Want some more Star Wars in your Star Trek? Then Farscape is the show for you. I'm assuming you not have already watched it, given it began its four-year run in 1999. Farscape is an Australian/American production from the Jim Henson company. It may be worth noting that Brian Henson, son of legendary puppeteer Jim Henson, is the co-producer of the show. Farscape features a wide array of creative alien muppets, two of which are show regulars. It took me a little while to get used to the puppetry, but now I can't imagine the show without them. Additionally, Farscape features a great cast of unknown actors and some imaginative writing. I'd classify the title as science-fantasy, rather than science fiction, but in the first season, the writers do play around with some great sci-fi concepts like time loops and multiple dimensions not to mention Moya, the living starship which is the primary setting for the action. The episodes that drew me in were more abstract and science fiction based, but as the show progressed, I grew to love the characters and be invested in them, Moya included. I suppose it's worth comparing the show to other shows like Firefly or Cowboy Bebop, in that Farscape is heavily character-driven, and the characters are all good-hearted outlaws. I'd say my favorite characters at this time are Aeryn-Sun, the Peacekeeper and D'Argo, the Luxan. When I first saw D'Argo, I have to admit that I thought he was just some kind of knock-off Klingon. But even if that is what he were, he is still an excellent character, and well performed. D'Argo is a Warrior, but he is also a deeply caring person. Aeryn is a military grunt who shows signs of character growth that are intriguing. Because she lived a highly regimented life, being an outlaw makes for a tough transition. From what I've heard, this show gets even better as it progresses, though I have really enjoyed it in the first season. It's a science fiction show with a lot of heart, that's not afraid to get weird. I recommend it to any fans of science fiction television looking for a new/old show to watch. -D
Happy May, or I guess "May the 4th be with you." I'm sure y'all've already checked out the Star Wars: The Force Awakens trailer #2 by now and even if you have, it wouldn't hurt to watch it again. . .for the 47th time. . .this week. There're also apparently some new pictures up from the movie which may or may not contain spoilers. Ye've been warned. . .arrrr.
Reaction to Konami cancelling
Silent Hills. Decency people!
(Public posts means I don't have to
black out names).
Aside from that, it's been an interesting month in the Land of Gaming where apparently a fair amount of people were pissed off at one person or another for any reason or another. There's been the Silent Hills cancellation, and Valve allowing modders to charge for use of their mods in Skyrim (but only if they want to charge) then nixing that idea after less than a week. On Friday however, and on a happier note, (so technically May) the splinters from Rare who created Playtonic have started a Kickstarter for their game Yooka-Laylee (which is, as of this writing, 412% over their target goal of $270,041 and it's been less than 12 hours since their email announcement). And there's Rare's announcement that they've been working on something that's been a lot of fun for them that will be announced at E3 next month.
But that's all well and good for the rest of the world, but what about little ol' me? I've been keeping pace with course work which has left some time for putzing around with a couple of video games, this time across multiple platforms.
I've gotten back into playing the Atlus time travelling multiverse fantasy game Radiant Historia, which originally came out on the DS back in 2011. The game can be a bit overwhelming with multiple timelines and people/items/skills that you might need to learn in an alternate timeline before continuing with your current timeline. At the moment I'm only transitioning between two separate outcomes, but I have feeling that things will begin to branch off in the next chapter or two. Thankfully you have the ability to speed through conversations that you've had umpteen times before and the music is good as far as JRPG soundtracks go. I'll stick this one out until the end, barring any 4 Heroes of Light graves that I manage to dig myself into.
On the PC gaming front, I'm finishing up Borderlands (the first game) and I recently started Mass Effect 2. My first off is that Borderlands is a great FPS with a crappily weak story. Mass Effect 2 is a great story with too much online emphasis about who Shepard is going to doink. Who Shepard (male or female) ends up with relationship-wise and what is unlocked in Mass Effect 3 based on your relationship choices from the previous two games seems a bit overwhelming on top of trying to save the galaxy. It's almost like in order to experience the "full" game, you have to have a separate save file for each decision regardless if you have the option of using a paragon/renegade response; basically like in Radiant Historia. And then there's Miranda, who apparently is nude with painted on clothing that is frequently emphasized by the camera panning or holding over her gluteal maximal region. I know body paint's a thing, I saw a video about it once.
Lastly, and back to handheld, is Silent Hill (1999) which I'm playing on the PSP, influenced from all of the Dead Space posts last month. Presently my biggest complaint is that the game screen doesn't take up all of the PSP screen that it should be able to. There is an empty black space around the entire gaming-viewing window when it looks like the viewable window could have been stretched out diagonally in both directions by a couple of more pixels. I've actually been conversing with Dr. Potts textually while playing and it's very reminiscent of 1999 when we were living in the same abode and would frequently talk to each other about where we were at in our respective games. It was nice. I should probably also check to make sure he has an unlimited texting plan, or I'll just revert to Google's Hangout app which Chreekat inadvertently introduced me to last week.
Leading up to the December release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, my unofficial plan is to finish Star Wars: Dark Forces and start another of the Star Wars games that Humble Bundle bundled together a few months back. There might even be a "Why A Star Wars Game?" post somewhere in there as well.
Oh, and D&D has now reached a "regular basis" status for which I am very grateful. Maybe a post in there about this as well later in the month. Although I should probably get everyone to sign a release form, but being the DM, I can always make up some threats.
I guess this would be an odd first impressions article since it's based off of a minute and twenty-eight second teaser trailer, but that was the best way I could figure to describe today's article. Sure I might be jumping on a bandwagon if I already wasn't excited about next years installment in the Star Wars franchise. So, for today's post, I wanted to break down the short 1m28s teaser trailer for Star Wars: Episode VII: The Force Awakens because it came out a number of hours ago, but less than 24.
Now, I'm not going to give you a frame-by-frame analysis and tell you that the real Millennium Falcon didn't have that buffer panel next to the radar dish in the original trilogy because I don't tend to notice things like that. I'm also not going to be making sweeping declarations about how each scene figures into the plot as I really don't know. I'm not up to date with my Star Wars lore. I just want to talk about something that has captured my imagination (sigh, clichés) since I first saw Return of the Jedi back in 1983 (at the State Theatre in Woodland, CA).
But first off, watch the trailer (again), this being the real one from the Star Wars people and not one of umteen thousands that were fake and propagated the pages of every social networking site for the past month:
Now, I'm not going to be making assumptions as to who specific characters are, how they relate to each other and the returning cast from the original trilogy. To note, I've never read any of the books in the Star Wars universe. The last Star Wars video game I played was Rogue Leader: Rogue Squadron 2. I'm just going to talk about what I noticed in an almost purely non-contextual way.
Oh, and all of the sights and sounds contained herein are the property of Disney, Lucas Film and those types.
So there's this desert here right. Probably Tatooine since that's the main (only) desert planet that the audience is associated with. And there's a dark gruff British voice over that at first (as well as second, third, forth, fifth, etc) listen sounds a lot like Benedict Cumberbatch. He's not in the cast listing over at IMDb. Maybe J.J. Abrams just had him record some script lines for trailers and such?
Then there's this guy. Who is this guy? I don't know. Am I supposed to know who he is since he's the first face in this trailer? Again, no idea. But he's in a stormtrooper outfit, apparently very frightened and on the run. Very briefly you can hear the Imperial probe droidnoise before the scene cuts to:
what looks to be an R2 unit head on top of a soccer ball. I would like to think that it's all a single unit, kind of like a mix between the Dyson Ball, a Roomba and an R2 unit. But where's this little feller off to? I don't know. What are those machines in the background? One looks like a ship. Was that a ship that was used/mentioned in that one book "Crosscurrent" that had something to do with a Jedi? Maybe, I just made that reference up.
Then there's an obligatory multi-shot of stormtroopers that look like they're about to jump out of a plane. Kind of like the beginning of that Godzilla trailer, but you know, at night time. I think the helmets look a little bit different than they do in the original trilogy. That's fine. Things change over time, especially when your second space station gets blown up by a rag-tag group of rebels.
And here's this woman on a hoverbike transportation device thing. It might be Tatooine again since there's sand, but that's all I can tell you. I don't even know her connection to the story, just that she makes an appearance here and rides off towards a settlement. I will say that it didn't look like she put down her goggles before speeding off and that thing probably kicks up a bit of dirt. Remember, safety first.
This shot is when I got goosebumps. I'm sure I did anyway. But it just looks awesome. I'm sure this shot is 60%+ CG and I'm fine with that. I don't expect us to have functioning X-Wings for at least another 11 years. It looks good though. I'm also fine with X-Wings flying this low as I would do similar "maneuvers" while playing any one of the Rogue Squadron games.
And as much as people make fun of J.J. Abrams for using lens flares, this is probably the closet the trailer gets to a real life genuine lens flare, out here in the wild.
And then there's a Sith guy, trudging through the snow in a black cloak (which isn't great if you're trying to stay hidden in the snow) with a lightsaber. A lightsaber that apparently has a little lightsaber crossguard. Part of me thinks that this shot was included to be like the Darth Maul shot from The Phantom Menace, but less dramatic. I've read over on reddit that crossguards are mentioned in the books so it's not 100% new or out of place. I just think it looks a lot like a claymore.
Other people have also commented on the weird looking saber-ness of the lightsabers. I personally just chalk it up to either being a jerry rigged lightsaber or maybe the force isn't strong enough with this one to maintain a strong beam. Is that a thing? Is lightsaber strength based on ones power with the force?
The voice also makes a return here and now I am less convinced that it is Benedict Cumberbatch. Less British somehow.
And finally we have a sequence that kicks off the Star Wars fanfare with a sequence centered on the Millennium Falcon that does a flip/loop-the-loop! over sand dunes (Tatooine again?) while making a charge towards a pair of Tie Fighters. There is now spoken dialogue from either Han or Chewie (growl or otherwise) so who knows who is piloting the Falcon. It's a pretty awesome sequence to watch as I get a little dizzy.
I would say this is probably the most exciting part of the teaser for me since, with the exception of the desert opening, is the longest uncut section, lasting a whole 7.71 seconds. Plus there's the fanfare by John Williams.
Lastly, there's the cut to the Star Wars titles along with the subtitle of "The Force Awakens." I'm not about to analyze what the title means in relation to the Star Wars universe and all that I care about right now is that I like it. It's a catchy title that has caught my attention, unlike "The Clone Wars," which just didn't sit right with me.
As the screen goes dark, there's a quick sound effect of a lightsaber being drawn. I couldn't tell you which faction of lightsaber it belonged to, Sith or Jedi and I'm sure there's someone out there who knows if there is indeed a difference in the sounds that the lightsabers make. Again, I'm just guessing and not making fun of the people who do notice/know if these little details exist.
So after a lot of speculation, we now have 56 seconds of visuals from the new Star Wars movie that is slated to be released in December 2015. I can wait.
It turns out there is a new trend, started by actor Topher Grace, of re-editing the Star Wars prequels. I watched one called 'Return to the Dark Side' but I didn't think it was anything special. It actually re-affirmed my distaste for the prequel trilogy. The same sorts of questions came up, like why he needed to include R2 and C3PO, or how it is that Jedi can show so much emotion and not get called out on it. Also, I still don't like Hayden Christensen in the role. I always imagined Vader was a grown adult and not a whiny kid. Ah, well, c'est la vie.
In the previous month, read a few Lovecraft short stories, but otherwise did not celebrate spookiness. I did, however, dabble in weirdness, which often overlaps with spookiness - Lovecraft being a fine example. For reference: Don Hertzfeltd recently did a Couch Gag for the Simpsons. This guys work is a lesson in strangeness. I'm not the first to say the Simpsons is way past its prime, and I won't be the last. But having Hertzfeltd as a guest was really refreshing, for it's utter and total weirdness, and even a touch of melancholy. Give it a watch, and then maybe check out some other work from Don Hertzfeltd.
I first encountered Don Hertzelftd's work at Spike and Mike's Twisted Animation Festival at the Crest Theater. After countless bizarre, disgusting and offensive cartoons, came Hertzfeld's 'Rejected.' And it was the funniest thing I had ever seen. I guess I was just in the right frame of mind for his clever strangeness. Years after, I still love to recite 'I, am a banana!' it was great to see his work again, and in true form.
In other news, my first assignment at the University Temp Agency has come to a close, so now I get unpaid days off until they find a new one. It shouldn't take too long, because the University temp agency has a great reputation. I was just getting used to where i was working too, there's definitely a sense of loss. I guess those are the knocks at temporary employment. My postings might drop off a bit because I may not have as much downtime at this new position. We'll just have to wait and see.
I started using google + because Facebook was kind of getting me down. And mostly I've been joining different interest groups, like bicycle commuting, retro gaming, indie game developers. It's been a pretty cool source of new and interesting things, like this kickstarter.
