Puddles are an under appreciated menace in our modern world. They can contain all manner of perils such as typhoid, cholera, water moccasins, brain eating amoebas, mosquitoes, industrial pollutants, snapping turtles, leeches, trench foot, ducks, Guinea Worms...portals.
Portals in puddles portend a parade of peril to people predisposed to perplexity
You have found the intersection of cuteness and existential dread.
Even by the standards of this show this is an unexpectedly odd story, but actually works beautifully and has a surprising amount of character development in it. This series definitely warrants further attention.
Why Japan Still Has Payphones
When our protagonist got the call from Ruru (Lulu?) I immediately asked myself how the hell the 12 inch tall genie got a cellphone, and if it's magical how does she connect to...oh...
I've heard of a hair-shirt, but a hair-wallet is new to me.
From the latest episode of MC Phantom World, which is another in a string of character background stories, but this one felt much less like a discrete, stand alone tale as it not only references previous episodes, but manages to intersect with what appears to be the larger plot.
A ferocious but poorly drawn dragon is menacing middle school chicken-coops and rabbit hutches and our heroes are...unaware of the situation actually since no one would trust them with this assignment. However, due to a series unrelated misunderstandings they manage to thoroughly screw things up anyway and end up trying to come to the rescue of the young lady assigned to their school's lepus lounge and save the bunnies...
Things do not go as anticipated
I must say, I did NOT see this coming...
The little girl's teddy bear is a kaiju and saves their collective ass.
It may not actually be, strictly speaking, "nice" either.
Interestingly, while I mentioned this was a character episode, it is NOT about the little girl, rather it focuses on the background of Minase, the aloof red-head who through no fault of her own gets in over her head. Despite the ignominy of having their bacon saved by a Teddy bear, Mai and Haruhiko actually do ultimately save the day with a solid, unambiguous win...which is refreshing.
I'm convinced that the club advisor is manipulating the protagonists, whether for good or ill remains to be seen.
The story seems to be back on track and resuming its quirky and occasionally thoughtful direction. If we can avoid a Maudlin episode about the loli I think we'll be fine.
We've stuck with RWBY for a while, despite the infinitesimal budget...
...the sometimes clumsy plotting....
...the breaks in production...
... and the dorks.
There have been some good characterizations to be sure...
...but this episode finally forces us to confront the fact...
...that reason we've spent spent 5 hours of our lives watching this damned show...
...IS BECAUSE IT ROCKS!
My oh my! They've got two more episodes to screw up this season, but damned if they didn't do good by this one.
It's particularly nice after all the side stories to see Ruby actually be the kickass heroine of her own show!
Of course our heroes are totally screwed. The villain's plan is coming to fruition, Pyrrha is about to get de-Phyrrafied, most of the main cast is wildly separated. Ironwood and virtually his entire command ARE dead, and Blake...poor Blake.
Also: As God is my witness I did not think that Shub-Niggurath could fly.
Aside from one awkward edit, the only gripe about this episode is that the next one is about 80 hours away.
Delilah was one of the beast-girl maids/bodyguards from Italica who was sent to Alnus to provide security and translation assistance. She stayed in Alnus and has since opened an inn and tavern, which she seems to own a majority stake in, though it is an open secret that she's Italica's unnofical eyes and really big ears in the town. Delilah has a reputation of being something of a hard-ass despite her cottontail. You see, she takes no guff from anyone and runs her employees hard in order to make sure that inn she is proprietor of is well run and free of creeps. despite (and partly because of) this she is liked and respected in Alnus and her fastidiousness has paid off; her inn being quite successful.
Today...It hit her.
Mere months ago she was a maid and bodyguard in Italica, which as a slave and member of one of the "subject races" was about the best she could ever hope for. Now she owns a business. She can own property, keep nearly all of the money she makes while living in a town where the food and water are safe. Alnus is also completely safe from raiders and monsters. The various demi-humans in town are treated as PEOPLE and the citizens are not worked to death in mines or other hard labor and peace is breaking out all over.
Reflecting upon this, Delilah, perhaps for the first time in the many years since her country of origin was conquered, finally relaxes...and skips through the streets of Alnus singing the praises of "the town the sky has smiled upon".
Life is good...
But wait...what is that on the desk there?
Could it be a bill?
TO: Delilah D. Bunny
FROM: X
New orders STOP Proceed to JSDF hospital in Alnus STOP Locate fmr sex slave recently freed from Imperial Palace STOP Target name is Noriko Mochizuki STOP Kill her STOPGood HuntingEND
Well. This is awkward...With a heavy heart, Delilah puts on her war paint.
Before leaving, she gives prayers and offerings to...well she's not sanguine about her chances so she is comprehensive...
Afterwards, she quickly finds Noriko and is tremendously relieved to discover that the despondent girl, having learned that her parents and her husband are dead, blames herself and now wants to commit suicide.
Unfortunately, Noriko states that she doesn't want it to hurt...this flummoxes Delilah, who spends time pondering with her prey how best to painlessly neutralize Noriko.
Into the midst of these deliberations walks Yanagida. He is quite chuffed at having just closed an extortionist real estate deal that would make the founders of New Amsterdam proud...until he notices that there is a crazy bunnygirl in warpaint on the grounds, brandishing a knife in front of a Japanese citizen. He and Delilah...tangle and they both end up unconscious in expanding, intermingling pools of blood.
Noriko is thus left to her own devices.
Meanwhile, Itami...wait...that's right; Itami left town last episode with Rory, Leili, Crazyelf & Yao to track down the dragon that is menacing Yao's village. In comparison to Delilah, Yanagida and Noriko, THEIR day is much more successful.
Though not without its pitfalls...
Well, this is certainly full of surprises...well except for the dragon. We were quite prepared for there to be a really big dragon in this episode.
This show is genuinely interesting. I am quite glad that, unlike some other people, I have not seen the manga, so I do not feel let down and this show's future is an unlit road for me.
I think now is a good point in the show for those of us who have not read ahead to ponder and speculate on what we know:
The show is ambiguous as to who Delilah thinks she is working for. We, the audience, know that this assassination order ultimately came from Tyuule, but it is also revealed that Delilah has sworn to kill Tyuule, and that Tyuule is fully aware of this and considers Delilah a traitor. "The warrior bunny who impudently seeks my life" and she is thoroughly pleased that she's got the potential to be killing multiple birds with one stone. She seems to be trying to implicate Princess Piña and thereby bring down the wrath of the JSDF upon the Empire. She refers to Delilah as her spy in Alnus, but I wonder if "unwitting" was omitted from that description...it appears that someone in Italica was working for Tyuule.
When Delilah pray's before hopping off to war, she presents offerings to three of the region's gods: They are Emloy god of war(naturally) Hardy, god of the underworld, Deldout, god of oaths (loyalty?) and Paripan god of vengeance. Piña alluded to a pantheon in an earlier episode when she expressed disapproval of Rory's god, but everything that gets a name in this show has turned out to be significant to one degree or another. Presumably there are others like Rory running around.
It does appear that, regarding oil reserves in Elbe, that they are geological deposits as opposed to sunflower plantations. Yanagida drives a hard bargain and it is a pretty dickish treaty, with King Duran forced to give the Japanese mineral rights (excluding gold and diamonds) and refrain from taxing Japanese businesses at all. There were Banana Republics that got better terms. The conference with the general reveals that the Marco Polo Bridge school of international relations is official policy here, and not just Yanagida's machinations. I do note that this dopes not appear to be presented in at all a bad light. However that might be premature since it puts Yanagida actions regarding the Itami suicide road trip in a slightly different light, especially since Yanagida seemed unenthused about his meeting with the King.
"You melted your plane!"
"He breathed fire on me!"
"You were playing chicken with a dragon the size of a frigate...What did you EXPECT was going to happen."
UPDATE:
One other thing: Steven has had some complaints about how the animal women have been toned down quite a bit from the manga. In general this hasn't bothered me since most of them have been domestics and so were specifically groomed and dressed to be nonthreatening. (The better to surprise with their formidable combat abilities). Some of this is obviously playing to the audience, but but it still works.
However, I must say that I'm in agreement with Steven in one respect. Delilah's war paint and ninja outfit in the Anime looks like...
Oh, for crying out loud.
I guess we'll see a lot of cosplayers in this outfit at Comiket...
A ceremonial outfit maybe, perhaps in anticipation of her eminent death...It fails at ninja though. It fails at combat utility worse. (Hell, an actual bikini would make more sense.)
It also does not give the impression of "formidable tribal warrior".
Compare what appears to be her war paint in either the manga or the LN
This is by Sao Satoru who did the manga (I'm unsure if he illustrated the LN). It gives a really good impression of ferocity and hints at a fierce warrior culture that existed beyond the frontiers of civilization which, of course, is that the 'Warrior Bunnies' were. After all, it has been mentioned that they were renowned as mercenaries and their kingdom was only recently conquered...by Zorzal.
1
A correction: she doesn't own the restaurant; she simply works there. If anyone owns it, it would be Lelei, but it's actually community property as far as I can tell.
2
I've seen all kinds of anthropomorphic designs, but I have to say, this is the first time I've seen one where only the arms and legs are furry, but not the body, hands and feet. That's kinda odd.
Posted by: Mauser at Sun Jan 31 23:18:26 2016 (5Ktpu)
3
@ Steven: Is this information from the manga? I don't remember any reference to Leili being involved in the tavern. I got the distinct impression that Delilah was running it and was at least a part owner .
You've mentioned the stylistic changes and the fact that the story is moving faster in the anime, but have there been big changes to the story in your view?
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Sat Feb 13 18:10:37 2016 (AaBUm)
Myriad Colors Phantom WorldPhantom World is a bit of a surprise.
We have a show about high-school students who have part time jobs as superheroes and whose rapidly growing team has only one guy in it.
No..no...that's not what's surprising as that has pretty much become the default format for getting green-lit nowadays. No, the surprise is that this one appears to be good.
It's certainly tries to be smarter than most.
The premise is that some years ago a terrorist attack on a research facility run by a certain Alayashki corporation released a virus that allowed humans to perceive the supernatural stuff that has always been around (maybe: there is some ambiguity on the chicken to egg aspect of this). These phantoms and such caused considerable mischief until the first generation of children born to those exposed to the virus began coming of age. It seems that some of them have various abilities that allow them to deal with this new annoyance to varying degrees. Since this is a recent phenomenon, very few people with this ability are adults yet, so high schools, especially those that cater to students with these talents have set up clubs that have teams which do exorcisms and such as community service (in addition to their school work). Due to restrictive child labor laws they are paid in goods and services rather than cash.
At the wrong end of the effectiveness bell curve there are these two goofballs...
...and...
Haruhiko is bookish and not particularly athletic, but he is quite smart. He has the ability to seal away a supernatural entity in a drawing provided he has time to draw it and it can be brought into range. Mai is a top notch athlete who is proficient in martial arts and applied fluid dynamics. She has the ability to use elemental powers, the activation of which is rather fascinating. Her abilities are not particularly powerful and she must use her wits and stamina in order to buy Haruhiko time to...slowly....draw whatever monster they are fighting and set it up to be consumed by his painting.
This strategy has not led to great success and the two are considered a rather gimp team and something of a laughing stock. They try in vain to acquire talent until Haruhiko persuades...
...to join their group. She has the unnatural ability to EAT spirits without having to draw them and often without the need to have them positioned 'just so'...thus our male lead is pretty much superfluous at this point, or would be if having the two girls fire him would not play into the fears and insecurities of the target demographic.
Fortunately he has one other super-power. The best bedroom EVAH.
No...No...it's not THAT sort of show...er...Allow me to explain...
He has an awesome library and the brains to use it. He is working hard to develop his ability to seal away phantoms, into a summoning skill...and he is a vast treasure trove of obscure and occasionally useful knowledge.
Haruhiko also has a cute genie-like entity that hangs out with him for reasons not quite clear. Her name is shortened to Ruru (Lulu?) for the sanity of laypeople and she seems to have no particularly impressive abilities aside from being 12 inches tall and being able to fly.
Note that her full name is Rururaruri Rurararirararururirirari Rirararururararururararirari
Also in their circle of friends acquaintances is
...who is one of the most powerful people in their school. She works alone and does not particularly care for the goof troop, but they keep crossing paths and tripping on each other.
What saves this series is that it isn't simply the fact that it's not, in actuality, a harem show with regard to its interpersonal relations (at least not yet). It has also been surprisingly pleasant and even clever.
There is a rather large amount of philosophizing about the nature of reality, and quite a few open questions. On the surface this is a monster of the week show(or more often two separate monsters as its story has tended to be 2 bach to back 12 minute episodes). However every episode throws out one or two hints to other things that are or may be afoot.
Sinister things indeed...
The show is very well animated and the art is nice. The characters are competently written to boot. The humor runs the gamut, but is occasionally rather broad and physical, mostly at the expense of the dude. I'm enjoying the show as is and am seriously intrigued by the hints that it may be going somewhere rather darker. This is often a tough thing to pull off. The show could easily fall apart, but right now it is fun, engaging and surprisingly smart.
I particularly liked the fact that they deal with training as opposed to knowledge. In the latest episode Haruhiko, at the behest of their faculty advisor manages to access Mai's skill-set. He does NOT however, have the stamina, flexibility, and strength honed by years of disciplined training. He gets curb stomped.....the fact that he also had access to her memories as well has some creepy implications.. These are not explored in depth, but they are not ignored either. The fact that their advisor is a member of Alayashki reasearch staff and wants to publish a paper on this sketchy experiment is just tossed aside for now.
Madness and Machinations
In the latest episode of GATE Lt. Itami is pressed into service trying to help Tuka (Chuka?, Tsuka?), the blonde elf, deal with her grief issues.
That sounds so much more respectable than "Itami get's a gorgeous and exotic but mentally damaged teenager to call him "Daddy"'...."Though both are accurate.
Tuka is really broken, she cannot cope with the death of her father and has convinced herself that Itami, the closest thing to a father figure in the shattered remnants of her world, is in fact her dad. Tuka is proudly showing Itami off as her dad to everyone who doubted her protestations that he was alive and Itami, his command and the townspeople are going along with this co-dependant enabling of her mental deterioration because they are evil at a loss as to what to do.
Well...there is also concern that modern psychological knowledge does not apply well to elves. Certainly psychiatric drugs would not be advisable given that Elves are quite biologically distinct. This is eminently reasonable, and the concern about their different psychology is reinforced by the only other Elf present (Yao) who describes Tuka's physical symptoms as being typical of what one sees right before an elven psychotic break.
Yao is very familiar with Tuka's problem because she has deliberately forced the issue and pushed Tuka to the brink. Elves have a very profound need for closure and Yao, having observed that the Japanese are willing to go to great lengths to protect those in their circle of responsibility (like dropping a Paveway on the Imperial Senate last episode) is hoping that she can use this to her own ends. Desperation has not been kind to her mental stability either...
The fire dragon is still menacing her people. In a rather frantic effort to obtain assistance, Yao has revealed that her land is rich in diamonds and "oil" ( one assumes she has specified rock oil, but for all we know it could be sunflower plantations). To further sweeten the deal, she has also thrown into the basket of incentives, HERSELF as a lifetime concubine to Itami if he oversees the extermination of the dragon. Yanagida, the intel officer is quite intrigued with the mineral riches in the dark elves area and decides this may warrant some ...flexibility.
Yanagida seems to be from the Marco Polo Bridge school of Japanese strategy and diplomacy. He presents Itami with a set of orders tailor made for him to "just happen" to blunder into the Fire Dragon. Yanagida is unsure just what makes Itami tick, but he is confidant that Itami will jump at the chance to do good, achieve glory, or whatever flicks his bic.
However in addition to being a very poor psychologist Itami has other responsibilities that he takes seriously.
Itami has been quite pro-active heretofore, but in this episode he confirms to the audience that he has no interest in wasting his troops lives on a dubious errand with so little chance of success. (This is the kind of CO one hopes to get...not some Odysseus or Custer who is going to challenge the gods to take him down.)
Elsewhere, we touch base with King Duran, who had multiple limbs blown off in episode 1 and was seen to have survived later when he advised Pinã from what appeared to be his deathbed. The JSDF has given him prosthetics and he in return dispenses sage advice.
Of course, stuff happens, things get complicated, our hero ends up incurring a debt and there is some indication of what's being hinted at in those silly closing credits.....
UPDATE:
I probably should mention this...One other thing warrants some discussion: Roary Mercury invites herself on Itami's damned fool errand to go slay the dragon alone. She's joined by Leili who does not bite Itami, or suck his blood...which would be unworthy of mention if Rory had not done so. It seems that Rory has called "dibs" on Itami's soul so that when he dies she gets to feed on what she is confident will be a most tasty élan vital. It bears repeating that Rory is a demigod who eats souls...or at least guides them through her body to the afterlife. It is unclear if she's going to guide Itami's soul or digest it as the interaction of her digestive tract and heaven, hell and or samsara are not entirely clear. So yes,. at this point Itami is attempting to go out and fight a dragon that a recon unit could not handle with a crazy woman who thinks he's her father, a 15 year old mage, a fairly ruthless elf and a being who is eagerly looking forward to his death.
What could POSSIBLY go wrong?
Meanwhile....
As hinted last week, Zorzal, the thoroughly despicable Caligula wannabe prince, is going to assume the throne of the empire. In reality he is supposed to act as a figurehead, allowing the Emperor to maintain control, while the Empire is allowed to save face. In in an unsuspected and even more real reality he is quietly plotting to go for the whole ball of wax, and is sending out warnings to people to pick a side in the upcoming power struggle.
It appears that the of the theories we advanced in last weeks review of this show; number two is the winner (It was: She has a cunning plan). You see, the Rabbit Queen is making her move. It turns out that for some time, Tyuule has had way more on the ball and vastly more power at her disposal than anyone assumed. She sends word via a courier that things are about to fall into place.
It's hard not to sympathize with Tyuule, but some of history's worst monsters are those who have truly suffered and whose rage has some justification to fuel it. For those are the ones most likely to abandon mercy and most willing to see the world burn.
From Episode 3-8 of RWBY, in which the not quite eponymous Ruby manages, through pluck and cleverness, to figure out some of what is happening and for a glorious moment become a major force moving the plot forward in her own show.
This episode superbly captures the bi-polar nature of this series. In 17 minutes, it provided us with a highly improbable hand-wave,
What Yang is facing at this point is nothing short of...
...being disqualified from a sporting event.
She is apparently not being prosecuted for the assault (bordering on attempted murder) that the entire world watched. Yang, is about the most hated person on the planet at the moment. Even amongst her small circle of student and faculty supporters several think she did it,. However, they are dismissing it as 'just" Adrenaline and PTSD..."which can happen to the best people". I imagine being a J.A.G. in Ironwood's army must be rather less fraught than in ours. I suppose the grand jury might be pondering things, but no mention of such a state of affairs is made. It's ever so slightly possible that this is a subtle commentary on the cultural attitude that result from living in a world with literal monsters at the gate. as well as a scene that clumsily dropped some plot points in a thoroughly perfunctory and dubiously characterized
Qrow, visits his niece, and states flatly that he thinks she's...insane.
Yang, perhaps in a moment o self doubt brought on by her epic (but nonjudicial) gaslighting relates the utterly blinkered story about the teleporting woman who saved her bacon in episode 11 of last season. This causes Qrow to reassess his postulates since this story is vaguely similar to something he was told recently by his sister, Yang's long dead mother, who is BY THE WAY still actually alive (and a not particularly nice person). Yang reacts to this bombshell with such completely uncharacteristic calm that it could perhaps be indicative of someone who has just passed from the confining realm of sanity into the infinite possibilities offered by madness...or perhaps the whole scene was badly handled. manner.
The same episode managed to be funny, touching and provided more insight into Blake's character and motivations in a minute and a half than most shows can manage for their characters in a season.
It also touched again on that plot thread from a month ago, where Pyrrha is trying to come to terms with a dreadful choice she has been presented with that may involve a fate worse than death. This whole sequence was poignant and surprisingly well done. Jaune is a dork, and frequently out of his depth, but he is not actually stupid.
For instance he immediately realizes that this is obviously a trap of some sort...
The ending of the episode truly brings home the fact that 17 minutes and 4 seconds is too little time for an episode because NOW I HAVE TO WAIT A WEEK TO SEE WHAT HAPPENS.
Oh dear...
This episode involved a bunch of people standing around and talking, but boy, does it have me on the edge of my seat.
Thus is the conundrum of RWBY, which is dreadfully uneven and yet thoroughly enjoyable.
I swear if next week is one of those fauxcumentary filler videos I'm going to scream.
RWBY is Back
....after a two week hiatus and hits the ground running We finally, in conjunction with last weeks episode, get a whole slew of answers to many of the questions people have raised
Unfortunately for the sanity of its audience, not one of the questions answered is "What happened to Yang?"
This is mostly a flashback episode dealing almost exclusively with the villains and how Cinder gathered her accomplices as well as the assault on the Avatar of Autumn, which was an impressively animated fight. It turns out that the only reason the secret executive hero committee has any clue what's going on is because Qrow blundered into her plot and interrupted it.
Emerald seems to be the key to Cinder's plan, and, as hinted in the fight between her and Coco, she is a vastly more formidable and scary individual than she has heretofore appeared. In some ways she's more formidable than Cinder, though her psychological issues allow Cinder to play her like a violin.
Mercury is pretty much as we supposed though he has an impressive pedigree and his footgear is not quite what had been hinted at.
We also learn that Neo can drive...presumably with pedal extensions.
Cinder may well be working for someone else. Given both her competence and powerful she is now, this must be a truly formidable individual or group. The method she used to assassinate the Autumn Avatar was quite hideous and further hints at the Grimm being something even more eldritch than was previously hinted at.
One offhand comment by Emerald raises some questions. She mentions that she projected an illusion on two people. One was obviously Yang, who presumably did commit the assault the way everyone saw it (albeit unwittingly). There should be no reason to mess with anyone else's head...so who else was she messing with?
This was not quite what was expected, but it clarified much and advanced the plot quite a bit. This season continues its much darker tone, but it is coming together nicely.
"Tonight's top story on the Alliteration Channel..."
One technique this episode used quite a bit was fading to a black screen for narration. This was used to good effect, but taken with the two week hiatus may speak to production difficulties.
1
I thought the fade was a bit overused, and overlong, and I didn't immediately pick out all of the voices.
Posted by: Mauser at Mon Jan 4 01:02:25 2016 (5Ktpu)
2One
offhand comment by Emerald raises some questions. She mentions that she
projected an illusion on two people. One was obviously Yang, who
presumably did commit the assault the way everyone saw it (albeit
unwittingly). There should be no reason to mess with anyone else's
head...so who else was she messing with?
She was affecting the two paramedics treating Mercury to make it seem that the damage to his prosthetic leg was a serious injury.
Posted by: muon at Tue Aug 8 02:39:16 2017 (vMYTH)
Someday, I will ruefully look back on this post and realize that this is the day I became "The Other".
This was a serviceable summer blockbuster and was a decent, if uneven J.J.Abrams flick. I say uneven in part because while the first hour or so was sublimely paced and and at times as tight as a Swiss watch, the last seven and a half hours seemed to drag a bit.
To be fair, this was a vastly better film than any of the prequels and I suspect that this alone accounts for some of the gushing over this movie. The film has some wonderful moments and introduced a genuinely interesting character,
Finn, who takes a terrifying leap when he abandons the only life he has ever known over a matter of conscience, and becomes a marked man in a world he is completely unfamiliar with. This fascinating character is all the more interesting because he is understandably fearful of the organization he is fleeing. His goal is not revenge so much as to hide, yet at every point he has a chance to escape Finn finds himself faced with some ethical dilemma that involves abandoning an innocent or escaping scott free...he always chooses the former. This eminently sympathetic individuals purpose in the film is to play inept sidekick to a Mary Sue.
Mary Sue starts out as a really neat character. A scavenger who has spent her life taking apart crashed star destroyers she is a brilliant mechanic and unknowingly strong in the force, which she believes to be a myth...until she's told that all the old legends are true, after which she is doing advanced Jedi mind tricks that have been established to require decades of training...or at least a week on Dagobah. I have no problem with the female lead bing super competent, but popping out god-like powers left and right with zero explanation is annoying. Most of her accomplishments could have been explained with a line or two (how she knew how to fly...and had not left her hell hole existence) but some were just laziness. For instance, the creators wanted her to free herself rather than be rescued. Fair enough. The solution they chose...(she develops mind control powers on the fly) was intensely unsatisfying. This was all the more annoying since a perfectly workable solution was hard wired into her origin story: THIS WOMAN HAD SPENT THE BULK OF HER LIFE TAKING APART STAR DESTROYERS it would have been an easy peasy line or two to reference that she knows about a maintenance panel accessing the door wiring in Imperial brigs that she can disassemble with a hairpin. But no...she gets mind control powers above and beyond her pouty eyes and lithe figure....
Ahem...
On top of all that the pacing fell apart towards the end as the film began to amble badly. They probably should have wrapped it up after the obligatory 'splody and if they REALLY wanted to throw Mark Hammil's character into it, it would have been better to have his wordless cameo in a stinger. Remember, the best film in the franchise (Empire) had several threads unresolved at the end since a sequel was a sure thing
Also: Han dies stupidly, though it did effectively convey the notion that Darth Emo is an irredeemable sort to those who were unmoved by his massacre of nameless women and children. after all he shived a celebrity.
There are numerous refrigerator moments in the film, like why on earth is the Republic military called "The Resistance" when it is the First Order that are the insurgents. Also...How did a group of dead enders build a space station the size of....Neptune(?) What IS the actual political situation here?
There is much to like in the early part of the film but it still fell short.
All in all, it was better than the prequels (but so was Battle Beyond the Stars) and in the same league as Return of the Jedi...which I confess I did not care for, and frankly despite some awesome early moments and glorious effects, this film ultimately ended up disappointing due to the draggy inchoate ending and what came off as the writer's laziness towards the end.
There.
I said it.
Now flame away.
UPDATE:Ubu Roi has a particularly good disquisition on the film including a focus on a speciffic characterization problem that I strongly suggest you read in full. I also note that I'm not the only person that the name "Darth Emo" occurred to...which probably means something.
1
That seems to be the universal review, actually. The Red Letter Media guys said just about the same thing. It's better than the prequels, and seems better than it is just because of that.
Posted by: Ben at Tue Dec 29 09:57:03 2015 (DRaH+)
3
I read a spoiler about the film and have one comment:
Unless we actually see Han's dead body, I won't believe it. Someone shot him and then he fell off a cliff, right? So it's assumed he's dead, but we can't be sure.
4
Stabbed through the chest with a light-saber, thrown off a cliff, had the whole room he was in blown up, then the planet imploded. Burned, fell over, then sank into the swamp. I just finished John C. Wright's piece on this, and he has some pretty good insights as well.
Posted by: Mauser at Tue Dec 29 12:58:35 2015 (5Ktpu)
5
My review isn't quite as harsh, but I certainly did feel that the first two-thirds or so of the movie was amazing, and then last segment was thrown together to add some meat beyond "the lead characters meet, escape danger, and travel to meet the brave resistance." This is one way in which the original was superior, it had the pacing to do all that, all the stuff on the death star, and then get in the final space fight, without it seeming rushed. This one didn't manage that. I was also kind of upset by the battle planning session that might as well have been: "Oh look, another superweapon. This could be serious, but hey, we all know how this works. We send in the heroes to do daring things, then a couple squadrons of X-Wings to finish it off, and everyone is home in time for beer. Any questions? No? Ok, lets go."
Regarding "We can't be sure":
Besides the obvious bits mentioned above, that he took an obvious fatal wound, died convincingly enough for his force wielding son to be sure he was dead, and then was thrown into the abyss on a planet that blew up shortly thereafter, we also had the cut to Leia sensing his death.
Posted by: David at Tue Dec 29 16:40:58 2015 (+TPAa)
Beyond all that, we have the meta: Ford has been trying to get Han killed off since the first movie. It was in the script for Star Wars for a while, and then was in the script for Empire until Lucas talked him into returning for the final movie.
Posted by: Ben at Tue Dec 29 17:56:39 2015 (S4UJw)
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I kept thinking "Darth Snape." But although the physical resemblance is uncanny, Snape at his most emo was a lot more formidable person.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Tue Dec 29 21:00:16 2015 (ZJVQ5)
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Overall, I did like the movie. But I think it helped that my expectations were not high, and my inner seven-year-old was firmly in the driver's seat.
Battle Beyond the Stars! Fun movie!
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Tue Dec 29 21:03:20 2015 (ZJVQ5)
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For all you people griping about
Kylo Ren--and I'm thinking especially of Ubu Roi's review here--the New Jedi Order did basically the same thing: Han and Leia had three kids: a mixed-sex pair of fraternal twins, and a second son named Anakin, who died in the opening of the NJO series. Along with Chewie, btw. Later, the older son became a Sith Lord and actually for a while was Emperor, although he used a different title, because it wasn't technically an empire.
Well, I say basically, but that's a bit of a stretch. But eventually one of Han and Leia's kids became evil, IIRC before that they had also semi-split up (but after Chewie died, she left politics and became Han's copilot), and again IIRC at the end of the NJO, their daughter killed her brother. I saw Han's death coming just before he walked out onto the bridge, but it didn't feel overly cheap to me; instead it reminded me, for example, of the Wheel of Time books, where early on, Rand lets himself get skewered for a reason I no longer remember. In this case, I think they were aiming for...I'm not quite sure how to explain it, but a destiny thing, a reverse of Luke's returning Anakin to the Light side, but didn't do a very good job of it. I objected more to the execution than the concept. That aside I agree with what seems to be a popular sentiment that the last third or so fell apart a bit.
Posted by: RickC at Tue Dec 29 23:15:23 2015 (FvJAK)
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RickC - One of my problems with the expanded universe, and one of the main reasons I gave up on it early on, is because Jedi turned to the Dark Side if they had a bad day. I know a lot of the stories were constantly retconned and overwritten, but I think Luke went evil 3 or 5 times before he was 60 in the expanded universe.
Posted by: Ben at Tue Dec 29 23:24:23 2015 (DRaH+)
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Ben--that's not unreasonable. I just wanted to point out, though, that some things that shocked people, well, it's not as if they were made up from whole cloth, and there are EU parallels.
I apparently missed most of the crappy EU books.
Posted by: RickC at Wed Dec 30 00:00:52 2015 (FvJAK)
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I liked the film quite a lot, but I do not see how it's better than prequels. I never had a visceral reaction to Jar-Jar. So he's handed the
Galaxy to Palpatine by calling for
vote on emergency powers. What's the big deal? Marco Rubio did the same, as did John McCain. Acting of Adam Driver was better than Hayden Christinsen's, perhaps, but the difference was marginal. It's in the same vein, IMHO.
I have one surefire prediction though (no need for spoiler, right?): considering how PC this movie is, you may bet on someone turning up transgendered in Episode IX. They already have
a token Black and a feminist bait. Next step, obviously
for Darth Emo to come out as a woman and turn to Light Side in the process. Remember, you heard it here first.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Fri Jan 1 18:12:27 2016 (XOPVE)
From episode 3-6 of RWBY which is entitledFall...a title that can be taken a number of different ways.
This answered several important questions and put a couple of characters in really bad situations for utterly different reasons.
So....Let me see if I've got this straight. Those in the (hopefully) benevolent conspiracy to protect the populace from the eldritch truth think that Pyrrha might, conceivably be able to perhaps save the world (or at least prevent the power of a minor god from being bestowed upon a villain). However, this mere chance applies only if nothing goes wrong and she doesn't become a vegetable or die. It gets better. Even given the most optimistic outcome, (since it involves getting a demigod's SOUL stuffed into her body) it will probably result in her becoming a completely different person/being/entity. They've given her 'till the end of the tournament to decide.
Yang was caught on camera committing something of an atrocity. A serious cultural faux pas from the look of the reaction....she's innocent of course...if she's being gaslighted and criminally insane if she's not.
The camera is easily explainable given the fact that the villains have hacked ptetty much everything. But how did they gaslight the whole stadium audience?
Boy.
Howdy.
The next 166 hours are going to be like forever.
RWBY's been uneven but on balance quite enjoyable. This season they have REALLY hit their stride though.
This Week's Chapter of RWBY Seems to Have No Title
I Propose Retro Funk!
As has generally been the case in this tournament cour, most of this episode's important stuff takes place outside of the fights. But the main fight went in an entirely unexpected direction and was gloriously worthy.
...and then after the fight...all that stuff happened.
Let's see, Penny wants to transfer to Beacon...given her peculiar circumstances and legal status, this seems a far fetched dream...but it's irrelevant because they reveal at the end that she's pretty much doomed.
This episode did further clarify that Ironwood is probably not working for the big(?) bad....wittingly....but she does now have every single secret he thinks he has. Of course it turns out that she's been hacking most of the other good guys at least as thoroughly for 13 episodes. It should be further noted that the whole IT plot thread predated the OPM hack and E-mailGate by a year. Monty saw the future before he died!
Pyrrha has her awesomeness re-affirmed....and she's doomed.
As to the fight itself, I found it jarring to see late 80's hair and late 90's genkigiirl tropes bundled together in a blindingly iridescent rainbow ball of spazz.
It was an interesting choice to have the character who has arguably developed the most teamed with the one who has developed the least.
Weiss should change her name to Yin.
This episode even had some actual science in it. It implies that if you jump into lava, it you could loose your singing voice and ruin your dress....which is, in fact, TRUE!
UPDATE:
I did note as I approached the fridge that the avatars of urban asskickery they fight in this episode seem singularly ill optimized for fighting GRIMM out in the wastes which, of course is the raison d'être of the huntsmen and huntresses competing in this match . Whether this is is implying something is unclear.
The pacing and voicework were fantastic, Meg Turney in particular did a stellar job as Neon Catt.
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> As to the fight itself, I found it jarringjarring to see late 80's hair and late 90's genkigiirl tropes bundled together in a blindingly iridescent rainbow ball of spazz.
Just a couple days ago I was catching up on MlP:FiM season 5, and watched the Halloween episode, and Pinkie Pie's costume was essentially the same.
Posted by: RickC at Sun Dec 6 21:10:25 2015 (FvJAK)
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"As has generally been the case in this tournament cour, most of
this episode's important stuff takes place outside of the fights."
That's pretty much true of ALL Tournament plots, which is why I hate them so much.
Posted by: Mauser at Mon Dec 7 02:04:51 2015 (5Ktpu)
From episode 4 of this season's RWBY, which seems to have really hit its stride. This episode's fight was still not up to the spectacular choreography that Oum was known for, but the pacing was superb and the tension was as intense as anything we've seen.
The last 9 of the 14 and a half minutes was spent with people sitting and talking while either drinking tea or playing video games. Those 9 minutes however, were very well paced and developed characters, moved the plot along, clarified plot points and answered questions.
The mechs from episodes 4 and 10 of season two were indeed stolen and both Ironwood and Winter Schnee are aware of team RWBY's involvement in destroying one. Additionally the lot stolen was prototypes being sent for range testing that were not fully equipped.
The Schnee family are unusual in having a set of powers consistently passed down by heredity as opposed to most other gifted people who get completely random abilities. This raises some questions about how Punnett squares work in relation to superpowers. Perhaps superpowers involve Punnett dodecahedrons. How that would result in there being no such variability in the Schnee family tree is unclear unless said tree is a straight line....Eww. In other news we learn that in addition to all their other charming characteristics, the Schnees have a second ability...a form of necromancy. They can call forth the spirits of defeated enemies to act as slaves. Weiss is the first of her family in some generations to not be able to do this at all. Until, perhaps, today.
Winter, Weiss's sister, is imperious, authoritarian and intensely regimental. She also seems to be about as decent a person as can realistically be expected from someone who grew up in (and never got away from) her family.
Yang, for all her bravado, is quite broken in some ways. She sort of shuts down when shown a picture of her Mom...
The capture of Torchwick by the girls last season has not, as Ruby believed, caused a mere reduction in crime. Crime in the city has stopped...totally...in the weeks since the breach. Their elation is short lived due to the implication that that the underworld is tightly controlled, by a much bigger figure.
Mercury and Emerald are absolute monsters.
While no explicit reference was made, we now probably have a very good idea of just what was going on in the "White" trailer and yes, it looks like that incongruously expressionist installment of the original 4 teasers is indeed canon. Even more surprisingly, it likely happened pretty much as presented (though some of it is a flashback).
Also: From this point forward, the heiress is on a budget.
One observation. One of the things the success of this series has made possible besides increasing the crew by 50% is that they have been able to hire additional professional voice actors (some with impressive resumes) to supplement the shows writers and animators, cosplayers and internet personalities that has made up most of the main cast. Interestingly this has resulted in the relative novices in the main cast being backed up by serious pros playing bit parts. The original cast has actually held their own pretty well and even those who started out a bit awkward have grown into their roles nicely. The additional money, however, is still well spent. Elizabeth Maxwell has hit it out of the park as Winter Schnee who, it turns out, is absolutely vital to understanding Weiss.
I linked to the unfinished version of this before, but the animator finished it yesterday and thoroughly succeeded in producing a cute and technically interesting little skit.
I was expecting something like that one which was based on a Tom&Jerry cartoon, not something sweet. But it is sweet and they did a really good job on it. Very nice.
I read somewhere that KanColle had eclipsed Touhou as the fan meme of choice. I'm glad to see that it isn't totally true.
This is incredible. Bethesda has invented time travel!
This game really is 'all that and a bowl of grits'.
Most surprisingly, despite the grim premise and post-apocalyptic setting, Fallout 4 gives off a remarkably optimistic vibe.
I find it really interesting how they integrated a first-person shooter quest game with a 'rebuild civilization' game. What's interesting is the freedom one has. The player can pursue the main quest like a regular adventure game, wander around and interact with the incredibly detailed world (usually via high powered weaponry) or focus on the second life aspect of building a settlement. The player can also build a series of settlements and thus rebuild civilization. I'm nowhere NEAR close to finishing the main quest...there's just so much interesting stuff to do.
Re-playability looks to be really high.
On the down side:
Mirelurks. Those things are tough.
Also: It's like clicking on a TV Tropes link that delivers crack intravenously...I predict the collapse of society by the end of the year.
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This morning I was checking out an insane asylum guarded by a team of mercenaries (real pros; they told me I was trespassing and ordered me to leave, without shooting), when I happened to look up and notice a windmill on top of a nearby overpass, made from an airplane prop. Well, I had no reason to bother those mercs (didn't have the quest item to get into the asylum...), so I decided to explore.
With both ends of the overpass collapsed, I had to hunt around for a bit to find a way up there and see what was going on. Scrambling over the junk, I spotted a Gunner logo spray-painted on the side of a bus, and knew I was going to have a fight on my hands. Sure enough, but I wasn't expecting the combat droid; that made it a lot tougher.
It wasn't a quest or a marked location on the map, just a little something thrown in to fill out the world. If you noticed it, cool; if not, maybe next time you play through.
Favorite characters so far: Nick Valentine and Dr. Brian Virgil.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sat Nov 21 23:51:15 2015 (ZlYZd)
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The old Fallout games had skills, which were a big factor in determining your weapon damage - if you had low skills with guns, they did low damage, but as you got more skilled with guns they increased more and more in damage.
F4 gets rid of skills, and your progression is in your basic stats and in perks you add at every level. And it's a big improvement! Under the old system, if something was good at low skill levels, it was ludicrous at high skill levels; by contrast, if it was pretty balanced at high skill levels, it was terrible at low skill levels. Guns got balanced at high skill levels, which meant that for most of the game, guns were -crap-.
In F4, you don't have to worry about having sunk several levels of skill advancement into a particular class of weapons in order to make them non-crap - they're mostly all right to start with, and certain modified examples are quite a bit better than "all right". Add in the perks on top of them, and the ones you choose to specialize in (and by this I mean broad categories, like "rifles", "all heavy weapons", "all automatic guns", etc.) can feel quite powerful.
I also really like the new power armor system. It's not the endgame armor anymore; instead it's something you leave at home for normal adventuring and then trot out when you expect heavy combat, in which case it makes you far more resilient than normal. (Or you can get the right perks, in which case it becomes your "normal" gear; I basically don't get out of mine except to craft and sleep.)
VERY happy with it overall.
The settlement building is nice but not nearly feature-complete yet; I expect they'll do like Skyrim and drop in a little DLC expansion that adds a lot more options.
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Sun Nov 22 00:36:13 2015 (v29Tn)
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Rutskarn made a good point in his Elder Scrolls retrospective: it's incredibly frustrating to make an attack that clearly connects in the 3D UI, but then be told you missed the hidden die roll. If the game shows you shooting someone in the back of the head with a .44 magnum, then by golly it had better hurt. I'm still carrying the first 10mm pistol I found, upgraded with mods and perks, and I just cleaned out a building full of super mutants with it, including a suicider. Very satisfying.
I've been making heavy use of the power armor, but thanks to Tinker Tom, I have some very resilient clothing now. As a bonus, my character no longer looks like an extra from Mad Max.
Between patches, DLC, and third-party mods, I expect to see the settlement feature improving a lot. Actually, the mod I'm most looking forward to is an adaptation of the Skyrim "reduced NPC speech distance" fix; I had to move the weapon-crafting station in Sanctuary so that settlers wouldn't stand in the doorway and spam me.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Nov 22 02:28:32 2015 (ZlYZd)
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Let's get to the important part: what do the girls look like? And how many of them are there?
5
Post-apocalypse Boston has a surprising number of attractive, friendly, competent women, some of whom can be romanced. They put a lot of effort into the face-design system that's used for both the PC and the NPCs. And there are a lot of NPCs, with a wide range of skin and hair colors, as well as a variety of ethnic features.
You can also replace the clothing of friendly NPCs. I recommend the "summer shorts" outfit for women, which not only shows off their figures, but can be retrofitted with ballistic weave for some of the best armor in the game. It's the only moddable clothing I've found so far that leaves the arms and legs bare for additional armor pieces, and it looks pretty good with the trilby hat that also accepts ballistic weave.
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Sun Nov 22 13:30:15 2015 (ZlYZd)
From this season's third episode of RWBY which thickens the plot a bit by whisking some ambiguity into the vagueness and spicing it with a pointless fight made with apparently unseasoned ingredients that only serve to remind us how good things were when it was possible to get them made with genuine Monty Oum.
The fight choreography is not actually bad, and pretty decent in comparison to many other shows. However, despite increasing the size of the staff from around 15 to nearly 30 that particular aspect is not up to the standard set by the show's much mourned creator. Oum appears to have been a singular talent.
The story is proceeding apace though the shadowy council opposed to something bad talks in sufficient circuitousness that we still don't know exactly is going on. There is a big reveal, but I suspect that it is probably not at all what it seems to be.
On the other hand the character animation is really well done and the voice work is excellent. Lindsay Jones (Ruby) in particular does a really good job in this episode.
Also there is a drunken martial artist, so they've got that going for them, and in any event, I'm still enjoying the show.
The foreshadowing for next week seems strangely ominous.
Some Shows...
...have tremendous amounts of action that doesn't advance the plot or mean anything.
Contrasting with that sort of thing, in the latest episode of Owarimonigataritwo highschool students stand and listen as a third reflects upon her middle school years for twenty two minutes. They never leave the room and nothing else happens.
This episode had me on the edge of my seat.
Owarimonogatari is supposedly the last in this supernatural dramedy franchise, and has, aside from its first episode (and the unremarked upon mystery of what happened to a certain characters irises) not had a lot of supernatural anything in it. Despite this it has been genuinely surprising and at times rather disturbing.
People can be the worst monsters, and perfidy is a wretched thing.
This is a very well written show. I'm not sure where they are going with it, but I am anxious to find out.
1
I'm fond of stating that we've invented the flying car in 1903.
What is a Cessna 172, if not a flying car?
What we haven't "invented" yet is a legal environment and air-traffic control rules that will permit you to own and fly one.
People like to pile requirements onto the 'flying car' paradigm, like requiring it to flawlessly navigate the world independent of pilots. If you want that, you're never getting it. Pile enough requirements onto the dream, and of course it becomes impossible. But we've done flying machines, of myriad types for over a century.
Posted by: Mauser at Wed Nov 4 06:03:36 2015 (TJ7ih)
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The airspace rules are the smallest problem of a flying car. The runway requirements, noise lawsuits, and local ordinances are the biggest impediments.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Wed Nov 4 15:22:44 2015 (XOPVE)
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As Mauser pointed out, Molt Taylor created multiple flying cars over the years. Unfortunately, a good car and a good aircraft have too many different requirements for a single vehicle to be good at both.
I think the best we can hope for is a vehicle that is a poor car and an average aircraft. It'd have just enough road capability to drive from your garage to the nearest airport, or from your destination airport to a hotel.
Posted by: Siergen at Thu Nov 5 17:15:55 2015 (De/yN)
Hobby Space News of the commercial space industry A Babe In The Universe Rather Eclectic Cosmology Encyclopedia Astronautica Superb spacecraft resource The Unwanted Blog Scott Lowther blogs about forgotten aerospace projects and sells amazingly informative articles on the same. Also, there are cats. Transterrestrial Musings Commentary on Infinity...and beyond! Colony WorldsSpace colonization news! The Alternate Energy Blog It's a blog about alternate energy (DUH!) Next Big Future Brian Wang: Tracking our progress to the FUTURE. Nuclear Green Charles Barton, who seems to be either a cool curmudgeon, or a rational hippy, talks about energy policy and the terrible environmental consequences of not going nuclear Energy From Thorium Focuses on the merits of thorium cycle nuclear reactors WizBang Current events commentary...with a wiz and a bang The Gates of Vienna Tenaciously studying a very old war The Anchoress insightful blogging, presumably from the catacombs Murdoc Online"Howling Mad Murdoc" has a millblog...golly! EaglespeakMaritime security matters Commander Salamander Fullbore blackshoe blogging! Belmont Club Richard Fernandez blogs on current events BaldilocksUnderstated and interesting blog on current events The Dissident Frogman French bi-lingual current events blog The "Moderate" VoiceI don't think that word means what they think it does....but this lefty blog is a worthy read nonetheless. Meryl Yourish News, Jews and Meryls' Views Classical Values Eric Scheie blogs about the culture war and its incompatibility with our republic. Jerry Pournell: Chaos ManorOne of Science fictions greats blogs on futurism, current events, technology and wisdom A Distant Soil The website of Colleen Dorans' superb fantasy comic, includes a blog focused on the comic industry, creator issues and human rights. John C. Wright The Sci-Fi/ Fantasy writer muses on a wide range of topics. Now Read This! The founder of the UK Comics Creators Guild blogs on comics past and present. The Rambling Rebuilder Charity, relief work, roleplaying games Rats NestThe Art and rantings of Vince Riley Gorilla Daze Allan Harvey, UK based cartoonist and comics historian has a comicophillic blog! Pulpjunkie Tim Driscoll reviews old movies, silents and talkies, classics and clunkers. Suburban Banshee Just like a suburban Leprechaun....but taller, more dangerous and a certified genius. Satharn's Musings Through TimeThe Crazy Catlady of The Barony of Tir Ysgithr アニ・ノート(Ani-Nouto) Thoughtful, curmudgeonly, otakuism that pulls no punches and suffers no fools. Chizumatic Stephen Den Beste analyzes anime...with a microscope, a slide rule and a tricorder. Wonderduck Anime, Formula One Racing, Sad Girls in Snow...Duck Triumphalism Beta Waffle What will likely be the most thoroughly tested waffle evah! Zoopraxiscope Too In this thrilling sequel to Zoopraxiscope, Don, Middle American Man of Mystery, keeps tabs on anime, orchids, and absurdities. Mahou Meido MeganekkoUbu blogs on Anime, computer games and other non-vital interests Twentysided More geekery than you can shake a stick at Shoplifting in the Marketplace of Ideas Sounds like Plaigarism...but isn't Ambient IronyAll Meenuvians Praise the lathe of the maker! Hail Pixy!!
The little girl's teddy bear is a kaiju and saves their collective ass.
