CyclonatorZ

What if Bonkles were just robots, and they lived in a universe where to be mechanical is to be alive, and to be organic is to not be alive? What if the Bohrok were Matoran who rebuilt themselves into more powerful forms, but had their mechanical brains replaced with organic computers, losing their souls in the process? What if the Makuta became evil at the precise moment they evolved from purely mechanical beings into beings of (organic) gas? What if the Piraka, and all the other Skakdi, are evil because they are actually controlled by the massive organic spine slugs on the back of their heads?

I can go on, if anyone is interested.

A 22 minute toy commercial that is totally self aware about being a 22 minute toy commercial? Lego cartoons are sure growing up - well, at least the ones promoting system-based themes.

(Note: I have personally seen neither the Nexo Knights or Bionicle shows, but the feedback others have given seems to indicate this is at least somewhat true.)

Controversial opinion: I liked Crystal Skull - in fact, I liked it more than Temple of Doom, which is the only one of the four Indiana Jones films that I outright despise.

(Come at me, internet)

 

 

We don't deserve a movie like this. Man. 

Are you implying that we do deserve more movies like Gods of Egypt? Wow, that might be the most stunning indictment of humanity I've read all day.

At this point, Marvel is pretty much a synonym for the word "money."

Heroes of the Storm, by virtue of the fact that its the only game I invested any money in last year that I'm still playing in 2016. Destiny grew tiring after about two months and my PS4 is about to be sold, and the Wii U has been collecting dust (will be getting Splatoon eventually though). As for PC gaming, the final Starcraft II campaign has been sitting at 95 percent completion since I bought it in November, and I've finally moved on from Team Fortress 2 and Valve in general.

That Heroes of the Storm though... I never thought I would enjoy a game in a genre that is almost invariably noob-slaying and unbearably toxic,, but Blizzard basically fixed everything utterly wrong with MOBAs, including adding a versus AI mode that turns it into a relaxing co-op game rather than a rage-inducing competitive clusterfudge (which you can still participate in as well, if you're interested in that kind of stuff). So here's to another year of buying playable characters with free in-game currency (and yes, occasionally with real money, because I'm a terrible person).

A very good year for you, TMD. I may not 100% agree with every particular point you made, but the issues you discussed are very real, and you've handled every one of them thoughtfully and with nuance rarely seen on much of the net. I look forward to another year of essays.

Favorite: Vader throwing the Emperor down the shaft, at least before the Bu-Ray version of ROTJ was released.

Least favorite: Vader throwing the Emperor down the shaft, post Blu-ray edition. I should have never watched the clip when it first leaked, because hearing that awful forced "No!" once was all it took to ruin the scene for me from that point forward. Thanks, George.

Hm.....

Oh wow, I hadn't heard about the Super Mario Maker announcement. Looks like Nintendo has been listening, for once.

Have you by any chance received money from Tim Cook, TMD?

Oh, well then I didn't actually miss it after all. I just had totally forgotten about that little debate, and didn't expect that a blog post made in 2015 would reference something that was posted over a year ago. But such is the life of a guy with an extremely poor memory.

Once again, I must have missed something that went down in the blogs. Fishers, I don't suppose you could provide the source of that DeeVee quote?

I'll be honest and say that, frankly, I think The Taken King is the best story Bungie has ever told - primarily because it doesn't take itself too seriously and contains several memorable characters. This is a huge step up from their work on the Halo series, which contained an excess of "plot" and "lore," but in my opinion failed to tell a good story. I's say there's a reason Cortana is usually noted as the most memorable character: because frankly, she's about the only character in the series that isn't a generic gruff military type or a one dimensional religious zealot. Also, Bungie appears to have finally discovered humor, which is never a bad thing. Hiring someone to write a bunch of jokes and then cutting every single one of them is by far the worst decision they made with Destiny Year One, and I'm holding onto the faint hope that they patch them back in, just as they patched in characterization.

Franky, TaMetru, I think you're looking as this the wrong way. I don't really think fear of on-screen interracial relationships is really the issue here, as opposed to the fact that the comic book movie industry's general idea of diversity is "here's the token black guy," I'm not as much worried about Sue Storm being black as I am about any femaie comic book movie character being black. As far as I know, the only people in the entire history of Marvel movies who fit that description are Storm from X-men and a couple extras in the original Spiderman. Meanwhile, the Avengers Franchise has only just gotten its first ever Hispanic character in Ant Man, and the number of Asians in the entire MCU total 3. It's pretty clear that Hollywood has much bigger problems than supposedly not wanting to show comic book characters of different races kissing.

This is why I felt the debate about the identity of the MCU Spiderman was missing the point. Here was a real chance to finally inject some diversity into the leads of the Avengers franchise, and yet the internet seemed to be only interested in casting their favorite actor from Community in the role. Look, I like Donald Glover too, and Miles Morales on screen needs to happen eventually, but is this really the best we can do, especially when we already know Black Panther is coming, and have already had multiple African-American characters in supporting roles? What about a Hispanic/Latino Peter Parker, or an Asian Peter Parker, or even a Native American Peter Parker? I certainly don't see many upcoming comic book characters who are of those races, let alone ones who are the star of their own movie.

(Sorry if this isn't worded the best.)

The Legend of Zelda isn't "brand new" in my mind, since we've known about it for over a year now. And honestly, I'm starting to think it might be moved to the Nintendo NX.

Gali Mistika.

Yep, that'd be the one. So ugly it wouldn't even have been a good set if they had marketed it as a villain.

Is Fallout better than the Elder Scrolls? Disclaimer: I've only played Oblivion, and while I sunk over forty hours into it, I eventually realized that I had been doing the exact same thing for 40 hours, and still hadn't memorized the name of a single "character." Supposedly Skyrim is much better, but I dunno, I'm a littler hesitant to try anything else Bethesda has put out.

I wish I could believe Borderlands 2 was that clever. Oh sure, it was funny. But I stopped think its story was so brilliant once I found out the new-U machines are non-canon. Basically, the writer has said that in order to understand the story correctly, you have to pretend that you haven't actually died and respawned all those times, and you haven't been going back through previous areas and facing enemies that also have died and respawned. In a game like Borderlands, whose game play is built on the common RPG premises of backtracking and farming for experience, this strikes me as incredibly lazy. Was there not a better way to present the concept of extra lives, in a way that actually meshed with the story they were trying to tell?

Eh, still a fun game though. One of these days I'm sure I'll complete it. I didn't just buy all the DLC during the Steam Summer Sale without reason.

Would a certain review by Mike Fahey on Kotaku have anything to do with this post?

Seems legit. Where can I donate?

Note: the above message does not guarantee that any literal transferal of funds will actually take place. Any definite transferal of funds will first be preceded by three or more of the following events: A. the evident sarcasm displayed in the above post is replaced with genuine interest. B. the current net worth of member ~~Zarkan~~ increases to at least twenty bazillion dollars, and c, all other possible monetary ventures are either ruled out or funded, of which include the following: the resurrection of The Spectacular Spiderman, Green Lantern: The Animated Series, and Transformers: Animated productions, the production and subsequetent purchase of quality Building block sets based on Nintendo and Starcraft, and the full development and release of Half Life 3.

Oh, Star Wars was indeed a piece of cold war literature - just not the kind many people think it is. Without going into too much detail and breaking the rules on political discussion, lets just say that Star Wars was written partially as an allegory for a very real war waged in eastern Asia, a war that George Lucas was not fond of. And as for the actual inspiration for the Galactic Empire, well, there's a reason George Lucas based the Emperor on a very real American politician.

Get Paper Mario for the Virtual Console. It's an absolutely amazing RPG. The only negative is that Nintendo messed up the port slightly - everything is a bit darker than it was on the original console. However, it's hardly a major enough issue to ruin the game.

I think all these Jurassic Park posts you've made are imprinting themselves on my subconscious. See, I had a dream a couple nights ago, in which I went to a showing of Jurassic World (for what reason I can not fathom), only to discover that the trailers were all lies, because the dinosaurs in the movie were actually feathered, and the movie was actually good.

I'm fairly certain Transformers: More than Meets the Eye is the best thing that has ever been done with the franchise. And the Generations toys the last few years are undoubtedly the best the line has ever produced. I'm glad I joined the fandom when I did, after years of casually following the brand and browsing tfwiki but never actually investing any of my own money.