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tzigone · 7 months

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What age first comes to mind when you think of each of the original NTT?

I've asked this previously with the JLI. It's not about how canonically old they are or you think they should be (absent de-agings, universe reboots, etc.). But when you first think of each of these characters, how old do you think of them as? So much depends on the eras you read with them, and what of that sticks with you, and which eras and aspects and relationships you most value. Not to mention how fast in-universe time was moving in your favorite eras.

Wally, of course, got married and had kids. They never let Dick do so in main timeline, but he has associations with younger Batfam members that make me think of him as older. Poor Raven and Gar were deaged and kept on younger teams even before the universe reboot. And we have Vic and Kory after.

For me, so much depends on the era I read them in. All have eras I just don't read them in, either because I don't like what's going on with them or because of general disinterest in what's going on with DC at the time (that especially covers recent times, as I kept waiting for continuity to settle, then the constant Events, which aren't my thing).

Speed-aging Wally's kids throws him off to me, too, as I'm not fond of speed-aging kids at all (or skip-timing as with Jon Kent). So in my head he ends up a new dad in his mid twenties.

Dick ends up late 20s in my head. Relative ages of other Bats play in, but I sort of cut off for him before New 52 (and I honestly never think of him as Batman) because I've never really gotten into anything of his after that (hate the de-aging). He should be older, of course, but I don't first think of him that way, again probably due to not reading later stuff much.

The others haven't had the same degree of solo work after the team, and I abandoned NTT shortly after Titans Hunt. I've read stuff with them here and there since, but never consistently read a Titans title since.

Raven and Kory pretty much stop for me then. It's hugely important from a storytelling perspective, but I simply dislike the whole concept of Dark Raven or Rachel Roth or the goth-y influences from the cartoon (which I liked when I watched it, but didn't want to influence the comics I didn't read comics then and now resent character being largely remade from it), and even though I know they exist, they don't enter my headspace. So Raven ends up in her early twenties.

Kory, as I said, is in a similar headspace to me. I know other storylines happened, but I'm even vaguer on those than Raven's. Another dead husband, more pain for Tamaran - sounds like basically story on repeat to me, though I didn't read it, so can't speak authoritatively. Don't get me started on having her and Jason (or Roy as Jason) as a team or even worse on putting her on Damian's Teen Titans. Anyway, I always think of her as early twenties, too.

Gar, interestingly enough, I tend to think of in his slightly older, more mature fashion. Not making his obnoxious jokes and sexually harassing female teammates. And operating in a time when Dayton simply isn't around (and Rita is dead). I'm not at all sure it isn't some not just amalgamated, but constructed version of him built out from what I wanted him to grow up to be. Anyway, he sits in his early twenties for me.

Now Vic - I kinda feel in some aspects like I do with Gar and in some aspects like Raven and Kory. Certainly the post Titans Hunt events don't factor in at all (I didn't like storyline even a bit before like, quit reading a few issues after, and forget a lot of what happened after that era with Vic even happened). More like Raven and Kory and less like like Gar, he was older and more mature. I think of him early or mid twenties and having found peace with himself and belief in his own humanity (which happened a couple times before he'd reset on it), but don't think of that as having just happened, so ending up adding a couple years.

Donna is the wonky one. I tend to stick her in two categories - recently married early twenties or recently separated mid twenties. While I think motherhood and her son were extremely important to her in-universe, I didn't read that era, so it doesn't stick with me. I have the before, when I was reading NTT. And I have some of the time during the separation (when she showed up in other comics I was reading) and cutoff before Robert dying, as that was really part of a soft reboot of the character/origins that didn't work for me. I mean, her origin has always been a mess, and moreso since COIE, but another changeup was not the solution.

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chromorbid · 1 year

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If you get this, answer with 3 random facts about yourself and send it to the last 7 blogs in your notifications, anonymously or not!

i just got so emotional over old ask chains bc of this, god you remember those days????? in 2012-2016 when this was a thing all the time and people had so much fun learning about one another and making friends??? i just happened to be looking at tags on my ollllllld second blog right before seeing this too. that feels a bit serendipitous, dont you think? :')

instead of just "3 random facts" i think i'll use this ask as a springboard prompt for a brief history of my time here on this website, since a lot of folks are returning and it might be nice to come out and see what some of my old lost chums might be up to now.

In mid-2011 i joined tumblr because i realized all my favorite dA artists were posting on dA less and on here more. I didn't do much here until i encountered a piece of fanart of a character from a certain webcomic, got curious about that comic, enjoyed it, and discovered that there was a big community on tumblr who liked it! my first ever URL was.... man i don't really remember! Maybe something reflecting my dA name at the time? But i don't remember what that was then either, having deleted that account ages ago. but i think my second one was "gamzeecryingalonewithpie" or something to that effect because the "laughing alone with salad" stock photo meme was big. It was so silly.

Eventually i trended into making all my urls/handles some sort of pun having to do with death, and some years ago i settled on my current url for a twitter handle because it really hit me in a place. My best friend and currently roommate @mossspores came up with it!

Anyhow, i basically spent all my time on tumblr being comparatively insufferable from 2011 to about 2017 before i migrated the majority of it to twitter. At the moment, I actually keep looking at all my archived posts from my old blog trying to find some old OC stuff and being ridiculously embarrassed at how silly (ignorant? abrasive? entitled?) my young self was. I'm not certain about sharing my olllllld URLs besides the one from before, but probably my most famous one was "ammodramus"--I was bestowed the nickname "Ammo" for the longest time and probably gained the most followers during the run of that one. I think the most followers i ever got up to was somewhere around 700 on my first blog and close to 1,800 on my second one. (funny now, i've had this particular blog probably the longest out of the three and barely have over 100. i like this better, though.)

Now for the BIGGEST thing i was part of....i was really into the whole once-ler fandom craze. yeah. i was there on the ground floor, and basically became one of the biggest enablers of the ask-blog phenomenon. i even tried really hard to make my own of the "personification" blogs eventually, but it fell down flat because i was in a dark place mentally on the side while also dealing with the gradual degradation of my physical ability to draw (aka painful arthritis). But i had the most fun i had ever had online before in the thick of it. i made toooons of friends and i even still keep in touch with a few of them. There were a lot of mistakes and upsetting blunders made by myself and a lot of people i knew, but these days i think i'm generally okay outing myself as having been a part of it. i mean, it's been ten goddamn years since that kicked off after all. lmfao. i was also an ignorant teenager.

Now you'll just see me skulking about on here vaguely while reblogging posts in short bursts because i still never took to figuring out how queuing posts works best. For a long-ass time i had a tagging system i took VERY seriously and trigger-tagged religiously. when i remade to my third and current blog, i gave that up and BOY did my mental health suddenly improve or WHAT. i realized i'd been absolutely running myself ragged with caring about appearances and making sure as often as possible to upset NO ONE with my posts. Basically, the way that simply analyzing every single post i shared and making sure to cover ALL my bases to make sure no one felt irked by my sharing of a post, was, uh. To put it mildly, fucking exhausting. And i posted A LOT. I can guarantee i had to have cumulatively reblogged nearly half a million posts between those two accounts. Last i checked on just my second blog, the pages went back into the 10,000s.

so yeah! hi to anyone who read through this whole thing who i knew way back when! I'm doing much better than i used to be, thanks to a lot of therapy and medication. i made it out of the house i grew up in, even the State i grew up in, and feel a lot less like i'm gonna die before 30! :') i've been chilling, playing final fantasy xiv, and eating lots of rice and vegetables. o/

thanks for the ask! <3

#combaticus #ask #wormds #ammodramus

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usagirotten · 1 year

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After The Dark Crisis Event This Is The New DC Multiverse

Another Crisis has come and gone, and the DCU is altered because of it. The events of Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths remade DC's infinite multiverse concept, sending out ripples across realities and causing disturbances all along the Divine Continuum. Fortunately, Crisis vet Barry Allen is here to make sure all is well, and he’s bringing two DC vets along to help. This week DC Comics will publish Dark Crisis: Big Bang, a new one-shot derived from the Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths event in the hand with a script by Mark Waid and drawings by Dan Jurgens with Norm Rapmund, will try to paint the panorama of the new DC Multiverse. As you will remember in Dark Crisis, the Multiverse was recovered after the Omniverse was the reigning concept after the end of Dark Nights: Death Metal. In this sense, with a frame that deals with the search for the Anti-Monitor by Barry Allen / The Flash, Dark Crisis: Big Bang will show us how the new DC Comics Multiverse was after the fight with Pariah. Dark Crisis is the third act of a larger story that Williamson's been building since DC relaunched its entire superhero line in the wake of the conclusion of 2020’s Dark Nights: Death Metal. In the closing pages of that series (by Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo) the fictional DC Universe was restored to a condition it hadn’t enjoyed since the mid-'198'0s, as the multiverse was once again recreated, with all continuity published by the company restored in some form or another to canon.

Barry Allen details all the Earths he has found so far and they include everything from worlds based on old comics to Earth 33, which would be our world. Below you can see the list that includes some of the comics that show those Lands: - Earth 0 - Described by Barry Allen as his Earth and home of the Justice League, it is apparently the main universe of the current DC Comics continuity - Earth 1 - This would be the Earth from titles like Superman: Earth One and is described as a world with young variants of the Justice League that are just beginning to operate as heroes. - Earth 2 - The world of the Justice Society. The reference material cited is The New 52 - Earth 3 - This is the Earth of the Crime Syndicate. - Earth 4 - Described by the Flash as a world with variants of the Question, Blue Beetle, and Captain Atom. The reference comic is Multiverse: Paxamericana. - Earth 5 - Here are the Shazam Family variants as in Multiversity: Thunderworld Adventures. - Earth 6 - This is the world with the Justice League variants of Earth 0 that correspond to the version of the DC Universe that Stan Lee (Spider-Man, Fantastic Four) devised in Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe . - Earth 7 - This was Thunderer's Earth, but it was destroyed. Reference comic Multiversity #1. - Earth 8 - The world known as Angor is identified as the home of The Retaliators (characters based on the Avengers from Marvel Comics) - Earth 9- The world of The Tangent Heroes, the characters from DC's Tangent Comics (1997) label. - Earth 10 - The home of The Freedom Fighters - Earth 11 – The world where variants that are of opposite genders to the heroes and villains of Earth 0 inhabit. - Earth 12 - This is the futuristic Earth from Batman Beyond. - Earth 13 - Barry Allen describes this world as an Earth based more on magic than science. It is the home of Superdemon. - Earth 14 - The home of the defunct Justice League assassins seen in Superman #15 (2017). - Earth 15 - Here is The Cosmic Grail - Earth 16 - The home of the famous sideckicks known as The Just (seen in Multiversity The Just) - Earth 17- A world destroyed by nuclear war in 1986. It is the home of The Atomic Knights. - Earth 18 - The fall of The Justice Riders, a frozen world in the Old West. - Earth 19 - The world of Gotham by Gaslight, described by Barry Allen as the world of "steampunk" heroes. - Earth 20 - Home of The Society of Super-Heroes and their pulp magazine-style adventures. - Earth 21 - The world of JLA: The New Frontier, where the Justice League was created during the space race. - Earth 22- This is the Earth from Kingdom Come. - Earth 23- The Earth of Calvin Ellis, President Superman. - Earth 24 - The world of DC Comics: Bombshells with heroines fighting in World War II. - Earth 25- This is where Tom Strong and his friends live - Earth 26 - The World of The Zoo Crew - Earth 27- A world where the Justice League exists but its members are dinosaurs (seen in Jurassic League ) - Earth 28- A world where heroes fight using mechanized suits (seen in DC Mech ) - Earth 29- The Bizarroverse - Earth 30 - Superman's World: Red Son - Earth 31 - This is the home of Leatherwing and the pirate heroes from Detective Comics Annual #7 (1994) - Earth 32 - Defined by Flash as a world with "random combinations of the heroes of Earth 0". The comic cited as a reference is Batman: In Darkest Knight, the 1994 comic where Bruce Wayne becomes Green Lantern. - Earth 33 - Apparently this is our world, where you are reading this note and attentive to what will happen with Dark Crisis because Earth 33 is "the world where superheroes are fictional characters." Flash #179 (1968) is cited as a reference. - Earth 34 - The world of The Light Brigade. - Earth 35 - The world of The Super Americans. - Earth 36-This is where Optiman and his friends live. - Earth 37 - "A dark world of rapid technological advances" as in Batman: Thrillkiller (1997). - Earth 38 - This is the Earth from Superman & Batman: Generations, featuring multi-generational and older versions of the Earth 0 heroes. - Earth 39 - The world of Agents of Wonder. - Earth 40 - The Earth of the evil versions of The Society of Super-Heroes (from Earth 20). - Earth 41 - Here live Spore, Dino-Cop and Nightcracker. - Earth 42 - "Chibi" versions of the Earth 0 characters. - Earth 43 - Vampire versions of the Justice League as in Batman & Dracula: Red Rain (1991). - Earth 44 - Robotic versions of the Justice League. - Earth 45 - The world of the artificers of Superdoomsday. - Earth 46 - Described as home to "a young Batman with a unique and unrecognizable rogues' gallery). It is the world where Batman: The Gargoyle of Gotham takes place. - Earth 47 - The home of The Love Syndicate of Dreamworld and The Inferior Five - Earth 48 - The world of The Forerunners - Earth 49 - The Land of Injustice (2013) - Earth 50 - A world ruled by the tyrannical Lords of Justice. - Earth 51 - The world of Kamandi, where an "accelerated timeline" caused a Great Disaster. - Earth 52 - The home of the heroes known as The Primate Legion. - Earth 54 - Here lives Tommy Tomorrow, a world of humanity arrived on Mars in 1960. - Earth 55 - The world of DCeased with the virus that turned the heroes and villains of that Earth into zombies (Earth 0 similes). - Earth 59 - The Flash defines it as "the first known parallel Earth", the home of Wonder Woman Tara Terruna seen in Wonder Woman #59 (1953) - Earth-63 —Overrun with vampire counterparts of Earth-0 heroes (DC vs Vampires) - Earth-66 —Batman and Robin face exceptionally benign villains (Batman '66) - Earth-93 —The Dakotaverse (Icon #1 et al.) - Earth-96 —Teenage students Batgal, Bumblebee, Supergirl, Zatanna, and others (DC Super Hero Girls et al.) - Earth-98 —Home of Green Lantern Tai Pham (Green Lantern: Legacy) - Earth-100 —Home to Teen Titans Raven Roth, Garfield Logan, Damian Wayne, and others (Teen Titans: Raven et al.) - Earth-118 —Medieval versions of Earth-0 heroes (Dark Knights of Steel) - Earth-124 —Home to Wonder Woman. Wonder Girl, and Wonder Tot (Wonder Woman v1 #124) - Earth-148 —Earth-0 counterpart heroes are villains and vice versa (World's Finest Comics v1 # 148 et al.) - Earth-162 —Superman and later, Batman divided into two separate beings (Superman v1 #162) - Earth-183 —Superman raised by apes (Superboy #183 et al.) - Earth-216 —Home of Superman. Jr. and Batman, Jr. (World's Finest Comics #215, et al.) - Earth-387 —No divergences in history other than every inhabitant is a werewolf (Adventure Comics #387) - Earth-789 —Superman and Supergirl are Earth's only powered heroes; Batman's parents killed by the joker. (Superman '78, Batman '89) - Earth-898 —A Justice League without a Superman (JLA: The Nail) - Earth-1956 —A teenage Superman (Superboy) and his dog, Krypto, are Earth's first super-heroes; later, home of the Super Friends - Earth-1996 —Mysterious "amalgamated" (?) heroes; requires further investigation? - Earth-2020 —Three generations of Supermen (Superman v1 #354 et al.) Read the full article

#cómics #DarkCrisis #dccomics #DCMultiverse #InfiniteEarths

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biolizardboils · 2 years

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head’s still full of Mother EarthBound Thoughts so im gonna spill some here. (warning this’ll be super messy and also contain big honkin’ spoilers for all three games)

for context i played and beat EarthBound after it came out on Wii U, then Mother 3 in 2015. i tried Mother 1/Beginnings at some point, but sadly my immunity to Old Game Jank doesn’t extend past the mid-90's. im a relatively young Mom Fan is what im trying to say here

i havent seen anyone here talk about the vid they put out for the Switch ports?? pls watch it its so cute and in-line with the games’ humor! lets all get to know Ness!!

im still watching Curiomatic’s Mother 3 vid daily and im still noticing new details and shit. and their website's so good too?? felt!Boney has my whole heart

my brain's been on fire imagining how the other two games would look in the same style. and like. it feels criminal to ask so soon after 1 and 2 got Switch ports, but a full 3-games-in-1 remake would be so good for the series for two big reasons:

1. it could fix 1/Beginnings' Jank and tighten its translation, bringing it in line with the other two, and

2. its the one situation i can think of that would force Nintendo to localize 3. like can you imagine if they remade the whole series and then left it in Japan?? people would have their heads!

not to mention a game with a modern 3D engine would be leagues easier to edit than the sprite-based original. cus while im scared of NoA over-censoring the game as much as the next guy, there are a few things in it that could’ve been done more sensitively, and that altering wouldn’t harm the plot if done right. i doubt i need to name specifics

also on the selfish side, i just wanna know what would change in terms of visual design. i wanna see all the enemies move in battle and Pippi with beady eyes like everyone else and how they’d officially differentiate Ninten’s design from Ness’s, and most of all i REALLY wanna see official art of Beginnings!Giygas. i wish to grasp his true form so bad it makes me look stupid

not that i dont like the fandom’s agreed-on designs!! far from it, i love them!! like Giygas having red-and-black eyes as foreshadowing is genius and whoever first came up with it deserves an award

i made a party playlist in case 3 ever got localized back when i was more hopeful about it. how far back, you may ask? i included this unironically. that far lmao

one of my fave things about the series is how, despite being made in Japan, it pays homage to so many distinctly Western pop-cultural concepts that it’s instantly nostalgic to the average English-speaker. the Spielbergian coming-of-age film, the dot-eyed yet contemplative comic strip, the kitschy B-movie monsters, the King-esque entities conveying the loss of innocence, the pairing of psychedelia with an insistence on peace over war. for a funny parody of America, it’s fascinating how right it feels at the emotional level.

speaking of psychedelia, i wanna plug this amazing prog rock cover album that deserves more love. like holy shit, youd think this is how some of these songs were always meant to be played. ive never had a drug trip cus im terrified of messing up set and setting, but to have my first while hearing this played live would probably feel beautiful

speaking of more psychedelia, last month i thought Polka Dot Tail by Ween sounded super familiar, and i just realized why: it sounds like Magicant (the second one). i might try to make a mashup later idk

ive been meaning to watch a vlog of Camp Fangamer’s EarthBound Bash 2015 for years and this week i finally did it! shit looked like so much fun, and i cant think of another game series that’d make for such an immersive event. i could only find one extended video of the Mother 3 bash they did a year later, but it seems like an equally transformative event, if not more despite Lucas being a mannequin

listen....i know people have done the math and ruled it out as a possibility....but i still really like the idea of Ninten and Ana being Ness’s parents. i just think its cute and neat and also opens up some opportunities for angst (something something the fear of your kids inheriting your personal battles)

bonus points for Lloyd being Dr. Andonuts cus i think itd be funny if he was the only character to appear in all three games

while im here confessing my fan sins, lemme add that i treat Smash Bros as canon cus it gave the world such gems as Ness’s eyes being purple and Boney having leg warmer fur

man i remember first seeing Porky in Subspace and thinking he was trapped in the spider-mech thing and i had to free him.... ah, the innocence of youth

removing Lucas from Sm4sh was a bitch move but the trailer when they put him back was honestly SO worth it. like him returning Ness’s favor from Subspace?? everyone noticing he smiled more and being so proud of him?? that was the best day of my life

speaking of bitch moves im still confused by how u get Claus, Hinawa and the Masked Man’s spirits in World of Light. like what the fuck did Nintendo mean by that shit. their placement and the fights themselves are such a specific gut-punch that its hilarious. killing two gods wont bring Claus back

but also its...nice to think that Lucas got a chance to see them again. like maybe one of the other fighters who knew his deal freed them and brought them to him, and everyone let them have a moment before they fought Galeem and Dharkon. imagine Claus being all “told ya we’d meet again someday :’) let’s go beat up that angel thing together!”

also cus Smash made me so used to it, i refer to all PSI moves as PK. even the ones that are PSI in both languages, like Magnet. PK Sue me

so like... im a twin. my sister and i love each other more than anything. we played 3 together, and quickly agreed that i was the Lucas to her Claus. what happens between them in the game is my absolute worst fear. ive had nightmares since childhood with the same basic theme -- losing her to a decision i can't sway her from -- so the final boss and the "hasty brother" line after gutted us. when youre literally linked from birth, it's hard to imagine life without, and even harder to prepare for the possibility. this game forced us to do so, and it hurt like hell, but it strengthened our bond in the process.

theres already a hundred essays about it but i love how 3′s ending manages to reflect every player’s wishes. everyone’s got their own idea of what Lucas wished for, so here’s mine:

the entire planet was purified and made habitable again

all the Chimeras were split into their original animals (but some of them chose to be friends still, so there’s at least one kangaroo and one shark that hang out often)

everyone that Porky abducted from other time periods were sent back with their memories intact (so Dr. Andonuts gets to be with Jeff again and is also less likely to be employed by another asshat)

im one of those people who thinks Lucas didn’t revive anyone who died, because it doesn’t feel right after the characters spent three years coping with it. (all the power to people who disagree tho, it’s all cool!) instead, i think he wished for a new place to honor everyone they lost, resulting in a beautiful new cemetery hidden in the sunflower field outside Tazmily. strangely, it contains lots of gravestones that no one recognizes; one with a haiku written on it, ten crosses lined up in two rows of five, even one the size of a bug; and at the very back, a swirling metal statue engraved in an alien language, lying between two stones marked “XX”.

and finally, i think Lucas wished to meet whatever force was looking after his world all this time, so he could thank them personally... and thats how you, the player, ended up in the game :)

im still utterly charmed by the image of the player, struck blind from being pulled into another world, being lead by the hand (and pokes in the back) to meet Lucas,,, like its okay sweetie you can say goodbye as many times as you need, im so goddamn proud of you!!! ill see you in Smash okay???

i think thats everything i wanna say? uhhh heres a fanmix i made six years ago

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anonil88 · 3 years

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Wandavision Ep. 9 (series finale) liveblog

Obviously there are spoilers below read at your own wishes im including a gif to give you more time to scroll away

The picture is the family together in fight stance omg omg let me hit play

We back right where we left off.

Yea she wants to absorb your power sis, nah fuck that Agatha you can fuck right off.

I can see the cgi in the window and car.

Oh fuck this white mother fucker. Vision please come save your wife. Ayyy my guy!

I mean is he her ex? Or just her exes body.

Multi boss battle time!

This has to be Peter from X-men just being manipulated.

Wanda really did create an entire man the only thing missing is the body.

Um we are missing a few scenes here. When did they capture Jimmy?

You handcuffed a magician? Stupid.

Cliff? Who's that?

So they are about to have a boss battle amongst civilians lmfao. They probably won't even notice what's happening.

On the nose entry of the Darkhold.

It's not her destiny to destroy the world at all. Even in the comics she fights and fights that destiny time and time again.

Oh no, angry puppets. Run Wanda run!

Mrs? Ralph is that you?

Oh it is Ralph they casted Evan Peters to tease us all about x-men im guessing.

That is fucked up to tease us with that.... I'm just saying that is fucked up.

She doesn't even know how she has done this, she really thought she was doing the right thing.

Ugh this feels like when grief gets overwhelming.

No WANDA NOOO, oh shit she really doesn't know how to control it fully at all.

Get out everyone get out!

Wtf is Agatha planning?

Oh no Vis! His soul, if only he gets closer to her.

No the boys....if only she could find a way to tether them to her and not the world she created.

She is going to try and suck wanda dry oh my lord.

Haha family stance too cute. A family that fights together, stays together? Maybe.

Ooo are together gonna fuse?

She is a hero and learning very very fast.

Ayyy boys

Monica lets goo! Take that Hayward.

Hayward is an entire bitch. Fuck him.

Oh they are gonna have a logic battle or a battle of the brains. Exactly you are both vision now kith.

Who will this new vision be? Not quite how I expected it to happen with an awakening but yay, the rebirth of vision!

But, will he stay alive at the end of this? This new vision not Wanda's remade husband.

Let's go red wiggly woos and nightmares. Destroy you with your worst fears or your regrets.

Dammit.

A witchhunt really?

No wanda not like this. Agatha is a liar and has shown that why would you trust her?

We all thought vision would die but what if it's Wanda? Oh no.

Me to Agatha Harkness:

Oh? Did she unknowingly cast another spell?

Ah ha that's why she was hitting the barrier so wanda is a visual learner.

I hope she gets that Darkhold book and reads it.

She is writing her own damn story. I know that's right.

COME ON CROWN

COME THROUGH OUTFIT

Ngl you can see they ran out if cgi budget this episode BUT I love this cute redone style of the comic book outfit. The new ones not the old ones.

Also she doesn't need you, she has a guy named Dr. Strange that she can call.

Awe this is so sweet but I know that this will end. I love that we see her vision and her boys happy all together because we do not get to see that in the comics really like all at the same time.

They are now friends in the comics that share kids, yaknow divorced parents that stay friends but can't make a relationship work.

At least for a couple moments we get a happy power family in house 2800, that get some last sweet beautiful moments.

They will live forever in her heart.....and cough eventually reincarnated cough. Their sound are very real.

I hope she saves that photo at least.

She healed and found out more about herself and who she loved, thats beautiful.

So he's not gonna tell her that he gave her vision the other back?

Awwww they are so in love and marvel doesn't even let them be happy in the comics.

I mean you literally will say hello again his body with his memories is flying outside right now.

Aww vision.

Emo wanda has returned in aesthetic. Starts playing BMTH or PTV

She's like I'm sorry, oh and she said it.

Oooo with the hood and cape on yesss. She is pretty much a rejected member of society and "herodom" now who runs off to discover herself after a really fucked up situation and then a messy engagement similar to comics. Kind of like how Peter is set up to be in the mid credit scene at the end of far from home.

Wanda really said:

Midcredit scene reaction!!

Is Jimmy gonna be director?

Coronet?

Yes a skrull! Talos heard? How? Yay Monica is going to space like she always wanted!!

AN END CREDIT SCENE!!!!!

Thats the lake from the other movie right? Uh all these wait is Thor around? Oh wonderful I love this oh yes give me Wanda educating herself with this book. And she has learned sustained working projections without creating another hex, I love that for her. Two places at once. WE GOING TO THE MULTIVERSE, which i don't think she will be a villain for.

For a finale this was just okay like not great but good enough to pass because after all this is Marvel not Starz or HBO (GOT aside). I understand now why the executive or was it director said this would be a dissapointment. A lot of people had so many theories running but even with my own theories i haven't been conflating them as definites. The only one i did was Monica's scientist and now Pietro being just Ralph revealed. After seeing last weeks episode I just said imma just fully enjoy this last episode and didn't pay mind to many of the new theories.

Anyways I'm not super disappointed this was just an okay finale. So was Legends of Tomorrow's last season finale which I still found some enjoyment in. But, I'm not as excited for Falcon and the Winter Soldier because I can tell from this episode we are going back into movie marvel action with little depth.

I really enjoy the non-officially but official MCU shows like Jessica Jones or Agents of Shield because they often do both. The depth and the action which this show did with a much larger budget. I get there are probably plot holes in this episode for time or filming restriction reasons but still like dang it. Well this has been fun thanks for whoever reads these haha.

#wandavision liveblog #wandavision spoilers #wanda x vision #wandavision

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twiststreet · 4 years

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Waiting for a plumber to call back, which has completely derailed my day...

The Last of Us 2 (2020): Fan art by Leonardo Romero. Anyways, this has its weaknesses (the story didn’t go places I thought might be more interesting, and it took me longer to warm up to some of its choices as you can kind of see the design choices they’re making to try to get you to warm up-- the Tim Rogers review of the last game that came out this week made for an interesting juxtaposition in that respect; plus, I just wasn’t really in the mood for monster fights in this game since the human work was so much more interesting) and its strengths (some of the most technically amazing level design I’ve ever seen specifically when you go into that suburb of Seattle, wild physics shit, a story that I think ultimately really works and is successful in its goals, Naughty Dog’s better-than-anyone visual and visual design work, an A++ ending, Naughty Dog’s ongoing commitment to story and design flowing from where the characters are emotionally rather than “plot”, the actual acting-- Patrick Fugit as one of the biggest fuckboys I’ve ever seen in a game, the massive and often-astonishing scale of it, all the ways you could see lessons from earlier games get applied to this one, those videos of people playing random songs on the games’ in-game guitar, etc.).

One of the most ugly and sad responses from an audience I’ve ever seen, though. Gamer weirdos yelling about a “trans character” that wasn’t the games’ trans character (the number of dudes online admitting they’ve never seen a woman’s body outside of their computer monitor is wild right now-- just dudes telling on themselves). SJW people yelling about the actual trans character in a way that I found really off-putting, just ignoring what people are trying to do, the degree of difficulty in doing it, and the way applying rigid rules to that is massively unpersuasive and fundamentally anti-art. (It’s that “no one should get to tell anyone else’s story besides me” shit from the will-never-be-happy-with-anything type brigades that I have no time for. Mid-00′s tumblr shit that thankfully has mostly left this site and transitioned to harassing twitter). Games are neat sometimes, but everything about them is the worst kind of trash.

Lost Bullet (2020): a French Netflix movie about a car-guy who gets recruited by cops trying to stop “go-fast drivers”, but then gets mixed up in some hijinx. The French like a certain kind of action that I’m getting into-- if you saw Sleepless Night (which I think Jamie Foxx remade?), it has that same quality where it’s like... I guess the better comparison is Haywire, where you’re just watch a guy in a room in sort of slow, very tangible fights that are not exciting in their editing and no one seems especially trained to fight, so the pleasure is just in seeing bodies mash up against each other and try to get out of that situation...?

And then ending is a hoot because it kind of becomes a 1980′s ending, like James Garner’s Tank or something. It turns into the A-Team for this car bit. It’s all practical car shit too so if you’re into car shit, it’s fun for that in a way that modern American car movies stopped being, once they learned how to CGI cars up...

It’s a netflix movie though so there’s about 20-30 minutes there they could’ve cut, even though the movie’s only about an hour and a half... Nothing really worth watching but I liked the bits I liked...

The Trip to Greece (2020): I’m not sure why this is the last one-- I still want a Japan one-- and the movie doesn’t really make a case to end these. It does go dark at the end-- I don’t think very successfully to be honest-- but I just like these movies a lot. I just like having one on. There’s some guys; they go somewhere; they eat; they talk about Mick Jagger. I just like that; I like that formula; I like that they got this many movies out of that... It’s been a while since Winterbottom’s hit outside of these though so it’s probably good that he’s moving on though-- it’s been a while since he had a 24 Hour Party People...

Action Journalism (2020): I got curious a night or two ago what Criterion designer Eric Skillman was up to in comics since it’d been a while since I heard his name-- it turns out he has been self-publishing a short series of 16 page black and white comics drawn very pleasantly by Miklos Felvideki. The comics are sort of all ages science fantasy adventures about a Lois Lane-type character having adventures-- not much there to the writing since it’s for kids.

But boy do you ever see that guy’s skills as a designer-- just a lot of good choices being made!! (Well with one exception-- he tries to do a sideways comic in #2 which I get the desire for-- I’ve done one myself *takes a bow*-- but it doesn’t work digitally at all, not on a desktop anyways... That’s a paper-only move). The covers are all comic pages that start each issue? Or him and Felvideki use a zipatone thing for the lighting, that just looks great to me. It just looks right...? It looks like what it’s supposed to look like, I think.

Nothing to rush out to read, if you’re a grown person, but I thought it was a really likable project-- I hope they enjoyed making it...

The last couple comics I’ve read have been big awful mainstream things (to see what I’d been “missing”-- apparently just BAD LETTERING)(nothing worth mentioning), so maybe I was more in the mood for it because of that, though.

This Video of Phoebe Bridgers Talking about Albums: Delightful! I like her new one...

The plumber’s not calling back; my day is fucked here...

#movies i saw in 2020 #Man is the Deadliest Game.#Worst Hobby or Worstest Hobby?

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aroacemisha · 4 years

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So like.. I think I’ve come to a realization.

For some time I was wondering, why am I so unmotivated? In like, early and mid 2018 I was posting a lot of art, I think I might have been drawing every day, and sometimes posted two drawings a day, but now I post like, maybe a drawing a week at best. And oddly enough, I have a little more time now than I did then.

And yes, part of the reason I do less art is because I improved immensely since then and my art has begun to move closer to a realistic style, so it takes more times, but still, I spend less time drawing, even though there’s nothing stopping me.. besides the lack of motivation.

But where does that come from?

Well...

Partially it may be because I don’t get enough feedback, but I think a bigger reason is what happened between early/mid 2018 and around autumn(?) of last year. Doing art for a fandom.

I just noticed a difference between how I felt in early/mid 2018, in my fandom art phase, and how I feel now.

While in the very beginning, early 2018, my now original story, Crossroads of Chaos (which I have a blog for - @crossroadsofchaos), was a Hello Neighbor AU, it stopped being one fairly early in development and became its own thing.

But even then, in the first few months that I was doing art for it, I still wasn’t really doing content “for a fandom”. I was drawing for myself. You know, the thing they recommend you to do when you feel sad because you don’t get much feedback. And I was doing fine. I drew a lot more.

But then in mid 2018, I started doing art for a fandom. Made my interpretations of characters, and started posting stuff about it on a different blog, the CofC blog mostly becoming inactive for the time. I won’t say what fandom it was, because I want no mention of it on my blog, and because it doesn’t really matter.

But I gradually started to want more notes and attention. Not sure what caused that shift. Maybe the fact that at some point I was followed by someone who was popular in the fandom and I was hoping I could one day get a boost and have more followers.

And slowly, my soul was being drained by the lack of feedback. I was losing passion and energy. I cancelled the series of fics I was going to write after just one chapter, and gave up the plans to turn it into a comic. And I’ve been doing art for a fandom for like, a year at that point.

It hurt every time I saw a new person coming to Tumblr, seemingly not having met the popular people on other sites or irl before, but immediately getting a boost, while I was posting stuff for so long and never got one. And a lot of times I felt like people were deliberately ignoring me and my content, just scrolling past it. I even feel like that now sometimes.

I had unpopular opinions, unpopular ships, and hated some of the most popular ships (I’m very picky with ships in general). That definitely contributed to me not getting much attention, but it still hurts. And eventually it drained me.

It’s not the only, and not the main reason I left the fandom though. I was also just losing interest in the franchise and didn’t like where it was going. I took the characters (the interpretations I had of them to be exact) that were the dearest to me and remade them into OCs for CofC, so I could keep them without associating with the fandom anymore.

The last ask I ever got on the fandom-related blog, just a day after reopening my inbox, was anon hate towards my favorite ship, an unpopular one. And then, after roasting that anon, I closed my inbox again, knowing I wouldn’t get anything else. No one gave a shit. Even though that blog had the most followers out of my blogs.

And here I am now. A ton of ideas. No energy. No motivation. And hoping for more followers and more feedback.

---

Oh wow this is long and kinda sad. But also I guess my self-esteem is a little better these days? And I’m finally not too anxious so I can actually talk to my friends? I dunno I’m trying to make this a little more positive.

But also I definitely write a lot more now, which is good, but I don’t want it to completely replace drawings. As much as I like writing, I’m still first and foremost an artist.

#mj thinks aloud #not tagging this as venting because it's more an observation than anything #and i'm not sad rn. i'm okay

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kristasclassicfilmereview · 4 years

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What to Watch this Holiday Season!

Life can get a little busy for all of us this time of year. Some of us may find it a little difficult to get into the holiday spirit. Most of the time I find watching a Christmas film or show helps to boost the spirits. So I have compiled a list of film suggestions that I have compiled and continued to watch every year. For me, I watch a lot of these films when I making my dozens upon dozens of Pizzelles during the Christmas season.

Please keep in mind there is no ranking system to this list, it is just a list. Some films I have already written about previously. Others I have watched but not have written. Also, like my thanksgiving list, I do have an honorable mention section as well. So here is my list.

1. White Christmas- 1954: For me, this film has been one of the first films I watch right after Thanksgiving, normally Black Friday or during the weekend. To be honest I think it is mainly because of the music. Most have heard of this musical, and even listen to songs during the holiday season but if you have yet to watch it, the story is a song and dance team become involved with a sister act who help out an owner of a failing Vermont Inn Owner who was their commanding officer. This film has an all-star cast; Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney, & Vera-Ellen. A fun fact about this film this is not the first time the song White Christmas has appeared on film and sung by Bing Crosby. The first time Bing Crosby sang White Christmas was during the film Holiday Inn in 1942.

2. Miracle on 34th Street-1947: The first time I watched this film was probably when I was 10 or 11. Yes, I was 10 or 11 watching a black and white film! It always came on right after the parade. When a nice old man who claims to be Santa Claus is institutionalized as insane, a young lawyer decides to defend him by arguing in court that he is the real thing. I don’t know if it was Natalie Wood, Maureen O’Hara, or Edmund Gwen who made me a believer in Santa when I was young, but this film has the potential to make even the Grinch a believer.

3. It’s a Wonderful Life-1946: Growing up this film has always been a Christmas Eve Tradition in my family. This the one film I never watch before Christmas Eve. I am happy to say this tradition continues to live on even as we have gotten older. Some may say this is the number one Christmas movie of all time, which they are probably right. It is just a wonderful film. For those who have not seen this film, the synopsis is an angel is sent from heaven to help a desperately frustrated businessman by showing him what life would be like if he never existed. This film was directed by Frank Capra and stars Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed, and Henry Travers.

4. The Shop Around The Corner-1940: If you search through my blog you will find this is one of my favorite films. Also, some may realize this film has since been remade with You’ve Got Mail. This is a fun romantic comedy starring Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan. The story goes two employees at a gift shop can barely stand each other, without realizing they are falling in love through the post as each other’s anonymous pen pals. You may wonder why a film such as this has made my list, well the gift shop is gearing up for the Christmas rush and the film concludes wonderfully at the end with sweet Christmas present.

5. Christmas in Connecticut-1945: Again if you search through my blog you will find a more detailed write-up. But this film is great on so many levels. This film gives us a look into what Christmas was like in the mid-’40s. Somethings may have changed, but some things have stayed the same. The synopsis is A food writer Elizabeth Lane (Barbara Stanwyck) who has lied about being the perfect housewife must try to cover her deception when her boss (Sydney Greenstreet) and a returning war hero (Dennis Morgan) invite themselves to her home for a traditional family Christmas.

6. The Man Who Came to Dinner-1942: imagine its weeks before Christmas and you have your favorite radio personality coming to dinner at your house. He slips and hurts his hip, and cannot travel until after Christmas. Well, this is what happens in this film. Sheridan Whiteside takes up house and runs the show for the duration of the film until his personal secretary gives him a run for his money.

*Fun Facts about films 5 & 6 cast Fun facts about the cast, most of the actors have all acted previously together in other films. Sydney Greenstreet and S.Z. Sakall was in Casablanca in 1942 with Claude Raines and Paul Henreid who both were in Now Voyager 1942 with Bette Davis who was in The Man Who Came to Dinner 1942 with Reginald Gardiner who played John Sloan who is Elizabeth’s love interest in Christmas in Connecticut.*

7. Love Actually-2003: a great British comedy. This film follows the lives of eight very different couples in dealing with their love lives in various loosely interrelated tales all set during the month before Christmas in London. The

8.Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer-1964: this is a Christmas classic for young and old. We all know the songs and who Burl Ives is.

9. Charlie Brown Christmas-1965: Another classic for those young and old. At times we all feel lost and we all want to find the true meaning of Christmas. I am sure most of us continue to watch this multiple times through the Christmas season as I do.

10. Polar Express-2004: It happens, heck to some of us it happened way too early. We stopped believing in Christmas.

11. The Bishop’s Wife-1947: Again if you search through my blog you will find a more detailed write-up. This film stars Loretta Young, Cary Grant, and David Niven. Julia Brougham (Young) is a woman of great strength, who longs for the days she can spend with her husband Bishop Henry Brougham (Niven). The Bishop is so bogged down with financial woes because of building a new Cathedral, in the beginning, he feels his wife doesn’t support him and that causes a strain on their relationship. Dudley (Grant) is an angel who is sent in human form to help both Julia and the Bishop. Without giving too much away, Dudley doesn’t cause trouble, but the Bishop doesn’t quite understand what Dudley is doing and what caused him to show up. This film definitely gives me the heartwarming feeling of the holidays. It’s a film that you can curl up on the couch with a cup of cocoa, and blanket while watching or curl up on the couch with a glass of red wine and blanket like me.

12. A Christmas Story- 1983: let’s face it we all wanted that one thing that is equivalent to the Red Rider BB Gun. It’s just a fun movie.

13. National Lampoons Christmas Vacation-1989: This is another film that comes with a little tradition as well. My father had me watch this film for the first time when I was like 12. This film takes the idea of family coming in for Christmas and puts a complete 360-degree spin on it. Everything that could go wrong does.

14. Elf-2003: Whimsical films are always welcome. Deep down we are all a little kid on the inside

15. Scrooged-1988: there are a lot of adaptations and remakes of a Christmas Carol out there. Scrooged is the most comical version I have seen. A selfish, cynical television executive is haunted by three spirits bearing lessons on Christmas Eve.

16. Meet Me in St.Louis-1944: Again if you search through my blog you will find a more detailed write-up. Some people consider this a Christmas movie because of Judy Garland’s rendition of “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.” She sings to Margaret O’Brien at night time on Christmas Eve and it makes Margaret and the rest of us think of better days ahead.

17. Holiday Inn-1942: A great musical starring Bing Crosby and Fred Astaire. At an inn which is only open on holidays, a singer and a dance vie for the affections of a beautiful new performer. This film also marks the first appearance of the song White Christmas sung by Bing Crosby.

18.Home Alone-1990: This film has always been a childhood favorite of mine. I remember when my brother and I got it on VHS and we immediately watched it. An 8-year-old boy must protect his house from a pair of burglars when he is accidentally left home alone by family during Christmas Vacation. This film has always been a favorite of mine and I am sure it will be in film rotation soon.

19. It Happened on Fifth Avenue-1947: this is a heartwarming film that still holds up today. It provides a look at the class systems in the ’40s through the eyes of the rich and the poor. A homeless New Yorker moves into a mansion and along the way, he gathers friends to live in the house with him. Before he knows it, he is living with the actual homeowners.

20. Jingle All The Way-1996: Like Home Alone, this is another childhood classic. I first watched this film when I was younger at my babysitter's house. A father vows to get his son a Turbo Man action figure for Christmas. However, every store is sold out of them. He must travel all over town and compete with everybody else in order to find one.

Honorable Mention:

As you have already read this list is quite extensive I couldn’t list all the films. However, here is a couple for those in-between times where the film may not be on tv or you may have gotten overruled when using the main tv. So here they are.

1. The Santa Claus Movies (1,2,3) 1994, 2002, 2006: I think a lot of people underestimate these films or forget these films do fill the holiday spirit.

2. Santa Claus is Coming to Town-1970: We all need to reminded of the story of Santa Claus as told by Fred Astaire.

3. Holiday Affair-1949: We all need a little Christmas romance starring Janet Leigh and Robert Mitchum. A young widow is romanced by a sales clerk who she inadvertently got fired.

#oldmovies ChristmasClassics Classics thattimeofyear

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spidey2k19-blog · 5 years

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Fandom - The Kingdom of Fans

For this week’s topic, we will be taking a look into Fandom, the general perception that our media has for Fans as well as the impact that these fandoms leave, whether or not it empowers fans to join in the cause for fan activism.

Fandom

“Fandom as a whole is a subculture that celebrates a mutual bond formed between people over a book series, TV show, movie, band, or other forms of pop culture” (Morrison, 2016).

Here are a few questions that you may ask yourself. Do you enjoy watching certain television series or movie series? Do you like a certain brand or is loyal to a certain brand? Chances are, you are also a fan of something yourself. What does this mean? It means that you have a personal ticket to the Kingdom of Fandom! In simpler term, you get fandom when a group of individuals who shares the common interest gathers and forms a group or community. Using some of the most notable fandoms, we can see that there are a handful of fan communities for certain television series or movies such as Lord of The Ring, Harry Potter, or better yet, Game of Thrones. Oh, by the way, have you heard the latest uproar that fans caused which led to a petition being made for the final season of Game Of Thrones to be remade? That is among the many few movements that you will see coming out from Fandom.

(Look at the number of people that has signed the petition, over 1.4 million people, that is crazy!)

Apart from fan communities, there are also other forms of fandom such as the offline extension which comes in the form of Comic Cons and fan community gathering. Fan Wikipedia is also another form of fandom whereas a Wiki page for a certain series/movie/brand is made and fans from all around the globe can re-edit the page based on the latest information. This serves as a platform for those that wish to seek for more information regarding a certain TV series or characters.

(I myself am a fan of the anime series One Punch Man so I consider myself as a frequent visitor to this fan Wiki. I have to say, this is also one of the many few benefits that our general community can reap from the presence of Fandom.)

Media’s Perception of Fandom; are they weird people and do they benefit our community?

With the existence of Fandom, it brings us to the question of whether Fandom is good or bad and what are the perception and view that our media today has for fandom and fans? Are they nothing more than people who are overly-obsessed on their favorite TV series, character or movies? Or are most fans jobless, in their mid 30′s and has a weird sense of fashion as shown in the image above? You see, the answer is simply none of the above. Fandom can be so much more than how the media today may perceive them to be.

“The hit Adult Swim show “Rick and Morty” is a good example of fandoms gone wrong. Fans of the show run the gamut of people who casually enjoy the show to mindless reference-slingers to elite fans who hold all others in disdain” (Richoux, 2018).

In this case, there are also cases of some fans who bear the nature of being overly-obsessed on their favorite TV shows which may also prove to be toxic to the general fan community, also seen from the statement made by Richoux (2018). Richoux (2018) also argues that “financially backing the series, discussing it with friends and sharing the franchise with your kids is a healthy and reasonable way to enjoy the product while obsessing over and judging people for their Harry Potter house is not.” I personally agree with this statement as I believe that as a fan of something, we shouldn’t be comparing how superior our favorite tv series is to others, or intentionally insulting other fan communities just for the fun of it. Trust me, it really isn’t that hard to just sit with your fellow friends and talk about your favorite show, why the need to drag others into it?

Apart from all that, another way that fandom may benefit our community is the self-healing power that it may carry along with. “Belonging to a fandom group helps adolescents connect to other like-minded youths on social media throughout the year, as well as at concert events. Feeling like you are part of a group can help one define his/her identity and give a sense of purpose to what might be an otherwise routine lifestyle” (Wiest, 2017). With this statement being laid out, one thing for sure is that being in fandom may also help an individual to further improve and fix their communication skills.

Also previously stated on how fan Wiki is part of Fandom (One Punch Man), one benefit that this brings is that it actually refreshes your intellect and adds on to your research skills are you would need to do proper research before editing or even coming up with a fan wiki page. To keep your mind active and to be ready to receive new information while enjoying your favorite TV Show or Movie at the same time is truly a wonderful thing to do.

So, am I a FAN?

I can say that I definitely am a fan of something myself! There are just too many movies and TV shows that we can sit back and enjoy and I really do believe that there is no need to make fun of other fanbases just because you may think that your favorite series or movies are more superior. The beauty of fandom lies in the harmony interaction that fans have with each other, be it in the form of information sharing or gathering of fan communities. With my experience, all I can say is that Fandom and Fan Communities can truly bring people from around the globe together.

References

Richoux, K. (2018). Opinion: Online fandoms toxic to fans, poorly influence media perception. [online] Reveille. Available at: http://www.lsureveille.com/daily/opinion-online-fandoms-toxic-to-fans-poorly-influence-media-perception/article_af5c3b10-1590-11e8-b9f8-730b87ad390f.html [Accessed 19 May 2019].

Morrison, M. (2016). What Is Fandom And Why Is It Important?. [online] The Odyssey Online. Available at: https://www.theodysseyonline.com/what-is-fandom-and-why-is-it-important [Accessed 19 May 2019].

Wiest, B. (2017). Psychologists Say That Belonging To a Fandom Is Amazing For Your Mental Health. [online] Teen Vogue. Available at: https://www.teenvogue.com/story/psychologists-say-fandoms-are-amazing-for-your-mental-health [Accessed 19 May 2019].

#fandom #mda20009 #digital communities #fan

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buzzdixonwriter · 2 years

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Batty ‘bout THE BAT (1930 movie)

THE BAT WHISPERS (1930)

Roland West tried his best to recapture lightning in a bottle with The Bat Whispers in 1930, and while the film has a lot going for it, it doesn’t have enough.

He remade The Bat almost scene for scene, shot for shot. The miniature work is impressive and must have been mind-blowing to audiences of the day, and the film (or at least one of three versions of it) was shot in an early 65mm widescreen process.

So wot hoppen?

The Great Depression, for one thing. Audiences didn’t give up on frivolity altogether, but it was a harder sell. When people fear being kicked out on the streets, they don’t have a lot of sympathy for wealthy dowagers being stalked by masked maniacs.

Sound movies, for another. There is an unreal, dream-like quality to most silent films, even the ones set in supposedly real settings.

The lack of dialog and typically color makes the films more unreal, and as a result they slide into the subconscious more easily. (There is ample anecdotal evidence that during the silent era and up through the arrival of inexpensive color film in the 1950s, most people who regularly attended movies only dreamed in black and white!)

But contrary to popular misconception, the revolutionary breakthrough of sound was not in Al Jolson singing “Mammy!” but in Al Jolson ad libbing a short bridge between two songs in 1927’s The Jazz Singer.

There had been synchronized music / sound effects films before, and more than a few short subjects of popular singers, dialect comedians, and Shakespearian actors orating, but Jolson’s ad libs were the first time an audience saw a movie with somebody who talked like them.

And while realistic films didn’t become the sole genre for talkies, they sure proved a strong support, and more fanciful plots found in silent films gradually succumbed to more naturalistic story telling.

No not all, not every, but enough to put the dampers on a lot of once popular genres.

West believed enough in The Bat that he paid for the cinematography out of his own pocket. Three versions of The Bat Whispers were filmed and edited simultaneously: A regular screen ratio domestic release, a foreign release version, and the big 65mm roadshow.

All three were presumed lost until the mid-1980s when the 65mm and part of the foreign release were rediscovered and restored.

They’re impressive to look at, and in a few places fix problems in the earlier version (Banker Fleming doesn’t fake his death but pretends to be out of the country at the time of the crime), but they never seem to capture the delirious mood of the 1926 movie.

In both films The Bat is captured when he carelessly steps into a bear trap that Lizzie sets out early on to catch him.

In 1926 it’s just another arbitrary off the wall plot point in a movie so filled with arbitrary off the wall plot points that the sheer ridiculousness of a super-villain along the lines of The Bat being captured so stupidly just doesn’t sink in at all.

But when ya start talkin’, then the stupid really shows.

They do up the ante with The Bat in this one; he’s not merely a ruthless master criminal but he’s also genuinely deranged, waging a sadistic war on the world. They use that to directly address the audience and warn them not to reveal The Bat’s identity to others, but this time the gag doesn’t work.

The camera work and miniatures are again impressive, but oddly don’t work as well as the clearly theatrical ones Menzies designed. (They worked well enough for Bob Kane to swipe them for imagery in his Batman comics, but then Kane swiped from everybody and everything.)

The Bat Whispers is just too much. The Bat got everything right, The Bat Whispers comes oh, so close…but doesn’t.

#Roland West #The Bat 1920 #The Bat 1926 #The Bat 1959 #The Bat Whispers 1930 #Bob Kane #Batman #William Cameron Menzies #Mary Roberts Rinehart #Avery Hopwood

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aion-rsa · 3 years

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Could a Walking Dead Negan Sequel Happen?

https://ift.tt/3hdhAPD

If there’s a clear theme permeating the early, Alexandria-focused episodes of The Walking Dead’s extended eleventh and final season, it’s that Negan seems to be a dead man walking. While proving useful since he was freed from years of incarceration, his survival seemingly hinges on sticking with a group whose leadership still carries traumatic memories of his many sins, notably the night he—with a cruel comedic flair—brutally bludgeoned their loved ones to death with a barbed-wire baseball bat. However, Jeffrey Dean Morgan seems intent on continuing to play the character beyond the show’s endpoint, despite his diminishing chances.

Morgan has been playing the sardonic Svengali survivor for over five years, having debuted in a most impactful way—figuratively and literally—in The Walking Dead’s Season 6 finale for a cliffhanger moment that became a cynically controversial waypoint for a significant population of the show’s viewers. Yet, despite being the character embodiment of a divisive moment, Negan’s arc has made quite the evolutionary curve over the years, going from the powerfully villainous leader of the Saviors to downtrodden-but-dangerous prisoner to his current status as an alienated group member who, despite his best efforts to gain acceptance—notably killing enemy leader Alpha—remains a pariah. In fact, his abrupt execution remains firmly on the table by leader figures like Maggie and Daryl, especially in the wake of a recent moment of recidivism, in which Negan left Maggie to a herd of walkers (she survived). Yet, Morgan expressed to TV Line that he still sees a substantive future with Negan.

“I do love Negan,” says Morgan. “There’s an amazing opportunity to dive a lot deeper into this man who I think has become very interesting the last few years. I’m certainly not opposed to keeping him alive for a bit longer and finding out more about him.”

Of course, said opportunities potentially lie with the lofty plans that AMC revealed last year for content beyond the endpoint of The Walking Dead mothership series, which ends its legendary, decade-plus run sometime in 2022 with Season 11, Episode 24. Most pertinent among them is the planned anthology series, Tales of the Walking Dead, which will not be chronologically bound by the events of the final season, thereby facilitating episodes centered on long-dead characters, one of whom by that point could be Negan himself. However, Morgan also teases the possibility that Negan could even get his own spinoff, a move that would mirror the still-untitled Daryl & Carol sequel series. That show will chronicle the post-series-finale exploits of the franchise OG characters, who are expected to ride a motorcycle across unexplored areas of the contiguous post-apocalyptic United States; a move that essentially endows them with plot armor for the duration of the final season.

The Walking Dead is Basically Little House on the Prairie Now

By Alec Bojalad

Could The Walking Dead: World Beyond Jadis Casting Set Up the Rick Grimes Movies?

By Alec Bojalad

“There’ve been things discussed with me and network people,” teases Morgan ever so carefully on the potential of a Negan spinoff sequel. “We’ll see. I mean, Negan could still find his way six feet under [before Season 11 concludes], so that could be a problem unless it’s a prequel.” Indeed, with AMC’s airing (not counting AMC+ advance releases) of The Walking Dead’s final season currently only three episodes into its grand total of 24, the task of survival will especially become a marathon-like haul for Negan, given his current status.

Yet, notwithstanding the possibility that these interview comments are a red herring for Negan’s imminent death in Season 11, something seems to be motivating Morgan’s clear desire for a prospective future past the main series, lending the comments a sense of earnestness. Indeed, he makes a minor disclosure about the extent of his knowledge for The Walking Dead’s future events. “[T]here are still stories to be told with Negan,” he states. “I kind of know how the season has worked itself so far, and we’re cracking open windows here and there that would lend themselves to more [of] Negan story.”

Tellingly, the alleged discussions that Morgan had about Negan’s future don’t seem to center on the character’s past, which was showcased prominently—albeit in an incomplete manner—in this past April’s Season 10 finale, “Here’s Negan,” which was an adaptation of creator Robert Kirkman’s 2016 comic book miniseries of the same name. That’s because Morgan is more interested in Negan’s future—at least, in the event that he actually has one—rather than the open-book nature of his past. “I’ll be very honest with you, if I was to do more, I would like to move forward with the story and not backward,” he states with frankness. “We’ve shown these different sides of Negan over the past few years. Now, I’d like to see, after this ends, what happens to him next. I find that possibility to be a lot more interesting than going back in time.”

Preference aside, Morgan isn’t entirely dismissing the idea of revisiting Negan’s past for a post-series reprisal of some kind, seeing as “Here’s Negan” left an open field for most of his early apocalypse activities. With the contemporary-set plot of Negan’s temporary escape from his Alexandria imprisonment as its center, the episode delved into flashbacks about his life during the onset of the undead apocalypse. Here, we saw the heretofore non-existent priorities of the loud-mouthed philandering gym teacher abruptly change into to a desperate attempt to keep his beloved cancer-stricken wife, Lucille (Morgan’s real-life wife, Hilarie Burton), alive as the supply of life-saving chemotherapy drugs dried up. Thusly, when a group of bikers extorted Negan over the last supply, thereby leading to Lucille’s death, a Heisenberg-like metamorphosis ensued, first via the revenge he extracted, and also by his incidental rescue of Laura (Lindsley Register), which gave him the misbegotten entitlement of being a savior, to whom tributes are owed, thusly serving as the basis for his eventual group’s name and methodology. Interestingly, showrunner Angela Kang has expressed a desire to properly showcase the origin story of the Saviors at some point, be it as a run on Tales of the Walking Dead or some other method.

AMC

While the story retroactively remade Negan into a tragic figure, it’s doubtful that Maggie, Rosita or Daryl—each of whom experienced his past big-bad-era firsthand in uniquely personal ways—will be able to conjure any sympathy for the man. In fact, the same could be said of segments of the fandom who—akin to Morgan—prefer to see the mythology move past plot points for which we already know the ending. “I loved what we showed [of his history] in ‘Here’s Negan,’ but now we’ve done a lot of that story,” he says. “We could do a short series on how the Saviors came to be, which would be kind of interesting, but I’m more looking forward.”

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For now, fans will have to follow along with The Walking Dead Season 11‘s weekly Sunday night run on AMC, and its advance premieres on AMC+, building toward a mid-October hiatus. Subsequently, limited series spinoff The Walking Dead: World Beyond will start its second and final season on Oct. 3. Shortly after that, veteran spinoff series Fear the Walking Dead will shift focus to the Geiger-Counter-clicking literal fallout of its explosive season finale when Season 7 commences on Oct. 17.

The post Could a Walking Dead Negan Sequel Happen? appeared first on Den of Geek.

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kaiserdingus · 6 years

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MegaMan PSP Games - Powered Up / Maverick Hunter X

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The Mega Man series has always been tough for newcomers to dive into. Its a series based on challenge, skill, and memorizing stages and patterns. The original series was restrained by the technical limitations of the time, so they look more cartoony and kid friendly. The Super Nintendo’s Mega Man X series was a sequel intended to carry the torch and bring the Blue Bomber into the 16-bit era with a new look, new moves, and a new, more mature storyline.

In 2005 Capcom announced a pair of simultaneous releases for Sony’s PlayStation Portable handheld console. Mega Man Powered Up and Mega Man Maverick Hunter X were remakes of the first games in the Mega Man and Mega Man X series that utilized the 3D capabilities of the PlayStation Portable to render new ways to experience these gems of gaming. Both were remade with the idea to be accessible to newcomers, and plans were in the works for sequels to both games based on Mega Man 2 and Mega Man X2.

Unfortunately, sluggish sales would lead to both sequels being canceled. Today we have the Mega Man and Mega Man X Legacy Collections to give us our fill, but these titles were more than just ports. There were new features, new bosses, they were practically their own games worthy of their own discussion. That’s why today we’re going to be taking a look at Mega Man Powered Up and Mega Man Maverick Hunter X.

MegaMan Powered Up

It’s said that when designing Mega Man, Keiji Inafune wanted to use a “super deformed” style for the characters. Big heads on little bodies for a funny, cute look. The problem was that the technology of the time made it difficult to portray this style, so a compromise was made. The characters were still cute, but the proportions weren’t as exaggerated as originally intended. Inafune would get his chance to try his “chibi” designs when Capcom announced Mega Man Powered Up in 2005, a complete remake of the original Mega Man, updated for Sony’s new PSP handheld.

Gaming had changed a lot between the 1980’s and the mid-2000’s. Before, game design was influenced by arcade trends. Challenge and difficulty were added to games of the time to hide the fact that these games theoretically could be beaten within the span of a few hours. The original Mega Man games came from an era where rental services like Blockbuster made it easy for someone to spend $5 instead of $50 on a game for the week. If a game could be beat in an afternoon, then there was no reason for the gamer to buy the game. This was also helped by the lack of save features in these early games.

In the mid-2000’s, however, these tricks were irrelevant. Game development had reached a point where games had enough content. There was no longer a need to pad a game with challenge to keep them from beating it in a single sitting. With this in mind, Capcom sought to re-work the original Mega Man series for the next generation of kids who hadn’t grown up with the originals. Now there are multiple difficulties to cater to different kinds of players.

The premise, characters, levels, music, almost everything in the game are based on the original Mega Man, but now everything is expanded upon. Characters pop-out in 3D, and the levels follow the same designs, but now the world feels more alive. The story is played out through character dialogue and little cutscenes. This game would go on to influence the story and characters in the Archie tie-in comics.

Two new characters were created specifically for this game, each with their own unique level. Time Man and Oil Man bring the game’s original six Robot Masters up to eight, in line with the rest of the series. Oil Man’s design would cause controversy as it closely resembles the “Blackface” stereotype, with his black skin and big red lips.

For some background, Japanese artists are influenced by those who came before them, and a lot of the original manga artists learned from American cartoonists. Blackface portrayals were prominent in American cartoons and comics, which were imported to Japan after World War II. The average person in Japan doesn’t have any context for the history of Blackface in America, which doesn’t excuse the depictions. Because of this cultural misunderstanding, Oil Man’s skin was turned dark blue and his lips were colored yellow.

My favorite addition to this game is the ability to play as the boss characters you defeat. Each boss has their trusty weapon as their base weapon, and now the empty hole they left in their stage has been filled by a rogue Mega Man who’s looking for trouble. There are other playable characters, but I won’t spoil them for you.

I’m disappointed that we never got to see any sequels to Powered Up. It seemed like the perfect formula for Mega Man. Remake 1 through 6 in this style, maybe 7 and 8, then they could’ve done 9 and 10 too. Every time I see a new trailer for 11 I just think of it as a sequel to Powered Up, but with a more streamlined design. Don’t get me started on Mighty No. 9, the unfortunate “spiritual successor” to the Mega Man series.

Mega Man Powered Up is one of the best PSP games, and possibly one of the best Mega Man games. It’s unfortunate that it came out too early in the PSP’s lifespan to really take off, maybe if Capcom had ported the game to the PS2 or Gamecube it would have fared better.

MegaMan Maverick Hunter X

Maverick Hunter X, the companion title to Mega Man Powered Up, is a remake of the 1993 Super Nintendo classic Mega Man X. Unlike Powered Up, which completely redesigned the classic Mega Man, Maverick Hunter X stays relatively true to the original design and style of the Mega Man X franchise. It features anime cutscenes, similar to those used in Mega Man X3 and X4. One could argue that the animation and voice acting are noticeably better this time around.

While Powered Up was designed to be accessible for anyone, Maverick Hunter X is designed to be a more mature challenge. There’s no Easy Mode this time, only Normal and Hard. The first Mega Man X was never as challenging as later games in the series, but it wasn’t a walk in the park. Maverick Hunter X isn’t easier, but it does feel a little tighter to control.

The MegaMan series has never been strong on plot, but the Mega Man X sub-series does have a surprisingly strong lore. This has only ever been casually hinted at, with little exposition besides a few animated cutscenes or slideshows. Maverick Hunter X delivers a decent story in the form of an animated opening cutscene, as well as character dialogue between stages. Each boss battle opens with a back-and-forth between X and the boss in question where they explain their perspective before jumping into the action.

Once you beat the game you unlock what’s probably the coolest bonus a video game can have: a 25 minute animated film. The Day of Σ is a self-contained animated special that ties in with the game. The special is a prequel that ends where the game begins, and it tells the story of Sigma and the other reploids going Maverick.

This approach to video game storytelling works surprisingly well because it doesn’t interfere with the gameplay. Most story-driven games feel bloated with unending cutscenes, other games don’t feel fleshed out enough when they don’t include any cutscenes. Maverick Hunter X including an anime OVA is similar to 2003’s Dot Hack series from Bandai, which also came with a four part animated mini-series. 2010’s Dragon Ball Raging Blast, also from Namco Bandai, similarly featured a 20 minute special called The Plan to Eradicate The Super Saiyans.

Fans of the Mega Man X series have noted some inconsistencies with Maverick Hunter X and The Day of Sigma compared to the rest of the franchise. These story inconsistencies wouldn’t matter if Capcom had gone through with their plan to reboot the X series. Had they continued the groundwork started by Maverick Hunter X, future games would fill in the blanks, and re-tell the original stories in new and exciting ways.

As far as fan speculation goes, we can draw all of Mega Man’s problems in the late 2000’s/early 2010’s right here. Mega Man Powered Up and Maverick Hunter X were great games, but for one reason or another neither title was very successful at the time of release. What’s worse is, Maverick Hunter X was available digitally on the PlayStation Network Store when the PlayStation Vita debuted, but Mega Man Powered Up couldn’t get the same treatment due to technical issues.

Both games are great and it's a shame that they’re lost to time, trapped forever on a long forgotten handheld. I have nothing against the Mega Man Legacy Collections, but I miss the days when developers attempted to remake their classic games for later generations. While there’s no arguing against the value of preserving original games and making them available to be played as originally intended, I think the world would benefit from more modernized remakes that take advantage of today’s technology to do things they could never originally do.

I hope one day Capcom releases both Mega Man PSP games. Possibly alongside other mid-2000’s curiosities like Mega Man X Command Mission and Mega Man Network Transmission. There are enough oddball Mega Man spin-offs to fill a few more Legacy Collections, I think.

Where to Buy

Mega Man Powered Up (PSP)

Mega Man Maverick Hunter X (PSP)

Mega Man Double Pack (PSP)

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junker-town · 3 years

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The Bulls are finally acting like a big market team again

Bulls fans pleaded for a front office change for years. When it finally happened, the team suddenly started acting like the premier franchise it always should have been.

It started with a billboard. Chicago Bulls fans took it upon themselves to raise more than $8K for an advertisement on the corner of Lake St. and N. Racine Ave. in the city’s West Loop neighborhood with a simple message: “Fire GarPax.”

The sign had gone up just weeks after the Bulls’ braintrust of John Paxson and Gar Forman decided to trade Jimmy Butler, a flat-out superstar in the prime of career with two years left on a contract that was massively below market value. It was the type of scenario most front offices and ownership groups dream about, one that opens up an endless amount of team-building avenues with a little creativity. Instead, the Bulls chose to punt, deciding they’d rather sacrifice a few seasons by tanking than trying to build around the best draft pick they ever made.

Three years later, Butler returned to the United Center again, this time to be named an NBA All-Star for the fifth time in his career. The game was in Chicago, but the Bulls’ presence was merely relegated hosting duties. The franchise had no All-Stars, but it was worse than that. There was no hope. The Bulls were among the NBA’s worst teams year after year, but they weren’t quite bad enough or lucky enough to land Luka Doncic or Zion Williamson. The only time the Bulls were ever discussed nationally is when their comically overmatched head coach found a new way to embarrass himself and his city, be it by igniting a near player mutiny a week into the job, installing a literal punch clock in the practice facility, or annoying opposing coaches with his bizarre timeout usage.

As the team’s best player, Zach LaVine, was being interviewed by ESPN right outside the arena, fans interrupted his answers with a loud “Fire GarPax” chant. It was a new level of rock bottom for an organization that only specialized in reestablishing how low it could go.

It never should have been on the fans to get this involved, of course. Paxson had been the team’s top executive for 17 (!) years; Forman was brought into the fold when the team hired Tim Floyd to replace Phil Jackson in 1998. The decision to fire them should have been an easy one, but even the simplest choices become convoluted in the weird world of owner Jerry Reinsdorf. To the chairman, keeping Paxson and Forman was an extension of the ‘loyalty’ that his closest allies believed was his defining characteristic. To everyone else, it was a fancy way of saying he was either too cheap or too lazy to care about his team as much as the fanbase did.

Paxson could have had his job forever if he wanted to, but why? He was clearly miserable. He had started calling his radio interviews “interrogations,” his team was terrible, his hand-picked coach had turned into a punchline. The billboard, the chants, the losses, it finally started to pile up.

Paxson did the only thing he could do: he asked to be replaced.

Photo by Joe Pinchin/NBAE via Getty Images

Two years later, the Bulls have a new front office and a reinvigorated sense of hope, even as the team entered Thursday’s trade deadline five games below .500. Arturas Karnisovas and Marc Eversley were hired from the Nuggets and 76ers respectively to be the team’s new braintrust. Forman was fired, and Paxson was promoted into a position of no authority. Jim Boylen’s dissertations on spirit and the soul after every loss have been replaced by Billy Donovan’s competence and professionalism.

A team that had zero All-Stars only two short years ago now has two.

The Bulls swung the biggest deal of the trade deadline, sending out two lightly-protected first round picks and former GarPax lottery selection Wendell Carter Jr. to the Orlando Magic for Nikola Vucevic and Al-Farouq Aminu. It would be headline news for any team, because Vucevic was the only star that changed teams at the deadline. For the Bulls, it felt like a signal that they should finally be taken seriously.

For the last two decades, the Chicago Bulls did not make trades with the goal of improving the team. Yes, they swung a deal for John Salmons and Brad Miller ahead of an instant classic playoff series with the Boston Celtics in 2009. We’ll also give them credit for acquiring Otto Porter Jr. — included in the Vucevich trade as a salary match — even if it didn’t work out. Aside from those two examples, every trade the Bulls made in the last 12 years was essentially a salary dump. By trading for Vucevich, the Bulls were for once acting like the big market team they always should have been.

Karnisovas and Eversley had to do something. Since being hired ahead of last offseason, their only moves were signing veteran Garrett Temple to a one-year deal and drafting Patrick Williams at No. 4 overall. The rest of the roster was untouched from what Paxson and Forman had built. Hiring a real coach in Donovan had at least made the Bulls less humiliating, but any improvement was coming from resurgent veterans like Thad Young and an incredible efficiency leap from LaVine rather than the players the Bulls drafted in the top-10 after trading Butler.

Lauri Markkanen, Coby White, and Carter were’t going to be the saviors GarPax had hoped for. The Bulls either needed to trade LaVine and tear it down again, or give him a true co-star. The Bulls believe they have found the latter in Vucevic.

The player Vucevic is today at age-30 barely resembles who he was when he entered the league in the 2011 draft. The 6’11 big man did most of his work in the post throughout the start of his career in Philadelphia and Orlando before he remade his game to fit into a league that demanded more shooting range out of its big men. After not even attempting 10 three-pointers total in any of his first five seasons in the league, Vucevic has turned himself into something close to a knockdown threat. This year, he’s making 40 percent of his threes on 6.5 attempts per game.

Vucevic has never played with anyone as good as LaVine, and LaVine has never played with anyone as good as his new center. The two should form a deadly two-game on offense with Vucevic’s newfound shooting ability setting up a killer pick-and-pop routine. LaVine is already one of the league’s best at getting to the basket. Add in Vucevic’s passing ability — he’s finished in the 93rd percentile or above in assist rate for centers the last four years, per Cleaning the Glass — and the Bulls’ offense just became a lot more dynamic.

The Vucevic trade wasn’t the only move the Bulls made on Thursday. They also pulled off a three-team trade highlighted by the acquisitions 21-year-old guard Troy Brown Jr. and veteran center Daniel Theis from the Celtics. Theis has been a productive player in Boston for the last four years and was only let go so the team could avoid the luxury tax. Brown is a former five-star high school recruit at point guard (here’s a 2015 feature we wrote on him back in the day) who was moved to the wing in college in Oregon and then in the NBA. While Chicago’s rumored pursuit for Lonzo Ball came up short, it’s possible Brown could play a similar game as a connecting piece who brings plenty of skills to the table without needing to be a volume scorer.

It is no exaggeration to say Karnisovas made more trades to impact the roster in the span of a few hours than Paxson did in nearly two decades. The previous regime wanted to build slowly through the draft, hoping their selections would mature together and form a golden generation for the organization. They found some success with the Kirk Hinrich, Ben Gordon, Luol Deng clubs of the mid-00s, and again with Derrick Rose, Joakim Noah, and Tom Thibodeau at the start of the 2010s. Those teams always came up just short, though, handicapped by their own narrowing thinking and refusal to throw their weight around as a big market club.

The deal the Bulls made for Vucevic on Thursday was the type they should have made when they had Butler. No one would have missed mid-round picks like Bobby Portis, Tony Snell, and Denzel Valentine then. In reality, the Bulls likely never even seriously considered it. By finally ditching GarPax, the Bulls opened up a whole new world of possibilities the franchise had spent decades ignoring.

Perhaps the most exciting thing for the franchise is that there’s more work to be done. Adding Vucevich makes the team better, but it doesn’t exactly lift them to contender status in the East. The Bulls need to take another big swing. You can bet they’re going to do it after the way they overhauled the roster at the trade deadline.

Chicago could still be waiting for its precious draft picks to develop right now if the fans hadn’t taken matters into their own hands. The Reinsdorfs just didn’t care enough to install a new front office themselves. Whether this is the start of the Bulls changing their league-wide perception remains to be seen, but for once the Bulls did something different. They thought big.

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adjameson · 5 years

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Like a lot of people my age, I just missed out on seeing the original Star Wars movies in the theater. Instead, I grew up with them on VHS. And right around when I was really getting into them, in 1986, Star Wars went away.

Which perplexed me at the time. Why did Star Wars disappear in the mid 1980s? And why did it come back, and come back differently, starting in 1991? These questions haunted me so much, I eventually wrote a book about the subject: I Find Your Lack of Faith Disturbing: Star Wars and the Triumph of Geek Culture. Because it’s an interesting story, I’ll explain what happened in this series of blog posts.

Let’s start by going back to the beginning. The first Star Wars film came out in 1977, and was followed by two sequels: The Empire Strikes Back (1980), and Return of the Jedi (1983). Because they were big hits, they spawned a lot of peripheral products. For instance, there was the Star Wars Holiday Special, which aired on 17 November 1978.

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There were also Star Wars comic books, published by Marvel, and featuring characters like Jaxxon, a giant green rabbit.

In ’84 and ’85, respectively, there were two television movies starring the Ewoks: Caravan of Courage: An Ewok Adventure …

… and Ewoks: Battle for Endor.

In addition to Ewoks, the latter film featured Teek, an annoying alien who pestered Wilford Brimley.

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And there were cartoon shows, like Droids and Ewoks, which first aired on 7 September 1985.

Droids didn’t last all that long, ending in June 1986. Ewoks made it to the end of the year, wrapping up on 13 December.

As you can see, there were a lot of Star Wars tie-in products released between ’77 and ’86. But after 1986, there was … nothing. The movies, the TV shows, the comics—as well as the action figures—they all came to an end. (In fact, the toy line, beloved by children at the time, ceased production in ’85.) When the Ewoks cartoon went off the air in December 1986, that was it. The following four and half years were Star Wars free.

At the time, I couldn’t understand it. Wasn’t Star Wars the biggest thing ever? Weren’t there going to be more movies, more toys, more comics, more TV series? How could something like that go away, disappear, less than ten years after it started? Weren’t they even going to mark the ten-year anniversary of the release of the first movie?

No. The four-plus years that followed were the Dark Times …

Of course, as we all know today, that wasn’t the end of the story. Star Wars returned in May 1991, with the publication of Timothy Zahn’s novel Heir to the Empire.

It was followed by two more novels, and then dozens more, going on to become what was known (at the time) as the Star Wars Expanded Universe.

Meanwhile, in December of that year, Dark Horse Comics picked up where Marvel had left off, publishing the miniseries Dark Empire.

Just like with Zahn’s novels, this opened the floodgates, and led to a great many more Star Wars comics.

There were also Star Wars video games: Star Wars for the Nintendo in ’91 (finally!), then Super Star Wars in ’92 for the SNES. Both of those games got sequels, and the following year saw the release of X-Wing, which led to a whole line of Star Wars-themed flight simulators for PCs.

And that’s not all! There was also a series of technical guidebooks, the Essential Guides, which started in 1995, giving fans a wealth of information about the franchise’s weapons, vehicles, planets, aliens, and more.

All of those product lines were successful, and are, more or less, still in production today (though some of them changed publishers, and some of them changed form—the Essential Guides, for instance, were supplanted by the Wookieepedia). Unlike the Ewok movies and Droids cartoon, they didn’t fade away.

What’s more, looking back now, it’s easy to see that the 1990s products were categorically different from the stuff released between 1978–1986. All of that old merchandising was aimed at kids. And a lot of it was goofy, looking to us today out of character for Star Wars. Most of it’s been forgotten, and if it’s remembered today, it’s mostly considered campy, or cringe-inducing.

So what happened? Why did Star Wars disappear, and why did it come back? And why did it change when it came back?

The obvious answer is that the kiddie Star Wars fans (like me) were growing up. But I couldn’t help but think there was more to the story. Because adults had been into Star Wars, too, back in the 1970s—everyone had liked it. (That’s what made it such a hit!)

It’s important to understand that, back when Star Wars first came out, it appealed to three different groups—three different demographics. First, it appealed to general audiences, people like my parents, who went to see it in the theater (how lucky). They had a great time, but they didn’t become big Star Wars fans. For instance, they didn’t go see the next two movies in the theater, and they sure as hell didn’t watch things like the Star Wars Holiday Special, or the Ewoks cartoon.

Star Wars also appealed to children. Lucas clearly realized this, because he made a lot of products for those fans—nearly all of the Star Wars merchandise released between 1977–86 was designed for them. But here’s the thing. Kids grow up quickly, and they age out of kiddie products just as quickly. In the mid-1980s, I wasn’t into things like the Ewoks movies or the cartoons. Baby stuff like that embarrassed me, Star Wars connoisseur that I was. (I wanted to see Darth Vader duel Obi-Wan on a planet made of lava. How awesome would that be!)

In addition to general audiences and kids, there was one more group that liked Star Wars—a third demographic. Namely, geeks!

In my book on geek culture, I argue that geeks aren’t just fans of all things science fiction and fantasy. Geeks tend to be techie people, people who like the STEM disciplines. As such, they like seeing those disciplines—science, technology, engineering, math—applied to fantasy. They don’t want fantasy that’s childish, or hokey, or campy, or goofy. Rather, they want realist fantasy.

This is another important point to understand. People routinely think of realism and fantasy as opposites, but they’re not. Realism is a mode, or a way of making art, while fantasy is a genre. Any given artwork in any given genre can be made to be more or less realist. It all depends on what kind of choices the artist makes. (If you’re interested the relationship between realism and fantasy, so am I, and I write extensively about it in my book.)

George Lucas was himself a geek, someone who first got into cars as a kid, then got into cameras and filmmaking equipment (which is what led him to develop Industrial Light and Magic, as well as things like the THX audio company). At the same time, Lucas loved fantasy. In particular, he loved the Flash Gordon serials, which he watched on television in the ’50s.

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By the mid-1970s, Lucas couldn’t help but wonder what Flash Gordon might look like if it were remade, and done in a more realist style. His inspiration was the realist movies being made around him—the so-called “New Hollywood,” of which Lucas was a part—in which a number of filmmakers were busily applying realist techniques to staple Hollywood genres, such as crime films …

… and “creature feature” monster movies.

Today, people often think of Star Wars and Jaws as the films that brought an end to the New Hollywood, killing off realist, adult films like Bonnie and Clyde and The Godfather. But the reality is more complicated, and that argument misses the fact that Jaws and Star Wars were themselves classic products of the New Hollywood. Just like movies by Arthur Penn, William Friedkin, and Francis Ford Coppola, Jaws and Star Wars derived their power, and became smash hits, in large part by applying realism to popular genres, and thereby revitalizing them.

The realism of Star Wars appealed mightily to geeks. At the time, geeks were mostly underground, but they were out there, and they were starting to find one another through things like Star Wars conventions and fan zines. In the late ’70s and early ’80s, they embraced Star Wars. But they thought about it differently, and approached it differently, than kids did, and general audiences did. Indeed, they immediately began embroidering Star Wars, and expanding it, the same way they’d done with Star Trek, speculating about how lightsabers worked, and what the Kessel Run was, and what the Wookiee home planet was like—which are the kinds of things that geeks do.

… To be continued in Part 2!

The Death and Rebirth of Star Wars: Part 1 Like a lot of people my age, I just missed out on seeing the original Star Wars movies…

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erictmason · 7 years

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Top 10 Disney Movies They SHOULD Remake

The Great Disney Remake Train shows no sign of stopping, especially after its most recent entry, “Beauty and the Beast”, managed to make a killing at the box office despite being, y’know, pretty Not Good At All. Combine that with the fact that, last year, they were even willing to do a remake of “Pete’s Dragon”, a movie which has only ever been a cult classic at best, and it becomes clear there’s basically no aspect of its considerable film library Disney isn’t willing to mine going forward. So, rather than bemoan the admittedly-tiresome reality of just how Corporate that strategy is, I thought I’d take the opportunity to think over a few Disney films that I’d actually like to see receive a remake. The only criteria here are pretty simple:

1.) If Disney publicly attached its name to the film in question, regardless of in what capacity, it’s eligible.

2.) The movie cannot have been remade by Disney already, nor can a remake be, concretely, in the offing. There are a lot of prospective remakes supposedly under development at Disney right now, but if they don’t have as much as an announced director, I don’t count them as really underway.

Otherwise, though, it’s basically all fair game. So let’s see what Disney movies might, in fact, have something to gain by being revisited, shall we?

10.) Atlantis: The Lost Empire (Gary Trousdale/Kirk Wise, 2001):

I don’t necessarily share the immense nostalgic affection with which quite a few Disney fans view the original “Atlantis: The Lost Empire”. Even so, I do feel like it’s a movie with an easily workable core and a solid cast of characters which, by virtue of the rather-desperate circumstances under which it was made (the movie was pretty transparently aiming to capitalize on the then-recent explosion of Anime into the American mainstream, to the point where some suspect it cribbed more than slightly from “Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water”), came out rushed and incoherent. A remake, able to capitalize on the aforementioned Nostalgia cache the move has built up over the years thanks to its atypical-for-Disney aesthetic and tone, could very easily step in and fix those flaws (not least of all by doing more to address the White Savior stuff that fuels the plot). As well, I can’t help but feel like Live Action/full-stop CGI animation could prove a much better fit for the Mike Mignola-designed aesthetic of the original. And, if nothing else, don’t you want to find an actress capable of bringing Kidagakash to life?

9.) Oliver and Company (George Scribner, 1988):

For the most part, the beginning of the “Disney Renaissance”, that period of consistent box-office and critical success Disney experienced during the late 80’s and early-to-mid-90’s, is credited to the 1989 release of “The Little Mermaid”. And to be sure, that mega success is unquestionably important. But prior to that, Disney kept itself afloat with somewhat humbler success stories. But where, to my mind anyway, 1986’s “The Great Mouse Detective” is basically perfect as it is, its successor, a peculiar attempt to translate Charles Dicken’s classic “Oliver Twist” to modern-day New York City with animals as its primary characters, feels like an interesting concept marred in the execution. Keep the animal conceit, sure, and maybe some of the songs too. But dump the more dated stuff (Bill Sykes as a predatory lender especially) and try to find some way to put Dickens’ edges back into the story a bit. Definitely work to make the cast better defined and more engaging, too. Do all that, and you could wind up with a version of this story that is just crazy enough to work.

8.) Condorman (Charles Jarott, 1981):

You know what’s all the rage these days at the movies? Superheroes. And wouldn’t you know it, Disney currently owns the absolute cream of that particular crop in the form of Marvel Studios. But, as the smash-hit successes of both “Deadpool” and “Logan” over at 20th Century Fox have shown, audiences are also growing hungry for works that poke fun at, deconstruct, and do something to meaningfully comment on the nature of the genre as a whole. So far, though, Marvel Studios proper, and thus Disney itself, has yet to capitalize on that quickly-growing trend. The thing of it is, though, they already have a perfect vehicle to do so if they choose to use it. The original “Condorman” is not an especially good film, awkward and uneven as it is. But its dopey attempt to send up Spy Films and superheroes, combined with the brilliant design of its title “hero” (in reality a dorky comic book artist who stumbles into an espionage plot almost purely by accident), creates, to my eye at least, a perfect blueprint for a potential remake to run with in a sharp, satirical direction.

7.) The Aristocats (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1970):

The 1970’s were not one of Disney’s better periods, either creatively or financially, and a lot of that can be seen pretty clearly in “The Aristocats”. It’s not without its charms, to be sure, but it’s also pretty obviously just “101 Dalmatians” all over again, except with contemporary-England-and-dogs swapped out for old-school-France-and-cats. Still, there’s nothing intrinsically wrong with that idea, and hey, as far as I’m concerned, cats could always use more movies about them that portray them in a positive light. Plus, the opportunities for a remake to improve on this one are almost painfully obvious: heighten the absurdity, tighten the pacing, and if you’re really feeling daring, maybe do more with the class gap between O’Malley and Duchess the original only ever lightly touched. It’s the absurdity element that feels especially key to me, though, especially in terms of differentiating “Aristocats” from “101 Dalmatians”. The original’s best moments are unquestionably its most ridiculous, after all, and amping that up, could do a lot to inject the movie with a more unique and enjoyable sense of personality.

6.) The Black Cauldron (Ted Berman/Richard Rich, 1985): At this point, "The Black Cauldron"'s reputation as one of the biggest flops in Disney history precedes it, even given the not-insignificant cult following it's picked up after finally receiving its first home video release in 1998 (nearly a decade and a half after its theatrical run). But lost in analysis of its contentious place in the studio's canon is the fact that it's also a weirdly garbeld adaptation of the first two books of Lloyd Alexander's "Chronicles of Prydain" cycle of fantasy novels. And as often happens in those cases, that means there are a lot of details that go unexplained or unresolved, from running gags like Flewder's harp and its breaking strings to significant plot points like the magic sword Taryn discovers. But a big recurring choice in a lot of Disney's remakes of late is restoring elements of the source material that the previous Disneyification left out, and I don't know that any movie in the canon would benefit from that choice more than "The Black Cauldron". You can keep the broad structure of the original, i.e. the characters of the first Prydain book, "The Book of Three", placed into the general plot of the second book for which the film is named. But not only can we add some clarification around the edges (seriously, it is so easy to connect the story of that sword to even the heavily-revised version of the Horned King Disney created), more importantly we can also implant a lot more of the arch tone the books had, which would go a long way toward reconciling the original's rather confused take on the more-than-slightly deconstructionist story elements, to say nothing of likely making the movie less of a chore to sit through. Supposedly, a new "Chronicles of Prydain" movie is in fact under development at Disney, so who knows? Maybe we'll get the chance to see if this idea could actually work sooner than we think.

5.) The Black Hole (Gary Nelson, 1979): You've probably noticed a running theme of my choices here, namely that a lot of them come from eras where Disney, facing the loss of its traditional audiences in the wake of a changing cultural landscape, decided to start experimenting well outside their usual wheelhouse. And perhaps the most wildly experimental periods of them all occurred in the late 70's and early 80's, when Disney committed its efforts to making some surprisingly-dark Sci-Fi/Fantasy live-action films. But where 1982's "Tron" became a cult classic (if not an especially strong box office success) and 1983's "Something Wicked This Way Comes" has its Ray Bradbury source material to keep it alive in the cultural memory, "The Black Hole" has more or less fallen down the memory hole. Not that it's hard to figure out why; its grim, existential tone and nightmarish imagery (most noticeably its robotic villain Maximillian) combined with its vague, confusing plot make it a movie without much in the way of a natural audience. And while that sort of thing is no easier to sell to a massive audience now than it was back then, there is nonetheless too much potential that can be dug out of "The Black Hole" without really having to alter too much of the fundamentals. Working to really dig into the sense of cosmic dread of the original, clarifying the moral and personal conflicts that drive its central antagonist, the Captain Nemo-esque Reinhardt, maybe easing up on the cutesy robot sidekicks (or else leaning into them as a way to underscore just how unnerving the atmosphere really is)...but most importantly, working to earn the frightfully illogical ending of the original. Of all the picks on this list, "The Black Hole" strikes me as the least likely, because even today an outright Horror movie seems outside the Disney purview...but for that very reason, it feels all the more compelling a choice.

4.) The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Gary Trousdale/Kirk Wise, 1996): Even just a couple years ago, I don't know that I would have put this one on here at all, let alone this high up. Disney's first "Hunchback" movie, while certainly not perfect, is nonetheless one of the more uniquely mature and well-crafted entries in the canon, and I don't know that the various simple nips and tucks one could make to it (like committing to the Gargoyles as solely creations of Quasimodo's imagination, as was originally planned) would really warrant a full-blown remake. But then, early last year, I learned about a Broadway-style stage musical based on the movie (adapted from a German production from 1999). This version, though it retains the original's soundtrack and some of its creative choices, incorporates a lot more of Victor Hugo's brutally-dark novel into the story (in particular, it is one of the only adaptations ever that allows Frollo to be the archdeacon of the cathedral as he was in the book). That is not a choice I ever would have expected Disney to sanction (indeed, the original German version is a much more straightforward adaptation of the Disney movie), but now that I know they have, I'd say it is a very, very intriguing notion to bring that idea to the big screen. Like "The Black Hole", that would indeed mean a movie the tone, themes, and aesthetic of which would indeed be well outside the studio's usual box, but not only is that a risk the company can afford to take more so now than ever before, I'd say there's a not-insignificant audience out there that is waiting for them to make exactly that kind of choice. After all, as Disney and the studios it owns take up more and more space on the release schedule, a movie like this one could be might be welcomed as a positive sign that the studio can and will use its power position to take genuine risks.

3.) The Rescuers (Wolfgang Reitherman/John Lounsbery/Art Stevens, 1977): Sometimes, you want to see a remake because the original has some kind of untapped potential; a wasted premise, an unexplored thematic angle, that sort of thing. Other times, you want to see a remake because you love the original, and simply want to see the thing you love expanded upon. That isn't quite the case for how "The Rescuers" wound up in this slot; I do love that movie, indeed it and its sequel (the very first Disney-made sequel to one of its animated films, and by a fair margin the best of them to date) are among my personal favorites of the Disney canon. But you know what else I love? The original "Miss Bianca" books by Margery Sharp, to which the film version, whatever else its merits, bears only the faintest resemblance (in particular, as you might note from the admittedly unofficial name I gave to the series, Bianca herself is much more emphatically the main character). It's another case, in other words, of a Disney movie whose remake could benefit tremendously from returning to the source material and re-integrating it into the overall mixture. But it's also the case, to my mind at least, where it's not only the easiest to reconcile the original movie with said source material (like "The Black Cauldron", the original movie essentially plucks the characters from one book and plugs them into the plot of another, though the attendant adjustments to the characters are less radical in this case, and the plots of both books have a lot more overlap), but also the easiest for me to envision what, exactly, the resulting movie would look like. I realize that one can count, on one hand, without needing all the fingers, the number of actually-good movies centered around realistic tiny CGI characters interacting with a real-life environment, but I can think of no story more ideally suited to the format than "The Rescuers".

2.) Bedknobs and Broomsticks (Robert Stevenson, 1971): When one thinks of "splashy Disney musical primarily done in live-action but with significant animated elements", one naturally thinks first of "Mary Poppins". Which makes sense, because "Mary Poppins" is a stone-cold classic (with a sequel/remake/??? on the way in the not-too-distant future, in fact). But, even as its attempts to replicate that earlier success are pretty transparent, "Bedknobs and Broomsticks" has always struck me as an underrated little gem in its own right. An ambitious narrative combining witchcraft with World War II, magical talking animals, and more, it's always resided mostly in "Poppins"' shadow, but its peculiar, distinctive identity not only could stand a bit more attention, it feels like a strong enough basis for a story that a second bite at the apple would seem warranted. A remake in the present day would not have to contend with the legacy of "Mary Poppins" quite so tightly (even setting aside the aforementioned new "Poppins" film coming down the pipe), which means it wouldn't feel the need to imitate it quite so consciously, allowing the particular personality of its own story to shine through. Because, for real, especially these days? The idea of an older woman, seeking to explore the full potential of her abilities forced to contend with the relentless destruction of the Nazi War Machine, as seen through the prism of her reluctantly taking on a group of helpless kids in need of shelter? Almost feels too relevant, on multiple levels, to The World Today, even as you don't need to draw the necessary lines all that explicitly to make those connections compelling. And that's without even touching a finale that feels like it's begging for the modern effects industry to give it a go. A "Bedknobs" remake, in other words, would not only rehabilitate a too-often-overlooked original, but provide a great experience in its own right.

1.) Robin Hood (Wolfgang Reitherman, 1973): Hear me out on this one, folks. I love this movie too, a great deal. A lot of people my age do; even as it is still largely considered "minor" Disney at best, it has become a real nostalgic touchstone for a whole generation of kids. And it's a great deal of fun, with wit and genuine whimsy and wonderful characters and even a remarkably adult perspective on Romance that is nonetheless entirely in keeping with Disney's usual fairy-tale love stories. But even with all those things being true, it was also made on a nearly non-existent budget, not only forcing large chunks of it to be done by way of re-used animation (with some swipes going back as far as "Snow White And The Seven Dwarves", for goodness sake), but forcing the whole thing to just sort of...stop, rather than properly end. It seems to me a remake could easily resolve both those problems (oh what I would not give to see the film's originally-planned ending executed properly), without losing an ounce of the special charm that made the original such an enduring movie for me and so many others. Heck, it might even provide Disney a good excuse to do a cel-based movie for the first time in over half a decade, since they have every reason to think this thing would have a strong built-in audience that will show up no matter what and can thus afford to risk one last try at the olden ways. After all, two of their biggest hits of 2016 were "The Jungle Book" (a remake) and "Zootopia" (a movie about anthropomorphic animals, with a fox as one of its lead characters no less). Still, it's the creative more so than the financial potential that secures "Robin Hood" the top slot here. The original is a good, special movie, but there is so obviously a great well of potential right there in plain view, begging for the opportunity to truly realize itself. And that's the best reason for a remake there is, in the end.

#disney #movies #top 10 #Countdown #ericthemason #my writing

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