(Spoilers for Rogue One: A Star Wars Story below.)
The Star Wars franchise has been blessed with some good movies in recent years, which I consider payback for the misfire of the prequel trilogy. Rogue One marked a departure from the standard Star Wars film, presenting a war story that was pretty good overall. Then again, it could have been terrible and I still would have loved it for the Vader scene at the end.
Continue reading “The Disturbing Implications of Star Wars Droids”
I’ma gonna talk about Star Wars: The Last Jedi here, and I’m not going to bother hiding spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie and want to be surprised, just skip this ramble until after you’ve watched the film.
Continue reading “Your Feelings Betray You: Luke Skywalker and The Last Jedi”
One of my main GMing strategies when I run a D&D or Pathfinder campaign goes something like this:
If I ever doubt this strategy in the future, I just need to think back to a Pathfinder game in 2017 which cemented this as a terrific strategy.
The Setup: The PCs, a group of high-level mythic characters, ventured into the Abyss to rescue an entire city that got sucked through a hole in reality. Continue reading “Gaming Stories: Hubris and the Deck of Many Things”
If humans found a way to clone dinosaurs, would you be down for it?
There’s no right or wrong answer to this question, unless you bring up Jurassic Park as an argument against cloning. Then you’re wrong.
Jurassic Park is a good book and an entertaining movie. But it always makes me grind my teeth when people use it as an illustration of the dangers of human beings playing God. It is not a cautionary tale about the dangers of cloning. It is a cautionary tale about running a shitty zoo. Continue reading “Jurassic Park is a Terrible Argument Against Cloning”
George Washington is one of the seminal figures in US history. He saw the fledgling nation through the Revolutionary War, served as the first president under the current constitution, and had the wisdom to give up power so as to encourage a peaceful transition to the next leader. Also, he might have been bulletproof.
Last time, we scratched the surface of an ill-advised attempt to make the ThunderCats franchise darker and edgier. The sexism, gore, and terrible storytelling of the first two issues pales in comparison with the final half of the miniseries. As always, I must share my pain, so let’s explore issues 3-5 of ThunderCats: The Return. Continue reading “ThunderCats, No! (Part 2 of 2)”
I don’t know why, but many people really seem to want kids’ entertainment to get re-imagined in a dark and gritty way. That’s one of the main complaints people seem to have about the upcoming ThunderCats reboot, which looks sillier than the original. While adult clamor for a darker version of ThunderCats (often ignoring that the awesome 2011 reboot was more mature and didn’t last more than one season), it’s worth noting that there is danger in going dark just for the sake of getting grim and gritty.
The ThunderCats franchise serves as a good example of why “more mature” often isn’t and why dark and gritty doesn’t necessarily make for better storytelling. See, the early 2000s had a ThunderCats reboot of its own in comic form. The resulting miniseries, ThunderCats: The Return is probably one of the worst comics I’ve ever read.
I don’t like to suffer through bad comics alone. So let’s take a look at this train wreck together, shall we? Continue reading “ThunderCats, No! (Part 1 of 2)”
The news of a new, silly-looking ThunderCats reboot has many fans of the 1980s franchise gnashing their teeth in anger. Personally, I don’t care about it, as ThunderCats was always sillier than fans like to remember. However, it does make me fondly remember that brief time in 2011 when ThunderCats was awesome.
ThunderCats Roar isn’t the first time Cartoon Network has tried to resurrect the franchise. It got a different kind of reboot in 2011, with an epic storyline, excellent quality art, top-notch voice actors, and some truly terrific storytelling. Sadly, all of that awesome got countered by poor marketing and Cartoon Network’s tendency to sabotage shows that don’t sell new toys. Thus, the show was canceled after only one season.
But what a season it was. There’s a lot to love about the 2011 ThunderCats series, but here are the elements that got me hooked after just a few episodes. Continue reading “ThunderCats, Woah!”
The Phantom of the Opera is one of my favorite stories but also one of the most frustrating.
Continue reading “Phantom Histories: Gaston Leroux’s Phantom of the Opera”
Last time we covered Superman’s brand of vigilante justice in Action Comics #1. That was the first of a two-part story, which continued in Action Comics #2. Part Two really highlights the wish fulfillment aspect of Superman standing up to corruption both in the United States and abroad. Continue reading “The Golden Age Superman was a Badass Vigilante (Part 2 of 2)”
Babbling Brooks 