like a decent antagonist, but with the way this show has done in the past, hyping a villain for the first half and then swapping it with a generic bad guy for the second, I don’t have much hope. It looks like they’re toning down the relationship drama from season 2 and 3, which is good. I’m honestly thinking they’re going to screw Lena’s character development and have her go evil Luthor judging by how season 3 ended with her “We can begin phase two” line and having the Harun-El made up that she gave to Alura. A few quick shots of Alex as Director of the DEO sporting a new haircut, nothing too revealing except for the Supergirl spacesuit at the end. I saw it and my mind went to the first Injustice 2 game trailer from 2016 with the armored look. I’m looking forward to the new season, not keen on it being on Sundays before the Charmed reboot but have to get the viewers for a remake somehow.

 Arrow: Oliver Queen in prison. That’s a hell of a concept for the season. We know something’s going to change and he’s going to be out by the fourth or fifth episode, possibly earlier. Decent shots of the other characters, Dinah wearing SCPD riot gear was a nice touch, Laurel-2 denouncing vigilantism makes for an interesting idea considering what the hell she’s done in the last seasons. Diaz is fine, not enjoying having him around again but since he didn’t get killed at the end of the last season, it’s fine. Longbow Hunters might make for interesting fodder, but we can’t be sure until the show starts. I’m sick of Felicity, but that arguments been done to death. We all know it was Roy in the Green Arrow suit in the end of the trailer. If it had been Diggle, we’d have seen his face and since we know Roy’s back, it doesn’t really give us many options to choose from. I’m glad it’s on Mondays now so I can watch it and keep up instead of being behind.

 Legends of Tomorrow: It looks great. This one has become one of my favorites on the network and I’m glad to see they’re getting more episodes. Hopefully this season doesn’t get shafted and end up getting thrown to a different night or time or cut in the middle for a different show. Bringing Constantine back for a regular spot is a good move considering what they’re going to be dealing with thanks to the fallout from killing Mallus. Dragons, demons, all sorts of magical and mythical creatures. “Couldn’t we be heroes just a little longer?” made me laugh and it’s that sort of thing that makes Legends stand out to me. It can be dark and gritty but still lighthearted and fun. It’s what Flash started to be and it’s what Arrow needs to be. I’m glad it’s going to be on Mondays along with Arrow.

 Flash: Coming off of the reveal that Mystery Girl is actually Barry and Iris’ daughter (which I’d had a feeling about anyway since she was so giddy at the wedding in the Crisis crossover), Nora seems to be a fun addition to the cast this year. I’m honestly looking forward to seeing what she messed up, why she came back, and why didn’t she learn from Barry’s mistakes about screwing with the Timeline. Cicada looks to be interesting, and I hope he’s going to be the main villain for the year. I want to know more about how Caitlin was Frost before the Accelerator and Flashpoint happened, or is it a side effect of Flashpoint two years later? Guess we’ll find out in October.

 Aquaman: The trailer looked amazing. This might just be part of what the DCEU needs to get its shit together and stop being so grimdark. Wonder Woman proved DC movies can do fun and lighthearted and still hit some dark themes and notes, and this looks like it’s going to do the same thing. Jason Mamoa looks as badass as he did in Justice League, Amber Heard is beautiful as Mera. Atlantis looked amazing. I’m thoroughly excited and December can’t come quick enough to see this.

 Shazam!: One of my favorite DC heroes, man. Zachary Levi just killed it in this trailer and I was laughing the whole way through. If the movie keeps that same energy up, I’ll be damn happy. March release for this one and I’m ready to go!

 Godzilla: King of the Monsters: It’s frigging Godzilla, fighting his own list of bad guys. Mothra, Rodan, King Ghidorah, all classics that should have been in the first one instead of the MUTO. I’ve always been a Godzilla nerd, so when I saw this trailer I was geeking the fuck out. I’m definitely excited for this one.

 Now, you’re probably wondering, “Hey, where’s Voltron in all of this?” and you’d be right that I haven’t talked about it yet. I have spent three days milling over the reveals from the Voltron panel and been trying the right ways to word things, so I don’t seem like I’m being an asshole and damning myself with what I’m going to say. Now, with that out of the way.

 The season 7 trailer looked good. We’re going back to Earth, so who knows how much time really has passed since the only indication we’ve had was the week that Kuron was in the Galra fighter before Keith and Black found him back in season 3. I’m sad to see that season 8 is going to be the last of VLD, but I can understand why, since they were only approved for so many episodes. Going back to a 13-episode season is the best thing they could have done. Keith piloting Black still kind of irks me, but with Shiro only having one arm, I guess it makes sense. I would much rather have Allura in Black, put Lance back in Blue, and give Red back to Keith, but that’s a whole other post.

 The big thing people took away from the panel was “You’ll meet Shiro’s significant other, Adam.” When I saw that on Twitter, I was…. I’m not gonna lie, I was disappointed. You’ve had six seasons of moments between Shiro and Allura, the Hand Touch, the way she looked at him when he said “You found me” at the end of the season, how adamant they are about saving each other every time they’re in danger, Shiro’s resolve to get her back in Season 1 after she threw him into the shuttle and got taken by the Galra. And now it’s all thrown out of the airlock?

 No offense to the writers, Josh Keaton who gets mad credit for keeping this close to the chest and not revealing anything, the fans that are a fan of this plot point for the next season, but I’m not a fan. Don’t get me wrong, LGBT representation in animation/kids’ media has come a long way in a few short years. Look at Steven Universe. One of the main characters is a literal fusion of two she-pronoun using space rocks. I just feel like this is shoehorned in like a checkmark on an RPG character creation. “PTSD? Check. Missing limb? Check. Male POC? Check. What else can we check to make people happy? OH! Gay! DOUBLE CHECK!!” is what it feels like to me. To me, this feels like the writers have been shadow stalking Tumblr, AO3, FF.net, everywhere else Voltron is big and made their choice but what the popular ships were in the search results.

 Make Shiro gay, fine. Make him bi, that’d be a better option because then we can ship him with whoever we want and not get comments that say that shipping Shiro with Allura or any other female member of this show is gay erasure. By saying “Shiro’s gay”, you’re shooting all of the other Shiro ships in the face. Shieth shippers are over the moon, Shallura shippers are sitting in a corner, Klance shippers are looking between the two going “WTF”, and the rest of the internet’s like “Why is it a big deal?”

 I feel like I should stop there about this. This is already more then a page in my word doc.

 SDCC 2018 was fun to watch from a distance. CW brought some good trailers, DC killed it with 8 trailers, and Voltron is what it is. Now begins the countdown for SDCC 2019.

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 7 (4 of 6)

With just over half of season 7 of Star Trek: The Next Generation behind us, we now delve into a fourth group of episodes from that season, beginning with the highly notable ‘Lower Decks’.

Episode 15: Lower Decks

Plot (as given by me):

The episode focuses on a group of junior officers assigned to the Enterprise. The group is comprised of Nurse Alyssa Ogawa and Ensigns Sam Lavelle, Sito Jaxa and Taurik. Sito and Lavelle are both anxious about upcoming promotions, and learn from Ben, one of the waiters in Ten-Forward, that both are being considered for an assignment to the Ops position on the bridge. Alyssa is later told by Dr Crusher that she will soon be made a lieutenant, and the two women also discuss concerns Alyssa is having about her relationship with Lt. Andrew Powell.

 The junior officer all become curious when the Enterprise beams aboard an escape pod under an apparent cloak of secrecy, Lt. Commander La Forge briefly reprimanding Taurik when he tries to identify the pod’s occupant. At the same time, Captain Picard calls Sito to his ready room and gives her a severe dressing down for her part in the Starfleet Academy incident seen in the season 5 episode ‘The First Duty’. Taurik later begins to suspect something is going on when he asked to assist La Forge in putting phaser blasts on a shuttle’s hull. The junior officers and Ben discuss recent events that evening during a poker game, while the senior officers do the same in Riker’s quarters. When the first game ends, Ben stops by Riker’s quarters and gets himself invited into their game.

 The next morning, Lt. Worf asks Sito to remain behind following a martial arts class he has been teaching. He subjects her to a challenge that requires her to defend against his attack while blind-folded, and after a few tries Sito stands up to Worf and tells him the test is unfair. Worf then reveals that was the whole point; to make Sito stand up for herself when she feels she has not been treated fairly. She then returns to the captain’s ready room and insists Picard judge for who she is now, not the mistake she made as a cadet. It is then Picard’s turn to reveal that him berating her was to assess for a dangerous mission, and that she had been assigned to the Enterprise in the first place so she could have a fair chance to prove herself.

 It turns out the Enterprise has beamed aboard a Cardassian double-agent working for the Federation. The Cardassian, Joret Dal, now has to try and get back into Cardassian space without arousing suspicion; he will take the shuttle damaged by La Forge and Taurik to give the impression he is a bounty hunter who has escaped Federation custody, and Sito is asked to pose as his prisoner. Once Dal is back in Cardassian space, Sito will be sent back across the border in an escape pod. Despite the dangers, Sito agrees and is cosmetically altered to give the appearance of having been beaten by Dal. During the shuttle trip, Sito learns that while Dal is loyal to Cardassia, he is supporting the Federation because he feels the military is more about serving the ambitions of high-ranking officers than the people of Cardassia.

 Sometime later, the escape pod fails to appear at the pre-arranged co-ordinates, and Picard risks sending a probe into Cardassian space despite it being a treaty violation. The probe’s telemetry and intercepted Cardassian communications reveal that Sito was apparently killed in her escape attempt, and Picard sadly informs the crew of her passing. Later, Lavelle receives his promotion and assignment to Ops, and Ben convinces Worf to join the rest of Sito’s friends in mourning her apparent death.

Review:

The episode ‘Lower Decks’ is not to be confused with the animated Trek spin-off series; that series is part of this episode’s legacy, and a poor part at that.  I haven’t sat down and watched any of it, mind, but I can see from trailers it’s been made somewhat in the style of the Rick and Morty animated series, which I tried an episode of once and promptly put to my ‘never watch even on pain of death’ list.  Like Rick and Morty, and South Park before that, the ‘Lower Decks’ show seems to be based on the idea of using crudeness and vulgarity for cheap laughs instead of trying to be intelligent, and I hate comedies like that.  I also hate anything designed to be a spoof of something I enjoy, which is undoubtedly the only other gear that show would have. Frankly, Trek deserves better; as much as it can and does have its comedic moments, the core of the franchise is about developing the characters of the show and exploring real-life issues through metaphor.  Neither is generally the province of a sit-com, and for that reason I blank the ‘Lower Decks’ cartoon as a part of Trek to never try at all.  Just toss it out the airlock and blast it into nothingness with phasers, would you please.

 That aside, the episode ‘Lower Decks’ has better aspects to its legacy.  A later episode of the Voyager spin-off followed a similar theme, and the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation TV show did a number of episodes across a few seasons collectively referred to as ‘Lab Rats’ episodes.  In those episodes, the focus shifted from the CSIs who go out and deal with crime scenes to the lab technicians who process the evidence. Clearly there is a ‘Lower Decks’ influence in those episodes, and one does actually take place around a convention dedicated to a Trek-like TV show.  It’s certainly a fun idea; take the focus off the main crew and focus on the wider crew, albeit with focus still on a set group of characters.

 The inclusion and prominence of Ensign Sito really helps the episode feel like proper Trek, because through her part of the episode we get a look into the idea of redemption and can someone who has done wrong in the past become someone worthwhile again.  It’s a concept many people in the real world will discount out-of-hand, choosing to believe that if someone has committed a crime or struggles with addiction to anything, they are somehow fundamentally beyond redemption.  In some cases, that can be true, especially if no one is willing to help the people in question work out the underlying causes of their behaviour so they can adequately combat them.  Sito is lucky to have people like Picard and Worf show the faith in her that they ultimately do, and it’s unfortunate that her story appears to have so tragic an end.

 However, the tragic end is kind of the point; the story is somewhat a coming-of-age story as well, as it shows Sito and Lavelle seeking promotion and advancement as they settle in on the Enterprise, and while Alyssa Ogawa also gains promotion, the advancement of her relationship with an unseen lieutenant is more the focus of her plot.  It’s also fun to see the inclusion of a member of the civilian staff in Ten-Forward, as at this point Trek hasn’t focused on many characters that aren’t officers in Starfleet or a non-Federation power while also being human.  Taurik adds little to the show itself beyond compensating for TNG’s low quota of Vulcans, but the actor does go on to play another Vulcan as a recurring character on Voyager.  Overall, aside from the dodgy animated show in its legacy, I can’t really fault this episode at all, and give it top marks; 10 out of 10.

Episode 16: Thine Own Self

Plot (as given by me):

Counsellor Troi returns to the Enterprise from a class reunion and is surprised to find Dr Crusher commanding the night shift instead of Lt. Commander Data. Crusher explains Data has gone on a mission to retrieve radioactive material from a deep-space probe that has crashed on Barkon IV, a planet which is populated by a pre-industrial society. The Enterprise is unable to communicate with Data to advise him of a delay in meeting him, but Crusher is unconcerned as Lt. Commander La Forge warned that radiation from the probe would cause communication problems. The two women discuss why Crusher has earned herself the rank of Commander, since it is not a requirement to be chief medical officer. Apparently, Crusher wanted to push herself beyond what was necessarily required of her. Wanting the same, Troi decides to take the Bridge Officer’s exam so she can also become a Commander. She passes all parts of the exam easily except for the Engineering section, but after several tries, she succeeds when she realises the test is not of her engineering knowledge, but her willingness to order one officer to their death to save everyone else.

 On Barkon IV, Data wanders into a village apparently damaged and with no memory of who he is, carrying a box bearing the word ‘radioactive’. He is taken in by the village magistrate Garvin and his daughter Gia, who names him “Jayden”. Talur, the village healer and teacher, tries to assess Data’s memory loss and determines that he is not ill, but is instead part of a race of “icemen” who dwell in the nearby mountains. In need of money, Data is convinced to sell some of the pieces of metal he had in the box to a local blacksmith, Skoran, retaining the rest in case in case they provide any clue to his identity. He also saves a man when an anvil collapses on him, revealing his incredible strength to the villagers.

 Later, Garvin becomes stricken with a mysterious ailment, with Gia and Skoran also being afflicted not long after. Most of the villagers blame Data, who begins conducting research into the cause of the illness. He determines that unseen particles are being emitted by the metal fragments from his box. He asks Talur to retrieve all the pieces of metal while he works on a cure, but shortly after she leaves, Skoran arrives with another of the villagers. The pair attack Data, one of them ripping the skin from the side of his face and revealing his mechanical nature, causing them to flee in terror. Talur finishes retrieving the metal fragments while Skoran organises the villagers into a mob to search for Data, who has hidden in Garvin’s house and reveals himself only when everyone else has gone. He has put on a hood to hide his face, but Gia convinces him to remove the hood as he continues his search for a cure to the radiation sickness.

 Data’s cure proves successful on Garvin, so he administers some to Gia and learns from her that the village well is the only water source near the village. In order to sure everyone, Data opts to apply the cure to the well’s drinking water, but is found by the villagers just as he is doing so. The cure is dumped into the well water just in time, as Skoran impales Data, seemingly killing him. Days later, Dr Crusher and Commander Riker infiltrate the village disguised as natives to the planet. They find the villagers have buried Data and the box containing the radioactive fragments, enabling both to be beamed up to the Enterprise without the villagers knowing. Back on the Enterprise, Data is reactivated, but he has no memory of his time as “Jayden”, and learns that Troi has been promoted in his absence, meaning that she now effectively out-ranks him.

Review:

Apparently, the Data side of this episode was pitched as “Data as Frankenstein” according to Memory Alpha, and depending on how that is meant, I’d be very worried about the intelligence of the person making the pitch.  If the idea was that Data should be the outcast scientist who others shunned for his advanced ideas, then the pitch is correct.  If, however, they meant Data as a monster, then as Kryten once noted in the Red Dwarf episode ‘Quarantine’, whoever made the pitch was a truly stupid person.  In Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, which is the original story from which all subsequent variations have been derived, Frankenstein was the scientist who created a monster from the bodies of the deceased, not the monster itself.  Every version that has identified its monster as Frankenstein has been a misconception, and frankly I wish they’d all carry disclaimers to say they’re getting it wrong.

 For me, though, that side of the episode didn’t do much for me.  It doesn’t advance Data to any degree as a character, though watching it in the here and now, I suppose there’s some retroactive analogy to those idiots in society who ignore or deny sound science whenever it clashes with what they believe or what they think they know.  For all intents and purposes, the villagers who mob up with Skoran against Data are this episode’s equivalent to every anti-vaccine, 3G-paranoid, climate-change-denying conspiracy nut yahoo wasting space, food and air that would better be used on actual human beings.  It’s such a shame that teaching them the folly of their ways wasn’t really how this episode played out, as I would have loved the morons to get some kind of comeuppance for acting like a bunch of in-bred superstitious fools.

 As for the Troi storyline, it was kind of interesting to see her go after a promotion, but again it was flawed in various aspects.  First of all, Troi has spent ages being on the bridge of the Enterprise.  Surely in order to be stationed on the bridge for any length of time, she would need to be a certified bridge officer.  Why was it a bridge officer’s exam that she had to take when she’d been on the bridge for many episodes already?  Second, Data is supposed to be the ship’s second officer, so logically he needs to retain equal or higher rank than everyone except the captain and first officer.  However, now he has both the doctor and the ship’s counsellor out-ranking him.

 How the hell does that work?  You can’t have underling officers out-ranking their bloody superior.  This isn’t like M*A*S*H where rank is purely a formality and you can have a chief surgeon be fairly low on the officer ranks just for being good.  Starfleet is supposed to be based on a more traditional and strict military hierarchy, and to my mind Data should have been promoted off-screen sometime before this to keep his second officer position and his rank consistent within the context of all other ranks on board.  For me, this episode was barely ok, and only earns 4 out of 10.

Episode 17: Masks

Plot (as given by me):

The Enterprise discovers a comet and begins to scan it, only to receive some kind of feedback that forces them to reduce the intensity of their scan. Later, Lt. Commander Data sculpts a mask while attending a class Counsellor Troi is conducting with the school children on board. The mask is remarkable for two reasons; the first is that Data was having trouble demonstrating imagination in his sculpting earlier, the second is that matching symbols then begin to appear on the computer console of one of the children. More symbols appear at other terminals, which Data is somehow able to read, and strange artefacts bearing more of the symbols begin appearing all over the ship.

 It turns out the comet contains an alien informational archive that is using a transformation program to transform the Enterprise into something resembling its native culture. The program has also affected Data, who begins to manifest different personalities, most of which appear to be ritualistic representations of the deities of the alien culture. After numerous failed attempts to halt or reverse the process, Captain Picard finally succeeds in restoring the Enterprise when he confronts the most powerful of Data’s personas in the guise of a counter-part deity. The transformation program is disabled by Lt. Commander La Forge and a Federation archaeology team is dispatched to study the archive further. Only the mask Data made himself remains, and Picard notes that Data’s recent experience transcends the human condition, as he has just been the embodiment of an entire civilisation.

Review:

For me, this episode more than any other betrays just how bad TNG was getting towards its end.  It’s not a surprise considering the way Trek was spreading itself thin at the time this show’s final season was in production.  You’ve got a new series and a feature film in pre-production while also wrapping up TNG and putting out a second season of Deep Space Nine.  That said, this episode still could have been better.  Apparently, it was based on an idea about doing an alien analogue for the Library of Alexandria, and an original script originally explained the archive was a kind of “advanced Genesis Device” that mistook the Enterprise for a world it could reshape into the world it originally came from.

 If this is indeed the case, then frankly the idea that they would chuck the explanation and keep the Enterprise as the thing being transformed seems stupid.  You need to explain the what and why of the archive for it to make sense, and having it change the Enterprise and make Data go into “weirdness for weirdness’ sake” mode is just unutterably stupid.  They should have not only kept the archive as a terraforming kind of device, but also had it try to alter a planet.  There could have been some debate then about how to handle it, weighing up whether the archive needed to be destroyed, allowed to take its course, etc. Instead, we just get a non-sensical clunker of an episode that is best forgotten.  I give this one a lowly 4 out of 10, the points largely going to Patrick Stewart for delivering another great performance as Picard the archaeologist despite the episode turning out rubbish all around him.

Episode 18: Eye of the Beholder

Plot (as given by me):

Following the suicide of Lt. Daniel Kwan in the nacelle tube control room, Lt. Worf and Counsellor Troi are assigned to investigate the death to determine why it happened. Reviewing his logs and talking to his superior officer and his girlfriend reveal no behaviours that would suggest Kwan had any intention of taking his own life. Meanwhile, Lt. Commander Data reveals to Geordi La Forge that he once contemplated committing an act that would have been similar to suicide; in the early months after his activation, Data began to struggle incorporating new pathways into his neural net, and considered starting from scratch, thereby self-terminating the person he had become. However, Data notes he instead opted to look at the situation as a challenge to overcome instead of a problem to avoid. Geordi commends Data on this attitude and laments Kwan apparently being unable to do the same.

 Troi visits the nacelle tube control room, and is overwhelmed by an empathic flood of emotions from no apparent source. Unable to make sense of the emotional barrage, Troi opts to try again, but is asked to wait while her telepathic neurotransmitter levels return to normal. While waiting for this, Troi and Worf talk further, after which Worf goes to Ten-Forward and tries to hint to Commander Riker that he may seek his permission to court Troi. However, Worf backs off when Riker’s comments suggest he’s about to suspect Worf’s possible intention. Later, Worf and Troi return to the nacelle tube control room. When no psychic flashes occur, Troi asks Word to open the maintenance door. This prompts a psychic experience in which Troi experiences the control room as it was eight years ago when the Enterprise was being constructed. The experience shows her a couple being found in a compromising position and laughing at the discoverer, and then the women of the couple apparently being killed.

 Knowing Kwan had served at the ship yard where the Enterprise was constructed, Troi researches further and learns an officer in Engineering, Lt. Walter Pearce, also served at the same ship yard and is now serving on the Enterprise. She also remembers seeing Pearce in her visions, so she and Worf question him. While she cannot gauge the truthfulness of Pearce’s replies empathically, the fact she can’t do this suggests Pearce is partly telepathic. A discussion between Troi and Worf about this leads to the pair making love in Troi’s quarters. The next day they continue the investigation, but Troi gradually grows increasingly suspicious as she notices what seems to be flirting behaviour between Worf and Lt. Kwan’s girlfriend Ensign Maddy Calloway. Geordi finds a skeleton behind a bulkhead in the nacelle tube control room, the remains of which belong to a Marla Finn, the woman in Troi’s visions. Troi deduces her visions were from Pearce’s perspective, and she and Worf go to confront Pearce about the apparent homicide of Finn. However, Troi begs off due to her growing suspicions, which she passes off as a side-effect of a neural suppressant Dr Crusher has given her to assist her in processing her vision.

 Pearce confronts Troi in her quarters and claims Worf told him to report to her. While other security officers take Pearce into custody, Troi tracks Worf to Ensign Calloway’s quarters and finds them kissing. When the pair begin to laugh at Troi, she kills Worf with a phaser. Horrified at what she’s done, Troi races away, and after encountering Pearce in the corridor, she races to the nacelle tube control room to commit suicide as Kwan did. However, before she can hurl herself into the plasma stream, she is pulled back from the edge by Worf, who much to her relief is still alive. It turns out everything from Worf opening the maintenance door to him stopping Troi’s suicide attempt took place in seconds.

 Geordi finds cellular residue on the bulkhead where the dead body had been found in Troi’s visions. Apparently, Pearce, Finn and Finn’s lover William Hodges had been reported missing in a plasma accident during the ship’s construction. In reality, Pearce found out Finn was cheating on him, killed the couple, threw them into the plasma stream to cover up the murders and finally committed suicide. Due to having a Betazoid grandmother, Pearce was partially telepathic, and the manner of his death left a psychic imprint of the murder-suicide that affected Kwan and Troi. Worf then expresses curiosity about who had killed him in Troi’s visions, to which Troi responds “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.”

Review:

This episode is the first to try and follow up on the Troi-Worf romance that came up earlier this season in ‘Parallels’, with try being the operative word.  While Worf clumsily tries and fails himself to drop a hint to Riker that he’s got his eyes set on Troi, most of the Worf-Troi romance plays out in Troi’s head. It’s annoying to see it happen like this, so for once I’m in agreement with Roddenberry’s ‘no dream sequences’ rule. Granted, I know Roddenberry also wanted this show to be very episodic television with no attempts at creating a continuity, so to speak, but at over two years after his death and with the show about to end, I’m thinking they should have been more daring.  TNG audiences would have been ok with the Troi-Worf romance being pushed into reality at this point instead of later, so they should have just done it already.

 Otherwise, the episode is just pure whodunnit mixed with a bit of Trek weirdness.  It’s ok, but could have been miles better.  How?  Simple; they could have gotten Troi and Worf together in the real world and done it so there wouldn’t be a telepathic vision cop-out.  I was also rather unimpressed with how the idea of suicide and possible depression was handled by this episode.  Ok, so your character didn’t give any signs by way of being outwardly upset or stressed in the build-up to taking his own life?  Guess what?  That means sod all, as we’ve sadly seen with many recent celebrity suicides.  The writers on this one should have really done some research to keep this aspect of the show more timeless.  As it is, it betrays a very poor, very out-dated understanding about what emotions a person can display prior to killing themselves. If I was to try and find something in Trek that covered suicide well, this wouldn’t be it.  Overall, I give this episode only 6 out of 10.

Episode 19: Genesis

Plot (as given by me):

During a shift in sickbay, several characters are being treated; Commander Riker is having cacti spines removed from his back following a mishap in the Enterprise arboretum, Lt. Commander Data has brought his pregnant cat Spot in for a check-up, and Lt. Barclay is after a second opinion after once again self-diagnosing a supposed ailment. Barclay turns out to have a mild case of Urodelan Flu, something most humans would be naturally immune to. However, the genes responsible for combatting the illness are dormant in Barclay’s case, so Dr Crusher activates them with a synthetic t-cell. Spot’s visit also reveals that the newly wed Nurse Ogawa is pregnant herself.

 Later, the ship begins to conduct test exercises on upgrades recently made to the ship’s weapon systems by Lt. Worf. A photon torpedo used in the test goes off-course. Remote detonation commands fail and the torpedo is soon out of phaser range, forcing the Enterprise to send a shuttle to reclaim it. Captain Picard opts to fly the shuttle himself and asks Data to accompany him. As the mission may take longer than the remainder of Spot’s pregnancy, Data leaves his cat in the care of Lt. Barclay, the only other member of the crew Spot likes and will not attack if left with.

 After Picard and Data leave, various members of the crew begin to exhibit unusual behaviour; Troi suddenly feels inexplicably cold and dehydrated, Commander Riker struggles to think clearly while Barclay is full of energy, and Worf is exhibiting signs of unusual aggression. After Worf comes into Troi’s quarters and bites her on the neck, both are taken to sick bay, where Worf inadvertently sprays venom from his mouth into Dr Crusher’s face before fleeing. Crusher is placed in stasis, and it soon reported that a viral-like contagion is loose on the Enterprise, causing unusual behaviours in the crew.  At the same time, the venom Worf secretes is being found all over the ship and causing system damage. Riker, with the aid of acting first officer Lt. Commander La Forge, tries to handle the situation, but his inability to think is another sign of the growing illness.

 Picard and Data ultimately return with the errant torpedo to find the Enterprise adrift. Once back on board, they begin trying to ascertain what has happened and regain control of the ship. Their investigations reveal that a synthetic t-cell is present in the crew, all of whom are apparently at varying stages of de-evolving into other forms of life. The t-cell apparently activates introns, fragments of dormant DNA left over from earlier stages in the evolutionary process. Examples of the effects include Riker becoming a proto-human, Troi becoming an amphibian life-form and Barclay beginning a transformation into a spider. Discovery that Spot has mutated into a lizard but that her new-born kittens are unaffected suggests that amniotic fluid may provide the basis for a cure.

 As Nurse Ogawa has recently become pregnant, Data begins to devise a counter-agent using a sample of her amniotic fluid. However, Worf begins trying to break into sickbay to reach Counsellor Troi using his abilities as a far deadlier but less intelligent proto-Klingon lifeform. Picard, despite the fact he is beginning a devolution into a prey-level form of early primate, uses a concentrate of Troi’s pheromones to lure Worf away from sickbay, eventually subduing him in a Jeffries tube by electrocuting him. This buys Data the time he needs to synthesise and release an airborne counter-agent that reverses the devolution. Later, a recovered Dr Crusher informs Barclay that when she gave Barclay the synthetic t-cell, it activated more dormant genes than she intended and then co-opted his flu infection to spread to the rest of the crew. She suggests naming this new form of illness after him, and Troi notes that given what Barclay has just been through, she had better clear her calendar for the next few weeks.

Review:

This is TNG’s last Barclay episode, the first episode of any Trek series directed by a female cast member, and the first and only Trek episode directed by Gates McFadden, who of course plays Dr Crusher. Now while this episode might be a fun one for people who enjoy seeing Trek do horror and enjoy seeing the talents of Michael Westmore when it comes to creature make-up and prosthetics, it’s not got much to go on besides that.  There’s no issue exploration to be found in this episode and no character development either; it’s just a filler episode that allows the show to meet a given quote of episodes for the season.  That said, at least for the most part it’s well performed, but it’s still Trek not being Trek.  For me, it’s only worth 5 out of 10.

[aion-rsa]

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Review

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“Based on a true story” is the hook that the Conjuring universe was built on. A franchise where the main entries feature events from the case files of real life paranormal investigating couple Ed and Lorraine Warren (Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga) it’s a good gimmick that has served the series well so far – if you want to believe the Perron family were haunted by a ghost witch and that there was a poltergeist in North London in the 1970s, have at it. If not, you’ve still got a fun film with two likeable leads and plenty of good jumps.

The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It treads thornier ground. Billed as the Warrens’ darkest case yet, it’s the story of Arne Johnson, a young man who murdered his landlord and claimed he was possessed by a demon at the time. A true crime version of this could make for a fascinating watch, but despite glimpses of courtroom scenes in the trailer, the legal precedent is not the angle The Conjuring 3 takes – and it’s probably for the best. Instead this is an outlandish tale of witchcraft and devil worship, of cults and curses which eschews the haunted house subgenre of the previous two Conjuring films and takes us fully into Satanic Panic territory. 

Set in 1981, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It begins with an extend pre-credits sequence, with a young boy called David Glatzel (Julian Hilliard) being exorcised by a priest, while the Warrens and Glatzel’s family, including his sister’s boyfriend Arne Johnson (Ruairi O’Connor) look on. David is literally climbing the walls – there’s no ambiguity here – and by the time the title card lands, Arne has taken on David’s demon and Ed is in the hospital recovering from a heart attack.  

Tragedy is imminent, and when it soon strikes, Ed and Lorraine must adopt a new role – that of pseudo detectives trying to unpick exactly what this demon’s deal is. With the exception of the bookends, and despite the “based on a true story” selling point most of The Conjuring: The Devil Made Do It actually isn’t actually true, which gives the film room to expand to its full bonkers potential, without giving too much mind to the fact that a real person died. Indeed the name of the victim and some of the details of the murder have even been changed and the movie doesn’t dwell for a second on who he was or what his death meant – which is probably wise though, since there’s something jarring here about cashing in on a tragedy.

James Wan who directed the previous two installments has stepped back this time – though he still co-wrote and produced – handing the reins to Michael Chaves who made his first foray into the Conjuring universe with The Curse of La Llorona. While Wan’s movies were all shadowy suspense, Chaves goes more for action, putting the Warrens – particularly Lorraine – through their paces (she even gets an actual “hold my handbag” moment) as they get caught up in solving a related murder case with a local cop. There’s humor here too, which is a new (and welcome) touch, as well an emphasis on Ed and Lorraine’s romance (less welcome). Chaves almost reinvents the couple as the paranormal equivalent of buddy cops – exchanging quips, solving crimes, hunting down occultists, and nearly falling off cliffs, with the film’s frantic climax taking place inside catacombs.

It’s fun and there are some decent jump scares though these tend to err on the side of basic – The Devil Made Me Do It doesn’t carry the sense of dread of the first two Conjuring movies although it contains considerably more actual death. As a straight up demonic horror it’s fluffy but fun, and fans of the Warrens as characters get a bit more back story, an extra glimpse in the artefact room and at least one meaty call back to previous Conjuring universe movies (no spoilers). It’s the weakest of the three main films but an improvement on La Llorona and despite having a rather stretched run time at 112 mins (the same as The Conjuring, but shorter than The Conjuring 2, thank goodness) it’s zippy and action-packed enough to keep you on your toes.

Though it ends with text relating to the outcome of the Johnson case this is really something of an afterthought. You’ll get a better account of what actually happened in that case by reading Wikipedia, including hints that not everyone was as convinced as the Warrens that the murder was the result of a demonic possession (that defense was rejected by the judge). 

“Based on a true story” is a bit of a cheat then, but for a mostly fictitious, glossy genre ride with some decent moments of body horror and classy leads front and centre, The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is a worthy addition to the Warrens’ playbook. 

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The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It is out now in UK cinemas and premieres in US theaters and on HBO Max on June 4.

The post The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It Review appeared first on Den of Geek.

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Año 1998. Isabel es una estudiante de periodismo que se ve obligada a realizar sus prácticas en el diario de un pequeño pueblo costero gallego. Al llegar, quiere ponerse manos a la obra lo antes posible y comenzar a investigar para así demostrar todo lo que ha aprendido y convertirse en una auténtica periodista. Desafortunadamente, la labor de Isabel consiste en escribir las esquelas que llegan a la redacción. A pesar de lo tediosa que parece ser la tarea, la joven descubre unas esquelas que, más que el anuncio de una muerte, parecen un mensaje de amor. Siempre enviadas en la misma fecha y siempre dedicadas a una tal Lucía.

Isabel decide entonces embarcarse en un viaje por descubrir qué hay detrás de esta curiosa historia. Así, la protagonista viajará, a través de su investigación, al verano de 1958 en Jerez de la Frontera. Allí, entre los viñedos, se fraguó un triángulo amoroso formado por Lucía, su prometido Hernán y Gonzalo, un arquitecto amigo del futuro esposo de la protagonista que tiene la tarea de construir una bodega para la pareja.

4 de diciembre de 2020 / Drama Dirigida por Carlos Sedes Reparto Blanca Suárez, Javier Rey, Guiomar Puerta Nacionalidad España

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THE STORY After graduating from Harvard, Bryan Stevenson (Michael B. Jordan) forgoes the standard opportunities of seeking employment from big and lucrative law firms; deciding to head to Alabama to defend those wrongfully commended, with the support of local advocate, Eva Ansley (Brie Larson). One of his first, and most poignant, case is that of Walter McMillian (Jamie Foxx, who, in 62, was sentenced to die for the notorious murder of an 2-year-old girl in the community, despite a preponderance of evidence proving his innocence and one singular testimony against him by an individual that doesn’t quite seem to add up. Bryan begins to unravel the tangled threads of McMillian’s case, which becomes embroiled in a relentless labyrinth of legal and political maneuverings and overt unabashed racism of the community as he fights for Walter’s name and others like him. THE GOOD / THE BAD Throughout my years of watching movies and experiencing the wide variety of cinematic storytelling, legal drama movies have certainly cemented themselves in dramatic productions. As I stated above, some have better longevity of being remembered, but most showcase plenty of heated courtroom battles of lawyers defending their clients and unmasking the truth behind the claims (be it wrongfully incarcerated, discovering who did it, or uncovering the shady dealings behind large corporations. Perhaps my first one legal drama was 624’s The Client (I was little young to get all the legality in the movie, but was still managed to get the gist of it all). My second one, which I loved, was probably Primal Fear, with Norton delivering my favorite character role. Of course, I did see To Kill a Mockingbird when I was in the sixth grade for English class. Definitely quite a powerful film. And, of course, let’s not forget Philadelphia and want it meant / stand for. Plus, Hanks and Washington were great in the film. All in all, while not the most popular genre out there, legal drama films still provide a plethora of dramatic storytelling to capture the attention of moviegoers of truth and lies within a dubious justice. Just Mercy is the latest legal crime drama feature and the whole purpose of this movie review. To be honest, I really didn’t much “buzz” about this movie when it was first announced (circa 206) when Broad Green Productions hired the film’s director (Cretton) and actor Michael B. Jordan in the lead role. It was then eventually bought by Warner Bros (the films rights) when Broad Green Productions went Bankrupt. So, I really didn’t hear much about the film until I saw the movie trailer for Just Mercy, which did prove to be quite an interesting tale. Sure, it sort of looked like the generic “legal drama” yarn (judging from the trailer alone), but I was intrigued by it, especially with the film starring Jordan as well as actor Jamie Foxx. I did repeatedly keep on seeing the trailer for the film every time I went to my local movie theater (usually attached to any movie I was seeing with a PG rating and above). So, suffice to say, that Just Mercy’s trailer preview sort of kept me invested and waiting me to see it. Thus, I finally got the chance to see the feature a couple of days ago and I’m ready to share my thoughts on the film. And what are they? Well, good ones….to say the least. While the movie does struggle within the standard framework of similar projects, Just Mercy is a solid legal drama that has plenty of fine cinematic nuances and great performances from its leads. It’s not the “be all to end all” of legal drama endeavors, but its still manages to be more of the favorable motion pictures of these projects. Just Mercy is directed by Destin Daniel Cretton, whose previous directorial works includes such movies like Short Term 6, I Am Not a Hipster, and Glass Castle. Given his past projects (consisting of shorts, documentaries, and a few theatrical motion pictures), Cretton makes Just Mercy is most ambitious endeavor, with the director getting the chance to flex his directorial muscles on a legal drama film, which (like I said above) can manage to evoke plenty of human emotions within its undertaking. Thankfully, Cretton is up to the task and never feels overwhelmed with the movie; approaching (and shaping) the film with respect and a touch of sincerity by speaking to the humanity within its characters, especially within lead characters of Stevenson and McMillian. Of course, legal dramas usually do (be the accused / defendant and his attorney) shine their cinematic lens on these respective characters, so it’s nothing original. However, Cretton does make for a compelling drama within the feature; speaking to some great character drama within its two main lead characters; staging plenty of moments of these twos individuals that ultimately work, including some of the heated courtroom sequences. Like other recent movies (i.e. Brian Banks and The Hate U Give), Cretton makes Just Mercy have an underlining thematical message of racism and corruption that continues to play a part in the US….to this day (incredibly sad, but true). So, of course, the correlation and overall relatively between the movie’s narrative and today’s world is quite crystal-clear right from the get-go, but Cretton never gets overzealous / preachy within its context; allowing the feature to present the subject matter in a timely manner and doesn’t feel like unnecessary or intentionally a “sign of the times” motif. Additionally, the movie also highlights the frustration (almost harsh) injustice of the underprivileged face on a regular basis (most notable those looking to overturn their cases on death row due to negligence and wrongfully accused). Naturally, as somewhat expected (yet still palpable), Just Mercy is a movie about seeking the truth and uncovering corruption in the face of a broken system and ignorant prejudice, with Cretton never shying away from some of the ugly truths that Stevenson faced during the film’s story. Plus, as a side-note, it’s quite admirable for what Bryan Stevenson (the real-life individual) did for his career, with him as well as others that have supported him (and the Equal Justice Initiative) over the years and how he fought for and freed many wrongfully incarcerated individuals that our justice system has failed (again, the poignancy behind the film’s themes / message). It’s great to see humanity being shined and showcased to seek the rights of the wronged and to dispel a flawed system. Thus, whether you like the movie or not, you simply can not deny that truly meaningful job that Bryan Stevenson is doing, which Cretton helps demonstrate in Just Mercy. From the bottom of my heart…. thank you, Mr. Stevenson. In terms of presentation, Just Mercy is a solidly made feature film. Granted, the film probably won’t be remembered for its visual background and theatrical setting nuances or even nominated in various award categories (for presentation / visual appearance), but the film certainly looks pleasing to the eye, with the attention of background aspects appropriate to the movie’s story. Thus, all the usual areas that I mention in this section (i.e. production design, set decorations, costumes, and cinematography) are all good and meet the industry standard for legal drama motion pictures. That being said, the film’s score, which was done by Joel P. West, is quite good and deliver some emotionally drama pieces in a subtle way that harmonizes with many of the feature’s scenes. There are a few problems that I noticed with Just Mercy that, while not completely derailing, just seem to hold the feature back from reaching its full creative cinematic potential. Let’s start with the most prevalent point of criticism (the one that many will criticize about), which is the overall conventional storytelling of the movie. What do I mean? Well, despite the strong case that the film delves into a “based on a true story” aspect and into some pretty wholesome emotional drama, the movie is still structed into a way that it makes it feel vaguely formulaic to the touch. That’s not to say that Just Mercy is a generic tale to be told as the film’s narrative is still quite engaging (with some great acting), but the story being told follows quite a predictable path from start to finish. Granted, I never really read Stevenson’s memoir nor read anything about McMillian’s case, but then I still could easily figure out how the movie was presumably gonna end…. even if the there were narrative problems / setbacks along the way. Basically, if you’ve seeing any legal drama endeavor out there, you’ll get that same formulaic touch with this movie. I kind of wanted see something a little bit different from the film’s structure, but the movie just ends up following the standard narrative beats (and progressions) of the genre. That being said, I still think that this movie is definitely probably one of the better legal dramas out there. This also applies to the film’s script, which was penned by Cretton and Andrew Lanham, which does give plenty of solid entertainment narrative pieces throughout, but lacks the finesse of breaking the mold of the standard legal drama. There are also a couple parts of the movie’s script handling where you can tell that what was true and what fictional. Of course, this is somewhat a customary point of criticism with cinematic tales taking a certain “poetic license” when adapting a “based on a true story” narrative, so it’s not super heavily critical point with me as I expect this to happen. However, there were a few times I could certainly tell what actually happen and what was a tad bit fabricated for the movie. Plus, they were certain parts of the narrative that could’ve easily fleshed out, including what Morrison’s parents felt (and actually show them) during this whole process. Again, not a big deal-breaker, but it did take me out of the movie a few times. Lastly, the film’s script also focuses its light on a supporting character in the movie and, while this made with well-intention to flesh out the character, the camera spotlight on this character sort of goes off on a slight tangent during the feature’s second act. Basically, this storyline could’ve been removed from Just Mercy and still achieve the same palpability in the emotional department. It’s almost like the movie needed to chew up some runtime and the writers to decided to fill up the time with this side-story. Again, it’s good, but a bit slightly unnecessary. What does help overlook (and elevate) some of these criticisms is the film’s cast, which are really good and definitely helps bring these various characters to life in a theatrical /dramatic way. Leading the charge in Just Mercy is actor Michael B. Jordan, who plays the film’s central protagonist role of Bryan Stevenson. Known for his roles in Creed, Fruitvale Station, and Black Panther, Jordan has certain prove himself to be quite a capable actor, with the actor rising to stardom over the past few years. This is most apparent in this movie, with Jordan making a strong characteristically portrayal as Bryan; showcasing plenty of underlining determination and compelling humanity in his character as he (as Bryan Stevenson) fights for the injustice of those who’s voices have been silenced or dismissed because of the circumstances. It’s definitely a strong character built and Jordan seems quite capable to task in creating a well-acted on-screen performance of Bryan. Behind Jordan is actor Jamie Foxx, who plays the other main lead in the role, Walter McMillian. Foxx, known for his roles in Baby Driver, Django Unchained, and Ray, has certainly been recognized as a talented actor, with plenty of credible roles under his belt. His participation in Just Mercy is another well-acted performance that deserve much praise as its getting (even receiving an Oscar nod for it), with Foxx portraying Walter with enough remorseful grit and humility that makes the character quite compelling to watch. Plus, seeing him and Jordan together in a scene is quite palpable and a joy to watch. The last of the three marquee main leads of the movie is the character of Eva Ansley, the director of operations for EJI (i.e. Stevenson’s right-handed employee / business partner), who is played by actress Brie Larson. Up against the characters of Stevenson and McMillian, Ansley is the weaker of the three main lead; presented as supporting player in the movie, which is perfectly fine as the characters gets the job done (sort of speak) throughout the film’s narrative. However, Larson, known for her roles in Room, 6 Jump Street, and Captain Marvel, makes less of an impact in the role. Her acting is fine and everything works in her portrayal of Eva, but nothing really stands in her performance (again, considering Jordan and Foxx’s performances) and really could’ve been played by another actress and achieved the same goal. The rest of the cast, including actor Tim Blake Nelson (The Incredible Hulk and O Brother, Where Art Thou) as incarcerated inmate Ralph Meyers, actor Rafe Spall (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom and The Big Short) as legal attorney Tommy Champan, actress Karan Kendrick (The Hate U Give and Family) as Minnie McMillan, Walter’s wife, actor C.J. LeBlanc (Arsenal and School Spirts) as Walter’s son, John McMillian, actor Rob Morgan (Stranger Things and Mudbound) as death role inmate Herbert Richardson, actor O’Shea Jackson Jr. (Long Shot and Straight Outta Compton) as death role inmate Anthony “Ray” Hinton, actor Michael Harding (Triple 2 and The Young and the Restless) as Sheriff Tate, and actor Hayes Mercure (The Red Road and Mercy Street) as a prison guard named Jeremy, are in the small supporting cast variety. Of course, some have bigger roles than others, but all of these players, which are all acted well, bolster the film’s story within the performances and involvement in Just Mercy’s narrative. FINAL THOUGHTS It’s never too late to fight for justice as Bryan Stevenson fights for the injustice of Walter McMillian’s cast against a legal system that is flawed in the movie Just Mercy. Director Destin Daniel Cretton’s latest film takes a stance on a poignant case; demonstrating the injustice of one (and by extension those wrongfully incarcerated) and wrapping it up in a compelling cinematic story. While the movie does struggle within its standard structure framework (a sort of usual problem with “based on a true story” narrations) as well as some formulaic beats, the movie still manages to rise above those challenges (for the most part), especially thanks to Cretton’s direction (shaping and storytelling) and some great performances all around (most notable in Jordan and Foxx). Personally, I liked this movie. Sure, it definitely had its problem, but those didn’t distract me much from thoroughly enjoying this legal drama feature. Thus, my recommendation for the film is a solid “recommended”, especially those who liked the cast and poignant narratives of legality struggles and the injustice of a failed system / racism. In the end, while the movie isn’t the quintessential legal drama motion picture and doesn’t push the envelope in cinematic innovation, Just Mercy still is able to manage to be a compelling drama that’s powerful in its story, meaningful in its journey, and strong within its statement. Just like Bryan Stevenson says in the movie….” If we could look at ourselves closely…. we can change this world for the better”. Amen to that!

[alabasterswriting]

Stranger Things 2 Combined Trailer Breakdown Part 2 - Spoilers!

Here’s the second part of the breakdown!!! Part 1 can be found here. This breakdown may contain spoilers. If you wish to avoid any spoilers, I recommend skipping this. Clear? Good.

So, I thought it would be fun to compare and combine the Thriller Trailer and the Friday the 13th Trailer to see what we can find out about the second season. It’s really all just for fun, and we’ll see how much I get right and how much (probably a lot) I get wrong. Also, this is super long, so I hope you enjoy. Thank you!

The vast majority of the two trailers focuses on Will Byers, and, considering what happened to him, this makes sense. He’s the main focus of the season, and his connection to the new Shadow Monster will likely carry through the rest of the series. What’s really fun, however, is how much you can see when you breakdown the shots and compare the kids' clothes to put them in order. Thank goodness for Mike’s sweaters!

Let’s start with (most likely) the first episode: MadMax

This is likely our first visual introduction to new character Max. We’ve already been introduced her by her Dig Dug username, MadMax, at the arcade, but this is probably the first time we ever see her. I don’t think she’s being introduced to the class as a new student, although it is possible, simply because our boys seem to be the only kids actually interested in her. Granted, this could just be a stylistic choice. Note that the boy’s outfits are different from the ones at the arcade, so this either before they know her name or the day after.

We then come to these pictures. The one to the left is a still, but you can see Dustin and Lucas’ shirts match the ones from the classroom. It’s interesting that it goes from the three of them to the two of them here, and maybe Dustin and Lucas are intrigued by the new girl, while Mike is not. We know Mike is going to be somewhat antagonistic to her presence, so it makes sense that he would leave while they would stay. However, it looks like they’re far more interested in something that’s happening than just spying on the new girl. Maybe they notice her brother Billy and are interested by either an argument or their antagonism to each other. It would make sense since we know there’s a still of Billy leaning up against a car just embodying the body language of a bully.

Now, speaking of Mike leaving, we’re then shown these shots:

It’s of Mike in his basement still wearing the same clothes he wore earlier, looking at El’s fort. Take note there are still Christmas presents sitting in the fort so that place has not been cleaned out at all. It’s very sad scene, and we here Eleven’s voiceover of “Mike” crying out as if he’s constantly thinking about her. 

Next up are our boys in their Ghostbusters costumes, probably in the second episode. Now, first of all, GHOSTBUSTERS! Sorry, just had to get that out there. Second, you can see how there are three boys in the picture on the right, but four on the left. It’s possible since Will is apparently being driven everywhere, that the three boys are just riding their bikes to school, though it seems a bit later in the day due to the lighting. Also, Dustin is apparently startled by something and it could range from a strange noise, to maybe Max having a fight nearby with Billy, to anything really.

Also, just a note, the boys seem to be the only ones to show up to school in costume ‘cause they totally would be that extra.

Now for the trick-or-treating scenes. We know from the clip revealed in the Stranger Things Game that this is the scene where Max jumps out and scares the boys. Their reactions are interesting as Dustin and Lucas recover quickly and even appear to admire the scare, while Mike is just completely done with her entirely. Poor Will shuffles back and hugs himself, probably not in the best mindset to deal with jump scares. We also see the clip of Dustin approaching a trashcan, probably outside his house. Now it’s likely that this is where he finds his little pollywog pet, however, it could also be a complete turnaround and just be a cat. I have the feeling that we’re going to be hearing Dustin’s pet maybe following him before we actually see it. 

We then see this. Still in his costume, Will is transported to the Upside Down where he again sees the Shadow Monster. Unlike outside the arcade, the monster is now encased in blue rather than the red and lightning from before. It also appears to have a much more gaseous state, hence the term Shadow Monster. According to the Duffers, the big bad of the series is set to be introduced this season, and considering the Cthulhu monster here, I bet that’s our big bad. They also stated that it’s an incomprehensible mass of evil, so I doubt it’s going to be destroyed or completely defeated by the end of the season. Most likely, it will be temporarily stopped.

We then are shown Mike and Will, still in costume, talking in one of their bedrooms. Will says that he doesn’t understand something and Mike tells him that El would have been able to understand. No doubt, Will is telling Mike what he saw, which considering it doesn’t seem like he’s told anyone else yet, it actually very sweet and really shows a lot about their friendship. Mike also has a point, because Eleven did always seem to know about the Demogorgon, so it makes sense that he would wish El was there to make sense of this new monster. 

We’re then given this image of Will looking very morose in what looks to be the corridor of a doctor’s office. He might be at the lab, he might not be, but this is probably him going in for either a psychological exam or something similar. We know he will be told it’s all in his head at some point so I wouldn’t be shocked if this is where that starts. There were also shots in the SuperBowl trailer of Will’s sessions from the day before Halloween, however judging by Joyce’s clothes, I’m starting to think that was meant to be the date of release and removed in post. We do know the lab is recording and monitoring his sessions, however.

Okay, I’m going to try to go in, what I figure, is in order for this next bit.

I’m pretty sure that what’s trapped in their little ghostbusters trap is Dustin’s future pet. They’re in the AV room at the school and I’m going to say this maybe happens around episode 4. In the clip where the box opens you can see Max is with the group by this point, so Mike has probably since started to acclimatize to her presence. What’s interesting is the clothes the boys are wearing. They’re the exact same as in this scene:

So, perhaps, the little monster in the box triggers something in Will that sends him spiraling back into the Upside Down. It’s interesting the Joyce is now there with them at the school, so perhaps she came to pick him up or the kids called her when Will started acting weird.

But let’s rewind for a moment.

We have this. Will is at the school. Now, I’m not sure the sequence of events here. Judging by Will’s shirt, this is what’s happening when his mom and his friends are trying to wake him up, but I can’t figure out if Will is first chased by the shadows down the halls and eventually ends up outside where the monster catches him and surrounds him, a la the above dual pictures. Or it could be that Will sees the monster reaching for him outside the school (where you can see a very tiny Will staring up as the monster’s claws reach down at him - yes, just like that last D&D game of season 1 where the Thesselhydra reaches its hand out as it dies;). Will might run into the school in an attempt to escape, though that wouldn’t explain how he ends up back outside. Assuming Will moves the same way outside as he does in the Upside Down, it makes sense that he would first be chased and then end up outside where he’s surrounded by the shadows. This is due to what we saw in the arcade scene where Will walked outside while in the Upside Down and Mike found him there just like in his vision. Or he could vanish into the Upside Down and then just reappear outside.

Maybe like in that weird in-between zone, during a hallucination Will temporarily moves out of people’s focus. Sort of like the spell that protects the wizarding world from muggles being too observant in Harry Potter. People just turn temporarily blind to his presence until the monster is done with him. What I also found cool is that the monster seems to be calling out to Will in the same way Brenner said the Demogorgon did to Eleven. It might not mean much, but it’s still really interesting to think about.

It’s also curious to note that Nancy also has a similar encounter in this picture:

It appears as if Nancy has stepped into the Upside Down from somewhere. You can see normal light behind her, so it might be like with Will and the door opening for him, but remember Nancy has also been in the Upside Down without protection, so this may be one of the side effects she experiences. I don’t think this is happening at the same time, however.

We then have this. It’s after Will gets out of his little Upside Down vision, and you can tell it’s the same day because his shirt is the same. He tells his mom he could feel it everywhere, which, besides terrifying is also ridiculously heartbreaking. But, at least he’s finally talking to his mom.

We then have this. Now, this picture throws me off a bit, simply because of Joyce’s jacket. I suppose it could just be her blue work uniform, which she does have, but it looks a lot more like a jacket to me and I know she was wearing a tan one earlier. But, it does match the scene where she’s talking to Will so I think she probably calls Hopper to ask him for help. Now Hopper, who we know is working with the Lab, probably tells her what he’s seen with the pumpkin patch and tells her that it’s not just in Will’s head, but real. You can tell this is before things really go to shit because Will has yet to start drawing.

Ta-da! Drawings. I think this is when everything starts to deteriorate. That night, Will might be drawn to the door where the monster appears to him - maybe putting some sort of knowedge in his head, maybe showing him something, maybe sinking it’s final claws into him, but Will eventually draws this. The next day, this is probably how Joyce and Hopper find him:

Will is in a trance. He’s drawing what appears to be some sort of tunnel system that Hopper and Joyce arrange into a map around the house. It’s probably either at this point or right before that they bring Will back to the Lab, where we see this:

It’s entirely possible that these are actually all different doctor’s appointments. Judging by the recordings, we know Hawkins is watching these sessions, but there were also shots in the SuperBowl trailer of Will’s sessions from the day before Halloween, and this would happen after. The issue is Joyce’s clothes. While I’m sure she has a limited wardrobe, I’m starting to think the teaser images were meant to be the date of release and removed in post. We do know the lab is recording and monitoring his sessions, however. You can see Hopper standing in the background and Joyce looks the same as when they were putting together the pictures, ergo this probably takes place after the drawings.

This is further reinforced by this image where Will is sitting in front of a conference table covered by pictures of his drawings. Now, this might happen on another day because it’s the 80s and some of these pictures look professionally developed and not just polaroid. So, Will is probably spending quite a bit of time out of school as shown by the second picture. Mike is shown looking at Will’s empty desk, and while his clothes look similar to some he’ll wear in later clips, Dustin and Lucas’ are a bit harder to make out. It’s possible the second picture takes place at another time I’ll mention below, but I can’t be sure.

I’m pretty sure these are next. You can see Joyce with her still clean blue jacket sitting in the middle of her living room surrounded by Will’s drawings and her phone. The phone definitely harkens back to season 1, and her sitting in front of the TV is also very similar to Eleven sitting in front of the TV while she blindfolds herself. There may be a connection here, or maybe Will’s ability to manipulate electricity has stuck with him, or maybe she’s been forced to leave the Lab and is waiting for a call. She seems to be attempting to figure out the map Will drew and that brings us to the pictures down below.

We see Joyce, her new boyfriend Bob Newby, and Hopper digging into the earth. It’s possible they’re looking for these tunnel systems. The reason I think they’re in the same scene is because of the lighting, but it’s also entirely possible that Hopper stumbled upon them earlier and told Joyce about it, leading to her taking Bob as backup. We see Hopper going in unprotected, which really isn’t smart. He holds up a lighter to slime, and it’s possible he’s attacked in these tunnels. This might be another explanation for him getting sanitized back at the Lab.

We then have this scene. Joyce and Bob look dirty, probably from digging into the tunnels, while poor Will is in agony, spasming out from something. I’m not sure if they brought him to the hospital after he started freaking out, or if he was already there and Dr. Owens called them, but either way, it’s a very sad scene. Hopper isn’t here, and it’s either because the two digging scenes were at different parts of the show, or because he needs to be decontaminated. Or he’s just not in frame. You can see Dr. Owens there, but his expression isn’t very easy to make out. He’s either out of his depth or really done with Joyce.

Possibly both.

For the rest of the breakdown, Part 3 can be found here. Thank you!