tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-31687096183568223482024-02-02T12:28:19.024-06:00BDVRA site dedicated to the reviews of everything, but mostly games and movies. And games. And more games. And movies. And games.Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.comBlogger350125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-5723126576625026732021-01-03T13:19:00.001-06:002021-01-03T13:19:00.585-06:00Wonder Woman 1984<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9DW-UjQGE4esSOJzKZ_8RwEWsIsV0sW1gThBXZnwQ4uiT7WR2qdL02sW-dljcalkOpegxvpReRmjpUVTGOTaOnNXt_kaCHP9WOI-agU_kUruSMQtqYvTopwkcXHmsIVn_cIUJN3WYgvGe/s2048/wonder_woman_nineteen_eighty_four_xxlg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2048" data-original-width="1382" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9DW-UjQGE4esSOJzKZ_8RwEWsIsV0sW1gThBXZnwQ4uiT7WR2qdL02sW-dljcalkOpegxvpReRmjpUVTGOTaOnNXt_kaCHP9WOI-agU_kUruSMQtqYvTopwkcXHmsIVn_cIUJN3WYgvGe/s320/wonder_woman_nineteen_eighty_four_xxlg.jpg" /></a></div><p>To say that I wasn't expecting this film to be what it was might be an understatement. <strong><em>Wonder Woman 1984</em></strong> was delayed, delayed, and delayed. First by so-called "quality" issues, and then by a global pandemic. It was originally supposed to come out in December of last year, but , due to the aforementioned issues, wound up being pushed back an entire year. Why, then, does this film appear as if it were rushed out the door?</p><p>2017's <strong><em>Wonder Woman</em></strong> was a smash success at the box-office, grossing nearly a billion dollars in theaters alone. Due to a number of factors, I never wound up reviewing it, but suffice to say that, aside from the issues I had with the movie's ending, and an incredibly awkward sex-scene between<strong> Wonder Woman</strong> (<strong>Gal Gadot</strong>) and<strong> Steve Trevor</strong> (<strong>Chris Pine</strong>) I thoroughly enjoyed it. The same cannot be said for this film. Aside from a stupid ending with a big dumb villain fight out of literally nowhere, (An ending director <strong>Patty Jenkins</strong> has since divulged was pushed on her by Warner Bros.) Wonder Woman was an incredibly tight movie that wasted very little time moving itself along, and the consequences of the film rang through into the events of 2016's <strong><em>Batman v Superman</em></strong>, with no real contradictions between the two movies. The same cannot be said for<em><strong> Wonder Woman 1984</strong></em>. The film has no point, no consequences, no real start, and no real ending. To say that one could skip it and miss nothing would not be an understatement. The shared universe of the DCEU would entirely benefit from the excision of this movie, and I intend to show why.</p><p>The film starts with a flashback to Themyscira, Diana's homeland. Why? Because something young Diana is told in this sequence returns later on in the film apropos of nothing. Child Diana (<strong>Lilly Aspell</strong>) participates in an athletic competition that , allegedly, is incredibly difficult. And yet, Diana manages to handle almost all of the competition against seasoned adults, until she gets knocked off her horse, and winds up taking a shortcut to get back on the path. Which is, apparently, cheating, despite the fact that she was knocked off her horse by what I can only assume was a poorly-maintained tree. She gets plenty of scoldings for this act. Now, I can't be the only one who was reminded of the obstacle course scene from 2011's <strong><em>Captain America: The First Avenger</em></strong>, can I? It's not just the fact that Diana is a small competitor and the others are larger, the course itself starts off similar to the one from<em> The First Avenger</em>. Except that<strong> Steve Rogers</strong> failed at nearly every turn, because he was physically inferior to the other soldiers, and Diana succeeds at almost every hurdle, despite being approximately ten. Also, I don't know who was doing stunt-work on this film, but there are times when it looks like they pasted Lilly Aspell's face onto a much wider body, which is the first sign of special effects that will persist throughout this movie.</p><p>Then, there's an action sequence between Diana and a trio of robbers, who, by all rights, should have been subdued in like two minutes, because she's Wonder Woman, and they're just out-of-shape schmucks with guns, but apparently we needed to add another five minutes of runtime to this two and a half hour movie for... Some reason. After she finishes with the robbers, she throws them three stories off the top of a mall onto a police car, where they don't appear any worse for wear, despite the fact that they should probably be dead. Can anyone tell me why Diana is, all of a sudden acting more reckless than <strong>Batfleck</strong>? No? We're just moving on? Okay.</p><p>So after that pointless scene, we find out that Diana lives in Washington DC, and works at the Smithsonian, with <strong>Barbara Minerva</strong> (<strong>Kristen Wiig</strong>), who's like <strong>Electro</strong> from<strong><em> The Amazing Spider-Man 2</em></strong> if his man-crush was on <strong>Peter Parker</strong> instead of <strong>Spider-Man</strong>, and if Electro had starred in a terrible <strong><em>Ghostbusters</em></strong> remake four years prior and was channeling his character from that for the entire early stages of the performance. Now, the reason I say that the mall robbery scene was entirely pointless is because it only serves to set up a scene later where Barbara and Diana try to figure out where some of the stolen artifacts robbed from the store came from, which is literally explained away in a single line of dialogue. One of the artifacts grants wishes, but takes something from you when the wish is granted. It's later described as a "Monkey's Paw," effect, but the Monkey's Paw wasn't a bargain for something you had, it was about corrupting the wish so that it turned against the wisher in some way, or didn't turn out as expected. This isn't really the same thing, the wish just takes something from the wisher in exchange, without even laying out terms ahead of time, as tends to be the case with Faustian bargains in fiction. Later, it's revealed that the <strong>Duke of Deception</strong>, <strong>Dolos</strong>, created the artifact, and that would have been a prime time to mention his connection with Ares, the villain from the previous film, but to my recollection, they either don't mention it, or gloss over it. Regardless, this object grants Diana the wish of bringing back Steve Trevor, and Barbara's wish of being like Diana. Both of these come with caveats, obviously, and Barbara eventually gets more than she bargained for, gaining powers equal to that of Wonder Woman. Then, someone claiming to be <strong>Maxwell Lord</strong> (<strong>Pedro Pascal</strong>) shows up there, steals the artifact, and wishes that he would gain the power of the artifact itself. The rest of the film is spent with Diana and Steve trying to play catchup with Max, while Barbara mostly just piddles around DC until she discovers that Diana wants to neutralize the wishes, at which point Barbara forms an impromptu partnership with Lord to try and shore up his position so she can remain strong, powerful, and charismatic, instead of being a clumsy dweep who doesn't know how to wash her hair. I know it's supposed to be the '80s, but come on. </p><p>Speaking of it being the '80s, Wonder Woman 1984 appears to have raided Captain America's unused "man out of time" jokes and scenarios, because it spends way too long on Steve Trevor getting used to the 1980s. Oh, yeah. I should also mention that Steve Trevor isn't actually "back to life." His spirit was implanted in the body of some dude, and, at first, they put Chris Pine in baggy clothing, and stick a pillow down his shirt to make him seem out of shape, but after a while, they just gave up on trying to make him not look like ripped Chris Pine. Also, the old-age makeup they used on Chris in this movie is god-awful, with the grey in his hair looking ESPECIALLY fake, and even changing positions at times, likely an artifact of the reshoots.</p><p>Back to the plot, Maxwell Lord eventually uses his wish power to try and take over the world, as you do, and tries to grant everyone a wish, and does, somehow. He does this to try and repair his body, because being the human wish-machine, his body starts deteriorating. For some reason. He hijacks some super-secret technology that can impose a signal on everything in the world that can display a signal... Somehow. You know, when the Kryptonians did that in <strong><em>Man of Steel</em></strong>, I thought that was a bit far-fetched, but I could believe it, because they were super-advanced beings from space. This is just a tad absurd, to the point where I think someone might have legitimately not been paying attention when bringing this script into production. Somehow, this lets him grant wishes to everyone on the planet, despite them not being able to touch him to get their wishes granted, and lets him turn into some kind of pseudo-super-being. Diana then uses her lasso on him, gets him to renounce his wish, and everything goes back to normal, making the entire two and a half hour runtime of this movie completely pointless. It's like someone read all of the criticism of how the first movie ended, and took entirely the wrong message from that. "Okay, you think it should end without a fight? I'll make that happen!" Even though this plotline was so empty, it might as well have not happened at all.</p><p>There are a few things from the plot I didn't mention that I'll briefly touch on now, such as the fact that Steve being brought back was at the cost of Diana's powers. Not all at once, just slowly, over time, so we can have a plot. Barbara's wish sapped her humanity, though she's also given a second wish with an explanation that makes no real sense. I could understand if Maxwell Lord's rules for the wish were somehow different to the artifacts, but the way he phrases it, it makes it sound like he can just break the rules however he wants, despite the fact that they showed him being limited to one wish a person previously. Also, Barbara's second wish turns her into an anthropomorphic cheetah, so we can have an excuse to say that<strong> Cheetah</strong> is in this movie. Diana also learns how to fly, out of nowhere, and turns a jet that she and Steve steal invisible, also out of nowhere. They steal the jet to get to Cairo to intercept Lord, where Diana apparently forgets that she has bulletproof bracelets, and decides to use her lasso to grab them out of thin air. Additionally, Diana's sword and shield are nowhere to be found, despite the fact that she has a both in <em>BvS</em> and <em><strong>Justice League</strong></em>, and her shield was still intact at the end of the previous movie. That shield would've come in handy a few times, but instead, Steve has to use a tea tray as a shield, and Diana whirls the Lasso of Hestia fast enough it acts like a shield. Against bullets. When the one thing everyone knows about Wonder Woman is that she has bullet-deflecting bracelets. That she used for just that purpose in three other movies so far. Hell, she used the bracelets against <strong>Doomsday</strong>'s heat-vision in <em>BvS</em>, what the hell is she forgetting to use them now, for?</p><p>As far as the plot goes, I think that's about it, in terms of criticisms. Now for the characters, starting with Maxwell Lord. Fans of the comics will know that Maxwell Lord is most well-known as a successful businessman from multiple generations of Lords, and having been instrumental in the founding of the Justice League. As this movie takes place while<strong> Clark Kent</strong> is four,<strong> Bruce Wayne</strong> is fourteen, and <strong>Arthur Curry</strong>, <strong>Barry Allen</strong>, and <strong>Victor Stone</strong> haven't even been born, that latter part is obviously not happening. Instead, he's a commercial spokesman, entrepreneur, and (sort of) scam-artist. Really, at this rate, why not just call him something else? He has no connection to the character from the comics, all you're doing is making up a new character and slapping a familiar name onto him, much like they did with Cheetah. Rather than following any of the comic versions of the character, they instead decided to play <strong>Nutty Professor</strong> with her and reuse the ancient trope of the nerd becoming cool, with plenty of influence from <strong>Sam Raimi</strong>'s 2002 <em><strong>Spider-Man</strong></em> film. <strong>Lynda Carter</strong> also makes an appearance as <strong>Asteria</strong>, a character who has no importance other than a stupid piece of fanservice in the end credits, and for an armor that gets briefly used in one fight and then thrown the hell away, with no real information on how Diana found the armor. I'm not gonna lie, her cameo made me a little bit angry, because it felt like <strong>DC</strong> was dangling keys in front of my face, and I could see the <strong>DCEU</strong> slipping into the same fanservice traps of the<em><strong> Arrowverse</strong></em>, where they make constant references to things that they think the fans remember as opposed to making filmic statements. It's the difference between asking "Hey, remember this?" and stating "You <i>will </i>remember this." And that's it for characters, everyone else is either returning, or doesn't matter. Aside from the guy they have playing <strong>Ronald Reagan (Stuart Milligan)</strong>, who looks nothing like the former President of the United States. </p><p>Now it's time for the technical aspects of the film. This movie has some of the worst editing I have seen out of a Hollywood film in a LONG time. Continuity errors between shots are rampant, and it's stuff that's obvious enough that it should've been noticed, but small enough that they could've been fixed without much effort, like hands being open in one shot, but closed in the next. It reminds me of the editing issues in <em><strong>Iron Man 2</strong></em> and <em><strong>Captain Marvel</strong></em>. Then there are CGI composite shots, like when Wonder Woman is running, or flying, and it legitimately looks worse than <em><strong>Superman: The Movie</strong></em> from 1978. <em>Man of Steel</em> was seven years ago, and when watching that film, you really would believe a man could fly. <em>Wonder Woman 1984</em> has flying and running shots that barely look better than the effects work in <em><strong>Superman IV: The Quest For Peace</strong></em>. The running shot(s) remind me of bad greenscreen composites seen in goofy YouTube videos, and for a two-hundred million dollar film, that's a bad sign. Additionally, Diana's suit seems to change textures and coloration between sequences of the movie that take place less than a week apart, despite her taking care of her armor. And her armor also looks more vibrant now than it did when it was new, back in the first movie, so I'm not really sure what's up with that. There are patches where her armor appears to be trying to become the same shades it was in <em>BvS</em> and <em>Justice League</em>, but the colors just don't seem to match up. Then we come to various glowing effects, ranging from glowing screens, to the Lasso of Hestia, where the glow looks like something you'd see on a TV show in the late '80s/early '90s. Again, despite the fact that this film was delayed by over a year, it looks and feels like a rush-job. Additionally, and this may just be an issue on HBO Max, but there are times when the audio mixing has a strange buzzing sound, as if the audio is peaking, but isn't, if that makes any sense? Also, there are several places where the ADR either doesn't sync correctly, or isn't mixed properly, as if the dialogue is sort of floating above the rest of the mix, rather than being part of a unified soundscape.</p><p>Before wrapping up this review, I'd like to take some time to talk about <em>Wonder Woman 1984</em>'s score, composed by the maestro of the DCEU himself, <strong>Hans Zimmer</strong>. I've seen people saying that his score pretty much carries this film, and I have to agree with them in that regard. Zimmer's score lives up to the other DCEU scores he and <em><strong>JunkieXL</strong></em> have composed, as well as slotting in fairly well with the also excellent Wonder Woman score composed by Rupert Gregson-Williams. One major criticism I have is that, during the speech Diana gives at the climax, rather than a piece of original music, the film just pastes in a section of <strong>A Beautiful Lie</strong> from the<em> BvS</em> score. A Beautiful Lie is best known as the DCEU theme for <strong>Ben Affleck</strong>'s <strong>Batman</strong>, and as such, has no place in a story that doesn't even come close to featuring the character. I was honestly baffled by this choice of music, it sounded as if they'd accidentally left a temp-track in the mix.</p><p>Some of the issues with this film may stem from a change in staff. The original story team, consisting of <strong>Zack Snyder</strong>, <strong>Allan Heinberg</strong> and <strong>Jason Fuchs</strong> is nowhere to be found, as are the original designers, at least in the roles they performed on the first movie. Zack is still producing, but<strong> Geoff Johns</strong> and Patty Jenkins wrote the script with <strong>Dave Callaham</strong>. I've never particularly cared for Geoff Johns's screenwriting, personally, and I've never seen any of the previous films Jenkins wrote, so I can't comment on the general quality of her writing. I will say that not writing any feature films since her 2003 feature-film directorial debut, <em><strong>Monster, </strong></em> is probably a bad sign, though. Granted, this script was also written by the architect of the DCEU's destruction, Geoff Johns, and a guy I've never heard of, but who apparently worked on <em><strong>The Expendables</strong></em>, which had a god-awful script with many of the same problems as this film, and 2005's <em><strong>Doom</strong></em>, which wasn't particularly great. Wikipedia also claims he did uncredited rewrites on <em><strong>Ant-Man,</strong></em> and he apparently wrote the story for the 2014 <em><strong>Godzilla</strong></em> film, which I thoroughly enjoyed, and given the writers guild's rules on crediting, the three writers have to have written at least a third of the script apiece to get credit, so this could be everyone's fault. Honestly, I'm not prepared to lay the blame on any one individual. All I can say is that, if this script made its way onto my desk, it'd be easier for me to just dip the entire thing in red ink and make them start again than to try and figure out what I'd keep from it. </p><p>All in all, this film is one of the weakest installments of the DCEU thus far. The script meanders from place to place aimlessly, and ultimately winds up mattering even less than the last arc of <em><strong>Dragon Ball Super</strong></em> in the grand scheme of things, all the while creating plotholes in previous films in the franchise. The only thing it really has going for it is more interactions between Steve Trevor and Diana, and Hans Zimmer's score. I haven't yet had a chance to see <strong><em>Shazam</em> </strong>or <em><strong>Birds of Prey</strong></em>, but, from what I've seen of them, they're not exactly that great, either. 'tis a shame. I give <em>Wonder Woman 198</em>4 a 3/10.</p><p> </p><p>Image from <a href="http://impawards.com">Impawards.com</a></p>Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-55158524258504421712020-08-12T12:00:00.002-05:002020-12-27T00:04:19.782-06:00What is The Indestructible Shoe?So, I've seen a lot of video ads on Facebook for something called "The Indestructible Shoe," and, as I was about to need a new pair of boots, I contacted the company via their eMail address, and asked them to send me a pair of their work-boots they call "Hype Brown." Then, they sent me a tracking-number that never updated, and I gave up on them ever arriving, because they shipped out from China. Then, around a month and a half later, approximately a month or so ago, a box turned up, purporting to be from somewhere in California, with the pair of boots I was promised in it. Since then, I've been checking then out in many ways, and they're... Not great. For one thing, on the website, they're wildly overpriced for a product that I immediately found for half the cost on AliExpress. They also wear very quickly. I was hoping to have to come back to these boots throughout the year, but I don't know if they'll last six months, at this rate.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisxygXudMNEjYXkmSvCqeJbbLhhl9MtpOHVHhK42ThJF4zuWhoSWbsx_HEvb8st8J8HAZ6hJTWLm_lUE9Tqi72H9-jxKO1X50Ce4Bb8cOWEY7VbNUp4HLrfeWk5FUscjkPVCmF7OmUnUmT/s1600/SANY0359.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisxygXudMNEjYXkmSvCqeJbbLhhl9MtpOHVHhK42ThJF4zuWhoSWbsx_HEvb8st8J8HAZ6hJTWLm_lUE9Tqi72H9-jxKO1X50Ce4Bb8cOWEY7VbNUp4HLrfeWk5FUscjkPVCmF7OmUnUmT/w256-h192/SANY0359.JPG" width="256" /></a>One of the first signs was the fact that the soles are made of a VERY soft rubber. Great for gripping, but it wears down quick, and stains incredibly easily when exposed to any kind of dark dirt, or powder. The second sign was a pair of cheap foam-insoles that I tried, and then immediately discarded for the Dr. Scholl's inserts I wind up putting in every pair of boots. Third was the fact that there's no branding on these boots at all, and the only text information was incredibly faint, and looked to be wearing off, to the point where I couldn't read it, even when the boots were new. I could vaguely make out numbers that might have been American sizing for the show, but as my inserts barely even fit in the boots, I have to wonder if these are, indeed, a Size 13. Incidentally, that was why I chose the brown boots over the yellow, because I've noticed that, between my enormous feet and the bright-yellow coloring of some boots, I wind up looking like a character from <i>Kingdom Hearts</i>.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUQ-Lzrl0n5Rvt-E15n3RbRilMYX9EAfRvedA1yJ5OZ2HJ1yuOjNv37BHikzVEhQ6M2ai0QVR4pBEYtmI5JhqAZGc8E3YM0tOwwELSWmfL0JYzWYwX5J1bXpRq07aGdoU8KJDJ2SbYu2yv/s1600/SANY0350.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhUQ-Lzrl0n5Rvt-E15n3RbRilMYX9EAfRvedA1yJ5OZ2HJ1yuOjNv37BHikzVEhQ6M2ai0QVR4pBEYtmI5JhqAZGc8E3YM0tOwwELSWmfL0JYzWYwX5J1bXpRq07aGdoU8KJDJ2SbYu2yv/w256-h192/SANY0350.JPG" width="256" /></a></div>
Just under a week after getting these boots, the included "Waterproof and oil-resistant laces" for the right boot broke, and around a week later, the ones on the left boot broke, too. Granted, they're called "indestructible shoes" not "indestructible laces," but still. This flaw appears to be facilitated by sharp edges on the bottom of the eyelets. Another thing to note, is that these shoelaces are terrible, regardless. They actually undermine the alleged "waterproof" nature of these boots, which was a primary selling-point, from my perspective. After I replaced the laces with better ones, I no longer experienced as many leaks when the water-line came roughly to the tongue of the boots, but there were still a few. Then the replacement laces in the right boot broke again. Granted, those laces were older than some, I've used them as replacement laces in my last pair of Brahmas, but they only lasted three weeks, and I'm used to getting at least six months of use out of replacement laces before they snap too short to be usable. I've replaced them with a good set of military boot-laces that should outlast these boots, and I'll be sure to report back on their condition in the next installment of what is apparently called the "Indestructible Shoe Challenge."</div><div>Speaking of the tongues, the lining on the tongues of both boots is peeling away, and it looks and feels like cheap nylon. The overall construction of the boots feels thin, and cheap, without much in the way of the rugged construction I've come to expect from proper work-boots. There's really no insulation of note, and as such, no real padding in the boots, leading to the flimsiest feel I've had from any boot, including some of the cheapest ones I've seen at Wal-Mart. The collar of the shaft is fairly tight at first, but it can get worked-out fairly easily, which is something of a plus, I suppose.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8lh2_wrvF9D63BW6onJWI4mvOWJfMBALqqQsR6ok5ij_vLPNBCZtLoMA64oCIGuOFBg1uTAdhvvUElaH0SQeC6YjWnbw1qqzUS0m25EDh9QMCwjCh-61VofZ-qDiFY9yu1OwKVLkMwp-Q/s2048/SANY0360.JPG" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="192" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8lh2_wrvF9D63BW6onJWI4mvOWJfMBALqqQsR6ok5ij_vLPNBCZtLoMA64oCIGuOFBg1uTAdhvvUElaH0SQeC6YjWnbw1qqzUS0m25EDh9QMCwjCh-61VofZ-qDiFY9yu1OwKVLkMwp-Q/w256-h192/SANY0360.JPG" width="256" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Something I noticed about the tread is that there are bits of the rubber that hand off of the edges, and my initial prediction was that they would be the first casualties of the eventual wear of the boots, and I was right. They started chipping off within three weeks. Another thing to note, is that the tread is incredibly shallow. Great for not getting big clumps of dirt caught in the tread, but not so great for long-term reliability. Shallow tread will go bald faster than deep tread will, in my experience, and, as such, reduces the useably safe lifespan of any shoe, especially something that needs to grip and support weight, like a work-boot does.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfl8JrCzgRdirsPvH6Bp__5pjbX-vJJlOEXuj3q-RVwGUnLeO2o_V0xtftD7MT9mgy79OPq5EJ8ZGoabVGxi9iOwLTXrZ71HKJMXbHr161KZa5O3Mi96Pcgz-01e7Wtbz7OEUfhp4gGUXG/s867/Annotation+2020-08-08+012918.png" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="539" data-original-width="867" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfl8JrCzgRdirsPvH6Bp__5pjbX-vJJlOEXuj3q-RVwGUnLeO2o_V0xtftD7MT9mgy79OPq5EJ8ZGoabVGxi9iOwLTXrZ71HKJMXbHr161KZa5O3Mi96Pcgz-01e7Wtbz7OEUfhp4gGUXG/w328-h203/Annotation+2020-08-08+012918.png" width="328" /></a></div><div>One of the many, many claims made on both the Indestructible Shoes website, and the AliExpress page where you can buy the exact same item for far cheaper, but still too much, in my opinion, is that the boot is specifically made to be resistant to punctures. The two pages have very different opinions on why, with the AliExpress page claiming that the Kevlar makes it puncture-resistant, and the Indestructible Shoes website claiming more vaguely that it's "military-grade material." Having tested it, I can confirm that it's puncture-proof as far as I've been able to tell, but that's not because of any "special materials." My nearly three-year-old Dickies boots also stood up to the tests, which were basically just me taking a board with screws and nails driven into it and stepping on it as hard as I was willing, and subsequently, whacking the sole of the boots with the same board repeatedly. No punctures noticeable on either one, and I have actually had some experience with accidentally stepping on upturned screws and nails with previous boots, both work-boots and hiking-boots, that I don't remember the brand-names of, and even the cheaper ones largely stood up, and prevented serious injury. So that's not particularly special. The waterproofing appears to be largely alright, up to a point, but I dispute the idea that this is any kind of leather. If it is, they've coated it with some sort of rubber, which may be part of the alleged "fireproofing" that I haven't been able to test, because I don't tend to run into sparks much in my daily routine, nor am I particularly eager to create some for the sake of this review, but I used to use a grinder while wearing my Dickies, and they were perfectly fine, despite not advertising that as a feature, to my knowledge. The steel-toes are good. They've taken a few good blows and various jostling without being dislodged and becoming uncomfortable, which I've had happen even with my good Dickies boots, but that may change in the future. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgajuFAn7YzCA0-q4JmrRW_NygSw0TnDyvR1BIhQVqGKe3bVl7WxreaC5jr_vJAN4B62KJ0WQdd4ajSVOgXDmy9djvsMDPLwe_AmyQ2eqWnGog5JJSjKWvWBOeuSob_Jm_Gx76wchWtRIvx/s908/Annotation+2020-08-08+012952.png" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="908" height="203" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgajuFAn7YzCA0-q4JmrRW_NygSw0TnDyvR1BIhQVqGKe3bVl7WxreaC5jr_vJAN4B62KJ0WQdd4ajSVOgXDmy9djvsMDPLwe_AmyQ2eqWnGog5JJSjKWvWBOeuSob_Jm_Gx76wchWtRIvx/w328-h203/Annotation+2020-08-08+012952.png" width="328" /></a></div><div>Further claims are that the shoes feature some sort of high-tech insole with "3D arch support!" I can confirm that, not only do the cheap, foam inserts that come with the boots not have any arch-support, the heel-cup isn't any more padded, and the inserts are bare blue foam, not a green/yellow mixture with a black lining. The boots are, indeed, skid-proof. I've tested that, they're really good at gripping, but that's because of the really soft rubber, which causes entirely different issues. This is why Dickies used a two-part sole for their boots, at least, the ones I'm used to wearing. Harder rubber on the outside for support, softer in the middle to grip when necessary. I'm going to skip over the "wide steelhead" for now, and come back to it with the next picture. As for the "handmade craftsmanship," I'm not sure I buy that, since the stitching doesn't look like it was done by anything but a machine, but I could be wrong.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoYCKjFxPN6A8akMnC_8kkE_j743Ha-rU8B6uEU45KqHUpKbH-b2vQXulOJXair-4AOqxy39fE5lqkWBWaTaxiwcuMXX4ghq3BtQohC2YcpZSDC0653lXNCDtXSLPGSNv0KZVFeklyRQ5a/s2048/SANY0370.JPG" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjoYCKjFxPN6A8akMnC_8kkE_j743Ha-rU8B6uEU45KqHUpKbH-b2vQXulOJXair-4AOqxy39fE5lqkWBWaTaxiwcuMXX4ghq3BtQohC2YcpZSDC0653lXNCDtXSLPGSNv0KZVFeklyRQ5a/w262-h197/SANY0370.JPG" width="262" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Now, as for the "Wide steelhead," I have to call bullshit on that, as I got an ingrown toenail on my right foot from these boots. Apologies for the image (And the carpet), but it was necessary to show exactly what the boots had done. Granted, I do think that the "steelhead" is a bit wider than on some boots, but, due to the fact that these boots are a bit shorter than standard American Size 13s, that kind of becomes moot. Proper medical attention, and further breaking-in of the boot has ensured that this issue has been resolved, but it doesn't change the fact that these so-called "Size 13" boots are around half a size too small, and Size 13 is the largest they come in, even on AliExpress, so if you're a tall guy, with big feet, you're out of luck, not that I'd recommend buying these boots, when you could literally go to anywhere that sells shoes and spend the same amount they're asking for on the Indestructible Shoes website, roughly $79.99 at time of writing, and buy a much better pair of Dickies, Nike, or other work or combat boots, or even the lesser AliExpress price of roughly $40. I will admit that the nail was a bit short on my big toe, but it was perfectly fine until the tightness of the boots started to irritate it.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNt7w9EfGedMFpLyhwdGQzFcCr7H_2N9jxtO60r4rEMsE5p7W7j-_XaTUTwJMdykCImQv_2Yn3Sqnv_wn-tSp68ngWv1Lveebfj16NQnGuWM9UMnBAmep-Wh7rBOuZLeTeLwXqIBbtcw2M/s2048/SANY0377.JPG" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNt7w9EfGedMFpLyhwdGQzFcCr7H_2N9jxtO60r4rEMsE5p7W7j-_XaTUTwJMdykCImQv_2Yn3Sqnv_wn-tSp68ngWv1Lveebfj16NQnGuWM9UMnBAmep-Wh7rBOuZLeTeLwXqIBbtcw2M/w262-h197/SANY0377.JPG" width="262" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>There's also the matter of the blister I got on my left foot. Nothing too serious, but, since it happened while I was evaluating the boots, I figured I should mention it. It's mostly just a fairly thick patch of dead skin on my left big-toe, but it's not nothing, either. I've never had any pair of shoes give me as many injuries as these, no matter how minor, and my last pair of Brahma boots had actual metal wearing through the sole of the shoe, right next to my toes! Can you see why I'm not really that enthusiastic about recommending these?</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZQfpGAMtZM3ufuimQItpiQduyGfjPfrIYOezRgF7mdBu_Br0JhmSuqll4bnoEOoVDJ5u62Fn-lsuGwzww6lRzp7r1qErVpdlzSiYwhNdic3dwQcPg3Ex42NQPd577-fnGDtmXwj82Byw/s2048/SANY0356.JPG" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcZQfpGAMtZM3ufuimQItpiQduyGfjPfrIYOezRgF7mdBu_Br0JhmSuqll4bnoEOoVDJ5u62Fn-lsuGwzww6lRzp7r1qErVpdlzSiYwhNdic3dwQcPg3Ex42NQPd577-fnGDtmXwj82Byw/w262-h197/SANY0356.JPG" width="262" /></a></div><div>Anyways, here's a size-comparison between my last pair of Dickies, and these "Indestructible Shoes." I butted up the heels together to match, and sure enough, the "Indestructible Shoes" are around 1/2 an inch shorter in length than the Dickies are. The mouth is also wider on the Dickies, but, bear in mind, those are around three years old, and are likely more stretched-out than they were when they were new, so that's not really a point of comparison. What IS a point of comparison is that the loops on the back are in entirely different places. The Dickies is lower, allowing you to loop overlong laces through them, as not to trip on the trailing ends. The "Indestructible Shoes" have them above the collar, making it very uncomfortable to loop overlong laces through them in such a way that keeps the laces comfortably tight.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik75paldkR1hRiBcovAipy3Rd49PBObUbk2ogm75QuvoZlLsFpjOw8UeoHD5731BdOhb_wyvWcUXNncXu8NI1GrVtcy5xvHFZtAZaXN4ID3UQMkVOpiy9aTPXhBM0WbbB8-yUN-61YXP5s/s2048/SANY0358.JPG" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEik75paldkR1hRiBcovAipy3Rd49PBObUbk2ogm75QuvoZlLsFpjOw8UeoHD5731BdOhb_wyvWcUXNncXu8NI1GrVtcy5xvHFZtAZaXN4ID3UQMkVOpiy9aTPXhBM0WbbB8-yUN-61YXP5s/w262-h197/SANY0358.JPG" width="262" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Another issue is how quick these boots wear. This picture to the left was taken several weeks ago, and the noticeable wear has only gotten worse, since. I don't recall my Dickies, or Brahmas looking this bad by the first month or so of service, this was at least six months of wear to a typical pair of boots I'd buy. Granted, I hadn't yet tried to polish off some of the dust they'd accumulated from pressure-washing the sidewalk, so they look even worse than they should, but that doesn't take away from the fact that these once fairly impressive boots have lost their sheen in their first month of use. It usually takes eight, nine months for a pair of glossy-boots to need a polish, and for a matte pair to need... Whatever matte-boots need to make them look good. Is it brushing? Frankly, I don't care how they look as long as they still work, so I've never really looked into that. Regardless, there's no polishing out those scuffs on the toes, to my knowledge. </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvjytLYR_vnFY5FR3XG6KML1-LU37XldNA4jtk89M9FioTI368IipGthFKIPWNRGsQANcJd7T1pkd3gw_5d1QkxSl_dJIcaOiuxYmzfn_ogbPFMlmm3mxWhrAM5Dn5C_XKjvrqzVxsC5p8/s1946/SANY0371.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1331" data-original-width="1946" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvjytLYR_vnFY5FR3XG6KML1-LU37XldNA4jtk89M9FioTI368IipGthFKIPWNRGsQANcJd7T1pkd3gw_5d1QkxSl_dJIcaOiuxYmzfn_ogbPFMlmm3mxWhrAM5Dn5C_XKjvrqzVxsC5p8/w262-h179/SANY0371.jpg" width="262" /></a></div><div>Now, I've tried to keep the sole of the boot as level as possible in the next picture, because I need to show how much wear these have accumulated in their first month of use. You can tell from the unevenness of the rubber that it's worn more on one side than the other, which is a consequence of my natural gait. I've tried to fix it, and my feet don't turn out nearly as much as they used to, but if I turn my feet in perfectly straight, my knees get all kinked-up, and frankly, I've heard from a number of places, right or wrong, that trying to make your street perfectly-straight is terrible for balance and bad on your knees, but I digress. The point is, that this gives us a fairly decent method of comparison between the sole as it was when it was new-ish, and how much wear it has suffered. By my reckoning, there's maybe a quarter-inch difference in the height of the tread, from one side to the other, which is usually something seen around the six-month mark for boots with tougher soles. As this is a soft rubber, it was bound to wear faster, but I wasn't exactly expecting it to wear this quickly, and the rubber has worn worse since this picture was taken.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDP3Tra_MzfgBzA1QjYtRDo1p8ztFA_Rp3bB34og2M0196q9sZkLMONYA8BGkN4n5TNeXZB3nPYqQUe64KAcxvdJ0-8JX8Gcy50D06iGzv9c_Akep2SlbspBeehGDYVT-Xn5fN0Q0LNzMf/s2048/SANY0374.JPG" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhDP3Tra_MzfgBzA1QjYtRDo1p8ztFA_Rp3bB34og2M0196q9sZkLMONYA8BGkN4n5TNeXZB3nPYqQUe64KAcxvdJ0-8JX8Gcy50D06iGzv9c_Akep2SlbspBeehGDYVT-Xn5fN0Q0LNzMf/w262-h197/SANY0374.JPG" width="262" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Speaking of wear, (and I apologize for the blurry picture, but I've tried retaking it, and this was the best I could get, which probably says more about the cameras I have access to, than anything else.) the tread has started to do this wrinkling thing that softer rubbers sometimes do when they're wearing severely. My Dickies still haven't done that, despite their age, and the Brahmas took a good year before they started showing this kind of wear. Long story short, I'm not holding out hope for these boots to last longer than maybe six months, which is a fairly short life-span for a roughly $80 pair of boots, I must say. </div><div>All in all, I can't recommend these, and, as such, I will not be providing the affiliate link the seller of these gave me. They're just not worth your money, no matter how little you pay for them. I feel like I got ripped-off, and they sent me these for free.</div><div><br /></div><div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgNnYJ919zjyQYELwv2kJTlAGxdkows8A-DCR_fk0lw6ggnHvyGXHsaIGS08iM8T2lGYP4J3aJHZqfVj8DD8rzpK3KStWziv0Eyn888qCJM3d3P651QaDIpGQODQ2aW7sOwtPeHxuRbM_/s2048/SANY0363.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgCgNnYJ919zjyQYELwv2kJTlAGxdkows8A-DCR_fk0lw6ggnHvyGXHsaIGS08iM8T2lGYP4J3aJHZqfVj8DD8rzpK3KStWziv0Eyn888qCJM3d3P651QaDIpGQODQ2aW7sOwtPeHxuRbM_/w168-h126/SANY0363.JPG" width="168" /></a></div>Now, something you may have noticed in those promotional images is red or black tag featuring a pseudo-<i>Supreme </i>logo with the moniker "Fashion" on it. In the pictures to the left, you can see that the tag isn't on either side of the boot. Both boots lack this tag, and, as such, don't have any branding on them, whatsoever. Not on the soles, tongues, insoles, or anywhere. These boots have no branding on them <i>at all</i>. The closest thing I could find to any information about them were incredibly faint, illegible print on the tongue that was mostly worn-off before I even wore these boots. That print <i>may </i>have been size information, as I could vaguely make out what might have been a 13/48, but I'm not sure.<br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEistAhiFanpNuCxs38GHX05XCZ_xVSlgs20EuRhRnYAeftLCgnff3QumuU1xGGkE0ptezKf0hVBCYR8_srS_OJ0SmaYhJBRJcIvvvZj89RaOn_SOtMXUCxWVVINFUMNvQH8uZvQ-3NzKQJj/s2048/SANY0364.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="126" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEistAhiFanpNuCxs38GHX05XCZ_xVSlgs20EuRhRnYAeftLCgnff3QumuU1xGGkE0ptezKf0hVBCYR8_srS_OJ0SmaYhJBRJcIvvvZj89RaOn_SOtMXUCxWVVINFUMNvQH8uZvQ-3NzKQJj/w168-h126/SANY0364.JPG" width="168" /></a><div style="text-align: left;">This also corresponds to the maximum size on the AliExpress page, giving even further proof that these are the boots from the AliExpress page.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI8P0fNrxcLUdS5Fhd2dxCAEEk5-ifb1yac1h5yniRN_63oFwMJqftn-HQO1BUI6rWmc4ZkRbvZlXm2ZQyUZybVdhVcsvSDDdJSdjybVYZpRSM6vgy_3S2p7oh1zEVTKTCpfnGfLVnIeYC/s2048/SANY0382.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjI8P0fNrxcLUdS5Fhd2dxCAEEk5-ifb1yac1h5yniRN_63oFwMJqftn-HQO1BUI6rWmc4ZkRbvZlXm2ZQyUZybVdhVcsvSDDdJSdjybVYZpRSM6vgy_3S2p7oh1zEVTKTCpfnGfLVnIeYC/w210-h158/SANY0382.JPG" width="210" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">The only place you can find any branding is on the box the shoes came in, which says "INDESTRUCTIBLE: CRAFTED FOR THE BATTLEFIELD," which I find myself disbelieving. I've got a friend who buys Nike combat boots for work-wear and paintball, and they've never, to my knowledge, worn out this fast in this short a period of time. One would hope that even the Chinese army would know better than to buy these for use on the battlefield. Also, if you zoom in on the box, this guy's wearing sneakers, not boots. Most proper shoeboxes from proper shoe companies have the contents printed on the outside, as well as the size.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAmZLIVq6hLVVXn-Mk0i03sVEA_OGUQgeBS8wbHmRbKWXYXck84CNIZuv2oi_VyXubd-2rLWcdPB8-4LX7M4o5BsfyBAqyF9m1fh3kyTPl2rd5GozS-bUefpda0P9oOcB5x2mpsWieOQlW/s2048/SANY0381.JPG" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1536" data-original-width="2048" height="158" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAmZLIVq6hLVVXn-Mk0i03sVEA_OGUQgeBS8wbHmRbKWXYXck84CNIZuv2oi_VyXubd-2rLWcdPB8-4LX7M4o5BsfyBAqyF9m1fh3kyTPl2rd5GozS-bUefpda0P9oOcB5x2mpsWieOQlW/w210-h158/SANY0381.JPG" width="210" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">Speaking of which, there's no color, size, or art number, whatever that is, filled into the boxes on either side of the shoebox. Everything you would expect from legitimate shoe companies is lacking on both the shoe, and the box. I'm not really sure that my boots were even the right size, and there's no way to really know based on the information on the boot, or the box. Even with the printing on the tongue, there's no way to be sure. At least if it was molded into the sole, like some shoe companies do, you could be pretty sure that your feet don't match with their sizing system, whatever their system may be. </div></div></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlLn31asRFgyUxNbDiVTAlrZSlIgIV-0Dald06Tc93kJGDxJp9H0xeRyPRHHyMuQ0tM26CtaRSv8D7gpIOtsC8BSkOla49uIKFicnVnso6QT-5_V9LUqAsW5XMpl1RWmfpqSpa3v0Ty7UL/s1063/Hb12556a4cd914c8293e134024d9b7f90Y.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1063" data-original-width="790" height="410" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhlLn31asRFgyUxNbDiVTAlrZSlIgIV-0Dald06Tc93kJGDxJp9H0xeRyPRHHyMuQ0tM26CtaRSv8D7gpIOtsC8BSkOla49uIKFicnVnso6QT-5_V9LUqAsW5XMpl1RWmfpqSpa3v0Ty7UL/w305-h410/Hb12556a4cd914c8293e134024d9b7f90Y.jpg" width="305" /></a></div><div><br /></div><div>Now, let's take a look at the AliExpress page for these boots, and laugh at some bad English, shall we? You'll notice that in the screenshots I took from the Indestructible Shoes website, that their pictures are just cropped versions of the really weird ones from AliExpress, without even the decency to use source-images without the shadows at the top. This is true for all of them, by the way, even though some of the pictures have clean versions of the images lower down on the AliExpress page, although the uncropped version also has a pair of badly-photoshopped boots behind the legs, meaning that whoever put this together, and proofread the images before sending them to the site either didn't know what they were doing, or didn't care. Additionally, these boots are tied too loosely for the waterproofing to make any difference if it goes above the top of the toe.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-O713oUvvM6VvQ89wc0khog4GjLGqU0NKmYmWnqrLqqL3ct5du0N6K3BbzucpPW-OCIi706zDDuztAUepevhre8FXaeM07VKhJgUHB0kfuIl-KBuPkSGoNDJG0uzVg25tjAyYY4O7jTZ9/s2344/Hc5742a11dadd4fd99e2075aacdc47c9eH.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; padding: 1em 0px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2344" data-original-width="790" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi-O713oUvvM6VvQ89wc0khog4GjLGqU0NKmYmWnqrLqqL3ct5du0N6K3BbzucpPW-OCIi706zDDuztAUepevhre8FXaeM07VKhJgUHB0kfuIl-KBuPkSGoNDJG0uzVg25tjAyYY4O7jTZ9/w216-h640/Hc5742a11dadd4fd99e2075aacdc47c9eH.jpg" width="216" /></a></div></div><div><br /></div><div>Looking at these photos, I wonder why there's a black gradient at the top of the frame. Maybe it's to hide something? Why are there a pair of boots hovering behind this guy's thighs? Was this modeled by a person, or a pair of sticks with jeans on them? The legs look too skinny to be human, or else they got someone who was positively tiny and under-nourished to model these. My calves fill up most of the mouth of the boot, so I know they didn't model these with someone who would probably be wearing these boots.</div><div>I also wonder why they posed a pair of empty boots on these railroad tracks? Though, given the fact that the boots are photoshopped behind the legs, I wouldn't be surprised if the people who made these pictures used a set of pictures of railroad tracks, and photoshopped the shoes in front of them. I can 100% say that the sparks in the claim about it being "Fire Resistant" are photoshopped. They have absolutely no reflection in the shiny, polished rail, which has a reflection of the boots in it, and they just flat-out don't look right. Maybe that's the reason for the gradient.</div><div>I'd like to know where these pictures were taken, just out of curiosity, because I'd like to know if they shot it on an in-service railroad or not. I'd think they wouldn't, but who knows? These shots are weird in places, like the shadows in the pictures to the left, and the texture in the second one. I don't know. I can say that, when these boots were new, they looked about as good as they did in the photos. Really, when they're new, they look pretty damn good, but they lose their luster quick.</div><div><br /></div><div>All in all, I wouldn't recommend buying these shoes. There are better alternatives that are the same price or less and are way better. I don't mean to sound like a shill for Dickies, but I've been wearing them for ten years, and only go through maybe one pair every three-ish years. Brahmas aren't <i>as </i>good, but they'll last for a year and a half, two years, even cheap ones. I can't speak for Brahma, but Dickies has boots on their website that are just as good as the ones you can get in most stores where they're sold, and they cost only slightly more than the ones on AliExpress do. If you're shopping for shoes, don't buy them from Facebook. Almost everything advertised on that website is either a scam of some sort, or a massive ripoff. I'll report back in a bit with more pictures and information. I plan to do at least one, maybe two more updates. I'll definitely try to check in when these boots finally buy the farm, and show exactly what went wrong that caused me to stop wearing them.</div><div><br /></div><div>Photo credit(s) and sources: AliExpress.com, https://archive.vn/ZBEq9 (AliExpress archive page), http://archive.fo/9wbn3 (Indestructible Shoes website archive page for the Hype Brown model), and myself.</div>
Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-76339308902970767572019-12-28T00:33:00.000-06:002019-12-28T14:00:20.011-06:00Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><strong>Originally written for <a href="http://outloudculture.com/">OutLoudCulture.com</a></strong></span><br />
<span style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><strong><br /></strong></span>
<span style="text-decoration-line: underline;"><strong>Spoiler warning.</strong></span><br />
Five years ago, the future of the<em> <strong>Star Wars</strong></em> franchise was hopeful, and optimistic, and as a fan of the franchise, I was as well. Now I'm just tired. It's not that<em> <strong>The Rise of Skywalker</strong></em> is a bad movie, by any means, but I can practically see <strong>J.J. Abrams</strong>' regret in every scene of the film. He probably didn't expect to be making this movie, since <strong>Colin Treverrow</strong> was originally slated to direct, and I'm going to bet that J.J. wanted to see what he'd come up with coming off the <em><strong>Episode VIII</strong></em> script. I'm well on the record as not liking <em>Episode VIII</em>, and considering what J.J. had to do to even make this movie, it sure seems like he's losing his enthusiasm for it, as well. This film was put in such a bad position by easily correctable issues induced by the production of <em>Episode VIII</em>. For one thing, <strong>Princess Leia</strong> is the only character of the original trio who's still alive, despite <strong>Carrie Fisher</strong> being dead. This manifests as Leia having very little screentime, and her being killed-off rather unceremoniously. Normally, I'm not a fan of reshoots, but it wouldn't have been remotely difficult to edit <em>Episode VIII</em> to have Leia die, as she had a brush with death in that film, which, by all rights, should have killed her. It's not like the effects they used were bad, they hold up perfectly fine, and whoever they got to voice-double Carrie Fisher is spot-on (If , indeed, they didn't feed archive audio into an AI or just reuse said archive audio the way they have a lot of archive footage), but the fact remains that<strong> Lucasfilm</strong> had more than enough time between Fisher's death, and the release of<em> <strong>The Last Jedi</strong> </em>to perform the necessary reshoots. Indeed, that would have rectified one of the many issues I had with<em> TLJ</em>, that being, the Space-Leia scene. Instead, we have exactly what I feared would happen when they announced the plan to have Leia in the last film, most of her scenes are built around how they can use the footage they already had, leaving most of Leia's scenes fairly restricted in nature. Some of the footage of Leia appears to be something akin to a DeepFake face-swapping technology, complete with the same strange facial animation on turning heads that currently plagues the Cats adaptation. One would think that <strong>Disney</strong> would have enough of a budget to make this work well, and indeed, we've seen better effects in<em><strong> Rogue One</strong></em>, <em>The Last Jedi</em>, various<strong> Marvel</strong> movies, and even a couple of scenes in this film, as well. I suspect that any dodgy effects work may be down to the allegedly massive overhauls <i>Episode IX</i> has experienced during reshoots, as the film was rumored to involve time-travel at one point, and there have been numerous leaks of concepts and plot-points which appear to not have made their way into the movie which confirm some of my suspicions about the reshoots.<br />
All of that aside, from a character and plot perspective, I like <em>The Rise of Skywalker</em> a hell of a lot more than The Last Jedi, although the two films share a handful of issues. The Force-Teleportation and other related powers introduced in <em>TLJ</em> have made their ways into this film, although Abrams makes better use of them than Johnson did. <i>The Last Jedi</i> was very uncreative in marrying its concepts with the film-making, and <em>The Rise of Skywalker</em> corrects that, allowing for proper integration of film and story. <em>Episode IX</em> is also paced a hell of a lot better than <em>Episode VIII</em> was, and doesn't send characters off on pointless quests that take up far too much screen-time. Additionally, the dynamics of the three leads are finally cast against each other, and their chemistry is brilliant. It's a shame that this is likely the last time<strong> Oscar Isaac</strong>, <strong>John Boyega</strong>, and <strong>Daisy Ridley</strong> will share the screen as these characters.<br />
Daisy Ridley's performance as <strong>Rey</strong>, as always, is my favorite part of the movie. John Boyega's and Oscar Isaac's performances as <strong>Finn</strong> and <strong>Poe Dameron</strong>, respectively, are no slouches, but I like Rey, and I have since the start of this trilogy. Their chemistry as an ensemble is absolutely amazing, and it's really a shame that the previous films had the trio separated for so long, as the actors and characters bounce off each other in a way that I haven't seen done this well since Firefly, or the original Avengers movie. The First Order has also gotten their act together at last, finally feeling like a competent foe, as opposed to the bumbling, overly-enraged idiots they were in Episode VIII, or the practically cartoonish villains they were in<strong><em> Episode VII</em></strong>. Between <strong>Kylo Ren/Ben Solo</strong> (Played by <strong>Adam Driver</strong>)'s reforged mask, the set-construction of their conference room, and the cinematography of scenes featuring The First Order, they come off as competent and imposing, while not also feeling like they're ripping off scenes from the Original Trilogy. Then, they rip off scenes from the Original Trilogy, right down to stealing the OT's primary antagonist. Kylo Ren grabs a doubter by the throat during a conference and smashes him against the ceiling of the room, a much more violent and dynamic version of what Vader tended to do, but the additions do nothing to disguise the fact that it is blatantly ripping off a similar scene from <strong><em>Episode IV</em> </strong>(As if they didn't do that enough in <em>Episode VII</em>.)<br />
As far as inter-film plagiarism goes, though, it's not nearly as prevalent or blatant as it was in The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, although there's one rather obvious scene lifted from the end of<strong> Episode VI</strong> that we'll get to later. The main plot of the film concerns tracking down and stopping The First Order from joining up with The Final Order in a final effort to conquer the galaxy. The Final Order (Surely they mean "Last Command?") is <strong>Emperor Sheev Palpatine </strong>(Played by <strong>Ian McDiarmid)</strong>'s new Imperial fleet. Yes, Palpatine's back. No, they never explained why. It's heavily implied that <strong>Snoke</strong> (Played by <strong>Andy Serkis</strong>) was a puppet of Palpatine, although I don't think it's ever truly explained why he's back, although, given this already happened over twenty years ago in the 14-issue series S<strong><em>tar Wars: Dark Empire</em></strong>, and what we see in the film, and the preexisting technology in the Star Wars universe, one can easily infer that cloning was involved somewhere along the line. That's kind of this film's biggest problem, and one that it shares in common with Episode VII. Any Star Wars fan familiar with the <strong>Expanded Universe</strong> (AKA <strong>Legends</strong>) will be able to pick out the influences a mile away. There's<em> Dark Empire</em>, <strong><em>Knights of the Old Republic</em></strong>, <strong><em>The Force Unleashed</em></strong>, <strong><em>The Jedi Academy Trilogy</em></strong>, good god, it seems like we keep going back to most of the same old influences that they've been taking from since the start of this trilogy.<br />
Anyway, apparently Palpatine's been using the Vader voice from the melted helmet Kylo keeps around to manipulate him, and why he thinks Kylo won't turn on him like he did Snoke is beyond me, but old Sheev decides it's a good idea to offer Ben a fleet of Death Star-equipped Star Destroyers in exchange for killing Rey, who's apparently his granddaughter. We finally get a good look at Rey's parents, and indeed, Palpatine's biological son. This could have been worse, but it would have made far more sense for her to either just be someone unimportant who rose to the challenge, or to just make her <strong>Luke Skywalker</strong> (Played by<strong> Mark Hamill</strong>)'s daughter or <strong>Obi-Wan Kenobi</strong> (Played by <strong>Ewan McGregor</strong> and <strong>Alec Guinness</strong>)'s granddaughter. Hell, you could have crossed the lines a bit, have one of her parents be a Kenobi and the other a Palpatine. There's more than enough chance that Obi-Wan might have had a kid with <strong>Satine Kryze</strong> back in the Clone Wars, although it's probably more likely for Rey to be a great-granddaughter than a granddaughter of either of them. Now, one might think "Doesn't that make Reylo incest?" but it's not. Palpatine is <em>NOT </em><strong>Anakin Skywalker </strong>(Played by <strong>Hayden Christensen</strong>)'s biological father, and the original script for <strong><em>Revenge of the Sith</em></strong> is incredibly clear about this. Though that doesn't make their relationship any less strange.<br />
After finding out Palpatine's still alive, the Resistance goes on a hunt for a way to locate him, heading first to some desert-planet that isn't Tatooine or Jakku, where <strong>Chewbacca</strong> (Played by <strong>Joonas Suotamo</strong>)gets captured by The Knights of Ren, and the gang finds a dagger and meets<strong> Lando Calrissean</strong> (Played by<strong> Billy Dee Williams</strong>). They have to wipe<strong> C-3P0</strong> (Played by<strong> Anthony Daniels</strong>)'s memory to get him to translate the message on the dagger, then they rescue Chewie and go to Endor, where they find the thing they need to find Palpatine, some kind of holocron thing. Then Kylo Ren shows up and breaks it with one hand. Rey mortally wounds him, but uses Force healing to save him, steals his ship, and returns to Ach-To to live as a hermit. There, Luke tells Rey to stop being Jake Skywalker and pilot the goddamn <strike>Eva</strike> X-Wing. An X-Wing still called "Red 5," which is a continuity issue I didn't notice in<em> Episode VIII</em>, but has since been made apparent. Anyone here remember Rogue Squadron? That was a thing as far back as The Empire Strikes Back. Luke's call-sign was "Rogue Leader" and Rogue Squadron remains a persistent aspect of the Disney Star Wars canon. This error is inexcusable. It shows the distinct lack of care that has gone into the continuity of this trilogy, as if the entirety of <i>Episode VIII </i>wasn't proof enough that Kathleen Kennedy and the rest of <strong>Lucasfilm</strong> don't give a damn about the timeline.<br />
After Kylo and Rey's showdown on Endor,<strong> Han Solo</strong> (Played by <strong>Harrison Ford</strong>) shows up in Ben's imagination, and Ben decides the best course of action would be to throw away his Lightsaber. Meanwhile, Rey leads what's left of the Resistance to Palpatine so they can take down the fleet. Palpatine then proceeds to rip off the ending scene of <strong><em>Return of the Jedi</em></strong> by showing Rey all of her friends dying. Ben shows up, and is accosted by the Knights of Ren. This is a time when a Lightsaber might have come in handy, although, for the most part, Ben manages just fine without one. I'm baffled as to why the Knights of Ren use traditional melee weapons, such as a halberd, mace, broadsword, etc, instead of Lightsabers or blasters. Anyways, when it looks like Ben might lose, Rey teleports him the Skywalker Family Lightsaber, which he uses to kill the Knights of Ren, and joins Rey in fighting Palpatine. Rey uses Leia's Lightsaber to fight Palpatine, though he drains their life-forces to power himself up, anyways. Then, all of the Jedi give Rey a pep-talk in her brain and she gets up and kills Palpatine, all while Lando leads in a ragtag fleet of people which includes none other than <strong>Denis Lawson</strong> as<strong> Wedge Antilles</strong>. And then, Ben gets up from the hole Palpatine threw him down, and finds Rey either dead or mostly dead, uses Force heal on her, they kiss, then he dies and becomes a Force Ghost. Subsequently, his mother, who has been dead for most of the movie at that point, also disappears. Fortunately, they remember that you don't take your non-biological parts with you, unlike <b>Rian Johnson</b>, who apparently forgot Luke had a robotic hand. Then Rey takes the Skywalker saber to Tatooine with Leia's, and buries them in the sand, ignites her staff as a Lightsaber without having been shown to construct it, calls herself "Rey Skywalker" when someone asks her her name, and the credits roll. I skipped a lot there, but that's the basic summary.<br />
All in all, the film's good moments ring hollow, and I should like it a lot more than I do. At its best, it's excellent. At its worst, I know it's working around the failures of<em> The Last Jedi</em>, but everything else just feels unearned. A decent chunk of the awesome moments of the film seem like they're just there, because this film is attempting to pick up the pieces of a trilogy shattered by its middle installment. The fanservice is a nice touch in most places, but does nothing to distract from the dumb choices the film makes that are entirely its fault and the faults of the people who made it, not the fault of Rian Johnson and <i>Episode VIII</i>. Attempting to follow <em>Episode VIII</em> was always going to present issues, but they could have fixed so much if, for instance, Ben didn't throw away his Lightsaber. Granted, they at least make it look fairly cool, but merely "looking cool" isn't an excuse. Honestly, this film reminds me a lot of The Empire Strikes Back, in a bad way. If you'll recall my <a href="http://outloudculture.com/2015/12/17/star-wars-films-ranked/">rankings</a> of the Star Wars films from a few years ago, I don't particularly like <em>The Empire Strikes Back</em>, partially because I see it as a "style over substance" sort of film, and <em>The Rise of Skywalker</em> is a textbook example of that. Not that there's no substance to be had. The characters are good, the dialogue is good, it's just the framework which the characters operate in that's the problem.<br />
While a lot of problems could have been solved by changes to the preceding film, there are too many issues that could have been solved simply by writing this movie better. There are times when characters act dumb, there are times when they pull Force powers out of their asses, the Knights of Ren could have been replaced with random Stormtroopers for all the importance they have to the plot, the Resistance just so happens to have horses (or whatever they were) with them when they make their assault on the star destroyer that can disable speeders. It's all just so convenient, and it makes me sad and tired. I was hoping for better than this. I overlooked some of the conveniences in <em>Episode VII</em>, but it's just too late in the game to be relying this heavily on coincidence. There are also a number of interesting angles which barely get used, such as Finn's Force sensitivity, which was hinted at in the previous films, being finally confirmed. Granted, part of the problem with that is probably down to reshoots and deleted-scenes. <em>Star Wars</em> has this issue (an issue it shares with the<strong> MCU</strong>), where most of the deleted-scenes do nothing but improve the final film immensely, yet they're left on the cutting-room floor regardless, and I'm going to bet that with all the reshoots this movie went through, it's almost a guarantee that something was left out that makes the entire movie click. As it stands, I enjoyed the film while watching it, but after I was done, I didn't really care.<br />
In the end, I give <em>Star Wars Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker</em> a <span style="font-size: 24pt;"><strong>4/10.</strong><span style="font-size: 12pt;"> Could be better, could be worse, but outside of some interesting cinematography and visuals, there's nothing much special here.</span></span><br />
A side note, and this doesn't really matter much regarding the quality of the movie, but I'd just like to point out that they've been using the <strong><em>Chrono Trigger</em></strong> font throughout most of the posters of the Sequel Trilogy. A similar font was used for the originals, but it was mainly used for the cast and crew, and Star Wars has since gained a standardized title font, which the Sequel Trilogy has never used, to my knowledge.<br />
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Image from <a href="http://impawards.com/">Impawards.com</a>Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-26730957378546196752019-10-12T00:13:00.001-05:002019-10-12T21:52:38.178-05:00Joker (2019)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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I know I haven't written a review in a long time and I've still got a rather long list of movies and games to get to, but to hell with it. I've been thinking about Joker a lot since I watched it and I'm damn well gonna talk about it, even though I haven't reviewed (or at least haven't published reviews) of the last few DC movies I've watched.<br />
Joker is one of those things that fell victim to a monstrously uninformed media outrage campaign, supposedly about "glorifying violence" and whether or not it would inspire violence itself, etc, which caused me to sigh in resignation upon hearing about it because I'm a gamer and anime-far, and I can remember a time before six months ago. When two of the hottest shows on TV were The Sopranos and Breaking Bad, series with protagonists who'd be villains in any other story. It doesn't help that most of the people spinning bullshit about Joker were doing so based solely on trailers and not having actually seen the movie. Having seen the movie myself, I determined (predictably) that everyone who claimed it would "inspire violence" were full of shit. Like Mortal Kombat, Manhunt, Grand Theft Auto and any number of other violent media subsequent or prior, the accusations lacked substantial credibility upon actually participating in the media in question. Besides, Eric Kilmonger and Thanos were both sympathetic villains and they haven't inspired people to take up their causes. No sane ones, anyway.<br />
And that's the crux of the matter, you're not going to inspire an otherwise normal person to violence, murder or genocide by depicting it in a movie. At worst, it'll inspire an absolute nutjob to something like that, but that's not the responsibility of the people who created the work. Whackos will find inspiration for their insanity in any medium, regardless of content, and that's especially ironic considering the context of this nontroversy, and the knee-jerk reactions only get more retarded the further into the film you get.<br />
Joker is about a potential origin for Batman's archrival, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Arthur Fleck, the titular Joker. Arthur is a mentally-unsound man who works as a clown by day and takes care of his ailing elderly mother by night. One day, which sign-spinning outside a store, some hooligans abscond with his sign and he tries to get it back. They lead him on a merry chase through the streets of Gotham before whacking him with the sign and beating him up. In response to this, one of Arthur's co-workers gives him a gun to defend himself, which later gets him fired when it falls out of his pants at a children's hospital. On his way back via the subway, Arthur gets picked-on and beaten up by a trio of rich assholes, whom he kills in self-defense. Well, the first two were self-defense, the last one he just runs down and shoots because fuck 'em. Not that someone who runs around on the subway assaulting random people gets much sympathy from me. And at this point, we're halfway into Arthur's body-count. Yes, that's right. Throughout this movie Joker only kills six people directly. Three in self-defense, and two more who one could argue kind of deserved it. The Joker kills fewer people in this movie than Batman does in The Lego Batman Movie. Yes, the R-rated drama kills fewer people than the lighthearted toy tie-in even with the additional five or so kills done by people other than The Joker.<br />
Anyway, the killings of the assholes, who happen to work for Thomas Wayne, causes something of a revolutionary uprising similar to that of the Batmen from The Dark Knight. A bunch of people don clown masks, makeup and attire and cause trouble. Arthur struggles with the consequences of what he's done, finds out Thomas Wayne might be his father, finds out he probably isn't and that his (Potentially) adoptive mother was abusive, delusional and somewhat psychotic (Which lends some credence to the idea that he might be the child of her and Thomas Wayne because he has delusions of his own that are explored throughout the movie in a similar fashion to Fight Club.) kills his mother, kills the guy who helped get him fired from his job, goes on the TV show of his hero who mocked him previously, kills him, gets arrested, and subsequently freed by his fanclub, and... Maybe locked up and evaluated? The ending is somewhat unclear.<br />
All in all, the film is very entertaining and the performance by Joaquin Phoenix is fantastic. The performance is somewhat unconventional, given that most interpretations of the character are more bombastic and deeper/raspier-voiced, though one can definitely see shades of Ledger's Joker towards the end of the film. I like the choice to make Arthur something of a soft-spoken introvert at the beginning of the film and have him transform into a more bombastic force of personality as the story progresses, it helps provide contrast between the pitiful creature he is at the beginning and the monster he becomes.<br />
Now, to break down the finer details of the plot and cast. First off, I generally like how the plot plays-out. If I was writing the film, I'd have placed Joker's "I used to think that my life was a tragedy...but now I realize...it's a (fucking) comedy." line more towards the end of the film, when he's on Murray Franklin's show, I feel like it would have had more punch there. Secondly, I like how after Arthur stopped taking his medication he becomes more lucid. Throughout the movie, Arthur has a few delusional experiences, and after he goes off his medications the delusions go away, implying that he actually becomes saner by degrees. In fact, I've subscribed to the concept that Joker has a form of hypersanity, where he is fully aware of the meaninglessness of death and existence within his world/universe/multiverse/etc, and as such really doesn't care about killing people, which feeds into an interesting idea about the shared delusions of the other characters in the futility of their own actions, given the fact that superhero comics always seem to press the "reset" button as soon as any of the so-called "permanent" consequences of a storyline become inconvenient.<br />
Now for the nitpicks. One of Arthur's delusions is that he has a love-interest in one Sophie Dumond, and while the realization that the version of her we see throughout the film is a mere phantasm, if she'd been real, and her actions more than a figment of Arthur's imagination, she could have functioned as his Harley Quinn, a mutually-corrupting force that drives him towards where he ends up at the end of the movie. For those not in the know, Harley Quinn is a character from Batman: The Animated Series who made it into the comics eventually. She's a former psychologist who was assigned to study The Joker, but wound up falling in love with him. Their relationship is somewhat one-sided in most depictions, with The Joker manipulating her affections for his own gain, but, at least in some continuities Harley eventually becomes, as Suicide Sqaud says, crazier than The Joker, going so far as to become one of the reasons he remains a mad mass-murderer. I understand why they didn't take this route, since it's more about the psyche of Arthur than anything else.<br />
Another issue is in the casting of Thomas, Martha, and Bruce Wayne, and Alfred Pennyworth. Gone are the most-recent actors to play the roles, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lauren Cohen, Brendon Spink and Jeremy Irons, replaced by Brett Cullen, Carrie Louise Putrello, Dante Pereira-Olson, and Douglas Hodge respectively. Not that any of them do a bad job as their respective characters, but as the portrayal of Thomas Wayne is more of a charismatic, morally-ambiguous type, I would have preferred to see Morgan in the role. Though Cullen wasn't the first choice for the role either, as it was initially offered to Alec Baldwin, who I can see giving a much better performance in this role than Cullen did, not that Cullen's was bad. Indeed, Thomas Wayne in this movie appears to have been explicitly written for Baldwin, and his replacement even resembles him to a large degree. While I can't fault them for casting a similar actor when the one they wanted was unavailable as I have literally done that with a production of my own, I'm disappointed in the lack of crossover between this and the DCEU, even if Warner Bros. has basically killed it. Yes, this is probably a different universe entirely, but the film ends with a half-assed recreation of the murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne, and it feels like it was put there out of pure obligation rather than as a part of the actual vision of the film. Granted I am somewhat biased, but I felt like Zack Snyder did a way better job with the murder of the Waynes than almost anyone, even Christopher Nolan. Plus, recreating the Wayne's murder from Dawn of Justice would have added a bit of bittersweet irony to Bruce's quip about clowns in that movie, especially if the film ended with Arthur pulling the trigger on them rather than some random whackado in a Joker mask, though that would be getting a bit close to the origin-story from Tim Burton's Batman.<br />
I also have a bone to pick with Joker's portrayal of Alfred Pennyworth, as a man who barely fights back when Arthur grabs him in the film. Alfred is a badass in almost every portrayal of the character. I guess that's why they didn't get Jeremy Irons, because even if they de-aged him he'd still look like he could take Arthur in a throwdown. That brings me to another point about the casting, even if Brendon Spink was too old to play an appropriately-aged Bruce Wayne, everyone else could have reprised their roles. DC de-aged Temeura Morrison, Nicole Kidman, Willem Dafoe, and Patrick Wilson for Aquaman, they clearly have the technology to do so. Someone just didn't want to do it I guess.<br />
To the bleating morons who spun the bullshit about this film (Some of whom work for CNN, a sibling company of Warner Bros.) congratulations, you managed to make it even more popular. Don't know if that was intended or not, and I frankly don't care. If they legitimately thought their outrage would make the film less successful, they're idiots. A modicum of pattern recognition could have told you that. If this was some kind of guerilla marketing technique, then it's been a resounding success. Hell, even if WB were the ones started it, there were plenty of people who picked up the baton and ran with it legitimately.<br />
All in all, nitpicks aside, I heartily recommend Joker. It's interesting, deeply introspective, and darkly hilarious at times. Despite the quibbles, it deserves a 9.8* rating. I'll be back someday. Meanwhile, check out my latest work, Neon Genesis Evangelion Alternative Saga!Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-1749954659549207742018-07-01T07:00:00.000-05:002018-07-01T07:00:08.260-05:00The Incredibles 2<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfExE_xZKv2UA5wGHWdEPU2ZBh9A_5PlUJgYgKmO6zRG1BoRedpQEzQkWvSznONn5ghBb-pm8sziJw4KwIaHyXup5mIX8Y28i8_dZWIJ9xkrufpfSuiGZXjX5u2DkYykLDIc94MbQVQCEO/s1600/incredibles_two_xxlg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1067" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfExE_xZKv2UA5wGHWdEPU2ZBh9A_5PlUJgYgKmO6zRG1BoRedpQEzQkWvSznONn5ghBb-pm8sziJw4KwIaHyXup5mIX8Y28i8_dZWIJ9xkrufpfSuiGZXjX5u2DkYykLDIc94MbQVQCEO/s320/incredibles_two_xxlg.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<strong>Originally written for <a href="http://outloudculture.com/">OutLoudCulture.com</a></strong><br />
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<strong><em> The Incredibles 2</em></strong> has been teased ever since the cliffhanger at the end of <strong><em>The Incredibles </em></strong>back in 2004. I'm 21 years old at the time of writing, and it's been almost 14 years since the first movie in the series was released. I have literally been waiting for this film for two-thirds of my life. <em><strong>Finding Dory</strong></em> only took 13 years, Monsters University took 12 years, meanwhile <strong><em>Cars </em></strong>sees a new movie every 5-6 years. I have a DVD copy of the first movie I've been watching with my parents about every six months since it came out that's older than some of the children in the audience for this movie. It's become a family tradition to watch the first movie and I can quote back almost every line in the movie as rote. Needless to say, that makes me fairly qualified to tell you, the reader, whether or not this movie is any good. Thankfully it is. I wish we'd gotten it 11-12 years ago, but it's a solid installment and a worthy follow-up to one of my all-time favorite movies. Now we just have to hope it won't take another 14 years for them to make an <em>Incredibles 3</em>.<br />
Before we start talking about the movie, I'd like to go over my theater experience first. I try and keep comments about the theater experience out of the review, but there were a few egregious problems with the showing I went to at The Grand 18 in D'Iberville, Mississippi. First off, there was a string of commercials for apps and augmented reality games played with cellphones before the movie, and then when trailers started, they told everyone to put away their cell-phones. Then there was the fact that the screen had clearly been cleaned improperly as there was this shimmer effect I've begun to notice on a lot of poorly-maintained projection-screens. Then there's the fact that there was a speck of dirt on either the projector, the window the projector was projecting through, or there was a much larger spot of dirt on the projection screen itself. Not enough to be detrimental, but enough to be unprofessional. Add to that the fact that the recliner seating was a tad difficult to adjust properly and my theater experience wasn't quite perfect.<br />
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Spoiler warning for the movie.<br />
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As one would expect given the ending of <em>The Incredibles, </em><em>The Incredibles 2</em> picks up immediately after the first film's cliffhanger ending. The Incredibles and Frozone manage to take on<strong> The Underminer </strong>(John Ratzenberger) and win, but The Underminer escapes, The Incredibles (<strong>Bob</strong>, <strong>Helen</strong>, <strong>Dash</strong>, <strong>Violet</strong> and <strong>Jack-Jack Parr</strong>, played by <strong>Craig T. Nelson</strong>, <strong>Holly Hunter</strong>, <strong>Sarah Vowell</strong>, <strong>Huck Milner</strong> and <strong>Eli Fucile</strong> respectively) are picked up by the police because superheroism is still illegal, <strong>Frozone</strong> (AKA <strong>Lucius Best</strong>, played by <strong>Samuel L. Jackson</strong>) is given a business proposition by a superhero fanboy who isn't a complete psycho (<strong>Winston</strong> <strong>Deavor</strong>, played by <strong>Bob Odenkirk</strong>) and the guy Violet asked out, Tony gets his memory of her erased. The Superhero Relocation Program, which was established fifteen years prior to clean up superhero messes and keep heroes under wraps whenever possible, gets shut down, and the Parrs have two weeks to sort their situation out or they're homeless, since their house was blown up in the previous film. Fortunately for them, the offer Deavor extended to Frozone is extended to Bob and Helen as well, and the three of them go to Deavor's place where he introduces them to his sister, <strong>Evelyn</strong> (<strong>Catherine Keener</strong>) who invents the stuff his company sells and markets. The idea is to hire Helen to be the "pilot hero" to get the public convinced that Superheroes are a positive influence rather than a negative one. Bob, who's spent the last fifteen years seething over the stupidity of the public and government, is naturally cheesed by this. If one can recall the first film as well as I can, then one remembers how Bob jumped to do hero-work, because it's an inherent part of his being. He's supportive of his wife, but it gets to him that he's not out there doing hero-work. Granted, someone has to take care of the kids and that duty falls to him.<br />
Elastigirl is given a new suit and motorcycle for use in superhero work while Bob is stuck trying to figure out why they changed math and how to organize all of the children, which is pretty relevant for fans of the first movie since they're old enough to have kids of their own and wonder what the hell is going on with Common Core now. Which on reflection, is probably why this is in the movie at all.<br />
Helen goes to one of the big cities to monitor crime and winds up stopping a runaway train hijacked by a new supervillain called "<strong>ScreenSlaver</strong>." ScreenSlaver uses hypnosis on the engineer to make him run the train backward, but Elastigirl manages to avert disaster. This grants her a lot of good press, and an interview with the local news. Meanwhile, Jack-Jack has a fight with a Raccoon and Bob finds out that Jack-Jack has powers. For those of you wondering why they didn't know he had powers, it's because he was too far up when he was going lead-baby, human-torch and demon-baby for them to see it properly, <strong>Kari</strong> probably got her memory erased of the entire incident, and Syndrome is dead, so nobody else really knew he had powers. Speaking of which, as part of the project, Winston lets the Parrs stay in one of his extra houses, a mansion I suspect he bought from Syndrome's estate-sale given the technologically-advanced gadgets, the secret entrances, the hidden trap-doors, and all of the other crap in the house. There's nothing in the movie to confirm or deny that, but it makes perfect sense.<br />
During the interview, ScreenSlaver hijacks the signal and the helicade of a foreign ambassador who was leaving the studio. Helen manages to save the Ambassador and the studio, then concocts a plan to track down ScreenSlaver with the help of some tech from Evelyn. She tracks him to his lair, and he puts up a pretty good fight, but Elastigirl apprehends him. Something I feel I should comment on is the fact that the theater had posted notices that the movie contained sequences of rapidly-flashing lights and I was not prepared for how rapidly they would be flashing. I'm normally unphased by strobe-effects in films and real life, but this gave me a headache to watch. I'd like to request that Pixar tone down the flashing for the home-media release, but I won't be too put-out if they don't. It's very brief, but for the number of times I know I'm going to watch this movie I get the distinct feeling that I'm either going to get used to it or it'll become the single most irritating part of the film that I'll dread every time I watch it.<br />
Elastigirl's capture of ScreenSlaver is celebrated, and helps to spur the re-legalization of superhero action. However, at the victory party, Helen starts analyzing the footage captured from her body-cam and realizes that ScreenSlaver had tapped into her bodycam, and may indeed have just been mind-controlled as well. Evelyn confirms this when she slaps mind-control goggles into Helen to keep her from breaking the story. I have to admit, I didn't see that one coming. I thought the brother was gonna be the villain.<br />
Evelyn explains that she basically sees her father's Superhero obsession as the thing that killed him, and she despises how her brother obsesses over them, and she sees the heroes as a crutch that humanity is expected to lean on when she thinks that humanity needs to move on otherwise we'll be held back. So she's basically Lex Luthor. I have a feeling that she and Syndrome would have gotten along very well.<br />
One may also note some similarities between this scene and a scene from <i>Fantastic 4</i>, but since this is the better movie and indeed the better movie series and also Fox is soon going to be owned by Disney, there's not really much to say about that here. She calls Bob to lure him to the ship the superheroism legalization accord will be signed on, so Bob calls Lucius to watch the kids while he goes after Helen. Evelyn sends a bunch of rookie heroes her brother found and she subsequently mind-controlled, to apprehend the kids, but between Lucius and Dash summoning Bob's Incredibile, the kids manage to escape, but Lucius gets mind-controlled. Bob faces off with Helen, but Evelyn uses the mind-control to catch Bob off-guard and mind-control him, so it's up to Dash, Violet and Jack-Jack to save the day.<br />
Evelyn has the Supers issue a threat to the world after the accords are signed, but Jack-Jack frees Helen and Helen frees Bob and Lucius. They face off with the other mind-controlled heroes, and Winston disables the mind-control screens on the boat. Helen takes out Evelyn while Bob and the kids stop the boat crashing into the city. Evelyn is arrested, and The Incredibles are hailed as heroes once more.<br />
If like me, you've waited a long time for this movie to come out, it may be worth seeing in theaters, but if you suspect you'll have a similar theater experience to the one I had, I'd recommend waiting for <em>The Incredibles 2</em> to come out on 4K and spending what you would have spent on the tickets on that. It's easily as good as the first one, so one will certainly wish to watch it again and again, and unless you catch it at a dollar theater you're likely to pay just as much, if not more for tickets for the whole family as you would to just buy the 4K version. If you absolutely cannot wait, then go for it, but you'd probably be better off waiting for the 4K Blu-ray release.<br />
Speaking of which, why exactly was <em>The Incredibles </em>$30 on 4K? It's a fourteen-year-old film that everyone owns on either DVD or 2K Blu-ray, so Disney shouldn't be expecting to make their typical amount on it. It's not like the old VHS releases, or the first DVD releases of most of their films, the remastering was already done back when they issued the DVD and Blu-ray versions. Why exactly do they think they'll make the asking price on this? For $30 I'll wait until it's discounted or stick with the DVD version I've had for the last fourteen years.<br />
All in all, this movie did everything it needed to as a sequel. It had new ideas left and right, wasn't just a straight carbon-copy of the first film with minute differences and managed to capture the heart and soul of the original. What they need to do now is make another movie before all of the actors are dead, because almost all of the cast is getting up there. That brings me to something I feel I should mention. Aside from Helen, Lucius, and The Underminer, the only voices that don't sound like they've changed are Dash and Dicker, the two who had to be recast because the voice actors were either too old or dead respectively. The returning cast sounds generally like they are who they're supposed to be, but Craig T. Nelson's voice has aged more audibly than Albert Brooks's had in <em>Finding Dory</em>, and Sarah Vowell sounded like she was straining to maintain her Violet voice throughout the first two-thirds of the film before settling back into the groove by the end of the film. In fact, Craig T. Nelson also sounded like he'd figured it out by the end as well and that made me wonder why they didn't go back and retake the rest of their lines. You know you could have just pushed it back another few months to clean up the voice-acting, right Disney? You made us wait fourteen freaking years for the movie as it was, you could have made us wait a little longer and we wouldn't have hated your guts any more than we already do. Although there's a reason for it being somewhat rushed, considering the fact that <em>Toy Story 4 </em>got pushed back and <em>The Incredibles 2 </em>had to fill its release-date. I'm actually surprised the shaky voices are the only problem with the movie given that it had to be released an entire year earlier than planned. I was somewhat disappointed there wasn't much Underminer in the movie, but I was satisfied with the film we got.<br />
As with the last film, <strong>Michael Giacchino</strong>'s score is absolute perfection. Best work from Giacchino since his <em>Doctor Strange </em>score. Would definitely listen to on its own given the opportunity.<br />
In the end, it's a solid installment that I wish I hadn't had to wait two-thirds of my life to see. As a suggestion, maybe they could make an animated TV series out of the Glory Days from the first movie? They briefly namechecked some of the events of the Glory Days, and I think there's a lot that could be gotten out of the pre-Relocation days. All I want is more of <em>The Incredibles </em>in my (and preferably the actors) lifetimes.<br />
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Image from <a href="http://impawards.com/">impawards.com</a>Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-39231448626799695422018-06-04T00:00:00.000-05:002018-06-04T00:00:04.748-05:00Solo: A Star Wars Story<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8TbfbUkWXKJkYGHaxZbIuX4FTsOvQXeGjNuS_eyEpN6IIQIr-ERs2CdiBg8WUIjmv-aGPpHyxqG8r9PsyvHUK30qRoIsBtnGsbzjxxyXsLYhidJ6xuXC-a36RFWbk6cSx8V40EZhemZw/s1600/solo_a_star_wars_story_ver44_xxlg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1600" data-original-width="1081" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb8TbfbUkWXKJkYGHaxZbIuX4FTsOvQXeGjNuS_eyEpN6IIQIr-ERs2CdiBg8WUIjmv-aGPpHyxqG8r9PsyvHUK30qRoIsBtnGsbzjxxyXsLYhidJ6xuXC-a36RFWbk6cSx8V40EZhemZw/s320/solo_a_star_wars_story_ver44_xxlg.jpg" width="216" /></a><br />
<strong>Originally written for <a href="http://outloudculture.com/">OutloudCulture.com</a></strong><br />
<em><strong> Solo: A Star Wars Story </strong></em>is an odd duck of a movie, and continues a trend started by the previous standalone film in the series,<strong><em> Rogue One</em></strong>. Namely, a lot of reshoots. The difference between these two films is that <em>Rogue One</em>'s director wasn't fired when the movie was mostly done and replaced by somebody else to shoot the remainder of the film, along with reshooting the entire rest of the film.<br />
Despite this, <em>Solo </em>doesn't come off as a movie that's clearly been pieced together from a far different original vision. One would hope that eventually the original version of the film can be put out on home media, much like the original version of <em>Superman 2 </em>was. It might not be any good, but it'd make for a great special feature or something like that for the home version of the movie.<br />
After <strong><em>The Last Jedi </em></strong>failed to capture the hearts and minds of the <strong><em>Star Wars </em></strong>fanbase, myself included, I was more hesitant than I would have normally been going into this film. Between the production issues, the fact that most of the contenders to play young <strong>Han Solo</strong> looked nothing like <strong>Harrison Ford</strong>, and the fact that it followed on from the single worst <em>Star Wars </em>film ever made, I was skeptical. But a lot of that skepticism was abated by the fact that the replacement director was none other than <strong>Ron Howard</strong>, a director I hold in high regard. Howard was George Lucas's original choice to direct the prequels, and I was glad to see him take up the reigns finally. If I was someone in charge at <strong>Lucasfilm </strong>or <strong>The Walt Disney Company</strong>, my first act would have been to immediately turn the sequels over to Ron Howard. Even when working with less than adequate material, Howard always manages to turn out a decent film. And I'm happy to say that's what he's done for Solo.<br />
<em> Solo: A Star Wars Story </em>at its most basic level is a compressed and heavily bastardized version of <b><i>The Han Solo Trilogy</i></b>, although by this point I'm not even remotely surprised to see plots, characters, and entire scenes lifted from the EU. This film is about as obvious with its plagiarism than<em> The Force Awakens </em>and <em>The Last Jedi </em>were. Characters names are changed, and some of the fine details are different, but in the end, this movie is basically <em>The Han Solo Trilogy </em>given life as a film.<br />
The performances from all involved are spot-on. <strong>Alden Ehrenreich</strong> imitates Harrison Ford's mannerisms as the dashing rogue <strong>Han Solo </strong>without missing a beat. His voice is slightly different than I would have expected, but considering this movie is set approximately fifteen years before the events of <strong><em>A New Hope</em></strong>, that's perfectly forgivable. <strong>Donald Glover </strong>though, manages to not only look, but sound his part as <strong>Lando Calrissean</strong>. I have to hand it to Glover, he did a damn good job as everyone's favorite scoundrel. The only complaint is that his hairdo is a little <em>too </em>different, a little too much like the haircut Will.i.am has in real life. Lando has curly, slicked hair in <em><strong>The Empire Strikes Back</strong></em>, and <em><strong>Return of the Jedi</strong></em>. He didn't have a right-angle cut into his hair. I don't know why this bugged me, maybe it was the fact that it looks a little too modern to fit in with the overall look of <em>Star Wars </em>as a franchise. Ehrenreich and Glover reportedly both consulted with Harrison Ford and <strong>Billy Dee Williams</strong> respectively when researching their roles, and both of them manage to capture the essence of their characters without actively seeming like impersonators. The other actors turn in good performances as well, especially <strong>Woody Harrelson</strong>, but there's a certain character who irritated the hell out of me and didn't even need to really be in the film, but that's spoiler territory.<br />
Just listening to the score of this movie, I think it's got some of the best music out of the series in recent years. That may be due to the fact that it relies heavily upon previous musical cues, but even putting that aside, the music flows with the scenes the way the music flowed with the scenes in the first six films. There are a couple of tracks I find a bit odd, but the music is more memorable than it was in <em>Rogue One </em>and more unique than it was in <em>The Force Awakens </em>and <em>The Last Jedi</em>. This is likely due to the fact that the composer, John Powell, was a member of Remote Control Productions, the studio Hans Zimmer co-founded, and was a frequent collaborator with Zimmer and other members of the studio. Hans Zimmer is one of a very few composers who can give original <em>Star Wars </em>series composer <strong>John Williams</strong> a run for his money in terms of quality, and I think that the only better choice to do the score would have been Williams or Zimmer themselves. Maybe even together.<br />
<strong><span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Spoilers for the movie and the books begin here.</span></strong><br />
The most obvious details of the movie that have been lifted from <em>The Han Solo Trilogy</em> are Han's backstory as a ruffian who escaped Correllia by joining the Empire, and eventually deserted to become a smuggler. The details differ in that Han's girlfriend, <strong>Qi'ra</strong> (played by Emilia Clark) comes up with him in the underworld rather than being an aristocrat, that the reason they're separated is because she gets caught when a corrupt Imperial soldier sells them out, and not because Han was being chivalrous, and the fact that Qi'ra is an unknown quantity with deep ties to Han, just like Han's girlfriend in the novels,<strong> Bria Theran</strong>. In fact, if they chopped out one of the characters that shows up later in the movie, they could have just called her Bria and nobody would have blinked an eye. In fact, this is something of a trend with Disney's <em>Star Wars </em>films, they tend to have too many characters. Not the way a Rolland Emmerich movie has too many characters, more like one or two extraneous characters along the way. Not unexpected from <em>Star Wars</em>, but at least in the past, previous films were aggressively edited and examined for extraneous scenes and characters. Yes, this did lead to a fairly important section of <em>A New Hope </em>being basically lost to time, but it also meant that there were never any subplots that didn't go anywhere, or characters who could have just been removed entirely.<br />
The next major section of the film that has been altered from its source material is the fact that Lando cheats in his first game of Sabacc with Han when the <em>Falcon </em>is on the line. Lando's not exactly known for cheating, and in fact, didn't like cheaters at Sabacc. Not to mention the fact that cheating at Sabacc carries heavy fines in some parts of the galaxy, and the death sentence in others, making it heavily out of character for Lando to risk such consequences when he's known to only take risks when he has to, as demonstrated in <em>Episode V </em>when he joined the Rebellion. Why would he stick his neck out to win at a card game? In the books and previous movies, Lando was known as a man of his word, only breaking it when absolutely necessary. That was how Han won the Falcon in the trilogy, by holding Lando to his exact words. Hell, we've even seen this side of Lando recently in <strong><em>Star Wars Rebels</em></strong>. He's a scoundrel, a smooth talker, a wheeler and a dealer, a ruffian, but he's not a cheater and he never goes back on his word when both sides keep their end of the bargain. We'll come back to this later on.<br />
Something which really irritated me about this film was that it started off with still screens of expositional text rather than the traditional title crawl. Unlike<em> Rogue One</em>, I could add a title crawl to <em>Solo</em> without even needing to edit the film much. <em>Rogue One </em>started off fairly quick, and despite the fact that it could have easily had one with a bit of editing, didn't really need one. This film on the other hand eschews series tradition much in the way <em>The Clone Wars </em>animated movie and series did, despite the fact that they'd greatly benefit from the added extra touch. At least <em>The Clone Wars </em>had the excuse of needing to communicate the setting and previous events to the audience quickly so as to fit into a half-hour timeslot, but <em>Solo </em>doesn't have that excuse because the text remains on screen for about as long as the equivalent title-crawl would have. If you're going to include text in the opening sequence to a <em>Star Wars </em>movie, make it crawl for god's sake!<br />
All of that text has to exist to explain what Han is doing and why he wants to leave Correllia. Han and his girlfriend, Qi'ra work for some kind of snake creature stealing things. Han gets ambushed while on a job for the snake and barely escapes with his life, his enemy's speeder, and a piece of merchandise. Han manages to escape the den of thieves with Qi'ra, but rather than line up a black-market trader to get the full value for it and not having to rely on the corruption of Imperial forces, Han just trades the fuel to the Imperial official, which gets Qi'ra captured. Han joins the Imperial Academy to become a pilot, but for some reason becomes a foot soldier for the Imperial Navy due to being expelled from the Imperial Flight Academy. Okay. Not like that's something interesting we'd have liked to see. Even if it was only ten, fifteen, twenty minutes long it would have been cool to see. All it would take is a little bit of creative writing and direction, which I know the team behind this movie can do, and the smash-cut to the warzone would have still worked. In this scene, we find out the origins of Han's name. It's a nickname given to him by the Imperial Recruiter since he doesn't have a last name. Even though we find out he had parents and actually knew them.<br />
In the warzone, Han meets <strong>Tobias Beckett</strong> (Woody Harrelson) who's posing as an Imperial officer. Beckett manages to save Solo's unit and Solo pegs him and the other members of his crew as thieves when he notices a few things wrong with them. For one thing, Beckett's uniform is heavily damaged. The pilot, <strong>Rio Durant</strong> (<strong>Jon Favreau</strong>) is an alien, and Beckett's wife, <strong>Val</strong> (<strong>Thandie Newton</strong>) is quick to jump the gun. When Han calls them out and tries to get them to let him join them, Beckett gets the Imperials to toss Han into a cage with none other than <strong>Chewbacca</strong> (<strong>Joonas Suotamo</strong>) who Han convinces to help him escape. Compared to how they met in the books, this is more spectacular, but less meaningful. It's a lot like the <em>Harry Potter </em>films in that regard, but a lot better.<br />
Han and Chewie escape the prison and join up with Beckett to help him rob a train. They mostly manage to pull the heist off, but a band of marauders try to hijack the train from them. Rio winds up being shot, so Han has to take the controls, and then Val dies blowing up the bridge and taking out the Imperial forces. Han winds up having to ditch the train car to save their necks, and gets chewed out by Beckett, since the product of the heist was promised to crime-lord <strong>Dryden Vos</strong> (<strong>Paul Bettany</strong>) of the Crimson Dawn. Couldn't have been Prince Xizor of Black Sun? Oh well, whatever.<br />
Beckett apologizes to Vos for losing the fuel, while Han runs into Qi'ra, who's Vos's... Wife? Right hand girl? Concubine? Hitwoman? I don't know.<br />
Han suggests to Beckett and Vos that they steal unrefined fuel instead of refined fuel, since the fuel mines on Kessell will be easier to rob than another Imperial transport train. Since the unrefined fuel is unstable, they need to get a fast ship. Since the fastest ship in the galaxy is owned by Lando Calrissian (Donald Glover) Han gets Qi'ra to front his buy-in to the Sabacc table Lando is playing at and manages to almost get the ship, but an awkward cutaway shows us that Lando used a <em>Mission: Impossible </em>gadget to swap out his cards. If they'd cut this shot out, and left the reveal for the end, it would have increased the impact of the final scene of the film. Then you've got the fact that Han basically had enough money to either buy a similar light freighter and modify it for the job, or pay Lando to rent the <em>Falcon</em> for the job and still have plenty left over to buy a ship. That's part of what makes this sequence kind of dumb, on top of Lando being out of character. The other part is the fact that they didn't show us many of the details of Sabac as a game. Han's clearly a card-shark, so if we got a bit of internal monologue like we did in the books, we might have more context. I know I'm basically asking Ron Howard to insert an episode or two of <em>Yu-Gi-Oh!</em> into a <em>Star Wars</em> movie, but <em>The Last Jedi</em> was two and a half hours long, if Ron Howard had made <em>Solo </em>three hours long I'd have still sat through it. Even if you allowed fifteen minutes each for the three years Han supposedly spent in the Imperial Academy, and fifteen more minutes for Sabacc, the movie would only be about five minutes longer than <em>TLJ</em>. Hell, if you cut out Lando's annoying droid sidekick you'd save about three minutes of the movie, maybe even more.<br />
Lando's droid sidekick and navigator, <strong>L3-37</strong> (<strong>Phoebe Waller-Bridge</strong>) is one of the single most irritating characters in the entirety of film, right up there with Sam Witwicky and Lucas Flannery from the live-action <em>Transformers </em>movies. And like Lucas, I was incredibly glad when she died, despite the fact that the film clearly wants me to feel bad for Lando that his friend is dead. L3 loves to go on about droid's rights, something which nobody cares about and really didn't even need to be in the movie. We know droids are discriminated against in <em>Star Wars</em>, they've made it impeccably clear in every single film, book, game, and audio drama in the franchise. This kind of thing should have been a passing joke made by a side character, not a supporting character who's fairly important to the story. Not that she needed to be important to the story, since everything she does could have been done by a voiceless R2 unit, or a member of the crew. Not to mention the fact that she steals a bit of Han's thunder when she frees all of the slaves herself, which sort of undermines what Chewie owes Han since, in the book, Solo was the one who liberated the slaves, and Chewie's family in the process. Thankfully she's only around for a few minutes. Compared to L3, Rose Tico is actually important to the plot. And the most prominent comic-relief character in the series, Jar-Jar Binks is downright serious by comparison. At least he was integral to the plot, at least he couldn't have been replaced by Woody Harrelson and a better navicomputer. At least <em>The Phantom Menace </em>would have gone down drastically differently without him. At least Jar-Jar was funny and endearing. We already know about the plight of droids. <em><strong>Darth Maul: Shadow Hunter, Revenge of the Sith, </strong>A New Hope</em>, hell most of the installments in the series show how bad droids have it in a far more serious light. The punchlines suck and take away from the serious nature of the issue. Plus the character being irritating as all get-out doesn't help her cause. I don't even know why anyone thought this character up. One would hope that <strong>Phil Lorde</strong> and <strong>Chris Miller</strong>, the original directors of this film did something different with this character, but considering she's in and out fast, I guess I can't complain too much. One last strange thing about her character is that she seems to have a big crush on Lando that she's not hiding particularly well. She seems a bit too quick to say it won't work, and a bit too quick to say that a human/droid relationship can work. That was actually a somewhat funny joke, to be honest.<br />
They load the fuel into the <em>Falcon</em>, but Lando is wounded and L3 is destroyed. Han tries to fly them out, but they stumble on an Imperial blockade. Solo takes the shortcut that lets him take the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs, but they're ambushed by a space-monster. Han manages to get the monster stuck in one of the Maw Cluster black-holes by ejecting the <em>Falcon's</em> escape-pod. They plug L3's brain into the navicomputer to chart a course out of the Maw and a drop of the unrefined fuel to boost themselves out of the black-hole. They get the fuel refined, but the Marauders from the heist ambush them and Lando abandons them. For some reason, the marauders manage to convince Han to give them the fuel, but they still have to turn something over to Vos. So Han puts together a plan where the Marauders have an empty box as bait in case someone betrays the plan, and he can take the regular fuel in to Vos. Sure enough, Beckett sells them out to Vos, but Han and Qi'ra manage to fight him off, and Han kills Beckett in the best shot of the movie. Han expects Qi'ra to join him, but she takes Vos's ship to meet with her true boss, <strong>Darth Maul</strong> (Voiced by <strong>Samuel Witwer </strong>from <em>The Clone Wars</em> and <em>Rebels</em>, and physically portrayed by <strong>Ray Park</strong>, the actor who played him in <em>The Phantom Menace</em>) on Korriban. No I don't know why Maul is here, but I'm intrigued and wish to know more. Then Han and Chewie go back to Lando, Han steals the cards Lando used to cheat, and wins the Falcon with a Full Sabacc, roll credits.<br />
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<strong><span style="text-decoration-line: underline;">Spoilers end.</span></strong><br />
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All in all, I liked this movie. I think it's well worth the sit if you had a bad taste in your mouth after the failure of <em>The Last Jedi</em>. It's kind of funny, since there are a few little things in this movie that make <em>TLJ </em>a bit more sensible, but not enough to redeem its failure. If you hated <em>The Last Jedi </em>because it crapped all over the legacy of the original trilogy, and every other film in the series that came before it, you'll find that this film doesn't do that quite as much. There's only one major aspect of the film I disagreed with, but overall I found it a very entertaining movie. And to the people who said that the audience needed to lower their expectations going in, you're wrong. This movie stands up alongside the other good <em>Star Wars </em>movies with its head held high. It's a bit shorter than its older siblings, but it's far and away better than <em>The Last Jedi </em>and <em>Revenge of the Sith </em>were. Don't lower your expectations going in, you'll be more than happy with this film if you've never read the superior books it's obviously based on. And if you have read the books it's based on, you might want to cut the movie a little slack. After all, the movie did have to be almost entirely reshot by a different director. Hell, they couldn't even keep the same guy playing the villain, Vos. <strong>Michael K. Williams</strong> played a far different version of Vos in the Lorde and Miller version of the movie, but the role had to be recast for the reshoots.<br />
Despite the troubled production, this film turned out pretty good. It makes me wonder how Ron Howard would have handled the prequel trilogy, and indeed it makes me wonder why Disney didn't immediately turn the sequel trilogy over to him. Ron Howard did a better job picking up the broken pieces of a film someone else wrote than Rian Johnson did directing a movie <em>he </em>wrote. So go see this movie. Bring your friends. It's doing way worse at the box-office than it should, and I think that's to do with the fact that it's following on from last year's lackluster main installment. The final score I give for the movie is an <span style="font-size: x-large;">8.0*</span><br />
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Image from <a href="http://impawards.com/">impawards.com</a>Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-40511068194177352232018-02-03T17:37:00.000-06:002018-02-03T17:37:45.063-06:00Revisiting Star Wars: The Old Republic<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXoEonIHBZ-yiCdTSIOMvDlb_FHxeNCVQ8d6tJRCF8Qm3WptPMEM0tKiqEShAVZFhMFE2z6zzvztbPKAyJCoBNqIAgHVM2VnjjI2DcwMN61s7BiaHN4DcStfKaOCk7w9QOAyTBGwwo-21A/s1600/The_Old_Republic_cover.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1500" data-original-width="1013" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXoEonIHBZ-yiCdTSIOMvDlb_FHxeNCVQ8d6tJRCF8Qm3WptPMEM0tKiqEShAVZFhMFE2z6zzvztbPKAyJCoBNqIAgHVM2VnjjI2DcwMN61s7BiaHN4DcStfKaOCk7w9QOAyTBGwwo-21A/s320/The_Old_Republic_cover.png" width="216" /></a></div>
If you've been wondering where I went for the last year or so, sans the occasional post and video every now and again, I've been enrolled in college. All of my time has been taken up by schoolwork, honors projects, and time at the gym. This left me with absolutely no time to request new games to review, to play the games I already have, or to really sit down and write a review. The largest break I've had up until now was a month-long stretch during the summer, and then it was right back to the grind.<br />
When my first semester started, I decided I should probably get a new computer, as the one I had been using for the last five years was starting to get slower and slower to do just about anything. Rather than just buying a new consumer-level PC, I opted to research getting a decent gaming laptop so I could have a good mobile recording station. Naturally, I haven't had a good chance to test it out in that capacity since I got it, but I've been able to bring some good gaming out of it in the minuscule bit of downtime I've had. One of the first things I figured I'd do is install the first game I played on the old eMachines rig I had and see how it fared on my new, roided-out rig. It'd be a great benchmark for the difference between the two systems. Considering that <i>Star Wars: The Old Republic</i> practically killed my old rig when it was new, so if I was able to get it running well on this new PC, then I'd be plenty happy. Given that my current PC is massively overpowered even now, ten-some months on down the line from when I purchased it, I figured I'd have absolutely no issue running this game at maximum settings, and for the most part, I was right. The very first thing I did after the game finished downloading, because even after AT&T upgraded my internet connection it still didn't want to download at anything resembling a reasonable speed was crank the graphical settings all the way up. For the most part, everything worked fine at first, but my keen gamer's eye started noticing a lot of issues. I started out as a Sith Juggernaut, because I played a Jedi Consular the last time I had this game and I remembered how much banal bitchwork I had to go through, so I picked the opposite end of the spectrum and decided to play against type for once. I was going to be a Machiavellian manipulator and merciless destroyer of worlds.<br />
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As I traipsed around the starting planet, I started to notice a bunch of graphical issues. I'm almost certain there isn't a single curved line in this game. Everywhere a curve should be, it's either a blown-up texture that looks blurry, or a hard angled polygon that's probably supposed to be a curve, but clearly is not. Take a look at the hologram projector in the background of this screenshot, and the console to the right of my Jedi Consular. It's not like I went looking for these issues either, I wasn't playing in first-person mode and zooming in tight on a wall, this is something I noticed from the widest third-person camera angle available, and on the character-select screen as well. Every road, stairway, pathway and remotely curved object in the game is made up of obvious polygons. In addition to that, some of the textures in this game look like badly-sourced JPEG's, with obvious lossy compression artifacts that by all rights shouldn't be in a game like this.<br />
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This particular texture to the left reminds me of some recycled textures I saw in some of the <i>Resident Evil </i>games on sixth-generation consoles where Capcom re-used a number of door textures from the G5 games upscaled and then recompressed. Some of these textures look like they were ripped from <i>Knights of the Old Republic </i>and re-used. Given how long this game takes to download on even decent internet connections, why do the textures look like overcompressed JPEG's? Some of the textures in this game look like the portrait sprites from <i>Dragon Ball Z: Extreme Butoden</i>. I see large, jagged edges surrounding any angled line with a drastic color shift between the line and the surrounding color. It sort of looks like what happens when someone's trying to photoshop an element into a picture that doesn't have a transparent background and screwed up the blending. Given a couple of minutes in Paint.net I could fix that without even needing access to the multi-layer master files, and without redrawing much of the texture.<br />
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In addition to the texture issues, some of the Imperial officers have their ranking squares drawn onto the texture of their uniform, but others have them modeled onto their uniforms. Some of them even have both, like the characters weren't originally modeled with the ranking squares as part of their clothing, but had them added in later as some sort of graphical upgrade, but then someone forgot to edit the textures, leaving the old ones behind. The game was a good five years old when I got to it, and to my knowledge this issue hasn't been fixed, but then again in this game, you hardly ever visit the same planet and NPC's more than a few times, so for all I know they could have patched it out in the time since I've seen those NPC's. Not that that would have excused it being there in the first place. I know this is a massive game, but something this obvious should have shown up in testing, or during the process or creating the character models.<br />
The next big issue we see is the animations. I wouldn't be the critic I am if I didn't bash on about this for a while, considering the rather large amount of stick I gave the original <i>Splinter Cell</i> for its jerky animations several years back, and I'm going to have to give <i>The Old Republic </i>quite a bit of stick as well, because this game was released a good thirteen years after <i>Metal Gear Solid</i> and <i>Ocarina of Time</i>, and the animations look bloody dreadful. It's patently obvious that Bioware just uses a series of stock animations for every single character in the game regardless of body size or attire, which leads to situations where my Master's solid metal epaulets were stretching and warping like they were made from rubber, or where my character's beard clipped through the strap of one of the helmets I'd found, or the times when the lower section of my flight-helmet clipped through some box that was on the chest of my upper-body armor. The animations also have a rather irritating habit of being entirely screwed up by small things. In this game, you get a rather impressive selection of useless clothing which can be either sold off for cash or used to customize your companions and when I gave my Twi'lek girlfriend a nice hooded robe to wear, the hood clipped into her head-tails, sending the jiggle-physics into an absolute fit. They'd vibrate, but only when she was standing still. If she was moving, her head-tails would trail behind her without clipping into her clothing. I'm glad I didn't make a character with long hair because his ponytail probably would have kicked around like a snake someone had grabbed by the tail.<br />
To some extent, I hate to state the obvious, but most of the characters in this game have a serious case of the Bioware Face about them, failing to communicate much in the way of emotion unless it's exaggerated. Again, <i>Metal Gear Solid </i>and <i>Ocarina of Time </i>succeeded at this thirteen years prior, and neither of them nearly broke my computer to get running. Even without complex facial animation, both of those games were able to convey more emotion through far smoother motion than this game does. When it comes time for the characters to make expressions, they typically wind up looking a lot less natural than the facial-animations in <i>Metal Gear Solid 2</i> did.<br />
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Then there are the issues with pop-in. As I said before, I've got a beast of a computer, and I set the graphics settings to maximum, but that doesn't stop the game from forgetting to render textures to polygons, which usually happens whenever I get off the turbolift into my hanger. For a good several seconds after I enter the hanger, my ship won't appear until I get a few meters away. There was also a time when I was in the Abandoned Mine on Quesh, and most of the walls, some of the ground textures, and all of<br />
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the enemies and containers, generators and other stuff on the floor and walls, including a giant rock in the center of the cave didn't load up in the space of less than an in-game meter. This isn't <i>Silent Hill</i> and I'm not playing this on an original PlayStation, why does this game keep failing to load objects? The last game I played that had the kind of issues this game sometimes has was <i>Alien: Isolation, </i>and I was running that game on an Xbox 360. I have sixteen gigabytes of DDR4 RAM in this computer, paired with a GTX1050 GPU, and an Intel Seventh Generation 7700 quad-core CPU. This game came out six years before my PC was even built, and it still has these hiccups and even some slowdown at times, especially if the shadow resolution is set at anything resembling reasonable.<br />
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Take a look at this screenshot of my Imperial Operative on the character-select screen. My Sith Juggernaut and my Jedi Consular have smoother shadows on them than she does. The shadows on her all look like a cloud of insects due to her attire. Her hair has a cloud of shadows on it, her tiara has one, and the curve of her jawline appears to cast a rather rough shadow as well. I don't really know what, either. I thought I'd reset the shadow resolution somewhat higher than the default was, but the smaller the shadow which is cast, the worse it looks. Not to mention the shadows cast on the skin of almost every character look like they were rendered in the late 1990's for a backdrop in a <i>Resident Evil </i>game, but for some reason, it looks even worse on the fair-skinned Operative than it did on my tanned Consular.<br />
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After an update back in July of this year, I started to notice the single most pervasive issue of the time I've played this game. Diagonal screen-tearing. No, not your typical, run of the mill horizontal screen-tearing caused by typical v-sync issues, but diagonal screen-tearing. This issue wouldn't show up when I tried to take a screenshot, it wouldn't show up in the video I captured with OBS, so I had to take out my cellphone and take an old-fashioned camera-on-LCD screen video of it to get the picture I used to report the bug. Months on down the line, this issue hasn't been fixed. I've updated my graphics drivers, tried to force V-sync through the Nvidia control-panel, tried turning it off, nothing really seems to work except recording my screen with OBS throughout the entire game, and that's not something I really want to do, because lately, I don't have a whole lot to talk about, and that's the whole reason I'd even bother recording in the first place. Plus at this point, I've basically finished the game, so it wouldn't really go along with the other Let's Plays on my channel.<br />
Taking all of these issues into account, I can't really fathom why this game wouldn't run well on my old PC. The graphics at their best look like someone added better lighting to a Wii game, and at their worst look worse than the best-looking PS2 games, and my old PC was capable of running most PS2 and PSP games with a bunch of bells and whistles added. Considering the performance issues I saw even on this PC, I'd hate to think about what kind of computer one would need to run it with shadow resolution dialed all the way up. I keep coming back to games like <i>Metal Gear Solid 2</i>, or ever MGS<i>3</i>, <i>MGS4</i>, <i>Skyrim</i>, <i>Fallout 3</i>, <i>Bioshock</i>, there are so many games that came out before this one that had better graphics on far less capable systems, even games within the same franchise had better graphics. <i>Star Wars: The Force Unleashed</i> might not have been a sprawling MMORPG, but it looked way better back in 2008 than this did even in 2011. <i>Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast</i> might not have been entirely technically superior, but the graphical fidelity was at least more consistent than it is in this game, not to mention the fact that in 2002 it was graphically impressive as well. Even the original <i>Mass Effect</i> was better looking than this game is, even if the animations were a bit dodgy for a game not developed in the early 90's.<br />
But hey, graphics aren't all that make a game, so let's move on to the rest of the game, shall we? As I mentioned towards the beginning, I decided to play against type, opting for a brutal Sith Juggernaut character rather than my typical lawful good Paladin-esque choices, partially because I wanted to mess around with the Dark Side, but also because the character I created the played to my typical desires had a boring time of it. Fortunately, the Sith Juggernaut gets into action and political intrigue right off the bat. I was sent off to retrieve a lightsaber from a tomb, introduced to my first companion, told to bomb out some creatures, and kill my rival and former master within a short period of time from creating my character. I was even able to leave the starting world before the game was entirely done downloading. It was at this point where I decided to create a new character I could play to pass the time while the game finished downloading. Because I was on a roll with dark-side characters I decided to create an evil Jedi Knight, so I figured I'd go with a Jedi Sentinel and choose all the dark-side options I could. On my way to reaching level 15, I found out that the Jedi Sentinel plays identically to the Sith Juggernaut, save for the fact that the Sentinel uses two lightsabers instead of just one. I was somewhat disappointed that I'd rolled essentially the same character for the opposing faction, so I stopped playing my new character as soon as the game finished downloading and hopped onto my ship, but immediately before doing so, my Sith master sent me on a quest to whip a rogue Sith Lord named Darth Grathan into line by killing his son. So, with only my Twi'lek sidekick to back me up, I walked right into his house and promptly killed all of his guards. I then busted into his son's room and proceeded to smack the kid (Who couldn't be much younger than my character) around, subduing him effortlessly. His mother pleaded with me for her son's life, and struck up a deal. I could kill her husband and her son would put on his father's armor and mask and pretend to be his dad. Figuring this would be the actions of a Machiavellian Sith Lord who wished to rule the galaxy himself, I agreed to do so, acting under the impression that the mother and her son would be loyal to me afterward. I walked into Grathan's room, killed him, looted all his equipment off the dead body, tossed it to his son, and then proceeded to have sex with his now-single wife. Then, on my way to the spaceport, his son had the gall to send a single assassin after me, someone I took down after like three hits. Sonny boy, I walked into your compound with only a Twi'lek gunner at my back, slaughtered all of your guards, beat you up, killed your father and then fucked your mother. I'm your daddy now, bitch. You only live because of my good graces, so why don't you go fetch me a spiced ale while your mother and I make a worthy heir to the Grathan name? At least that's what I would have told him had the game allowed me to continue that quest-line after I beat the assassin. Sadly, the game didn't present that option to me. This is a trend which will continue throughout the entirety of the game. This game loves to railroad the player into doing what they've prepared for, and they don't like to create too many scenarios for side-quests. Most companion storylines happen off-screen, with the character you're talking to walking out of shot and the picture fading to black, then the picture fades back up on them walking back into shot after having done whatever they set out to do, typically without your involvement. One of the companion quests was all about my girlfriend reuniting with her friends and family from before she'd been taken as a slave, and for most of them, I was able to talk to her, go on a quest to a planet, find her old friends or family and help them out. I liked being able to walk into the dancing club where Vette's sister worked and act like I was there to be a dancer, it was fun. That all changed when we found her mother's corpse on Tattooine. She'd been worked to death in service of this scumbag Hutt, and by that point, I'd taken so many Light Side choices that the few Dark Side points I had were scrubbed out of existence. I'd made a reputation for myself as a champion of the innocent, basically the <i>Star Wars </i>version of The Shadow, and I wanted this Hutt's head for what he did to Vette's mother. Unfortunately, the game wasn't about to let me lead a charge into his palace for some reason, and would only send Vette and her sister Tivva into the place to kill him. On top of all of that, all of the dialogue options that presented themselves were grossly out of character for me, talking about savoring vengeance rather than preventing injustice if I were to support killing him, and talking about how killing is not the way despite my massive body-count if I were to support not killing him. Weirdly, killing him was presented as the Dark Side option despite the fact that if we let him live he'd be able to work more slaves to death. Killing him would clearly be the right thing to do, first off, and second, the explanation as to why Vette and Tivva had to go it alone was fucking flimsy at best. Apparently the Hutt had some security system and mercenaries set up, but at this point, I'd waded through crowds of Jedi Knights and Sith Lords, killing them all left and right, not to mention the millions of regular mooks I'd slaughtered. I even took on the False Emperor on my own and lived. I've survived every assassination attempt, even ones that got the drop on me without breaking a sweat, so there was no way I wasn't going to be able to take down some crime-lord as long as I had a Lightsaber and The Force by my side. Besides, at this point in time, I had a small fleet of starfighters at my disposal and a strike-force consisting of an ace pilot and hacker, a former black-ops agent, a prissy-ass kill-droid who seemed obsessed with repainting the inside of the ship every week, some cross between The Predator and an abominable snowman, and a former Jedi Knight who fought like Darth Maul, so between the eight of us and the laundry list of mercenaries, Sith Lords and Jedi Knights who owed me favors, I'm pretty sure we could have walked up to the palace mostly unobstructed, broken past the security, killed the Hutt and his protectors, freed the slaves, and repurposed the place into my Outer-Rim holiday home without breaking a sweat. Need I remind you that the assault on Lord Grathan's house was very similar in nature and took place on the starting planet? The mission seemed to call for subterfuge, but I wanted to make a damn statement to the planet, if not to the entire galaxy. Sadly, I was unable to as the game would not let me. Later on in the game, when Vette and I decided to get married, the entire thing happened off-screen. Normally you'd think that this would call for some celebration, maybe it would show us some interesting character moments with the crew, maybe they could have given any weight at all to this rather important character interaction. Even if all we got was one scene, anything would have been better than fading away as we walked off-screen and fading back as we returned. Where did we go? What did we do? I remember how tedious it was to plan for and play out the wedding in <i>Story of Seasons</i>, but I'd rather they completely overdo the wedding than not do anything at all. It's not like this was a secret or anything, god knows that <i>this</i> of all things<i> </i>isn't going to get me thrown out of the Empire, ao what the hell was the point of skipping this? Speaking of which, after a certain point in the game I acquired an apprentice/surrogate daughter figure named Jaesa Wilsaam, a former Jedi Knight who decided to join me after seeing how dark her fanatical Jedi master had become and how pure and kind I was. She decided to reach out to other Light-side Sith and try to recruit them to our side. In any other game, this might have been a massively important quest-line that involved subterfuge, bribery, spying on people, lies, and manipulation, but in this game, it happens entirely off-screen. A number of characters are introduced and subsequently killed-off without ever once being in danger of seeing them. Jaesa goes through an entire character-arc without us ever being there to experience it. Even if we had to play the whole mission <i>as </i>Jaesa and had to learn a whole new character for a bit it would still be better than not experiencing the storyline at all.<br />
Something else I thought I should mention as it was part of the main quest, I helped an Imperial officer named Malavai Quinn out, and he subsequently joined my party. Later on, after my master betrayed me, the way Sith tend to do, Quinn revealed himself to have been working for him this whole time, plotting my demise. Eventually, my master, Darth Baras told him to enact their plan, which involved luring me to an abandoned ship in the middle of nowhere, and siccing two giant robots on me that had supposedly been programmed around my combat data from every encounter I had in the game thus far. The way Quinn talked these things up, I was expecting a challenge, especially given the fact that I hit the F2P level-cap several months back by pure accident, but they were piss-easy. Hell, even the final boss of the initial quest-line was piss-easy. You'd think that Quinn would know enough about me to know that what he constructed wouldn't kill me, in fact given the ease at which I triumphed over them one would almost assume that Quinn had purposefully built them below-standard so as to not harm me, which is what I assumed and was why I allowed Quinn to continue to live, as any legitimate attempt to kill me probably wouldn't have started with a long confession and monologue in which I could have sensed his intentions, strangled him, and gotten the fuck out. Or maybe this game just isn't made very well.<br />
Speaking of which, when I got back to playing this game after the semester was over, the winter event was about to start, and when it did, everyone who talked to a certain vendor could get an infinite supply of snowballs that you can throw at almost everyone in the game, including certain NPC's. From that, you get packages which you can spend on holiday equipment. At the very top tier, costing 100 parcels was a sick-looking podracer, and ever since I figured out I could randomize what mount spawned when I clicked the button, I'd been collecting mounts whenever I possibly could. I figured out that, from a certain distance, one could toss snowballs at one's companion and then right-click the "snowflake" status-effect off of them, which meant that I could toss one at my companion and then remove the status effect in the time it took for the snowball to recharge. I spent a solid hour lobbing snowballs at my wife only to get four parcels. Four. It doesn't take fifteen minutes for the snowball to recharge, and I was lobbing them one right after another, clicking off the status effect. It took me almost two solid weeks, running around a bar on Hutta throwing snowballs at the patrons before I was able to get my mount, and by the time I got it I was done. I was not about to spend any more time tossing snowballs around to try and get any more of this holiday gear. After a little while the parcels spawned a bit more often, but even after that, the RNG on them was still fucked up.<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7uqXQzvyGWY2kmdb70IKrDugWdh9CMxVetZ3hzmVqJ3TF_kQWt2QARwhthnQF0RmvOH7Ij3iboCScHHx7uRXCtbJMBMHFyH2_mRWKkUI6bnTha85gLhjIBI5gVJMhzs2hUdzWs17BaQRR/s1600/2017-08-07.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7uqXQzvyGWY2kmdb70IKrDugWdh9CMxVetZ3hzmVqJ3TF_kQWt2QARwhthnQF0RmvOH7Ij3iboCScHHx7uRXCtbJMBMHFyH2_mRWKkUI6bnTha85gLhjIBI5gVJMhzs2hUdzWs17BaQRR/s320/2017-08-07.png" width="320" /></a> Then there are a few other bugs, such as the time I spawned into a story-area with a force-field blocking off the path I needed to go, telling me I was not eligible for this instance, which took me reporting it to Bioware, logging out of the game, then back in, leaving the area in question and then returning to get it to work. None of which would have been a problem if the game would let you report bugs from within the client, but apparently that's reserved for subscribers. Also, check out how my companion was able to make it past the force-field, but I couldn't. They tend to do that.<br />
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There was also the time on Hoth where I managed to find a section of the map that fell into a completely different area of the world map. Look at my minimap in the screenshot, then look at where I actually am in the game. This was the kind of problem you used to see in the old <i>Final Fantasy </i>games, where a certain section of the map would fall under different territory rules than the rest of the area due to a quirk of the programming, but here it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because they were working with far more advanced systems than Square was on the NES.<br />
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At one point, I killed an enemy in the game that proceeded to drop a piece of equipment, but the corpse clipped through the terrain and I wasn't able to pick the drop up. It's a good thing this was only a green beacon and not a yellow one, because yellow beacons are quest items, and I would have had to leave the area, wait for the monsters to respawn, come back, and kill them again hoping that they wouldn't fall through the world-map again.<br />
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There are a few force-fields with movement barriers several inches behind the actual force-field. Most of those force-fields I found were on the Vaiken Spacedock in the dropship hanger, but there were others throughout the game. Most of them were gold force-fields, but I found a few red ones that had the movement barriers only a few centimeters too far behind the graphical representation of the field and was only able to clip my character's head into the field and not walk my whole body behind it. Granted, it's a small thing, and I get that this is a very large game, but how did Bioware not find this out?<br />
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There was also one time where my Lightsaber remained ignited while I was driving my speeder, which is a fairly common glitch in the game. There were a few times where I would click to interact with something, and my Lightsaber would remain ignited, clipping through my arm and my face while tinkering. Sometimes I'd go to use a screwdriver or something like it and the Lightsaber would remain in my hand, clipping through the piece of equipment I was supposed to be repairing.<br />
Speaking of Lightsabers, they sure seem to be a lot less effective in the game than they are in the movies. Sometimes I can ram my blade through something to destroy it, and sometimes I have to plant explosives on it instead. Sometimes to get past a locked door or force-field, I had to hack something, but other times I was able to just whack it with the Lightsaber. Then there's the fact that Lightsabers only ever seem to work properly in cutscenes, and in gameplay, they work like the police batons from <i>Futurama</i>. Even if you're fighting someone who also has a Lightsaber, the two of you just stand around whacking at each other until one of you falls over. Severed limbs only exist in cutscenes. There's no bisection, no decapitation, no real mauling, they just keel over and vanish into the ether like they've figured out how to become one with the Force regardless of if they're Jedi, Sith, animal, or an inorganic droid. The only time you get to cut off limbs in this game is in cutscenes. I know this is a T rated game, but considering a Lightsaber cauterizes the wounds it causes, and the highest any of the films in the series have been rated is PG-13. Anakin Skywalker got dismembered and burned alive in the third film after slicing up Count Dooku, killing hordes of children and choking his wife almost to death and while that film was definitely a <i>hard </i>PG-13, it wasn't exactly risking an R, and likewise this game wouldn't be risking an M rating. I have <i>Jedi Outcast </i>and <i>The Force Unleashed II </i>on the shelf right next to me, both of which had dismemberment as part of the combat features, and neither of those were rated M for Mature, despite the fact that the former game came out in an era where <i>Perfect Dark </i>was rated M and the GBC prequel was rated T, exclusively because the latter game had persistent corpses. <i>Goldeneye </i>on the Wii, released a decade later had way more blood, more realistic graphics, and a hell of a lot more violence, and it was only rated T for ages 13+. This game features coerced sex, the ability to psychologically break some of your companions into becoming masochistic sadists who get off on being fucking dominated in the way only a Force user without any personal restraints or standards can, you can Force-choke just about anyone in the game if you can interact with them, up to and including your love-interests as part of the aforementioned psychological torture one can accomplish as a pure Dark-side player, you can brainwash people, it's implied that certain NPC's who were slaves had been raped as a part of their forced servitude, one of the quest-lines I went on involved all of my friends being tortured until the time at which I brought the False Emperor to his knees and killed him, you can brainwash a living, feeling battle-droid into being a mindless soldier, you can sadistically kill loads of people, and, lest we forget, you can walk into Lord Grathan's house, beat up his son, kill him, and then bone his wife while making your potential future wife watch as you do so. Why, when all of this can happen within the game did they skimp on the Lightsaber dismemberment? I get that this is an MMO, but the challenge to a Sith such as myself shouldn't lie in the number of times I have to whack a given target with my Lightsaber, but in whether or not I can actually land a decent hit on the target. If you need a big boss, then there are plenty of creatures that have Lightsaber resistance in <i>Star Wars </i>lore, and Mandalorian Iron, Cortosis fibers and Sith alchemy are all available to use to armor humanoid enemies and droids. I could come up with a dismemberment table that would work without a whole lot of effort. For instance, label each major skeletal group and polygon on the model, let's say head, torso, hips, left and right upper and lower arms, left and right hands and feet, left and right thighs, and left and right calves. From there, run a quick calculation after each attack is determined to hit to create a straight line from the Lightsaber's angle of attack through the polygons that make up the body, then detach the sections of the body the Lightsaber would slash through as the attack animation completes and have them fall to the ground. If the attack would decapitate the target or remove their last remaining arm, then the target should be dead. Maybe some living enemies could die if their torso and hips were separated by a blade, and others could continue to live if they were tough enough. Add an orange glow to severed metal and a burnt black tone to severed flesh and you're set. <i>Half-Life </i>had to use a ton of hacks to accomplish dismemberment, but they still did it. Even if what I'm laying down isn't feasible with current processing power, much less the processing available when this game was made, <i>Mortal Kombat 4 </i>achieved dismemberment in fatalities back in 1997, just remove all the blood and you've got a T-rated game. It's been a long time since the ESRB considered dismemberment an automatic M, and it was a long time since that time when this game started development and was released. Dismemberment is a staple of this whole franchise, why isn't it in what's probably the only <i>Star Wars </i>MMO modern fans and younger ones have any memory of? By most standards, I'm a latecomer to the series and <i>I </i>know that! I'm sure people younger than I am know that dismemberment is an important aspect of <i>Star Wars</i>. Speaking of which, whenever dismemberment happens in the cutscenes, the stumps are always just out of view of the camera, like Bioware didn't want to have to make different character models or something. In fact, despite the level of work that has obviously gone into making this game, it seems like Bioware didn't want to go the extra mile and put in the extra effort that would have made this game truly great. From the underpolished graphics, to the lackluster combat, to the obnoxious re-use of assets throughout the game, to the obvious lack of optimization, to the lack of decent interactivity in the companion storylines, to the railroading, to the fact character dialogue doesn't change depending on what all one has done up to that point in the story if one attempts an optional mission set after the main campaign. I was actually congratulated for killing someone before they even betrayed me! The game literally spoiled itself for me! A simple way to prevent me from finding this out early, if they weren't going to check through my save-file and see how far I'd gotten, would have been to lock off the False Emperor storyline until <i>after </i>I'd completed the main quest. It wouldn't have been particularly difficult to do, just set a flag to activate those quests on the Imperial Fleet after I beat Darth Baras.<br />
One of the most prolific issues with the game has to be the music. From the time I started playing this game last year until now, the musical cues are all over the place. Battle of the Heroes is used as loading-screen music, Duel of the Fates is glorified elevator music, since it only plays when you're arriving at or departing a destination in your spaceship, and Across the Stars is used in place of Binary Sunset. It's like someone at Lucasfilm handed Bioware a stack of soundtrack CD's and didn't tell them what songs were used where, and the guy who did the music arrangement had only ever seen the opening title crawls of the saga and that's why the only song that's actually used properly is the main-title theme.<br />
All in all, while this game can be a mess at times, it tends to be something of a fun mess at best, but if you decide that you want to deviate from the designated path, you'll be sorely disappointed. Sometimes the game looks pretty, but most of the time it looks like it was made to run on the Wii, or worse, the PS2. This game has no right to be taking up all of the resources it does for as absolutely bad as it looks. How is this game as old as it is and still chugging on my state-of-the-art laptop?<br />
In the end, this game is well worth the no money at all I paid for it, but if I'd been one of the people who bought it at launch or had paid a subscription fee for my time in the game, I'd be sorely disappointed, especially considering how much a subscription fee is and how little I paid for much better games comparatively.Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-16376263320523304422018-01-09T00:43:00.001-06:002018-01-13T15:40:04.336-06:00Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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After <i>Rogue One</i>, I was looking forward to <i>The Last Jedi</i>. Being a <i>Star Wars </i>fan who lived through <i>Legacy of the Force </i>and <i>Revenge of the Sith</i>, I always figured there was nowhere to go but up, but Rian Johnson somehow managed to find the hole I threw <i>Episode III</i> into by digging horizontally. He didn't get quite as far down as rock bottom, but he damn well came close. It has literally been twelve years since I've seen something this undignified as an official, unignorable part of the <i>Star Wars </i>universe. Before we get into spoilers, let me just establish a few reference points for those who don't want to be spoiled. Remember precocious Anakin from <i>The Phantom Menace</i>? His nonsensical, out of character heel turn in <i>RotS</i>? The inexplicable death of Padmé in the same movie? The various effects failures of the prequel and original trilogies, the bad line-reads, and occasional overlong subplot? I guess <i>The Last Jedi </i>is better from a technical standpoint than all of these examples, but as a whole, the movie is running on concentrated stupid. Rian Johnson is like what George Lucas would have been if he was a good director and a worse writer. At least Lucas managed to put together a series of amazing scenes and good, sometimes profound lines of dialogue to go along with the messes he called movies. While the dialogue and line-reads never sink down to prequels level, the actions of the characters are as stupid as the worst moments of the prequels combined with the worst moments of <i>The Clone Wars </i>animated series. While <i>The Last Jedi </i>is a visually pretty film, it lacks soul, internal coherence, and coherence with the immediately preceding films and other canon material. In other words, Rian Johnson is everything that Zack Snyder's detractors claim the latter to be, and <i>The Last Jedi </i>is what some critics claimed <i>Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice </i>was. A series of desperate, nonsensical retcons and two, maybe even three movies rolled into one with blatant attempts to emotionally manipulate the audience into feeling what the director thinks they should feel. The prequels could be pretty bad at their worst, but I at least felt they were the honest efforts of everyone involved, with George Lucas earnestly believing that he'd done what he needed to do in those movies. This is a trainwreck almost from the word go, and not because of anything excusable.<br />
I guess the best thing to say about this movie would be that I'm not angry, just massively disappointed. It seems like this has been the year for sequels that had undue influence by someone who didn't understand what they were doing, or the characters they were writing in the slightest. Joss Whedon's scenes in <i>Justice League </i>spring to mind as another example of scenes that clash with established characterization and established canon, but that was a movie that was clearly ruined after the director had mostly finished it, and could be redeemed from its position by a directors cut later down the line, kind of like what happened with <i>Superman II</i>. This film, to the best of my knowledge, was conceived poorly, written poorly, shot poorly, and edited poorly. The pedigree of awful runs too deep in production for mere editing to solve the problems I have with it. Most of the film would need to be re-written and re-shot entirely to salvage what little good exists within the depths of this execrable excuse for an epic endeavor.<br />
Now that that's out of the way, let's get into spoiler territory with the plot summary. <i>The Last Jedi </i>(Not to be confused with the EU <i>Revenge of the Sith-</i>sequel starring Obi-Wan Kenobi which might be a good basis for a Ewan McGregor-led solo movie, <i>The Last </i><u style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">of</u> <i>the Jedi</i>, or indeed the fourth book in the <i>Coruscant Nights</i> series of the same name) picks up right after Rey's arrival on Ahch-To in <i>The Force Awakens</i>. While the destruction of Starkiller Base has significantly impacted The First Order, rather than rely on superweapons to finish off their enemies, The First Order moves their fleet into the system as the New Republic forces move out. For the most part, they manage to do so, but The First Order remains on their tails. Ace Rebel pilot Poe Dameron manages to distract the fleet long enough for the bombers to deploy and begin attempting to destroy the Mandator IV-class Siege Dreadnought leading the fleet. They succeed, against orders and with heavy casualties. This is the kind of thing that wouldn't fly back when Luke Skywalker was in charge. He'd have packed most of Rogue Squadron into B-wings or captured Tie Bombers with the rest in either A-wings or captured Tie Interceptors for the assault, and the Rogues wouldn't have lost a single man, and the New Republic wouldn't have lost a single capital ship. I know this because I've both played the game and read the books titled <i>"Rogue Squadron</i>". Clearly something Rian Johnson should have done before making this movie.<br />
Speaking of B-wings, they're not the bombers that were used in the assault. Compared to the Slayn & Korpil MG-100 StarFortress SF-17's the New Republic <i>was </i>using in this fight, the old Koensayr Manufacturing BTL-A4 Y-wing assault starfighter/bomber combos were bloody A-wings! These so-called "Star Fortresses" can't even tank a single hit without all their bombs going up and taking the rest of the ship with them. You see guys, bombers are supposed to be more heavily-armored than your normal fighters to prevent this sort of thing. You know, kind of like the armoring the old Y-wings had. Even the more fragile Slayn & Korpil A/SF-01 B-wing starfighters could hold their own in a fight longer than the new SF-17's do. The SF-17 is so slow that the AT-AT almost looks like a Formula 1 racecar by comparison. These bombers are clearly unfit for military service, and only exist so that the fleet could be devastated at the end of the battle. If they'd used any more efficient or better-armored bomber, then they would have come out with only a few losses.<br />
Leia is none too happy with Poe disobeying her orders and continuing with the assault after she told them to break it off, so she gives him a field demotion. Poe naturally protests this, given the fact that the order to break it off was stupid and considering the fact that the First Order immediately tracks them down as soon as they leave Hyperspace and proceeds to destroy most of the fleet, he was absolutely right to make the run against the Dreadnought. The assault manages to destroy a good number of New Republic fighters and almost kills BB-8. For everything else this movie could have done, there would be no faster way to make me hate this movie and the people who made it than to kill off BB-8. My broader point being that if Poe hadn't led the Dreadnought run, the entire fleet would have been destroyed immediately.<br />
Kylo Ren fires on most of the fleet easily but hesitates to hit the flagship when he senses his mother aboard. Tie Fighters then blow the hell out of the bridge of the flagship, which kills Admiral Ackbar (Yes, seriously) and almost kills Leia, who somehow manages to use her meager Force powers (Which up until now have only been useful for communicating with her brother and sensing emotions) to pull herself back to the ship in one of the strangest moments in <i>Star Wars </i>history. When I saw them blow the bridge up, I expected this to be their way of writing Leia out of the next movie, given that Carrie Fisher died before it could begin filming and that they weren't planning on doing what they did for <i>Rogue One </i>and putting her in on top of another actresses face. Even if they didn't intend for this to happen before she died, they damn well should have done so afterward to keep there from being any questions about why Mon Mothma's right hand and the commander-in-chief of the New Republic military was missing. Not to mention the fact that not only was she spaced, she was blown up as well, and by all rights shouldn't be alive anymore. Jedi have used their powers to keep from being sucked into space, but they've never come back from that. This is especially egregious considering Disney got it mostly right with both <i>Guardians of the Galaxy </i>movies. Star-Lord and Gamora barely survived the vacuum of space in the first <i>Guardians of the Galaxy</i>, and they're super-beings who had protective gear. Leia is a fifty-two-year-old woman wearing a glorified bathrobe. Clone Troopers and Storm Troopers don't survive long out there in the black, and they were a race of Mandalorian super-soldiers in pressurized armor! In addition to the fact that the scene just kind of sucks, because of all the aforementioned issues with continuity and willing suspension of disbelief, it also draws heavy influence (read: shamelessly steals) from a similar scene in 2016's <i>Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice</i>. People who have seen that film, or read my review of it should know what I'm talking about, but in case you don't, there was a scene in <i>Dawn of Justice </i>where Superman had been hit with a nuclear warhead while fighting Doomsday and was left drifting in space. As his body drifted beyond the Earth's horizon and managed to catch enough sunlight to revitalize himself, he flew back to Earth and rejoined the fight. This scene works because Superman draws his power from the sun, as anyone who's read the comics (or indeed, seen <i>Man of Steel</i>) would know. Last time I checked, Princess Leia didn't draw her power from the cold uncaring vacuum of space. And before anyone jumps on me for saying that this film ripped off <i>BvS</i>, please note that principal photography for <i>The Last Jedi</i> wrapped in July of 2016, a little over three months after <i>Dawn of Justice</i>'s theatrical cut was released, and post-production only wrapped this past September. That leaves plenty of time for Rian Johnson to see <i>BvS</i> and decide he wanted to copy it in some respects. This isn't the last thing Rian Johnson copies from much better movies by much better directors.<br />
Meanwhile, back on Ach-To, Rey is still holding Anakin's Lightsaber out to Luke, which sets up the time-scale for the film being mere minutes after the end of the last film. She hands the Lightsaber to Luke, who tosses it over his shoulder. The scene is timed just perfectly to make the audience think Luke is about to say something profound, but he remains silent long enough to make it awkward before tossing the saber. There's almost a pause for laughter as the shot switches back to Rey, who was as baffled at this reaction as I was. At first, I was intrigued by this development, hoping that something interesting would come of it, but the only explanation that came just made me even more baffled at how someone who was purportedly writing a <i>Star Wars </i>movie would do such a thing. Luke continues to be a curmudgeon, refusing to talk to Rey for more than a short while until Chewie busts into his hut to berate him for being such a stick in the mud. Luke refuses to come back to lead the New Republic push against the First Order even after hearing that his best friend got a lightsaber drilled through his chest by Kylo Ben. Luke was able to sense when his sister was in danger from across the galaxy, how did he not already know that Han was dead and Leia gravely injured? Regardless of what they say, later on, Obi-Wan laid low for twenty years and was still able to sense when Alderaan was blown up. Darth Maul went insane after fifteen years as a man-spider, but he managed to track Kenobi down after all that time. Point being that, without an Ysalamir (which we know exist, because Thrawn has sculptures of them in his office), one cannot cut oneself off from the Force. This isn't <i>Dragon Ball</i>, Force power can't just be squashed down and ignored. Luke himself says as much later on in the movie, that the Force flows through all living things. Sensing bad things that are happening through the Force is entirely involuntary, as has been well-established in previous films. If anything would have shaken him out of this stupid funk he's in, Starkiller Base's destruction of a solar system should have done so. Everything is connected to the Force, living or dead, as we've seen throughout the films and animated series. Luke could literally not do this with what he had with him on this island. Also, a small note, Rey acts like Luke doesn't understand Chewbacca even though Luke and Chewie have spent way more time together than she and Chewie have. I get that she knows Wookie, but there's no need for her to translate just for the sake of the audience! We can understand what he's saying from Luke's responses, no need to have someone repeating it just in case the public is too stupid to get the obvious.<br />
Back with The First Order, Snoke gives Kylo Ren the "loose cannon" speech from every police-drama ever if it were given by Light Yagami's inner-monologue. He then proceeds to tell Ben that he's trying to shape him into a new Vader and then proceeds to tell Ben to stop wearing the helmet he wore in the previous film. Kylo proceeds to overreact to this and completely destroy the helmet. Given that this is entirely in-character for him, and actually a very good scene I have nothing else to say about this.<br />
Rey gives an impassioned plea to Luke, begging him to return to help the New Republic drive back the First Order, but he dismisses her with contempt, saying "You think what, I'm gonna walk out with a laser-sword and face down the whole First Order?"<br />
Ladies and gentlemen, this is where I started getting a sinking feeling while watching this film, because that was exactly what I expected Luke to do. Nothing else would say "Luke is back and <i>Star Wars</i> is back" than him rocking out from hyperspace in his X-Wing and facing down Phasma, Kylo, Snoke and the whole Imperial army. This was when my suspicions about the film started rising to the top, and all of the bad things I'd been hearing about the movie started to make an absurd amount of sense. Luke tells this girl who for all he knows, tracked down pieces of a starmap that he left behind because the New Republic desperately needs its greatest hero back to go away. Luke pisses off to catch some fish and harvest what looks like some Blue Milk. From an oversized aquatic lizard-creature called a Thala-siren, and not a Bantha. It was at this point that I realized that Rian Johnson probably didn't have the slightest clue what he was doing. Blue milk has been established as Bantha milk within the current continuity, so there's really no excuse for this continuity slip-up. Wookiepedia classifies their milk as "Green milk" but I'll be perfectly honest, it doesn't <i>look </i>green. The general hue of the milk is turquoise when the creatures are being milked, and it looked blue when it ran down Mark Hamill's beard.<br />
It is then revealed to us that there's a Force Cave on this planet, just like in <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>, and that Rey apparently knows about the place Luke went to despite never having come there before. It is also revealed that instead of using holocrons to store the ancient knowledge of the Jedi, they used books. Luke then refers to the Jedi as a "religion" despite the fact that using "religion" to refer to the Force and its accompanying factions has only ever been a way of demonstrating to the audience how truly ignorant the person who's calling it a religion really is. Again, demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of the themes of the franchise.<br />
Luke naturally wants to know who Rey is and why she's there, but when he asks her "what's special about you?" rather than giving him the obvious answer of "I went toe-to-toe with Kylo Ren in a desperate Lightsaber battle while the third Death Star was blowing up and not only managed to survive but also to keep him from taking your dad's Lightsaber and save my friends who came to the base to save me." or "I'm Force-sensative" or "because my friend and I found the map you left behind and the New Republic needs help, so your sister told me to find you and haul your ass off this planet so we can destroy what's left of the Empire once and for all" she remains silent. Rey is a firey spirit, the kind of person who would answer that question as bluntly as possible. This is something we saw earlier in the movie when she followed Luke through a storm and refused to let his odd behavior mess with her. This is one of the points in the movie where her character starts taking something of a nosedive. I liked Rey in the previous film, she was an interesting character. Accident-prone, paranoid, quick to fight, difficult to get along with, constantly screwing up, mysterious back-story, and pretty endearing. Rey and Finn both were incredibly relatable, but in this film, the relatability has been assigned to my least favorite character from the previous film, Poe Dameron. But we'll get back to Capmander Dameron once the rest of the plot returns.<br />
Luke follows up his previous question by asking Rey where she's from. The first time she responds, she says "nowhere" followed by "Jakku" once he presses her on the subject. Luke's response is "Okay, that pretty much is nowhere." and that was the movie really <i>really </i>started to worry me. There were enough clues in the previous movie for me and the rest of the <i>Star Wars </i>fandom were able to figure out that Rey's parents were likely Luke Skywalker and a woman who probably shares a lot of characteristics, but not a name with Mara Jade. From her connection to the Skywalker family Lightsaber to the flashes of Luke in her memories to the fact that the ship flying away was clearly based on the rather odd shuttle that Luke Skywalker used in the old <i>Star Wars </i>comics. The only plot thread that made any sense would be for Rey to be Luke Skywalker's daughter, but considering his reaction to hearing where she came from and what her name is, that's rather unlikely at this point. More's the pity, because if she <i>was </i>a Skywalker, there would be plenty of justification of things that she does later on in this movie, but sadly not.<br />
Rey tells him that she needs a teacher to show her the ways of the Force. Regardless of his circumstances, Luke has been in her position before and shouldn't turn her away for a number of reasons. One being that he knows what happens when an undertrained Padawan Learner goes up against a seasoned Sith Lord, and another being that if she were to turn to his misguided nephew and his master for instruction. Luke literally says that he came to the island to die, but that's not something Luke Skywalker would do even when faced with a no-win situation, or one where he'd royally screwed up. Luke Skywalker is optimistic to a fault and never does anything without a reason. If Luke was beaten by a Sith Lord he'd retreat to a hideout and figure out what he did wrong, analyze his opponents and then come back stronger than ever. Luke Skywalker before this movie was the Jedi equivalent of Darth Maul, a nigh-unkillable badass who always came back with a new trick up his sleeve to win the day, not a mopey, whiny bitch who couldn't handle getting his ass handed to him a few times. If the Luke in this movie got his hand chopped off by Darth Vader in the final battle of <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>, rather than get a new hand, build a new lightsaber, rescue Han and redeem Vader at the end of the next movie, he'd just slink back to Tattooine and be a moisture-farmer for the rest of his miserable existence. This miseryguts isn't Luke Skywalker, and we learn exactly how much he's <i>not </i>Luke Skywalker later on in the movie.<br />
Commander Weaksauce ventures into the Falcon and takes down some kind of gold tassel thing that was hanging in front of the viewscreen or whatever, then R2-D2 wakes up and goes to talk to him. One would think that if anyone could convince Luke to return, it would be his oldest and most faithful companion, but that doesn't happen. In fact, this is just about all we see out of R2-D2 in the entire movie. Yeah, R2-D2, one of two characters to be in nearly everything<i> Star Wars</i> related since the original movie barely shows up in this film. Not that R2 didn't do something important in this movie, he plays back the holographic message that Leia gave him back in <i>A New Hope</i> and convinces Luke to train Rey. If it wasn't for the forced conflict in this film, Luke would have agreed to do this thirty-five minutes ago. The Original Trilogy Luke would have jumped at the opportunity to train more Jedi, for all of the reasons I mentioned earlier in the review. Now, one could say that Luke has changed over time due to his ordeals, and that would be a perfectly valid argument if the ordeals that got him into this mess weren't also caused by a fundamental misunderstanding of Luke as a character.<br />
Luke tells Rey that he'll train her and teach her why the Jedi need to end, but I don't really think he ever does that. He just states the obvious when he tells her that one need not follow the orthodoxies of the Old Jedi Order to use The Force properly. Okay, that's not a profound lesson, Qui-Gon Jinn was telling us that back in <i>The Phantom Menace</i>, do you have anything new for us, Luke? Well actually, he does, but we'll get to that.<br />
Throughout the movie, Rey goes through a far more compressed and far less impressive version of Luke's trials in <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>, complete with a journey into a cave with strong Force connections, a niggling sensation that something is wrong pulling her back to her friends, and a giant twist revealed by the villain that the heroes confirm to be true. You see, Kylo Ren and Rey form a Force connection and start communicating telepathically. It's a bit weird, but I could roll with it. Luke and Vader did the same thing at the end of <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>, but it gets odd when they actually start moving physical things between the two places through The Force, and when Ben shows up in Rey's hut out of nowhere it really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I thought this was something only dead Force-users could do, not living ones. Luke tells Rey that Ben destroyed the Jedi Academy, killed some of the students and left with others. Ben tells Rey that he woke up to Luke standing over him, madness in his eyes and his Lightsaber lit up, trying to kill him. I thought this had to be a lie, because that's not something Luke would ever do, but no, Luke confirms this! He saw darkness in Ben and thought he had a chance to snuff it out, but hesitated long enough for Ben to wake up and realize what was going on. You fucking what mate? Luke Skywalker refused to kill Vader because he sensed good in him despite the fact that Vader had killed his mentor, killed his best friend, cut off his hand and been party to not only the destruction of Alderaan but also to the Jedi Purge at the end of the Clone Wars, yet he'd be willing to kill his nephew who had not yet done any of that? I think Rian Johnson forgot that he was writing <i>Luke </i>Skywalker and not Anakin, because that's something his dad would have done, and it's part of the reason why Luke was better than his father. Plus, Luke Skywalker is a Jedi Master and Ben Solo was a Padawan Learner! If he thought there was an issue, Luke would have begun setting up monitoring devices around the academy, and if push came to shove he would have been more than able to take down a single wayward student as we saw in the books this whole storyline is stolen from, Kevin J. Anderson's stellar <i>Jedi Academy </i>trilogy. At this point, Kylo Ren is basically a bad distillation of elements of Kyp Durron, Gantoris, and Jacen Solo, with a bit of Darth Revan thrown in for good measure. From Gantoris, he gets the conflict with Luke and the strange source of his seduction to the Dark Side if Gantoris never fought off Exar Kun, from Jacen he gets almost his entire family history and his tendency to kill and/or threaten close relatives, and from Kyp Durron he gets his tragic past, sympathetic monster status, and the fact that he's sort of Dark Side and sort of not. Oh, lest we forget, he also gets pretty much his entire outfit from Darth Revan too. Not that the Old Republic-era stories weren't also guilty of stealing loads from the movies and books that were made before it, but they at least tried to mask it all as bits of history that got re-used by future generations. What the sequel trilogy, and to some extent, the standalone films as well are doing is pretending the EU never existed, all the while shamelessly stealing from it. If they weren't putting on airs and trying to pretend that they're not adapting bits of the EU, and were going more along the lines of the current DC television series and named characters after characters from the Expanded Universe they were clearly based on, I'd be willing to give them a lot more credit, but what they're doing is the kind of thing that would get them tossed out of a college creative-writing class or even English Composition I class for plagiarism.<br />
Something else I noticed was that Ben's Lightsaber in the flashback doesn't have a crossguard or an overdriven blade, elements I would have expected given the fact that anyone who uses a Lightsaber generally tends to stick with the same format for all of the ones they use in their lifetime. Anakin Skywalker went through three Lightsabers and all three of them were basically identical in appearance, so why is Ben's so radically different?<br />
Rey returns to the New Republic fleet against Luke's advice. Luke decides that he wants to burn down the old Jedi temple before getting a case of the cold feet again. Yoda shows up, asks Luke if he read the books and then causes a lightning bolt to strike the place and burn it down, saying that the books weren't that great anyways and that Rey basically already knows what was in them. Despite the fact that Luke never showed her how to make her own Lightsaber or really anything that Luke had to study the old texts in Obi-Wan's cave back on Tattooine to figure out how to build one himself. And I know that's a reference to <i>Shadows of the Empire </i>but at this point, I'm a little too peeved with Disney to allow one of my favorite EU books and games to go unrecognized.<br />
One of the many problems with this sequence is that Luke came out to this planet and spent god-knows how long on it without cracking open the old books and reading them. If they were in a dead language I'd understand, but they don't say that in the scene. What really doesn't make any sense is that Luke as a character is inquisitive and constantly in search of new knowledge, which means that he should know them front to back by now. I'm a rather bookish fellow as one might presume from the fact that I've spent a good deal of the last seven years writing reviews as often as I can, so unless the books were full of obsolete knowledge, like forging methods for the old Je'daii katanas or outdated superstitions about The Force from before they figured out the science of it all, I really don't understand why Yoda would have attempted to destroy the books. Plus, if that was the case, why would Rey feel the need to take them with her? Plus, why wouldn't Chewie just knock Luke out and take him with them when they left? Chewbacca knows Luke is being dumb and would probably be willing to do this given proper motivation. Plus, how was Yoda able to summon down a lightning bolt from the afterlife? I didn't think that Force ghosts could interact with the physical realm, and last time I checked, the Jedi weren't literal wizards. Yes, Force Lightning exists, but that comes from hands, not from nowhere! If Yoda had shot lightning from his fingers, that would have been something of a stretch, but it would have at least been something that we've seen can be done. I'll give the film this, a single Jedi of sufficient power could probably summon up a storm by manipulating the skies, but attempting to aim a lightning storm is nigh-on impossible. I know I'm mixing a combination of real-life physics with <i>Star Wars </i>rules here, but given what we know about Force powers at this point in time, I think we can safely say that this doesn't make a whole load of sense. I will say this though, it makes a hell of a lot more sense than the shit they pulled with Leia earlier in the movie.<br />
Back with the New Republic Space Navy, we find out exactly why Ackbar was killed off. Because he was a competent leader and wouldn't have made the kind of moronic mistakes required for the plot to go where Rian Johnson decided it had to. With the rest of the New Republic High Command either dead or in a Space Coma, command falls to Vice Admiral Amilyn Holdo, an entirely new character with a face like Wilhuff Tarkin, clothes that look like she borrowed them from Mon Mothma and hair like she took a bath at ACE Chemicals with The Joker. In fact, to go back to the clothing, this is something of a major issue with the New Republic High Command in this movie. For some reason, despite the fact that Leia was basically wearing military gear in the last movie, which took place at most <i>hours </i>before this one, all of the non-Ackbar military leaders are wearing these long impractical flowing gowns and robes that aren't particularly conducive to military efficiency. Back during The Clone Wars, you'd never catch the female Jedi wearing anything but combat gear out in the field, and it's not like Leia's been any stranger to wearing armor before. In fact, if she'd been decked out in a flight-suit when the bridge was hit, I would have been completely on-board with her Force-pulling herself from the wreckage back to the ship, but that's not what she was wearing. I know Leia and Mon Mothma wore big flowing robes in <i>Episode IV</i> and<i> Episode VI</i>, respectively, but neither Leia nor Mon Mothma was actively planning to be involved in combat in those films, and therefore didn't <i>need </i>to be wearing less complex clothing (Plus neither of them were shown wearing anything else immediately prior), but this is literally right after an evacuation of an entire base after having been dressed in sensible clothing previously. Leia had to have changed out of her military gear and into the robes she wears in this film in the minutes to hours the New Republic had to evacuate their base, and one would think that she'd have more important things to do. Although now that we mention it, do you remember the red arm that C-3PO had back in <i>Episode VII</i> that Abrams stuck on as an homage to the robotic arm Big Boss has in <i>Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain</i>? Well, he's not wearing that anymore. Again, given the urgent nature of the situation, I would have thought that they would have had more important things to do than to either re-spray 3PO's arm, or detach the red one and attach a new gold one. Now that we're done with that stupid bit of logic, I'd like to ask why this incompetent bitch is next in command! Her bright idea is to demand that the freedom-loving and order-questioning New Republic military follow her instructions without telling them what the plan is. Did she forget that this was exactly what led to the Rebellion in the first place? Naturally, the crew revolts and Poe sends Finn and a random mechanic that Finn met earlier in the movie named Rose Tico to find someone that Maz from <i>The Force Awakens</i> told them to find. Poe's plan is to disable the tracking that the Empire used to find the New Republic fleet and warp away to fight another day. The guy they go to find is just some random dude, but because Finn and Rose are idiots, they get tossed in jail and wind up recruiting a different hacker to help them. Neither the first hacker they tried to find, nor the second are anyone associated with Lando Calrissian, more's the pity, but DJ (Benicio Del Toro) shares most of Lando's character traits and almost all of his arc if Lando showed zero remorse at selling Han and Leia out to the Empire.<br />
The biggest issue with this storyline is that, had Luke been in charge, none of it would have happened. Back when Luke was in charge, the Rogues would have covered the fleet as it retreated and would have had every single Imperial vessel that didn't retreat blown to space-junk before following to the rendezvous point. Anakin Skywalker would have done the same and the only casualty in the entire battle might have been his own ship. But never mind that, Leia, Akbar, Mon Mothma, Anakin, Luke, Padmé, Rex, Obi-Wan, Ahsoka Tano, General Dodonna, Hera Syndulla, Kanan Jarrus, or even Ezra Bridger would have come up with a less risky plan than Admiral Tumblr does, and all of them would have explained the plan they <i>did </i>come up with well enough to prevent the crew from assuming their leader was an incompetent bint with a hate-on for her underlings to rival that of Darth Vader. Funny how they give us a new human character with bizarrely-dyed hair rather than bringing back one of the more interesting alien characters from, for instance, <i>Star Wars Rebels </i>or <i>The Clone Wars</i>, like the aforementioned Ahsoka Tano or Hera Syndulla, two characters that people already know and like and would, therefore, sympathize with more than this severe authoritarian. For that matter, where <i>are </i>most of the aliens in this movie? We see a lot of humans of all races, but most of the aliens appear to either be entirely neutral in this conflict, dead or have shacked up with The First Order. It seems like the filmmakers have gone out of their way to try and turn all of the interesting alien races into background dressing so they could try and shoehorn more humans into the mix. Rose and her sister could have easily been Togrutas, for one thing, and I can bet you almost anything that the audience would have erupted in applause if Hera was the one to take command after Leia should have died. Hell, I'd have taken Ezra Bridger if it meant that we didn't have to sit through more tedium. <i>The Last Jedi </i>is the longest <i>Star Wars </i>film by thirteen whole minutes, and it certainly feels like it. I used to think that the events of <i>Revenge of the Sith</i> drug on forever, but after seeing this movie I feel kind of silly having thought that. I'm a guy who sat through the entire running time of <i>Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition</i> and didn't even think it felt that long. I've binged through countless episodes of a number of television series in sessions that had to last five hours or longer, and still, none of them felt as long as this movie does. It might be the fact that the film has about five or six plotlines going on at any one time. There's the one between Luke and Rey, the one between Rey and Ben, the one between Luke and Ben, the one between Holdo and her entire crew, the one between Finn and Rose, the one between Finn and The Empire, and the one between Finn, Rose, and the casino planet to go to to get DJ. Plus the plotline with DJ himself being a two-faced git. This doesn't make the movie more complex, it just makes it tedious, mostly because a lot of the things that get brought up aren't paid off within the movie, the ones that are are brought to such a weak close, and the rest are just kind of pointless. At one point, DJ notes that the owner of the ship that he and BB-8 had stolen sold X-Wings to the Republic and TIEs to the First Order, but the New Republic buys all of their X-Wings directly from the Incom Corporation, while the Eyeballs were made by Sienar Fleet Systems and bought directly by The Empire, with all the TIE Fighters used by The First Order being made by Sienar-Jaemus Fleet Systems. Mind you, this is all from modern continuity, not just from my old-fashioned knowledge of the original canon. Either way, this scene doesn't make a lick of sense. The only thing that DJ's findings prove is that whoever owned the ship dealt in secondhand starfighters and not the more sinister implication that the current conflict is stoked by war profiteers who make money off of both sides. <i>Star Wars </i>has always been about the horrors of conflict, but all this movie does is demonize the good people of the Incom Corporation who risked their lives to manufacture X-Wings for the Rebellion for the sake of pushing a hamfisted message. Yes, we get it. War is bad, that's something we knew already, what with the entirety of the prequels being dedicated to the story of how war can change people, with all of the loss of life seen throughout the series and <i>Rogue One </i>highlighting what one group of people had to give their lives to get. We don't need them injecting a screed against it in the middle of the movie when the entire series up to this point has been about how bad war is! Luke Skywalker lost his best friend and aunt and uncle in <i>A New Hope</i>, Kanan Jarrus lost his sight, Ahsoka Tano was stripped of Knighthood, Anakin Skywalker turned into <i>Darth fucking Vader</i>, we get that war is bad and that it can screw a person up, but this scene was so heavyhanded that it's absurd!<br />
Anyways, Rian Johnson then proceeds to rip off not only <i>A New Hope</i> but <i>Rogue One </i>as well when he has DJ, Finn and Rose dress up in stolen Imperial uniforms to break into The First Order flagship, but as I mentioned before, DJ betrays them and Rose and Finn wind up having to fight their way out. Finn faces off with Phasma, who dies an unceremonious death and then leaves. Meanwhile, Poe stages a mutiny on the New Republic flag-ship and takes over from Holdo, but instead of executing her then and there for being a coward and a traitor, he lets her live, which allows her to escape, wake up Leia and thwart his plan to save the fleet. At this point I should mention that Holdo's idiotic plan was getting the New Republic fleet picked-off left, right and center, and that her big "plan" was to cloak up the smaller transport ships and evacuate the remaining crew to a nearby abandoned Rebel base. Poe naturally thought this was a stupid idea, and proceeded to be proven right once the First Order sees through the plan and proceeds to start picking off the smaller ships like wooden ducks like he said they would. Why Holdo thought this would work in the first place, I have no idea, but in her infinite wisdom, Leia actually stops Poe's mutiny from going through and causes the plan to go into action flaws and all. The only reason this almost works is that the First Order was too stupid to bring an Interdictor Cruiser with them to reveal any cloaked ships, which one would think would have been common practice after the stunts Anakin Skywalker used to pull with cloaking tech back in The Clone Wars. Plus, someone on Reddit brought up that, had the New Republic ships been zig-zagging back and forth in a Naval technique known as "juking" to avoid fire they could have avoided having any casualties. The Rebellion was working in close quarters with a Death Star, a Super Star Destroyer and an entire fleet of regular Destroyers in <i>Return of the Jedi</i>, there was something of an excuse as to why they were getting picked off there. The vast majority of this movie is a protracted siege that ultimately doesn't make a ton of sense from a tactical perspective. Why do the New Republic Military forces just accept that their ships are going to get picked off instead of evacuating the damaged ones and tossing the ships at The First Order to distract from the evacuation? Funny that I was thinking that at this point in the movie, because rather than use a Droid or the ships' autopilot to do this, Holdo does it her god-damn self once her stupid plan goes tits up. The movie tries to paint this as some sort of grand sacrifice. In fact, the movie basically tries to recreate the climaxes of <i>Excalibur </i>and <i>Dawn of Justice</i> wholesale across a much longer section of film, but it just comes across as a completely pointless action. Autopilot exists, and it functions well enough for it to be used to pilot starfighters in a dogfight as we saw in <i>The Phantom Menace</i>, even if it wasn't a particularly good pilot. Basically what I'm saying is that if Rian Johnson had bothered to watch any <i>Star Wars </i>movies, or paid the slightest bit of attention to them, he'd have known that this wouldn't happen in a proper <i>Star Wars </i>movie. Rian Johnson is only slightly older than the Original Trilogy, while I'm exactly half the age of the series, so if I know and/or care more about the details of <i>Star Wars </i>than a man more than twice my age who was chosen to write and direct a film in the series, then that's a rather large issue with the approach Lucasarts has been taking.<br />
Before we move on to the rest of the movie, I'd like to address Admiral Holdo as a character. Two years ago, I remember the term "Mary Sue" being bandied about to describe Rey as a character, but I wasn't at all convinced that she was, given the severe negative consequences she suffered throughout the movie from all the times she kept fucking up. Over the last several weeks of writing this review though, I've come to realize that Amilyn Holdo is almost a beat for beat recreation of the main character from <i>A Trekkie's Tale</i>. While I was researching Holdo's history, I found out a few rather strange details about the character. She's a previously unknown childhood friend of Princess Leia's who apparently provided critical information to the survival of the Rebellion, and was subsequently appointed Vice Admiral and the command of a ship prior to us ever having seen her. She's also portrayed as a nigh-perfect commander whose plan would have gone off without a hitch had everyone followed her orders, and is given a heavy-handed death within the same piece of fiction she was introduced in. She also might have been a lesbian and might have had a thing for Princess Leia, as is hinted at by the fact that she holds onto Leia just long enough to make it suggestive when she's about to go on the suicide mission. Not that I blame her, just about everyone's had a thing for Leia at some point in history, but what makes this scene odd is twofold. One being that I was under the impression that they were pressed for time, and another being that it's implied that Leia might reciprocate these feeling by the way she stares soulfully at Holdo, holds Holdo's hands as long as Holdo holds hers, and the way she talks about Holdo. Leia didn't react like this to the death of her husband at the hands of her son, despite her connection to The Force. She also doesn't react to the death of another close relative as much as she does to the prospect of Holdo dying. This is what leads me to conclude that Amilyn Holdo is the archetypal Mary Sue. She's got a past with the lead characters that we've never seen or heard of until this point, she's got hair that isn't a normal color for humans without any explanation, she comes up with a plan to sacrifice herself to save what's left of the New Republic, has implied romantic ties to an important member of the main cast, and is portrayed as a selfless hero too good for this cruel galaxy. Every bad thing she does gets swept under the rug, never mind the fact that Poe's objections to her command decisions were all perfectly valid, and if Finn and Rose hadn't royally screwed up his plan it would have turned out a hell of a lot better than Holdo's did. That's not to say that Rey doesn't have the possibility of turning into a Mary Sue, but that Holdo feels like direct author-insertion wish-fulfillment to my trained eye. I could be wrong, but then again, <i>The Last Jedi </i>could have been a good movie.<br />
Rey tries to break into Snoke's ship but is immediately captured. Why she doesn't proceed to mind-trick the Stormtroopers into not capturing her, I don't know. In fact, I don't really get her grand plan. They have blasters, she's got a Lightsaber and The Force, logically she should be able to take them on, considering she was able to overpower James Bond with a bit of effort in the last film. Plus, she could have Force-shoved the lid of her pod into the troopers and come out swinging.<br />
Rey and Ben share an elevator scene almost identical to the one shared by Luke and Vader in <i>Return of the Jedi</i>, before he turns her over to Snoke. Snoke taunts her, she tries to pull her Lightsaber from him, but he whacks her upside the head with it, tortures her for a while and tells Ben to kill her when she doesn't join them. Rather than do this, Ben rotates his grandfather's Lightsaber 90° and ignites it, cutting Snoke in half. This doesn't make a significant amount of sense, given the fact that it takes Ben a good fifteen seconds between when he starts turning the saber to when he remotely ignites it to kill Snoke. Vader got away with saving his son because he made the decision to do so immediately before he killed Palpatine. Despite the rather vague justification given to us, it still doesn't make a whole lot of sense, because usually, someone who can read minds and emotions with The Force can read them more specifically than the scenario Snoke sees. He should at least be able to see the massive amount of resentment that Ben wears on his sleeve, or the massively obvious schoolboy crush that he has on Rey. After this, Ben and his new girlfriend kill all of the faceless guards in what I have to admit is an awesome fight scene, but it does raise the question of "When did Cortosis, Mandalorian Iron and Sith Alchemy become so rare that they couldn't make the armor of the Emperor's elite guards out of either material?" Granted, one could easily extend that question to the armor of every single military force in the galaxy, but considering that the primary threat to any Jedi or Sith is another Jedi or Sith, one would assume that they would have adopted Lightsaber-proof armor by now. Kylo Ren has it, Darth Vader had it, literally every Mandalorian has it, so why didn't Snoke or any of his minions have it?<br />
Anyways, at this point, I thought the plot was going the way I figured it would. Ben's vow to finish what Darth Vader started was clearly referring to the destruction of the Sith, and I figured at this point that Luke's attempted assassination of Ben was a ruse to embed Ben with The First Order to take it down from within, given what Luke said about other students of his (that we never see) following Ben to the First Order, and that the big villain of the series would turn out to be Holdo or Poe Dameron but that entire twist would have made sense. Ben and Rey, despite clearly being perfect for each other and in-tune on a rather bizarre level for people who aren't blood-related as we find out, have a fight. Rey wants Ben to order the First Order fleet to stop firing on the retreating New Republic, but at this point I had lost all sympathy for those incompetent sods and would have been perfectly happy to see most of them get blown to bits, as long as Finn, Poe, and BB-8 survived, but Ben doesn't do this despite it making a rather insane degree of sense for his character. We also find out that Rey's parents were nobodies. At this point, her parents didn't <i>have </i>to be Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade, I would have settled for Sabine Wren and Ezra Bridger, I'd have settled for her having <i>some </i>connection to the Jedi.<br />
They fight over Anakin's Lightsaber, tearing the damn thing in half. Rey manages to recover both parts of the saber while Ben is stunned (Because destroying a Lightsaber is treated like a bomb going off despite Anakin Skywalker never having built a single Lightsaber that would do that in his entire life, as we saw when his first saber was destroyed in <i>Attack of the Clones</i>. In fact, the only time in current canon that we've seen a Lightsaber emit such a devastating burst was in that episode of <i>The Clone Wars </i>with David Tennant in it, and that Lightsaber was literally constructed to do just that so they could evade the space-pirates.<br />
The entire last half-hour of the movie is a recreation of the opening sequence to <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>, complete with AT-AT walkers that have even more armor and stronger legs than their predecessors back on Hoth, trenches, a fortress in the middle of a desert (this time of salt instead of snow) and a bunch of repurposed rickety speeders as primary defense craft. Rey shows up and lifts a bunch of rocks off the passageway out of the base so the troops can man the scant defenses. Finn, who's our resident Imperial tech-expert apparently tells the remaining forces that The First Order has brought a Superlaser siege cannon with them to bust down the door to the bunker. The Superlaser siege cannon is a piece of "miniaturized Death Star tech" according to Finn, which utterly ignores the fact that the Death Star was basically a tooled-up Lightsaber that only ignited for long enough to blow up a planet, a concept codified in the EU via <i>Darksaber </i>and in current canon via <i>Rogue One </i>when we saw the Empire stealing a cache of Kyber Crystals for use in the Death Star. It's not a miniature Death Star, Finn, it's a Unicron-sized Lightsaber.<br />
Finn tries to sacrifice himself to destroy the siege cannon, but Rose crashes her ship into his and gives him possibly the stupidest line I've ever heard in a war movie. "We're going to win this war not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love!"<br />
I don't know what to say to that. The Galactic Civil War was won by fighting, The Clone Wars were won by fighting, this war will literally only be won by fighting, what the hell is wrong with this girl? Was it the fact that her sister died fighting? Tough shit, she died so that the New Republic, and by extension, you, could survive another day, something that Holdo completely wasted by sacrificing the entire fleet to the First Order. Finn and Rose only survived Holdo's bone-headed plan and pointless sacrifice <i>by fighting</i>, and the only way Luke Skywalker managed to save the morons who call themselves the New Republic Military <i>was by fighting!</i><br />
Speaking of fighting, before we get to Luke, I'd just like to mention that the First Order fails to take the most obvious route and use their TIE fighters and bombers to strafe the trenches. This is the kind of thing done back in World War I when planes were basically new, and if I'm not mistaken was featured in <i>The Clone Wars</i> as an employed tactic. Previously we've seen an evolution of tactics and military hardware over the course of the prequels, the animated series and the original trilogy, but in <i>Episode VIII</i> everything appears to have taken a step or two backward.<br />
Anyways, when all hope seems lost, Luke Skywalker shows up, not in his X-Wing, not to great fanfare, not to the kind of pomp and circumstance one would expect out of the return of the galaxy's greatest hero. He walks out of the base, brushes off every attack the First Order throws at him (At the orders of Supreme Leader Ben, natch) and then fights Kylo Ren in the most pathetic attempt at a fight-sequence I've ever seen in <i>Star Wars</i>. At least in <i>Episode IV</i>, the fight was taking place between two old men, one of whom was very clearly toying with the other, who in turn was stalling for time. In this fight, we see Luke ignite a Lightsaber he hasn't seen in nigh-on thirty years, rather than the one he forged basically by hand and has been using that entire intervening period and weave around every attack Ben throws at him like a combination of Neo from <i>The Matrix </i>and Muhammad Ali before revealing that he's just projecting himself across the galaxy somehow and fading away. This effort apparently was enough to kill the most powerful Jedi in the history of the galaxy, and he becomes one with The Force as the sun rises, never mind the fact that his nephew pulled it off by fucking accident.<br />
This whole scene raises so many questions, such as the aforementioned one about why Luke is using his dad's old Lightsaber instead of the one he built himself and has been using for thirty years. One would think that if he held such an attachment to it, he wouldn't have thrown it over his shoulder at the start of the movie. Another being the fact that the dice he took from the Falcon at the start of the movie vanish when he dies, despite the fact that we saw objects being transferred across the projection previously. Not to mention, Luke's a healthy fifty-two-year-old warrior who spent most of his life in front-line military service, and the rest of it he spent working on machines on a moisture farm, he should be in tip-top physical shape. What I'm saying here is that Luke would have easily survived the fight if he'd been there in-person rather than using The Force as his personal holonet. Not to mention, the hero of the Rebellion, the last of the Jedi, a man who beat Darth Vader in combat, the man who destroyed the first Death Star, who tanked more Force Lightning than most of the Jedi who previously experienced it combined, Rogue Leader, Jedi Master, General Luke "The impossible is what I do" Skywalker goes out not in an epic Lightsaber battle over the fate of the galaxy, but because of the strain brought on by using a Force power that was previously shown to not be strenuous at all and actually kind of easy to use by total accident. You mean to tell me that Rey and Kylo Ben are stronger than him? Piss off, I don't believe that for a second.<br />
After what remains of the Rebels evacuate from the base to send out a distress signal (that isn't picked up by Lando for some reason) we get some speech from Leia to Rey about rebuilding things that were broken in regards to both Anakin's Lightsaber and the New Republic, but that rings somewhat hollow knowing that Disney had an entire year to re-shoot this movie to account for Carrie Fisher's death and the fact that Luke crucially didn't teach Rey how to build and maintain a Lightsaber in her time on the island with him. Granted, neither did Yoda when Luke was on Dagobah, but considering what Luke had to go through to build his Lightsaber between <i>Episode V </i>and <i>Episode VI</i>, and the fact that one of the first things Jedi learn is how to build and maintain their Lightsabers, one would think that Luke would have brought that up at some point, perhaps even leading to Rey constructing a saberstaff akin to the one Darth Maul used in <i>The Phantom Menace</i>, but that would add a bit too much unique variety into the movie, now wouldn't it?<br />
All in all, this film is what one would get if you took all of the bad decisions made in the prequels, distilled them to their very worst and then used that to fill the gaps between randomly arranged scenes and set-pieces from other parts of the <i>Star Wars</i> franchise, primarily from <i>Episode V </i>and <i>Episode VI</i>, but also from <i>Rebels</i> and various EU sources as well. From <i>The Empire Strikes Back </i>we get the plot-twists, even going so far as to rip off the false revelation from the end of that film. You see, in the script for <i>Episode V</i>, and in the dialogue recorded by David Prowse, the primary suit-actor for Darth Vader, the revelation was that Obi-Wan killed Anakin Skywalker, not that Darth Vader was actually Anakin. The revelation that Luke tried to kill Ben before his big turn to the Dark Side mirrors that somewhat uncannily. Then there's the fact that Holdo's big sacrifice has been done a number of times before. Green Leader did it in <i>Return of the Jedi</i>, as did a CR90 Correllian Corvette, not to mention the time Rogue Squadron ran an unmanned transport into a shield generator during the Fondor shipyard assault, or in <i>Star Wars Rebels</i>, when<i> Phoenix Nest</i> rammed an Interdictor cruiser to allow Ezra Bridger to escape and call for Rebel reinforcements, and that was way more moving when Commander Sato and his men did it than it was when Holdo did her schtick. The Porgs, much like the Ewoks, exist mostly to sell toys, Luke has basically been transformed into discount Yoda, there's literally a Force cave that fucks with one's perceptions, the fact that the movie ends the way <i>Empire </i>starts, the main villain's right-hand man turning on him and killing him, parental revelations, the Jedi character spending most of the movie training away from their friends and allies before rushing back to help them and getting into a fight, a direct confrontation with the main villain within his ship as he shows off the destruction of the heroes friends and allies, torturing the hero, attempts to turn them to the Dark Side that fail, the villain's right-hand man telling the hero that "Together, we can rule the galaxy," an offer that the hero refuses, a clearly outmatched opponent going up against a seasoned veteran who's clearly messing with him, for a film that's so caught up in "buccking convention" it sure seems to rip off a lot of stuff. Not that everyone's as savvy as I am, I once heard someone at the local library call <i>Jupiter Ascending </i>a "very good and unique film" and I had to stifle a bout of raucous laughter.<br />
Once one moves beyond the stolen elements, one comes to the decisions that just didn't work. For one thing, the characterization of Luke Skywalker is abysmal to even casual fans of the series, and for weird obsessives like me who've read all of the books and played most of the games, it's absolutely atrocious. Luke Skywalker was my hero growing up, more than Spider-Man or Superman to be honest, and this movie betrayed everything that Luke stood for. He gave up, he tried to turn away a potential student, he tried to kill his nephew in his sleep, he didn't care when Han died, he turned away from The Force, he abandoned his friends and the Republic he fought tooth and nail to restore, he left his X-Wing at the bottom of the lake because of apathy, and if R2-D2 hadn't been there he wouldn't have even tried to train Rey. There's an entire subplot (the one with Finn and Rose) that wouldn't exist if the New Republic military forces were the slightest bit competent, which incidentally extends the movie to its somewhat ludicrous runtime. If all of the running time was dedicated to showing Luke training Rey and the siege, then this movie wouldn't have felt like it was stretched too thin, despite the fact that it's the longest film in the franchise. "Hyperspace tracking" is a brand new thing that seems like it was introduced simply to stretch out the plot. It would have made perfect sense if that turned out to be fake and Holdo was just feeding information to the First Order, in fact, it would have been an impressive twist. Holdo was already an unlikable bitch, making her a villain would just be logical. Plus it would open up time for Rey to have literally any character development. She doesn't grow, she doesn't change, she doesn't really suffer through her training, she just sort of does stuff, figures things out without practicing them, and then has an awesome sword-fight with her boyfriend, who has the more interesting arc. Ben has an arc over these two movies, but in this movie, Rian Johnson and Snoke alike are attempting to turn him into Darth Vader despite the fact that Ben has far less passion for what he's doing than Vader ever did. Plus, the only time he's ever really passionate about anything is when he's with Rey, and it's a shame they basically tanked all chances of their relationship working because Adam Driver and Daisy Ridley have good chemistry together despite the fact that Rian Johnson can't write characters to react normally or logically. Ben cared enough about his mother to not kill her, and I'll bet you that Han was the one to ignite that Lightsaber in The Force Awakens, which would imply that Ben isn't really evil, but given the fact that Rian Johnson appears to have ignored all aspects of proper storytelling and character arcs I doubt that that's where this will go now. Ben and Rey's fight doesn't make any sense from a character perspective since the two of them spent the entire movie bonding and learning about each other. In fact, the modicum of good development Rey gets is with Ben. Speaking of the Solo/Skywalker family, Leia's vastly out of character too. She's giving Poe shit for doing the kind of suicidal super-weapon run he did in the previous movie and the same kind of suicidal runs that her brother's elite squad used to do routinely. Runs that we know work, as was demonstrated when Luke destroyed the first Death Star and when Wedge and Lando destroyed the second. Suicide runs on super-weapons are par for the course when you're fighting a bunch of overspending Imperials who would rather blow shit up than conquer it. Thirty years down the line and a few hours after the last time, you ran one of these assaults, you picked a hell of a time to take a stand on that Princess. Then there's Holdo. When she takes command, Poe asks her what the hell they're supposed to be doing, and she admonishes him for not following Leia's orders, and in doing so reveals her utter ignorance of the New Republic military Ranking system. When Poe was demoted, he was Commander Dameron, and the rank immediately below that was Major, not Captain the way Holdo implies. Given the fact that she's enshrined as a martyr in this film, I'll bet you that Rian Johnson simply doesn't know how the ranking system works. Also, you'll notice that throughout the entire review I never once referred to them as "The Resistence," and there's a reason for that. One being that that's a stupid name when they were previously known as The Rebel Alliance, another being the fact that the reason it's called that is straight up moronic. While looking into the new canon, I found out that the military forces we follow in this aren't the military arm of the New Republic, but an independent militia created by former Alliance members when the New Republic government decided it would be a good idea to open themselves up the same way the Old Republic did and disband their armed forces, never mind the fact that that kind of weakness was why the CIS thought they could get away with splitting off in the first place. Apparently, Leia's protests were ignored because it came out that her father was Darth Vader. Which is ludicrous, because the people who knew that were either too smart to let that slip or dead! The official story was that she was the daughter of Bail and Breha Organa, and the official story about what happened to Anakin was that Darth Vader killed him, so if anyone found out she was adopted they'd only be able to trace it back to a secret marriage between Senator Padmé Amidala and General Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight. While he was in Imperial military service, he was officially know as Lord Darth Vader, not Anakin Skywalker. And all that aside, she was raised by one of the co-founders of the Rebel Alliance, and it's not like she was ever an Imperial collaborator. Hell, it's not like Vader even knew she existed, so even if it did come out I can't see why this would disgrace her in the first place. Plus, if anyone who remembered how the Empire came to power was part of the New Republic, they would have stopped that. Regardless, stupid contrived reasons, and stupid name. Plus, it's not like any of this is ever brought up in the movies, so for all we know they <i>are </i>the New Republic military, never mind the fact that they basically are. Maybe someday I'd consider a comparison between the real canon and the new canon, but right now that's not in the cards.<br />
Getting back to the movie, the simple fact that they put the trilogy climax a half hour before the second film was over and had to contrive a reason for there to be a second climax would be enough to condemn this movie on its own. It's like Rian Johnson took about half of <i>Episode V </i>and most of <i>Episode VI</i>, tossed them into a blender and served it up with bits of the EU and <i>Dawn of Justice </i>sprinkled throughout without thought nor care for how his decisions affected the franchise as a whole, and the sequel trilogy specifically. The remainder of The New Republic's military forces could probably fit into my backyard, any chance of redemption for Ben Solo has been squandered, Luke is dead, Snoke is dead and is Carrie Fisher is dead too. There's nowhere to go from here unless Abrams ret-cons huge chunks of this movie in <i>Episode IX</i>, most of the stakes are gone. The First Order has practically won at this point. In <i>Episode V, </i>there was a glimmer of hope. They still had stuff they could do. In <i>Empire</i>, Luke got his hand cut off, but he got a robotic one to replace it. Han was captured, sure, but the rest of the main cast escaped thanks to Lando, and the Rebellion didn't have its entire fleet destroyed for the sake of spectacle. I've got a lot of problems with <i>The Empire Strikes Back</i>, but objectively speaking it works as a middle installment of a trilogy, while this film is the plots of two, possibly even three films stitched together as ineptly as AT&T's internet service. Or Konami's ban-lists. Point being that this film shouldn't exist in the state that it's in. It's not subversive, it's not revolutionary, it's nothing we haven't seen before. It's a nonsensical piece of trash masquerading as a legitimate installment in my favorite franchise. I've said a lot of mean things about <i>Revenge of the Sith</i>, about how the only reason it ends the way it does is because of a series of uncharacteristically dumb decisions made by an otherwise smart, savvy and above all ruthless protagonist, but that's nothing compared to what I have to say about <i>The Last Jedi</i>. While Anakin makes a series of decisions that get progressively stupider as the movie goes on, everyone else in the film reacts the way one would expect them to. <i>Revenge of the Sith </i>relies on one character making numerous inane decisions for its plot to go down the way it did. <i>The Last Jedi </i>relies on just about every important character doing at least one thing wrong. The bombers get destroyed because the New Republic are idiots and didn't test their bombers, Poe stages a mutiny because Holdo was an idiot and didn't explain her plan, Finn and Rose get caught because they were idiots and didn't follow parking procedure, Luke causes Ben to turn to the Dark Side because he's an idiot, Luke dies because he's an idiot, Finn and Rose get sold out because they're idiots, Snoke dies because he's an idiot, Ben and Rey engage in domestic violence because they're idiots, Ben goes down to fight with his uncle because he's an idiot, Ben doesn't call off the attack that would probably kill his mother because he's an idiot. Nothing in this movie happens because the characters are reacting the way they naturally would, it happens because Rian Johnson wanted it to happen that way. Incidentally, just about everything in this movie takes way too long to happen. The timing of every action, especially in circumstances where the characters are supposedly pressed for time takes an eternity, and for every criticism I ever had of how George Lucas writes and directs, at least he knows how to make an urgent scene feel urgent. Just about every shot takes a few seconds too long to feel natural, like this is the anime adaptation of <i>Dragon Ball Z</i> and they're trying to fill time. Except that some of the filler in <i>DBZ </i>was at least somewhat interesting. Lucas could add gravitas and weight to every scene that needed it, regardless of his ability to wrangle actors and performances. In this film, almost every scene has this floaty feel to it, as if there's a fundamental emotional disconnect between the audience and the film, like every frame is doing its best to alienate people who like good filmmaking. Part of the reason for that would be that it introduces Force powers that push the limits of credibility and willing suspension of disbelief. Yes, this is a series about telekinesis-using space-monks who can shoot lightning from their hands and fight with laser swords, but the difference was that their powers had visible limitations in the past. One would think that in the thousands of years the Jedi Order had existed, someone would have been able to figure out how to project across time and space, or summon electricity from the sky. This is a group that figured enough out about The Force to know that one's sensitivity to it is directly correlated to Midichlorian concentration. The old Jedi Order had the study of the Force down to a science, and in all their time they didn't figure out how to project across the galaxy, yet two teenagers were able to figure it out by accident without the support of anyone? Not to mention that their telepathic communication doesn't make any sense when we find out they're not related. Leia and Luke were twins, Luke and Vader were father and son and they could sense each other rather strongly over long distances, but finding out that Rey is just some nobody from nowhere? That doesn't make any sense given what we know about how this is supposed to work. Then there's the fact that Luke dies something of a nothing death. Qui-Gon died in battle, so did Jango Fett, and Count Dooku. Mace Windu and Kit Fisto died trying to arrest Palpatine, Darth Maul died facing off with his mortal enemy, Obi-Wan became one with The Force buying valuable time for Luke and Han to get off the Death Star after having disabled the tractor-beams, Biggs Darklighter died in the Death Star run, Tarkin died closing in on crushing the Rebel Alliance, Yoda died of old age after several centuries of life, Anakin died saving his son, Palpatine died when his apprentice turned on him, Han died trying to bring his son home, Luke dies in a hologram battle because he used a taxing untested Force power instead of hopping in the Falcon with Rey and Chewie when they left. In making Luke's last stand take place by proxy, they also reduce the level of badass of the preceding scene where Luke takes everything the First Order was able to throw at him. This is Luke Skywalker for god's sake! If anyone could deflect every turbolaser pointed at him and bend every projectile around him, it would be Luke! I can buy Luke doing that entirely on his own, sans any stupid extra powers. And before anyone gets on me for criticising the new powers with the now tired comparisons to the introduction of the other powers, allow me to say this. Transporting objects and projecting a solid hologram through absolutely nothing and calling a bolt of lightning down from the sky is very different from shooting lightning from your hands and using telepathy to read minds and influence people, or running fast. Hell, it's different from preserving your consciousness in the Living Force, and I'll explain why. First off, consider the fact that a Force-user can move things with their mind from a distance, then consider the fact that when air rubs together, it creates static electricity, which creates lightning. That, taken with the fact that living creatures basically rely on electrical impulses to stimulate muscles and for signals in the nervous system, it actually kind of makes sense that a Force-user could create lightning and direct it at a person, especially since humans are mostly water. As for running fast, one could be Force-pushing themselves along their path with their feet, it's not a difficult concept to grasp considering what we already know. Then there's preserving one's consciousness in the Living Force. Since The Force flows through everything, and those sensitive to it can influence it to do things, and given the fact that the brain kind of runs on data signals of a sort, and The Force can be used to program simple computers in the form of Holocrons, it then follows that one could copy one's appearance and mind into The Force. You take that with the long-standing tradition of ghosts in popular culture, and it makes perfect sense. How exactly is Force Projection supposed to work? Are they going to explain this in the next animated series or the current season of <i>Star Wars Rebels </i>or something? Regardless, I don't really see them being able to explain this or justify it in any way. Maybe you could make a case for them using astral projection and The Force to make the apparition seem solid, but considering the fact that we saw seawater from the island Rey was on splash Ben in his Imperial whatever the hell it was, they're not just doing that, they're literally transporting things. But why does the dice that Luke took from the Falcon disappear when he dies then? Why, when Luke attacked Kylo from across the galaxy did it not affect him a whole lot, but when Luke was running circles around him later on did it exhaust Luke enough to kill him? What's going on? Where's the consistency? What the hell is wrong with this movie?<br />
<i>The Last Jedi</i> strikes me as something written by the kind of fan who loves to write over-the-top fanfiction, like the kind that gives the trio from<i> Harry Potter </i>ancient elemental powers, or where The Doctor can use The Force, or other stuff that makes every single struggle in the series pointless. At this point the Force-users are so overpowered that most of the non-Force threats in the franchise and even other Force-users aren't a big threat to the Force-users in the series, or maybe they are if they can figure out a way to overexert the other or maybe this whole plotline and power-set doesn't make any sense.<br />
All in all, <i>Star Wars Episode VIII</i> is worse than anything George Lucas ever did. Sure, he ruined Anakin Skywalker in <i>Revenge of the Sith</i>, but just about everyone else got a fair shake, and while the prequels might have been technically inept, they had consistency, weight, and choreography backing them up. While far superior to the prequels and even the originals on a purely technical level, from a filmmaking perspective it's like comparing the Bayformers films to <i>The Transformers: The Movie</i>, in that there's no competition. Yes, the line delivery is less wooden, and yes there's way less bizarre CGI failures, but this film is operating on a level of storytelling incompetence I haven't seen in a long time. I don't think I could have written a story this bad on purpose, let alone by accident. Back when <i>The Force Awakens </i>came out, I wrote up a short pitch for what I wanted <i>Episode VIII</i> to do, sort of like the pitch I wrote in my head for what I wanted the new <i>Power Rangers </i>movie to do, except that I actually published the <i>Star Wars </i>pitch in a Facebook group, and it basically went as follows: When Luke meets up with Rey, we get insight into her back-story and some explanation about how Luke and Mara Jade left her on Jakku so that Ben, Snoke and the other Knights of Ren wouldn't be able to take her if they died facing off. Ben would have been tempted to the Dark Side by Snoke, who was an Inquisitor who served under Lord Vader from around the time <i>Star Wars Rebels </i>is set. Snoke would have killed Mara Jade in his and Ben's duel with her and Luke. Luke and a loyal student he could trust, probably Corran Horn from Rogue Squadron would have searched out the old Jedi homeland to try and figure out what went wrong and if there was anything they could do to overcome Snoke and the Knights of Ren, such as uncovering old powers and techniques lost to time. Horn would have wound up on the Jedi home-world, Tython, while Luke would be where he was when Rey found him. Neither of them would have made a lot of progress, but Luke would train Rey in the ways of the Jedi. He'd teach her to build a Saberstaff, show her how to duel, how to meditate, how to do all of the things he'd learned. The First Order would be hot on the trails of the New Republic forces, and Rey would return to the fleet against Luke's wishes to duel with Ben. Luke would remain behind for a short time, searching for new information before warping in when all seems lost to save the day. He'd be shouting flyboy lingo and then hop into the lightsaber fight to the tune of Duel of the Fates, coming down into the shot with his GREEN Lightsaber blazing the way Darth Vader came into shot in the finale of <i>Rebels </i>Season 2 and drive Ben back and rescuing Rey after she got a limb chopped off. I hadn't gotten nearly as far in planning out what I thought would be good for <i>Episode IX</i>, but the ending was basically the same as the throne-room scene in this movie, but Luke would have been training Finn in <i>Episode IX </i>as well, and when Ben killed Snoke, he would have said "I am here to finish what my grandfather started. The complete and utter annihilation of the Sith." and right before he said the last three words, he would have fiddled with his Lightsaber and ignited it through Snoke's back, revealing a purple blade. He, Luke, Rey and Finn would have then fought their way out of the palace or ship or whatever and Luke, Ben and Corran Horn would reveal that Ben was working undercover to bring down what was left of the Empire from within, and that the other students that he took with him (And it would have been a good idea for one of them to be Kyp Durron) were installed in places of importance within The First Order, so as to allow them to completely dismantle the Imperial Remnant at a moment's notice. Starkiller Base would have come to fruition too quickly, and Han would have ignited Ben's saber himself to prove to Snoke that Ben was really on his side. It's all a bit rough, and I know I'm not the most objective person to analyze my own story, but I can't help but feel like I came up with a better story than Rian Johnson did. I've heard that he started working on <i>The Last Jedi </i>before <i>The Force Awakens </i>was even done. One of the things that makes me question Rian Johnson's credentials in this movie is a line that implies that The Force created Rey to be Ben's equal and opposite, a balancing weight in the game of The Force. I don't know if Rian Johnson realizes that The Force can't actually create life on its own, and that the Jedi only speculated that was possible when they found out Anakin didn't have a father. Palpatine used The Force to create a child with incredible Force sensitivity, which turned into incredible Force power. Which Rian Johnson would know if he'd watched the extended cut of <i>Revenge of the Sith</i>. Deleted scenes have been canonical up until now, when Johnson decided to make his own version of Rey's first meeting with Poe that contradicted the version that Abrams shot for <i>The Force Awakens </i>that got cut to meet the running time, but then again, Johnson didn't enough care to not contradict previous films or even himself within the same film, so I guess I shouldn't expect any more out of him. What really gets me is that Gareth Edwards, the director of <i>Rogue One</i> was not only an extra in the movie, but was also finished with <i>Rogue One </i>by the time <i>The Last Jedi </i>began shooting. J. J. Abrams didn't even have any directorial projects going on at the time, and he's going to be directing <i>Episode IX</i>, so why didn't they just have him direct it and bring back the other two guys who wrote <i>The Force Awakens</i>? Why did Disney not take Abrams proven success with <i>Episode VII</i> as a sign that he should write and direct the rest of the trilogy?<br />
In the end, despite how good the previous two films have been, I can't help but think that we would have been better off in the hands of George Lucas. Apparently, Disney was so impressed by <i>The Last Jedi </i>that they gave this Zack Snyder-wannabe an entire trilogy, and boy oh boy, I could not be less enthused. <i>Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi </i>gets a <span style="font-size: x-large;">2.5*</span>. I'm out. I've literally been working on this every day since the movie came out and I'm glad to be done finally.<br />
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If you want to support the site, hit up out Patreon, at <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews">www.patreon.com/VariousReviews</a>Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-37647919401532059762017-12-24T19:43:00.000-06:002017-12-24T19:43:21.785-06:00Top Six Best Movies of 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Honorable mentions go out to <i>Suicide Squad </i>for managing despite massive studio interference to somehow make a better superhero movie than <i>Captain America: Civil War</i> and a better ensemble action movie than all three <i>Expendables </i>films, but all in all, it moved a bit too fast to earn itself a spot on this list. I'd also like to give a shout-out to <i>Finding Dory</i>, while it was a damn good movie, it still wasn't <i>The Incredibles 2</i>. <i>Jason Bourne </i>was also pretty good, having less shaky-cam in it than the last canonical Bourne movie, but it wasn't quite as enthralling as it possibly could have been. <i>Warcraft </i>also gets a nod because it had a lot of potential and pretty visuals, all of which were ultimately wasted on a mediocre fantasy movie.<br />
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#6: <i>X-Men Apocalypse</i><br />
Coming out later in the same month as <i>Captain America: Civil War</i> was the best thing that could have happened to <i>X-Men Apocalypse</i>. After seeing my favorite superhero destroyed I was in the mood for some classic, animated-series-style X-Men, and boy did they deliver. While not being a perfect adaptation of the Apocalypse storyline from the comics, this film was at least thematically similar and felt like the Apocalypse storyline, which is saying something considering what Tom Rothman and Brett Ratner did to the Dark Phoenix Saga. Apocalypse actually feels like the ancient mutant monster he's supposed to be, and above all, this feels like an X-Men movie more than it feels like a muddled fever-dream put together by someone who had only ever vaguely heard of the X-Men and the storyline concepts from people on the street.<br />
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#5: <i>Doctor Strange</i><br />
After the disaster that was <i>Captain America: Civil War</i>, and the complete mess that was the 2016 Marvel television lineup, I wasn't expecting <i>Doctor Strange </i>to turn out as good as it did. In a lot of ways, this movie was the <i>Ant-Man</i> of 2016, an unexpectedly good movie that followed on from a bafflingly bad Marvel crossover film. Benedict Cumberbatch dominates this role like he does any other, and his American accent never once slips or sounds unnatural. I think that this movie might be one of the few classic origin-stories we've seen in recent years, all the while being far better at telling its story than almost every other equivalent it had in the early 2000's. In a lot of ways, this movie reminds me a lot of films of the 1970's and 80's, films like <i>Commando</i>, <i>Ghostbusters</i>,<i> Top Gun</i>, <i>Rocky</i>, <i>Alien</i>, <i>Star Wars</i>, and <i>Kickboxer</i>. They start, they introduce the heroes, the villains, the driving conflict of the plot, the hero does whatever they need to to prepare, the heroes and villains face off, then they face off again in the climax. Simple, to the point, paced out perfectly, and creates a satisfying conclusion. Hardly any films do that these days, most of the time they either spend way too much time on minutiae (<i>Ghostbusters: Answer The Call</i>) or speed past all the relevant details for meaningless action (<i>The Expendables</i>)<br />
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#4: <i>Deadpool</i><br />
2016 was a hell of a year to not be a mainline Marvel film. Marvel Studios only managed to produce one good movie based on their properties, while Fox managed to produce two. Deadpool is a character Fox never wanted to make a movie out of, but thanks to fan demand and some leaked test footage, he finally got his own film. Sections of the film were reportedly shot without permission from the studio, and the filmmakers managed to work around a smaller budget to create a damn great movie. Here's hoping that when <i>Deadpool 2 </i>comes along it manages to top this movie in every way.<br />
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#3: <i>Rogue One: A Star Wars Story</i><br />
I was somewhat cautious about <i>Rogue One</i> going into it. I thought it might just be a soulless cash-in Disney was making to wring every bit of money they could out of the <i>Star Wars </i>universe, but it actually did the impossible by making <i>A New Hope</i>, one of the greatest films ever made, into a better movie. I was stunned by the storytelling, the effects, and the continuity between it and the original <i>Star Wars</i>. They managed to resurrect dead actors and make old ones look young again, all through incredible use of CGI that would make George Lucas weep. <i>Rogue One </i>is not just one of the best <i>Star Wars </i>movies ever made, but an example of how to do a prequel right. It might even be higher on the list if they'd managed to get a good take of Darth Vader's lines, and hadn't criminally underutilized Mads Mikkelsen.<br />
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#2: <i>Star Trek Beyond</i><br />
When I first watched this film, I was awestruck. This was one of a very few movies that I've watched that I immediately thought "This is a Best Picture contender." By the end of the movie I was convinced that this would be in my top five (now six) at the end of the year. <i>Star Trek Beyond</i> is the best of the three <i>Star Trek </i>reboot movies, not that the previous ones weren't pretty damn good too, but that this was a cut above the rest. <i>Star Trek Beyond </i>is easily the best <i>Trek </i>film since <i>First Contact</i>, and I don't say that lightly. Not only does it feel a lot like a <i>Star Trek </i>movie, it also feels like it could be a giant episode of the TV series, which for once isn't a negative aspect of the film.<br />
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#1: <i>Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice Ultimate Edition</i><br />
Speaking of being a good year to not be a Marvel Studios film, I looked back hard. I watched a lot of movies from 2016 to try and populate this list, but not a single one of them compared to the sheer stature of <i>Dawn of Justice</i>. I debated whether I wanted to make <i>Star Trek Beyond </i>my best movie of 2016 or this, but in the end, <i>BvS </i>won out. With hidden depths and allegories requiring multiple viewings to fully comprehend, even with everything it had working against it in terms of studio interference and blatant critical bias, this was almost certainly the single greatest film of the year. The performances of everyone involved greatly impressed me, the score from Hans Zimmer and Junkie XL is stupendous, the writing and pacing is supurb, and Zack Snyder's direction manages to set new standards for filmmaking that I don't think will be able to be topped for a long time.<br />
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Images from impawards.comAlex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-43378005515282318332017-12-23T15:27:00.002-06:002017-12-23T15:27:59.672-06:00Top Five Worst Movies of 2016<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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#5: <i>Warcraft</i><br />
I was torn over this movie when I reviewed it, but over time I ultimately decided there were too many problems with <i>Warcraft </i>to not put it on the list. From the lack of European accents, to the fact that we seem to be starting this series in the middle of a trilogy, to the strange editing, as much as I hate to admit it, this film just kinda sucks. No two ways about it, the people working on this movie really screwed up what could have been an amazing trilogy of films. I hope a sequel comes along, or a prequel, but at this point, I doubt that that's likely to happen. Shame really, I would love to see more of this if they'd bother to do it right next time.<br />
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#4: <i>Ghostbusters: Answer The Call</i><br />
Of course this movie was going to be here. I had a spot on this list reserved for <i>Answer The Call </i>as soon as I saw the movie. It's not bad enough to put higher up on the list, but <i>Jesus fuckmothering Christ </i>this managed to find new ways to not be funny, or to fail as a movie. <i>Warcraft </i>was at least a beautiful movie, <i>Answer The Call</i> somehow manages to screw up even the ghost effects. CGI bleeding out of the letterbox, ghosts that look like they were ripped from <i>Luigi's Mansion</i>, and a whole movie made from less than half of another one? Sony, why did you think this would work?<br />
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#3: <i>The Angry Birds Movie</i><br />
For as much as <i>Answer The Call </i>caused me to sigh with contempt, <i>The Angry Birds Movie </i>actually made me kind of mad, funnily enough. Not wildly mad, just angry enough at the premise, the characters, the plot and the running time that I remembered it enough to put it in this slot of the list. This movie is the most copy-paste, derivative children's film that I've seen in years. Notice that I said "children's film," <i>Answer The Call </i>and my number two pick are also massively derivative.<br />
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#2: <i>Sausage Party</i><br />
Any other year, this might have been the worst movie released. With the same plot and characters as <i>Angry Birds</i>, but more irritating characters and story, <i>Sausage Party </i>actually stirred up a rather significant amount of anger in me. This movie can go die in a fire and I hope we never get any sequels. For as much as this movie should work, it just fucking doesn't. Fuck this movie, but special thanks to Seth Rogen, who apparently liked my review (Or at least liked my tweet about it without reading the review).<br />
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#1: <i>Captain America: Civil War</i><br />
I heavily debated what I would pick as the worst movie of the year, but all in all, there wasn't a single movie in 2016 that made me as angry, sad, and disappointed as <i>Captain America: Civil War</i>. Made solely to cash in on the superhero versus trend that Marvel figured would start with <i>Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice</i>, but Marvel seemed to forget that they were the trendsetters of the last decade, not the trend-followers. With an incoherent plot that depends entirely on coincidence, the Russo's not only managed to screw up Iron Man, Captain America and Black Widow, but also Baron Zemo and freaking <i>Spider-Man</i>. "Miscast" is an understatement when referring to Tom Holland's version of Spider-Man. His powers are inconsistent, he's obviously hiding his foreign accent, his suit is somehow less comic-accurate than the one from the Raimi movies or <i>The Amazing Spider-Man</i>, and he literally just shows up for two scenes and then is gone from the movie. Iron Man reacts like an idiot, Captain America was a moron for not telling Tony about his parents being killed by Hydra, Zemo's plan shouldn't work, and Black Panther doesn't stop the fighting once he captures Zemo. I covered this piece of glorified trash enough in my review though, so you can search for that on the site if you want to know more about why this movie is a complete disaster.<br />
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For the most part, Sony dominated this list, which isn't a surprise considering what they were putting out last year.<br />
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<span style="font-family: "times new roman";">If you want to support the site, check out our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews" target="_blank">Patreon</a>.</span>Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-1142868748537916612017-11-23T01:04:00.001-06:002017-12-23T15:23:30.562-06:00Top Five Best Movies of 2015Yeah, it's late but at this point, I've been sitting on this too long to just delete it, so here we go.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4T7s3F7RqZS2kvWJXr3R-dbQrv0Z0QAhDrzaqVHAHYoSSQU64HFZVfhA24m9bMae2385txzFdHomkDAF0m6LaafA20yIs4jUD9QCgViOxpFJ9vVn6ljjXkb9qIt2NLjpKh5dR9jMC3_B/s1600/ant_man_ver3_xlg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="900" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi4T7s3F7RqZS2kvWJXr3R-dbQrv0Z0QAhDrzaqVHAHYoSSQU64HFZVfhA24m9bMae2385txzFdHomkDAF0m6LaafA20yIs4jUD9QCgViOxpFJ9vVn6ljjXkb9qIt2NLjpKh5dR9jMC3_B/s320/ant_man_ver3_xlg.jpg" width="216" /></a></div>
#5: Ant-Man<br />
Right off the heels of <i>Avengers:</i> <i>Age of Ultron</i>, <i>Ant-Man </i>was a surprisingly good movie when the MCU was taking such a horrible turn for the worse. This film was better than it had any right to be, especially considering how bad <i>Age of Ultron</i> turned out to be.<br />
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#4: <i>Kamen Rider Drive: Surprise Future</i><br />
What can I say? This was a good year to be paying attention to anything but the big Hollywood films. In fact, I probably spent more of 2015 watching <i>Kamen Rider </i>movies and episodes than I spent thinking about the mainstream films of the year. I don't know, <i>Kamen Rider Drive</i> connected with me better than <i>Age of Ultron</i> did, and I'd been following the MCU for almost a decade by the time that film came out.<br />
While <i>Surprise Future</i> ties rather heavily into the plot of the corresponding television show, it's a very good movie regardless. Part of that has to do with the fact that it had a large general development of the characters over the course of the series, but it all comes down to the amazing writing, acting, and directing in this movie. It's all up to the standard of the rest of the series, and all of it falls together rather perfectly with the preceding and succeeding episodes.<br />
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<span id="goog_63819830"></span><span id="goog_63819831"></span>#3: <i>Straight Outta Compton</i><br />
I knew as soon as I saw this film that it was going to end up on my best of the year list. This film is an emotional journey through the lives and careers of the members of NWA, and it bloody rules. If you're a fan, it's a good movie. If you're not, you'll be a fan by the end.<br />
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#2: <i>Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens</i><br />
Another movie I knew was going to be on my best list as soon as I saw it. <i>The Force Awakens </i>is the best Star Wars film since <i>Return of the Jedi</i>, easily. But then again we already knew that from my review.<br />
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#1: Blood Punch<br />
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Like this is any real surprise. <i>Blood Punch </i>is easily the best film to come out of the wasteland year that 2015 turned out to be. <i>Blood Punch </i>turned out to be one of the most unique, funniest horror films I've ever seen, and it deserves all the praise it can possibly get. After some consideration, I finally decided it was better than my #2 pick. If you haven't seen it, buy it on Blu-ray, it's a movie you'll want to see over and over again to pick out the details.<br />
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The hardest thing about putting this list together wasn't deciding the top spot, I had the top four spots solidified by the end of January of 2016. The tough part was remembering a fifth good movie from 2015 that I'd watched, and eventually, I remembered<i> Ant-Man</i>.<br />
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Images from impawards.com, http://kamenrider.wikia.com, and www.bloodpunchthemovie.comAlex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-47207220820534827262017-09-05T18:46:00.001-05:002017-11-23T01:01:24.840-06:00Mary Skelter Nightmares (Nathan Green)<br />
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2017 has been an interesting year for video games. We’ve had a number of excellent new releases this year, the PS4 and Xbox One have been churning on with another successful year and Nintendo rolled out the Switch, a console that many people are gushing over but I’m still 50/50 on.</div>
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Among all of this however the humble PlayStation Vita, now over 5 years old is still very much alive and kicking with new games still coming out for it.</div>
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While 2017 hasn’t been anywhere near as active in terms of vita games as 2016 had been we have still seen some very solid releases this year. Out of the 2017 line up however there has been one game that I have had my eye on since the announcement trailer. That game is Mary Skelter, a DRPG developed by Compile Heart and published by Idea Factory.</div>
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The first thing that caught my eye about the game was how much of a drastic departure it was from what Compile Heart usually does. The company is more known for it’s Neptunia series so when I saw that Mary Skelter was going to be a game with a much darker theme to it with a much heavier focus on plot I was rather surprised. Granted at the time I never thought it would actually get localized so imagine my surprise when an official localization was announced by Idea Factory.</div>
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I’ve been looking forward to playing and reviewing this game for quite a while so without any further fanfare lets begin exploring the jail.</div>
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Story:</div>
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Right off the bat Mary Skelter provides a very interesting setting and premise. The opening details that the world of Mary Skelter takes place in a sort of post apocalyptic unamed city in Japan that many years ago was taken over by a race known as Marchins while the land around them transformed in a living, breathing jail.</div>
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Our two main characters, Jack and Alice, are one of many people trapped in this living jail, forced to live their days undergoing various types of torture in order to appease the living jail they are trapped inside. Things change for the pair one day though when they are suddenly broken out of their cell by a girl who calls herself Red Riding Hood (yes, really).</div>
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They escape and join a group known as DAWN whose main goal is to escape this living jail that they’re inside. Naturally this involves Alice and Jack working with the other members of the DAWN to fight their way through various dungeons with a hope of escaping.</div>
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In terms of actual story, while not groundbreaking or anything Mary Skelter does manage to provide an interesting and rather unique premise with a decent amount of mystery and character interactions.</div>
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Overall while Mary Skelter doesn’t exactly sport a groundbreaking story what it has is certainly enjoyable and unique. It does feel like Compile Heart put a lot more effort into the premise, character interactions and the overall plot than they have in other titles which is really nice to see. It’s not going to win any awards any time soon but it’s certainly above average.</div>
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Gameplay:</div>
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Mary Skelter, as I mentioned earlier is a Dungeon Crawler RPG. DRPG’s have always been a bit of a mixed bag with me. Some of them I enjoy but some of them I just... don’t.</div>
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It doesn’t help that the last dungeon crawler title I actually reviewed was MeiQ Labyrinth of Death, a relatively mediocre DRPG also by Compile Heart. With that in mind the gameplay would really be what would make or break Mary Skelter and in this case I think Compile Heart hit the ball out of the park.</div>
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Mary Skelter plays like your traditional DRPG. Walk around dungeons in a first person perspective going between floors, solving the odd puzzle here and there and fighting enemies in turn based random encounter battles. The base DRPG formula remains relatively unchanged however that isn’t to say that Mary Skelter is just another bare bones DRPG, in fact it’s quite the opposite.</div>
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Where the gameplay in Mary Skelter starts to shine is in the smaller things that they have added or tweaked. The game adds a surprising number of unique mechanics which I haven’t seen before in other DRPG’s and they really work in the games favour.</div>
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The first and most often utilized of these mechanics is the Blood system. Alice and the various other characters you’ll run into throughout the game are known as Blood Maidens. Blood Maidens have the special power to wield what are called Blood Weapons as well as the ability to actually effectively fight the Marchins. Marchin blood also helps extend the powers of a Blood Maiden in battle allowing for higher damage output and other such goodies.</div>
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This is where the blood mechanic comes in. How this works is that each Blood Maiden has what is called a “Blood Splat Meter”. There are a few ways to fill up this meter. The first way is by exploiting enemy weak spots by using the correct elemental weakness. The second way is by performing what is called an Overkill which is usually triggered when a character deals a blow to an enemy that is more than enough to kill them (for example if I dealt 100 damage to an enemy with only 10 HP left).</div>
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Performing either of these actions fills the Blood Splat Meter which the player can then use to perform a few actions. Firstly if the meter fills up to the top then on their next turn the Blood Maiden will enter massacre mode which significantly boosts damage output as well as applying a minor HP and SP regen effect.</div>
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There is a downside though. As Blood Maidens are dealt more and more damage or get K.O’d the colour of the blood in the splat meter will start to grow darker. The darker the colour the higher the chance a Blood Maiden has of entering Blood Skelter mode.</div>
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Blood Skelter mode is something you REALLY want to avoid. Upon activation a maiden receives the buffs of massacre mode but will attack both enemies and party members without any rhyme or reason. It’s something you need to be constantly aware of while playing since if you end up overlooking it then it can come back to bite you fast.</div>
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Now there is a way to prevent and counteract blood skelter but I’ll touch on that later.</div>
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The second use of blood in the Splat Meter is through the act of Licking. Yes, you read that right, Licking.</div>
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The Lick option in the command menu lets you Lick the splattered blood off of a party member. Outside of being a bit weird this does actually have a use to it since the act of licking blood off a maiden actually applies a buff or boost to either one member or the whole party. This could be an HP regen effect, SP regen effect, stat boost etc.</div>
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The act of licking also empties the Blood Splat Meter so it can be a good way of buying yourself time if you have a maiden on the verge of entering blood skelter since it resets the meter.</div>
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Jack is also a member in the party but he plays a bit differently to the rest of the members. For starters he can’t attack, instead he has the ability to use items, guard a blood maiden to block them from damage and most importantly use his special weapon called a Mary Gun.</div>
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I say weapon but you use it more like a supporting item. The Mary Gun is the main way you prevent blood maidens from entering Blood Skelter.</div>
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In a nutshell, Jacks blood has the unique trait of being able to purge corruption from a blood maiden as well as completely reverse the effects of blood skelter. This does come at a cost though since you are literally using Jacks blood as ammunition. This means you can’t just go around spamming the thing willy nilly since you have to keep a close eye on your own blood supply.</div>
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The less blood you have remaining, the higher your chances of getting stunned and being unable to move after performing an action with the Mary Gun. You do have an option to generate blood when Jacks turn rolls around and most of the time if you play your cards right Jack’s blood supply will rarely drop below halfway (this is where strategic use of licking comes into play since it can buy you time to generate more blood to purge the corruption).</div>
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It’s a very well implemented system which adds a new layer of strategy to the gameplay while not coming off as a half assed addition they threw in at the last minute.</div>
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I’d like to also commend the games pacing in terms of how it introduces new gameplay elements. The Mary gun and the whole corruption gameplay element doesn’t even come into play until the second dungeon giving the player time to learn the ins and outs of licking and massacre mode.</div>
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It’s one of the few DRPG games I know of where gameplay mechanics are sensibly introduced at a good pace so they don’t overwhelm the player with a bunch of stuff they need to get their head around right from the first dungeon.</div>
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Outside of the battle system there are a few unique gameplay elements as well, the first of these being blood abilities.</div>
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Blood abilities basically function as ways that you can interact with the dungeon in various ways to open up new paths and solve puzzles. Each maiden has their own unique ability and they all get used pretty equally. It’s a simple system but it works.</div>
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By far the most useful ability though is Alice’s rabbit hole ability. This essentially lets you create a save point anywhere you want in a dungeon as well as being able to use this point to escape from the dungeon back to the town if you need to. You have no idea how much of a godsend this has been at times. It essentially lets you save anywhere and provides a convenient way to warp back to town in an emergency if you need to.</div>
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Another element is the jail bonus system. This is basically made up of three meters consisting of Hunger, Libido and Sleep.</div>
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Filling any of these meters up starts a roulette which will grant a bonus to the party. I found that hunger was usually the easiest one to fill up with the next being libido and finally sleep. Really outside of a bonus here and there it doesn’t do much else and it’s really the only system I consider to be half baked in terms of execution.</div>
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Finally we have Murder Hunts. This is basically a chase mechanic. How this works is that each dungeon has their own boss enemy called a Nightmare. During your exploring at random intervals the dungeon may begin to grow dark. This is the sign of a nightmare being nearby. If it stays dark long enough then the dungeons Nightmare will appear and trigger a Murder Hunt. </div>
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When a Murder Hunt is triggered the minimap will disappear and some text will pop up showing how close/far you are from the nightmare. In order to complete the sequence you have to escape from said nightmare which is easier said than done especially when you’ve lost your minimap.</div>
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If you happen to run into a random encounter during a Murder Hunt then you’ll trigger a Booked Battle. This is the same as a normal battle except the Nightmare will continue attempting to find you and if he does will start attacking you as well. Basically you want to get out of a booked battle as soon as possible. Winning a booked battle does have an advantage though as the resulting blood splatter on the walls of the dungeon will actually light up the surrounding area.</div>
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Now you might be thinking, “why can’t I just fight the nightmare?”. Simple answer. For the vast majority of the dungeon the nightmare is invincible. There is nothing you can do but run from him. </div>
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This whole Murder Hunt system is pretty well implimented and actually adds a pretty effective element of horror to the game since these murder hunts happen at complete random so as you explore the dungeon you’re constantly aware that you could run into a Nightmare at any moment.</div>
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The darkening of the environment and complete removal of your minimap during a murder hunt only extenuates this fear since now you have no way of actually planning where you’re going to go, how you’re going to get there etc. You have to go off what you know about the dungeon layout and just leg it and it’s incredibly effective.</div>
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My only gripe is I can’t really find a pattern in what the game actually counts as “escaping” the nightmare. I assumed it would just be distance but no patterns were popping up there. Then again you could argue that this works in the games favour since it means you don’t actually know how far you’ll have to run or for how long until you actually escape the nightmare so your mileage may vary.</div>
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What is interesting is that Murder Hunts and nightmare appearances in general only start to happen from the second floor of a dungeon onwards which is a design choice I can totally get behind since it helps compensate for the lack of a mini map in the Murder Hunts by giving the player a decent amount of time to get to grips with the overall structure of the dungeon they are in so they can do a bit of planning ahead when escaping the nightmare since they know a bit about the types of designs seen in this particular dungeon. It’s a small thing but it works incredibly well.</div>
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Speaking of Dungeons...</div>
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Graphics and Sound:</div>
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The dungeons in Mary Skelter are very well designed and this statement extends to the rest of the presentation in general. Each dungeon has a surprising amount of graphical detail put into it with its presentation. The first dungeon has a very obvious Alice in Wonderland motif going on with spinning clocks and playing cards and framed pictures on the wall shaking about on their own.</div>
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In stark contrast the second dungeon, a graveyard, has a lot of coffin looking objects which have their lids fall off when you walk past (something which actually caught me off guard the first few times) along with garden gnome looking things sitting in the background which every now and then shake and pulsate as if they were still just a little bit alive.</div>
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Every now and then though the game likes to go a bit uncanny valley with its visuals by mixing in something like an eyeball inside a wall or a red intestine like thing which stands in stark contrast to the rest of the area but really pushes home the fact that this place you’re exploring is indeed alive.</div>
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It’s this kind of attention to detail which I really like and Mary Skelter is full of stuff like this. It’s clear a lot of work and effort went into the presentation and graphic design and that has really paid off. Mary Skelter is an incredibly unique looking game which sticks out in amongst the growing pool of Vita DRPG’s. It gives the game a lot of personality and charm which makes the world of the game memorable.</div>
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Character art is very nicely drawn and each character has their own unique look. Since the majority of the characters in the game are based off characters from fairy tales a lot of the respective fairy tales are reflected in the designs of the character.</div>
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Cutscenes also use that trademark sort of pseudo 3D type look that Compile Heart games commonly have in their cutscenes and like always it looks really nice.</div>
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Sound wise it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The game has a superb opening theme and some other tracks that really stick out but some of the tracks do sound a little generic at times. On the bright side I haven’t really had any music tracks which have got on my nerves so that’s a plus.</div>
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The game has dual voice track support. The English dub is a pretty standard Idea Factory affair, not bad but not outstanding either. The Japanese dub is pretty well done though.</div>
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Sound design in dungeons is also relatively standard although there are some sound cues and use of spacial sound and stuff like that here and there so there is that.</div>
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Overall sound wise the game is fine but not groundbreaking. The visuals on the other hand are very well designed and have a lot of detail put into them and they truly help make the game stand out.</div>
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Verdict:</div>
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After MeiQ Labyrinth Of Death last year I will admit I was worried that this was going to be more of the same. Thankfully I was very wrong. Mary Skelter provides the player with an interesting and unique DRPG with well fleshed out mechanics, an interesting story and some utterly gorgeous presentation.</div>
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Mary Skelter is also commendable in that it provides a game that is accessible to players new to the DRPG genre while having more than enough in it to keep genre veterans happy. If you’ve never played a DRPG before and are looking for a good place to start then I highly recommend picking up Mary Skelter.</div>
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If you’ve played a load of DRPG’s before then I’d still recommend Mary Skelter to you. There’s a lot of unique stuff here which mixes up the DRPG formula which alone I feel makes it a worthwhile title to play.</div>
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Mary Skelter Nightmares gets a Highly Recommended</div>
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I know I haven’t been very active this year in terms of reviews. The vita might be starting to slow down release wise but there still are quality titles coming out for it and I’ll be sure to keep covering them. Until my next review this is BDVR Author Nathan Green signing off.</div>
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Mary Skelter Nightmares will be releasing September 19<sup>th</sup> in North America and September 22<sup>nd</sup> in Europe and Australia for PlayStation Vita.</div>
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Review Code Provided by Idea Factory International.</div>
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PEGI: 16</div>
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ESRB: M</div>
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CERO: D</div>
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OFLC: Er... Let’s just get onto that.</div>
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While Mary Skelter Nightmare will be seeing a release in Australia with an R-18 rating (mostly due to how the game has been released unmodified from its Japanese counterpart so it retains all the... awkward screen rubbing mini games which can thankfully be skipped after you’ve played them once) the game will NOT be getting a release in New Zealand due to the game not being submit to the NZ OFLC for classification.</div>
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It’s a pain in the rear end but I can’t do much about that so if you’re a kiwi like myself you’ll either need to make an overseas PSN account or import it.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860253019148672781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-32356821509914282102017-04-17T21:21:00.000-05:002017-06-02T13:17:41.110-05:00Saban's Power Rangers<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Originally written for <a href="http://outloudculture.com/">OutLoudCulture.com</a></span><br />
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Eight years. It's been nearly eight years since anything remotely passable was officially laid to film in the<strong><em> Power Rangers</em> </strong>franchise.</span></h4>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8SO6q71Hr-uXuvUL6peX98bcHNeL9Bf4y2IKbj2UuzKGhUFC2YY4mYbmJSNURhk1tohfe9MBwlghR6mj63-1VGfk9ey57vxw9je0rPw-jk0Uwna1HyNFCf2ZOR5yi5x7_zuk9_UH-QwPX/s1600/power_rangers_ver19_xxlg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: white;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8SO6q71Hr-uXuvUL6peX98bcHNeL9Bf4y2IKbj2UuzKGhUFC2YY4mYbmJSNURhk1tohfe9MBwlghR6mj63-1VGfk9ey57vxw9je0rPw-jk0Uwna1HyNFCf2ZOR5yi5x7_zuk9_UH-QwPX/s320/power_rangers_ver19_xxlg.jpg" width="207" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><em> </em></span><em style="font-family: inherit;">Power Rangers </em><span style="font-family: inherit;">has had its ups and downs over the nearly 25-year history of the franchise. The show has come close to cancellation and been rescued numerous times, there hasn't been a movie in twenty years, and the rights have changed hands twice. The series originated in 1993 on Fox, was sold to Disney and hastily uncancelled in 2002, and then sold to the Saban Capital Group in 2010 and hastily uncancelled once more. The rights to various bits of the series are splayed about many companies. The first seventeen seasons are exclusively available from Shout! Factory on home media, Fox owns the first two movies, and Lionsgate distributes home media releases for everything from Samurai onwards. Their ongoing partnership with the Saban Capital Group led to the creation of this movie. Just a shame it couldn't lead to them buying out the television series.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> In case you were wondering, or missed one of the <a data-mce-href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZdzKOkebb3Q0UmhWQGRNb0BdwLchpsaU" href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZdzKOkebb3Q0UmhWQGRNb0BdwLchpsaU">many</a> <a data-mce-href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZqVHc_qFCQ&list=PLZdzKOkebb3RRapidKWX3DonTApU8SrjF" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZqVHc_qFCQ&list=PLZdzKOkebb3RRapidKWX3DonTApU8SrjF">times</a> I've ranted about this subject over the last three years, I'm not a particularly big fan of the way Saban, and by extension, Nickelodeon has been treating this franchise for the last six years. Their overuse of the classic theme-song and series monikers grate on many of the fans, myself included. Plus, the downright incompetent production behind the last seven seasons of the show is just baffling. <strong>Haim Saban</strong> routinely spends approximately $35 million on each 44-episode series of his flagship cash-cow, and yet the editing, writing, scheduling, airing and direction has been below standards set by some YouTube series. And yes, all of this is relevant to my review of the movie.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Fortunately, the crew behind the television branch of the franchise has a total of jack to do with the movie. There's no lazy soundtrack "composed" by Noam Kaniel, no Nickelodeon anti-humor, no overuse of series tropes, no Fujoshi-baiting fanservice, the Red Ranger's dad isn't a deadbeat/dead, the direction is competent, the editing is solid, the characters are compelling, and the movie doesn't constantly and consistently break in-universe rules and/or willing suspension of disbelief.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Granted, a lot of the latter comes from the fact that this is stylized, high-budget reboot of the original series rather than attempting to succeed what came before, but I'm still willing to give the movie far more credit than the show in that regard, mostly because what it asks you to believe are either easy to slot into reality, or things long-time fans of the show recognize, and can fit into the worldview the film presents us. Note that I said "most of", we're going to come back to that in a while. We'll be heading into spoiler territory here, so if you want to back out, this is the last chance you've got.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Approximately sixty-five million years ago, during the reign of the dinosaurs, <strong>Zordon of Eltar</strong> (Played by <strong>Bryan Cranston</strong>) led the original Power Rangers team to defend the Zeo Crystal on Earth. Presumably against <strong>Lord Zedd</strong>, the series recurring lead-villain. Zordon's Green Ranger, a sorceress named <strong>Rita Repulsa </strong>(<strong>Elizabeth Banks</strong>) turned against him, and used her powers to kill most of the other Rangers. In a last-ditch effort to protect the Zeo Crystal, Zordon orders <strong>Alpha 5</strong> (<strong>Bill Hader</strong>) to unleash a meteor strike on the planet. Zordon buries the five remaining Power Coins before Rita makes her final approach. The two of them are killed by the meteor, Zordon being buried along with the coins, and Rita demorphing before landing in the ocean.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">In the present day, star-quarterback and martial artist <strong>Jason Lee Scott </strong>(<strong>Dacre Montgomery</strong>) gets detention for letting a cow loose inside the school after-hours, and house-arrest for demolishing his truck and other vehicles in the escape attempt. His father berates him for this the next day and then takes him to detention. There, he finds a bully, Colt Wallace (<strong>Wesley MacInnes</strong>) messing with a very strange nerd named <strong>Billy Cranston</strong> (<strong>RJ Cyler</strong>). Jason decides to take Colt down a peg, and in doing so befriends Billy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Meanwhile, <strong>Kimberly Ann Hart</strong> (<strong>Naomi Scott</strong>) meets some of her friends from the cheerleading squad in the women's restroom. They're not too happy with her, and decide to kick her out of their lives. Kimberly decides to cut her hair shorter with the pair of scissors they leave stuck in the wall before rejoining detention.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> After detention, Billy asks Jason if he can help him with something. Jason tells him he can't, since he's got an ankle monitor on. Naturally, Billy can get around this, and Jason agrees to help him if he spoofs his monitor's location. Billy gets Jason to help him haul some of his gear into an abandoned mine so he can look for cool stuff. Jason agrees, but only if he gets to use Billy's van afterwards.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Billy's incredibly strange method of locution leads to Jason bowing out of helping him inside the mine, but on his way out, he runs into Kimberly. The two of them debate whether they should just up and leave Angel Grove before Billy activates a detonating rod and gets their attention and that of two others. <strong>Zack Taylor </strong>(Ludi Lin), a local daredevil who was chilling on an abandoned train, and <strong>Trini Kwan</strong> (<strong>Becky Gomez</strong>), who was listening to music and meditating.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> They go into the mine and find a wall of peculiar glass with five glowing coins inside it. One calls out to each of them, and the colors are assigned as you would expect. Jason is Red, Kim is Pink, Billy is Blue, Zack is Black (No he's not :P) and Trini is Yellow. The authorities catch on to their presence, and the five pile into Billy's van. They try to escape, and nearly do, before Jason gets them all hit by a train. The five then wake up the next morning in their beds, in their own houses, not knowing what the hell happened. The only clue is that they all still have the coins, they're all perfectly fine despite having been hit with a speeding freight-train, and they all have powers like nobody has seen before. Not only that, Jason's bad knee stops bothering him.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Meanwhile, on the high seas, a fishing boat picks up the body of one Rita Repulsa, along with her power-coin. The reunion of the two restores Rita's body, but with a mental state far more unhinged than before. She kills a police-officer sent to investigate her body, and begins a quest to gather all the gold she can. Partially to restore her staff, which channels her awesome power, and partially to resurrect her trusted minion Goldar.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> At school, Colt attempts to ambush Billy and break his fingers (God only knows why he was using a technique that would likely dislocate your wrist and/or elbow if done properly, maybe he knows nothing about human anatomy) but Billy's newfound powers cause Colt to knock himself out. Billy becomes pretty popular because of this. He meets up with Kim and Jason, who both confirm their experiences. They're tougher, faster, and stronger all around. Their coins cause a bit of havoc in the school cafeteria, so they decide to meet up later at the mine.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> They try to chase down Trini and talk to her, but she runs and leaps across a chasm. Zack stops her from running further and the others follow. Billy nearly makes it, but falls down into the water below. Billy calls up to them, and the other boys follow. Kimberly has to trick Trini into following, but the five ultimately wind up down in the water. They dive down and find a strange barrier below. They cross it and fall into a spaceship below. Down there, they meet a mysterious talking robot, Zordon's assistant, Alpha 5.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> He introduces them to his master, whose soul he sealed into The Morphing Grid. Zordon lays out their task. The five of them are the Power Rangers, successors to Zordon's original team. They must harness their powers to protect their world and the Zeo Crystal from exploitation by those hungry for their power. If Rita gets ahold of the crystal, she can use the power it holds to create and destroy worlds. They have eleven days (The estimated amount of time it will take Rita to return to full power and recreate Goldar) to get themselves ready, or their world is likely doomed.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Naturally, most of them take this poorly and decide to leave. Jason is the last to go. He almost leaves, but Zordon's desperate plea makes him stay, and reconsider his position. Jason manages to convince the rest of the Power Rangers to return for training, and they spend the rest of the week getting into fighting shape. No matter their determination, they can't figure out how to Morph. Alpha decides to try and give them a bit of inspiration, and shows them the Dinozords. Mastadon, Pterodactyl, Triceratops, Sabertooth Tiger, and Tyrannosaurus.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> This is where we get to one of the few problems I have with the changes the movie has made. The Zords themselves are basically alright, except there's really no reason for them to swap the positions of the Mastodon and Sabertooth Tiger.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> The problem is that while Zordon and Rita came to Earth ten-thousand years ago in the show, therefore excusing the presence of the Mastodon and Sabertooth Zords in a so-called <em>DINO </em>Megazord, they came to Earth 65 <em>million </em>years ago here. Before the Mastodon and Sabertooth had even evolved. This could have been solved by simply keeping the ten-thousand-year thing and connecting Zordon's final battle with Rita with a different cataclysm in history, but considering they were foreshadowing <em>Zeo</em> from the beginning of the film, and appear to be foreshadowing <em>Jungle Fury</em>, I wouldn't put it past them to have the entire opening sequence of the movie be foreshadowing for <em>Dino Thunder</em>, since the subtitles at the start specifically mention "meteor" despite the object that <em>actually </em>wiped out the dinosaurs likely being either a comet or an asteroid.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Anyways, Zack takes the Mastodon on a joyride, but can barely control it. Once he returns, he gets into a fight with Jason. Billy charges in to stop them, and spontaneously Morphs without realizing how. When they try and figure out how to replicate this, they fail. Zordon becomes frustrated with the lack of progress, and decides to send the Rangers home.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">On his way out, Jason overhears Zordon and Alpha talking, and finds out that once the Power Rangers connect to their powers, the connection to the Morphing Grid will open up so Zordon can come back to life. This angers Jason, who sees this as Zordon and Alpha manipulating them, storms off. The rest of the team has set up around a fire outside, and they decide to stick around for a little while and try to bond. Billy talks about how he got in detention, and about how he used to come up to the mine with his dad. Zack's mom is dying, and he doesn't want to be there when it happens. Jason is something of a local superstar, so he's not too hard to explain. Kim holds off until later, and Trini generally has issues with the image her perfect parents and perfect family expect of her.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">They return home, and the now fully-powered Psycho-Rita ambushes Trini in her bedroom. She gives her an ultimatum. Join her, turn over the location of the Zeo Crystal and live, or fight and die. Trini goes to the other Rangers, and they decide to stand up and fight. They head to the docks to fight Rita, but she quickly overpowers and restrains all of them, despite her incomplete Ranger suit. She figures that they have to know where the Zeo Crystal is, and she's right. She tortures Zack until Billy, who pinpointed its location earlier in the film, divulges the location. It's buried below a Krispy Kreme in town.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Rita drops Billy into the water below, charging the rope with her magic until he's dead, and releases the other Rangers. They drag him up and attempt to revive him, but to no avail. They take him to the Command Center, and beg Zordon to do something, but he can't. Eventually, they realize something very powerful, that any of them would die to protect the other, the way Billy had. This unlocks the Morphing Grid finally, granting them the powers of the coins. Rather than choosing to come through himself, Zordon sends Billy back. This give the Rangers what they need to don their suits and take the fight to Rita.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Repulsa sics an army of Putty Patrollers on the newly-Morphed team, but their training takes over and they beat through them. They summon up their Dinozords and set off for Angel Grove to take down Goldar, with the original <em>MMPR The Movie</em> theme-song pumping in the background.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">They make quick work of the Putties, but Jason has to leave his Zord to rescue his father from his crashed vehicle. The Power Rangers regroup, confident that they can handle anything after the Putties, but Goldar is something else entirely. The individual Zords are no match for him, and the golden monster pushes the five into the pit he created while digging for the Zeo Crystal. The Rangers almost come to terms with their fate, but the Zords all link up to form the mighty Megazord. I'd go into more depth about this fight-scene, but it really needs to be seen to be appreciated. Suffice to say that you get to see the Megazord German Suplex Goldar!</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Rita says that there will be more to come, more to try and claim the Zeo Crystal, but the Rangers just smack her into space, and she lands on the moon.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> All in all, this movie was better than we had any right to expect. It hits the sublime middleground between character and action that so many films fail to reach. The characters are generally about right, and the plot never missteps the way I've seen many films do over my time as a critic</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">I feel I should draw a few comparisons to another blockbuster reboot, <em>Transformers</em>. This movie does now what <em>Transformers </em>should have in the second film. It's got enough references to the original while incorporating enough musical cues and stings from the original series that the soundscape still feels connected to the original in theme. Brian Tyler does an excellent job on the music in this film, and it almost sounds like Ron Wasserman, or even John Williams composed it at times. The music forges its own identity while remaining true enough to the original that it's recognizable. This is something that we should have seen in <em>Revenge of the Fallen</em>, but didn't.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Speaking of which, something the middle two <em>Transformers </em>movies lacked were decent characters. Fortunately, they don't skimp on character development. Nor do they stray too far from the originals, mostly. Jason takes command, Kim makes jokes, Zack is a cool dude, and Billy is still the oddball who speaks in such a manner that your brain goes numb like you took a bite of an Oragel creme donut. Trini is the only one who's really changed a lot, going from soft-spoken and wise to misfit outcast. Apparently she's questioning her sexuality too, but considering the looks she and Zack were exchanging, I have a feeling it won't be in question much longer.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">A while ago people were making a big deal about the announcement that Billy was autistic. My reaction was "Breaking News! Power Rangers movie retains defining characteristic of lead character! In other news, Marvel has killed another beloved hero and replaced them with an evil clone working for Hydra!"</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Yeah, Billy Cranston being autistic has always been something of a given. His social awkwardness, his somewhat obsessive behavior, the near lack of a sense of humor, and the mind-numbing speech-pattern only a few people really understand kind of gave the game away. Sorry Wikipedia, you done jumped the gun on saying this movie was "(T)he first blockbuster film to feature LGBTQ and autistic superheroes." The 1995 movie beat you to the last one.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Alpha 5 is alright. I've said before that I like Bill Hader as a voice-actor, but they seem to have gone out of their way to give him extra lines in this movie that really shouldn't have been in the final product. It's nothing <em>too </em>too bad, but enough of the original Alpha would get on anyone's nerves too.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Now we come to Zordon. Bryan Cranston was perhaps the perfect choice for Zordon of Eltar, and the portrayal of the character in this movie is pitch perfect. Cunning, intelligent, loads of patience, and self-sacrificing to a fault. The scene where he resurrects Billy instead of himself had echoes of the <em>In Space </em>finale playing in my head, which tells me that director Dean Israelite and the writing team know what they're doing, and will handle it well.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Finally, Rita Repulsa. Elizabeth Banks was the perfect choice for this role, hands down, and this movie does a lot more to show her as a viable threat than the show usually did. Rather than sit around her base on the moon sending monsters after the Rangers, she overpowers them herself and kills people. I like Crazy Rita a lot, and this character will fit in well once Lord Zedd shows up.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">A few minor things to mention. I was a little disappointed that they didn't get Austin St. John to play Jason's father, since David Denman basically looks like a discount version of him. Amy Jo Johnson and Jason David Frank's cameos were cool, but JDF and AJ should have been either teachers at the school, or parents of one of the Power Rangers (Possibly Kimberly).</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> On that note though, I'm glad they didn't go all-out the way the DC television series have been and have all the previous Power Rangers they could find play small roles in this movie, because that would have been going overboard.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Finally, the designs. I like the suits generally, but the silver highlights could have been white, and the helmets all look a little strange. I hope this is something they fix in future, along with the design of the Megazord not really matching up with the individual Zords. I like the new Megazord, it looks a hell of a lot better than the toy versions did, but it still could be a bit more coherent in design. More color and flash, less generic metal.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Now that I've gotten what I think of the movie out of the way, here are a few things that I would like to see out of the first of the six confirmed sequels.</span></div>
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<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> First off, bring in Tommy as-is. Give us our long-haired, green-bedecked native American charismatic ass-kicker who can stand toe to toe with Jason and either tie or win. Don't gender-swap him as has been rumored. Give his suit plenty of gold, and make sure to give him some kind of Morphing sequence. Re-create the fight between him and Jason, possibly within an MMA cage. Something else, make sure to give him an actual Dragon Dagger, and an actual Sword of Darkness. The Power Sword was cool, but Tommy's gear should remain as unchanged as possible while remaining coherent with the rest of the aesthetic. Something else to mention is that you'd better make the Dragonzord look cool, and you'd better tell Bandai to make the toy version compatible with the previously released Dinozords.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> The suits are mostly alright, the helmets could use a bit of a change to look more like the animals they're based on, or even just the original helmets. Tommy's helmet especially could use an overhaul to be a bit more unique. Without the teeth it doesn't really look all that threatening. Also make sure that the Dragon Shield is detachable, and tell Bandai to do the same for Tommy's Legacy and Action Hero figures.<br /> The only thing I would really change about the suits would be to change all of the silver on them to white to throw back to the original series a bit.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Now, let's address the product placement. It's fine. It's barely there and they actually kind of make a joke out of it. It's fine. Just don't take too far, okay Lionsgate?</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> The second movie is where Brian Tyler should kick right in with recreating musical cues from the original score. 5-4-1, Fight, We Need A Hero, Go Go Power Rangers, and especially Go Green Ranger, Go! If Tommy's going to be one of the primary antagonists, then his theme-song should be in the movie. If you can't get Ron Wasserman back to do the vocals, then make sure you get someone who has a similar kind of voice for vocals. Kevin Rudolph wouldn't be a bad choice, but this is something you need to work on until you find the right guy for the job.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Going back to the characters, there was a romance sub-plot with Jason and Kimberly that was cut from the final version of the movie. I think this was a good choice, since it kind of throws a wrench into the plot-integral Tom/Kim romance later on. All I have to say is that unless Naomi Scott or whoever winds up playing Tommy dies somewhere along the line, you'd better not split these characters up. Hell, going into the season two, three, and <em>Zeo </em>adaptations, you'd better not replace any of the characters unless you absolutely have to. You're not working with Sentai footage at all, so you might as well go all out on the plot. I just hope that the Thunder Megazord is done justice.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> Anyways, even though I've been laying down all this fan-service I want to see, it's important to not go too heavy on it. I see that they're foreshadowing at least sixteen series into the future, but you have to know what to cut and what to leave. It will be perfectly fine if they skip straight to the Green With Evil arc for the second movie, as long as the second movie is littered with some decent character development. After that, they should slow down a bit and make at least one more movie before hitting the Green Candle arc. Once they hit Green Candle, I expect to see some hardcore action and visceral confrontation between Tommy and Lord Zedd.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"> As much as I would caution against fan-service for the sake of it, I would love to see Bulk and Skull in the next movie. Just make sure they don't turn into Victor and Monty from <em>Ninja Steel.</em></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">In the end, this was one hell of a movie and I definitely recommend it. Pick up the soundtrack after you see the film too, because Brian Tyler did a damn good job on the score. It'll have you on an emotional roller-coaster from start to finish. The characters are pretty great interpretations of the original, and the movie is at least as good as the Boom! Studios comics, if not better.</span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="font-size: 16px;">
<span style="color: white; font-family: inherit;">Image from Impawards.com</span></div>
Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-83551071500233035922017-01-31T17:30:00.002-06:002017-01-31T17:30:22.917-06:00Steins;Gate 0 (Nathan Green)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Out of all the titles I was excited
for this year, </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Steins;Gate 0</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> was pretty high up on the list. I
remember watching the anime of </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Steins;Gate</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> and adoring it
so much that I went and played the game soon after. </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Steins;Gate 0</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">
isn’t </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">exactly </i><span style="font-family: inherit;">a sequel or prequel to the first game, rather it
expands upon the events that took place so that the true ending of
the first title was even possible to begin with. It’s an
interesting concept, which made me excited for what I was going to see
it pull off. With that being said this review WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS
FOR THE FIRST GAME. I’ll try to keep </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Steins;Gate 0</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> spoilers to a
minimum but the final part of this review will be potentially
spoilerific due to the subject matter so if you haven’t played
</span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Steins;Gate 0</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> yet then stop reading when you reach the spoiler
warning. Anyways, without further ado, let's time leap!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br />
</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Graphics and Sound:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Now I usually do this section later
but since <i>Steins;Gate 0</i> is a visual novel, the majority of this review
is going to be focusing on the story so I’m saving that till last.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9W5V7witgOnslXiKIsHK2SoGbGIcT2csyypRBE9OCEOHgWi1WX0iP5ZcFUU8L7dJf7wxC33pqwkYSNIJe43GTJvBtlHjDWZMqJmdLnIkeSGsqAfT6WdByKcy89iNy7d2DUMG82HZckI1P/s1600/SG0_launch_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9W5V7witgOnslXiKIsHK2SoGbGIcT2csyypRBE9OCEOHgWi1WX0iP5ZcFUU8L7dJf7wxC33pqwkYSNIJe43GTJvBtlHjDWZMqJmdLnIkeSGsqAfT6WdByKcy89iNy7d2DUMG82HZckI1P/s320/SG0_launch_1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The first <i>Steins;Gate </i>was game that looked great <i>and </i>sounded great. The art was unique, the soundtrack varied
and memorable, and the voice acting spot on.<i> Steins;Gate 0</i>
unsurprisingly continues this with some excellent art (albeit in a
different style to that of the first game), an excellent soundtrack, and great voice acting.
</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRvJuzau2W9BlzaZNBgJHtBxwKQVRZlyYnAbC5OTAx8phLtxUeoodU3JP3Yzb1Qs-PfeoApbOY9qo7R_-owZ5rMaCMRJhK1iduJMhZG2KGFqzDAwWHKt_oVDNfncdcmmOeR5W5KOAc7SI-/s1600/SG0_release_day_3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRvJuzau2W9BlzaZNBgJHtBxwKQVRZlyYnAbC5OTAx8phLtxUeoodU3JP3Yzb1Qs-PfeoApbOY9qo7R_-owZ5rMaCMRJhK1iduJMhZG2KGFqzDAwWHKt_oVDNfncdcmmOeR5W5KOAc7SI-/s320/SG0_release_day_3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Art-wise the actual art-style has
seen a significant change with characters looking closer to how they
looked in the anime than then first game. Old art <i>does</i> show up from
time to time though, and it can get a bit daunting seeing it mixed in
with the new art. It’s not a huge issue, but it is awkward at times. <b>(Editors note; Think back to the Morrigan sprite that Capcom kept re-using in all of the<i> SNK vs Capcom</i> games if you need a point of reference.)</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">The soundtrack contains a mix of
happy go lucky tunes, more intense nerve racking tracks and some
really beautiful tracks which usually accompany the more important
moments in the game. My favorite track would probably have to be
Hoshi No Kanaduru Uta. More specifically, the rendition of it which
accompanies the end credits for one route. The vocals on that version
really make it that bit better, especially since they were sung by the
Voice-Actor for the character of Kagari. The soundtrack does a good
job of both setting the tone of the scene and adding to the overall
memorability of scenes. It does exactly what a good soundtrack in a
visual novel should do, and it does it well.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For voice acting, the entire cast of
the original<i> Steins;Gate</i> retain their original voice actors, and they
all sound as good as ever. Line deliveries are enthusiastic and
really do make the characters feel more alive. The new characters
also sound good with some solid performances all around, my favorite
being from Maho Hiyajo, whose VA perfectly reflects her character in
her acting. Dr. Leskinen's voice actor is a bit goofy with his broken
English thrown everywhere, but overall his performance is pretty darn
good as well.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Gameplay:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Being a visual novel, <i>Steins;Gate 0</i>
doesn’t really try to sell itself on gameplay. Overall it’s a
pretty standard visual novel affair although it is less linear than
the first game. All the visual novel basics are present along with
the ability to both lock your save file to prevent yourself
accidentally saving over it (a very welcome addition) and automatic
quick saves which allow you to pick up at important events in the
game if you aren’t liking the results of your decision. It’s a
small but very welcome change and is something I wish more VNs had.
Also present is the tips system which provides you with information
on special objects, items etc that are mentioned in the game. A vast
majority of these tips are quite useful and helped clear up some
confusion I had surrounding some things but some are a bit on the
silly side, so your mileage may vary. You’re also able to advance
text and menus using the Vita's touchscreen, although you
can disable this if you’d prefer otherwise.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm-ZDriI0eXBVK7uXHQlovySkeTOd0iO_UYYINUVb0aIoqPEgCz93AXuQ1MoVq8XKwAyGD2hTp1W-smmrmn7AW6pAt5mJuZH1Ri7vofmAs-fmtFW0kDOZkcIFKgXqPigufY8pyy_pu9UwU/s1600/SG0-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhm-ZDriI0eXBVK7uXHQlovySkeTOd0iO_UYYINUVb0aIoqPEgCz93AXuQ1MoVq8XKwAyGD2hTp1W-smmrmn7AW6pAt5mJuZH1Ri7vofmAs-fmtFW0kDOZkcIFKgXqPigufY8pyy_pu9UwU/s320/SG0-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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The only slightly irritating thing about the game is that the only way to access the dialog archive in case you miss something is to pause the game and select it. <span style="font-family: inherit;">A vast
majority of visual novels have a button that allows you to quickly
access the archive without needing to pause the game so this comes
off as a bit clunky. It doesn’t help that the menus lag, and aside from the main
menu, you aren’t given any visual or audio feedback upon selecting
an item, which can be awkward. I also found myself having to reboot my Vita on one occasion, because Livearea had slowed to a crawl after
leaving the game open for so long. Again, your millage may vary.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Story:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">With <i>Steins;Gate 0</i> being a visual
novel, the story is the most important aspect, and for the most part
<i>Steins;Gate 0</i> does a good job at crafting a solid plot with a
believable set of characters. However it isn’t perfect. I’ll
touch on why later on. For now though lets look at the characters.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPhpmUECJE8fPTJG4S8RECWu4eeyC43IcGNW4iSdist_7W-YITtSrXG7bQnImhoPjraNEyrIICmN5THAJEYfa_wA0aALgN__4v0vKAFzd27e6xPB_bhYk7YJ2qEyZMZzdmyeCzhEZgcm06/s1600/SG0-5.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPhpmUECJE8fPTJG4S8RECWu4eeyC43IcGNW4iSdist_7W-YITtSrXG7bQnImhoPjraNEyrIICmN5THAJEYfa_wA0aALgN__4v0vKAFzd27e6xPB_bhYk7YJ2qEyZMZzdmyeCzhEZgcm06/s320/SG0-5.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The entire cast of the original<i>
Steins;Gate</i> makes a return with the obvious exception of Kurisu who
is well… dead. We also see a variety of newcomers in the form of
Maho Hiyajo and Dr Leskinen from an American University that Kurisu
used to attend. Fubuki, Yuki and Kadee, who are close friends of
Maiyurii, and finally Armadeus, an AI who takes on the form of Kurisu
for most of the game. Out of all these new characters, I’d have to
say my personal favorite would have to be Maho, one of Kurisu’s
closest friends before she passed away. The story does a great job of
portraying her as a likable well rounded character, and portrays her
inner struggle and love hate relationship with Kurisu very well.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Story-wise, <i>Steins;Gate 0</i> in and of
itself takes place before the true ending of the original <i>Steins;Gate</i>,<i> </i>so if you have not played <i>Steins;Gate</i>, then play that before even
<i>thinking</i> about touching <i>Steins;Gate 0</i>.
</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5eo5QeCU2tEkXsabFJsirl60kQ2tbq3w0PbgZP6ph9PAPu6xNPAeSya2gK3RMNJJtohRq6tOVeOr8oWgpw5XQBzIvQaRp4t-eFMmFX24Es3MRzBe_43KgysYfpRi8ab9mJhitwJt__Ni/s1600/SG0_launch_4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV5eo5QeCU2tEkXsabFJsirl60kQ2tbq3w0PbgZP6ph9PAPu6xNPAeSya2gK3RMNJJtohRq6tOVeOr8oWgpw5XQBzIvQaRp4t-eFMmFX24Es3MRzBe_43KgysYfpRi8ab9mJhitwJt__Ni/s320/SG0_launch_4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In essence, <i>Steins;Gate's</i> true ending
involves our main character, Okabe receiving a video from himself twelve years in the future giving him the keys to discover the world line
knows as steins gate, a world line where neither his childhood friend
Maiyurii, or his lover Kurisu has to die. Now that’s all fine and
dandy, but how the heck did that video even get sent in the first
place? This is the basic premise behind <i>Steins;Gate 0</i>. It works on
filling in the gaps present in the true ending of <i>Steins;Gate</i> and
bring a bit more closure to everything. On top of that. <i>Steins;Gate 0</i>
goes more into depth around the concepts of AI, time travel and time
manipulation, and the consequences of such technologies, which is
something I absolutely love. The portrayal of these topics is <i>very </i>well done, and most importantly, thought provoking. There’s a lot
more of them as well. While <i>Steins;Gate 0</i> <i>does</i> have its fair share of
slice of life bits, it is far darker in tone than the
original <i>Steins;Gate</i>. This really works in its favor, with the
story exploring more possibilities that really wouldn’t have been
possible in the original game. There’s a constant feeling of danger
as the group realizes the size of what they have gotten themselves
into, and it makes for an incredibly gripping read. It isn’t as dark
as say, <i>Zero Escape</i> but it doesn’t need to be. The story is
also paced really well, which really helps a ton.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">All this stands true for the vast
majority of the game, and compared to the original the story had
definitely improved on the problems the original had with pacing and
tone. HOWEVER,<i> Steins;Gate 0</i> isn’t perfect. While the vast majority
of the story is excellent the remaining minority kinda crashes and
burns. Let me explain, but first here’s your obligatory spoiler
warning.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">SPOILER ALERT FOR <i>STEINS;GATE 0</i>! DO
NOT READ THIS PART IF YOU HAVE NOT FINISHED <i>STEINS;GATE 0</i>. SKIP AHEAD
TO THE VERDICT SECTION TO HEAR MY OVERALL THOUGHTS. YOU HAVE BEEN
WARNED. SERIOUSLY, I’M NOT JOKING.
</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisd8Zyk4h7AwFprI0JVE8CiP8GcYTt2SDp6SRKVYjYErm1QsibEJy0_f1yh-KrzOmPAh6yk62OdRmeKd4Tc_gAOenmAG9btTuMjCuweLIXTGxzT4hsp0euKvMR8Y_JmwoYEGfofQ_fkwoO/s1600/SG0-4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEisd8Zyk4h7AwFprI0JVE8CiP8GcYTt2SDp6SRKVYjYErm1QsibEJy0_f1yh-KrzOmPAh6yk62OdRmeKd4Tc_gAOenmAG9btTuMjCuweLIXTGxzT4hsp0euKvMR8Y_JmwoYEGfofQ_fkwoO/s320/SG0-4.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I’m going to be blunt, <i>Steins;Gate
0's</i> story feels a bit unfinished. I came away from the game feeling
like I had missed something or that a chunk of the game was missing.
Now I’m not talking about the obvious cliff hanger due to how
<i>Steins;Gate 0</i> carries directly into the true end of <i>Steins;Gate</i>. The
problem is that the true ending to <i>Steins;Gate 0</i> is so incredibly
disconnected from the events of the other endings that it in fact
drags the rest of the game down with it a bit. Up until then the
other 5 endings had been pretty incredible and had dropped little
mysteries and tid bits here and there that stuck with me and kept me
hyped up for the true ending where I’d learn what was going on.
Then I actually played the true ending. My hype turned to confusion
which then turned to disbelief which then turned to disappointment.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The true ending, rather than serving
as an epic conclusion to my twenty-hour journey, was more the closest
thing the game could do to blowing its own foot off with a rocket
launcher. It commits one of the cardinal sins of storytelling by NOT
SOLVING ALL THE MYSTERIES IT SPENT TIME CREATING. Not only that but
the extent that it does this to is enough to drag the rest of the
game down with it. All those mysteries you had learned in the other
endings? All that stuff that happened when Armadeus got deleted in
Maho's ending? The mystery surrounding the song in Kagari's ending?
Kagari's lost memories? I hope you weren’t expecting answers to any
of those mysteries because the game NEVER EXPLAINS THEM. Yes,
those technically happened in separate world lines, so from a story
perspective it at least has an explanation as to why it doesn’t get
explained. <i>However</i> that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It ALSO doesn’t excuse the true
ending from not answering questions about mysteries and events that happened in its
OWN DAMN WORLD LINE. Who was that guy who attacked Maho, Okabe and
the Professor in the carpark? What was all that garbage text Armadeus
Kurisu left to Maho as a message on @channel? Why was Yuki given
plastic surgery and brain washed with Kagari's memories? Where even
WAS Kagari in this world line? All these seemingly important events
and mysteries that happen in the true ending's world line? NEVER.
EXPLAINED. What the hell happened?!? Why put in mysteries to advance
the plot and then never give the player closure on the damn things?
It isn’t like the player is left enough hints to figure it out
themselves so they’re just left scratching their head and wondering
where the rest of the game went.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">The true ending to <i>Steins;Gate 0</i> is
simply a train wreck. That isn’t to say it isn’t enjoyable, on
the contrary, I <i>still</i> enjoyed reading through the true ending.
However the unfinished feeling it leaves the player with upon
finishing it along with how it unsuccessfully ties up a surprisingly
large number of mysteries CAN and most likely WILL get on your
nerves. It isn’t enough to ruin the whole game and make me feel
like I wasted my money but it is enough to weigh on my mind for a few
days while the game is still fresh in my mind.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">SPOILERS END HERE</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Verdict:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<i style="font-family: inherit;">Steins;Gate 0</i><span style="font-family: inherit;"> is an interesting one.
If it weren’t for all the loose plot threads and the train wreck of
a final ending I’d have no trouble recommending it to anyone who
had played the original </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">Steins;Gate</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">. However, it isn’t perfect
and the flaws that it does have are in areas which are very likely to
effect your potential millage. If there was ever a game fitting of a
Your Millage May Vary badge it’s this one. The vast majority of the
game is absolutely excellent, with a great story exploring the
potential </span>consequences<span style="font-family: inherit;"> of AI, time travel and a third world war
coupled with excellent character development and great pacing but the
overall penultimate ending to everything kinda causes the story to
run itself smack into a solid steel wall because it wasn’t looking
where it was going.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Granted the fact that the true
ending ended the way it did was due to<i> Steins;Gate 0’s</i> placement on
the overall timeline but I still feel that even taking that into
account they could have done better than what we got. It isn’t a
deal breaker but it does mean the satisfaction you get from finishing
the game is a bit dampened.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>Despite the
shoddy true ending,<i> Steins;Gate 0</i> is still well worth playing
if you are a die hard fan of the original <i>Steins;Gate</i>. I have no
doubt in my mind that you’ll love it if you loved the original. If
you’re on the fence about <i>Steins;Gate 0</i>, then you really need to
consider one thing, “Do I really care that much if the game ends
with mysteries left unsolved?”. If the answer to that question is "No" then by all means go and play <i>Steins;Gate 0</i>, you’ll be in for a
treat. However if unsolved mysteries are more of a big deal to you
then I’d probably either wait for a price drop or give it a miss.
For the most part though the experience<i> Steins;Gate 0 </i>gives you is
well worth the price of admission.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For <i>Steins;Gate</i> fans, <i>Steins;Gate 0</i>
gets a Highly Recommended.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For those on the fence about it
<i>Steins;Gate 0</i> gets a Recommended, but wait for a sale first.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For those of you who haven’t
played/seen <i>Steins;Gate</i>, <i>Steins;Gate 0</i> gets a PLAY THE ORIGINAL FIRST
YOU GOOF.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Seriously, if you haven’t played
the original<i> Steins;Gate</i> yet and are interested in <i>Steins;Gate 0</i> then
PLAY THE FIRST GAME OR WATCH THE ANIME ADAPTION FIRST. I can’t
force you, but you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you do
otherwise.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Wow, the last review of 2016 from me
(although by the time this goes up it will probably be 2017 already
but I wrote this on December 31<sup>st</sup> so meh). At the time of
writing I would have had my Vita for exactly one year now and what a
year it has been. I can’t wait to see what is in store for the Vita
in 2017 but I’m hoping to potentially get a review of <i>Danganronpa
V3</i>, <i>Mary Skelter</i> and a few other games on the cards if everything
goes well. In the meantime I’ll probably get to work on writing up
a review for<i> Danganronpa Another Episode Ultra Despair Girls</i> since
that’s the only <i>Danganronpa</i> game I have yet to cover so far. Either
way I hope you have a safe and wonderful New Year and happy holidays.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This is BDVR writer Nathan Green
signing off</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">ESRB: M</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">PEGI: 16
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">CERO: C</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">OFLC: M (Unrestricted)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
</div>
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
</div>
<br />
<div style="-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: medium; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; margin: 0px; orphans: 2; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px;">
If you want to support the site, check out our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews" target="_blank">Patreon</a>, or just check out our <a href="http://amzn.to/2gEtFPA" target="_blank">Amazon</a> affiliate link.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Steins;Gate 0</i> was played and
reviewed on PlayStation Vita (also on PlayStation 4) using a digital
copy of the game purchased by the reviewer.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i>Steins;Gate 0</i> is developed by 5pb, and Nitroplus, and is published by PQube Games. All rights reserved to
their respective owners.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This review is my own work. You are
not allowed to duplicate, reproduce or republish on any other sites
under any circumstances commercial or otherwise.
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span><br />
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14860253019148672781noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-72226353527765789952017-01-05T23:37:00.000-06:002017-09-20T23:00:21.426-05:00Top 5 Worst Movies of 2015This is approximately a year late, but this at least means I've had the time to think my choices over, eh? Sorry that this has taken so long, I've been trying to find time between all my other writing and plenty of other things I've been working on over the course of the year, but generally speaking I've just been some combination of busy or tired over the course of the year and never got around to it. With record-breaking lateness, here are my top five worst movies of 2015.<br />
<br />
Dishonorable mentions: <i>Super Hero Taisen: Kamen Rider 3</i>. This movie had a damn interesting premise and would have worked well as a mini-series centered more around the characters from the last <i>Kamen Rider </i>movie rather than introducing a whole new cast of supporting characters from previous <i>Rider </i>series instead of utilizing the Riders we know work well with Shinnosuke. Instead, we got a movie that goes by way too quickly, as previous Kamen Riders fight as part of an incredibly weak premise that sounded strong at the get-go. The sequel mini-series, <i>Kamen Rider 4 </i>was far more interesting, yet it still had its own issues as well. If they took the two premises and combined them, then lengthened the whole thing to about twelve episodes worth of content it would have probably worked out fairly well. As it is, we got a rather interesting movie and sequel series, both of which rushed to a rather anti-climactic conclusion.<br />
Another honorable mention would be <i>Kung Fury</i>. This short-film could have been something great, but it squandered its potential in the ending and the last half of the first act. Generally speaking, it's a damn fun movie, but it could do with a bit better pacing. It's not bad enough to work its way onto the worst list but not good enough to make it onto the best.<br />
Finally, we have <i>The Avengers: Age of Ultron</i>. While not a bad movie by any means, it deserves a mention due to how badly they squandered most of the concepts they had. The fight-scenes were cool, and I didn't even <i>dislike</i> the rather strange social-interactions the team had, but it wasn't paced particularly well, it was way too short, and worst of all it squandered all of the development between Cap and Widow in <i>The Winter Soldier </i>and all of the development between Bruce and Betty in <i>The Incredible Hulk</i>. Whedon also seemed like he was sleepwalking through the direction in this film, because all of the funny writing is still here, but the comedic timing is all off from his previous works. I especially noticed this when I re-watched <i>Firefly</i> immediately afterward. Now let's dig right into the actual list!<br />
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#5: <i>Selma</i><br />
I'll be honest,<i> Selma </i>wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the fact that it flies in the face of actual history that actual people who are still alive remember. I soured on this film over time even more than I was when I originally saw it. A movie about the civil-rights movement is a bad idea anyways, because it's a concept more fit for a miniseries than it is for a single two-hour movie. Also, don't make a movie about a great orator if you don't have the rights to their speeches. That'd be like making a movie about a musician without the rights to their songs. Not to mention the rather bizarre soundtrack choice with the references that make no sense. The cast is good, the pacing sucks and this film is just generally over-rated. There are worse movies, worse movies that were released in 2015 no less, but the history buff in me demanded that I put it somewhere on this list.<br />
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#4: <i>Fant4stic</i><br />
I saw this on Blu-ray before the official home-media release, and let me just say that this film was a fairly massive trainwreck for a number of reasons I went over in my review. Quick rundown; Complete and utter ignorance of modern science. Ignorance of how the world would react to the events of this movie. Ignorance of the procedures required for space-travel. General ignorance of basic things. You get my drift. This movie had potential, but between Fox's meddling and the fact that Josh Trank was trying to make <i>Chronicle 2</i> originally, the final product was a boring, uninteresting mess.<br />
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#3:<i> Smosh: The Movie</i><br />
You know you're scraping the bottom of the barrel when you rip off <i>Fred: The Movie</i>. You know the mighty have fallen when the movie they make isn't as entertaining as watching 90 minutes of their videos would be. Smosh, I hope y'all took a step back after this and tried to do better. You guys used to be funny, you could even be considered some of the funniest people on the web, but you fell hard within the course of a few years. Don't feel like saying much else about this movie, I've talked about it at length in my review. Suffice to say that it's a piece of crap not worth spending your time on.<br />
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#2: <i>The Ridiculous 6</i><br />
For everything one might have hoped this film would be from the opening sequence, it certainly didn't live up to any of it. It's an Adam Sandler movie, as one would expect. Amazing to see that they somehow managed to make it all the way through production without anyone raising a hand and saying "This is stupid, get out of here Adam and let a good writer handle this." They never once flagged that Taylor Lautner would have been a better lead than Sandler, they never once figured it'd be a good idea to cut the cast down to him, Luke Wilson and Terry Crews. Netflix, I hope you learned your lesson, because Adam Sandler certainly won't.<br />
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#1: <i>Jupiter Ascending</i><br />
If there was a bigger, more derivative piece of crap in 2015, I don't know about it. The Wachowski's failed harder than they ever did before when they made this movie. I don't think there was a single other movie in 2015 that made me quite as angry as this film. To put it bluntly, this film rips off everything under the sun and does it all badly. If you can think of anything, <i>Jupiter Ascending</i> ripped it off. From <i>Twlight </i>to <i>Power Rangers</i>, from <i>Cinderella </i>to <i>The Matrix</i>, from <i>Pacific Rim</i> to<i> Soylent Green</i>. This thing steals it all and does it horribly. The best part of this film is Sean Bean and Channing Tatum, but that's not saying much. If you want to know more about this horrible movie, just read my review. I've said plenty about this film already, and I can't list off everything that was wrong with it again.<br />
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That's it for now, I'll see you later with the "Best" list from 2015.<br />
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Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-69643923901012476652017-01-02T15:19:00.000-06:002017-01-02T15:19:00.057-06:00Power Rangers Dino Charge Retrospective: Part 3<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome back to this deconstruction of the demoralizing dreck that comprises the contents of this juvenile junk. <i>Power Rangers Dino Charge</i>, everyone!<br />
We continue this journey with "The Royal Rangers." Titled such, because Tyler and Shelby decide to impersonate the royalty of Zandar. This is where it would come in handy if they had contact with the government, or other teams of Rangers affiliated with the government. You don't need to come up with these stupid schemes when you have official support.<br />
Or, and here's a radical idea, maybe they could... <i>Talk </i>to the actual Prince of Zandar and explain what's going on? It's not like he wouldn't have reason to believe them, considering there have been twenty different Power Rangers teams. Plus, they could just show him what's happening and he'd probably help them out. Especially considering Phillip's actions later in the series. What with him being the only competent team-member and the only one who's actually involved in this whole ordeal by choice.<br />
Anyways, once Prince Phillip gets wind of this, he shuts the whole situation down. Like it would have flown in the first place, since royalty are typically celebrities, and people should know what they look like. Even being from an obscure country like Zandar, people have the internet. Not only will the public not buy it, the government of Zandar would find out quickly, and shut them down. Plus, since the villains appear to have access to the internet and to the news, they should be able to figure out that this is nothing but low-quality bait in record time. Except they don't. Because they're idiots.<br />
The Rangers lure Fury out of hiding, but Tyler fails to kill him for fear that the figure he sees fighting to free himself from Fury is his father.<br />
In the next episode, "Break Out," everything I predicted would happen, happens. Prince Phillip III of Zandar shows up to put a stop to their stupid antics. He gets attacked after reclaiming his kingdom's property from the nutjobs at the Museum, and the Rangers rescue him. Phillip realizes that Fury is the monster from Zandarian legend that the knight, Sir Ivan defended Prince Colin against. Lo and behold, guess who the gold energy was? Sir Ivan of Zandar, the holder of the Gold Energem. He uses his Energem to don his Ranger suit (With no explanation as to why he knows how to do that) Ivan defeats Sledge's ground forces, and then uses the Energem to free the Pterazord from Fury's control and uses it to defeat Sledge's enlarged monsters.<br />
After the situation is wrapped up, Ivan offers the Gold Energem to Prince Phillip, as the Prince he was assigned to protect had requested he retrieve it. Phillip, being the only sane man in this whole situation, tells Ivan to keep it to fend off the aliens who are trying to tear the earth apart in search of a collection of incredibly powerful gems that could destroy the planet if misused.<br />
The next episode is titled "Knight After Knights," and it's entirely centered around a villain by the name of Bones somehow removing the Ranger's backbones (Metaphorically) so they won't have the courage to fight. This causes Ivan to abandon them as a lost cause, and go out to recruit a posse of competent heroes to fight off Sledge. Except instead of getting a team of Rangers, he assembles a team of civilians. Not soldiers, not a Lightspeed Rescue style team of skilled professionals, random plebs. A magician, (A fake one, not the real kind like you'd expect to see in a universe with an evil witch and an entire team whose powers are based on freaking <i>magic</i>) a tuba player, a referee, an old woman on a scooter, and a crossing guard.<br />
The most important person in this whole situation is the crossing guard, played by Bruce Phillips. For those of you who don't know, Bruce Phillips played Andrews, Summer's butler from <i>Power Rangers RPM</i>. Andrews was a great character who was important to Summer's character arc. He was well-written and a great addition to the series. Bruce Phillips did a damn good job as Andrews. Just a shame they couldn't have used him better in <i>this</i> series. You wanna know what happens when Ivan takes his new crew out to handle the monsters?<br />
They flee in terror.<br />
Now, to some extent that makes sense. They're just random people, after all, but as this series has proven, random people can prove to be the best of heroes. Andrews was a bonda-fide hero. In some other universe, he might have been a Ranger himself. I know this whole episode was about the Rangers finding courage in the face of abject terror, but this team just <i>sucks</i>! Back in the Disney era, or even the classic Saban era, it would have been focused on a single Ranger's issues, and resolved them without crapping all over side-characters. Unless they were Bulk and Skull.<br />
Anyways, Shelby shows up to help Ivan, and after a motivational speech from Keeper, the rest of the team shows up as well. They get their courage back, kill Bones, and Ivan gets a burger with fries at the cafe.<br />
In case you were wondering, this was a filler episode that did nothing but waste the audience's time.<br />
We finally reach one of the episodes I referenced in the beginning of this series, "Sync or Swim." In this episode, in addition to the events I mentioned prior, Ivan and Tyler begin a rivalry to last all of one episode.<br />
Compare this to Tommy and Jason's rivalry, or Theo and Casey's. The rivalry starts when the characters are introduced and lasts long enough for it to actually have an arc. To actually show the characters changing. Because who needs character development? Who needs good pacing? Who needs to have multi-part episodes where things actually happen? No, everything has to be smashed down to less episodes than they need to actually execute everything properly so we can fit in all this filler.<br />Long story short, they get over themselves, they lob the bomb that Sledge tried to use to destroy the museum and kill them at his ship, it barely does anything, and we never once see the Rangers go into space, with their clearly space-worthy Megazord to try and put an end to all of this. Because it's not like that would actually <i>help</i>. Not like they could prevent a lot of property damage and loss of life. <i>Not like there was an incredibly popular and iconic episode dedicated to Rangers going into space and kicking ass</i>. <i style="font-weight: bold;">Not like there were two whole teams dedicated to exploring space and handling things in space! </i>NOT LIKE THERE WAS A TEAM LITERALLY CALLED "<i>POWER RANGERS IN SPACE.</i>" Either Lost Galaxy or In Space would have rocketed up to Sledge's ship as soon as they found out about it and <i>wiped him from existence</i>. Then again, there are a few other things that previous teams of Rangers would have done if Saban hadn't utterly forgotten about them. For all his talk about segregating Ranger teams to their own universes, Johnathan Tzachor did a better job acknowledging past teams than Judd Lynn has, who might I remind you, worked on <i>In Space</i>!<br />Aside from the fact that Rangers can clearly handle being in space, aside from the fact that there are other teams that probably should have handled the situation a good twenty-some years ago, or even the fact that Earth has the capability <i>without </i>relying on Rangers to take out Sledge, the Dino Charge Rangers had spacefaring capability <i>before </i>they got ahold of the Zord that was actually <i>modeled </i>on the freaking Space Shuttle! This means they could have ended most of the threat posed by Sledge and his crew literally as soon as they got ahold of the god-damn Pteracharge Megazord! As in about an episode ago! But hey, that's just my experience as a tactician talking, just my years of studying military strategy and military battles to their finest points to find out what went wrong where, and who did it worst. Hell, I don't even need to have studied all of that to know that they made a bad move by not bringing the battle right to Sledge when they got the chance, the simple fact that they could and didn't is a <i>glaring </i>narrative error.<br />Now, before anyone starts in about the ground-rules Zordon laid down, I would just like to point out that not only do they never <i>once </i>mention any of Zordon's teachings about reducing collateral damage and having a decent amount of restraint to your actions, they <i>also </i>violate most of his rules at some point in the series! Trust me, we'll get to that. That's gonna be a treat to see.<br />Back on the subject of them not taking the fight to Sledge, I would just like to point out that this level of stupidity on their part comes back to bite them in the ass a few times, both in this season and the next. In a big way. Something that goes beyond any of the mistakes any of the other Ranger teams might have made, perceived <i>or </i>real. If you don't already know what it is, I wish I could see your face when you find out.<br />Anyways, enough harping on this rather major piece of failure, let's move past it and start harping on the <i>other </i>major failures they have!<br />
Actually, let's come back to "Sync or Swim" and talk about some of the dumb antics. Tyler and Ivan's rivalry becomes one of the most childish and petty things I have ever seen. Think back to previous rivalries, Theo and Casey for instance. Theo was rather naturally and justifiably skeptical of Casey's leadership qualities, since he was so inexperienced, and this attitude led to Casey being a bit irritated with Theo. Their rivalry was a perfectly natural representation of human interaction, especially as they grew out of it over the course of the series. Tommy and Jason were both take-charge kind of guys, so they would naturally butt heads. The two of them learned that neither one of them could handle every situation, and that sometimes they needed to really work together to succeed. With each of the Rangers being the equivalent to a one-man army, this is perfectly understandable. In this? The rivalry starts off with Ivan and Tyler wearing the same sweet coat, and them getting upset over this. Tyler especially when Shelby says Ivan wears it better. Shenanigans ensue. To the point that it actually lets the villains escape from them. Compare this piece of crap episode to "Gung Ho!" one of the defining episodes from <i>Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers</i>. Yes, they hardly ever used the Thunder Slingers in the show after that, but there was actual character development between Jason and Tommy!<br />Anyways, the next episode is titled "True Black," and it's another Chase-centric one.<br />
Chase is testing out some new gear from Kendall, Dino Armor X. A pair of gator-jaws that turn him into a giant drill. They say it only works for him, but that's going to be forgotten soon.<br />
Wrench uses a monster called Gold Digger to attack the training grounds later, and the Rangers try to stop him. Tyler, Ivan and Shelby are buried underground (They should by all rights be dead, either immediately or soon) and Chase tries to dig through Gold Digger's stone tablets with his claws, but it doesn't work. Apparently his inability to use the armor properly right now stems from his guilt over not helping Shelby get tickets to see her favorite boy-band. Neither Koda nor Reilly can use the Dino Armor X Charger themselves, so Chase has to apologize, the powers work fine and he saves the other Rangers. They finish off Gold Digger, tickets are gotten to see this pseudo-1Direction band called "The N-Zed Boys" and the Rangers get time off to go to the concert. This episode could have been cut entirely and nothing would have been lost. In fact, a future episode would make a bit more sense. Not a whole <i>lot </i>more sense, just a bit. There are still plenty of other unanswered questions. Dino Armor X is used a total of once, the N-Zed Boys are brought up a handful more times in the series, but their introduction could have been a lot smoother. Maybe have one of their songs playing on Tyler's car radio? Maybe have Shelby wear some of their merch earlier on in the series, or maybe use an actual band instead? They had to commission original music anyways, maybe they could have gone all-out on it and actually shown the concert they went to! Maybe they could have written something around that instead! It'd make about as much sense as some of the other things that happen in the series...<br />
The title is absolutely meaningless, just like "Breaking Black" before it was. Back in the Disney and classic Saban eras an episode titled "Breaking Black" would have been more than just a cute little reference, they would have actually broken the Black Ranger's spirit. Maybe even killed him! Then "True Black" would have followed, and been focused on building them back up as a person. But hey, let's waste all the opportunities we've got to use titles in a way that fits thematically. Saban in this day and age would have had "Green With Evil" be all about the Green Ranger being jealous and getting a bit douchey for about an episode before everything wraps up at the end.<br />
The next episode actually has a title that fits with the events of the episode. "Rise of a Ranger" is probably the strongest episode of the series, mainly because it focuses on my favorite character, Prince Phillip.<br />Phillip, rather than sit on his ass all the time and wait for those morons we call the Dino Charge Rangers to sort out the situation, he puts his influence to work figuring out a way to help. He has his people find an Energem, and when he can't figure out how to make it work, he decides to try and convince the forces that govern Ranger powers of his worth. He goes out of his way to help out the people of the world and actually make some kind of difference. As opposed to causing collateral damage, doing stupid shit, and not bothering to handle their villains properly like the rest of the Dino Charge Rangers do. Phillip practices combat training with a robot so he can partake in the beatdowns with the rest of the team, and basically does his damndest to be of some help. He decides to try and reconfigure his training robot for direct control and tries to use it to combat Sledge's forces. It doesn't work out 100% right, but his heart is in the right place.<br />
Unfortunately, this isn't how the Rangers see it. They fail to acknowledge the previous robotic and cybernetic Rangers, and claim a robot isn't up to the task of being a Ranger.<br />*Deep breath* The Machine Empire, Robotic Turbo Rangers, Blue Centurion, Cyborg Lightspeed Rangers, Krybots, Mack Hartford, Dylan, Teneya 7/15, the Venjix Computer Network, Grinders, the various Attack Bots deployed by Venjix, <i>freaking Robo-Knight</i>. As well as any number of other robotic villains and/or allies who have kept up with Rangers in the past which I may be forgetting. Do you see the point? Do you understand the problem with this situation? I do. Yet again, another slap in the face to the legacy of the franchise. Judd Lynn not only worked on <i>Turbo</i>, he was rather involved with much of the Zordon era. On top of all of that, he was the second EP on <i>Power Rangers RPM</i>. You know, that series with the villains who were exclusively robots. Full stop, that's the premise. We don't even <i>need</i> to dig into Dylan and Teneya, the fact that the main villains were entirely made up of robots and killed <i>plenty </i>of the forces who came up against them, that alone undermines <i>everything </i>Shelby says right here. The fact that Overdrive was <i>led </i>by a cyborg, the fact that the third Turbo team was <i>entirely </i>made up of robots means that either Shelby is dumb or Judd Lynn is. Does Saban even <i>have </i>a continuity editor? A fact-checker, someone to keep the canon generally straight? If they do, did they listen to them? It's not like Judd Lynn is Michael Bay, and he was trying to make <i>Armageddon </i>more fun to watch. At this point, it doesn't even matter if he was the one who wrote that line, he worked on the script for this episode! He co-wrote it, he should have crossed that line out and had Kendall rather than Shelby feed Phillip a line about the clunkyness and complexity of the control-pad interfering with the efficacy of the robot. However, to run this all the way back to the robot itself. If I were a prince with wealth and influence like Phillip does, I'd create some kind of <i>Real Steel</i>-style control-system coupled with a VR headset and omni-directional treadmill. That way, I could control the robot, see what it sees, and control it as if I was actually there. You know, like the kind of control-system we've seen out of Megazords in the past. The Tigerzord, Jungle Pride Megazord, Samurai Megazord, hell even the Dino Charge Megazords are controlled like that. Probably a few more that I've missed, but the few examples I've shown should be more than enough to prove that the technology exists within the universe that could do exactly what I just laid out easily. Nothing else to it, this setup is idiotic.<br />
Anyways, earlier in the episode, Fury saves Poisandra from one of Sledge's prisoners (Why hasn't this happened before and why hasn't Sledge just cashed in his prisoners to keep his girlfriend safe?) and gets back in his boss's good graces. This leads up to his attack on the Rangers. I'll get into that a bit later.<br />
Right after Phillip's initial encounter with his Enegem, we move <i>right </i>into something which becomes a staple of this series. The endless masturbatory references to New Zealand! It was somewhat light earlier in the series, but this is where it all becomes a bit cringeworthy. Especially when they head off to New Zealand. As opposed to all the barely-disguised New Zealand shots they use throughout. How is it that everyone else who produces things in New Zealand, from Disney to Warner Bros. have managed to make it <i>not </i>look obvious that they were filming in New Zealand, but Saban can't? Or more to the point, don't care to?<br />
Chase's little sister and a group from her school in New Zealand (Read: Just down the road IRL) perform a traditional dance in traditional Maori regalia. She wants to go skateboarding with her brother, but then Fury shows up and everything goes down as I said it did earlier.<br />
Fury and his Vivix abscond with the robot, while Phillip tries to figure out what he needs to do to show the Energem he's a good person, and he does everything I just said he did. After none of that works, a dejected Phillip gives the Energem to the Rangers in the hopes that they can find a worthy wielder. Then Chase's sister shows up, and monsters attack. Phillip, without a thought for himself, rushes out to save her. Lo and behold, this is the catalyst the Energem needed to bond with him. They handle the situation (And the reprogrammed robot) and wrap things up. The girl Chase was dating earlier gets him a ticket so he can go home and see his family for Christmas, and Chase thanks her. Unfortunately, after he went through all that trouble to help, Phillip is called back to Zandar on royal business. Although I'd personally reckon he was having far more interesting solo-adventures fighting crime in his country. I think this because I feel like there's a more interesting story to be told here that wasn't.<br />Now, the next episode as far as continuity is concerned is "Ghostest With The Mostest," but it wasn't aired like that. In fact, it was aired immediately prior to "Rise of a Ranger." The production numbers actually put it as the twenty-first episode in the series. Considering it's a clip-show, and doesn't actually have any real impact on the series as a whole, it doesn't particularly need to be watched at all. There's no real enjoyment to be had, this episode (And all the holiday specials in this series) is nothing but pure filler.<br />
Duplicon is resurrected, and between him and Memorella, Sledge now has a Ranger of his own to control. Kendall's system flags alien DNA, so instead of doing a blood-test on them, they decide to do a lie-detector test. Even if you didn't have their DNA on file, the one who doesn't submit to the test is likely the imposter.<br />Anyways, after a bunch of flashbacks to things nobody cares about, they flag that the fake Ranger is Koda right as the real Koda shows up. He was referring to Kendall as "Miss Morgan" instead of "Kendall" as he usually does.<br />
There's really nothing of note in this episode aside for the fact that there was about a frame or two of Kyoryuger cockpit footage visible before they cut to the original footage. This wouldn't be noticeable if not for the fact that Saban has this rather strange fetish for introducing suit variants that the Rangers can only use in the cockpit of the Megazord. Even so, even with all of this, if it wasn't for the fact that the cockpits are so different, it probably would have been harder to notice. Back in the day, all you had to do was shoot some original fight-scenes and then the Japanese mecha footage could be used in its entirety. At least as long as the characters kept their helmets on. I suppose Saban just likes to try and sell more toys at the expense of the cockpit footage having zero continuity with the rest of the show. For the record, I think that Dino Drive was a complete waste of time, effort, plastic and money when a much cooler suit of armor would debut not too long after it did.<br />
<br />
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Welcome back to my <i>Power Rangers Dino Charge</i> retrospective, where we continue on with the fifth episode of the series, "Breaking Black."<br />
Contrary to the title, there will be nothing in this episode related to "breaking" Chase, nor will there be anything drug-related happening. Shame, because it must have taken plenty of drugs to think that Chase's origin is anything resembling original. Or to consider this episode anything resembling good.<br />
Chase is being careless, but an old friend of his, Moana, a Maori mystic woman who gave him his Energem when he saved her cat, asks him to watch her shop for a while. He agrees, but one of Sledge's minions, Spellbinder, robs the shop of an amulet. He then uses that amulet on Chase, and rather than taking his Energem from him and then proceeding to use him to get the other four Energems, he skips Step One and proceeds straight to attempting to steal the others from the rest of the Rangers. Spellbinder's cape manages to fend off some of the Ranger's attacks, but Moana tells the Rangers that Chase focuses best when he's riding his skateboard, and Shelby uses this information to snap Chase out of the spell. Yes, this is literally what happens. No, I don't know why. This episode sort of feels like it should have been later on in the series, after Chase got together with his girlfriend, and with a fairly massive rewrite. Once we get there, we'll start to see more orphaned concepts attached to incredibly dumb premises for no discernible reason.<br />
We get to the end of the episode where Koda tells Chase it's his turn to mop the floor when it's actually Koda's. Starting the tradition that otherwise mediocre or good episodes get capped off by dumb shenanigans. This is going to stick around, unfortunately.<br />
The next episode is titled "The Tooth Hurts." It's all about a cavity monster who makes everyone's teeth hurt. Yes, that's as stupid as it sounds.<br />
Chase and Riley begin butting heads over training their training regimens. Chase follows his instincts, while Riley follows a strict method. Yeah, that's original. That dynamic hasn't been done to death and back in basically everything ever.<br />
Poisandra sets about getting herself a wedding cake made (After sixty-five million years) by using one of Sledge's prisoners, a chef named Cavity, to make them.<br />
Question. How does a chef that bakes weird, ultra-sweet cakes that makes peoples teeth hurt wind up on the radar of someone like Sledge? Or even his boss, Lord Arcanon? It's not like he's adept at creating cakes that kill people, but hey, I've gotten my idea of bounty hunters from <i>Star Wars</i> and the old west, where people usually have to have <i>done </i>something to get on the radars of a crime-lord like Arcanon. Maybe he borrowed money from one of Arcanon's loan-sharks (Assuming he <i>has </i>loan-sharks) and he sent Sledge out to handle it. Except that didn't happen, because the writers didn't think of that.<br />
Anyways, once the Rangers catch wind of the situation, they go out to try and handle the situation. For some reason, rather than splitting Riley and Chase up so that they can stop clashing, Keeper says nothing and the two of them let Cavity get away. They later begin learning to work together and manage to overcome their differences to destroy the monster, to the surprise of nobody.<br />
In addition to the points I brought up in the last review, we get to a few of the flaws in Sledge's plan. He has at his disposal an entire brig full of various dangerous monsters, and an entire army of Vivix footsoldiers. He could wage a campaign of espionage and infiltration that could break the very hearts and souls of the Rangers without them ever finding out what he's doing. This will be fleshed out further on in the series when we're introduced to a few more of the covert monsters in Sledge's prison.<br />
The next episode marks the debut of the Ankylosaurus Zord, and the debut (Or rather, the continuation) of one of the series few overarching plot-threads. Who holds the Aqua Energem?<br />
Now, call me crazy, but I personally would have made the Aqua Zord the Plesiosaurus, but that's more of a criticism of <i>Zyuden Sentai Kyoryuger </i>than it is of this show. <i>Power Rangers </i>couldn't have changed that unless they re-painted a Warrior-class and Auxiliary-class Zord and completely remade two suits. Then they'd have been stuck with plenty of unusable stock-footage. Considering how poorly this series spent its $35 million budget as it is, I doubt there was much left for fixing a rather obvious coloration error. Anyways, I'd much rather have them spend their budget on important things, like making sure the episodes are edited properly. Oh, wait. Yeah, we'll get to that sometime towards the end.<br />
Anyways, back on track, the Rangers are on the hunt for the other Energems. Shelby comes up with a plan to eliminate fossils of dinosaurs that are already associated with an Energem, and Kendall begins working on Chargers which can hone in on the location of the Zords and the Energems. I say "Zords" as well, because that's what they pick up, the location of the Zord. <i>Not</i>, in fact, the location of the Energem itself. We'll get to the problems with this sometime later.<br />
Anyways, Poisandra enlists Stingrage, one of Sledge's prisoners (Who can sting people or animals and put them into a berzerker rage. Name's a bit on the nose, no?) to track down an Energem. He, Poisandra and her sidekick Curio get to where the Zord is and Stingrage stings it. The Rangers arrive on-scene, but Stingrage stings Koda, and overwhelms their defense.<br />
Now, do you want to know how Poisandra figured out where the Zord was?<br />
Kendall didn't encrypt the transmission! In her own words, "Anyone could have intercepted the signal."<br />
Yeah, no shit Sherlock! Apparently it doesn't require any common-sense to be a museum curator, because this is <i>so far beyond basic</i> that it literally makes no sense why she didn't encrypt their communication signals!<br />
Anyways, long-story short, Shelby manages to calm Ankylo down, the Rangers beat Stingrage with its help, and Kendall gives Shelby fossilized Triceratops dung as a gift. Naturally, she overreacts the hell out of it.<br />
Question, how do you know the fossilized dung is in fact from a Triceratops? Wait, you wouldn't.<br />
This brings us the the last episode before the ridiculous Nick-mandated hiatus that mars the airing schedule of every Neo-Saban<i> Power Rangers</i> series. Well, that and their seasonal episode-limit. This is "Double Ranger, Double Danger."<br />
After the Rangers blocked off their signals, Sledge tasks Poisandra with stealing their Energy-Tracer. Poisandra recruits Duplicon to help her out.<br />
Tyler spends some time moping over his missing dad before aliens approach the site, and Kendall sends him off with the tracer instead of accompanying him herself. Yes, they sent him alone with the tracer while Kendall, who has no powers at this point in the series, stayed behind to fight them off. I'd think you might want to pack it into Tyler's Jeep, let Kendall drive and have a Morphed Ranger come along for the ride as backup.<br />
Anyways, Tyler manages to get away, and Duplicon's cloned Rangers catch up to him (In Morphed form) and they ride off. Shelby, unmorphed, calls him up to figure out why he left without them. The cloned Rangers take this opportunity to assault Tyler and abscond with the tracer.<br />
The Rangers regroup and face off with their clones. They kill them rather unceremoniously.<br />
Tyler faces off with Fury. Fury gets the upper-hand, and almost kills Tyler, but a golden light emerges from his body and messes with him. Rather than take a few seconds out to blast him to kingdom come, Tyler pisses off to help out the other Rangers. Who could have handled their situation on their own if it wasn't for the obsession this series has with making Tyler use the Dino Spike to finish off villain. There's no reason they couldn't have handled that on their own. I'm almost positive that Jungle Fury handled monsters stronger than Duplicon with just the core three! Various flavors of Kamen Rider have taken down monsters more of a threat than Duplicon <i>on their own</i>!<br />
Poisandra almost makes off with the scanner, but Fury attacks her and takes it himself so he can gain favor with Sledge. Rather than hopping up onto the walkway to wrest the machine from him, Tyler orders Chase to destroy the machine. The tracker is destroyed, but the Charger isn't, and Fury recovers it and escapes.<br />
This brings us to by far, one of the biggest problems with <i>Power Rangers </i>on Nickelodeon. The summer hiatus. "Double Ranger, Double Danger" was aired on April 4th, 2015. The next episode, "When Logic Fails" aired four months less a day afterwards on August 3rd. Except it only aired that early in Brazil for some reason. In the states it was released on <a href="http://nick.com/">Nick.com</a> on August 15th, and aired on television proper the next week on the 22nd. Two more weeks and it would have been a solid five months between new episodes. That's plenty of time to utterly forget a series exists and lose interest entirely.<br />
There are a few simple rules that television shows should probably follow: You don't have more than one week between episodes from the same season. You <i>never </i>move a show from its airday or timeslot, be it in the middle of a season or between them. Also. This is very important too. <i>Do NOT </i>air episodes on different dates internationally! If you do, you're going to wind up in the <i>exact </i>same position Saban has been in for at least the last two years now! I was watching the fandom closely on social media, there was hardly <i>anyone</i> waiting on the domestic airings to watch the new episodes. No, everyone was flocking to the Brazilian encodes because they featured the original English audio track in addition to the native dub. <i>Two episodes </i>were aired on Cartoon Network in Brazil before the hiatus officially ended. Not that there should have been a hiatus to begin with, but wouldn't you want to synchronize your airdates so that everyone gets it at the same time and maximize simultaneous viewers? As many companies in Japan have found out, the best way to prevent people from pirating your product is to air it internationally as quickly as possible. Sadly, Saban hasn't curried on to that idea yet, because this issue persisted well into the second season, and has in fact, gotten worse! The only episodes that I know of that didn't air outside the states before they aired in France were probably the first half of the season, and the Christmas special! Yes, even the finale aired first in France before it aired in the states! At least that didn't happen for the season one finale, thank god!<br />
Aside from all the meta-series quibbles, this is easily one of the worst episodes of the season, if not the whole series, for a number of reasons that we'll get into once I start breaking this stuff down.<br />
Before Chase destroyed the eTracer, Fury was able to get a reading off the machine on the location of the Pterazord. The Charger is completely discharged, so there's no chance of being able to summon it without the Gold Energem. Sledge is irritated with Fury for getting the eTracer destroyed, and tosses him off the ship, but not before the cat-man takes the Charger with him.<br />
In this scene, Wrench, Sledge's engineer, says that the only way to charge the charger up is to use the Gold Energem.<br />
This raises a question that will hang over the entirety of the series, because it's never answered. There are a total of eleven Energems. Ten associated with a dinosaur and zord. There are a total of thirty Chargers used in the show, five of which have no dinosaur relation, and thirteen of which are associated with dinosaurs that have no corresponding Zord. (At least in the TV show) The question Wrench raises with his statement is one you may have thought of by now, but if not, I'll say it anyways.<br />
What do the other Chargers run on? I get how the main ten work, they have Energems paired that can fuel them. The others though? They've got nothing backing them up. If this hadn't been brought up, I would have just rolled with it for the most part. All you'd have to do is say that Sledge and the gang don't really have the gear hooked up to charge it up properly and you're golden. The Energems can be a damn good source of energy for the Chargers, but regular old Electricity can work just fine as long as you've got enough of it, basically operating on the same rules that <i>Stargate</i> does. I presumed at the time that the Zords are intended to work with the Energems as the Morphers were demonstrated as doing in the first episode, but considering what we learn towards the end of season two, and the fact that there's a Zord that runs exclusively on Dino Chargers due to it not being paired with an Energem, I have the rather distinct feeling that they weren't paying the closest attention to the rules set down in this series. If they were even trying to follow rules when making this show, which is questionable, considering the amount of long-standing franchise rules they appear to be determined to undermine. Not to mention how often they've contradicted what were supposed to be hard and fast rules about how this series arsenal is supposed to function.<br />
Episode Nine is where we see more than a hint that Riley is the geek of the group. Namely, he starts going full-on Sherlock Holmes to some extent, and being the only one with common sense for the entirety of the rest of the episode. Everyone is meandering about until Riley points out that the villains need to find a way to charge up the Ptera Charger.<br />
Meanwhile, Fury and Wrench, accompanied by a prisoner named Puzzler are infiltrating the only other lab with the tech that could do that. I presume they're related to Alphabet Soup in some way, but we don't really find out <i>why </i>they have this technology.<br />
Fury and Wrench leave Puzzler to guard the outside of the building, (He's a gigantic yellow <i>thing </i>with green maze lines all over him.) but he sees a pair of children playing chess dumbly and tries to give them advice. Naturally, this scares the crap out of them. The fleeing children tip off Chase that something's wrong, and he encounters Puzzler. Puzzler overwhelms him, but the rest of the team arrives before Chase can be killed. Puzzler flees, and the Rangers give chase. Puzzler decides to turn the building into a maze so he can have a chance of surviving his encounter. He also cranks the temperature down below freezing in an attempt to kill the Rangers. Which should't work for a number of reasons. First off, their Energems are supposed to protect them from freezing, as was demonstrated in the first episode. Second, they could literally just Morph and they'd be fine. Nobody has ever died in a Ranger suit. They're the most sophisticated life-support system in the universe, demonstrated by the numerous times that they've allowed Rangers to operate in a vacuum and not suffocate and die. "Forever Red" had a team of Red Rangers on the moon, <i>In Space</i> had them doing that all the time. <i>Lost Galaxy </i>too, probably, since it was a space-themed season too. My point is, this is a non-issue for the Rangers.<br />
The maze is about what you'd expect out of a supernatural labyrinth. The illogical geometry, infinitely looping staircases, doorways that lead straight off a cliff, and jammed vending machines. No, not kidding. While all the other Rangers are preoccupied with other dumb things, Koda decides to get food. Once the machine jams, rather than smash the glass with his cave-man strength, or his gun, or his sword, he tries reaching inside, shaking it, doing generally dumb things. Because his character, which has some of the most potential to be interesting, is regularly reduced to "comedy" antics.<br />
The only one to come close to actually doing something sensible is the focus-character of this episode, Riley. He climbs through the vents and sees Fury and Wrench harnessing the yellow glob thing inhabiting Fury to power the Pteracharger. Fury pilots the Ptera Zord out, and Riley escapes the maze. Now, rather than simply killing Puzzler and rescuing the rest of the Rangers, Riley challenges him to a game of 3D Chess. Riley beats him, frees the other Rangers, they kill Puzzler, and things wrap up. RIley isn't even the one to pull the trigger on Puzzler, Koda is the one to do it.<br />
For a mid-season return, "When Logic Fails" is a pitiful excuse for <i>anything</i>. It's hard to describe exactly how underwhelming this was to behold upon initial viewing when it was aired. First off, this episode establishes Riley as the teams smart guy, despite the fact that this is never referred back to in anything more than a filler episode. Additionally, they dropped nothing more than <i>one </i>hint towards him being this much of a brain, and that was the name of his dog, Rubik! Riley just pulls this Sherlock Holmes-vision out of nowhere, and it never, I repeat, <i>never </i>makes an appearance after this.<br />
<br />
That about does it for this part of the breakdown, I do apologize for the length of the wait, but I've been some combination of sick and busy for the last two weeks.<br />
Getting all the usual housekeeping out of the way, here are the links to click on if you want to support me and the site. Here's the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews" target="_blank">Patreon</a> link, <a href="http://amzn.to/2gEtFPA" target="_blank">Amazon</a> affiliate link, and <a href="http://www.swagbucks.com/refer/Axlyon" target="_blank">Swagbucks</a> referral link. You can also check out my Amazon wishlists, linked in the donations tab above Anything you can do to support me, please do. Swagbucks won't even cost you any money, and will in fact give it to you!Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-3278362270795211412016-12-04T23:48:00.000-06:002016-12-04T23:48:12.728-06:00Power Rangers Dino Charge Retrospective: Part 1<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnv519Adu_90q5M_zLF0JprNcAgUvs4VNzrlitpT8a12plHkw7PuFUz7RLxA5c5Y2LdkFv4CSMecLBJmpk8jy0CepvUZCDBN4-nTStfCfsvJLxZiA7wp-SEoXkDz-wIKJ93qho0fmZqVwT/s1600/Power+Rangers+Dino+Charge+Retrospective+Part+One.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="306" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnv519Adu_90q5M_zLF0JprNcAgUvs4VNzrlitpT8a12plHkw7PuFUz7RLxA5c5Y2LdkFv4CSMecLBJmpk8jy0CepvUZCDBN4-nTStfCfsvJLxZiA7wp-SEoXkDz-wIKJ93qho0fmZqVwT/s320/Power+Rangers+Dino+Charge+Retrospective+Part+One.png" width="320" /></a></div>
Well, this is it. Two years ago, <i>Power Rangers Dino Charge</i> premiered, to a raucous applause from the fans. Then, on November 19, 2016, the series ended. Not with a bang, not with a whimper, but with a "what?!" from the fandom.<br />
Generally speaking, I had high-hopes for this show. The characters had some good chemistry and charisma, for the most-part. The suits were kind of cool, and the mecha were as well. Even the collectible gimmick appealed to me on some level. Unfortunately, the series decayed over time into your typical Nickelodeon fare with dumb jokes, shenanigans, and generally stupid plots. The first episode of season two was slow and illogical, but it got better as time went on. Then things got stupid again for the middle of the season, and stayed like that until the last five or six episodes. I say "or six" because the last episode was about when things got strange again.<br />
The false-climax around the middle of the series wasn't really a <i>bad</i> idea per-se, I love a good false-finish myself, but only when it's done well. The fact that the Dino Charge Rangers basically disbanded after Sledge's ship crashed without verifying their kill meant that they had to pull out plenty of nonsense to reunite the team, rather than continuing from last season straight up. Leave the team together, and just have the season end with them going out to investigate the derelict of Sledge's ship. That alone solves <i>plenty </i>of the problems I had with the show, and all you've got to do is change a few seconds in the end of the first season finale and the whole season two premiere and everything retains its momentum to some extent.<br />
However, this isn't the biggest problem the series had <i>by a long shot</i>. We begin sixty-five million years before the present-day, and the main villain, Sledge, is chasing down some guy named Keeper to try and get ahold of the Energems he protects so he can give one to his girlfriend and they can get married.<br />
Keeper then crashes on Earth, and he divests himself of the Energems, giving them to a rather odd motley crew of dinosaurs. Ten Energems handed off to seven herbivores and three carnivores. A T-Rex and a raptor who would have eaten Keeper as soon as looked at him. The rest could have stepped on or otherwise accidentally killed him rather easily. You know, I say ten, but there wasn't a Plesiosaurus anywhere to be found in that opening sequence, so I'm just a tiny bit confused by it all. Trust me, this will happen again later on.<br />
Sledge's people then beam up the box that had the Energems in it, and it explodes. Sledge's ship then casts asteroids down on the earth, killing the dinosaurs.<br />
At this point, I'm going into Mr. McNitpick mode, because frankly, this show doesn't deserve a willing suspension of disbelief.<br />
First off, the prevailing hypothesis about the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event (The extinction of the dinosaurs) is that a single asteroid or comet (Known as the Chicxulub impactor, after the crater near Chicxulub in Mexico) caused the extinction. Even in competing hypotheses, when someone brings up multiple impactors, we're talking about <i>four </i>sites in <i>three different parts of the planet</i>! Most of those rocks Sledge was hauling around would have been<i> vaporized before they hit the ground</i>! I don't even think there was <i>a single </i>rock in that net that could have caused a planet-wide extinction event! The smallest of the potentially-related craters, the Silverpit Crater, is twelve miles wide wide, and the impactor would have been at least four-hundred feet across, and would have weighed about two-<i>million</i> tonnes. As in, it still would have been bigger, and weighed more, than Sledge's <i>entire </i>ship.<br />
Here's my reasoning behind this. According to the <i>Power Rangers </i>wiki, the Dino Charge Megazord is approximately 52.5 meters tall, which translates out to about 172 feet tall. However, that number seemed a bit off to me, like it was significantly too big, so I measured my Dino Charge Megazord with a ruler and got about 10.5 inches, which when put into the scale used by<i> Dungeons and Dragons </i>(5 feet for every square inch) gets you about 52.5 feet. Put that into <i>Shadowrun</i>'s scale and you get 10.5 meters, about 35 feet. I can't find any official statistics on the <i>Dino Charge</i> or <i>Dino Supercharge</i> websites, and based on my previous analysis of <i>Power Rangers </i>mecha, I'm somewhat more inclined to go with my <i>D&D</i>-based numbers than the ones on the wiki.<br />
To further back this up, let's rewind to the season one episode, "Sync or Swim," wherein the Rangers dumped a bomb on Sledge's ship. The bomb could be held in the Megazord's hand, and it was about the same size as the bridge of Sledge's ship, so that means the bridge of the ship is slightly smaller than the chest of the Megazord. Also, the bomb in that episode was about twice as tall as Tyler's Jeep Wrangler (Just considering what was on-screen, the top was cut off), this means the bomb is about 14 feet tall, probably more. (Assuming Koda is about six feet tall, and basing my calculations of the Jeep's height on that of the 2006 TJ model, give or take a few inches.) Based on interior shots of Sledge's ship, I estimate the bridge to be about eighteen to twenty feet by about eighteen to twenty feet, which just about matches up to my calculations about the bomb, and just about matches up with my estimates of the size of the Megazord. Not to mention that in the first episode of Season 1, "Powers From The Past" we clearly see the T-Rex Zord alongside Tyler and Shelby, and I could count its height in single digits if I stacked Tyler toe-to-head alongside it. From here, we can figure out the size of the rest of the ship. Assuming the tip of the ship is the bridge, we're looking at about a 100 foot-long ship with a 75-120 foot wingspan. As you can tell, this isn't merely a baseless assumption, I've done my research.<br />
Even if Sledge <i>did </i>have the asteroid in tow that destroyed the earth, he shouldn't have been able to steer his ship properly, as anyone who's ever driven a car with a trailer that was above the vehicles weight capacity can tell you. It would swerve back and forth. Even in micro-gravity, the laws of physics still apply.<br />
Now, not only does this part not match up with the science, it's contradicted by previously-established <i>Power Rangers</i> canon, namely that of <i>Dino Thunder</i>. The Dino Gems in that show were salvaged from the one rock that crashed into the Earth and killed the dinosaurs, not from a big shower of them. I haven't seen <i>Dino Thunder </i>yet, but I know a bit about the plot. Depending on the specifics of <i>that</i> show, the details may further contradict what happens in this series, we'll see.<br />
Anyways, back in the present day, Tyler Navarro has been searching for his dad, an archaeologist ever since he disappeared. His search has led him to Amber Beach, California. There he learns of the Sampson Caves, the place where his father was last seen.<br />
Tyler investigates the caves, finding the fossilized remains of a Tyrannosaurus Rex within, alongside a mysterious, glowing red stone. A mysterious figure shrouded in black, something his father wrote about in his journal pursues Tyler through the caves, but he manages to escape.<br />
At the Dinosaur Museum where Tyler learned of the caves, the curator, Dr. Kendell Morgan and her crew, Chase Randall and Koda leave to check out a fossil dig-site. Shelby Watkins, an archaeology student working at the Dino Bite Cafe within the museum. She wants to some along, but Morgan tells her no. She stows away with the team anyways though.<br />
The figure who attacked Tyler earlier attempts to steal a crate from the dig-site, but Shelby and Tyler (Who has been following the creature since their encounter) intervene. Shelby drops the crate, and finds another strange stone within. The figure in the cloak reveals itself and attempts to freeze Tyler and Shelby alive so he can take those stones, the Energems from them. Unfortunately for him, the Energems keep the ice from holding onto them. Keep this in mind, this is very important, this is going to come up at least three times across two episodes, where this rather important event is going to be contradicted. Hard.<br />
Anyways, the two of them gain fossilized Morphers, insert the Energems and Morph into the Dino Charge Rangers, Red for Tyler and Pink for Shelby. The fight with Ice Age before a rather strange-looking T-Rex shows up and kicks his ass to kingdom come before vanishing.<br />
On their way back into the city, Tyler shows Shelby his dad's journal, with the picture of Sledge's footsoldier, Fury sketched within, as we see Fury stalking them in the distance.<br />
Second episode shows us a farmboy named Riley practicing his fencing. His brother tells him to fetch some eggs. While doing this, Riley notices his dog, Rubik has wandered into the forest and appears to be barking at a rock. In fact, the dog is barking at Fury, who has come for an Energem in the vicinity. Fury makes to kill the creature, but Riley blocks the slash with a fence-post. He tries to drive Fury off with it, but the thing doesn't even scratch him. He manages to dodge Fury's slashes, which hit a rock. The Rock cracks open, and within the Green Energem is found. Riley grasps it, and his stick becomes a mighty Dino Saber, which with he fends off Fury.<br />
Riley decides to take the Energem to the city, specifically to the museum to figure out what it is, but his bike breaks down on the way. He hitches a ride with Shelby and Tyler, but they find an overturned car with someone pinned beneath on their way. With their newfound strength, they are able to push the car off the person and save them.<br />
They get to the museum, and through Tyler's own stupidity, they discover the location of the other Rangers. And on top of Fury still being alive, so is Keeper. With what we find out later, Fury and Keeper being alive <i>sort of </i>makes sense, but considering Sledge and all of his crew and prisoners are alive, I have a feeling the production crew wasn't all that fussed about internal consistency.<br />
In the base, they find two other Energems docked in a crystal bed. The other three Energems fly to their docking station, which is when we find out that Koda and Chase are Rangers as well.<br />
While in the base, Keeper explains (poorly) the history of the Energems and their basic abilities. Some things are defined clearly, others poorly.<br />
They begin picking up strange readings from a volcano, Ice Age attacks the city, and this is when we find out for certain that Sledge is still alive.<br />
This brings me to one of the most persistent issues with the series. Sledge has been kicking around the universe for millions of years, and never turned in any of the prisoners he has in his brig. Despite the fact that after the first few months of searching for the Energems, anyone with any sense would have turned in his prisoners for their bounties and pissed off to find something easier to use as a wedding-ring. There are eleven Energems, which means that (relatively speaking) platinum, gold and diamonds are literally several orders of magnitude easier to find. Not that one should have trouble finding something if they've got 65 million years to search.<br />
Something to mention is that during my commentary videos on the series, I operated under the impression that Sledge had been hanging around the solar-system, laying low and searching the Earth for the Energems, while the rundown at the beginning of every episode states that Sledge was blasted "Deep into space."<br />
My reasoning behind this is mainly the fact that the explosion that set him off-course wasn't particularly powerful, and his ship wasn't really moving all that fast. Plus, as we see that his ship appears to be incredibly powerful towards the end of the series, there's no way in hell he even made it to the outer planets before correcting his course.<br />
This conclusion brings me to another point I made with frequency in my videos about this series. It requires a few assumptions to be made about the universe this show is set in. Namely, that they have the same level of science we do, and the same level of competency. Considering that in the <i>Power Rangers </i>universe humanity returned to the moon in 1993, there have been several government-led teams, civilians have developed Power Ranger tech on their own, there have been people who have built <i>literal androids</i>, and humanity is in contact with a number of alien races, I believe the former is a given. Hell, they've got better tech than we do. The latter however? Considering the level of obvious stupidity we've seen out of random people in the Neo-Saban era alone, I think it's safe to assume that around 2009-2010 in this universe, rather than the Venjix Virus infecting the worlds computers, the stupid virus infected the worlds humans, and we never really recovered.<br />
But in all honesty, <i>Doctor Who</i> handled this incredibly well. Humans are the type of creatures who will create legends about anything, and when Amy Pond was locked in that cube for a thousand years, her husband Rory and the cube itself became legends. The Lone Centurian they called him, legends written about how he was always the protector of the cube and its contents no matter what. However, it seems like hardly anyone has noticed Sledge and his ship, or Fury even aside from the series leads. We've had telescopes for literally centuries, we've been looking up at the sky for longer than that, and we've been tracking interstellar objects for almost seventy years now. I have a feeling we'd have noticed him at some point.<br />
Plus, how did Fury manage to survive the events of the <i>In Space </i>finale? <i>Lord freaking Zedd</i> didn't survive that! Rita Repulsa didn't! There wasn't a single villain left on Earth who wasn't sealed away <i>left</i> at the end of that series! This wouldn't be such a big deal if <i>Judd Lynn hadn't also written "Countdown To Destruction!"</i> Yeah, the Judd Lynn who was the freaking showrunner for this series, and the writer for, as far as I can tell, most of this series episodes!<br />
Granted, it's been about a decade and a half since when <i>In Space </i>aired and the production of <i>Dino Charge</i>, but shouldn't they have a continuity manager working to make sure they never make these kind of screwups? Although, since the Neo-Saban production team appears to be lacking anyone willing to raise their hand and object when someone puts something incredibly stupid into the series, I'm not at all surprised that they don't.<br />
Anyways, after they defeat the monsters, Dr. Morgan tells the Rangers not to reveal their identities to anyone, even family members.<br />
To which I say, HAH! In this day and age, you can't keep something like that secret, especially when you go from civilian to superhero form the way the Rangers do. I've literally read fanfiction that handled this issue better than Saban does. IE, at all. <i>Man of Steel </i>addressed this, in that Superman basically had to tell the United States Government to knock off their surveillance of him by destroying one of their drones.<br />
Anyways, I'm gonna list off the problems this concept has. First off, the Rangers <i>always </i>morph in plain-view of everyone present, and as you <i>should </i>know, everyone has a phone with a camera on it. Humans love to record weird things that happen. That's why we have footage of riots, terrorists attacks, natural disasters, etc. There should be plenty of angles on the Rangers morphing, considering the fact that 1) They're the only people who <i>aren't </i>running from the monsters, 2) they wear the same colors as their suits in civilian form and 3) They spend plenty of time between civilian form and morph with their faces exposed, there should be <i>zero </i>chance of them keeping their identities secret, from the public <i>or </i>the government! There have been plenty of criticisms of the Power Rangers for this in the past, but back in the 1990's, they had a damn good chance of <i>not getting caught</i>. It wasn't like everyone had a video-camera back then that they could fit in their pocket and whip out at a moments notice to start recording, something that we could <i>then </i>post on a worldwide information network which people are constantly scouring for something interesting. Back then you could reasonably maintain a secret identity with that kind of approach as long as you were careful. And for the most part, the original team was. In order for <i>this </i>team to accomplish that feat, however, they would have to morph and <i>de</i>morph exclusively in their base and only in the field when <i>absolutely</i> necessary. Even then, that would only preclude casual observers from figuring out their identities. The Rangers have a total of <i>zero </i>decent security measures on their base, so you can bet that the FBI has got bugs and cameras <i>coating </i>their "secret" hideout. Hell, a decently driven civilian could figure out where their base is, and from there could figure out who they were. All you've got to do is stake out the museum after you've tracked the Rangers down, see if there's anyone on the staff who regularly vanishes at the same time as monster attacks and you've got yourself a bona-fide breakdown of who the Rangers actually are. This is why MMPR had a base in the middle of nowhere, and why Jungle Fury basically didn't bother trying to keep their location secret.<br />
I'll also get to the reasons why the Rangers keeping their identities secret is a <i>horrible </i>idea later on, because boy, oh <i>boy</i> are there a few <i>massive </i>freaking problems with this concept.<br />
The third episode is where things <i>really </i>began to fall apart, firstly the fact that it establishes the status quo for the series, the Rangers working at the cafe for no reason whatsoever, and secondly because this is where they started glossing over major details with some <i>heavy </i>lacquer. This is the episode in which we find out for sure that Koda is in fact, a caveman. We don't find out many of the details of his character until the next episode, and the details of how he met the Ranger team are further pushed off to season two. Back in the Disney era, all these details would have been covered in one episode and fleshed out over the course of the rest of the series. In the Neo-Saban era, these details are forgotten until they're needed once more to drive the plot forward. But that's not the biggest failing of this episode. No, the largest failing is the fact that this is basically a filler episode, and yet it introduces the freaking <i>Megazord</i>. The fifty foot-tall thundering beast, the Rangers ultimate weapon, designed to perfection to be fast, dangerous, to soak up damage like a sponge and keep walking, and above all to be upgradeable at a moments notice should the situation demand it, is introduced in an episode that aside from the appearance of the Megazord and a few disparate character facts has nothing going for it. That's the recurring problem of this series as a whole, there are too many episodes where things just <i>happen </i>because they needed to fill air-time. Look back at episode two, there was no particular reason that they <i>needed </i>to have the Megazord form in this episode, the threat could have easily been handled by the individual Zords and nothing would have changed.<br />
I'm no particular fan of the way <i>Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers </i>introduced the original Megazord. The Zords themselves had far too little time to stand on their own, and it might as well have been there just to showcase everything the show had to offer in a single episode. <i>However</i>, that was a clear and present threat for which there needed to be an <i>immediate</i> solution. The Megazord provided that solution in-universe in a swift and suitably monumental fashion.<br />
Speaking of <i>MMPR, </i>back in the day, it was rather unique for a Ranger to take on a supersized villain in a single Zord. When Jason Lee Scott manned the helm of his immortal Tyrannosaurus <i>alone </i>against the monster of the week, it was seen as a testament to his ability as both a leader and a Ranger. The fact that he managed to do so in the less-maneuverable and <i>far</i> less deadly T-Rex Zord without any backup was awe-inspiring. It wasn't just a throwaway fight, that was something that <i>everyone </i>who saw it remembered. Then along came Tommy Oliver, one man on his own, who fought and <i>defeated</i> the rest of the team with his Dragonzord, a machine that was, on its own at <i>least </i>as powerful as the Megazord itself. My point is, you don't just throw away a moment like the Red Ranger icing the villain of the week off-hand, you either treat it as a desperate struggle, or you hold off on forming up the Megazord for a good long while until you actually face a threat that requires it. The time to form the Megazord was either in Episode 2, or later in the series. "A Fool's Hour" should have been cut from the episode lineup entirely, and everything important within rolled into "Return of the Caveman."<br />
Speaking of which, that's talk about episode four! Or as I like to call it; Shenanigans: Or; We Don't Know What a Consistent Tone is!<br />
Listen folks, I'm not the kind of fan who expects <i>Power Rangers</i> to be grimdark and serious all the time, god knows I love a good joke every now and again. Unfortunately for the Neo-Saban era, there aren't many good jokes in this series, just pratfalls, exploding food gags, and stupid writing. Equally unfortunately for them, I grew up with the original Saban-era and the Disney-era, back when the show had good jokes at the worst of times and phenomenal jokes at the best. In other words, this series had standards to live up to, and it failed, <i>hard</i>.<br />
Oh, I'm <i>certain</i> these shenanigans elicited some form of laughter from what this show considers its "target demographic." Just a shame it won't from any of the old hands that have been keeping this show afloat for the last seven years.<br />
Being a critic, I watch a lot of movies and television series, and a lot of those are ones aimed towards younger demographics. One of the shows I've been watching a lot lately is <i>Star Wars: The Clone Wars</i>. I'll admit, <i>Star Wars </i>is one of my favorite things ever, but that doesn't mean I'll lap up anything with the license attached, or accept a crappy installment just because it's <i>Star Wars</i>.<br />
I have a number of points to make here. One of which being that I'm not one of those people who considers children's programming utterly atrocious as a rule. Another being that I'm not particularly blinded by nostalgia like some may accuse me of being. Yes, I like the series I grew up with and I don't like what's being put out now. However, there are clear, objective reasons why the Disney era and the original Saban era were superior to the Neo-Saban era in general and this series in particular. One of which being that the Disney and Fox eras never used the same joke more than maybe once or twice, more if it was something of a running gag. Even then, they didn't over-use them, and they were at least funny most of the time. This series panders to the little kid demographic with things that I guess are supposed to be jokes, but are just not funny.<br />
Most of those jokes revolve around poor Koda, played by Yoshi Sudarso. Yoshi does his best to sell the humor, but it just doesn't work.<br />
Episode four is titled "Return of the Caveman," and as suggested, this is a Koda-centric episode where the Black Ranger, Chase Randall (Played by James Davies) spends most of the episode trying to introduce Koda to the modern world. This makes a lot more sense after you've seen the first episode of season two, since Koda was frozen alive back during the Ice-Age. Would have been nice to have learned that during <i>this </i>episode, because those details would make this episode more tolerable. Well, maybe. Probably not, with all the bizarre shenanigans<br />The setup for everything that goes down here is Koda flashing back to his time living in a cave with his family. He finds the Blue Energem, but a horrible CGI Sabertooth Tiger attacks his brother. Koda tackles the tiger, the two of them fall off a cliff. Back in the present day, Koda awakens to the sound of a motorcycle.<br />Now, call me crazy, but isn't it a bad idea to run a motor-vehicle in an enclosed space like their command-center? I know they've got a lot of space, but unless those bikes run on... Whatever the hell Dino Chargers are charged with (And I doubt that, because it was making the kind of sounds an internal combustion engine makes) they're still running the risk of poisoning themselves and getting sick, if not outright dying. Gotta hope they didn't fire up more than one of those bikes in there.<br />
Something else I would like to bring up; Where exactly does the one big door in the base lead to? The outside? We never really see anyone using it to wheel anything in or out, we just see people walking through it on occasion, and there's no way they got those bikes up the secret hatch in the mouth of the T-Rex head.<br />
Anyways, after realizing there's no threat, Koda calms down slightly. Then Shelby's phone rings, and he attacks it.<br />
Knowing that Koda is more Rip Van Winkle than Highlander, this is slightly more justified that I initially thought it to be. However, we still never found out how long he's been unfrozen. For all we know, he, Chase and Kendall could have been bumming around the museum ever since <i>Samurai </i>trying to find the other Energems. Which logically should have been plenty of time to adjust to the technology and whatnot. If they'd bothered developing Koda as a character before jumping into his focus episode, I could buy him being shook up by this, but the way everything is framed it doesn't work. Or more to the point, it's played for laughs when it really probably shouldn't be. It's called post-traumatic stress disorder, it's not supposed to be funny!<br />
Anyways, Chase offers to teach Koda how to ride a bike. Fortunately, he gives him a decently-sized bike instead of a comedy kiddie-bike. <i>Un</i>fortunately, Koda has a helmet too small to fit on his head.<br />Maybe you should have had him wearing a motorcycle helmet, like the kind he'd be wearing when riding the Dino-Cycle so he can get used to the feeling. Or maybe they could have had him Morph and put him on the cycle. He should be alright like that. The Morphing Grid should handle all of that.<br />
One of Sledge's prisoners, Slammer, goes out and tries to capture the Rangers and get their Energems. Chase gets captured because he's an idiot, but Koda manages to fend Slammer off for a while until he notices a stupid kid in danger. He and the kid get caged up, but the kids bike creates a hole in the bottom of the cage.<br />This brings me to a <i>huge </i>problem. The Rangers can basically summon their gear from nowhere. I don't know why, but they do. They also keep a bunch of Dino Chargers in their pockets at all times. There's no reason why Chase and Koda couldn't have morphed and busted their way out of those cages. They don't say anything about them being made of anything special, so as far as we know they're just steel cages. Considering the destructive capabilities of their gear, there's no reason that they shouldn't be able to get out. Slammer is, after all, just some criminal who makes cages. He's not Dai Shi or Lord Zedd, I don't buy him being able to hold a Ranger for more than a few seconds.<br />
Anyways, Koda splints up the boys broken leg and makes a torch so he can see to get out of the cave. The other Rangers track a signal to their location, and they proceed to beat Slammer up with the Megazord.<br />
This was one of the times when I realized that the show was going downhill. Not only could the conflict have been resolved <i>stupidly </i>easily, we don't even really explore the depths of the focus-character beyond the flashback at the beginning of the episode and a handful of scenes towards the middle and end! I found out more about Flit from <i>Jungle Fury</i> in a few minutes than I really learned about Koda in this whole episode!<br />
Anyways, I've been working on this retrospective for two weeks now and there's no end in sight, so I'm going to split this up and get back to you next week with the rest of the rant-filled retrospective on the last two rancid years of wretched Ranger refuse. I'll see you guys then.<br />
So, quick update. In addition to my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews" target="_blank">Patreon</a>, there's also an <a href="http://amzn.to/2gEtFPA" target="_blank">Amazon affiliate link</a> you can use if you wish to support me. I've also made myself a new <a href="http://a.co/9crky05" target="_blank">Amazon wishlist</a> to go with the Amazon account I signed up for. Until now I was ordering things through my mothers account because it was more convenient. These days it's neither here nor there, plus since my ads are now served through Amazon that means I can get paid through there, as well as getting things I want. If anyone wants to send me stuff rather than giving me money, check out that Amazon wishlist. Also check out the old Amazon wishlist on the Donations page. I share the contents of that list with my mother, but there's an easy way to tell what I put on there from what she put on there. If it ain't video-games, DVD's, Blu-rays, electronics or toys, then it's likely not something I wanted, but if you want to buy something for my mother I'm sure she'd appreciate it.Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-19436765128099317692016-11-07T16:14:00.001-06:002016-11-07T16:14:53.627-06:00American Ultra<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj77BhMopz9WdB-S7yn39u7lvGlTQSWELLQwTNTZWXK7h_xUmcIAQxKA7R3WsyI-JjyzlcVmQJ_3dO3E4hiMRHV0pa_kpVslAwFgjq4GeoHkvxa_V1SShTTAJ4e-TUEmCSdCCtHstvgutWR/s1600/american_ultra_ver6_xlg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="American Ultra" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj77BhMopz9WdB-S7yn39u7lvGlTQSWELLQwTNTZWXK7h_xUmcIAQxKA7R3WsyI-JjyzlcVmQJ_3dO3E4hiMRHV0pa_kpVslAwFgjq4GeoHkvxa_V1SShTTAJ4e-TUEmCSdCCtHstvgutWR/s320/american_ultra_ver6_xlg.jpg" title="American Ultra" width="215" /></a></div>
Sometimes movies can surprise you. For instance, <i>American Ultra </i>looked like it was going to suck based on the trailers. Surprisingly, it was pretty damn good.<br />
To explain this, I'll ask you a question. What do you get when you cross <i>The Bourne Identity</i> and <i>Blood Punch </i>with a tad of classic Bond thrown in for good measure? You get <i>American Ultra</i>.<br />
Look at that poster. First, there's Jesse Eisenberg, who can be really good in some movies and really bad in others. Next, there's Kristen Stewart, who has acquired a rather undeserved reputation for not being able to act. Funnily enough, Eisenberg has that reputation in some circles too.<br />
Let's break this down based on this movie,<i> BvS</i>,<i> Now You See Me</i>, and <i>The End of the Tour</i>, the later two of which had trailers included on this film's DVD. In <i>BvS</i>, Eisenberg played an egomaniac with a commanding personality. He had the air of a supervillain to him, the kind of thing you'd expect out of Lex Luthor. He carried himself like he owned the place, and spoke like he expected to be heard. Then there's Now You See Me, where he plays a cocky son of a bitch. A smirking, cocksure, swaggering douchebag who feels like he can do anything he wants, while also acting detached from his environment. Then there's <i>The End of the Tour</i>, where he basically seems like any guy you'd expect to meet on the street. He acts like a background element, someone who just sort of blends in, while interacting rather effectively with his co-star, Jason Segal. Then there's this movie, where he's got perfect command of his characters' insecurities and quirks. Not only that, he constantly shifts back and forth between the passive, nervous stoner and his Bond-esque combat persona. To say that Jesse Eisenberg can't act is blatantly untrue. He doesn't change up his voice much, but he completely overhauls his mannerisms and the way he speaks for almost every role.<br />
Then there's Kristen Stewart. Thanks to the <i>Twilight</i> movies, and <i>Snow White & The Huntsman</i>, she's been painted as a pretty face without much talent. Namely, a blank expression with very little obvious interest in what she's doing. Having seen Tara Reid in action, not only is Kristen Stewart not a <i>bad </i>actress, by any means, but she actually manages to carry her end of the film. In fact, if not for her expressionism and her expressive acting, this movie would have easily fallen flat. Stewart plays the straight-man to Eisenberg's wise-guy, in what is essentially a duo-comedy film.<br />
Eisenberg plays Mike Howell, a stoner with anxiety issues living in Liman, West Virginia. He wants to propose to his girlfriend, Phoebe Larson in Hawaii, but at the airport Mike has a panic-attack and they miss their flight.<br />Mike and Phoebe go back to their lives of doing small things in a small town. Mike as a clerk at a local convenience-store and Phoebe at the bail-bonds office. Mike begins freaking out that he's holding Phoebe back, but decides to try and overcome his failings to make a spectacular statement. So he talks to his drug-dealer, Rose (John Leguizamo) to get ahold of some fireworks.<br />
At the CIA headquarters in Langley, an agent named Victoria Lasseter (Connie Britton) is called on a secret phone and told that one of the experimental agents she oversaw, codenamed "Wise Man" is about to be terminated by "Tough Guy." Lasseter headed up Wise Man, while her colleague, Adrian Yates (Topher Grace, better as a villain here than he was in <i>Spider-Man 3</i>) headed up Tough Guy. Lasseter tries to get Yates to back down on killing the last Wise Man, (Who happens to be Mike) but he refuses. She decides to activate Mike so he can have a chance at not being killed, but he doesn't seem to be phased by his trigger-words as much as the guys from <i>The Manchurian Candidate </i>were. She decides to bug out before Lasseter's men show up to kill Mike, and leaves him to his fate. Naturally confused, Mike makes himself some soup for dinner, but notices a pair of guys messing with his car. He goes out to try and stop them, but they pull guns on him. Mike's training then re-activates itself, and he kills the two with a spoon and a gun he stole from them. After this, he freaks the hell out and calls up Phoebe to tell her what happened. Naturally, she's freaked out by all of this. Then a plastic-bag lands on Mike's car and the bombs the two guys he killed planted, explode. Fortunately, he took the fireworks out first. The two are then arrested because of these killings, and tossed in jail. Because two guys planting a bomb on your car and attacking you with guns doesn't justify killing them in West Virginia somehow. Before the cell-door is closed though, two more Tough Guy operatives, Crane and Laugher, lay siege to the Sheriff's Office. Mike's training then kicks in once more, and he manages to keep them from killing him. Laugher is left with broken teeth, and Crane is dead as a doornail.<br />
Naturally, this brings up a few red-flags with Yates, who has already found out that two of his men have been killed. He works up a ridiculous cover-story and begins his siege. He blocks off the town so Lasseter can't escape, but she calls in an airdrop from one of her associates and gets herself a shotgun and pistol.<br />
Mike and Phoebe get to Rose's house. Rose has tons of guns and an armored house, so they figure it's a good place to lay low. Rose and his henchmen have some pretty funny dialogue exchange with Mike, before Rose locks him and Phoebe in his rave-room after seeing Mike and Lasseter on TV as part of the coverup. Yates's men begin pumping poison gas into the house and kill Rose and his goons. They try to kill Mike and Phoebe, but thanks to Mike's skills and Phoebe's theft of one of their gas-masks, they manage to escape. Phoebe grabs a syringe from the body of one of the soldiers and injects the bleary Mike with it. She knows a bit too much about the gas and what it does, while Mike flashes back to various aspects of their relationship before coming back to reality. He realizes that she's probably a CIA agent, and she admits it. She was his handler back when he was with the CIA, but they fell in love. After he was brainwashed into amnesia, and dropped off in the town. She stayed behind rather than be reassigned, and we find out that all of his anxieties, all of his phobias and shortcomings were a product of the CIA suppressing his training. The whole reason Yates wanted to kill him was because he was slowly finding the ability to leave the town.<br />
The two of them are then assaulted by Laugher, and Phoebe's car is set on fire, seemingly killing Mike. However, Lasseter manages to get him out before the flames get to him. Phoebe is taken back to Yates's base of operations, where he finds out that Lasseter and Mike are headed back to his house. Yates tries to call in an air-strike on Mike, but the guy he threatened into authorizing it, Lasseter's old assistant, Petey backs out, so Yates orders one of his men to take one of the Tough Guys out and take out the two of them. Meanwhile, Petey reports Yates' activities to their superior officer, Raymond Krueger, who sets into motion actions to shut Yates' operation down.<br />Mike takes out the guys who try to kill him and Lasseter, and takes their vehicle and his fireworks to Yates' base at the local superstore. Phoebe manages to get out of her handcuffs while Yates sends the last of his men after Mike. Mike kills most of them, but his fight with Laugher comes to a standstill when both of them are too heavily injured to continue, and when Laugher manages to gain enough lucidity to explain to Mike what the hell Yates did to him. Yates and his crew took mentally-ill people and screwed with their brains so they would obey orders they were given. The extent of Mike's brainwashing just blocked off his memories and gave him massive issues with anxiety. Mike gets to choose what he does, while Laugher is basically The Winter Soldier, but without the mental stability to be able to cope with what he has to do.<br />
Mike lets Laugher get away, and Phoebe helps him get out of the building. They're then set upon by Krueger's men. Mike proposes and Phoebe accepts. The two are then tasered, Yates is executed, Lasseter convinces Krueger to make Mike into an agent, Mike accepts the gig, and he and Phoebe take up work traveling the world, killing people in unusual ways.<br />To put it bluntly, you could easily have told me this was a Hollywood remake of <i>Blood Punch</i> and I would have believed you. Despite lacking the supernatural elements, the plot of <i>American Ultra</i> is almost beat for beat the same as that of <i>Blood Punch</i>. Main-character doesn't know things about his situation, does drugs, has a hot girl who also does those drugs, the girl knows more about the leads situation than he does, there's a villain who wants to kill the lead and mess with the girl. Dark humor, kick-ass action, and a drug-dealer who turns on the leads after initially being friendly. Hell, both films start out with flashbacks, both are open-ended and both could either have a sequel or not and be perfectly fine. I could have pictured Milo Cawthorne as Mike, Olivia Tenent as Phoebe and Ari Boyland as Yates in a pinch.<br />There are plenty of differences, however. For one thing, <i>American Ultra </i>lacks the downer-ending of <i>Blood Punch </i>and some of the (no pun intended) punch of the action. Not to say that it isn't visceral, but Blood Punch had a lot more focus placed on the kick of the action, while <i>American Ultra </i>is filmed like a more-loose, less shakey <i>Bourne </i>movie. Not that that doesn't work, the cinematography and editing is basically perfect in framing the characters actions. On top of that, <i>American Ultra </i>lacks the incredibly poorly-choreographed wide-shot of the final battle-scene that could have been cut entirely that was my one <i>major </i>complaint about my favorite film of 2015. <i>American Ultra </i>also has far-better audio-effects editing and mixing than <i>Blood Punch </i>does. On the other hand, Eisenberg and Stewart are clearly breathing out CGI smoke in the beginning of the film, while <i>Blood Punch </i>relied <i>far </i>more heavily on practical effects for small things like that. Something they both share is the ability to sell the action no matter how ludicrous it might seem, and the use of either practical effects or very good CGI for most of the important scenes. You're not going to see any effects-failures on the level of <i>The Expendables </i>in this film. Hell, you don't see anything as cringeworthy as the parade from <i>The Hunger Games</i> despite the fact that this movie had about a third of that films budget. Just goes to show that it comes down to how you make a film and not how much money you've got.<br />All in all, while this film was a bit shaky in some aspects (Namely it's not paced quite as well as <i>Blood Punch</i> was) it's a damn good action-comedy with punchy writing, editing and acting alike. Just a shame it didn't make its budget back at the box-office. I would urge anyone who liked <i>Blood Punch</i>, or likes black-comedy action-films to buy this movie on Blu-ray or DVD and watch it. It isn't <i>quite </i>on the level of the suicidal brilliance of <i>Blood Punch'</i>s morbid humor, but it's well worth watching to the end. Hell, it might even be worth a sequel. For that matter, the comic Mike wrote in-universe sounds pretty good as well. I'd like to maybe see a comic-book or some animated shorts about <i>Apollo Ape</i>.<br />
In the end, I give <i>American Ultra </i>a <span style="font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">9.0*</span><span style="font-family: inherit;">. It's a fun film to watch, and if you want to laugh at some punchy jokes, this is a good film to do that with. Plus, the ending-sequence is well worth watching.</span><br />
<br />If you want to pick something for me to review, or if you just want to kick me a dollar or two, check out the <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews" target="_blank">Patreon</a> I made for the site. I'll see ya'll next week!Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-26140629506360311612016-10-31T19:53:00.000-05:002016-10-31T19:53:01.989-05:00Resident Evil #2: Caliban Cove (S.D. Perry)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Iyv-w28XjGAnZZZEkONk5tU9wXL8m-4kUE707v_wzDEcT4zDg0Ko6MYmU7coVE-X166Iy7qQYKRNtDlYDv1Lum2KJvCjGsa3cjzNSz_u-pkUcJ9sY8bFoDWDCHn2CCiBweWq8P99m86i/s1600/Resident+Evil+02+Caliban+Cove.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Resident Evil" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3Iyv-w28XjGAnZZZEkONk5tU9wXL8m-4kUE707v_wzDEcT4zDg0Ko6MYmU7coVE-X166Iy7qQYKRNtDlYDv1Lum2KJvCjGsa3cjzNSz_u-pkUcJ9sY8bFoDWDCHn2CCiBweWq8P99m86i/s320/Resident+Evil+02+Caliban+Cove.png" title="Resident Evil" width="195" /></a></div>
Like the WildStorm comics, the S.D. Perry novels eventually delved into original content to pass the time between the releases of the video-games. Since <i>Resident Evil 2</i> was still yet to come out, and these books were likely written several months before the game went gold, <i>Caliban Cove</i> takes place between <i>Resident Evil </i>and <i>Resident Evil 2</i>. Not in the way that it would actually patch up the big gaps in the plot between those two games. Just a book that fills the time between the release of <i>The Umbrella Conspiracy </i>and <i>City of the Dead</i>. At the very least it sort of cleared up where the hell Rebecca went.<br />
Taking a quick look at the cover, we see Rebecca chambers running towards the camera with a gun in her hand. Tilted off to the side as if she'd had no training with it at all. I know she was recruited out of college to be their medic, but she was given enough firearms training to know how to hold her gun properly!<br />
In the background we see a lighthouse shining out over what I presume to be the titular cove. Edited into the background we see the S.T.A.R.S. logo, a cerberus, and the head of a Tyrant.<br />
The prologue starts us off with articles from the Raccoon Times "detailing" the destruction of the Spencer mansion and the dissolution of the Raccoon City S.T.A.R.S. team. This latter hackjob is enough to tell us that the city council and the police commissioner are all on the take of The Umbrella Corporation. In it, city councilman Edward Weist (Sounds like the name of a Bond villain) asserts that the S.T.A.R.S. team was hopped up on drugs and alcohol while they went on their mission to handle the cannibal killers. Despite the fact that that would be incredibly easy to disprove with a single drug-test for every member of the team. I mean, I wouldn't be at all surprised if Brad was on something, but the rest of the team? Considering Jill was something of a local hero, Chris an Air-Force ace, Barry the friendly neighborhood gentle giant and family man, and Joseph the cheerful mechanic. This is the <i>last </i>group of people <i>I</i> would expect to be doing drugs and alcohol on a rescue-mission!<br />Even the Bravo team consisted of a kid genius, a dude known as the single most levelheaded guy in the world, a mild-mannered landscaper with a Ph.D. in Chemistry, two well-disciplined snipers and a leader described as having impervious mental strength doesn't sound like the type of group to not handle things professionally. Either they pulled off a great spin-job on this, or the residents of Raccoon City are really, really dumb.<br />
Anyways, Barry Burton has taken up the role of commander of the remaining S.T.A.R.S. members (Sans Brad who has skipped town) and they meet up with David Trapp, the captain of the Exeter S.T.A.R.S. branch. He informs them that he's learned about some corruption of the S.T.A.R.S. higher-ups. Namely the fact that the New York Headquarters has tabled the investigation at the behest of Umbrella, that they've forced the founder and face of the organization, Dr. Marco Palmieri out of his position and taken direct control of the assistant director, Kurtz. Trapp has assembled a team of his own from the few people he can trust in the Exeter division, and has come to Barry to ask Raccoon City's team for help in infiltrating and dismantling the Umbrella installation in Caliban Cove, Maine. Unfortunately, the only one to come along is Rebecca Chambers. The other members of the team elect to stay behind and try to handle whatever they can.<br />
Before they split up, Trapp and Jill cross-reference their Umbrella information and find that they were both given similar information from a guy named Trent. Rebecca notices a name she recognizes on the list of Umbrella researchers, a biochemist named Nicholas Griffith who vanished after being busted for unethical experimentation. Barry calls up a few of his S.T.A.R.S. buddies to try and get Trapp some backup. Chris tries to get in contact with some friends in the FBI so they can possibly take down Irons, but Barry's house is attacked by Umbrella's operatives. As they fight their way out, Captain Trapp kills one of them, and finds out that he's Captain Jay Shannon, head of the Oklahoma City S.T.A.R.S. branch. The team takes refuge in the abandoned house of Brad Vickers, and from there Rebecca and David get on a private plane to Exeter, and from there to Caliban Cover with the rest of Trapp's team.<br />
On their way to the facility, their boat is destroyed, and they are set upon by a squad of zombies armed with machine-guns. The team gets captured, two of their members infected with the T-Virus, but Rebecca, Trapp and another member of the Exeter team escape. They're rescued by Captain Blake and the Philadelphia S.T.A.R.S. team, and leave.<br />
All in all, this wasn't a <i>bad </i>book by any means. It was tense, well-written and overall a decent addition to the <i>Resident Evil </i>storyline. It's also leaps and bounds above the Wildstorm comics of the same era. However, it's still not quite as good as <i>Resident Evil: The Book</i>. If we could have seen more from this series as written by Hiroyuki Ariga, it would have probably flowed a lot better. Perry seems to take more pages to tell less story than Ariga does, which is a shame because there's a good story to be told here. Not that she doesn't do it well in this book, mind. Since she was working with original material and not adapting a ten plus hour game into a single book, it feels like there was far less left out than in <i>The Umbrella Conspiracy</i>. Despite the fact that that book adapted the game fairly well, it was still a bit unfocused and leaned more on telling rather than showing for certain details. This book leans more heavily on demonstrating exactly what's going on for the sake of tension. While there are a few additions that are somewhat absurd on the surface, like the gun-wielding zombies, that concept would be brought to a head at the hands of one of the most memorable monsters of all time. None other than rocket-launcher wielding Nemesis T-Type. So yeah, I can buy zombies armed with M-16's.<br />
Finally though, we come to this books continuity. Like the comics, this book was written well in advance of the development of <i>Resident Evil 3</i>, and as such doesn't fit in to the alterations that game made to the timeline. <i>Resident Evil 2</i> mostly focused on the effects of what happened after the virus got out, and had less effect on the characters from the original game than <i>Resident Evil 3</i> does. But that's something to get into next year when I cover that game. It's been two years since I reviewed a <i>Resident Evil </i>game, and it's about time I get back to the things that made me start it in the first place.<br />
All in all, I enjoyed this novel quite a bit more than I enjoyed the WildStorm comics. While there are going to be plot issues later on in the series, there's still plenty in this book to enjoy if you wish to read it.<br />
In the end, I give <i>Resident Evil #2: Caliban Cove</i> a 7.9*. I'll see you guys on Sunday with... Something. I don't know at this point. Probably <i>Bomb on Basic City</i>, or I could finally finish up my <i>Fire Emblem Awakening</i> review.<br />
<br />
If you liked this month of reviews, please contribute to my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews" target="_blank">Patreon</a>. Anything you can give me will help. If a per-creation contribution sounds too much, then please cap your donation to monthly.Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-83690255393799780252016-10-29T23:54:00.001-05:002016-10-29T23:54:35.769-05:00Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls (Nathan Green)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiyQLmce-2I2RFWAwsg2xcC4EIf3mlGej9j2nZxX9gAhdQRQqFHQTI-ZSDmH5THNn7JgIUVPCXEE7MikymJ4PR8lVVP-mH9X8qrFgmTlnTdZPFq3b36lNkTwuS5DNy7v068T3xe9iUlAZ7/s1600/Superdimension+Neptune+vs+Sega+Hard+Girls.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Sega" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiyQLmce-2I2RFWAwsg2xcC4EIf3mlGej9j2nZxX9gAhdQRQqFHQTI-ZSDmH5THNn7JgIUVPCXEE7MikymJ4PR8lVVP-mH9X8qrFgmTlnTdZPFq3b36lNkTwuS5DNy7v068T3xe9iUlAZ7/s320/Superdimension+Neptune+vs+Sega+Hard+Girls.png" title="Sega" width="250" /></a></div>
If you know anything about me as a person then you’ll probably know I love retro gaming. I have a growing collection of consoles and games which I regularly add to and play and I spend a lot of time reading up on retro gaming related topics. For me though the thing that got me into retro gaming was the console legacy left by a little company called Sega. Ever since I started collecting I have been a Segahead through and through so when I heard that the retro gaming inspired <i>Hyperdimension Neptunia</i> series was going to be having a spin-off crossover game with characters from an animated series based entirely on old Sega stuff my interest was immediately piqued.<br />
I’ve been keeping an eye on <i>Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls</i> ever since I learned of its existence, and now having sunk around eight hours into the game I feel I can finally answer the all important question of “Is it any good?” So, without further fanfare let's start off by covering the story.<br />
<br />
Story and Characters:<br />
The <i>Neptunia</i> series is known for having oddball plots already, but <i>Superdimension</i>'s plot is certainly one of the odder once.<br />
For starters our hero of the story this time round isn’t Neptune, but rather her level headed explorer friend IF. At the start of the story, IF stumbles across a place called the grand library which turns out to be a place where all the worlds history is recorded. All seems fine and dandy until a girl falls out of the sky and history starts to just… disappear. Yes history just straight up starts to disappear and IF and the girl who fell out of the sky (who incidentally is named Segami) are the only ones who can do anything about it.<br />
One time travelling bike later and it becomes your mission to visit various eras of history in order to correct what was lost. It’s a relatively simple plot on paper, but in practice <i>Superdimension </i>does more than enough to spice things up despite the premise being a bit cliché.<br />
Character-wise, most of the Neptunia cast is present (apart from Noire, Blanc and Vert mainly due to how they represent non Sega consoles) but along with the regulars we also are joined by the Sega hard girls.<br />
Now for those of you out there who have no idea what I’m talking about let me explain. The Sega Hard Girls were characters that first appeared as a <i>Dengeki Bunko</i> imprint before getting their own light novel, and eventually their own animated television series in 2014 entitled <i>Hi-sCoool! SeHa Girls</i> (If you’re a fan of retro gaming especially Sega retro gaming then I highly recommend you give a few episodes a watch. It’s jam packed full of references to old Sega video games and consoles).<br />
Basically each of the Hard Girls is an anthropomorphized Sega game console. It’s a similar idea to what <i>Neptunia</i> did but the way the Hard Girls were designed makes the references a bit more obvious.<br />
<i>Superdimension</i> features quite a lot of the Sega hard girls but only 4 play a major role in the story, those being Dreamcast, Saturn, Mega Drive and Game Gear. Each of the Hard Girls has a <i>Neptunia </i>universe counterpart. Saturn’s is Neptune/Purple Heart, Dreamcast's is Uzume/Orange Heart, Mega Drive's is Plutia/Iris Heart and Game Gear's is Nepgear/Purple Sister.<br />
In typical Neptune fashion the writing is what really takes the stage here. The game is full of retro gaming references, one liners and dialogue scenes between characters which consistently left me with a giant grin on my face.<br />
Overall, <i>Superdimension</i> does a pretty good job with its characters and writing. The story is a little bit cliché, but it throws enough curve-balls to keep me interested. If you’re looking for a game to play for the story though then this really isn’t it.<br />
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Gameplay:<br />
Now for the meat and potatoes of the game, and oh boy there is quite a bit to talk about here so lets not waste any time.<br />
For starters, <i>Superdimension </i>sports a new battle system. You still move around a free roaming circle and attack enemies and all that but instead of picking from one of 3 types of physical attack and using strategy to do stuff such as getting 2 or more enemies in the path of your attack you instead are treated to something new and honestly refreshing for the series.<br />
The combat system works like this, similar to <i>Megadimension </i>you have a circle that you can move your character about in. You can attack, use skills, use items and surprisingly, jump. Yes, jump. I’ll come back to that in a second.<br />
The combat is turn based which doesn’t sound all that interesting on paper but the game implements one major mechanic which makes the system very interesting in practice. Basically when your turn begins you are shown a gauge on the right hand side of the screen. This is the action gauge and it is what determines how long your turn will be and how many actions you can perform. At the beginning of your turn it is completely bottomed out however actions like moving and attacking will increase the action gauge. Once the action gauge fills enough to reach the red area you turn is over.<br />
It’s a simple system but how it is implemented makes it incredibly strategic as well. Firstly unlike in previous games when you start a physical attack you are not locked into having to use a physical attack until your turn ends. When you perform a physical attack a bit of your action gauge gets filled back up but as long as it is below the red area you will still be able to attack, use skills and use items along with moving. This small change means that the variety of actions which can be performed in a turn increases dramatically. You’re given the potential to heal an ally and then attack an enemy or use an item followed by a skill. It’s a simple change but one which adds a surprising amount of strategy to the battle system not seen in previous games. There’s even an element of strategy around how much of the action gauge you think you should use before ending your turn because the further into the red zone your action gauge is when your turn ends the longer it will be until that character gets to have their turn again<br />
As for other battle mechanics there’s your ability to jump for starters. It sounds pointless on paper but bear with me. During battles gems will regularly pop up floating in the air which can be picked up to help recover HP and SP. On top of that after you have dealt enough damage to enemies and have filled the fever gauge (which fills when you perform actions on your turn) up on the right of the screen a fever gem will appear in the battle field which can be picked up to activate fever time. Now when fever time is active all characters will receive a slight stat buff, enemies will miss a turn for the duration of fever time and EXE drives will be able to be used. Fever time ends once the fever gauge runs out though which happens as you perform actions during battle.<br />
The important thing to note is that a full fever gauge carries between battles so if you finish a battle with a full fever gauge it will remain full at the start of the next battle. What I’m getting at is SAVE FEVER TIME FOR BOSSES. The stat buff combined with causing the enemy to miss a turn means that fever time is not only great for dishing pain out but also for recovering since the enemy won’t be able to attack as long as fever time is active.<br />
Apart from fever time you also have access to a charge attack which can be used by holding the X button until the action gauge fills up fully. This deals quite a bit of damage but also results in the fever gauge being filled entirely meaning a longer wait until that characters turn rolls around again.<br />
Skills behave somewhat like they do in other Nep titles however each character has a select number of skill slots which can accommodate either an active or passive skill. As the game continues on you’ll be able to expand the number of slots you have access to allowing for more skill equips.<br />
Also noteworthy is the class system which allows you to gain new classes for characters and swap them to change the type of focus that they have in battle. Importantly this also effects their skill pool and the skills that they will learn as they level up.<br />
Overall the new battle system is something I find quite enjoyable. It refreshes the gameplay style that has been present in the Neptunia series for quite a while and it does a good job of making something both new and enjoyable.<br />
Outside of the battle system there are many changes that have been made in places like the overworld. For example IF is far more acrobatic in the game field than Neptune was in previous games. Not only can she jump but she can also climb ladders, run, enter crawl spaces and swing across ropes.<br />
Now on paper this sounds like just a gimmick and I’ll admit I didn’t think much of it at first, however these new skills are actually used quite a lot throughout the course of the game thanks to the larger variety in dungeon design as well as brand new dungeons made specifically for this game.<br />
The addition of new dungeons is quite nice and they’re designed pretty well however even the dungeons that have been recycled from previous games get a revamp treatment with them having different terrain layouts and routes that you can take depending on the era. In one era a part of land may not be accessible but in another era that same dungeon may have a swing rope or ladder placed in order to allow you to make it to this new area.<br />
It’s a simple system but despite that it is an incredible breath of fresh air as it makes the dungeons that are recycled feel quite a bit more fresh instead of just copy pastes from the previous titles. It also allows for IF’s increased dungeon acrobatics to be used more and make them more than just gimmicks present in only the new dungeons.<br />
Also new are collectibles that are present in dungeons. Inside dungeons you can find medals which are scattered all over the place. Now while collecting them all does give you a little message I’m honestly unsure as to what their real purpose is except for getting 100% completion. The same applies to the baseball collectible which are usually tucked away somewhere in the dungeon. These can be given to the robo pitcher back at the grand library but again, I don’t really know what these do per say.<br />
Game progression is mission based. You select a mission and complete the objective listed. Missions however have a time limit on them in the form of a number to the right of the mission on the mission select screen. If this number reaches zero then the mission disappears. Without spoiling anything this system does lead onto an important plot point which the game explains pretty well so I’ll leave that for you to discover.<br />
Overall, <i>Superdimension</i> is a breath of fresh air when it comes to the gameplay department with the new battle system and dungeon actions really making the game quite fun and quite unlike other Neptunia games we have seen before hand.<br />
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Graphics and Sound:<br />
Graphically the game does indeed look nice but it is plagued by one problem, performance. Granted the performance issues present in<i> Superdimension</i> are nowhere <i>near</i> as bad as the performance issues present in say, <i>Re;Birth 1</i> on the Vita (which has one of the most unstable frame rates I have ever seen). In comparison <i>Superdimension</i> is far more stable in terms of being able to hold a frame rate however it does tend to stutter a little bit in some areas. Compared to the earlier <i>Neptuni</i>a Vita titles though the performance is far improved so that’s a plus at the very least.<br />
Art wise the character models look quite nice on the field with nice detailed 3d models and smooth animations. Cut-scenes also use the now <i>Neptunia</i> standard Live2D system whereby 2D characters have idle animations that play while in text scenes. I really can’t fault the game much in this area.<br />
In the sound department the music is a mixture of tunes present in previous <i>Neptunia</i> titles and a few brand new tunes which are OK but nothing to really write home about (although the new battle themes and especially the boss theme are pretty darn catchy). On the front of voice acting I played using the English dub and once again I can say that it is another incredible English dub from Idea Factory. Kate Higgins does an amazing job with voice acting IF and the English voice actors they got in for the Sega Hard Girls all do a top notch job as well. A special mention should also be made to the fact that the lip syncing in cutscenes now syncs properly to the English voice track which is something that wasn’t present in previous Neptunia Vita titles.<br />
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Verdict:<br />
<i>Superdimension Neptunia VS Sega Hard Girls </i>is an example of a spin off title which does all the right things in order to make it stand on its own as a great game. Out of all of the<i> Neptunia</i> spin off titles, I’d have to say that this is probably the best one in terms of quality. It has a lot of fresh new ideas which it pulls off quite well which is certainly commendable considering the number of games released these days which have great ideas but never really do anything with them (See my last review on <i><a href="http://blogdudesvariousreviews.blogspot.com/2016/09/meiq-labyrinth-of-death-nathan-green.html" target="_blank">MeiQ Labyrinth of Death</a></i> to learn more about that).<br />
As fun as the game is though I did notice a few issues here and there mainly with the translation. Some tutorials had certain sentences repeated twice while some items had formatting issues that caused the text to go off the edge of the screen. It’s a minor issue but one that is still noticeable non the less. Here’s hoping that Idea Factory release a patch to fix it up sooner rather than later.<br />
Translation bugs aside Superdimension is a fun time and gets a Highly Recommended.<br />
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My apologies for the lateness of this review, I’ve had a busy past few weeks and haven’t had much time to really sit down and finish this off. Hopefully this should go up in time for the European release of the time though. As for upcoming Vita titles there’s still a lot coming so stay tuned for more Vita goodness in the coming months!<br />
If you liked this review, please consider contributing to our <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews" target="_blank">Patreonhttps://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews</a>! This is BDVR Author Nathan Green signing off.<br />
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Superdimension Neptune VS Sega Hard Girls releases on the 18th of October in North America and the 21st of October in Europe and Australia.<br />
PEGI: 12<br />
ESRB: T<br />
CERO: C<br />
OFLC: M<br />
<br />Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-44376390322835786552016-10-23T12:00:00.000-05:002016-10-23T12:00:08.167-05:00Resident Evil #4 (WildStorm)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrb7k2QGvvlB0_ioHY-FhEBDWpz0Q8mZ0BUgNoGyL4AWPXoVI2KBfXGcvCKfi4zckzhhU8Hk-Jw9D0jrQazpo4Pj7ae876mhJ-w2X-MEtZA3-jU4PxknJJbx_bHhnP1HDHicX_2Y5kWG5/s1600/Resident_Evil_4_c01.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Resident Evil" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghrb7k2QGvvlB0_ioHY-FhEBDWpz0Q8mZ0BUgNoGyL4AWPXoVI2KBfXGcvCKfi4zckzhhU8Hk-Jw9D0jrQazpo4Pj7ae876mhJ-w2X-MEtZA3-jU4PxknJJbx_bHhnP1HDHicX_2Y5kWG5/s320/Resident_Evil_4_c01.jpg" title="Resident Evil" width="241" /></a></div>
Welcome back to this week's 31 Days of Evil, as we continue with the fourth issue of WildStorm's <i>Resident Evil </i>comic series!<br />
Yet again, we're looking at the cover. This time the shot on the cover is actually close to one from the book itself, unlike the shots from every other cover so fart. Issue #2 came close, but I'm almost certain that room on the cover wasn't actually in the comic.<br />
Chris is doing his best to actually look like himself, and for once he's actually being a pilot outside of his back-story. Jill still looks like she stepped out of the eighteen-hundreds (Seriously, the version of her from Issue #1 looked more like Jill than this) aaaaaand Barry is starting to look like Billy Blazes as he's blocking the zombies out.<br />
This cover appears to have been drawn by two artists, Carlos D'Anda and Mark Irwin. It's alright, but they could have done better.<br />
Rather unfortunately, the cover-story of this issue is the last out of the three included within.<br />
Our first story, "Night Stalkers" is written by Kris Oprisko and illustrated by Rafael Kayanan.<br />
In the town of Saguaro Wells, a bunch of people have gone missing. Because of humanoid vampire-bats.<br />
In a nearby underground laboratory that defies OSHA regulations, two Umbrella-funded scientists are remote-controlling the man-bats and attempting to mutate more of them. I know you can't actually <i>see </i>this comic, so let me assure you that their lair is the most stereotypical supervillain lair ever constructed.<br />
Back in town, Sheriff Carey issues a curfew to keep people from going out at the times when the bat-men are attacking. He refuses to let them go out hunting the people creating the bats, but tells them they can defend themselves.<br />
Later that day, his son "Little" Wayne is attacked by bats and bitten. By morning, he becomes a zombie. The scientists begin rushing to get more subjects to complete their flock. Meanwhile, Leon arrives to handle the situation. He looks more like himself in this comic than he has at any other point in the series.<br />
Leon tries to fight the bats off, but they eventually overwhelm him and abscond to their lair. He regains consciousness, and hacks his way free with a machete and catches himself on a ledge. Leon then witnesses the mad scientists putting their plan into action. Leon then transforms into MacGyver (No seriously, come Page 16 he starts looking like a combination of Richard Dean Anderson, Jean Claude Van Damme and Neuclear Man) and starts rigging up a method of damaging the control-machine before calling for backup. Come Page 19, Leon starts looking like Tetsuo from <i>Akira </i>and begins acting like Kaneda. Leon's backup arrives as his sabotage kicks into action and firebomb the mountain base. The helicopter takes him out to his next destination, and the story ends.<br />
Towards the start of the comic, the art looks good. Towards the end though, it delves into super-derp territory, especially around Leon's face. The fact that this was a quarterly comic should mean that they would have had the time to <i>fix this shit</i>.<br />
The next story is called Special Delivery, written by Marc Mostman and drawn by Ryan Odagawa.<br />
I'll be honest, this story is a waste of time. It's all about the guys in the helicopter who dropped Mr. X and a bunch of other Umbrella experiments off in Raccoon City before one of the monsters they're transporting busts out and kills them, moaning about "No loose ends."<br />
The <i>Resident Evil</i> Files between this story and the next are of the zombies (No seriously) and Jill Valentine. If you needed to know what a zombie is at this point, then I envy you for having stayed away from the glut of zombie media for the last several decades.<br />Jill is listed as being 5'5" despite being drawn as only being an inch or three shorter than Chris is in the comic. She's also listed as weighing 111lbs, despite being drawn as having massive bulging muscles throughout this series. This is apparently taken from actual official Capcom stats. Now call me crazy, but I look at Jill and some of the crazy things she's done and can do, and I don't bet on her weighing less than 160lbs. She's a Delta Force operative after all, and she carries around a of heavy ordnance. If she was only 111lbs, she should have been knocked over by some of the weapons she's used. Once more, we're not told any more than we were already told in character bios from the first comic, or that we've learned from the games themselves. They mention a few of Jill's character details, but they forget to mention that she picks locks.<br />
The final story is the one we came here for, the completion of the last story of the last comic.<br />Zombies Abroad is drawn by Norman Felchle (I won't even <i>begin </i>to try and pronounce that name) and written by Ted Adams.<br />
Chris rushes to the cockpit to tack control of the plane. He comments "Of course, my S.T.A.R.S. training never required me to fly something as big as this!" Yeah, neither did your Air Force training, but it's still a god-damn plane! Take the controls and get this thing flying right! Or at least make sure the auto-pilot is working right.<br />
Chris lands the plane and talks to his contact, Falcon about the leak. Falcon tells them he's on it, and instructs the three of them to investigate Europe's monuments to try and find Umbrella's headquarters.<br />Excuse me, no. No! There are too many monuments in Europe for this to be a reasonable course of action! They don't have enough information to go off of! This is like<i> The Consuming Shadow</i> with the lead cast of <i>Resident Evil</i>! Besides, I wasn't aware that the Umbrella Corporation's headquarters had to be <i>secret</i>, they're supposed to be a legitimate business. They should have just gone to the actual headquarters and broken in to see what's going on. They're likely to have themselves a large underground complex connected to it.<br />Anyways, after going to The Tower of London, Westminster Abbey, Madame Tusseaud's, The Eiffel Tower, The Lourve, The De Gooyer Windmill, (Which I've never heard of) Oktoberfest, (Which I wasn't aware was a monument) and finally rounding it out in Queck Castle. Chris mentions that this is the last monument in Europe. To which I say, no! You missed Stonehenge, The London Eye, Big Ben, 10 Downing Street, New Scotland Yard, New London Bridge, The Palace of Westminster, Buckingham Palace, Vatican City, The Catacombs, The Palace of Versailles, and I could go on! There's plenty more. Granted, they didn't have the space to show them checking everything I listed out, but this was such an insane premise from the start that it shouldn't have been in the comic. Just make the whole comic about espionage and leave the zombie-killing for later, my god!<br />
The three of them split up (Like they would ever split up again after the mansion incident) to try and cover more ground. They solve some puzzles, and for some reason Jill isn't the one to solve the music puzzle despite the fact that she's the one who solved the piano puzzle in the first game. They are all then set upon by monsters.<br />This story is alright, but the art has gotten further and further away from actually looking like the characters. Chris has basically become Arnold Schwarzenegger from <i>Commando</i>, Jill's beret is left behind entirely in favor of arm-wrappings that make her look like female CM Punk and nail-polish and fake nails, and Barry has completed his transformation into Billy Blazes.<br />Chris is supposed look more like mid-eighties, early nineties Val Kilmer. Jill looks more like Ada than Ada did in Issue #2. Plus the illogic of an ex-Delta Force operative having manicured nails like that. She's a member of the bomb-squad for gods sake, those will only get in the way! While Barry could be a bit more on-model, he always looked plenty like Billy Blazes as he was, so it's not entirely that much of a big leap. Although god only knows what would happen if this crew was given the rights to make a Rescue Heroes comic. Billy would wind up looking like Wesker, Wendy would look like Jill and Jack would inexplicably look like Chris.<br />
As for the rest of the art, there are shading lines all over the place. Hell, the art is all over the place. While Chris looks like Arnold most of the time, occasionally he morphs into Dolph Lundgren or Jean Claude Van Damme. Barry sometimes turns into a redheaded oversized leprechaun, and Jill goes between looking like a Revolutionary War soldier, The Wicked Witch, and Scarlet O'Hara. But above all, where in the <i>hell </i>is Jill's beret? She and all the other S.T.A.R.S. members in this story have their standard gear (Fortunately <i>without</i> the S.T.A.R.S. logo on the shoulder, unlike in the first issue) so why doesn't she have her beret? You know what, a better question would be why isn't her hair tied up properly? I'm a martial-artist, and I play paintball. My hair is about as long as hers is and I've got to tie up every loose end or it gets into my face and obscures my vision. It gets into my eyes, it screws up my aim, and it keeps me from performing at full capacity. I could go on, but I've made my point.<br />
All in all, this is yet another comic that wasted the vast majority of its pages on stories that didn't really matter while leaving the actually plot-important story a minority of the pages of the comic. The artwork generally sucks from page to page. Occasionally there are some decent panels or decent pages, but nothing is all that great. It's a shame that weekly Japanese comics have more consistent, more precise artwork than a comic that took three months between issues. Three months between issues. Let this sink in. Kazuki Takahashi, Akira Toriyama, Eiichiro Oda, Takeshi Obata, all of them managed to put out weekly comics for <i>years </i>on end without a lapse in the quality of the artwork. These guys can't put out one comic every three months without screwing up <i>from page to page</i>.<br />
All in all, it's alright. If these stories were arranged chronologically it wouldn't be nearly as infuriating to read. All I ask is that they put the comic together decently. That's it. Unfortunately, it's not. Not even close.<br />
In the end, I give it a<span style="font-size: x-large;"> 3.4*</span>. Next week, we wrap the feature up with the novel <i>Resident Evil #2: Caliban Cove</i>!<br />
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If you liked this review, please consider donating to my <a href="https://www.patreon.com/VariousReviews" target="_blank">Patreon</a>. I post new reviews every Sunday at 12PM Central time.Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-59515399072556646632016-10-16T12:00:00.000-05:002016-10-16T12:00:28.373-05:00Resident Evil #3 (Wildstorm)<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ZXSGFn0T_8LmpnFATyVWRxS-698V2dFxTdb90c9rd0sTDZl3081g4nnx3SrTsUo8pIcGn6j9TRSBYSTfqt0a_lz0SMCGnEEMrgOp8AefNothm6Jmop-nTkHru90uqJXZq4U1ipEVXQHm/s1600/Resident+Evil+official+comic+magazine+%25233.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Resident Evil" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9ZXSGFn0T_8LmpnFATyVWRxS-698V2dFxTdb90c9rd0sTDZl3081g4nnx3SrTsUo8pIcGn6j9TRSBYSTfqt0a_lz0SMCGnEEMrgOp8AefNothm6Jmop-nTkHru90uqJXZq4U1ipEVXQHm/s320/Resident+Evil+official+comic+magazine+%25233.png" title="Resident Evil" width="231" /></a></div>
We return to the Wildstorm Resident Evil comics once more this week with <i>Resident Evil #3</i>. Which doesn't actually have an adaptation of <i>Resident Evil 3</i> contained within.<br />
Instead, we get a prequel to the original <i>Resident Evil</i>, a filler chapter about an outbreak on an island, and a story about the S.T.A.R.S. team's journey to Europe. There's also an interview with Shinji Mikami, the fan-art and letters page, and character bios.<br />
Before we dig into the rest of the comic, let's take our customary look at the cover. According to the <i>Resident Evil</i> wiki, the cover for this comic was drawn by Jim Lee. After the improvement of the last cover (Still can't find out who drew it), we're back to strangeness.<br />
The cover depicts Claire wielding her handgun and a <i>gigantic</i> Uzi-looking thing with a huge suppressor on the barrel standing in front of a scratched-up wall with blood on it.. Okay, that's basically to be expected at this point. Pan down to the bottom and we see that Claire's legs look alright. Moving up her torso however, brings us to yet another elongated rib-cage and upper torso as we move beyond her abdomen. Soon as we get to her face, we see that she looks more like Lara Croft than Claire Redfield. We also see that her back and chest have ballooned out to bodybuilder proportions, which isn't accurate in the slightest. Her right arm is wonky, almost Popeye-esque in nature. It's also severely elongated, especially in comparison to her left arm. Her left arm is somewhat shorter than it probably should be, but in comparison to the right it's just tiny.<br />
Claire's ponytail is depicted as going all the way down past her shoulder-blades, when in the game it came down to the base of her neck.<br />
Going back to the upper torso, if we extrapolate from the massive back and huge chest (I'm not even talking about her breasts, those are pretty close to being alright) we can estimate that Claire's shoulders go out beyond her hips, which isn't how she was modeled in the game. They were basically on the same plane. Plus, while she definitely had <i>some </i>pectoral muscles in the game, they weren't jutting out like they do here.<br />
Finally, her tights don't come down low enough on her legs, her shirt doesn't come down low enough on her arms, and her shorts and vest are red instead of pink. This is just what I could notice off the top of my head when thinking back to <i>Resident Evil 2</i>. It looks fine, and I wouldn't normally bring up these last points, but Jim Lee got so many basic things wrong with this cover that I feel the need to nitpick.<br />
The editors note mentions that this first story, "Wolf Hunt" takes place before <i>Resident Evil</i>. Not <i>Resident Evil #1</i>, <i>Resident Evil 1</i>. As in the game. This could be a typo, but who knows?<br />
This story is written by Ted Adams and drawn by Ryan Odagawa. It starts off with three college-students, Michelle, Mike and Raquel, giving us exposition about how one of their classmates was murdered and the papers didn't report on it. Michelle gets attacked on her way from the library by some monster and killed. The next day, Barry and Jill are assigned to the case. Apparently the rest of Alpha and Bravo are on assignment, so Jill goes in undercover. Barry is Jill's backup, and is tasked with watching her back at all times. Come later that day, Jill runs into Mike and Raquel talking about Michelle's death. She asks what's up and gives her cover-story about transferring from another college. They tell her to go back and follow the curfew.<br />
Naturally, since Jill is trying to bait the killer into revealing themselves, she disobeys these instructions and stays out late. She loses radio-contact with Barry and is set upon by the monster. She pulls out a Smith and Wesson (She's supposed to have a Beretta, but whatever) and puts three shots in its chest. Funnily enough, her gun appears to be drawn the way a gun should look. It's in the right scale and it's detailed properly. However, the gun appears to have been modeled on Claire's Browning HP from <i>Resident Evil 2</i> as opposed to the modified Beretta 92F Samurai Edge she's supposed to wield.<br />
Barry finally catches up to the two of them, and they find that the werewolf Jill just killed has transformed into a human. Since she didn't get a good look at him she doesn't know that he was a werewolf. The case presumably solved, they wrap things, and the story, up.<br />
Throughout the story, the art has been alright up until these last two pages. Jill's gun basically just looks weird on the second-to-last page (I don't know what kind of gun the artist drew her as using so I can't confirm whether it's drawn improperly or not) and on the last page itself, save for the top and top-right panels, all of the art is derp. On the bottom-left panel Jill looks like a wraith with how distended her limbs are, and Barry's head looks squashed. Plus, <i>his </i>entire body looks like derp as soon as you move away from the torso and legs. His arms are just tacked-on, and his hands are the worst part. I'm not even sure how to describe how weird they look. It's like someone took one of those highly-poseable action-figure and twisted the arms all around until they looked like this. Barry's left forearm is twisted about, but his hand is basically in the right place. His right arm is drawn horribly, but it's the least of that sides problems. His right hand has been drawn upside-down. His index-finger is tiny and his pinky is <i>enormous</i>. Then there's the second to last panel, in which Jill looks more like Rebecca than herself.<br />
In-between this story and the next, we see an ad for the S.D. Perry <i>Resident Evil </i>novels and an interview with Shinji Mikami. In the interview, Mikami discusses some of the Easter-eggs in Resident Evil 2 and the differences between the American and Japanese versions. One somewhat laughable question from Wildstorm is "How were the <i>incredibly lifelike </i>CG scenes filmed?" Look, I get that they're cool and all, but they're <i>not </i>realistic.<br />
The next story is "Danger Island," written by Kris Oprisko and drawn by Lee Bermejo.<br />
A couple vacationing in the East Caribbean goes snorkeling, while an Umbrella plane crashes into a nearby mountain. They emerge from the water to find that the guy they rented the gear from has been zombified, along with a bunch of leopards. An eel feasts on a body and somehow turns into a Tyrant within <i>seconds</i>. They flee into the jungle to get away from the monsters. There's a little reference to the games thrown in by way of a blue herb used to clean out the guys wounds. The problem is the blue herb is supposed to be an antidote to poison, not as an antiseptic. They are then set upon by a gigantic Venus Fly-Trap. The guy tells the girl to run away, while he fights the thing with his diving knife. They try to climb the cliff, but are set upon by the eel-monster, which kills the plant. Fortunately, the guy dislodges a fairly large rock with his foot, which beans the monster on the head.<br />
They try to make their way to a satellite relay-station, but are set upon by a group of monsters. The man, Stan, manages to kill the eel monster after it scared off all the others that came after them. His girlfriend calls for help, but unfortunately for them, they don't get the United States Army, the US Navy, the US Coast Guard or S.T.A.R.S., they get William Birkin and the Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service, who put two in their heads and then torch the whole island. That wasn't entirely pointless at all. No siree. Although it really wouldn't have been pointless if these stories were published in chronological order.<br />
We see more Q&A with Mikami and the readers art-gallery before we move on to the third story, "Dead Air: Part 1" written by Ten Adams and drawn by Carlos D'Anda.<br />
The team discusses their next course of action before deciding to head off to London to find out if Umbrella is up to anything else. Apparently they're being funded by some kind of top-secret international agency for some reason. I don't know what. This is an original concept introduced by Ted Adams. The Europe angle was never really explored in the games.<br />
The first thing to note is that the art is <i>super </i>weird on this page. Barry looks alright, except for his eyes. Jill looks like Scarlet O'Hara, and Chris looks like a humanized version of Scourge The Hedgehog. (Ironic considering his longest-serving VA went on to play <i>Sonic </i>The Hedgehog) As they're boarding the plane, a guy from Umbrella is seen reporting to his overlords about how his team infected the drinking-water and champagne with modified T-Virus to make the plane crash. You know, because a bomb or sabotage would be effective. Because trying to infect a plane with a highly-contagious virus to kill three people (It should really be four since Rebecca should be with them) who might I remind you <i>have already survived an outbreak and your ultimate weapons</i>! Then there's the idiocy of trying to crash a plane <i>with an ace pilot on-board</i>! Need I remind you that Chris Redfield was <i>thrown out</i> of the United States Air Force over a nigh-impossible rescue-mission that he pulled off <i>on his own</i>! The man could have flown the S.T.A.R.S. chopper himself if he had to, and you're putting him inside an airplane instead of staging a home-invasion and filling him with copper?<br />
Now, granted a fighter-jet, a helicopter and a jumbo-jet are very different, but he's a smart guy and he's made his name in S.T.A.R.S. on his ability to adapt to the situation as necessary. Plus, this is<i> still</i> a horrible idea! You don't call upon a horde of uncontrollable monsters to solve your problem when three bullets could do the trick!<br />
As soon as the zombies start attacking, the S.T.A.R.S. team begins handling the situation. Jill begins herding the civilians to the back of the plane to keep them safe, and kills one of the zombies with a food-tray. Barry then creates a flamethrower from hairspray and a lighter to torch some zombies. Because this was pre-9/11 and you could still bring a lighter and hairspray onto a plane. Chris puts out the fire that spread to the seats with a fire-extinguisher and then bashes another zombies head in with it. Jill then smashes the last zombie with some CQC. Unfortunately, that zombie was the pilot.<br />
The artwork in this story was <i>horrible</i>. Not only does Chris look nothing like he's supposed to, he's repeatedly drawn like a brontosaurus crossed with Paulie from <i>The Sopranos</i>. Jill doesn't look anything like either her actress, her in-game model or her previous appearances in the comic. <i>But</i>! She at least looks like a human-being.<br />
Finally, there's Barry Burton. He looks like he's supposed to, apart from the overly-tiny eyes in some shots.<br />
The unfortunate thing about the writing in this story is mildly off. Just off enough that it's less than perfect. Especially when it comes to the dialogue. Jill is spouting off one-liners like she's James Bond, and Barry is unnaturally quiet. He's supposed to be Mr. One-liner dangit!<br />
After the story, we get character bios on Chris and Claire Redfield, with little portraits alongside them. Chris was drawn by Olivier Coipel, and Claire by Chris Brunner. Both of them look horrible. They look like someone took one of those chibi figures Japan loves so much and mashed them up with regularly proportioned drawings.<br />
First off, this portrait shows horrible trigger-discipline. Second, Chris's face looks nothing like his in-game model, or his actor, and very little like his appearance in the comic previously.<br />
As far as the bio goes, we're told very little, if anything that we didn't already find out in Issue #1<br />
Likewise, Claire's bio tells us nothing we didn't already find out from Issue #2. In fact, only the bottom paragraph tells us <i>anything </i>about her. If we didn't know who she was already, this would offer absolutely <i>no </i>information.<br />
All in all, this wasn't a bad issue, but it really shouldn't have been the third issue. Stick the first story in Issue #1 and the last story in Issue #2 ahead of the RE2 adaptation. Or just publish all of these stories as their own issues (Sans the stories in Issue #1, that should have been cleaned up and made into a single cohesive one-shot to gauge interest) in chronological order.<br />
In the end, I give it a <span style="font-size: x-large;">4.2*</span>. I'll see you next week with Issue #4. Then after that, I'll wrap the month up with the second of the S.D. Perry novels, <i>Caliban Cove</i>.<br />
Thanks for reading this review, if you liked it and wish to support the creation of more content like it, please consider donating to my <a href="http://patreon.com/user?u=501064" target="_blank">Patreon</a>.Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-5611105612239789002016-10-09T20:34:00.000-05:002016-10-09T20:34:45.496-05:00Resident Evil #2 (Wildstorm)<div>
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the third annual 31 Days of Evil! We're coming right off of another series of event reviews and going straight into another!</div>
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For those of you just joining me, every October I dig into my favorite horror franchise, <i>Resident Evil</i>! From the games, to the comics, to the novels, and eventually to the movies, I hope to one day cover it all!</div>
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We're kicking off this years special with the second issue of Wildstorm's <i>Resident Evil </i>comic series!</div>
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Yet again, I'm borrowing a bit of my format from Linkara of Atop The Fourth Wall by starting this review out with a quick look at the cover.<br />
Compared to the first cover, this one is actually pretty good. The characters actually have the proper anatomy. Claire and Leon's torsos aren't extruded all over the page, and their legs aren't posed awkwardly for the most part. Claire's right leg is a bit wonky, but other than that she's fine. Leon's hair is drawn somewhat sloppily, but the biggest issue on the page is his body. While Claire's body is close to her model from the game, Leon's body looks like Brock Lesnar's. His biceps are huge, his back looks like a gorillas, and then we get to his legs. Those look fine strangely enough. That makes the rest of his body look even worse. Then we get to the faces. Once more, Claire looks enough like her in-game model to get a pass, but Leon looks more like someone pasted Chris's face onto Leon's skull.<br />
One other thing that I noticed is the gun in Claire's hand is horribly drawn. First off, it's too big. Look at it, the proportions are all wonky even if you don't know what the gun is supposed to look like. Second while the front of the gun is drawn like it's in the middle of being fired (And judging by Claire's other hand, has recently run out of ammo) but the back end of the slide isn't extended beyond the top of the grip like it should be. Also, the front of the Browning Hi-Power (Which is the gun Claire uses in<i> Resident Evil 2</i>, which this comic is partially based on) doesn't actually look like that when the slide is locked back. The barrel is supposed to extend over empty space, not the lower half of the gun. If you want a look at the way the gun is supposed to work, check out <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PH1IxhfT_8w" target="_blank">this video</a> I found.<br />
Speaking of guns, Leon's shotgun is slightly off from the in-game model, having been given a brown pump despite the in-game version being entirely silver. If they were going for the Custom Shotgun instead of the stock Remington M1100-p, the barrel should be much longer, there shouldn't be a pumping mechanism and there should be a stock, although it's not like we would be able to see that, Leon's body is blocking where it would be.<br />
The cover boasts a roughcut metal version of the <i>Resident Evil 2 </i>logo, which I think looks mighty fine. Then we move on down the page and see that, once again, the comic has been divided into three stories instead of just adapting <i>Resident Evil 2 </i>as a single issue. It also boasts "Artists' zombie sketches!" and "Internet story cover!" which sounds utterly irrelevant and like this comic has been translated into English by an idiot respectively.<br />
Turning to the inside, we once more find a letter to the readers, detailing the contents of the comic. We've got an adaptation of <i>Resident Evil 2</i>, a side-story (read; filler) and an interquel set between<i> Resident Evil</i> and <i>Resident Evil 2</i>. Seems like that should really be before the <i>Resident Evil 2 </i>story.<br />
The first story, "A New Chapter of Evil" opens cold right in the middle of the opening cutscene of <i>Resident Evil 2</i>. Leon and Claire start out in the police-car they found in the beginning of the game before the truck-driver from the beginning (You really have to have played the game to understand what's going on here) crashes into it and and they're divided by a wall of fire.<br />
Leon goes to the police-station where he finds it has been over-run by zombies. One remaining officer explains the plot of the last <i>Resident Evil </i>game and all subsequent events to Leon before telling him to shoot him in the head before he turns into a zombie.<br />
Meanwhile, Claire makes her way to the police station and runs into Mr. X along the way. She unloads a grenade-launcher into him before meeting up with Leon in the S.T.A.R.S. office. Leon informs her that her brother and the S.T.A.R.S. team have left to Europe, and gives her one of a pair of radios he found. Claire leaves, and Leon goes downstairs to free someone he found in the holding cells. On his way there, he runs into Ada Wong. They talk the the reporter, Ben, in the cell. Ada tries to find out where her boyfriend, John Fay is, and Leon tries to convince him to leave with them, but neither get anything out of him. Then Ben is attacked by a monster in his cell, and tells the two of them everything he knows before dying.<br />
Claire runs into Chief Irons and tries to convince him to leave with her, somehow not noticing the girl clad in white and blood laying on the mans desk. Attempting to leave, Claire runs into Sherry Birkin. Chief Irons then pulls a gun on them and promptly gets eaten by a monster.<br />
Ten minutes earlier, Leon and Ada ran into Annette Birkin, and Leon was shot. Ada tucked him away behind cover and went to kill Annette. Claire bandages him up, and goes to find Ada. An indeterminate amount of time later, Ada emerges from around the corner and a giant gator bursts through the wall. Leon shoots the gas canister on the wall and kills it. On their way to the escape-train, Ada is attacked by a mutated William Birkin (Who we have not seen once in the comic so far) and Leon blasts the man with his shotgun. He then hauls the wounded Ada to safety, but they're set upon by Annette once more. The self-destruct sequence of the hidden Umbrella laboratory (Not that you'd know that if you hadn't played the game) and some pipes bash her over the head. Ada tries to take the G-virus sample, but gets shot by Annette. Leon tries to save her, but she slips from his grasp and falls. Leon and Claire reunite, and leave in the escape-train just as the lab self-destructs.<br />
On the plot-front, this story has been abridged beyond coherence. If you haven't played the game it's based on, you won't have a single clue what's going on. Plot-points show up out of nowhere and vanish straight back into nowhere. That's what you get out of smashing a twenty-hour game into a twenty-page story, when you have to adapt an hour of gameplay for every page of the comic.<br />
Then we come to the artwork. Starting at the first page, the architecture of the buildings and the details of the vehicles, etc are beautifully drawn, but the human characters look horrible. Leon is routinely drawn like he's a brontosaurus (IE, his neck is too long) and Claire is always a mess of tangled limbs and poorly-defined combat-gear. The weapons are almost universally too big compared to real-life and the game, and Carlos D'Anda seems to rely on close-up shots and obscuring shadows to avoid drawing too much detail on minor characters and wide shots. Speaking of, wide-shots of most characters look fine, but the closer they get to the "camera" the weirder they look. Leon's face looks squashed most of the time, but Ada generally looks fine. The reporter, Ben looks like a squashed version of Jaeris The Gunslinger and Claire usually looks more like Mila Jovovich than her in-game model. Then there's the picture of her in the lower right panel on page eleven. Her head is alright, and some of her upper torso looks fine but moving down the picture we see that she's been afflicted by the same issues as Jill from the cover of Issue #1. Her torso is elongated, her vest and shorts are red instead of pink, she's got two belts instead of one for some reason, her hips are at an odd angle owing to the elongated torso, (If they just came straight out from the first belt it would look fine) her gun is huge, and her right arm isn't attached to her body. Or at least it doesn't look like it is. I don't know, her right sleeve looks like it could be the shadow from the ax on the wall and her skin is the exact same color as the wall behind her. It could just be my copy, but it really looks like part of her arm is missing here.<br />
Going back to character art, for some strange reason Annette actually looks the way she's supposed to.<br />
Overall, this story was below-average, the art kind of sucks and if you've played the games there's nothing new for you here.<br />
The next story is "Mutant Menagerie," and it's written by Kris Oprisko and drawn by Lee Bermejo.<br />
Our story begins with two security guards at the Raccoon City Zoo chatting as one of them clocks out. Some <i>thing </i>crawls over the wall as one of them tells the other to check out the electrical grid. On the next page, we see the murder of William Birkin by Umbrella's security forces. Despite having been riddled with hundreds of bullets, he manages to inject himself with the G-Virus and turns into a Tyrant. Back in the present at the zoo, Birkin bites, eats and kills many an animal, not to mention wholesale slaughters the attendants. One of them, a man named Brady manages to escape the wrath of Birkin and his zombie army long enough to lock himself in a building with a radio. He finds Leon attempting to contact Claire on the radio. Brady explains what's going on, and Leon tells him that he needs to try and kill the animals before the G-Virus spreads to the city. Brady remembers that if the system overloads he can possibly blow the zoo up and take the infected animals with it. He loads himself up like he's John freakin' Rambo and shotsguns, cattle-prods and blasts his way to the utility shed. He overloads the grid and blows up the zoo, taking most of the animals with it. Several hours later, he regains consciousness and makes his way back to the headquarters building, where he contacts Leon and Claire, who have since escaped the city. Brady makes camp in what's left of the building as sleep claims him. Right before he's attacked by... Something.<br />
In terms of plot, there's not much to this. Patrick Brady wasn't in <i>Resident Evil 2</i>, and he wasn't mentioned in the previous story once. The only plot-critical information is what Birkin did to turn himself into a Tyrant, and that should have been in the previous story.<br />
In terms of artwork, it's certainly a step up from the previous story. There's nothing quite as egregious as any of the examples I mentioned before, although Brady's face looks a bit like Hank Hill's in the first few pages. Later on, he morphs into some sort of cross between Leon S. Kennedy and Patrick Swayze. In fact, William Birkin even looks quite a bit like Leon. I guess they were making up for Leon not looking like himself in the last story by making everyone look like him in this one.<br />
I'd just like to take this opportunity to mention that Birkin only makes appearances in his second form in this story. I don't know when this is set, but the comic makes it seem like it's right after he got infected, which should mean he'd be in his first form. If there was any kind of telling how long it had been since he transformed, then I wouldn't be questioning this, but there's not so I am.<br />
Our third and final story is "Lock Down" with the same writing and art team as the last one.<br />
This story is set exactly a week after the mansion incident in the previous issue. Once more, I wonder why this wasn't the story that started out the comic. Barry hasn't been handling the zombies situation very well, as is demonstrated by the fact that he sees them everywhere as he walks to his psychiatrist, Dr. Lengle. At the doctors office, an alarm goes off and zombies attack. Dr. Lengle's throat gets torn out by a zombie, so Barry pulls out his gun and blasts the monster. He finds a security-access card on Lengle's body, and finds that zombies have overrun the building. Barry makes his way to the basement to seal the zombies in the building. There, he finds a disemboweled man who tells him to gather pieces of a bomb so he can blow up the building and kill the zombies. He kills the man to keep him from turning into a zombie and takes the instructions for the bomb. Barry then finds himself face-to-face with a Tyrant.... Somehow. Barry chops its arm off with a fire-ax and tosses chemicals in its face as he escapes with one of the parts. In the mail-room, Barry finds one of the parts and a shotgun in the same locker. He finds the last part guarded by giant bugs. After getting it, he puts it together, rides up to the penthouse, torches it with the flamethrower he somehow has, sets off the bomb, and dives into a conveniently-placed pool.<br />
All in all, this story was basically filler. It's not bad, but not great and not particularly interesting.<br />
The artwork is pretty good. Barry looks like he's supposed to throughout, and the weapons are actually in-scale as they're supposed to be, despite the fact that Barry is carrying a semi-automatic instead of his signature Colt Python. One major issue in the comic however is the fact that it's basically a <i>Die Hard </i>ripoff with some incredibly lame action-movie clichés thrown in for good measure. I also have no clue where Barry got his flamethrower. If they could keep this kind of steady quality throughout the comic, that would have been great. In fact, if they'd just stuck with adapting <i>Resident Evil 2</i> and left out the other filler stories, dedicating the remaining pages of the book to adapting the story of the game.<br />
Considering this series was released once every three months, and they got at most one issues worth of relevant content out of it, maybe they could have made it a monthly series, spread the adaptation of the first two games out a bit and brought in some connecting details between the stories. Dedicate several issues to the aftermath, clean up the overall pace, and I think they could have done incredibly well.<br />
All in all, this issue was okay at its best, disappointing at its worst. I give it a <span style="font-size: x-large;">3.2*</span><br />
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Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3168709618356822348.post-1058296446617216822016-09-30T12:00:00.000-05:002016-10-01T01:36:13.940-05:00Yu-Gi-Oh! Volumes 31-38This is it. The final story arc. <i>The World of Memory</i>, AKA <i>Millennium World</i>. Our journey as readers, as critics, as fans, and for some of us, as duelists ourselves is coming to a close. As the readers journey ends, so does that of the characters. These are the final seven volumes of the manga. Today is the day the Pharaoh regains his memories.<br />
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The volume starts off with the story of how Solomon Moto got ahold of The Millennium Puzzle. In three-thousand years, the tombs of the Valley of the Kings have been pillaged for every treasure within. Save for one. One of a pharaoh whom nobody knows the name of. Solomon's guides rushes in and trips a button which activates the traps in the opening maze. Solomon figures out that the statues don't attack you if you walk with your left foot forward. Despite this advice, one of them gets skewered, and the other one pulls out a gun and shoots Solomon in the shoulder. This causes the second challenge to dump the other guy down into a pit. The Pharaoh's soul helps Solomon to safety, and he gets the Millennium Puzzle from the tomb.<br />
In the present day, Yugi can't get any sleep after Battle City, and spends some time looking at the God Cards. Solomon notices that he's up, and Yugi lets slip a mention of his other self. Solomon reveals that he basically knew this from the beginning, since he met the Pharaoh once in the tomb. The fate of the one chosen to hold the pharaoh's soul is to be tested endlessly.<br />Yugi has a conversation with the Pharaoh about the doubts he's got about getting his memories back, but they both come to terms with what might happen. Then a thief breaks into Yugi's room and steals the god-cards. Yugi chases after him, but Yami Bakura stops the bandit in his tracks, and gives them back to Yugi. Yugi is naturally perplexed by this, but he accepts them. Yami Bakura then gives him Pegasus's Millennium Eye as a peace-offering. When it comes down to the very end, Yami Bakura will give Yugi the Millennium Ring, and help him solve the puzzle of memories.<br />
He explains that when all seven items are placed in the Tablet of Memories the door to the afterlife. Yugi knows that he's supposed to escort the Pharaoh's soul to the afterlife, and Yami Bakura offhandedly mentions that if he opens the door he can get rid of Yami Bakura for good. Yugi takes the Eye and the next day meets the gang at school before going to the museum afterwards. There they meet Bobasa, one of the guardians of the Millennium Items. Before the go to the slab to see if it has any reaction to the God Cards, Téa buys a metal cartouche pendant for the Pharaoh, telling him to carve his real name into it once he remembers it.<br />Yami shows the cards to the slab, and the Millennium Puzzle glows before he disappears, leaving Yugi behind on the floor. Bobasa suspects that the Pharaoh's soul is traveling the maze of his own memories, searching for the truth, attempting to remember his fate.<br />Yami wakes up within the Pharaoh's palace, alongside many who appear similar to those he knew in his life as Yami Yugi, and some he never met at all. His vizier, Siamun Moran looks like Grandpa Solomon, Shada as Shadi, Seto as Kaiba, Akhenadan as Kaiba's father, Isis as Ishizu with a touch of Téa, Mahado as... Well he basically just looks like The Dark Magician and Bakura, lord of thieves. You can guess who he's similar to.<br />
Back in the museum, Bobasa uses The Millennium key to lead the gang into the room of the Pharaoh's mind, all except for Bakura, whose soul weighs heavy on the Millennium Scales. Yami Bakura goes off to sulk and plan something new while the others go into Yami's mind to figure out where he's at.<br />
Within his memories, Yami finds his court presiding over the trial of a graverobber who tried to steal treasure from the tomb of his father. Shada finds a dark spirit within the mans soul, and Akhenaden uses his eye to look inside to see the true form of the monster. Seto then seals the dark monster into a stone slab to be taken away to the repository with all the other monsters. The man is then sentenced to seven years of hard labor, and Seto asks Mahado why he's not been able to detect all of the evildoers who have been showing up lately. Mahado explains that the Millennium Ring has been screwing him around with its detection powers. There are too many people with monsters, good and evil alike for the ring to keep track of all of them. Even the Millennium Necklace can't keep track of all the possible futures. Speaking of which, Isis picks up a guy with powerful magic approaching the palace on her future-sight and that future comes true when Bakura, king of thieves shows up with the treasures looted from the tomb of Yami's father. Including the mummified pharaoh himself. Bakura demands that the High Priests and the Pharaoh hand over the Millennium Items, but naturally they refuse. Kalim tries to measure the mans evil, but it makes the scales go haywire. Isis sees a dark future ahead, and Akhenam sees nothing but hatred and darkness within Bakura's soul. Shada tries to bring out the spirit attached to the mans soul, but the sealing slab cannot contain it. Seto tries to seal it up anyways, but the monster breaks free. Seto summons a monster to the palace to fend it off, but Diabound phases through the floor and destroys the summoning tablet. While the priests do battle with Bakura, Yami boldly steps out onto the battlefield and shoves the bandit out of his way to reclaim the body of his father.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwVF8fQVzhknjJLHcvSPHVHX4eN9qQFm8w_DwpmHXpPSLIJhPQ-oVwMzH9pvx2c9zYW0v9GwgX6Ybg5lAItdU9M3wt6gVYd-H36u_FchAoRhfCrr0T97z5Dx2-cQ7fqLMdM0JdBwSpPKUO/s1600/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+33.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yu-Gi-Oh!" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwVF8fQVzhknjJLHcvSPHVHX4eN9qQFm8w_DwpmHXpPSLIJhPQ-oVwMzH9pvx2c9zYW0v9GwgX6Ybg5lAItdU9M3wt6gVYd-H36u_FchAoRhfCrr0T97z5Dx2-cQ7fqLMdM0JdBwSpPKUO/s320/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+33.png" title="Yu-Gi-Oh!" width="213" /></a></div>
Seto grapples Diabound with Battle Ox long enough for Mahado's Magus of Illusion to cast Spellbinding Circle and keep the beast from leaving.<br />Yami hands his fathers body to Siamun and summons Obelisk The Tormentor to tank Diabound's attack and save the priests. He uses Obelisk to blast Diabound, and Bakura barely escapes with his life. Meanwhile, Yugi and the gang look around through Yami's soul-room trying to find the door that leads them to where they need to be. Bobasa tells Yugi that his task is to find the true name of the Pharaoh, which is the key Yami Bakura needs to figure out how to unseal the power of the dark god Zorc Necrophades.<br />Back inside the World of Memories, Akhenamkhanen is being re-buried, and Seto and Akhenadan discuss strategies to find where Bakura is. If the Pharaoh hadn't intervened, they would all have been killed, so Seto and Akhenadan decide to round up as many criminals as they can and torture them until their hatred matches that of the pure hatred Bakura seems to have. Then again, I doubt that they can match the level of hatred brought on by the murder of all of their friends, family, acquaintances, and just general people in their vicinity. Seto hopes to create a monster to surpass the trio of gods.<br />
After the break-in, Yami stations a load of troops near his fathers tomb to prevent another incursion from Bakura. Yami and his priests begin training to become stronger duelists and better strategists. Seto manages to overwhelm his opponents with a show of strength from sacrificing his team-mates allies. The Pharaoh decides to teach him a lesson about how to win without exposing weaknesses. Seto summons Duos, but Yami pulls out none other than Kuriboh. Seto tries to destroy the slab straight off, but the shattered stones spawn thousands of the little creatures. They surround Duos and detonate, winning Yami the duel.<br />Siamun and Mahado inform the Pharaoh that there are more traps added to his fathers tomb. Mahado leads a crew hauling a slab to the tomb, but notices his apprentice Mana hiding in a pot near the walkway. He tasks Siamun with watching her while he's guarding the tomb during reconstruction. Bakura takes the bait, and Yami's men seal the tomb behind him so Mahado can take the thief on and try to kill him outright.<br />
Mahado unleashes the full power of his Magus of Illusion against Bakura's evolved Diabound. Diabound almost obliterates him, but he tanks the hit, and casts one last spell, fusing his own spirit with the Magus of Illusion. Creating the one, the only Dark Magician. He almost wipes Bakura and Diabound away with a Black Magic attack, but the evil within the bandit is too strong, and the thief steals the Millennium Ring for himself.<br />Meanwhile, Yugi and the gang manage to find their way into the memories beyond the doors. They try to make their way to the palace, but are repelled because Yami is very protective of his home and doesn't even know they're there. They then witness Seto and Shada hunting through the city, stationing troops and looking for criminals. They also find a maiden of blue eyes and pale skin being mobbed upon by a gang of ruffians. Seto notices this and steps in to save her. Shada doesn't even attempt to look inside her soul, but the Millennium Key finds a white dragon with power like no other within.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2vao5FJWqirVVExeUTLLFJfJ5w3ZGUW8FHiBxWb8rFyATm3SVZUqNikm6GKmntZbYN4PaV-AmjVIKWAqojrPZbZ8uVSBMnunIfBBuaWsQ-EhiXN19Za7mco5ENFAagb7OznyQFvpPeSNy/s1600/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+34.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yu-Gi-Oh!" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2vao5FJWqirVVExeUTLLFJfJ5w3ZGUW8FHiBxWb8rFyATm3SVZUqNikm6GKmntZbYN4PaV-AmjVIKWAqojrPZbZ8uVSBMnunIfBBuaWsQ-EhiXN19Za7mco5ENFAagb7OznyQFvpPeSNy/s320/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+34.png" title="Yu-Gi-Oh!" width="213" /></a></div>
Nefarious ideas cross Seto's mind, but rather than placing the girl in prison he sticks her in the palace where she can rest.<br />When Seto and Shada get done canvassing the city, the priests reunite at the palace to report their finding. They're unable to confirm if Bakura died, nor can they figure out where the Millennium Ring is.<br />
Bakura slips through the guards and gets to an inn, hands over a gold bracelet and demands to be fed. A group of opportunistic thugs notice the gold ring hanging from Bakura's neck and seek to steal it from him. Naturally he just kills them.<br />
Seto and Akhenadan begin their mad-science experiments on the prisoners, while Bakura sneaks his way back into the Pharaoh's territory. He uses the power of the ring to hide himself in plain sight on his way to the Shrine of Wedju to steal the Millenium Eye from Akhenadan. Bakura summons Diabound (Who looks more like a mutated Obelisk as time goes on), and crucifies Akhenadan on a stone slab. He then infuses a piece of his evil within the Millennium Eye and flees. Bakura steals a horse and blasts his way out of the palace to cover his tracks. The Pharaoh mounts up and rides out himself, summoning up Slifer to back himself up. The gang camped outside the palace sees Yami pursuing Bakura on horseback and follow. Yami tries to blast Diabound away with Slifer's lightening strike, but the unholy fiend phases through the ground and bursts up beside him. Unphased, the Pharaoh directs Slifer to blast it again, the force of the attack coursing through Bakura and his monster alike.<br />Bakura adopts a new strategy, using Diabound to destroy buildings and kill citizens to distract Slifer from attacking him. The Pharaoh uses Slifer as a shield to keep his subjects safe from the blasts. He takes a chance, and manages to be fast enough to sling Slifer around and blast Diabound before wrappings its tail around the monster and taking the battle further into the air. Diabound manages to slip out of the way of his next attack, and hits Slifer with a devastating blow, leaving the Sky Dragon charred and barely able to fly. The Pharaoh pretends to hand over his Millennium Puzzle so he can distract Bakura long enough for Slifer to attack him, but Diabound phases out from the rock around him and attempts to attack. Fortunately, the priests show up and Seto chops one of Diabound's arms off with Duos. Diabound retreats into the sky, but the Pharaoh uses Slifer as bait to lure its attack out, and Seto attacks the source of the Spiral Wave. Unfortunately, he finds another monster in its place. The Pharaoh doesn't have much power left after tanking that attack, but Yugi and the gang finally catch up to him, and Yugi uses his own power to summon Ra, the Sun Dragon. Light pierces the darkness and Diabound is revealed. Bakura tries to make it attack with its stolen Thunder Force attack, but Seto deflects it with a strike from Duos's sword. Ra blazes in flame, and burns Diabound to ash, killing Bakura. Naturally, this pisses off the Spirit of the Millennium Ring to no end, because this wasn't what was supposed to happen, especially for events to proceed as he intended, so he runs time back to undo the last several minutes of events.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhblP73JNdKZ8Ma7RGKqLqZrXOumiGcGKLGyDcjVweUPDlDa9t190SIIe-DxkMhqOkYo4wEUp0_ZLAkTMfNWvOlCWA3wDawQrzzk-mV6Iq_mcR6jTVqtkD-ezR9TxT_iTXgH24RNh9Z49XT/s1600/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+35.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yu-Gi-Oh!" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhblP73JNdKZ8Ma7RGKqLqZrXOumiGcGKLGyDcjVweUPDlDa9t190SIIe-DxkMhqOkYo4wEUp0_ZLAkTMfNWvOlCWA3wDawQrzzk-mV6Iq_mcR6jTVqtkD-ezR9TxT_iTXgH24RNh9Z49XT/s320/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+35.png" title="Yu-Gi-Oh!" width="213" /></a></div>
The gang tries to get back to The Pharaoh, but Yami Bakura stands in their way and challenges them to a duel. Joey decides to take the lead, and their duel begins.<br />
Practically dead and on the verge of passing out, The Pharaoh runs down Bakura on his horse in a last-ditch attempt to finish things off, but Bakura smashes the stone bridge upon which he stands, and steals the Millennium Puzzle from his neck, leaving The Pharaoh to fall into a pit.<br />
Flash-back to fifteen years prior to this ordeal. A foreign incursion has beaten the Egyptian army and Pharaoh Akhenamkhanen is informed that they have seven days before the forces reach the palace and take over the country. They know all but for sure that their enemy wishes to take a book of untold power from their hands. The Millennium Tome. The power within can rival that of the gods themselves, and whoever gets their hands on it can basically do what they wish. After one-hundred years, the translation has finally been finished. The shadow alchemy within details the creation of seven treasures to harness mysterious powers. It'll take seven days to complete the construction, so Akhenamkhanen entrusts his brother Akhenaden with the task. Akhenaden leaves his son Seto behind as he and the court magicians set off for the village of Kul Elna, a village made of nothing but criminals. It takes human sacrifices to create the treasures, ninety-nine human lives to create the seven Millennium Items. A little boy named Bakura witnesses the slaughter of all ninety-nine people, and is naturally scared out of his wits and scarred for life by this.<br />The court magicians forge the items, and Akhenaden makes a wish upon his new Millennium Eye, that his son Seto could become Pharaoh someday.<br />
With the enemy closing in, the court magicians, led by the Pharaoh himself summon seven incredible monsters to fend off the encroaching army. And succeed.<br />
Back in the first flashback, Seto goes to check out his mad-science experiments in the torture-chambers beneath the palace. Within is a battle royale, ten men enter, one man leaves. The will to live fuels the power of the monster attached to their soul, and the two men in the battlefield now have been fighting for thirty-four hours. Akhenaden orders that the girl who possesses the spirit of the Blue-Eyes White Dragon (Whose name is Kisara) be placed in the field against Seto's wishes to test the limits of her power. The two prisoners attack her, but she doesn't summon up her dragon, so Seto intervenes and kills one of them. Unfortunately, his attack cuts the chains on the arena, and he's left at the mercy of the dude who controls a giant spider. The spider tries to eat the two of them, but the White Dragon emerges from the unconscious Kisara, annihilating the monster spider with a single blast, punching through both it and the ceiling above straight into the clouds. Seto hauls himself and the girl back up to the ledge, and his fathers main mad scientist speculates that the dragon inside Kisara's soul actually <i>is her soul</i>. Akhenaden and his minion try to convince Seto to sacrifice the girl so he can wield the power of the dragon against Diabound.<br />The Pharaoh wakes up inside a cave with a dude in a metal mask looming over him. The mysterious figure tells him that a great battle is approaching before disappearing. Eventually, Isis's spirit monster finds him, and he reunites with his court.<br />
Seto spends some time wondering what the hell is wrong with his father. You see, his father is normally a kind man, showing mercy to even the most ruthless of criminals. Now, he's saying that he should sacrifice an innocent woman to further his own goals. Seto contemplates further, and then decides to have Kisara moved to a different room without telling his father.<br />
Since Bakura kept going on about Kul Elna, about what the Pharaoh did to him and his village (Akhenaden didn't tell his brother what they did to make the Items, and didn't tell his nephew either) The Pharaoh leads the priests to the ruins. The ghosts there and the Millennium Ring tip Bakura off to their arrival, and he begins to prepare.<br />
Cut back to the gang, who's wonder what the hell happened to them, where Yami Bakura went, and why it's now morning. Bobasa figures this means The Pharaoh must have been unconscious for all of this. The ghosts of the village kill and possess soldiers and priests alike. As the spirits attempt to kill The Pharaoh, Mahado's spirit vacates its tablet of its own free will and banishes the ghosts from this plane. Bakura throws still more at him, but each and every one is vanquished. Frustrated, the bandit summons his own spirit, Diabound. The monster fires a bolt of magic at Mahado, but he redirects the blast into a pillar, causing it to fall towards the Tablet of Memories. Diabound catches it with its tail, but that's enough to slow it down. Mahado then blasts the creature in the face with his magic.<br />
Once more, I have to complain about the cover. What the hell is up with The Dark Magician's color-scheme? It looks like the colorist based it more on Arkana's Dark Magician than Yugi's. Then again, he didn't have teal skin so I don't know what's going on here. At this point the Dark Magician's color-scheme was well established within the second animated series, so why wasn't it revised to actually fit the way it's supposed to look? Hell, it doesn't even look like the one color illustration I could find that doesn't use this color-scheme on the covers. The color-scheme of the Dark Magician has changed so much over the years that it's downright strange. The original design was a lighter blue with white highlights, natural skintones and a purple staff. Then there's the well-known version with the purple robes, real skin and green staff. Then there's the version within the book itself, which is black-and-white, certainly, but also has darker tanned skin as opposed to the pale teal of the cover.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5YWPX2cLsoq3QcreDJlXmrrDUmiMQfBwBjT6Espl39j5_wzIH3cGUa5qmFN8HjOY0WdJuTxH_wrXDFLZkiq_pMKp1JCsaj9vzfGkJQR_2NVnkNAqDhBn94kCYfliCtcEam3Z0Kyk71fl/s1600/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+36.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yu-Gi-Oh!" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs5YWPX2cLsoq3QcreDJlXmrrDUmiMQfBwBjT6Espl39j5_wzIH3cGUa5qmFN8HjOY0WdJuTxH_wrXDFLZkiq_pMKp1JCsaj9vzfGkJQR_2NVnkNAqDhBn94kCYfliCtcEam3Z0Kyk71fl/s320/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+36.png" title="Yu-Gi-Oh!" width="213" /></a></div>
Bakura summons another creature and Diabound vanishes into the stone. Shada summons the two-headed Jackal Warrior to find Diabound and succeeds. Mahado attempts to attack, but Diabound is already on the attack. Shada tackles the Pharaoh to the ground, and tanks the attack with his Jackal Warrior.<br />The Pharaoh orders Mahado the blast holes into the ceiling, allowing sunlight into the room and revealing Diabound's location. Mahado blasts him with a thousand magic hits, almost winning, but Bakura calls on the spirits of the dead and powers up himself and his monster. Diabound flings Mahado across the room into a pillar. Shada tries to summon another monster, but Bakura's skeletal turtle blasts, and knocks him silly. The bandit takes the key from his body and sends a final blast at Mahado, but Mana flies into the fray to rescue her master. The rest of the priests arrive to back up The Pharaoh, and they gank Diabound, to no avail. Kalim uses his Millennium Scales to fuse Seto's Duos and his own Cursed Dragon to form the Drake Knight, and Mana recharges Mahado's magic with her own since she can't fight on her own just yet. Mahado uses this energy to double the power of the Drake Knight, but Diabound fires off two beams to counter the one from the Knight. Seto uses the Drake's sword to block the blast, and Kalim blasts through the ghost shield with another attack. Unfortunately, Bakura hits him with a blast from the turtle and stuns him long enough for the ghosts to bring him the Millennium Scales. Still, Mahado flies through the hole in the shield and hits Diabound with a concentrated burst of Black Magic. Bakura tries to put the Millennium Items he's gathered into the tablet, but he dies before he can do so. Akhenaden, possessed by the piece of Bakura's soul sealed within his Millennium Eye stops time, allowing him to gather the remaining Millennium Items. The only ones who can still move are Akhenaden, Yami Bakura, Joey, Bobasa, Tristan, Téa, and Yugi.<br />Back in the city, Yugi and the gang notice that time has stopped, about how the people look like... The figurines from Bakura's game back in Volume 7. Yugi looks straight up in the world and sees none other than his own Millennium Puzzle suspended in the sky. This is when the whole thing is revealed as none other than one massive Shadow Game, the ultimate Shadow RPG.<br />When Yami brandished the three God Cards in front of the slab, he found himself transported to a secret room within the museum. After all, Ryo Bakura's father owns the place, he knows it like the back of his own hand. The diorama the game is played within was made by Bakura himself, originally used as part of an old display, but created in anticipation of this final encounter. Bakura has stuck the unconcious bodies of Yugi, Joey, Téa and Tristan's unconscious bodies into sarcophagus's across the room.<br />Back within the game, Akhenaden places all seven items within the Tablet of Memories, and opens up the gate to free Zorc Necrophades. Akhenaden makes a deal with Zorc and becomes his high-priest.<br />
Bobasa begins to glow, and transforms into Hasan, the spirit of the Tablet of Memories. Since Zorc has been freed once again, he decides now is definitely the time to lead the gang to the location of The Pharaoh's name. They fly to The Valley of the Kings (Because this is part dream part Shadow Game, there are rules that have to be enforced, but anything that isn't specified goes.) and check out his tomb.<br />
Meanwhile, Bakura tries to use Zorc to blow away The Pharaoh and his priests. Yami tries to counter via roleplaying, but Zorc forces Akhenaden to finish the attack. Hasan intercepts the attack, and runs the clock out on the time-freeze.<br />
Within the tomb, Yugi and the gang find all the traps frozen in time, and a Duel Monsters card from Yami Bakura's deck on the ground.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSCC0bZwTWejh5oIc0TnNG24DySLTN5WESX4iR8OKd9zICVXttRwDGhS5it5-V8OH7zNtjx7HAkiYZUo-e3EjgOaPGhYiz78GrQhh21bJLd1YOy9lVZq_R9y6UrDaVpZ2iNLnTXiGHsTPs/s1600/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+37.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yu-Gi-Oh!" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSCC0bZwTWejh5oIc0TnNG24DySLTN5WESX4iR8OKd9zICVXttRwDGhS5it5-V8OH7zNtjx7HAkiYZUo-e3EjgOaPGhYiz78GrQhh21bJLd1YOy9lVZq_R9y6UrDaVpZ2iNLnTXiGHsTPs/s320/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+37.png" title="Yu-Gi-Oh!" width="213" /></a></div>
Zorc tries to kill The Pharaoh and his priests once again, but Mahado redirects the attack since time is flowing properly again.<br />The gang manage to escape the traps, and encounters Yami Bakura. Yugi duels with him so they can pass. Yugi tries out a new deck he's been working on, and through a combination of misdirection, brute force and perseverance manages to overwhelm the Spirit of the Millennium Ring. Yugi and the gang rush to the end of the tomb and find The Pharaoh's true name written in hieroglyphs. They can't read them, so the memorize them and leave as quickly as they can.<br />Angered by this, Bakura activates the last of Zorc's special powers, a natural disaster.<br />The Priests face-off with Zorc. Mahado's attack hits Zorc straight on, but Zorc kills Shada. Akhenaden and Seto square off, but the father bests the son, and Akhenaden summons an army of the dead to protect Zorc. Siamun retrieves the Millennium Key, and summons up Exodia to face off with the dark god.<br />Meanwhile, Akhenaden transports Seto back to the palace, and Seto rushes in to rescue Kisara. Disappointed in his son, Akhenaden hits Kisara with a bolt of magic.<br />
Siamun uses Exodia to obliterate the entirety of Zorc's undead minions. He then attacks Zorc directly, but the dark god cuts The Forbidden One in half, killing Siamun in the process. Zorc blasts everyone else, almost to the point of death, but Yugi and the gang arrive just in time. Yugi summons his Dark Magician, who takes the form of Mahado and Joey summons his Red-Eyes Black Dragon. They both hit Zorc straight on, but their attacks don't phase him. Zorc fires off a blast that destroys the Red-Eyes and threatens to kill every last one of them, but Hasan tanks the blast himself, and his mask peels away to reveal that he's actually Shadi.<br />
Unable to think of anything else to do, the gang decide to take the memory of The Pharaoh's name and try to burn it onto the cartouche pendent that was brought into this world alongside everything else from the modern world. Seeing the glyphs upon the cartouche, The Pharaoh remembers his true name. Atem.<br />Atem then summons Ra, Slifer and Obelisk to bear against the brunt of Zorc's attack. He then unites them into the creator god of light, Horakhty.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpmX9whZ-QBya2vifIIfg4TC9O03_LtsNNtIuwtB3EzV6L9L8hjtMWkicPx4ktMSmpeXk7QJ-PT0oGVRLvqwj-hx9Tz1_TTjeHRsfDDideM5Tv9ryoE_nYvcJbAc4Pn-4B38FmXVot0EJ5/s1600/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+38.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Yu-Gi-Oh!" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpmX9whZ-QBya2vifIIfg4TC9O03_LtsNNtIuwtB3EzV6L9L8hjtMWkicPx4ktMSmpeXk7QJ-PT0oGVRLvqwj-hx9Tz1_TTjeHRsfDDideM5Tv9ryoE_nYvcJbAc4Pn-4B38FmXVot0EJ5/s320/Yu-Gi-Oh%2521+Volume+38.png" title="Yu-Gi-Oh!" width="213" /></a></div>
Horakhty annihilates Zorc with one blow. The gang leave the game, but the memories keep playing out. Despite having rescued Kisara, Seto's father killed her with one shot of evil magic. He places her body in front of a slab so he may preserve her soul. Akhenaden commits suicide, and does something to possess his son to attack Atem as he walks back from the scene of the battle. Possibly Bakura did something to the Millennium Rod with his power, or maybe Zorc sealed a bit of his soul withing the rod himself.<br />
Anyways, the possessed Seto challenges Atem to a duel for the title of Pharaoh. Within Seto's mind, he struggles with the spirit of Zorc for control of his body, and Atem's words manage to keep Seto from attacking. The carving of the dragon vanishes from the slb, and Kisara's spirit appears within Seto's mind to banish the last vestiges of Zorc to the afterlife.<br />As Atem's memories end here, he asks that Seto take over the mantle of Pharaoh. He hands Seto the Millennium Puzzle as he fades away back to the present-day.<br />Back in the real-world, Bakura is unconcious, and Joey takes the Millennium Ring from the now-destroyed diorama.<br />A month later in modern-day Egypt, Yugi and the gang meet up with Marik and his family, who have pulled some strings for them so they can get into Atem's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. On the ship to the tomb, Marik informs them of the Rite of the Duel, something mentioned on the wall inside Atem's tomb. In order for Atem to travel to the afterlife, Yugi has to beat him in a duel. So, the two of them build their decks in preparation for their final duel. Nobody really wants to see this happen, but it's Yugi's duty to do so.<br />It basically goes like this. Yugi and Atem have to square off. Yugi wins, Atem gets to go to the afterlife and Yugi completes the journey he's been on since the beginning of the series. If Atem wins, he stays around.<br />
They place the Millennium Items within the Tablet of Memories, and Yugi's shadow splits into two before Yugi himself splits into two.<br />
Atem puts up a valiant fight, summoning Slifer and Obelisk, but he's unable to counter Yugi's strategy, and Yugi wins the duel. The door opens, and Atem marches to the afterlife. After he crosses the threshold, and the Tablet of Memories shatters, and the Millennium Items fall into the void.<br />
The afterword says how this isn't a story of a great pharaoh, and to some extent I believe it. This has been a story about characters more than anything. The development of the main cast over the course of this series has been incredible. In fact, I'd argue that Yugi's development over the course of the series is one of the greatest character arcs in fiction. It's a long, slow development over the course of almost forty volumes, and it works out to a ridiculous extent in the end. Yugi went from timid, shrinking and shy to a confident duelist. The line between Atem and Yugi, which has been blurry at the best of times over the course of this amazing series becomes almost non-existent by the end. To the extent that I would say that Atem never really left, that there was never really any divide in the first place. The entire ending duel is symbolic of Yugi's coming of age, of him finally crossing the threshold into true self-confidence. I wouldn't go into psychotic break territory, but let's break this down from a character perspective. Seto Kaiba was basically the same as his ancient counterpart even without his Millennium Rod. Ryo Bakura was at-heart a good person with an evil spirit within him, while Atem never did anything that Yugi didn't want to. Atem basically did what Yugi didn't have the courage to do. He punished those who needed it, he took revenge on those who wronged the innocent. He did what a pharaoh does. He took command, he formed his court, and he waged war on his enemies.<br />Over the course of this series, the flair that defines the blurry line between Atem and Yugi became less and less confined to the Pharaoh. Aside from his hair, Yugi has a rather sedate, relaxed, raggedy appearance at the beginning of the series. At the end, he's got the same slick classy flair to him that Atem did when he took over. His suit is pressed, his hair is straight and jacket has that little cape-like flare-out towards the bottom. All he's missing are the ankhs on the wrists, two of the blonde spikes and the eye of Horus on his forehead. He was a world-class champion gamer before he finished the Millennium Puzzle, and all on his own, all he needed was the courage to use it in the big-leagues. Plus, since Atem and Yugi share a body and memories, Yugi has all of the memories Atem regained when he finished the Shadow RPG. I think I've made it perfectly clear that I don't think Atem ever left, I think he and Yugi became one entity. Not necessarily with the same crazy powers as before, but considering Kaiba was able to create real monsters and drive people insane without once touching a Millennium Item, the ancient powers aren't exactly necessary anymore.<br />
One criticism I have for this arc, or rather the translation of it is the gratuitous use of Egyptian words in place of the English ones that have sufficed so far. It makes the translation seem a bit more roughshod than it should. Speaking of translation, every now and again there's a word missing, or the numerous times Maximilian J. Pegasus is referred to as Pegasus J. Crawford for some reason. How does this work? Why is the localization editor not able to keep this stuff straight? This is the eighth edition reprint for gods sake, they had a good nine+ years and eight+ opportunities to fix this. These should have been fixed at any of those opportunities. I have to say, if they bring the bunkoban edition to the states and they have all the same errors I will be very disappoint.<br />
Then there's the cover. I'm not entirely certain where the art on this cover came from, but it's similar to that of the Tankoban covers from Japan. A painted art-style that clashes entirely with the style of the comic. Not to say that it's entirely bad (God knows I'm no fan of Alex Ross) but it would fit more as a standalone painting than as the cover to this final volume.<br />
All in all, having read through this series for a third time while writing these reviews, it holds up incredibly well. The artwork is perfect from panel to panel. The writing is incredible, and aside from a couple of rough chapters towards the beginning of the series, it flows incredibly well. The placement of mini-arcs within the TPB's can be a bit questionable, especially in the Duelist Kingdom and Battle City arcs, but that's almost entirely rectified come the World of Memory arc. Cliffhangers are placed perfectly, almost ridiculously so.<br />Overall, all in all, I had so much fun reading this series. It made me laugh, cheer, and cry. Sometimes within the same volume. Sometimes even within the same chapter. I was afraid upon my second and even my third re-readings that I would notice something that would make the whole series fall apart, something that would make me hate it, but I just loved it more. After reading some horrible Marvel and DC comics in the last decade, it's nice to have a comic that not only holds up over time, but could take on anything from either one of them right now (Even DC, and DC has been great lately) and win. Not just win, but dominate. Compare the art in these thirty-eight volumes to <i>anything </i>Marvel has put out lately. They lose hands down. There's more texture, more depth, more personality, more expression, more character and more tone to it than almost every comics I've read from the Big Two (DC mainly in New52 era) in the last ten years. And this series is<i> entirely </i>devoid of color!<br /><br />In the end, I give <i>Yu-Gi-Oh!</i> <span style="font-size: x-large;">10.1*</span>. Happy birthday to one of my favorite series of all time, and to one of the greatest. This has been a hell of a month for me, both online and off. I know I'm about an hour and a half too late for this to actually be within the month of September, but it's still September 30th in some places in the world and I've never been one to give up in the long-run.<br />
Next year we'll be delving much further into the franchise, and actually looking further into the history of the series. Hopefully I'll have less stuff on my plate next year and will be able to get all of the content for the second History of <i>Yu-Gi-Oh!</i> written and scheduled before September. If you want to try and ensure that will happen that way, please donate to my <a href="http://patreon.com/user?u=501064" target="_blank">Patreon</a>. I'd like to make this my full-time job if I can, and it would mean that I could get more work done with less stress.Alex Shannonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08684137888518022207noreply@blogger.com0