Ta-metru_defender

Essays, Not Rants! 382: Zero Two When I got my Game Boy Advance SP many years ago as a wee tween I was very excited about some of the games I could play. Obviously, there was Pokémon Ruby because, c’mon, you gotta catch ‘em all. Then there were the new slew of Mega Man games, like the Battle Network series, an RPG where you bounced between Lan in the real world and Mega Man in the digital, fighting viruses and the such in an adorably nascent look at cyberwarfare. More importantly, however, there was the Mega Man Zero series, a sequel of sorts to the Mega Man X games set a hundred years after and starring an amnesiac Zero, the deuteragonist of the original X games. Zero was very much the Han Solo to X’s Luke Skywalker in the X games, the cooler secondary character (and sometimes villain, so maybe less Han). He became a playable character in X4 and offered a different gamestyle; eschewing X’s buster for his Z-Saber, requiring an even more agile approach. Anyway, in light of that, a series with him as the lead was naturally exciting to my younger self. After ranting writing about the games a couple weeks ago, I decided to replay them because, c’mon, they’re great games. So I bought myself a headphones adapter for the very same Game Boy Advance SP as a couple paragraphs ago. Sidebar: why the headphones? The Mega Man games have an excellent soundtrack and the Zero series is arguably the best of the best. They were mainstays for essay writing in college and are still great writing music, so of course I want to be able to re-experience those tunes while playing on the subway. If I’m gonna replay these games, I’m gonna do it right. And man, are they fun, in ways I don’t think I really appreciated sixteen-odd years ago. In stark contrast to a certain more recent iteration, the controls of the Z games are razor-sharp, the level design punishing but fair. When I die, I know it’s because I mistimed a jump or misread an enemy’s attack. The games are hard: you don’t have a lot of health and some enemies dish out a good chunk of damage. Compounding it all is the games’ grading system: after every mission, you’re assigned a rank and score, with points negated for taking too much damage, using a continue, or failing a part of the mission — amongst others. Wanna use a cyber-elf to increase your health or make your saber stronger? Cool, but good luck getting an S-Rank with that. You don’t need to clear a mission with a high rank, but it creates a fun incentive to be better at the game. So I finished the original Mega Man Zero last week and started on the sequel recently. It’s a marked improvement over the first, far more refined and sleek looking. The first’s aesthetic was very worn, everything from the start menu to the character portraits are much more crisp in Z2. Game systems have been tweaked and refined; the stage select looks more like a 'normal' Mega Man game’s and unlockable forms that change Zero’s stats are added to switch up gameplay a little. Furthermore, learnable skills are now rewards for clearing a stage with a rank of A or S. Where sometimes a big change is a great part of a new iteration of a game or what-have-you is excellent, Z2 is one of those that builds on what came before. Sure, the sprites are mostly the same and the core gameplay is essentially identical, but the effort is put instead into refining what already works. I’m really looking forward to replaying Z3. Beyond being one of my two favorite Mega Man games (X5 is the other), it’s where things really reach their peak. The EX Skills and Forms from Z2 are carried over and a few other customization options are thrown in alongside some real fun stages and boss battles. As much as I enjoy playing new games, there’s something real fun about booting up an old one where I still have the stages half-remembered and appreciating it all over again.

Essays, Not Rants! 381: Cinnamon Tography We live in a time that I’ve seen described as Peak TV, where there are these major shows that edge into cultural phenomena. Game of Thrones, Breaking Bad, Black Mirror. Those shows that you’ve definitely watched or you certainly know people who have watched. There’s an almost cultish fanaticism to the whole thing; half the fun of following Game of Thrones was being up in the discussion around it, whether at work, at the bar, or in line at the grocery store. Everyone’s watching it, everyone’s talking about it. But there’s not a lot of people talking about Corporate, a darkly comedic satire about, well, working. Corporate follows Matt and Jake, two workers in the very corporate head office of Hampton DeVille, a possibly-very-evil megacorporation. The show merrily skewers a variety of facets of modern life, like commercializing protest, the military-industrial complex, and company retreats. The episode “Society Tomorrow” turns the show’s piercing lens towards Peak TV -- and a whole lot else besides. In the episode, it seems like everyone at work is watching this hit new show Society Tomorrow. It’s an ersatz Black Mirror, and what we see of it features people trying to escape the controlling influence of a futuristic watch-like device -- which happens to look a lot like the StrapIn Hampton DeVille is selling. The thing that makes this episode so delightful is that Corporate isn’t content to just go after one facet of this whole thing but instead take it apart from every angle. Shots are taken at spoiler culture, where there’s an HR meeting over an employee slapping another for spoiling an episode. Since this is satire, it’s the spoiler who’s at fault and not the slapper (the HR rep is also watching the show, naturally). The way characters try to suss out how far each other is in the show is an amusing dance, often to the point of ridiculousness as people try to talk about what’s going on without ruining it for each other. In a day when the entire series is dropped onto a platform at once (see: Netflix’s Stranger Things and Good Omens on Amazon), it’s almost a race to keep up with what’s going on lest a spoiler ‘ruin’ the experience for you. Matt’s an ardent fan of the show, going so far as to have Jake drive him to work not so they can chat and hang out, but so Matt can watch it on his StrapIn. When he tries to get the eerily-prescient ads off his fancy gadget it locks onto his wrist, and he suddenly feels like he might just be in the situation the show describes. The StrapIn seems to be spying on him, what with its targeted ads and all, and maybe, just maybe he might be beholden to it (as are the characters in Society Tomorrow). Ultimately, however, convenience seems to be worth the sacrifice of privacy and Matt, like so many people in real life, decides to dismiss privacy concerns because, hey, ain’t it handy to have a device that helps you with your life? The third skewer is aimed square at people not watching the show. Jake, it seems, is the only person in the office not watching Society Tomorrow. As such he’s ostracized by others in the office, a superior going so far as to tell him to take the day off and watch the show. During a conversation with the only other coworker who doesn’t follow the show, Jake wishes there would be another mass shooting, describing the drama and suspense of it all in much the same way one would a prestige tv show. It’s a quick jab, but the barb here is that this guy who’s acting all above it all and would rather discuss current events and other ‘real’ subjects treats the real world like a tv show itself. Later on, when questioned by coworkers in an interrogation chamber, Jake confesses that the main reason he hasn’t watched the show is just to be contrarian. The point Corporate makes here is that you’re not more ‘deep’ for not jumping on the latest bandwagon. Finally, there’s how people try to speak so authoritatively about aspects of the show. People remark on the show’s excellent score and cinematography. Matt eager to give off the appearance of knowing what he’s talking about agrees that, yes, the “cinnamon tography” is so good. It’d be easy to mock people’s superficial understanding of filmmaking techniques and criticism, but that’s too lazy for the show. By positing Matt’s misunderstanding of the very word ‘cinematography’ the satire is aimed straight at the tendency of people who to parrot the praise of a work – without understanding it – just to feel a part of the zeitgeist. The brilliance of “Society Tomorrow” is in Corporate’s ability to satire all of this at once. It’s not just the way we can try and find connections between fiction and real life, nor just the way we’ll feign understanding to sound intelligent. By mixing it all together, the show hits at everyone involved in any of the buzz around a major tv show. Everyone is complicit in the ridiculousness in one form or another, but then, we’re all also absolved. The buzz and hype around peak tv is just a part of modern life, so let’s make fun of it. And, as Corporate does in “Society Tomorrow,” do a good job of it.

Essays, Not Rants! 380: Aegean Aexploration Somehow, I’ve managed to clock in upwards of ninety hours in Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey since I started playing it a couple months ago. I’m nowhere near done with the story; heck, I’m not even too sure I’m that far into it. This isn’t so much a case of my having lost the thread as it is a merry exploration of Ancient Greece and all the fun it entails. The lengthy playtime is especially impressive when one takes into account the fact that I’d just about given up on the series after Black Flag back in 2014. It wasn’t that the games were bad; I really liked the whole running around history, rubbing shoulders with important people, and stabbing bad guys (sometimes sneakily). Plus, there was this whole super-advanced ancient civilization and modern-day conspiracy narrative weaved into it. There’s a lot to like. My complaints stemmed more from the games’ lack of polish. Revelations, the third game in the Ezio Trilogy that started in II and was the precursor to III (their numbering system is almost as bad as Kingdom Hearts), saw the action move from Renaissance Italy to Constantinople, but gameplay remained frustratingly samish and the narrative a stopgap. As awesome as it was running around the Grand Bazaar (and the fun context it would provide to my own trip to Istanbul a few years later), I didn’t really care too much about Ezio’s adventures and honestly couldn’t tell you the story now if I tried. Black Flag focused on pirates, which was really cool, but suffered from a similarly disjointed narrative hampered by how much fun sailing the open seas in a pirate ship was. I know Kenway had some adventure or other to be on, but there were ships to sink out here! I missed the next few Assassin’s Creed games, feeling that my goodwill to the games was tied to being able to captain a ship. Odyssey appeared on my radar due to its RPG elements, ability to romance other characters, and finally finally featuring a female protagonist, albeit an optional one (but why would you want to play as Bland Dude #38 when you can choose Kassandra?). And I get a ship again, so there’s that too. Oh, and it was on sale on Amazon. Somehow, I’ve since clocked two entire workweeks exploring Greece, and I’m still not tired. Why? I’m not terribly attached to this franchise, so why am I so invested? I’m not so sure it’s the story. I get it in broad strokes, and I am onboard with Kassandra’s hunt for the cultists who ruined her life, though I could do with the fun of a little more detective work. Kassandra has a winning personality, owing much to Mellisanthi Mahut’s performance; she’s wry and, based on the choices I’ve made, not someone who cares about your sob-story so much as the drachmae. It’s pretty fun playing a character who’s above all the squabbling in the local city-state and just wants to get paid. More than anything else, though, I think I’m just enchanted by the world the makers created. Sailing the Aegean and finding new islands somehow doesn’t get old (and I’m putting off exploring some places because I want some places left to uncover). There’s a cave with cultists, here’s the home of a Spartan leader I’m going to assassinate, I’m going to fight against the Athenians alongside the Spartans to conquer Malis (and get a share of the spoils). How sneakily can I infiltrate this fort? In many ways, it reminds me of Breath of The Wild; it might not be quite as gorgeously lush as Hyrule, but, dude, I get a pirate ship. I loved Assassin’s Creed II for the catharsis it offered after a long day at work, and Odyssey is much the same. Here’s a world I can quite happily get lost in and find my own sort of fun for hours on end. Seems like there’s always something more to do. I recently made port in the island of Keos and, upon finding a viewpoint to take in the island, couldn’t help but be delightfully enchanted by the place. I know it’s probably not all that different from the other islands in the archipelago, but there’s a part of me that can’t help but surrender to the wonder, to that little spark of glee at uncovering a new island and joy of adventure. Perhaps that’s why I’m really falling in love with Odyssey: the game lets me chart my own path, figure out my own path, and really explore this new world. There’s a new fort or cave behind every turn, and I feel like I did twenty years ago popping Pokémon Yellow into my GameBoy Color and uncovering its secrets.

Essays, Not Rants! 379: Delicious Stakes There’s a common maxim in storytelling stating something to the effect of how you should always raise the stakes. Don’t make it just a friend at risk, make it a sibling. Instead of it just being the neighborhood affected, have it be the town. If you’re gonna have to save a city, it oughta be a major metropolis like New York. And why stop at saving the city when you can save the world? High stakes usually mean high thrills. The Battle of New York at the climax of The Avengers is epic because they aren’t just fighting for the city but the entire world too. Lara Jean’s predicament in To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before is so dire because it’s her entire high school reputation at stake. Inigo Montoya wants vengeance because the Six-Fingered Man killed his father, not a mentor or neighbor. And yet, sometimes there’s something so much fun about a story where the stakes are low. Too much life-or-death can be tiring; there’s a point where having every conflict with the Avengers being about saving the world where it starts to seem very same-old-same-old. That might just be why Ant-Man and The Wasp is a movie that’s so delightful: the stakes are just so low. There’s no risk of some powerful tech/weapon falling into the wrong hands (Iron Man, Ant-Man, Guardians of The Galaxy) or some vengeful figure from the character’s past threatening the hero’s life (Iron Man 2, Thor Ragnarok, Captain Marvel). It’s not even the question of a Very Important Friendship that Civil War presents, one with ramifications for near everyone. The stakes at the heart of Ant-Man and The Wasp is the question of if Hank and Hope can rescue a Janet from the Quantum Realm. Complicating it is a Scott who wants to help but doesn’t want to violate his house arrest. There are also some villainous black market dealers and a woman named Ava who’s adversely affected Pym Particles. And that’s really about it, there’s no true villain; not in the way that Civil War presents flawed characters warring amongst themselves, but in a way that’s pretty, well, chill. By the end of it, everyone is more or less happy to get along with one another. Sure, the day’s been saved, but that just means that Janet’s been rescued from the Quantum Realm and they’re working on a way to stabilize Ava. In a Marvel universe where the fate of the world is quite frequently at stake, it’s downright refreshing to have a movie where that’s really about it. No cataclysm, no Hydra takeover, just well, a small little side-adventure. It’s refreshing, especially sandwiched as it is between Avengers: Infinity War and Captain Marvel (and then Endgame). Similarly, although Spider-Man: Far From Home does have some pretty high stakes, it feels kinda low compared to the existential threat that was Thanos. Sure, you’ve got these potentially world-destroying Elementals, but far more important is Peter’s relationship with MJ and his friends. These dumb villains are getting in the way of his vacation, man! Honestly, it does feel like his friendships are the more important stake, and that’s okay. When it comes down to it, stakes only matter if we care about it and one way to make us care about it is to see a character care. When Peter frets about sitting next to MJ on a plane ride, we care about it too because we’ve invested in Peter Parker. Lloyd Dobbler and Diane Court’s relationship in Say Anything… isn’t gonna change the world, but it’ll change theirs. Daniel winning the tournament isn’t a life-or-death thing in The Karate Kid, but it’s the fruition of his relationship with Mr. Miyagi, and so much of the movie’s stakes are within the question of whether or not Daniel will be able to find a sense of belonging in the new town and, in turn, self-actualize. Perhaps the maxim is a little misguided. Bigger stakes are really only bigger if they mean something. The Earth is destroyed at the start of The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy but that’s not really so much as important as poor Arthur Dent yearning for a proper cup of tea. The Earth is generic, but that cup of tea means everything. So really, the size of the stake doesn’t matter so much as it’s well treated and given the proper time it needs to stew. Then bam, your stake is delicious.

Essays, Not Rants! 378: Menu-Assisted Narrative Mega Man Zero ends with Zero facing down a hoard of Pantheons, his saber ready and his will resolved to fight every last enemy that crosses his path. The music swells and he charges off into battle. The sequel picks up a year later and the opening stage is you, as Zero, still fighting the fight. The implication is clear: Zero’s been at it for the entire year since the first installment. It offers a neat sense of continuity between the two games, and Zero constantly using his tired/low-health animation instead of his usual idle one definitely lends itself to the sense of weariness found in the scene. But that’s not the best part. Hit start and you’ll bring up the pause menu. Menus are perfunctory things in most games; maybe a game will dress it up like an in-universe tablet, but for the most part, they’re utilitarian places to change loadouts or access options. Mega Man Z2 uses the menu to communicate atmosphere: it features the exact same design as the one from Z1, this time with cracks and broken parts. Zero has been fighting for so long, the pause screen is falling apart. After the level, when Zero gets repaired and is ready to go back out on missions, not only is his idle animation back to normal, but the menu is now redone and shiny — just as Zero is back and better than ever. In this game, the start menu helps tell the story. In the opening it displays the passage of time, then it shows that Zero is in perfect shape. It’s perfectly possible to go through the opening without once opening the menu and miss this bit of setting entirely. There are things we’ve come to just expect from video games. Call it ludonarrative dissonance, call it the necessities of mechanics, but we’re used to certain gamey things. Extra lives, pause menus, health meters, the list goes on. Sometimes, games can try and explain it, like the HUD in Assassin’s Creed being representative of the interface of the Animus as Desmond accesses Altair’s memories, but typically it doesn’t really matter. It’s when these mechanicy things are integrated into the narrative that things get really interesting. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII has its Digital Mind Wave system. At first, the DMW seems like a kitschy mechanic; slots roll throughout battles and if the right numbers or characters line up, player character Zack Fair gets a stat boost or, sometimes, executes a cool attack. As you progress through the game, people who Zack meets get added to the DMW, and attacks and boosts based on them with it. Alright, cool; the DMW is representative of Zack’s psyche, an interpretation backed up by the flashbacks you’ll see when the reels align on one character. But then comes the ending. So, uh, spoilers for a game that came out twelve years ago as a sequel to a game that’s now 22 years old, but Zack dies. On the run from evil corporation Shinra’s army, Zack tries to fight them off but eventually succumbs, passing on his legacy to Cloud (and leading into the original Final Fantasy VII). You get to play Zack’s last stand, an unwinnable fight with a foregone conclusion. It’s tragic and sad, and probably the last place you’d want a slot machine rolling in the top left corner. Or so you’d think. As the fight goes on, and as Zack weakens, parts of the DMW break and one by one the characters he’s met along the way are removed from the DMW. This mechanic you’ve come to rely on slowly becomes less useful, and the characters you — and Zack — care about are being taken from you as you die. It’s a visceral experience: something you’ve come to take for granted is slipping away. You feel the loss happening. Video games are such a wonderful, fascinating medium. There aren’t many ways to smoothly integrate this sort of storytelling into other forms. An aspect ratio change could communicate Zero’s shift in film or television, but it wouldn’t be quite as obviously subtle. Perhaps a book’s font slowly growing more indistinct and faded would be able to communicate the sort of fading that Crisis Core’s DMW does, but would that be too obvious, too gimmicky? Maybe the only way to know is to try, but in the meantime, man, I love that video games can do this. Menus and in-game mechanics aren’t the sort of things we usually think of as ways to tell a story, and yet, these two games did. It’s honestly a shame that they don’t get more credit, and that more games don’t play around with their medium as much as they could. Postscript: I didn’t mention any entry in Metal Gear Solid because, dude, Hideo Kojima’s on an entirely different level when it comes to the interplay between games’ ludic and narrative elements.

Essays, Not Rants! 377: Shoes My favorite part of Netflix’s Always Be My Maybe might just be a tiny beat that happens part way through the movie. It’s hardly a big moment, just a bit of table setting that, for someone like me, holds all the more import. There’s a party, and a couple kids are chasing each other. They run up the steps to the house and, without pausing to think, slip off their shoes before entering. The camera follows them as they run through the house and to the back door where they put their shoes back on and continue their chase outside. It’s a really small beat, and the whole shoes thing isn’t highlighted — there’s no cutaway to the kids’ feet or anything; the long shot just serves to establish the party in the suburbs. Maybe you don’t quite get what I’m getting at. I moved to the US when I was fourteen. There was a lot of little culture shocks, from tax not being included in the sticker price to the fact that I had to drive to get anywhere in the suburbs. A big one was that Americans wore their shoes inside the house. As someone who grew up in Singapore, I was very used to removing my shoes before going into a house. Why would I want to track the outside world into someone’s home? That’d be barbaric. I got over it, and these days usually ask when I visit someone if it’s shoes on or off (my apartment is firmly shoes off, if you were wondering). Wikipedia has an interesting rundown on the practice of removing shoes inside, surveying the custom in several countries. It’s not common in the US but, as the article notes, “...removing of shoes is common among certain immigrant communities.” Which, I suppose, explains me and mine. But I’ve digressed. There’s a beat in Always Be My Maybe where a pair of kids, unprompted and without a word, pause their playing to take their shoes off when entering a house, and put them back on when they exit. It’s such a small detail, but one that is absolutely rife with verisimilitude and meaning. It’s something you’d expect to see in an Easy Asian household like the one depicted in the film. Given that the film’s three writers are all of Easy Asian descent and the director herself a child of Iranian immigrants, it’s not surprising that the detail made it in. And it’s treated as normal to boot. I know this seems like such a small beat to obsess over, but it’s a really big deal for. In all the American media of consumed over the years, nowhere have I seen this tiny but important facet of my life portrayed on screen. And certainly not as casually and matter-of-factly as here. In that moment I felt seen, I felt like this part of me and my life was important and valid. That the habit of taking my shoes off inside wasn’t unusual. I yearn for stories by different people, I yearn to hear about other experiences and takes on life. I also want to see my own experiences presented in media; I want to see myself represented. Always Be My Maybe may not be the best movie in Netflix’s stable of romcom revivals (that title belongs entirely to Set It Up and if you disagree you are wrong) but it gets a special little place in my heart for how it portrays its Asian American protagonists without making the whole movie about the ‘Asian American experience.’ Sasha and Marcus are presented as fairly normal people, they aren’t ‘foreign’ or ‘exotic,’ they’re just them. In a few ways, Always Be My Maybe seems not unlike To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before in that both films feature leads who are people of color without the plot being about how they’re minorities. At the end of the day, I want to see little parts of my life portrayed as being, well, normal and not some bizarre thing done by the Other. Movies like Always Be My Maybe and To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before do that. And now I want more.

I renounce my duties of video editing. Also, there was A Car pun there the whole time and I'm salty you never used it.

Essays, Not Rants! 376: Bad Taste I really like Iron Man 2. This is not a popular opinion; the movie is usually listed near the bottom of MCU movie rankings, especially when held up against its predecessor. But I really like it all the same. I suppose there’s no accounting for bad taste. Perhaps there’s some explanation for my deep affection for this much-maligned movie when the context with which I first saw the film is taken into account. The summer of 2010 saw my heart acting up with the symptoms of something potentially dire, but without any clear cause. This period of uncertainty was less than fun, to put it mildly, so a movie where the protagonist was dealing with his own chest-related issues struck a very personal cord. I’m fully aware of the film’s flaws, but my opinions of Iron Man 2 will forever be tied up with the circumstances when I first saw it. I go on and on on this blog about how art is a two-way street, about how the viewer/reader/player affects the work almost as much as the creator. What one brings to the table inherently changes the final effect of the piece. My own medical issues, for example, have had drastic effects on my opinion of Iron Man 2. In light of that, it’s hard to really provide a framework with which to declare a movie the best. Something I love may not work for you, and vice versa. I found Never Let Me Go to be profoundly moving, but I’m sure there’s someone out there who’d call it melodramatic schlock, just as there are people who loved 50/50 while I found it somewhat hollow. I still love (500) Days Of Summer, but what I like about has changed as I’ve gotten older (and hopefully wiser). Take the ending to The Last of Us. Without getting too much into it (because even six years on, talking about the ending still feels taboo), Joel has decided that there’s something that Ellie shouldn’t do and he’s going to do whatever it takes to ensure no harm befalls the teenage girl who’s become like a daughter to him. It’s a rampage, against a faction we’d been led to believe were heroic, culminating in the player – as Joel – shooting an unarmed man. Naturally, its response has proven it divisive. In the ensuing discussion, however, it became clear that players who had children of their own were more likely to sympathize with Joel’s choice than non-parents. The player’s own personal life informs their response to the narrative. So is it a bad ending? I certainly read some criticisms of it, just as I read praises. While I’d say that it is empirically good, I do have to wonder if describing something empirically is even possible. There’s little doubt that it’s well-crafted and, I’d say, well-earned. But that doesn’t mean you have to like it; and it doesn’t matter how good it is, if you don’t like it you don’t like it. As I said, there’s no accounting for bad taste. I think we’re too hard on people who like stuff that’s not considered good, that there are too many pleasures we consider guilty. I’m sure we’ve all stories in one form or another that seem childish or shallow now, but once upon a time meant the world to you. I will forever have a soft spot for Lewis Carrol’s “Jabberwocky” and John Betjemen’s “False Security” since they were among my introduction to poetry, and two I took a real shine to years and years ago. Henry V is my favorite Shakespeare play, not because of the St. Crispin’s Day Speech or really any merit of itself, but because it was the first of his plays that I really dig into sixteen-odd years ago. Pretentious as it is, I want to say that Ulysses by James Joyce is my favorite book, not out of an adoration for obtuse literature, but from the delight of classes spent examining the book and finding meaning and, with all of that, falling in love with the work. I’m sure had I read it under other circumstances I would have dismissed it as being overwrought nonsense. Secondhand Lions has a middling score on Rotten Tomatoes, but I absolutely love the movie all the same. I know that Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is far from a really great game, but it’s an absolute delight to play on the weekend with your brother and a couple beers. I don’t care what you think, Toto’s “Africa” is an absolutely stellar piece of music. Maybe I’m too hard on people. I think Batman v Superman is an absolute mess, but y’know what, if you like it, good for you. We can talk until the sky falls about what’s a good piece of art and what’s not, but I think we’re kinda missing the forest for the trees. So long as the story made you feel something and isn’t hurting anyone else, where’s the harm in liking it? I enjoy watching bad movies, I love playing excellent games, and I’ll gladly go to bat for Iron Man 2. After all, there really is no accounting for bad taste.

Essays, Not Rants! 375: Obsolescence I have a floppy disk lying around somewhere with stuff on it I must have written when I was around eight or ten years old. I don’t know exactly what’s on it and I’m not sure where it is at any given moment; it’s one of those things that I’ll happen on occasion and think to myself “hey, I should get the files off of this some time.” Of course, there is the whole issue of finding a floppy disk reader. My laptop doesn’t even have a CD drive anymore and what once seemed so standard a feature on computers has become quite rare. I’m sure that with a measure of effort I could find somewhere that would transfer the files for me, but that would require forethought (and actually knowing where that disk is). I’m kinda sure modern software still supports opening Word docs saved in a format twenty years old, but if it doesn’t there’s yet another hurdle. Tech has moved on enough as to make some stuff inaccessible. Take Flash games and videos, for instance, the hallmark of my adolescence. As the internet develops, it’s shied away from the format to the point that some browsers no longer support it. In light of that, some websites have shut down (pour one out for YTMND) and with it has gone years of content, unlikely to be seen again. Granted, some of these do live on as recorded videos and what not, but it’s not quite the same. You can still watch Harry Potter Puppet Pals on YouTube, but you can’t click on a certain frame during Trouble at Hogwarts to watch a hidden short about Ron bothering some butterflies. Sure, there’s a recording of it on YouTube too, but that little hint of interactivity, that secret easter egg that you could find and tell your friends about, isn’t there. Should Flash fall further into disuse (with a planned end slated for 2020), it’ll only be a matter of time until you need an older machine to watch an older video. But what about when that old content is no longer there? Scott Pilgrim vs. The World: The Game is a wonderful game: an old school side-scrolling beat-’em-up based on the eponymous movie, its pixel art graphics and local four-player support made it a staple of my PS3 library. Then the game’s license with publisher Ubisoft expired and the game was removed from the PSN Store and Xbox Live Arcade and it could no longer be bought or downloaded. Just like that, it’s gone. I might have it on my PS3, but it’s not something I could recommend to a friend to get, nor can I grab any DLC I might have missed. Barring a rerelease of some sort, anyone in the future looking to have the game, well, can’t. So if someone’s trying to create an archive of side-scrolling beat-’em-ups or games based on movies based on a comic inspired by games, they’re out of luck. This sort of digital obsolescence is an actual concern of digital archivists. Consider any game designed for the Vectrex, a console I adore if only for how idiosyncratic it is. The game Minestorm, a knock-off of Asteroids designed explicitly for it, mayn’t have much that sets it apart from its ‘inspiration.’ The Vectrex, however, allows for vector graphics that create a particularly brilliant display of the game (which is actually just like the arcade cabinet of Asteroids). You can emulate the game and console all you want, but that particular experience is gone lest you can get your hands on a vector display. How do you preserve something when you lack the hardware to do so? I mentioned last week that I’d always have the old stuff to go back to, but sometimes that’s sadly not true. Ms. Pac-Man just isn’t the same without that arcade stick, and Asteroids without the vector graphics is a lesser game. Maybe the lesson here is to be present and enjoy stuff when you can. Or maybe it’s to get your files off the darn floppy disk.

What you have there is a utility belt.

Essays, Not Rants! 373: They Changed It But That’s Okay The band Barcelona enthralled me with their first album, Absolutes, with its soaring melancholic piano-driven sound paired with some soulful songwriting. It was a shock to the system when their sophomore album, Not Quite Yours, instead featured a more rhythm-focused sound and the piano relegated to support in many songs. Their third, Basic Man, sounds even less alt-rock; it’s an album full of mellow synthy grooves. Each of their albums sounds wildly different, which is a bit of a bummer if you’re looking for, say, a follow-up to Absolutes. I once heard it said that if you wished a band sounded more like their older albums, then you should go listen to their older albums. I was resistant to that idea at first; part of why I get into any musical artist is because I like what I’ve heard; why can’t they keep to what works? Over time, though, I’ve come to appreciate this sort of sonic shifting. Five Score and Seven Years Ago is a radically different album from Relient K’s prior Mmhmm, but it was instrumental in the band’s growth that brought them to Forget and Not Slow Down, their best album. Change, as it happens, is a necessity for an act to evolve. Run River North has dispensed with the violins that helped make their debut album so singular, but their DNA is still all over their latest Monsters Calling Home, Vol. 1 and there’s little doubt their music is still outstanding. Plus, moving away from the violins has led to new renditions of old songs performed live on tour that are at once wholly unlike from and utterly recognizable as the studio recorded songs. Consider this ethos in the context of video games. Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is a fantastic game that Uncharted 2: Among Thieves improves on which is ultimately perfected in Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End. Fundamentally, all three games are very similar to each other, though there are naturally the differences that come with any sequel. Consider this not unlike U2’s Boy, October, and War; three albums that feature very similar sounds. If you liked War you will probably also really like Boy; if you liked Among Thieves, then A Thief’s End will be right up your alley. But then some game series like to really shake things up. Though Metal Gear Solid 2 features much of the same features of Metal Gear Solid, the sequel exchanges Solid Snake for Raiden, already a marked difference. Where the first game is something of a power trip, the second is not at all shy about critiquing that power fantasy. Mechanically, it is the next step from the original, but the game makes you question it all and so the game feels quite different. MGS 3 takes away the industrial settings of the prior games and throws you in the Soviet jungle. Gone too is your Soliton Radar: it’s the Cold War and you have to rely on a rudimentary sonar and your wiles to stay hidden. The fourth game upends the weapon system; no longer do you rummage guns from the battlefield; now you can order them through a mobile store. Also, you’re playing as an old man who gets episodes of PTSD if he kills too many people. All of these variations make some pretty major changes to how you play the game. The focus on camouflage in the third game forces the player to adopt a slower pace throughout the game: without your soliton you really need to keep an eye on where enemy soldiers are rather than hiding in a box and checking your minimap. The new weapon system in 4 gives you more options for engagements: I used a silenced sniper rifle to carve a stealthy, deadly path behind enemy lines. The next game, Peace Walker, has bite-size missions befitting its publishing on Sony’s portable PSP. Choosing limited loadouts for each mission is a different flavor of strategizing from what’s come before; maybe this mission you’ll shoot your way through, maybe on this one you’ll be sneaky. I was very hesitant about Metal Gear Solid V and its open-world. Up to now, the MGS games have been very linear experiences — all the better to weave its crazy stories. An open world would change all that, right? Turned out that yes, it was wildly different, but it was also a ridiculous amount of fun applying the game’s stealth mechanics to a different setting. It felt like a totally different game, and yet unquestioningly Metal Gear, like how U2’s War, Joshua Tree, and Achtung Baby are all very different albums, yet still the same band. Sure, I was disappointed that I didn’t get to play as Solid Snake anymore after the first Metal Gear Solid (Old Snake in 4 is very different); but I can go back to MGS1 for that if I want that, just as I can always put on “Like A Song” if I need a change of pace after listening to Joshua Tree. What defines an artistic work, be it a game series or musical artist, is an intriguing question. There are some cases where wildly different projects aren’t really seen as an issue (think directors, actors, writers), but others where it is a big deal (Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, and The Last Jedi are very different Star Wars movies and some folk ain’t happy about that). While more of the same isn’t often a bad thing -- I love how Uncharted 4 perfected the series, there’s always something exciting about seeing a work redefine itself, as in Metal Gear Solid V, The Last Jedi, or Run River’s North latest EP. And besides, if I have a hankering for the older stuff, it’s all still there if I want it.

Spaaaaaaaaaace

matanuidarnit

I'm so mad at all the detail you have going on in this thing. Like it wasn't just enough to make a massive MOC, you had to go and do things like make a scaled up Metru-ish head to go behind the mask. Incredible.

Essays, Not Rants! 372: The Wickiness John Wick has a delightfully simple premise: Retired assassin lives okay life. Punk kid steals retired assassin’s car and kills his puppy (that was given to him by his recently deceased wife). Retired assassin un-retires and goes on a brutal rampage of revenge. Simple, effective. And honestly, when so many action movies are trying to be super smart with overly complex plots and schemes, "dude gets revenge for dead dog" is wonderfully simple. It harkens back to classic action movies like Die Hard, Predator, or even Commando where a straightforward plot serves primarily to deliver thrills. Die Hard’s concept of a New York cop as the sole defender of a captured skyscraper is fantastic and the film uses it — crawling in the ducts, elevator excitement, parking garage fun — to a wonderful extent. The titular alien of Predator makes for a challenging fight in the jungle. Kidnapping John Matrix’s daughter is just Commando’s excuse for Arnold Schwarzenegger to kill bad guys in inventive ways. A hallmark of these classics is a focus on the action over the effects. The Predator might be a stealthy alien, but its final showdown against Dutch is much more about the fight itself than it is a spectacle of effects. John Wick is a movie like these, replete with that personal sort of action, but, y’know, modern. It certainly helps that John Wick is no slouch in the mythology department. John may be an assassin, but he’s not just any assassin: he’s a member of a secret society, a group with their own rules, currency, and even a sanctuary of a hotel in New York. We’re not told terribly much about this underground world, but we get to see much of it, and a lot more is certainly implied by characters’ responses and actions. The world feels massive, one with reams of untold stories that echo more the Marvel movies or a Sergio Leone western than a typical action movie. John Wick manages to perfectly combine mythmaking with 80s action thrills to create one of the best series of modern action movies. It’s a step above similar contemporaries like The Expendables and The Transporter, two movies which are great, dumb fun with their own interesting worlds, but don’t quite deliver on the same exhilarating thrills that the John Wick movies do. The fights in John Wick Chapter 3: Parabellum are not only wonderfully choreographed, but they’re shot in long, wide shots that allow the audience to watch the fights play out and the skill of the fighters. Void of staccato jumpcuts, Parabellum plays out like a classic Jackie Chan flick, where there’s such emphasis on the artistry of the fight. It helps that these fights are straight up creative. Parabellum features a fight in the New York Public Library (books are lethal) and another where the combatants are surrounded by cases full of knives (which are quickly broken open and so ensues a knife fight). One of the final fights sees Keanu Reeves squaring off against Indonesian actors Yayan Ruhian and Cecep Arif Rahman — guys from the fantastic action movie The Raid. But it ain’t enough to just have these exceptional fighters throw down, Parabellum sets this fight in a glass room with glass walls, floors, and cases. It’s beautiful and decidedly unique. So much of this relies on how slick the movie is. The John Wick movies have a very clear idea of what they are and it’s played to the hilt. Russian, Japanese, Latin, and Indonesian are all spoken in the movies and have subtitles — that often emphasize words by coloring them in neon purple and making them triple the size. The operators of the assassins’ network are dressed like ‘50s secretaries, but decked out in punk tattoos and piercings, but still using typewriters, switchboards, and old computers. I’ve seen the movies described as neo-noir, and that is certainly true, but toss in influences of every action genre — from anime to westerns to martial arts — and you’ve a fuller picture. All this to say that John Wick fills a particular niche that we didn’t even know we need, a hyper-violent action movie that pairs its blood and guns with fantastic, imaginative craft. Give me more movies with this Wicky sensibility!

Essays, Not Rants! 372: Here Comes The Ending In many ways, I’m super jealous of the writers behind the Game of Thrones tv show. Over the years, they’ve built up an array of excellently developed and flawed characters, well-rounded, conflicted people who are often their own worst enemy. It’s Jon Snow’s loyalty to his homeland that makes his relationship with the Free Folk so fraught, but it’s that relationship that ends up saving his life. Petyr Baelish is delightfully conniving – he’s someone who wants power and will double cross anyone — even himself — if it gets him there. They’re complex, with shifting and conflicting loyalties that mean that sometimes the enemy of your enemy is not your friend. The show gets a lot of mileage from throwing curveballs at these characters and watching what happens. But then, I’m really happy I’m not writing Game of Thrones. Part of every story is its ending and I really don’t want to have to figure out how to bring that behemothic narrative to a resolution. Where do these characters’ arcs have to go? How will these myriad conflicts be resolved? What’s up with the White Walkers? There’s a lot going on. The show’s finale airs tomorrow night, after a truncated season. It’s been rough; a lot of character arcs have been quickened in an effort to get everyone where they have to be before the end. Some have gotten the short end of the stick, some others have been given their moment to shine, and most have gotten some combination of both. There’s a lot in this season that I like, if not necessarily its execution. Endings are hard. I’m one of the few who adores the conclusion to Lost. After six seasons of mysteries and lore building, the series needed to come to a satisfying conclusion. And boy howdy, there were a lot of questions. Who put that wheel there? How’s time travel work exactly? Why did that bird screams Hurley’s name? Questions. I figure the showrunners of Lost realized early on that short of an FAQ session, there was no way to answer every single question. So they wisely decided to hone in on the characters of the show and give them the resolution they needed. Some mysteries were solved, sure, but the focus was more on giving closure to the characters. Take Sawyer, unapologetically my favorite character alongside Desmond and Ben. At the start of the series, he’s nothing more than a selfish jerk who wants to be hated. But as the series progresses, he discovers a gentler, protective side of him. Naturally, the culmination of it all has Sawyer making choices that are a testament to how far he’s come and finally, finally getting his happy ending. Not all of our questions are answered — we never found out what the deal was with that dang bird — but by the time the final episode’s credits rolled I felt satisfied, I felt like my investment in Lost, its world, and its characters had all been worth it. Honestly, that’s what really matters. Was it worth it? I have seen some awful movies in the past, but I remember more than a few of them fondly because of the circumstances of my viewing (like running a commentary with a friend in an empty theater). Lost was worth it for the journey it brought me on, for the characters I met and loved. I have no doubt that the ending to Game of Thrones will be far from perfect, but I think I’ll be happy so long as I get my closure, as long as l feel like my time with the show has been worth it.

Yeah, but that'd mean having to go to K-Mart.

Essays, Not Rants! 371: Where’s My History Lesson? The Assassin’s Creed games might be my ultimate guilty pleasure of a video game. Some of them are really good (II and Brotherhood), some… less so (the original and, honestly, III). Then there’s one like Black Flag which has a really cool central mechanic (ships!) but really accentuates the worst parts of the series (missions where you have to follow someone and then not be seen… and failing makes you have to slowly walk with the followee again). Then there’s the overall lack of polish: Edward clips through the ship’s rigging when he runs along the bulwark, something you will do several times when you sail up to an island and run to jump off into the water. I’m hesitant to call them really great games, but they are fun, especially when III and Black Flag gives you a pirate ship. Given that the succeeding games did not give you any pirate ships, I didn’t play any past Black Flag in 2014. Eventually, I finally came around and picked up Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey because not only does the game give you a pirate ship (sorry, a trireme), but at long last, the game finally gives you an option for the player character to be a woman. And something about RPG elements being a big part of it too. Anyway, I’m days into the game, though I’m not sure how far into the actual story I am — I keep getting distracted fighting soldiers and sinking ships as my warrior pirate lady. Odyssey reminds me of why I enjoy these games so much, they’re fun, a little ridiculous, and there are few things as great as staking out a camp and then one by one killing the soldiers within before they know you’re there. But, I’m kinda bummed that Odyssey has kinda lost its history lessons. Part of the whole schtick of these games is that you’re someone from present day reliving the past via the Animus and genetic memories. The framing device means other characters from the present can provide you with information about places and people you encounter. This means there’s a whole bunch of reading you can do about historical people and places you see. Running around Renaissance Italy and see a funky tower? Here’s some history! Wanna know what the big deal about the Hagia Sophia is? Here you go! What’s up with Colonial Boston? History! Yes, it’s kinda like homework to read through these database entries, but it really adds to the overall sense of place. But this info is nowhere to be found in Odyssey. Islands in the Greek archipelago are just islands, places and temples are just places and temples, with little indication of their importance of factuality. Early on the game, you visit Ithaca and the ruins of Odysseus’ home. Which is awesome because, hello, The Odyssey! But without a measure of familiarity with Homer’s epic, you wouldn’t realize what a big deal it is. I’ve recently met a historian by the name of Herodotos who’s helping me with my quest, but the game itself has given no indication about the lasting reputation he’s had on the modern world. When I vied against the Borgias in Brotherhood it was an added bonus to know that these were, to an extent, actual historical people. Losing that framing robs Assassin’s Creed of one of its fun — and surprisingly educational — aspects. This isn’t really a big knock against Odyssey. Like I said, it’s a really fun game, even with the small bugs (that may or may not be features). It’s an open world game, a genre which I have mixed feelings about, but there’s a lot to do so it stays pretty fresh. Plus, I bought a skin from a blacksmith that turns my horse into a unicorn, so at the end of the day, I’m okay with a little lack of history.

Essays, Not Rants! 370: Of Places Good I’m not great at watching tv. The act of putting aside everything to sit in front of the television (or, let’s be honest: my laptop) makes me antsy. Watching it with someone’s better, since then I feel like I’m spending time with a friend and so not just sitting around. Point is, all this means binge watching shows isn’t something I’m good at – it notoriously took me four years to ‘binge’ Breaking Bad. However, building with LEGO makes me feel like I’m doing something, and watching something on Netflix at the same time somehow justifies it in my mind. Usually. That long preamble is to say that when I’ve found a show where I really wanna hit “next episode” it’s something that’s particularly excellent. Right now, that show is The Good Place. Recommended to me by a friend, I finally started watching it while folding laundry (see? being productive). I’m halfway through the first season and having an absolute ball. The show is smart, sharp as a blade, but also one that doesn’t feel the need to flaunt it all around. It’s a show that’ll merrily name drop Emmanuel Kant and Machiavelli one moment and make a joke about the less-than-stellar quality of Floridian DJs the next. Though an understanding of the ethical philosophies upheld by the mentioned thinkers isn’t necessary to get a joke, they inform the plot of the show and individual episodes. Basically, The Good Place is a sitcom that explores ethics and morality not through people monologuing and debating, but instead through actual plot points. For example, Kant said that the real judge of the morality of an action is its motivation, not the result. When Eleanor, the show’s protagonist, tries to prove she’s a good person to get ahead, she realizes she’s failing because what she’s doing is not truly altruistic. By crafting narratives around thorny philosophical questions, The Good Place is able to explore the ramifications of certain ideologies, while still propelling characters and making jokes about cacti. The show doesn’t need to flaunt its intellectualism around; its stories do that for it. It helps that The Good Place takes after showrunner Michael Schur’s other shows (Parks and Recreation, Brooklyn 99) by featuring characters who are well sketched out and, though flawed, fundamentally nice to each other. These aren’t characters constantly trying to one-up each other and narrative conflict doesn’t arrive by pitting them at odds. It leads to interesting setups, where the central thrust becomes how do these goofballs solve the problem before them. Its sense of fun and big heart gets combined with a love of moral philosophizing to make The Good Place a delightfully watchable show. Which isn’t something I say a lot. Anyway. That’s the blog post, time to enjoy my Saturday by building something with LEGO while watching more The Good Place.

Everything's not awesome...

Essays, Not Rants! 369: Of The End Reaching the end of a good story is always a bittersweet affair. There’s no doubt a sense of joy in the catharsis of resolution, that sense that the story has been completed and all is well. In a good story, its ending will pay off all that came before. But an ending means it’s over; the story and characters that you’ve spent several hours with are done. You don’t get to be a part of their lives and adventures anymore. It’s certainly kinda weird: these characters are fictional, this world, no matter how similar to our own, is an artifice. Yet there’s such a want to spend more time there. I want to spend more time with the Pevensies in Narnia, I wanna join Luke Skywalker for more of his adventures, I’m really happy that Nathan and Elena got their happy ending, but man, I would love to have another story. These stories are decidedly done. Uncharted 2 comes to a close and so too does Nate’s adventures in Nepal. Sure, the series counties in its sequels, but there won’t be more of Nathan Drake exploring the Himalayas with Elena and a chronically side-switching Chloe. That moment, that particular dynamic is unique to this story. Maybe there are stories to be told. There are a couple years between Avengers and Age of Ultron, presumably filled with stories as the Avengers hunt after Hydra. But there’s not gonna be a big movie about that time, featuring the original six doing their thing. That time is past, those stories are told. Now there is space for those stories to be told; consider the books, games, and comics of the old Star Wars Expanded Universe. They filled the gaps between the movies, introduced new characters, and expanded the world to a ridiculous degree. But even the best books aren’t the same as getting to see and hear Luke, Han, and Leia traipse around the Death Star. Stories lose part of their jazz when translated into a different medium. Maybe it’s the change in budget or creative team; in any case, it’s just not quite the same. Could be good, really good, it just won’t really be the same. Could the continued Avengers films have maintained the status quo and told more stories of the six saving the day together? Sure. But we’ve already heard that story – it’s the climax of the first movie. There’s little to be gained when retreading old ground, it’s far more interesting to push these characters in wholly new directions. A Thief's End sees Nathan Drake going on yet another adventure, but this one isn’t after another mystic artifact or following an adventure of Francis Drake. There are the familiar thrills and witticisms — it wouldn’t be Uncharted without ‘em, but Nate’s on a different journey yet again. It’s not the same story as the one before. It’s frustrating, sometimes. I love the third season of Chuck, and I wish the show could just stay there forever. But at the same time, I’m so glad the series has the chance to grow and for characters to change and so on. It’s one of my favorite shows perhaps because it had the space for that change and progression. I’m sure that had it stayed as its season three self for the entire time it would be tiring and lose what makes it so special. It’s precisely because it doesn’t last that it’s so special. To all this, Avengers: Endgame is the, uh, end, of the MCU as we know it (give or take a Spider-Man movie coming out in a couple months). It’s quite the feat to resolve ten years of storytelling, but somehow the movie actually does. With that, it’s done. There’ll probably be another Avengers movie, but it ain’t gonna be one too familiar (for a whole variety of reasons), just as no sequel is quite like the original. The old ones can be revisited, yes, and replayed, reread, and rewatched; but they’re over, the story had to end. Maybe that ephemerality is what makes stories so special. Just because something doesn’t last forever doesn’t make it any less meaningful.

Essays, Not Rants! 368: It’s The Endgame It’s wild to think that when I started this blog seven years ago The Avengers was only just about to come out. There’s been a regular deluge of movies since taking place in The Marvel Cinematic Universe and it’s all coming to a head this weekend with the release of Avengers: Endgame. It’s hard to overstate just what Marvel Studios has managed to pull off here; 21 interconnected films with crisscrossing characters and story elements. I still remember when Iron Man first came out. I was in high school and really wanted to see it opening day, but I was taking the SAT the next day and the plan was to watch it after that exam. Iron Man had always been one of my favorite superheroes, owing in no small part to a I watched as a child. In any case, the movie was fantastic, a cool superhero movie with a warm, human core. And then the post-credits stinger rolls around and Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury tells Tony Stark about the Avengers Initiative. As someone who grew up with the superhero osmosis in the '90s, I knew that these Marvel characters teamed up. Captain America had shown up to fight Red Skull in a Spider-Man cartoon; Daredevil and The Human Torch were both in a Spider-Man video game (Spider-Man got all the good stuff in the '90s). That’s, of course, not counting the comic collections I’d flip through at Barnes and Noble. So naturally, the idea of the Avengers meant something to me and it meant something very cool. Think again of how absolutely unheard of the idea of a superhero team-up movie was ten years ago. The Spider-Man and X-Men movies existed in different spaces, and Batman and Superman teamed up, but only in the cartoons. Movies crossing over was limited to the likes of Alien vs Predator. Iron Man teaming up with the Hulk and who-knows-who-else was such a cool, idiosyncratic idea. There’ve been plenty of articles on the internet about how singular an achievement the MCU is, and as much as I’d like to, I don’t think I can write as good an article in a single afternoon. Leastways I don’t have much new to bring to the discussion that hasn’t already been said a dozen times. On the other hand, there is the whole idea that Endgame is very much going to be the end of an era. Sure, Spider-Man: Far From Home is coming out afterwards, and there are a bunch of movies in development like a Black Panther sequel and the announced Shang-Chi movie that are yet to be given release dates. But the Avengers as we’ve known them for the past ten years is very much coming to a resolution. This may well be the last time we see characters like Iron Man and Captain America on screen for a long time, and it’s up to this movie to give a fitting farewell. I’m curious, naturally, as to what form it’s gonna take. There’s a lot of stuff we know, of course. There’s gonna be an inevitable rematch with Thanos, and I’m willing to put money on a big team up with every single Avenger, especially given that Infinity War didn’t feature that moment. Seriously, there has to be a call-back to that in The Avengers. But there is the big question of how it’s all gonna look when the dust settles. Will Tony and Steve pass on the mantle of leadership to Captain Marvel? Is someone else going to take up Cap’s shield at the end? What comes next? Pulling all that off is going to be the real trick of Endgame, but if there’s one thing producer Kevin Feige has proven during his showrunning of the beast that is the MCU is that he’s warranted our trust. In light of that, I cannot wait until Thursday night.

I will forever have a soft spot for movies that know they're dumb and go for it. If Jurassic World would just commit already I'd enjoy them more than this semi-serious stuff they churn out. Para-dinos is exactly the sort of bull I am here for.

Essays, Not Rants! 367: Star Wars Trailer There’s a new Star Wars trailer, for Episode IX: The Rise of Skywalker, and naturally, I am very excited. Because, y’know, Star Wars. There’s so much I dig about it (Rey’s fantastic new outfit, Poe and Finn on adventures, Leia!), and I’m fully aware that this is because it’s Star Wars and these movies will forever delight me no matter what. But here’s the thing, the trailer for The Rise of Skywalker is an essentially perfect example of how to tease a movie. Right off the bat, we’re treated to a sequence of Rey in the desert, staring down an incoming starfighter. There’s essentially no plot to this sequence; we don’t know whose TIE it is (it looks somewhat like Kylo Ren’s TIE Silencer from The Last Jedi, but the cockpit is different), and we have no idea where or why Rey is where she is. But what’s clear is Rey’s come a long way from the scavenger on Jakku. This is her thing. The next chunk of the trailer is checking in with the other characters and what they’re up to. We see Kylo Ren and his stormtroopers fighting their way through a forest against an indistinct enemy (is that a Knight of Ren?) while someone repairs Kylo’s helmet. Poe Dameron and Finn are off on some high-speed adventure alongside a long-suffering C-3PO. BB-8’s got a new droid buddy, and Lando is back in the Falcon’s cockpit. Also, Leia’s there as a comforting presence and a medal from the end of A New Hope is back too. That middle chunk of the trailer basically lets us know that all those characters we know and love are back and there’s adventure waiting in the wings. Yes, it’s the sort of thing that really does go without saying, but it’s undeniably cool to see them all — we care about these characters and want to see what happens to them in the next stage of their journey. And that’s where the final sequence of the trailer comes into play. Rey, Finn, and Poe are adventuring somewhere together (the sequel trilogy’s power trio in the grand tradition of Star Wars trios). This gives us some vague idea of at least part of the movie: there’s something that needs to be done and it’ll be done by these three. Past that though, not much is clear. Cue the Death Star wreckage sitting in a sea. It’s a delightful what-the-heck moment that offers up many more questions than it answers. Why are the three looking for the Death Star? Or why did they find it? Who knows? As if that wasn’t enough, the trailer ends with the very familiar cackle of Emperor Palpatine, adding another ingredient to the mystery stew. The best thing is that even after the trailer had run its course, we don’t know anything about the plot! Is Kylo Ren still the villain? What’re Rey and company up to? How’s Lando figure into it? Rather than giving us a blow by blow of the story, the trailer instead focuses on invoking a specific mood; we know how the movie will feel instead of what’ll happen. It’s an epic adventure, the sort that Star Wars is known for, coupled with a bunch of mysteries that need to be uncovered. By throwing so many elements into the mix, especially ones with no easy explanation like the Death Star and Palpatine, the trailer effectively whets our appetites to find out what happens next. In summary: It’s a really good trailer that I’m gonna be rewatching a lot because dude it’s so cool and Jedi Rey gives me life.

I got a couple of the originals 'cuz they seemed cool, and then some of the last wave for the parts. The armor pieces looked great on MOCs and caaaaaaapes. Keep in mind this was before those SW Buildable Figures made Toa-sized fabric common.