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Ta-metru_defender

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  1. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 337: On Crazy Rich Asians
     
    Crazy Rich Asians is an odd beast for me. It’s a movie based on a book I didn’t really like, but oddly it’s one where I do like the movie over the book. More than that, though, it’s a book set in Singapore, a country I’m not used to seeing on screen. Also where, of all the places I’ve lived, I’ve racked up the most years of residence. And now I’m seeing streets I’ve driven on and places I’ve eaten on a movie screen in New York City.
     
    It’s surreal, because a lotta folks don’t really know much about Singapore. When I moved to the States (South Carolina) at fourteen I got asked where in China it was. To this day folks tell me my English is really good for someone from Singapore, never mind that said language is the main language spoken there. The island I sorta come from is an unknown, save for a depiction in the third Pirates of The Caribbean movie so fantastical it makes the New York of How I Met Your Mother look like a documentary.
     
    Now the place it seemed that no one this side of the Pacific had heard about is featured in what’s been the top movie in the US for three weeks in a row. Singapore has summarily gone from “where?” to that place in Crazy Rich Asians. That island is Known.
     
    Herein lies the conflict at the root of the surreality. It’s absolutely thrilling to see Singapore in a movie — and a good movie at that. If this cultural osmosis takes hold, maybe the response to hearing I’m half-Singaporean won’t be thinking I hail from a backwards, destitute island. Maybe it’ll be the metropolis of Crazy Rich Asians. At last there’s an image in the cultural consciousness. And it’s that.
     
    Most of the people I know here in the US will never go to Singapore. For many, this is the first — and maybe only — impression of Singapore they’ll have. As good as the movie is, I guess I wish it was more comprehensive; it held within it a fuller take on Singapore. I wish it showed more of the Singapore I know.
     
    By virtue of its story, Crazy Rich Asians focuses on a very specific Singaporean experience: that of the ultra wealthy, the crazy rich, if you will. The cast, though entirely comprised of Asian actors, are primarily from the West, and so absent from the film is the Singaporean accent and its idiosyncratic turns of phrase — something the novel captured so well. It’s awesome to see Awkwafina and Gemma Chan have hefty roles in a major film, but there’s a part of me that wishes that accent was there — especially because your style of speaking in Singapore very much denotes which social class you’re part of. It feels like a missed opportunity.
     
    Characters/actors’ accents are something so tiny for me to take issue with, but they’re indicative of more. Singapore is a complex place for me; it’s a place that’s taken me away from whatever I’ve had going on in the US a number of times. It’s got the best food on the planet. It’s a place I’ve hated and loved. I want the people in my life to see that country, the one with a pros and cons list each a kilometer long. I want people to see more of this place and get where I’m coming from.
     
    I want to be understood.
     
    Crazy Rich Asians — the film — deserves every accolade its gotten. I hope there are many, many more movies with all-Asian casts. It means so much to me, this mixed race guy who passed as Chinese in the US, to see Singapore and people who look like me in the spotlight. The movie isn’t gonna be the solution to my myriad questions of identity; I shouldn’t expect a delightful romcom to provide a sociological survey. It’s still a closer depiction of a part of my life than I’ve seen elsewhere. I’ve gotta take the advice I hold for so many stories: to let it tell the story it wants and to judge it based on that and not what I might want.
     
    Anyway. Crazy Rich Asians is great. Go watch it. Michelle Yeoh needs to be in everything.
  2. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 333: Artistic Stratification

    So the Oscars announced a new category. Is it something like Best Stunt, to acknowledge some of the crazy cool things stuntpeople and Tom Cruise do? Could it be Best Choreography for beautiful fights or films where the blocking of camera and actors plays like a dance? Maybe it’s for Best Color Scheme, which sounds totally arbitrary but you’ve movies like (500) Days of Summer and Pacific Rim that use colors masterfully. The correct answer is none of the above, but rather a category that recognizes popular movies. As in what’s the best popular movie.
     
    Like many people who purport to not really care about the Oscars, I have a lot of opinions about them, both the awards awarded and the whole thing as an institution. For starters, recognizing a movie as being 'the best' is incredibly difficult, as my own consternation over my annual Top Nine lists serve to remind me every year. There’s also the thing that 'best' is incredibly subjective; is a movie deemed better than another by its quality or by how much it entertains you? Isn’t whether or not it entertains you really the ultimate litmus test? Can you like bad movies? (Yes.)
     
    For many recent years, the Oscars has, on a whole, come down on the side that there’s art and then there’s Art. Logan is a good movie, but it’s not a Good Movie like Birdman. So there’s been furor aplenty, especially amongst moviegoers who are more likely to be described as fans rather than critics, about the snubbing of more pulpy fare by the Oscars, with the inference that the Academy only considers 'serious' movies' scripts, direction, and actors to be worthy of recognition. Sure, those visual effects and sound design are neat, but, honestly, The Last Jedi with its magical space knights isn’t really Oscar worthy. That’s the divide between art and Art that the Academy has typically enforced.
     
    Creating a separate category to recognize 'popular movies' is really just more of the same. Sure, it looks good that Black Panther actually has a shot of winning an Oscar, but it’d be Best Popular Movie. It’s not Best Picture, it’s a movie that’s really good — for a popular one. It formalizes the notion that there should be different criteria for quality, that we’re willing to accept a movie as being good enough or one of its sort, rather than recognizing the art inherent in even, yes, 'popular' movies.
     
    Because why on Earth shouldn’t Logan and Black Panther be viable candidates for Best Picture? There’s masterwork in both of them, not just in technical things like sound editing and effects, but in direction, storytelling, and acting. Both Hugh Jackson’s performance as Logan and Ryan Coogler’s vision of Wakanda and the story of an isolated king deserve recognition by the highest court of cinematic opinion.
     
    No matter how much I don’t want them to, the Oscars do matter. Like it or not, they’re an established institution that have a great deal of import put on them. People care about who wins Best Picture and the decisions and taste of the awards tend to set the trend for the industry as a whole. My fear regarding the creation of a category for 'popular' movies is that it creates a ghetto for movies that are good, but thought not serious enough to be considered really good. It means that Black Panther could be nominated (and win!) that category and thus, technically, have all the recognition of an Oscar; there’s a space for blockbusters and offbeat films to be shunted off to so that Best Picture can still be those True Art movies.
     
    I don’t think there should be a divide between one sort of movie and another. A movie that’s really good is really good, period. I lament a category like this, because it reinforces what’s already a current of thought, and rather than the establishment acknowledging pulpy fare as art, it lets those movies go off and play in the yard while keeping all their toys indoors.
  3. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 326: Social Experience
     
    This week, Pokémon Go finally added a friends system. You can now add people as friends and there are fun little bonuses for working together. You can also trade Pokémon back and forth, assuming you both are in close proximity. It’s a wonderful addition and I look forward to checking it out in depth.
     
    But it also raises a big question: Where was this when the game debuted two years ago?
     
    (Also: It’s been two years since Pokémon Go came out?)
     
    Think back a second to the summer of 2016 when Pokémon Go took the world by storm. You could hardly walk around New York without crossing paths with another trainer trying hard to capture that darn Rattata. Groups were out together in parks on the hunt for rare creatures. It was fun, and I wrote about it a bunch here. Pokémon Go is a game that inherently has a social aspect – you’re out there in the real world, why not go for a walk with friends? That its social system emerged around the game rather than being hard coded into it is a massive missed opportunity. It’s been two years since the game came out and far less people play it these days than then, and, much as I love the idea of these social features, these days I’m gonna be far more hard pressed to find a group to try them with than two years ago.
     
    Consider how much more involved group players of Pokémon Go would be with the current built-in social system (and revamped raids and gym system) back at launch. If you’re out Pokémon hunting with friends the game would now also let you work together to catch mythical Pokémon or trade those you did catch amongst yourselves. As it was, Pokémon Go was often a case of people playing the same game simultaneously, rather than playing the game together. Very little you did in the game affected the people around you, let alone friends. I love that any interaction has to be in meatspace (as opposed to a cyberspace), but not having teamwork built into the game was a real bummer.
     
    It’s such a shame too, because I still earnestly believe that Pokémon Go is such a great example of a game, and what games can be. The definition of a game is nebulous as play itself takes many forms (consider that despite being wildly different, tag, Pac-Man, and Monopoly are all games). In Pokémon Go we have a game that revolves around shared experiences, where players do stuff together in the real world. It’s a little like LARPing, in that the game allows players to role-play as Pokémon trainers while interacting with reality. It’s a game that makes the world a good chunk more magical. There are Pokémon in those parks, go hunt them together!
     
    Technology is weird. And a lot of people talk about technology driving people apart. But it’s also something that can foster community and togetherness in a new way. Pokémon Go is a game that encourages it implicitly in its design. Now it’s finally an explicit feature.
     
    So.
     
    Who else is still playing Pokémon Go? My trainer code is 8147 8465 0432.
  4. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 331: Good Bad Movies
     
    I like bad movies. I really do. Take Outcast as an example; its plot is pretty simple: Former crusader Hayden Christensen winds up in China where he’s protecting the rightful prince from said prince’s vengeful older brother. Also, Nic Cage is in it as Hayden Christensen’s old mentor-turned-hermit who’s acting in a very different movie from everyone else. All this to say, it’s an utter delight. Not that it’s a good movie; Outcast has a host of issues, ranging from being unable to decide what accent the Chinese characters should have when speaking English (the same family has one with an English accent and another with an American) to the fact that it really reinforces the whole White Savior narrative, what with the best summary of it being "Hayden Christensen and Nic Cage save China." Yet it’s an enjoyable mess, and Nic Cage’s performance alone is worth the couple hours in front of the tv.
     
    It’s really easy, especially in cinephile and filmmaking circles, to get caught up in the whole idea of Quality. Like, is a movie Good, is it Important? There’s a canon of sorts for what’s allowed to be considered The Best (woe unto you if The Godfather doesn’t crack your top ten list). For the most part, though, a lot of these movies rightly deserve their hallowed spot; The Godfather is indeed excellent and holy ###### is Casablanca a masterwork of film. In light of this, more pulpy fare like The Avengers or Scott Pilgrim get relegated since, sure, they’re entertaining, but they aren’t that Important.
     
    But why isn’t entertaining enough? I’m very partial to both The Avengers and Scott Pilgrim for telling really interesting, well-wrought stories that despite a flashy exterior, touch on deeper themes (sacrifice and unity for the first, self-respect for the second). And most of all, they’re really fun. There’s no denying that Whiplash is an excellent movie, but it’s not one I’ll pop in while hanging out with friends. Though Ant-Man and The Wasp is undoubtably a movie worse in quality and critical reception, it remains a movie that’s just plan fun. Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom is a movie that I’d call aggressively stupid, but I was grinning ear to ear for just about the entire film.
     
    There’s much to be said for that. I could spend a very long rant essay discussing all of the fallacies and nonsensical plot developments of Fallen Kingdom, but, really, does that even matter? I had fun watching the movie, more fun than I had watching, say, Molly’s Game or even Deadpool 2. It’s why Fallen Kingdom is a movie I can recommend wholeheartedly to anyone in it to watch dinosaurs wreck stuff rather than a treatise on the sublime majesty and horror of those extinct terrible lizards. And really, that’s all the movie sets out to do. It has no assumptions about itself as something more than that; it wants to be a really fun movie and it succeeds. Heck, look at Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again, a movie with a tangential grasp of narrative consequence and character development, but it’s such darn fun and a great way to spend a couple hours.
     
    I don’t deny that there are bad movies (and good grief, there are some that are truly awful), but I think there is still a delight to be found in movies that aren’t great and yet are enjoyable all the same. Not even necessarily movies good in their badness like The Room or even the aforementioned Outcast, which are enjoyable for how poorly they missed the mark set out for themselves, but rather ones that have low aims and succeed wonderfully. There’s a movie about a giant killer shark coming out, The Meg, and it looks incredibly silly, but also super fun. And if I’m going to the movies to chill out after work, why not be willing to turn off my brain and enjoy a fun, bad movie?
  5. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 330: Tasty Words
     
    If you’ve ever played the Pokémon Trading Card Game or Magic: The Gathering or really any trading card game, you’ll have read the little bit of text on the bottom. Not the copyright information, but rather the flavor text that tells you a little about what the card is and how it fits into the bigger world. Stuff about where that character might come from or what the geopolitical situation in the world’s like. These are usually really small blurbs, probably not more than a sentence or two at most, but they’re usually enough to conjure up images of entire worlds.
     
    Flavor text adds depth to a world. It turns Charmander from some fire lizard thing to a creature who would die if the fire on its tail is extinguished. It’s a small thing, but it’s enough to create some kindling for your imagination. What do Charmander do when it rains? Since their life can be a little fragile, it stands to reason that these Pokémon would be defensive and non-trusting, right? It doesn’t really matter what’s actually canon or not, what is important that it’s enough for you, the reader — or player, in this case — to have an insight into this world and, by crafting a narrative around it, to make a connection.
     
    What’s really interesting about flavor text is that it really only shows up in games. Sure, books will offer little tidbits about characters and places, but those are usually fleshed out by the rest of the book. Scripts typically have a short blurb about characters and places when introduced, but, like books, there’s a lot more going on than just that. The flavor text offered through the images on the cards in Settlers of Catan (and really, flavor text can be pictures too) offer us the only glimpse into what Catan is ‘really’ like beyond the little wood abstractions with which the game is played.
     
    XCOM 2 has you as the Commander leading a resistance against an occupying extraterrestrial force. Your team is comprised of my Mostest Favoritest Trope (a ragtag multinational team) that you recruit from around the world and who can, if you turn on the option, speak their native language. Now, XCOM is infamous for its brutal difficulty, and if a soldier gets killed in a battle, they’re dead for real. They don’t respawn, they’re not just injured (that’s a whole 'nother thing where it can take weeks of in-game time for them to recover); they’re dead. Gone. You can’t use them anymore. Even if they’ve survived a dozen combat missions and been promoted equivalent times. Dead. Gone.
     
    On the one hand, you’re already invested in these characters/soldiers by virtue of them being of strategic importance. But XCOM 2 has ways of making you more attached to them. You can give your soldiers nicknames and customize their appearances (why yes, I think the Archangel the Ranger needs a pair of aviators) and, when recruited, soldiers have a little bit of flavor text in their bio saying where they’re from, why they joined the resistance, stuff like that. It’s small stuff, generated from a preset bunch and nowhere near as wonderful as what you see in some other games, but it does add an additional measure of personality to the game.
     
    Look, games are just rule systems dressed up in some theming or some other. It’s how you have Star Trek Catan and Game of Thrones Catan and a friggin’ Mega Man themed Catan that all have the same ruleset and all arguably work equally well. Theming is what makes Mario whimsical and makes Pokémon child-friendly and not a game about dogfights. Flavor text is part and parcel to theming. Think of it like a flash fiction on steroids: it’s a sentence or two that can somehow suggest a bigger, complete world. And you get to play in it.
  6. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 329: Where Do We Go From Here? (Or Infinity War Part Two)
     
    This post is going to be about what just might happen in the next Avengers movie. And about what happened in Infinity War too, so if you’re not a fan of spoilers, this is your warning.
     
    I lost my voice when I saw the Infinity War’s stinger the first time. Seeing Captain Marvel’s symbol appear on Nick Fury’s space pager elicited quite the roar/scream from me for quite the obvious reason; she’s long been my favorite superhero and finally, finally getting a movie so even getting a hint of her is Really Exciting. It also essentially confirms that, yes, Captain Marvel’s gonna be in the next Avengers and I cannot wait.
     
    Because Captain Marvel, or Carol Danvers, has the epithet of "Earth’s Mightiest Hero" in the comics and is one of the strongest superheroes. 2013’s Infinity event’s climax saw Captain Marvel and Thor duking it out with Thanos in a really epic fight. So bringing her in for round two against Thano (which is the most likely direction the sequel’s going) makes total sense. Now that the Avengers have lost and they’re on the off-foot, they’re gonna need all the help they can get.
     
    Of course, it’s not gonna be that easy, because where’s the fun in that? The whole nature of narrative is needing twists, turns, and obstacles to keep things interesting. Nathan went to the store is a dull story. Nathan went to the store but they were out of milk is a better story. Nathan went to the store but they were out of milk but there was a mysterious man in a sombrero who offered to sell him milk out of the back of a car is an interesting story. Infinity War Part Two or whatever it’s gonna be called will need some of those buts.
     
    As easy as getting the Time Stone off the Gauntlet and rewinding things so all the dusted Avengers come back to life would be, it’s not interesting. We know that Spider-Man and Black Panther and the others aren’t gone for good, in no small part because there are sequels to their movies coming out and, uh, they need to be in said sequels by virtue of the fact that the actors are in them. So they’re coming back. And Thanos needs to get his butt kicked because, well, he’s the bad guy and we need our triumphant moment of the heroes winning. But we also need catharsis, and so that happy ending needs to be earned.
     
    I figure the remaining of Avengers are gonna have to do some sort of rescue mission to get the others back so they can fight Thanos. Whether that means heisting the Soul Stone and making some sort of sacrifice to bring back everyone who’s presumably trapped in there, I don’t know. If the climax is gonna be all the Avengers and Guardians and everyone else in a big showdown with Thanos, which it should be (because we didn’t quite get that Epic Team Up in Infinity War), there’s a lot of work to get there, no matter what it is exactly will happen.
     
    For starters, Cap and Iron Man are both at their nadirs. Everything they tried was for naught. To get to the point where they’re up for a rematch against Thanos (whatever form that might take) they’re going to not only need to be dragged back into the fight, but also to make amends. Given how disillusioned they are at the movie’s end, it’s gonna take some work.
     
    Enter Carol Danvers. In the comics, she’s always idolized Captain America as someone who she wants to be; she wants to be that sort of hero. But she and Iron Man have always had a bit of a connection; both tend to be foolhardy jerks, and both struggled with alcoholism (Tony was Carol’s sponsor when she got sober). Come Infinity War Part Two Carol could be the third point of the triangle that has Tony and Steve. She’s the potential to be a foil for both of them; someone who believes in what Steve can be and represents but also with the snark of Tony. She’s the Kirk to Tony’s Bones and Steve’s Spock. The dichotic relationship between Steve and Tony is now fleshed out into a Freudian idea of an ego, id, and superego. So not only do the Avengers get a heck of a heavy hitter, but the dynamic of the ostensible leaders is going to be upset in enough of a way that will give Tony and Steve (and the others) enough of a kick in the pants to rally against Thanos.
     
    I’ve been hyped for a Captain Marvel movie since it was frickin’ announced. It’s taken a frustratingly long time to get here, but, given the when she’s being introduced and all that could be done with her, I really can’t wait.
     
    Unless all this turns out to be bunk, in which case, hey, my failure will be preserved right here on the internet for all time!
  7. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 327: Some Stuff From 2017 I Wanna Talk About
     
    I did this last year, mostly as an excuse to enthuse about things I really like. I’m gonna do it again, listing some things from last year that I really liked. They mayn’t be the best thing in their category, but they’re really cool and I wanna pay attention to it! The three things here are all terrific.
     
    Book: From A Certain Point of View, a collection
     
    Star Wars will forever be my first love. A short story collection by a host of different authors running the gamut from Kelly Sue Deconnick (Captain Marvel!) and Matt Fraction (Hawkeye, Sex Criminals!) to Ken Lieu ("The Paper Menagerie," The Grace of Kings!) to Nnedi Okorafor (Who Fears Death!). It’s a delight to see so many people take a crack at writing Star Wars, fleshing out scenes from the original movie and adding nuance and shades that weren’t there before. Plus, there’s a large number of women and people of color writing, and it’s awesome to see Lucasfilm encouraging those voices.
     
    Album: Skin and Earth, by Lights
     
    I really like Lights, have since I got her first album back in 2009. Skin and Earth is a wild ride, kinda a concept album (see the accompanying tie-in comic she wrote and drew), but mostly just a great collection of music. Like every album she’s put out, Skin and Earth feels at once wholly different from what’s come before and yet still recognizably her. It’s great.
     
    Video Game: Horizon Zero Dawn, by Guerrilla Games
     
    Right off the bat this game has one of my favorite settings; a post-apocalyptic world where the apocalypse was so long ago it’s just legends and a new civilization has already risen up. Throw in some robot dinosaurs and I’m sold. Plus, you play as Aloy, an upbeat, relentless outcast who’s handy with a bow is the icing on the cake. Actually, more than that, she’s a winning and charming character and is a wonderful protagonist for exploring this beautiful, decayed-but-renewed world.
  8. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 325: Adaptation By Someone Else
     
    One game that got some press at last week’s E3, the game industry’s annual event where games are announced and/or demo’d, was the upcoming Total War: Three Kingdoms. Apparently it was announced back in January, but I hadn’t heard of it until now.
     
    And I am intrigued.
     
    The Total War series are strategy games that unlike, say, StarCraft or Red Alert, tend to focus on real wars, be they Roman, Napoleonic, or set in Feudal Japan. They’ve been on the periphery of my awareness, as games that are cool — and I do like my strategy games — but I’ll probably never check out. But they’re making one set in the Three Kingdoms!
     
    Three Kingdoms, for the uninitiated, refers to a classic period in Chinese history during the fall of the Han dynasty where the realm was split between, well, three warring kingdoms. The stories were more-or-less codified in Luo Guanzhong’s Romance of Three Kingdoms, an epic that romanticizes the period in a big way. The book, and the surrounding history, has been the source for countless works in China (and neighboring East Asian countries), be they in film, television, or video games.
     
    So Total War: Three Kingdoms has my attention for turning its attention towards a source you usually don’t see in western media. Despite being incredibly prolific in Asia, you’re not really likely to encounter Romance of Three Kingdoms or anything based on it unless you’re actively looking for it. To see a Western strategy game focus on stories that I heard growing up is really, really neat.
     
    But it also raises some questions.
     
    There’s already been a ridiculous amount of games (and media) based on and around Romance of Three Kingdoms. Dynasty Warriors has been around for over twenty years and we’ve had movies like Red Cliff. What difference does it make that some other group is telling the story? And why is my gut response "oh, cool!"?
     
    Maybe it’s because it’s exciting to see something considered kinda niche be put a little bit closer to the mainstream. These are stories I know about because I grew up in a culture around them (Zhuge Liang was a fixture in bedtime stories) and took a class to study the book in college, but most of my other peers (here, in New York) aren’t terribly aware of them. A western developer making a game about it is sorta uplifting the stories from their corner and into a spotlight.
     
    Which then raises the question of why it seems like it’s being uplifted. Is Romance of Three Kingdoms just being big in Asia not good enough? Why does it getting attention from the West make it seem like more of a big deal? We tend to categorize stories and genres; drama is taken more serious than an action movie, live action taken more serious than animation, and so on. The Three Kingdoms period taking front-and-center in a western video game makes it seem like it’s finally being 'taken serious,' but it’s already been taken serious for years (heck, generations), in other parts of the world.
     
    I think this might be something that’s more self-reflective than anything. My excitement at seeing this has to force me to ask myself why do I feel this way about this. 'cuz all the reactions I write about here are my own, and I have to wonder why I’m so quick to discount Dynasty Warriors or other works based around the Three Kingdoms. It’s a sort of latent colonial thinking, where something from a non-Western group is not as good, or as cool, as something done by a Western group.
     
    None of this, of course, should be seen as a negative take on Total War: Three Kingdoms or the fact that I may actually get this game (I get to field Liu Bei as a hero? Awesome). I still think it’s really cool to see it in the spotlight like this, but I still have to ask myself: why am I excited about it now?
  9. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 324: On Rose and Trolls
     
    The internet is often a place as terrible as it is wonderful. This past week, Kelly Marie Tran, who played Rose in The Last Jedi, left Instagram (and social media in general) after months of sexist and racist harassment. Months.
     
    This isn’t the first time this sort of thing has happened. Daisy Ridley (aka: Rey) left Instagram for much the same reason. Back in 2016 I wrote about Chelsea Cain leaving Twitter after being bullied for writing Mockingbird. This outpouring of toxicity from so-called fans is nothing new. But I think, as in an incident like this, there’s a conflation of criticism and bullying that creates this awful trolling.
     
    First, a word on trolls: these are folks who make other people feel terrible for sport. That being a racist, sexist dirtbag helps is secondary. There have been trolls about as long as there’s been an internet, but as women and people of color have developed more of a presence online, trolling targeted at race and/or gender has become far more pronounced. Trolls are the people who bullied Kelly Marie Tran off of Instagram. The question here isn’t why these people do what they do, it’s what gives the fuel for what they do.
     
    The Last Jedi merrily deconstructs a lot of the Star Wars saga. Director Rian Johnson torches much of what we expect from a Star Wars film, like making Luke into a guilt-ridden recluse and questioning the need for Jedi. This is a movie that subverts a lot of expectations for the film and feels no need to appease whatever it is a fanboy might want. As Kylo Ren says, it’s time to let the past die, and that means letting go of a lotta ideas of what a Star Wars movie has.
     
    Now, Rose has proven a pretty controversial character in an already controversial movie. She is Star Wars’ anti-establishment, anti-militarism bent at its most pronounced, a character disgusted by the military industrial complex present on Canto Bight. She’s an idealist, a character archetype that’s falling out of vogue in the tendency for stories to be cynical and gritty. Her arc culminates in stopping Finn’s suicide run, saying to save what they love instead of fighting what they hate. More than anything, she’s someone who genuinely believes in the Resistance making the galaxy a better place, and not in it for the vainglorious fight against the First Order (like Poe), or Finn’s need to save himself (as she’s foiled against). Depending on who you ask, she’s a welcome addition to the franchise or a cheesy character who adds nothing. Obviously, I’m of the former opinion (I am here for idealists!). There’s also the fact that she’s played by an Asian woman, and we need more non-sexualized Asian women in genre fiction.
     
    But if people have an issue with The Last Jedi and what it does with Star Wars, Rose is an easy scapegoat. She’s another addition to the saga’s stable of heroic characters who aren’t white guys and she’s a source of romantic idealism in a movie that’s rather bleak. If you’re someone mad at a perceived "social justice agenda" that’s ruining the movies, here’s a sure sign of it all. And then this negativism feeds the trolls and then the lines between criticism and bullying get blurred. Trolls can claim they’re just criticizing Rose and The Last Jedi and any criticism of the film can be grouped in with the trolling.
     
    And it’s awful, and that really goes without saying. Because, again, Kelly Marie Tran is absolutely wonderful as Rose, but even if she wasn’t, even if The Last Jedi sucked, that doesn’t give anyone the right to be a jerk on the internet. When it comes down to it, the vitriol she’s faced online stems from the sexism and racism still entrenched in much of nerd culture (see also: anytime comics attempt to diversify, Anita Sarkeesian and video games). It’s inexcusable, plain and simple. And I don’t know what the solution is, besides people not being terrible human beings. Maybe one day diversity will become so normal that people won’t have the need to pick on people for being different.
     
    But really, shouldn’t it be like that already?
  10. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 319: Top Nine Movies of 2017
     
    So it’s almost halfway through the year and I’m finally putting together my year end list. For 2017. Yeah. Kinda forgot about it. And by forgot about I mean procrastinated.
     
    Anyway! Here we go! Top Nine; leaving a space just in case there was something amazing I missed. And it was really hard to sort these!
     
    9. Logan
    This one edges out Thor Ragnarok just by virtue of how singular it is (though Ragnarok is also quite singular in a different way). Logan takes the idea of a dark and gritty superhero film but, rather than using this just to show how adult and grownup it is, it funnels it into a heavy atmosphere that evokes a Morricone western by way of The Last of Us. The result is a beautiful contradiction, the pulpy fun of a superhero story set in a harsh, unforgiving mood. That Logan has something to say and it’s not just “look how gritty and violent I can be with my R-rating” is the icing on its brutal cake.
     
    8. Coco
    Where do I begin. It’s no exaggeration when I say that Pixar is home to some of the best storytellers in the world, and Coco proves that point over and over again. It’s a fantasy, but one that draws on Mexican traditions rather than western ones. Not content with just being a fairy tale with a Latinx cast, Coco revels in its beauty and celebrates love and family.
     
    7. Lady Bird
    It’s so seldom that we see a movie about being a teenager that presents it as, well, just how it is. Lady Bird makes no attempt to overly romanticize or deglamorize turning eighteen and the result is a movie that feels beautifully, brutally honest. There’s no judgement of poor decisions, no moralizing, it’s just life.
     
    6. The Big Sick
    Like Lady Bird right above, The Big Sick tells a very specific, personal story (that of the co-writers’) and in doing so tells a story that feels very personal. Maybe I’m biased, given that I’ve spent my time in and around hospitals and am currently in an interracial relationship, but isn’t the point of art the way it affects you the viewer? Plus, the movie has heart to spare and I will never not be happy to see mixed race relationships on screen.
     
    5. Get Out
    Speaking of interracial relationships! It’s a horror movie where white people are the monster. If that’s not inventive enough to warrant Get Out a place on this list, than know that the movie operates with such craft and imagination that it never feels like a one trick pony getting by on that conceit. At times both funny and terrifyingly tragic, Get Out is a great movie that looks at race relations with a horror movie’s lens. And dang, it works.
     
    4. Atomic Blonde
    There is always a joy in finding a movie that knows exactly what sort of movie it is and then plays it to the hilt. Atomic Blonde is a stylish, sexy spy movie whose Cold War Berlin punk influences permeate every aspect of its design. Throw in some terrific action scenes and more style than half the movies released last year combined and you have the recipe for a great action movie.
     
    3. Baby Driver
    One of my favorite parts about driving is listening to music. Baby Driver makes that element of soundtrack vital to its slick, slick style. Technically excellent (that editing! that sound design! that driving!), it also tells a really fun story with some really fun characters. Edgar Wright is one of my favorite directors, and Baby Driver does not disappoint.
     
    2. The Last Jedi
    Where The Force Awakens was a celebration of what made the original movies so great, The Last Jedi forges a path into what Star Wars can be. I’ve written a bunch about it on this blog, and suffice to say, it finds ways to reinvent and play with the Star Wars mythos without losing the heart of the saga. Plus, the Throne Room fight is one of the best action sequences in a Star Wars film.
     
    1. Your Name
    It’s an anime where two teenagers, a boy living in the city and a girl in the countryside, wake up in each other’s bodies. And it will make you cry as it runs circles around whatever genre (rom-com, teenager comedy, etc) you try and pin it in.. It’s so hard for me to sum up why I love this movie so I’m just gonna make quick statements. It’s really funny. It does a lot with its fantastical elements. It’s uniquely Japanese. The music. The animation. The feels. Your Name is a movie that can somehow only exists within the innate magical realism of an anime. It’s really a wonderful, wonderful film.
  11. Ta-metru_defender

    High Stakes

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 318: High Stakes
     
    For a reason that can be tracked back to one specific thing that won’t be discussed due to spoilers, I’m thinking a lot about stakes. There’s this idea in a lotta stories that really good stakes are “will they die?” It was Game of Thrones’ modus operandi in the early seasons, and it was the explicit reason why Chewbacca was killed in the first book of the New Jedi Order book series. The logic makes sense enough, if there’s the chance that anyone can die in any moment of peril, all of them will be high stakes. The highest of stakes.
     
    But on the flip side, constantly having high stakes like that also tends to lead to a fatigue of it all. When you’re always worried someone’s gonna die, you sometimes stop getting attached to characters. Why should I care about this new character we’ve introduced if we don’t know how long he’s gonna last? Though is that better than never worrying about your characters because there’s no way they’re gonna kill someone this important off, right? When Jack Sparrow gets eaten by the Kraken in Dead Man’s Chest, you don’t really care do you? After all, there’s a third movie coming out and you know he’ll be back. Han in Carbonite is an issue, sure, but he’s coming back for Return of The Jedi.
     
    I tend to disagree. Knowing that someone survives, or someone having plot armor, doesn’t necessarily mean you stop caring for lack of stakes. There’s a bunch of fun in finding out how someone survives. Like in Return of The Jedi we know that Luke and Han aren’t gonna be eaten by the Sarlaac. But it’s still exciting because we wanna see them get out of the pickle. The question of suspense, y’know, the element that keeps us invested, isn’t "will they die?" but instead "how will they survive?"
     
    When done well, the question of 'how?' can be a really interesting one. When Buffy dies in season finale of the fifth season of, well, Buffy (oh, spoiler alert) there’s no question that she’ll be back in season six. After all, she’s the titular character. The question is how will she come back — and what will the ramifications of that be?
     
    I think these days, with stories like Lost and Game of Thrones big in the public consciousness, we can conflate the willingness of a story to kill of its characters with its quality. There’s a general animus towards fake-out deaths (like Jack in Dead Man’s Chest or, more recently, Wolverine in the comics), because why give us all that drama over a death that won’t stick? Why fear for a character’s life when we know they won’t die?
     
    So again, I come back ton the question of how. The creation of an unwindable situation creates a narrative need for an ingenious way out. If the catharsis is to come, and in a good story the catharsis must be earned, then the way out’s gotta be a good one. Circling back to Jedi, the plan to escape Jabba’s clutches is so outlandish and unpredictable that it’s so much fun to see them escape. It doesn’t undo the drama of Han’s carbonite freezing detour; it’s another fun twist to the plot, another complication for the heroes to figure out. There’s a fun to it that’s a really good addition.
     
    Like I said, I’m thinking about stakes and the cliffhanging suspense that goes with it. I don’t think knowing that things have to turn out alright, be it due to announced sequels or even the conventions of the medium makes things less dramatic or less fun. I really enjoy the romantic fun of finding out how protagonists escape from a situation. The trick is, I figure, to make the resolution interesting and not making it feel like a cop out. It’s the how that makes it interesting, so making the how count is what matters.
  12. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 317: Letting Lara Down
     
    I was pretty excited for the Tomb Raider movie that came out a couple weeks ago. I’m a huge fan of the game it was based on, the Tomb Raider reboot that came out in 2013. The game was an origin story for Lara Croft, one that gameplay-wise took cues from the Uncharted series it had partially inspired but then been eclipsed by. One thing I really liked about the game was how it made Lara less of a sex object. Gone were the catsuits, short shorts, and crop tops; in were the khakis and tank top (it mayn’t sound like much on paper, but the difference is marked). In addition, the game turned Lara into a survivor; shipwrecked on a mysterious island, she hunts for food, searches for her friends, fights bad guys, and uncovers a mystery. If the movie could capture that then we were in for a ride.
     
    And, well, it kinda does, but more than anything the adaptation really plays down its women. Which is as frustrating as it is odd.
     
    Heads up, we’re getting into the nitty-gritty of plot here, so spoilers abound as we dig around.
     
    Let’s talk Lara, since she is, after all, our protagonist. In the film, she’s a down-on-her-luck heiress who can’t receive her fortune because she refuses to sign the papers confirming her father is dead. She’s a courier struggling to make ends meet who only ends up going on her adventure when circumstances force her to her inheritance and the discovery of her dad’s research into the mythical island of Yamatai. There’s nothing quite bad here (except that pacing-wise this takes up a solid third of the movie); it’s honestly fairly typical as far as hero stories go and all that. But it really does the Lara of the 2013 video game a disservice.
     
    Lara, in the game, is an archeological grad student; so right of the bat Lara is presented as being both intelligent and educated. She’s clued in on the myth of Yamatai by her college friend Sam Nishimura, who herself is a descendant of the Yamatai people. Lara’s subsequent research convinces the Nishimura family to fund an expedition looking for Yamatai and to find the fate of its mysterious Sun-Queen, Himiko. In the game’s version of events Lara is given a lot more agency in the story. The expedition to Yamatai is of her own design, not something she takes on from her father. So not only is Lara an archeologist by trade, but she’s one competent enough to make an expedition happen. You could argue that the movie makes her more relatable, but Indiana Jones is a university professor and no one says he’s unrelatable.
     
    Within the different backstories is a key difference: Sam. In the movie, Yamatai is something Lara investigates because of her father. The game positions it as something she’s into and found out about because of a (female) friend. Look, there’s nothing wrong with a young woman going on a quest to find her father (heck, it’s a trope I’m fond of), but the game’s plot both shows us a Lara with more agency and offers a version of events where Lara’s quest doesn’t revolve around a male character, rather displaying the friendship between two women.
     
    And without Sam, we’re also without a lot of what makes Himiko interesting. In the movie, she’s a long-dead queen with a disease that, when infected, makes people disintegrate, and so was sequestered away on Yamatai. The Himiko of the game, however, was a supernatural queen who ruled Yamatai with an iron fist, transferring her soul into younger bodies to gain a sort of immortality. When a rogue successor took her own life rather than be a host, Himiko was trapped in her body and her kingdom declined. Along comes Sam centuries later, and Mathias (who’s the main antagonist in both versions) wants to offer her up as a new host. So it’s up to Lara to save the day. Once again, the game, by being a little more over the top, has a narrative with a lot more women doing stuff. Himiko isn’t Plague Victim Zero, she’s an immortal queen who was thwarted by a brave young woman. The present day sees Lara saving her best friend and putting to rest a vengeful, weather-controlling spirit. In the movie it’s Lara’s father who, once infected, blows up himself and Himiko’s remains. Lara still stops Mathias in the movie, but she’s given one less thing to do.
     
    Look, the movie’s flaws are plenty and they mostly fall into the realm of plotting and structure. But the 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise offered a new vision of Lara Croft and her mythos, one that featured a new rendition of Lara that was surrounded by other women of note. The film offers a perfectly fine Lara, but she’s a far cry from the one in the game. Like I said, it’s frustrating to see a movie take a narrative that’s so female driven and, well, take away its women’s agency. The source material was so rich; had so much going for it. And yet. Here we are. A decent enough strong female protagonist who could have been so much more.
  13. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 316: Star Wars As An Anti-Capitalist Discourse
     
    Oh you thought I was kidding? Here we go.
     
    Star Wars takes a lot of cues from Westerns. Characters like Han Solo and places like Mos Eisley’s cantina make it pretty obvious. But it’s also apparent in where it takes place: the fringes of society. Be they remote planets desert or frozen, these stories take place away from economic and cultural hubs. Which, given that we follow the good guys, makes sense: implicit in the Star Wars movies is the idea that places of wealth and opulence are the breeding grounds of evil. In other words, the real villain in Star Wars is capitalism (and the Sith too but bear with me here).
     
    Let’s look at where we spend time among the wealthy in the Original Trilogy. Outside of Imperial Battle Stations, the only place we visit that is remotely 'first world' is Cloud City, a gorgeous city whose wealth is built on Tibanna Gas mining. It’s beautiful in the way sci-fi modernity is. But its gleaming hallways belie a darker secret. It is when the Rebels come to Cloud City (the richest civilian place we’ve seen) that they are sold out. Han is tortured and frozen in carbonite, Luke is lured into a trap and told that the bastion of evil is his father. But Lando’s a good guy, you say. Well, he was. He’s Han’s friend, turned ‘respectable’ by the capitalistic influences of Cloud City. It’s when he’s compromised as such that he betrays his former friends, but he finds redemption when he leaves Cloud City and joins the Rebellion on the outskirts of the galaxy.
     
    The Prequel Trilogy brings us closer to civilized space, with the planet of Naboo, an idyllic, peaceful planet. The villains in The Phantom Menace are the Trade Federation, an economically driven group who, in the wake of a tax dispute, blockade the planet and invade it. It is a financially-driven, militaristic, occupational force that the heroes strive against. When the Republic and the Confederacy go to war, the Trade Federation is joined in leadership of the latter by other corporate entities; such as the Banking Clan and Corporate Alliance. The war is marked by economic entities turning against the government; the villains in the story are capitalists fighting against economic control.
     
    In addition, there’s Coruscant, the glittering capital of the Republic. Like Cloud City hopped up on steroids, it is a hub of wealth beyond compare. Here is the Senate, a governing body locked into inaction; a Jedi Temple stuck in orthodoxy unable to adapt to the changing times. Not much good comes from the rich capital.
     
    It’s in The Last Jedi where the anti-capitalist bent of the films comes to a head. In an effort to undermine the villainous First Order, Rose and Finn go on a desperate mission to Canto Bight, a rich city most known for its casino. Finn quickly learns that the city’s wealth is built on the back of the military industrial complex. The rich folks wheeling and dealing are profiteering off a war the Resistance is fighting for survival. Though maybe not outright evil, they are decidedly not good people. The codebreaker who Rose and Finn ally themselves with ends up selling them out, simply because the First Order offered him more money. It’s money, and the unfettered pursuit of it, that tends to create villainy in Star Wars.
     
    Throughout the films, lesser antagonists are driven by a want of money: Greedo wants the bounty on Han’s head, Watto refuses to sell anything for cheap, Unkar Plutt is miserly with his rations. Luke and Obi-Wan use Han’s love of money to get to the Death Star and rescue Princess Leia; but it’s when Han stops caring about the money that he really becomes a hero. Star Wars makes it pretty clear: the capitalists tend to be villainous, those who don’t emphasize making money are heroic.
     
    By taking place primarily on the outskirts of society, with its interactions with society dominated by free enterprise tending to lead to misfortune, Star Wars takes a stance against unfettered capitalism. To be heroic in Star Wars is to do things for more than economic gain. To pursue money above all else, to be motivated by capitalism, well, that might not make you the Empire, but you’re certainly not a good guy.
     
    Writer’s Note:
     
    Well. That was fun to do again. It’s a lotta fun to dig into something I love as much as Star Wars and connect dots to create a meaning that may or may not be intended (though The Last Jedi railing against the military industrial complex is certainly deliberate). Is Star Wars itself anti-capitalist? Maybe a little. Will I do more of these oddly in-depth analysis? Maybe.
  14. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 315: End of (Star) War(s)
     
    After the original Star Wars trilogy wrapped up, Lucasfilm started letting other people play in the sandbox they’d created. And so the Expanded Universe came about: more stories set in the Star Wars universe continuing the adventures of Luke, Han, and Leia. Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy really kicked the EU into high gear, and an impressive series of novels, comics, and games were born, each crossing over and referencing each other. It’s a lotta fun, and I’ve read/played a lot of them.
     
    In the EU, the Battle of Endor was only the beginning of the end. Various Moffs, Admirals, and Warlords rose up to fill the Emperor’s void. The Rebellion, now the New Republic, set about mopping up threats until a formal treaty was finally signed 15 years after Endor, properly ending the Galactic Civil War. But of course there were still adventures to be had. The Yuuhzahn Vong invaded six years later, the Dark Nest Crisis was a thing, and then there was another Civil War which is kinda where I checked out. Point is, the galaxy was almost always at war.
     
    When Disney bought Lucasfilm and decided they would make new movies, they nuked all of the EU, primarily so they could start with a blank slate from which to start the then-upcoming Episode VII. On the one hand, I was really bummed because there went the Thrown trilogy, Wedge Antillies’ legendary reputation, and some really cool Clone Wars-era stories; but then that also got rid of some of the later books when things started getting really moody and stuff, so, y’know, not the worst call. Point is, The Force Awakens started a new idea of where Star Wars went post-Return of The Jedi.
     
    And it’s different. There’s a villainous First Order but the New Republic isn’t fighting it. Rather, Leia’s started a Resistance to fight back. Which is odd. Why is there a Resistance when there’s a government that should be fighting that war? In essence: Where’s the New Republic’s fleet?
     
    Turns out, the New Republic demilitarized after the Battle of Jakku. In the new canon, Jakku, one year after Endor, marked the final fight between the Rebel Alliance and the Empire. The Alliance’s decisive victory led to Galactic Concordance and the war ended right there. That was it. No Grand Admiral Thrawn, no Black Fleet Crisis, no Rogue Squadron. And with the war over, they demilitarized. The First Order wasn’t perceived as a legitimate threat, so they didn’t take up arms again and then it was too late.
     
    Let’s ignore the fact that this plot point should have been at least referenced in The Force Awakens and instead talk about demilitarization. Historically, when wars were over, countries would demilitarize, military budgets would go down and armies would shrink considerably. After World War II, however, the US did shrink its army, but its military/defense budget never returned to pre-war levels (and still hasn’t). Put simply, the US has constantly been at war since the 1940s, be it a Cold one or something against Terror. The idea of demilitarizing after a war, decommissioning ships, reducing war R&D, shuttering bases, is a foreign concept in American pop culture.
     
    And yet, that’s what happens in the new Star Wars canon. With the Empire defeated, the New Republic put away its guns and played peace instead. Which sounds kinda weird, but that’s 'cuz we (the US and people who consume US pop-culture [which, in recent years has come to encompass American politics as well as media]) are just not used to that idea. The implication’s pretty clear: When the war’s over, the good guys disarm.
     
    Of course, as the First Order rises the New Republic is hesitant to re-arm and so it falls on Leia’s Resistance to serve as a paramilitary force to stop them. Things go sideways for the New Republic pretty quickly, mostly 'cuz they underestimated the First Order. But that’s not the New Republic’s fault for being pacifist, it’s because the First Order’s martial and ruthless.
     
    Star Wars is, of course, about wars (in the stars!). But for all its martial posturing, its, courtesy of the new canon, also a world where that war ends and is followed by demilitarization (and peace!). It’s such an odd notion, one that borders on fantasy, but then again, Star Wars is supposed to be a fantasy, isn’t it?
     
    N.B.: This has been Josh thinking far too much about Star Wars. Tune in next time to hear Josh analyze the Star Wars saga as an anti-capitalist text. And the time after that to see my analysis of the Star Wars movies being anti-war. Finally, I’d like to apologize to John Horgan for borrowing his book’s title for this blog post.
  15. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 312: Of Men Mega and Mighty

    Mega Man was the video game I cut my teeth on. Well, more accurately, Mega Man X4. It was a tough game that I worked my way through as a kid. Didn’t beat it until at least three years after I got it, but still picked up Mega Man X5 and Mega Man X6 (and Mega Man 8) in the meantime to fight the new bosses, master the new levels, and get my butt kicked time and time again. I got better, beat them, got into the harder Mega Man Z games (look, the naming conventions are weird but make sense). Every couple years I revisit them, particularly Z3 and X5, my undisputed favorites.
     
    All this to say, I know my Mega Man.
     
    So what makes a Mega Man game? Theme-wise, it’s good robots fighting a bunch of bad robots, usually eight, then fitting a bigger boss. Mechanic-wise, it’s a lotta jumping and shooting mixed in with being able to get a defeated boss’ weapon which is another boss’ weakness. There’ve been some variations here and there (the X games added dashing and wall kicking), but for the most part, things are quite similar.
     
    For the sake of convenience, I’m excluding the Battle Network and Legends games from this, since those are an RPG and Action-Adventure respectively, and are different genres from the others which are very much pure Action Games.
     
    Point is, there’s a particular sort of gameplay when it comes to Mega Man.
     
    But, I’d argue, that a big part of Mega Man’s game design goes beyond that. What makes (well, made) the Mega Man games so distinctive was how well they did what they did. The mechanic at it’s core: running, jumping, and shooting, was perfect. The controls were as tight as they got, and the levels just right for them. Mega Man’s jump was also precise, you always knew right where you were jumping. Dashing as X or Zero was equally so, and the moment you took your finger off the button, they stopped moving.
     
    This meant that no matter how crazy the stage design got (and good grief some stages are maddening), you were always in control of your character. Bottomless pits and spike traps were (usually) more challenges of dexterity than outright attempts to kill you. The stages were fair, with most new obstacles being obviously such. This meant that when you died (and you will), it was more often than not because of a mistake on your part, one that you can see. The games were about slowly learning stages and bosses, and then executing everything flawlessly.
     
    And, most importantly, they were fun as all get out. And Capcom no longer makes them.
     
    But a few years ago Keiji Inafune, someone who worked on the original Mega Man games, was Kickstarting a new game that looked an awful lot like Mega Man: Mighty No. 9. The game’s a platformer, you run, you jump, you shoot, you beat bosses and take their abilities. Heck, the game was number nine, a clear reference that both the original and X series ended at number 8 (besides the retro revival for the originals).
     
    Mighty No. 9 was released a couple years ago, but I didn’t get around to playing it until this week upon it being free for PlayStation+ Subscribers.
     
    And it is not a good game.
     
    Lackluster visuals and presentation aside, it’s just… not really fun. It’s not the difficulty, rather it feels like the game cheats. Jumping onto a moving vehicle feels like a gamble, and avoiding attacks is luck more than anything. Sure, it’s fun to figure out a boss’s weakness and lay into it, but it’s missing that special something.
     
    Namely, the precision that made Mega Man such a great series. Platforming feels wonky, the 'AcXelearte' dash is as likely to get you killed as out of trouble, and there’s no wall kick that made the X and Z games so interesting but instead a ledge grab that feels finicky at best. The gameplay loop just doesn’t work.
     
    Part of what made the Mega Man games such fun was reaching that point of flow, where you kinda mesh with the controller into a sorta zen as you try and finish a stage and beat a boss. Instead here I am, a lifelong gamer, fumbling with the controller in Mighty No.9 'cuz Beck won’t grab on to a frickin' ledge. Look, its boss fights are fun, I’ll give it that, but it just doesn’t feel like Mega Man — which it’s quite clearly intended to. Maybe were it not so clearly meant to be such it wouldn’t feel this bad a game.
     
    Actually, it probably would. It’s clunky, and really makes me miss Mega Man.
     
    So I’ll probably end up replaying X5 or Z3 next. Just gotta beat this game next because I will not be daunted by poor game design!
  16. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 311: Beauty in Destruction
     
    I saw Annihilation this week, which, y’know, shouldn’t really be surprising. I like Alex Garland as a writer (Never Let Me Go is heartbreakingly beautiful, Dredd is a solid action movie) and enjoyed his directorial debut in Ex Machina. Annihilation is science fiction replete with a primarily female cast, so it checks a lot of boxes for me.
     
    And it’s a wonderful film, truly haunting with some moments of absolute horror, but one that is essentially devoted to the pursuit of the sublime, of that terrible beauty. It doesn’t quite stick the landing, but the trip to end is one that stays with you.
     
    It’s also super clear that Alex Garland has played The Last of Us. No, plot points aren’t borrowed from Naughty Dog’s great game. There’s no fungal virus and it isn’t about the relationship between two very different people. But Annihilation, though based on a novel, undoubtedly draws on the video game in its portrayal of the world beyond the Shimmer.
     
    The central plot of Annihilation deals with the Shimmer, a phenomena radiating from a crashed meteor wherein everything within its thrall gets, well, weird. The mystery of the Shimmer and what lays within is the big question of the movie and drives Lena and her team to investigate. Over time, it becomes clear that the Shimmer affects organic life somehow, and changes it.
     
    A heads up, though, some minor spoilers for Annihilation are inbound. Unless you’ve seen the trailer, than you’ve already seen what I’m talking about (I hadn’t, and upon watching it now, wow, that thing reveals a bunch).
     
    It affects people too. Lena and her team come across a prior expedition from about a year before. The members were affected by the Shimmer, and their bodies begun acting up. At the bottom of the pool they find the remains of a person who has since become almost plantlike and fungal and merged — grown — into the wall. His legs are still there, seated, but his entire upper torso has, for lack of a better word, flowered. It’s gruesome — his skull is several feet above his legs at the top of the 'plant' — but it’s also beautiful, in its own way.
     
    The Last of Us (which, coincidentally, came out a year before the book Annihilation is based on did), features the same image. Over time, those infected by the fungal cordyceps will stop moving, settle down, and grow into their surroundings until all the remains is the vague silhouette of a human being surrounded by waves of fungus. While playing the game you will encounter these strange 'corpses,' sometimes moving them aside, sometimes just walking past. They’re grotesque, but at the same time beautiful.
     
    The same can be said of how The Last of Us portrays its apocalypse. The world’s been ravaged by neglect and the Infected, and yet it’s somehow still beautiful. The flooded desolation of Pittsburg is tattered with trees and greenery growing through and around buildings; it’s all so lovingly rendered that the landscape of the apocalypse almost loses its despair and takes on its own serenity, grandeur. Consider the giraffes, and how amidst the bleakness there was such beauty. Annihilation has its share of abandoned structures and desolation, but the Shimmer speckles it with flowers and other bits of pretty. Somehow the abandoned is beautiful, even with the horrors inside.
     
    What connects Annihilation and The Last of Us isn’t just the imagery (although, dude, those bloomed corpses are super similar), but rather how unique is how they portray destruction. Other similar stories with wastelands, be they the thousands-of-years-later ruins of Horizon: Zero Dawn or bombed-out town in your war movie of choice show beauty in contrast to destruction. Look at that shell of a tank, now look at the majestic tree next to it. For Annihilation and The Last of Us, destruction is intrinsic to beauty; it is the former that causes the latter: there is worth in the decaying frame of a half-sunken house, the corpse of an infected is as beautiful as it is terrible. It’s a haunting aesthetic, one that informs the incredible atmosphere of both works.
     
     
    Addendum: A quick google shows that, yeah, Garland’s played The Last of Us and it’s one of his favorite games (alongside Bioshock). So maybe I’m not crazy about the influence the video game had on his movie, after all, artists steal.
  17. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 310: Simple Pleasure
     
    I saw Game Night last night and it’s a delight of a movie. It takes a clever conceit (an immersive game night goes a step too far) and builds on it to great affect. There are some really clever turns that mix with a movie full of a surprising amount of heart and some great laughs. It’s a lot of fun and I really liked it.
     
    I mean, it’s not, y’know, an important movie by any stretch. Like it’s not one that’s gonna go down in the annals of comedy, probably. But it's a lotta fun.
     
    Kinda like the recent remake of The Magnificent Seven. I can acknowledge that it is not a super great movie, it doesn't go as deep as it could with the assembled talent, has a climax that borders on perfunctory, and is by all accounts a shadow of the, well, magnificence, of the original.
     
    And yet.
     
    I really like it. Enough so to put it on a year end list. And yes, I'm totally willing to admit that it's because of the Asian Cowboy. And also because multinational teams scratches a very specific itch for me. I don't really care about the movie’s flaws; I can acknowledge them, but it hardly diminishes my affection for the film. I doubt anyone's gonna remember it in five-odd years. But.
     
    There's the book Ready Player One. It's a nerdy nirvana of a book, rife with references to 80s pop culture in all its forms. I know it smacks of wish fulfillment, which given author Ernest Cline’s own childhood in the 80s, definitely casts the novel, where an encyclopedic knowledge of 80s pop culture is needed to win the race and basically become the richest person ever, into a somewhat juvenile author’s fantasy.
     
    And yet.
     
    It's such fun. The references, from the most obvious to the deepest cuts are fun, and getting them makes you feel like you're part of the club; it's like a nerdy Ulysses. Ready Player One is the first (and only!) time I've seen Ultraman referenced outside of Asia; and he's a mild plot point! There's a chapter dedicated to Wade trying to get a perfect score in Pac-Man, which, as someone who can do a perfect run on the first five levels of Pac-Man, I very much appreciate the detail. It's also a book that treats online friendships as legitimate, which, hey! That's really cool!
     
    I know Ready Player One is definitely not high literature, but it makes no claims as such. It's a fun read, and I love it for that. It's entertaining.
     
    And isn't that what entertainment is supposed to be? Yes, there is the empirical good and bad (The Only Living Boy in New York is two hours of my life I'm never getting back, somewhat assuaged by running a commentary in an empty theater with a good friend), but past a certain point is it enough for something to be fun? I feel like there's often such a rush for a piece of fiction to be Important that we forget about the fun of it all. Army of Two: The Devil’s Cartel is not a super deep or particularly outstanding game; but it is a ridiculous amount of fun to play. And that's why I like the game. It's why I really like The Magnificent Seven and Ready Player One, they're fun.
     
    Game Night’s a lotta fun, and I did really like it. And at the day, I think that’s enough. I don’t think I need to justify that to you (or myself), Sometimes it’s enough to just be entertained. 'cuz, y’know, it’s entertainment.
  19. Ta-metru_defender

    Wakanda Forever

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 308: Wakanda Forever
     
    So. Black Panther.
     
    Right now, I want nothing more than to geek the crud out about this movie. It’s, wow. Ryan Coogler’s quickly become one of my favorite directors (courtesy of Creed and Fruitvale Station), and this movie is the icing on the cake.
     
    There’s so much to love about it. The plot moves along at a clip pace, so much so that I found myself wanting more when it ended. Its supporting cast is as interesting as its leads, with everyone getting their due and characters like Okoye, Nakia, and Shuri stealing the show (and seriously, Okoye is the coolest). The conflict between T’challa and Killmonger is surprisingly nuanced, one where there is no real easy answer. Does a super advanced African nation have an obligation to other Africans, both those within the continent and part of the diaspora? Or should Wakanda remain isolationist, able to remain free of colonialist influence?
     
    And these are all well and good facets of the movie (Okoye is so stinking cool), but there is, of course, the obvious one: Black Panther is the first movie in the Marvel Cinematic Universe to feature not only a black protagonist, but a predominately black cast as well. On top of that, these characters are from Wakanda, a fictional, utopian country in Africa. They’re cool; they get to do the superhero schtick.
     
    That’s a big part of what makes the movie so interesting (on top of that it’s an excellently crafted film): its representation. This is a movie where a bunch of people who don’t usually get to be these sorts of heroes gets to be these sorts of heroes. Not only that, but Wakanda is a science-fiction style setting that doesn’t draw on Western influences, but rather celebrates Africa. Wakanda is Afrofuturism put up on the big screen, and believe you me, it’s refreshing. Characters wear traditional African outfits that, guess what, generate force fields and also look really cool.
     
    That Black Panther is succeeding is excellent news for genre fiction. It proves that blockbuster science fiction and action don’t have to be about white people with decidedly western influences. If we can get this Afrofuturistic fantasy, maybe now an East Asian inspired science fiction story is viable, and one outside of anime at that. Or an anime that’s been adapted and now stars a white actor in the lead. Now there’s room for a Mesoamerican-inspired fantasy world where Spanish conquistadors don’t even enter into the equation.
     
    For better or worse, media (that is, movies, television, books, games, etc) is predominately dominated by the West (and, in particular, the US). As such, most of the stories that Big Movies and blockbusters draw on are Americentric; we’re used to stories with characters who look like Tony Stark and Steve Rogers 'cuz those are the stories that get told. Black Panther is a shift, it’s a movie that says "Hey, you don’t have to look like Ryan Gosling to be the superhero." You can look like Chadwick Boseman.
     
    So does this mean there’s gonna be a scifi epic coming out soon starting a Chinese dude in a Changshan kicking butt but not in an orientalized kung fu way? God, I hope so. It’s hard for me to find words to describe exactly what it was like watching Black Panther, getting to see this dope futuristic world that celebrated a culture that wasn’t, well, white. It was different, it was cool; in Wakanda it showed a country that’s as much an ideal as it is a fantasy.
     
    And throughout it all, I couldn’t help but to ask when was my turn. When am I gonna get to see people who look like me in a big blockbuster, when am I gonna get to see the culture I’ve spent so much of my life a part of celebrated in a science fiction film featuring the people who actually live it? Sure, I’m only half-Asian, but that’s a half that doesn’t usually get seen.
     
    In the meantime, Black Panther’s freaking awesome, go watch it, and celebrate what it does.
     
    There’s gotta be more to come.
  21. Ta-metru_defender

    Rey and Luke

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 306: Rey and Luke
     
    I liked a lot of things about the The Force Awakens, but easily my favorite addition was Rey, who is undeniably the best. Sure, she's basically Luke Skywalker in the original, except she's someone who's grown up with those same stories and now gets to live them out. It's cool, and she gets a lightsaber and that's awesome.
     
    But The Last Jedi doesn't give Rey some grand adventure. Rey doesn't actually do a whole lot over the course of the film. While Poe’s facing down the First Order fleet she's… talking to Luke Skywalker. While Finn and Rose are searching Canto Bight she's… still talking to Luke Skywalker. Then she has the Throne Room (which is an epic highlight to be sure) and her run against the TIE Fighters in the Falcon, but past that she just lifts a bunch of rocks (and saves the Resistance, sure). My point is, Rey spends most of the movie sitting on an island talking to Luke and, sometimes, Kylo Ren. Which really seems like she's just spinning her wheels for a solid chunk of time. Why doesn't she get to do more? Why do you take your best character and leave her idling on the wayside?
     
    Because she's not idle, not quite. Her arc in the film is her wrestling with the legend of Luke Skywalker: both in arguing with the man himself, but also her own desire to enact the same narrative. Let's lay out the parallels: both Luke and Rey are from nowhere desert planets. Both wanted something more than their expected life, and both were whisked off on a grand journey to defeat a galaxy-threatening evil. Along they way they also discovered that, hey, they're strong in the Force! Come the sequels, Luke goes to a distant planet to learn to be a Jedi and redeems Darth Vader. So now Rey, who knows the story of Luke, finds herself on a distant planet with a Jedi Master; the next steps are clearly to become a Jedi herself and redeem Kylo Ren, the heir to Vader’s legacy.
     
    But as Luke says, this isn't going to do the way she thinks. He is not training Jedi, and his lessons is in the Force are all to dissuade her from trying to take up the old mantle, to continue the old legacy she so desperately wants and Luke resents. Essentially, Rey wants the Jedi Order of the Republic to come back, and Luke wants it to end. Rey and Luke’s conflict boils down to whether or not to put another quarter into the arcade cabinet blinking “Game Over.”
     
    Meanwhile, a Force connection emerges between Rey and Kylo Ren. Kylo offers another foil for Rey, someone with whom she can butt heads about who's right, and who's wrong. But as their relationship develops and they see their similarities, Rey also finds another narrative she can enact: the redemption of a Sith. If Luke could turn Vader, could she not turn Kylo too?
     
    Rey leaves Ach-To and Luke’s training for two reasons. With Luke unwilling to give her the Jedi training she really wants (and swoop in to save the Resistance), she figures Jedi Masters are bunk and she'll save the Resistance herself. But this is also her chance to save Kylo and bring him back to the light. Screw Luke Skywalker, she's gonna do the Luke Skywalker schtick without him and redeem Kylo, save the Resistance, and continue the Jedi Order.
     
    Remember what I said about things going the way you think? Kylo can't be turned, and Rey’s Ultimate Catharsis is undercut. She failed. She didn't get to save the Dark Lord and turn the tide of the battle. And she doesn't get to be Luke Skywalker. When Kylo turns Rey down, she not only has to contend with the loss of a would-be friend, but she also finds herself shaken to the core: she's nobody, and she's certainly not gonna be Luke Skywalker.
     
    Rey does end up rescuing what's left of the Resistance, but they lose the fight, Luke is gone, and her lightsaber is split. Things have really gone sideways. But this is The Last Jedi, a movie that wonders what to do with the past. Rey has seen the legacy she had hoped to inherit come crumbling down.
     
    And maybe it should have, maybe Luke was right and the time of the Jedi Order of old is at an end. Maybe it's time for Rey to stop trying to be Luke and figure out what Rey's story is.
  23. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 302: The Return of The Boyband
     
    One hundred and forty-four essays (not rants) ago I wrote about the then-upcoming Final Fantasy XV and how it was frustrating to see an entirely male party, albeit one justified by a space to allow the exploration of bromances.
     
    Anyway, the game came out and all that, and I stopped paying attention to much (any) of the press. Then it went on sale on Amazon for $20 and, after being convinced by my girlfriend ("You’ve been waiting eleven years, just buy the game") who informed me it was $16.45 in 2006, adjusted for inflation, I bought the darn game. And have subsequently played it.
     
    And boy howdy it is odd.
     
    A ten year development cycle is never a good sign for a game, and Final Fantasy XV (née Final Fantasy Versus XIII) shows a lot of growing pains. Its mechanics are a little wonky, with its open world showing nowhere near the contemporary finesse of games like Horizon Zero Dawn or Metal Gear Solid V. Even Mass Effect Andromeda for all its flaws made exploration fun; in FFXV, it’s a bit of a commute. Combat is cool, although it feels like it’s hampering itself by not letting you make more changes to your gear on the fly. It’s fun enough, if a bit of a mechanical mess.
     
    But the story is where the game is at its most, both for better and worse. You play as protagonist Prince Noctis (Emo Bro) who is on a road trip to meet his betrothed, the Oracle Luna, with his retinue/bros consisting of Gladiolus (Muscle Bro), Ignis (Nerd Bro), and Prompto (Selfie Bro). We’re from the capital city of Lucis, Insomnia (this game is not subtle). Anyway, a cold war goes hot, Insomnia falls, the king dies (so Noctis is king now?) and we gotta find ancient magicky Royal Arms weapons to take back the throne.
     
    Or something.
     
    Truth be told, the narrative is a bit of a convoluted mess. I mean, I know what’s going on, insofar as I just explained, but the political lines aren’t really drawn all to well and I’m not quite sure how the Royal Arms are gonna help me get my kingdom back and avenge my father and all that. Also I think we’re still going to pick up Luna? But right now Luna’s going around waking up these gods and I’m also going to the gods to get their powers? I think?
     
    In some ways it feels like there are ten years’ worth of ideas stuck to a cork board in this game, and they don’t always mesh too wonderfully. I’m not saying this game needed another year of development, more its connective tissue needed to be worked out a bit more, keep the player placed in the story.
     
    Because there’s a lot of good! The combat system is wonky but when it works it is awesome to be warping around, swapping from a sword to a spear by materializing the new weapon out of mid air, and plunging into a giant frog (then warping across the field to stab a goblin). Exploring the world isn’t always smooth, but it’s a really cool world, with a delightful merging of contemporary tech/culture (smart phones, dope cities, route 66 style rest stops and garages, machine guns, etc) with some serious high fantasy (magic swords, normal swords, deamons that only come out at night, gods, magic meteors, etc). It’s weird, it’s fun, but we don’t really have enough moments to really get the feel and explore this world. Like, I’m told that in Lestallum it is the women who do the work, but outside of seeing female NPCs in overalls, nothing really happens with it.
     
    But. The bromance. I can go fishing while exploring, and afterwards Muscle Bro sets up camp, Nerd Bro cooks, and we look at the pictures Selfie Bro took during the day (and I choose which ones to save). Along the way they talk rubbish about all sorts of things, be it Nerd Bro’s glasses or Selfie Bro asking what I want him to take pictures of. Nerd Bro and I (Emo Bro) had a bonding moment over cooking once, and Muscle Bro told me that he’s sworn to protect my life and that means that he’s gonna call me on my crud. Sure, I’m disappointed that the main female characters thus far are all NPCs and are basically just pure angel lady, Muscle Bro’s sister, and eye candy mechanic; but I am actually enjoying my retinue/bros (though Emo Bro is pretty boring thus far).
     
    I’m told the game is about to get even weirder soon, with the open world being abandoned for something more traditionally linear involving a train, and in all honesty, I can’t wait to see where it goes. It’s nowhere near as compelling as, say Final Fantasy XIII or VIII, but it’s a lotta (weird) fun.
     
    This is a game where an actual battle command is to have Selfie Bro snap a picture. And for some reason, having this dude take a picture while I’m fighting for my life against a massive monster feels just right for this game.
  24. Ta-metru_defender
    Essays, Not Rants! 300: Let The Past Die
     
    Part of why I like The Force Awakens is that its characters are, in many ways, Star Wars fans themselves. Rey and Kylo Ren both grew up on stories about the Rebellion and the Empire (though with different takeaways) and so want to live out their version of the stories. Kylo fashions himself into an ersatz Darth Vader, Rey sees the chance to join up with the legendary Han Solo and maybe become a Jedi like Luke Skywalker.
    The Last Jedi, on the other hand, deconstructs those dreams (and those of the audience too). And since I'm gonna be talking about The Last Jedi, this is where I let you know that here there be spoilers. About character arcs and stuff, which as we all know is what really matters.
     
    So anyway. Spoilers. And deconstruction.
     
    Kylo Ren is called out by Snoke for being nothing except a shadow of Vader. Killing Han’s not good enough; Kylo’s just a fanboy. It becomes clear that Kylo will never come into his own so long as all he wants to do is imitate his grandfather. And so the character of Kylo Ren, as we knew it in Awakens, is dressed down and forced to forge a new identity.
     
    Meanwhile, on Ach-To, Rey can only watch as Luke Skywalker casually tosses the revered lightsaber over his shoulder. Turns out Rey’s idea of Luke is terribly misinformed. Even her understanding of The Force (controlling people and lifting rocks) is wrong. Rey’s expectations are dashed and eventually she has to, in the words of another Jedi, unlearn what she's already learned, and try and start afresh.
     
    The Last Jedi sets fire to a lot of what we hold dear about Star Wars. Sometimes this is done through character (Poe is chastised for his propensity for reckless and costly space battles where they somehow overcome the odds) and other times it's through the story itself.
     
    Look at the Jedi.
     
    They're cool, right? With their dope lightsabers and all the heroing we see them do in the movies. Luke outright calls them fools, a prideful group whose hubris allowed the Empire to rise. He goes so far as to desecrate one of the finer points of the Star Wars mythos, derisively calling the Jedi’s weapon a laser sword. And Luke has a point. Maybe the Jedi weren't all they cracked up to be (and, as we see in the prequels, they really weren't the brightest of the bunch). The movie takes apart a chunk of Star Wars, and puts its pieces on display. The Jedi are flawed, overblown legends, maybe it's time for them to end.
     
    The response to this deconstructed Star Wars is embodied by the movie's hero and villain. Rey and Kylo have both seen their goals tossed aside, goals that were, in essence, to emulate the Original Trilogy. They each respond differently: Kylo sees this as an opportunity to burn it all down and let the past die so he can remake the world as he sees fit; Rey, however, wants to rebuild from the ashes, learning from the mistakes of what’s come before. The epic battle between the light side and the dark side continues, though this time it's one that these two have defined for themselves.
     
    And that's this movie’s relation with The Force Awakens. The prior one re-established Star Wars as we remember it, replete with high-flying romantic adventure. The Last Jedi takes apart those tropes, breaking down the notions of chosen ones, daring plans, and wise masters. But writer/director Rian Johnson loves Star Wars and so, now that he's taken them apart, he can develop them deeper than before. Luke is bitter and stubborn, a far cry from an idealistic farmboy or a sage like Yoda. But he still has much to learn, especially from his shortcomings. The idea of a wise master who knows everything doesn't stand up, but when we take that away we're given a Jedi Master who is still learning. Which is a more interesting, deeper interpretation.
     
    Rey is a nobody, but she's still strong with the Force - all that talk about chosen ones and being descended from a great Jedi (like Kylo) is bunk, but, but but but, now anyone can be a Jedi. Luke Skywalker doesn't swoop in to defeat the First Order, because that hero could be anyone, that hope is bigger than he is.
     
    What Rian Johnson does seems almost anathema, counter to the distilling of Star Wars that is The Force Awakens. But Johnson gives these stories new room to grow, and so he forces Rey and Kylo (and fans like me!) to reexamine the older Star Wars movies and figure out a new what's next. Kylo Ren isn't gonna be Darth Vader, and Rey isn't about to be Luke Skywalker.
     
    And we're better off for that.
  25. Ta-metru_defender

    2017 In Review

    By Ta-metru_defender,

    Essays, Not Rants! 301: 2017 In Review
     
    2017 has been a year. And it ends in a couple days, so that means it’s time for me to phone it in and post about posts!
     
    Five Most Popular/Viewed Posts
     
    #5: Hanging Out
     
    You know that thing where you talk about fictional characters as if they were your actual real life friends? This post is about how really well crafted characters make you happy just to watch them interact.
     
    #4: Trusting The Story
     
    It’s nice to be able to shut off your brain when you watch a movie or read a book, insofar as that means you don’t overthink it. But part of that means trusting the storyteller that everything will make sense. Dunkirk and Star Wars are movies that if you stop asking why and enjoy it then, dang, they’re great.
     
    #3: Let The Past Die
     
    Woah, this one got hits quick. Or maybe my blog’s just not as busy as it used to be. Either way. The Last Jedi is a rich movie (which you gotta admit, even if you'd didn’t like it) and this is me getting into some of its layers. There’s more I wanna unpack which I may go on about in due time (consider Rian Johnson’s use of fakeouts and a twisty plot in light of Luke’s admonition that this isn’t going to go the way you think).
     
    #1 (tie!): So My Apartment Building Caught Fire
     
    Well. This was a blogpost born out of an unexpected adventure. This is me talking about one of the reasons I love living in New York.
     
    #1 (tie!): Xenophobia, Science Fiction, and, eventually, Hope
     
    Stories are important. Science Fiction is important. And sometimes the real world sucks (that this was posted in January 2017 definitely has nothing to do with the post, cough), and sometimes stories remind you that, hey, there is good. And that through it you can learn something.
     
    Stories are important.
     
    Josh’s Pick of Three
     
    #3: On Visibility and Character Creators
     
    I love character creators. I spend way too long in The Sims’ Create-A-Sim and love agonizing over my character in games that let me design my avatar. But as someone who’s neither entirely white nor entirely Chinese, it’s hard to recreate myself when many presets are decidedly one or the other. Maybe if more of us were represented in stories I might be able to make a half-Asian commander Shepard.
     
    #2: The Ephemeral And The Sublime
     
    This blog is guaranteed to be the only place you’ll find indie darling Lady Bird and Hideo Kojima helmed video game Death Stranding spoken about in relation. But they’re similar! Read this to see me making a weird connection that actually makes an amount of sense.
     
    #1: AMERICA
     
    Another post that Definitely Has Nothing To Do With The Date It Was Posted. I love multinational teams, and I love how U.S. Avengers uses such a team to redefine the idea of an American. It’s a team of immigrants, minorities, and a homegrown, corn-fed Kentuckian. It’s truly a special comic. And there’s something wonderful about seeing the Finnish-Norwegian Aikku be comforted by her girlfriend about the oddness of America.
     
     
    And so 2017 draws to a close. Thanks for reading folks, and I dearly hope you keep doing so. 2018’s gonna be wild and I’m still gonna be here ranting about whatever the ###### I want. Which, given that we’re seeing Black Panther, Pacific Rim: Uprising, and the new Tomb Raider movie come out, probably means more of the same.
     
    Cheers,
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