Justice League: Does Whatever A Snyder Can

When they announced the Snyder Cut of Justice League, I did not think it was the best idea.  Despite my misgivings, I promise you I went into the Snyder Cut with an open mind.  Even when some early reviews said it was overly long and devoid of humor, I was determined to make up my mind for myself.  How often do I agree with professional reviewers, anyway?

Well, the Snyder cut is overly long, and it really doesn't have enough humor.  But honestly?  It is the better version of the film.  It's more coherent, it's fixes some plot holes, and overall, it just feels more complete.

So I was wrong, I'll cop to that.

That said, I still can't say I love it.  Zack Snyder really Snyders his hardest here, and if I was a Snyder fan, I would be in heaven.  But Snyder is simply the wrong fit for this property.  It takes itself way too seriously.  I'm not saying comic book movies shouldn't be serious, but Snyder is going for a "Lord of the Rings" level of epic here, and it's more than I ever needed out of a comic book.

I won't lie, I laughed way too hard at this.

Watching Snyder try and squeeze profoundness out of such goofy characters is like watching a Spongebob Squarepants movie directed by Stanley Kubrick.  He overuses slow motion - I mean, like, seriously overuses it.  It's justified when it's the Flash, showing his perception of the world while he runs around.  But it's used for dramatic reasons way too often.  An early scene has Lois Lane buying coffee in slow motion, which is a bit much.  I have to wonder how much shorter this movie would be if it took out even half of the slow motion.

And I really can't stand how much Snyder hates color.  He uses a sepia-esque style similar to what he did in 300.  It's supposed to be artsy, but everything just looks washed out.  And guess what, he's also releasing a black & white version.  People who hate color shouldn't be making comic book movies.

Left: Aquaman.    Right: Snyder Cut

Side note:  I'm probably one of the few original generation Star Wars fans who actually prefers the Special Editions.  They have their flaws, but I do like the new content.  But it is obvious that George Lucas was "fixing" things that bothered him, not things that bothered fans.  For example, making the ewoks blink in the Blu-Ray release.  I don't think I'd ever heard a SW fan complain that the ewoks didn't blink, but apparently it bothered Lucas.

An even better example is in the Empire Strikes Back.  It always bothered Lucas that in one scene we see Vader in Cloud City, and shortly thereafter we see him back on the Star Destroyer.  I doubt any viewer ever said, "How did he get back there so quickly?"  But it bothered Lucas, who saw it as a plot hole.  So in the Special Edition, he went full overkill, showing way too many shots of Vader's shuttle trip back to the Star Destroyer.

Well, Snyder does the same thing here.  Why were Batman's gauntlets able to block Parademon blasts?  Nobody ever wondered that, ever, because we all know Batman's a master of gadgets.  But Snyder felt the need to explain it, with a scene of Batman and Alfred constructing the gauntlets.  Anyway, while some of it was unnecessary, a lot of the additions really do make the story work better.

Bottom line?  It's a solid movie.  Objectively, it's much better than the theatrical version.  However, I would happily watch the theatrical version again and again.  It's not perfect, but it's kind of fun.  I do not intend to watch the Snyder Cut ever again.  It's an endurance test, and it's not why I watch superhero movies.

I think Snyder's style works when he has the right subject.  I liked Watchmen.  But I grew up with these characters, and all I want is a decent Justice League movie made in the same spirit as the MCU.  Bright, colorful, optimistic, and most of all, fun. 

Still, I do hope that the Snyder fans now have the movie they want.  This movie may not be for me, and I'm sad that it will probably be decades before another reboot gives us a Justice League movie that does the team justice.  

Sonic The Hedgehog: The Movie

First things first.  I'm really glad that they spent all that money fixing Sonic's appearance, because the charming visuals are about the only thing that made this movie enjoyable.  If they'd kept his original design, Sonic would have been the next "Cats".  

Okay, so I was never a Sega fan.  And the Sonic games, while beautiful, never really did it for me.  The controls just weren't as tight as Mario, and therefore the games just weren't as fun.  I know basically nothing about Sonic's personality, so I have no idea how faithful this movie was to the original media.  So in case that's not clear enough: I am not this movie's target audience.

So anyway, Sonic has your basic "E.T." plot.  A creature comes from another planet or dimension or exotic location, befriends a human, and the human has to hide them from the rest of society, while they try to find a way to get back home.  There's really more movies that fit this format than you might think.  It's not just E.T. and Mac & Me, and it's not always a space alien.  It could be a sasquatch or a fugitive robot, basically any creature you'd want to keep away from the FBI.

Garbage Pail Kids, Masters of the Universe, Beastmaster 2, Howard the Duck, The Smurfs... Most of these movies could have taken place in the title character's home planet/dimension/environment, but they had them come to Earth and meet a human instead.  Maybe it was for budget reasons, maybe the writers wanted a human connection to make you care more, or maybe it's just easier than writing a real plot.  

I mean, who knows how to write a Sonic movie that takes place on Sonic's own homeworld?  I guess it's too much trouble to pick up a Sonic comic book and find out what kind of plotlines they have there.  Instead, let's just throw Sonic at Earth and have a standard "fish out of water" story.

There's nothing wrong with the Sonic movie (except the scene with the obligatory fart joke - I know kids love that stuff, but I hate easy humor).  It moves at a solid pace, it has a few cute jokes, and the cast seems to have fun with it.  Like I said in my blog about "The Stand", James Marsden is the perfect everyman.  Jim Carrey leaves no scenery unchewed, as expected.  The other actors... exist, I'm almost sure of it.

Anyway, Sonic is an okay movie, but nothing you haven't seen before.  When compared to other E.T. movies, it's one of the better ones, but that's a low bar.  When compared to other video game movies, it's still one of the better ones, but that's an even lower bar.  It runs rings around the Mario Bros movie, but that's the lowest bar of all.

 

The Stand

One of my favorite high school memories was being allowed to read a Stephen King book for class.  Our Sociology textbook had book recommendations at the end of each chapter.  Our teacher told us that we each had to read one of the recommended books, and deliver an oral report about it.  We could pick any book we wanted, but no two students could pick the same book.

My fellow classmates weren't interested in reading.  As soon as she gave the assignment, most of the students started looking at the end of each chapter, looking for books that sounded short or easy to read.  In the hopes of getting dibs on something interesting, I started at the back of the textbook.  A few chapters from the end, one of the recommendations was "The Stand" by Stephen King.  

I didn't look any further.  I quickly claimed it before anyone else could, though given that it's over 1,000 pages, I probably wasn't in any danger of someone else wanting it.  It was the first full-length Stephen King novel I read, though I'd read a lot of his short stories in "Night Shift" and "Skeleton Crew".  

If you haven't read The Stand, here's a quick summary.  A highly-infectious deadly disease (informally called "Captain Trips") escapes from a military base, and quickly spreads across the world.  A tiny percentage of humans are immune, and these few survivors start gathering together to rebuild society.  But there's also supernatural forces of good and evil at play, and survivors start having dreams and visions directing them to gather in certain cities.  Good people are called to Boulder, CO, while bad people are compelled to settle in Las Vegas.  But the evil entity drawing people to Vegas has plans to eliminate the Colorado citizens.

When it came time to give the oral report, we were allowed to write as much as we wanted on a 3x5 index card.  Other students wrote out their entire reports in tiny letters on their cards.  On my card, I wrote a single quote I wanted to remember:

“Show me a man or a woman alone and I’ll show you a saint. Give me two and they’ll fall in love. Give me three and they’ll invent the charming thing we call ‘society’. Give me four and they’ll build a pyramid. Give me five and they’ll make one an outcast. Give me six and they’ll reinvent prejudice. Give me seven and in seven years they’ll reinvent warfare. Man may have been made in the image of God, but human society was made in the image of His opposite number, and is always trying to get back home.” - Glen Bateman

Beyond that, I didn't prepare for the report at all.  I had enjoyed the book so much, that I was able to just treat it like I was describing the book to a friend.  I usually hated giving oral reports, but this was one of the few times I actually enjoyed it.  Not to brag, but I'm pretty sure my report was one of the best in the class, simply because I actually cared about the book I'd read.

A few years later, I read the unabridged version.  Then in 1994, there was a TV miniseries based on it.  I really enjoyed that miniseries.  Parts of it were cheesy (especially Randall Flagg's demon forms), but it was well cast (for the most part) and did a great job of telling the story.  We've since owned the miniseries on VHS, DVD, and Blu-Ray, and we've watched it many times.

We're currently watching the new version on CBS All Access.  We're four episodes into it, and for the most part, I like it.  But it's not getting very good reviews.  Here's the thing... I think this version is made specifically for people like me.

If the new version has one flaw, it's the way it jumps back and forth in time.  It's already such a long story with so many characters that it can be hard to keep everyone straight.  If I wasn't already so familiar with the story, I'm pretty sure I would be lost.  It's presented well, but it just bombards you with so much information, I just can't imagine newbies keeping up.

Honestly, I'm not sure how good a job it's doing in presenting all the relevant information, because I keep filling in the gaps with my own knowledge.  Do I know a certain thing because they showed it on the screen, or because I remember it from the other versions?  Sometimes I don't even know.

The casting is pretty good, though I miss some of the 1994 cast.  Like, I just can't imagine a better Glen than the late Ray Walston.  The original Harold Lauder (Corin Nemec) struck me as "Hollywood Homely", and never really felt like the social outcast presented in the book.  But the new Harold (Owen Teague) is a big improvement.  He has a creepy quality that really suits the character.  The 1994 Harold was just a jealous nerd-turned-sociopath, but 2020 Harold is a true incel.

I'm not sold on the new Tom Cullen, it feels like such a different interpretation of the character.  Not bad, just hard to get used to.  The new Randall Flagg is a lot scarier than the last one, but he hasn't had a lot of screen time yet.  I like the new Larry Underwood better than the old one.  Whoopi Goldberg is a pretty good Mother Abigail, and I haven't made up my mind about Nick Andros.

James Marsden (I can never remember which one is Marsden and which one is Marsters) is fantastic as Stu Redman.  He has an "everyman" quality that works for the character.  I don't think he's as good an actor as Gary Sinise (who played Stu in the 1994 version), but Marsden is perfect for this role.  Unfortunately, he feels mismatched with love interest Frannie Goldsmith (played by Odessa Young).  

The new cast is also more diverse than the original.  In fact, looking back at the original, I almost wonder if only white people had the gene that resists the disease.  I love Stephen King, and for the most part he is a very progressive individual.  But a lot of his most well-known works only feature minorities as magical beings.  It's one of those tropes that looks "woke" at first - after all, the most righteous character in the book is black, how can that be racist?  But it's still a type of "othering" that keeps the races divided.  But I digress.  

Overall, I think it's a great interpretation of the novel.  But again, the presentation is confusing.  I don't mind it jumping back and forth some, but I wish they'd divided it by season.  Have the first season all take place before everyone gets to Boulder, jumping back and forth as much as they want within those months.  Then let the second season take place after people start reforming society.  

I wish they would make a re-edited version with the events in the right order.  But since that won't happen, I highly recommend reading the book before watching the CBS series.  It's worth your time.

Update:

We've now watched the rest of the episodes.  Overall, I didn't like as much as the 1994 version.  It started out strong, but each episode was just a little bit worse than the previous one.  

One problem is, despite having more overall screen time than the 1994 version, it never really gave the audience time to fall in love with certain characters.  So when those characters end up in danger later, you don't really feel anything for them.  

This is partly a side effect of the way it jumps back in forth in time.  You see how each character started their journey, and how they finished their journey in Boulder, but you don't see enough of the journey itself.  And that's when we learned to love them.

The only place it drastically deviates from the novel is the final episode.  Note that the climax of the series happens in episode eight, so the ninth episode feels like a bonus short story.  Think of it as getting to spend a little more time with the characters you love.  Except they weren't developed enough to love them in this version.  There's some good tension in that episode, but the tension goes on so long that I wanted to shout "Get on with it!"  

Bottom line:  While the 2020 version is less cheesy than the 1994 version, it's just not as entertaining.  I love comparing and contrasting remakes, so I'm glad I got to see this.  But when I get in the mood to watch the Stand again (as I do every couple of years), it will still be the 1994 version I pick.

3D Printing

As I've mentioned on my RPG blog, a couple of months ago I got a 3D printer.  While I've mostly been using it for D&D stuff, I thought I'd post some pictures here of some of the non-D&D things I've printed.

Build-A-Viper Kit

Build-an-Enterprise Kit

Pencil Holder

2 Sizes of Grogu

My Desk

Medusa Pendant

Samus Aran - Still needs some touch ups.

Life is Strange characters

Life is Strange pendants

Life is Strange fridge magnet - 3D printed the figures, cast in resin in a pickle jar lid.

Life is Strange fridge magnet

Cats (2019)

It was so hard to decide whether or not to see Cats.  When the first trailer hit, the internet exploded with memes making fun of the special effects.  When the actual movie hit the theaters, most of the reviews were scathing.  But when I actually read the reviews, they didn’t really say anything that sounded so bad to me.

Here’s the thing:  Most of the movie’s reviewers haven’t seen the play.  Most of them wouldn’t like the play.  Most of the complaints I saw in the reviews could just as easily have described the play.  The play is long.  It is operatic, with very little dialogue.  It is surreal.  It is silly and weird.  It is oddly sexual in places.  I really can’t imagine most people liking it, but I love it.

Of the reviewers who actually mentioned that they hadn’t seen the play, 100% hated the movie.  But I don’t care about them.  The only ones I took to heart were the ones where the reviewer mentioned being a fan of the play.  Out of those, roughly half of the reviewers loved it, and half hated it.  Those that hated it mentioned changes they’d made from the play, a cast that just doesn’t put their heart into it the way the stage actors do (which could just be the difference between recording in a sound booth vs. projecting yourself to a live audience), and of course everyone mentioned the special effects.  The few people who loved it said the same things I’ve been saying: It’s supposed to be weird.

So now that I’ve finally seen it, I have to say…

*sigh*

Cats is not good.  As a fan of the play, I have to side with those who say that they changed too much.  I was in high school the first time I saw the play, and I liked the soundtrack so much that I bought it (on cassette tape, if that dates me), and often listened to it in the car on the way to school.   Yes, my friends thought I was weird, but what else was new.

For the most part, the theatrical versions of these songs aren't performed well.  They are hard to enjoy, because they're often broken up to make room for spoken lines or bad slapstick.  There was only one song in the theatrical version that I enjoyed, and that was "Macavity" (performed by Taylor Swift - her only song in the movie).  They also fiddled with the melodies.  One of my favorite songs in the play, "Mungo Jerry and Rumple Teaser", is almost unrecognizable in the movie.

They also tried too hard to give the movie a plot.  The play has almost no plot, it's mostly just unconnected songs about different cats.  There is an overall theme about how only one cat gets to go to their version of Heaven, but this is only touched on in two or three songs.  There's also a mini-plot about Old Deuteronomy getting kidnapped, but he's rescued in the very next song.

The movie milks those two subplots for all they're worth, at the price of decent performances.  In the movie, Macavity has this master plan of being selected to go to Heaven, so he's kidnapping the other cats in the running.  It's like they hoped a more fleshed-out story (still thin though it is) would appeal to a larger audience.  Instead, they slapped the core audience in the face, while failing to garner a broader appeal.

I could throw out more minor nitpicks, like how they made Growltiger (an in-unverse fictional character) into Macavity's partner, or all the failed attempts at humor using slapstick and fat jokes.  But overall it just wasn't fun, and didn't have any of the magic of the play.

The one thing I liked was what everyone else hated - the visuals.  I'm not saying they were good, not even remotely.  But they were strange and surreal enough to appeal to the weird part of my mind.  The characters reminded me of that Dreamcast game, Seaman.  

But I'm like that.  Give me something new and bad over something good that I've seen 1,000 times.   I don't care that the matting was terrible - it's a play.  You don't go to a live play expecting amazing effects; even the best plays often have the actors interact with papier-mâché horses.  And given how few people like musicals, you don't expect a movie based on a play to have a huge CGI budget.  Nothing on the screen was supposed to look realistic, it was supposed to give you a sense of wonder.  

Sense of wonder: Successfully tickled.  Everything else?  Meh.

Perfectly Cast Roles

In 1993, while in the theater for Jurassic Park, I saw the first teaser trailer for the 1994 Flintstones movie.  Note that this was before the internet was ubiquitous, so it wasn't common knowledge who had been cast for which upcoming movies.  The teaser didn't show any actual movie footage, it just played the theme song before cutting to Fred Flintstone's chest.  When the camera scrolled up and revealed that it was John Goodman, the audience cheered.

It's not that the movie looked like a "must watch", it's just that it was such a perfect casting.  I can't think of another actor in Hollywood history who would be a better match for that character. 

This is crazy, but just rewatching that teaser, and remembering the cheer, it almost brings tears to my eyes.  It was one of those perfect moviegoer moments, when everyone in the audience was equally delighted.  I won't say it reached "Cap grabs Thor's hammer" levels of audience camaraderie, but it was still a significant moment.  I don't usually like seeing movies with large crowds, but it's moments like that which make it worth it.

I got home from the theater and told my stepmother about it.  I asked her, "Guess who's playing Fred Flintstone?"  She thought about it for a moment, had a minor epiphany, and guessed correctly.  Because once you knew they were making a live action Flintstone movie, there was only one actor in that era who remotely fit the bill.  

For this blog, I'm not necessarily looking at actors who performed their role well.  I mean, Johnny Depp was the perfect Jack Sparrow, and no one else could ever do that role justice.  But Depp had the freedom to make that role his own, since it wasn't based on a previous character.  

I'm more looking at actors who had to play cartoon characters, or characters previously established by other actors, things like that.  And it doesn't matter if the end movie turned out to be good or not, or even if they played the role well.  It's the casting decision that I'm praising here, not the end result.

For example, Matthew Lillard did a great job as Shaggy in the Scooby-Doo movies.  But I can't say it counts as a perfect casting choice.  You'd never see Lillard in another movie and think, "He looks like Shaggy."  Honestly, his Scream costar Jamie Kennedy looked more like Shaggy at the time.  Lillard put his heart into the role and his Shaggy impression was spot on, but he still doesn't meet my qualifications for this blog.

But for an opposite example, Walter Matthau played Mr. Wilson in 1993's Dennis the Menace.  I have not seen this movie, and you probably haven't either.  It's got a 27% score on Rotten Tomatoes, which probably tells me all I need to know.  But I don't care how bad the movie was, casting Matthau was genius.  In other movies he looks and acts so much like Mr. Wilson, that there really couldn't have been any other choice. 

The Brady Bunch Movie (1995) might fit both categories.  Certainly some of the actors are doing their damndest to mimic the original show, while others are just perfectly cast and being themselves.  This is probably true for a bunch of movies based on old TV shows.  

Men in Black 3 had Josh Brolin playing young Tommy Lee Jones.  His impression is spot on, and I think he was perfectly cast.  But you want to hear something funny?  I had to look that up on IMDB, because I could have sworn it was Joaquin Phoenix, not Josh Brolin.  To be fair I haven't seen the movie since it came out in 2012, but I can't believe I got the two actors confused.  Brolin was well cast, but I think Phoenix would also have played the role really well.

I'd love to list more roles I consider perfectly cast, but then I'd never get this blog posted, because I'd keep waiting to think of more.  But the granddaddy of them all, the king of perfectly cast actors, has to go to... 

*drumroll please*

J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson in the Spider-Man franchise.  He is perfect, the rest of you can go home now, the award for best casting has been won forever.  QED.

Unfriended: Dark Web

As my wife and I get older, our tolerance for certain film tropes is waning.  She has a problem with sex scenes and with realistic gore.  As far as the gore is concerned, I don't think she's really changed, it's just that special effects got so much better, and it grosses her out.  Regarding sex scenes, her morals haven't changed - she still believes in the right of consenting adults to do whatever makes them happy - she just doesn't want to watch it.

As for me, I'm developing more empathy, and it makes it hard to enjoy horror movies the way I once did.  I don't mind if a few characters get killed, but I feel a lot better about it if they've done something to deserve it.  Watching innocent people get killed is starting to feel less and less like entertainment, and more and more like torture porn.

When I watched the first Unfriended in 2016, I was impressed.  It was an original concept, as fresh as Blair Witch felt when the "found footage" genre was new.  I liked how Unfriended was presented as if your TV screen was the protagonist's laptop.  I liked how you could tell what she was thinking by which tabs she opened, and what searches she made.  I liked how sometimes she would start to type something, then erase it, then type something else - giving us more insight into her thought process than you usually get in a movie.

But something else I liked, though it didn't really dawn on me at the time.  (Spoiler alert)  Everyone who got killed was guilty.  All of the characters were complicit in the events that led to the ghost's suicide, at least to some degree.  In a way, the ghost was the protagonist, and the movie was a revenge story, a la Death Wish.

Now, I'm not necessarily saying that all the characters in Unfriended deserved the death penalty for their part in the girl's suicide.  But their deaths do sting less knowing that they're bad people, and the world isn't any worse off for their absence.

Which brings us to the sequel, Unfriended: Dark Web.  Warning, spoilers follow.  

First off, U:DW is only a sequel in the sense that it uses the same format.  Once again, the TV screen is the main character's laptop.  Once again, the characters are killed off one by one.  Once again... no wait, that's it.  That's pretty much where the similarities end.

For one thing, it's not a vengeful spirit this time.  It debatable whether there's anything supernatural in U:DW at all, but more on that in a minute.  For another thing, this movie's victims didn't do anything wrong.  Well, okay, the main character stole the laptop from a coffee shop's lost and found, which is what gets the plot going.  But the other characters are innocent and, for the most part, likable.

I don't like that.  The twist at the end (major spoiler) is that the laptop was lost on purpose, by Dark Web hackers, as part of a game.  Apparently they wait until someone takes the laptop, then hunt them down and kill them, along with any potential witnesses.  This is all done for entertainment, with sadistic viewers all over the Dark Web watching this online cat-and-mouse game for fun.

Okay, but what about all this am I supposed to find fun?  If the Dark Webbers are presented as evil for watching this kind of thing, what does that say about me if I find the movie enjoyable?  Granted, to me it's fiction, while to the story's fictional viewers, real people are getting killed.  I get that.  But still, it almost feels like the movie's meta statement is, only evil people enjoy watching this kind of setup.

Another complaint I have has to do with continuity.  It feels like the writers couldn't decide whether the killer was going to be supernatural or not.  For 99% of the movie, I'm confident that the bad guys are just super hackers.  But there's this special effect that happens whenever they're on camera.  Their presence causes the cameras to glitch.  

Okay, so maybe they're carrying some sort of device that plays with camera frequencies.  But there's one scene that challenges that theory.  It's filmed from the ground, when a bad guy pushes someone off a roof.  Even from that distance, the killer glitches and warps in a way that really shouldn't happen if nothing supernatural is involved.

But who knows.  Regardless of whether the killers are using high technology or a pact with demons, this movie just didn't do it for me the way the first one did.  The interface is still cool, but I've already seen it.  There's nothing really innovative here, nothing that improves on the original, and nothing that would make me want to see it a second time.

Bottom line:  It's not terrible, but I'd rather just rewatch the first one.

The Witches

This week we watched both versions of The Witches.  I had only seen bits and pieces of the 1990 version, so this was a great opportunity to catch up on a missed gem.  Long story short, I like the 2020 version much better than the 1990 version.

I'm already seeing reviewers tear into the 2020 version, calling it a bland remake of a classic, and comparing it to the 2005 Willy Wonka remake.  To such reviewers - 1990 was only 30 years ago, you freaking fetus.  The original movie isn't some timeless classic, it came out when I was in high school.  And it's dull.

The 1990 version has one thing going for it:  Jim Henson's puppetry.  The mice in that version are delightful, and much more charming than the CGI in the 2020 version.  I probably just have a soft spot for puppetry, though.  

The witches, though...  

To me, the 1990 version of the Grand High Witch just looked goofy.  Yes, it was great makeup at the time, and it still holds up.  But I don't find it scary, with the long rubbery nose and all.  Meanwhile, the Baraka-esque 2020 version is wonderfully nightmarish.  I'll admit the CGI looks a little cartoonish, but cartoony fits the tone of the film.  Both actresses do a great job hamming up the role, and while some viewers will find them annoying, that is the way the character was written in the original book.

Both movies have the same basic plot, and in both cases the thin plot feels stretched to fill a full-length movie.  Honestly, not a lot happens in the story.  The first act sets up the universe, then the movie really gets rolling when the witches have their meeting and turn the protagonist into a mouse, then it wraps up with the mouse-child using the witches' own potion against them.  The 1990 version had a Hollywoodized megahappy ending that pissed off author Roald Dahl, while the 2020's bittersweet ending is closer to that in the book.

But the main difference, the make-or-break difference between the two movies is the pacing.  I just find the 1990 version slow and boring.  The 2020 version, while pretty much showing the same events in the same order, manages to do so in a way that made me excited to see what happened next.

The only thing I didn't like about the 2020 version is the narration.  Chris Rock voices an older version of the main character, telling the story in retrospect.  While this narration sped up the movie's intro, beyond that the voiceovers felt like an unnecessary intrusion.  

Overall, I have to say that the 2020 version is a lot more fun.  But the younger set considers the 1990 version to be a cult classic, and I doubt the newer version is going to replace it any time soon.

Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix

I like to think I'm an RPG enthusiast, but I haven't played one in a very long time.  I just can't bring myself to start a 50+ hour game when I know I won't find time to finish it.  These days I'm more into games that don't require a commitment.  I'm a sucker for two things:  Button masher fighting games, and halfway decent kart racers.  

Unfortunately, there aren't a lot of the latter.  Of course the best kart racer starts with an "M", and requires a Nintendo system to play.  For those of us who don't keep up with the latest Nintendo systems, it's hard to find a kart racer of similar quality.  Impossible, actually.  But until I break down and buy a Switch, I'm making do with what's out there.

You wouldn't think my needs are hard to meet.  All I want is to race vehicles while throwing objects at each other, and the physics need to "feel right".  But that's the hard part, apparently.  The people who design budget kart racers just don't put the same effort into the physics as the people who design NASCAR/Formula-1 racing simulators.  You end up with a lot of games where driving doesn't feel much different than walking in an action game.

But it gets worse.  For a kart racer to really stick with us, my wife and I have to agree on the feel.  We've been playing Beach Buggy Racing for a couple of years now, and we're really itching for something new.  (Shameless plug:  Subscribe to KJ's Twitch Channel where we play at least a couple of times a week.)  We tried Crash Team Racing a while back, but it didn't click for us.

Most recently we tried Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix.  It's not bad, but it's probably not going to replace Beach Buggy Racing in our household.  At least not yet.  

I never played the first Nickelodeon Kart Racers game, but all the reviews say it was terrible.  The recently-released sequel is considered a vast improvement, but it's still not getting stellar reviews.  

But here's the thing:  The biggest complaint I keep seeing in the reviews?  It rips off Mario Kart too much.  Seriously, why do reviewers assume that everyone already owns a Nintendo system?  I'm desperate for a Mario Kart rip-off.  For me, the plagiarism a feature, not a bug.  

NKR2 is a solid kart racer, despite what other reviewers are saying.  It has more than enough characters and tracks, it's colorful and fun, and you can tell a lot of love went into it.  It has unlockables galore, and every race gives you coins you can use to buy items, so it always feels like you're making progress.

The customization is pretty insane.  Before you race, you pick a driver, which also determines the shape of the car.  Then you pick three members of your pit crew, tires, engine, tailpipes, and paint job.  The first crew member determines your car's special weapon, and the other two crew members give you passive effects, like automatically getting a second item each time you pick up a power up.  There are a whopping 70 pit crew members to pick from, though most of them have to be unlocked.

It has a decent roster.  Not being ten years old, I was afraid that there wouldn't be enough characters I recognized.  However, its roster of 28 drivers spans several decades, including the Ninja Turtles, Ren & Stimpy, CatDog, Hey Arnold, The Last Airbender, Spongebob, Rugrats, and a few others.  Heck, the Ninja Turtles alone are enough for me.

It also has a decent number of tracks.  Eight cups, four tracks each, making thirty-two tracks total.  It has the standard types of tracks you see in every racing game, along with tracks themed after certain cartoons, and a few slime-filled Double Dare style courses.  It also has an arena mode with two arenas, a time trial mode, and a challenge mode where you complete challenges to unlock more goodies.

Some reviewers complained that the graphics aren't up to current gen, but honestly they're as good as I need a kart racer's graphics to be.  It has better graphics than Beach Buggy Racing, which, as I've mentioned, I've been playing weekly for more than two years.  

So it's better than people are giving it credit for.  Still, all is not perfect.  I have three complaints:

1. Drifting.  I'm not the only reviewer to mention this.  NKR2 tries so hard to copy Mario Kart's controls, but it just doesn't get drifting right.

2. Chaos.  Sometimes there's just too much going on.  Brightly animated courses, dripping slime, constant items flying by...  It's like driving through a neon circus.  Trying to figure out what's going on during the more frenetic races makes me feel old.

3. Physics.  It gets it a lot closer than some kart racers, but it still just doesn't "click" for me the way Mario Kart does.  It took me a few races to really get used to how much pressure I needed to put on the stick, and when I went to play Beach Buggy Racing again, it took a few races to unlearn NKR2 so I could get back in the BBR groove.  Also, even on the fastest setting, NKR2 doesn't feel as fast as I would like.

Despite those drawbacks, I still think NKR2 is a solid kart racer, easily worth $15 to $20.  Unfortunately, it's being sold for $40.  So if you like kart racing, I'd say add it to your wishlist, and hope it goes on sale.

Spider-Fan, Spider-Fan, Does Whatever A Spider-Fan Does...

Just a minor observation.  Back in January rumors started about a live action Spider-Verse movie.  Somebody photoshopped a cool picture of all three Peter Parkers together, and the internet went wild over it.  I saw the pic retweeted all over Twitter, along with enthusiastic tweeters shouting, "Make this happen!"

A couple of days ago they* announced that Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield had been signed on along with Tom Holland for the next Spider-Man movie, and from what I've seen, reaction has been mixed.  Seriously, some of the same goddamn people who said "Make this happen" nine months ago are now grumbling, "This again?  Are they out of ideas?  We've already seen Spider-Verse!"

Why are fans so fickle?

* Edit - "They" meaning internet rumor mills.  Sony has not yet confirmed the news, and is being sort of dodgy about the question.  Personally, if it does happen, I don't think "Spider-Verse" is what they'll be going for.  Garfield and Maguire will probably just be cameos.  I'm picturing something more along the lines of the Arrowverse's Crisis Crossover, with lots of world hopping, but not spending much time in most worlds.

The Sims 4: Journey to Baatu

I finally got a chance to play a bit of the new Sims 4 game pack, "Star Wars: Journey to Batuu".  In short, it's not great, but I still really like it.  It's getting bad reviews, because it just doesn't do enough.  I agree with this, but I also think people's expectations were too high.  

Journey to Batuu probably should have been called something like "Batuu Vacation".  Because it's not a new neighborhood you can live in, it's not a game changing expansion pack that makes everything Star Wars themed.  It's more like taking a virtual vacation to Disney's Galaxy's Edge, where you can do touristy stuff while pretending to be a Star Wars character.

The main issue is that "What happens on Batuu, stays on Batuu."  What I mean by that is, some elements only work on Batuu.  You can build a droid on Batuu, and it will follow you everywhere.  But once you take it home, it acts more like a remote control toy.  You can befriend all kinds of aliens on Batuu, but if you get one to come home with you, their alien features are treated like a costume.

There's plenty to do on Batuu.  You can hang out in bars, buy lightsaber parts and droids, and complete missions for three different factions - Resistance, First Order, and Scoundrel.  But it doesn't take long to see everything.

For me, the real draw is all the Star Wars themed furniture that you can put in your home.  It's easier than ever now to geekify your domicile.  Granted, you could probably download fan-made furniture just as easily, but I'd rather have official content when I can get it.  The furniture looks fantastic, as do the new outfits.

There are three kinds of expansions for The Sims 4: Expansion Packs ($40), Game Packs ($20), and Stuff Packs ($10).  Expansion packs have loads of content, and introduce entirely new mechanics to the game.  Stuff Packs just have a bunch of new outfits and furniture.  Game Packs are right there in the middle, with small mechanical additions or story elements, along with a Stuff Pack's worth of extra furniture.

I wish Journey to Batuu had not been a Game Pack.  I would have been happy with a Star Wars themed Stuff Pack, just so I could deck out my home in SW regalia.  I would have been happy with a full-on Star Wars Expansion Pack, with new neighborhoods and Force powers and major additions to the gameplay.  As it stands, Journey to Batuu falls somewhere between too much and not enough.

Actually, even as a Game Pack it falls short.  Two other Game Packs, "Realms of Magic" and "Vampires", give you supernatural powers.  Would it have been so hard to do the same with Jedi Powers here?   But again, Batuu is a vacation spot, not a lifestyle change.  

As long as you recognize that, and just think of it as an overpriced Stuff Pack with vacation elements, you won't be as disappointed.  

Dreams Do Come True

A while back I posted a blog about Star Wars Games I Want To See.  The last one I listed was "The Sims: Star Wars Edition".  Well, guess what they announced today?

Huh.  If I'd known they were listening, I would have wished for something bigger.

The Snyder Cut - Why?

Okay, so in 2013, Zack Snyder directed Man of Steel.  It wasn't the best Superman movie ever made, but it was serviceable.  In 2016, Snyder directed Batman Vs Superman.  It was an awful, bloated piece of dullness, and it was almost universally panned.  

In 2017, Snyder directed Justice League.  He had to quit before it was done, due to a personal tragedy, and Joss Whedon was hired to apply the final touches.  It wasn't a great movie, but it was a step up from BvS.  I actually like it, I just wish the villain had been better.

Look, Joss Whedon has his flaws.  I mean, he kind of peaked in the 90s, and a lot of his writing is... detectable.  As in, a character says a line, and you're like, "That sounds like Joss Whedon."  It's not bad, and sometimes it's pretty funny, but it's often obvious that all the characters were written by the same person.  But for the most part, I still like his writing.

In any event, I'd much rather watch a super hero movie directed by Whedon than Snyder.  Whedon actually seems to like comics, while Snyder only likes deconstructing them.  I'm really sick of the "deconstructing" trend.  It's not edgy or new, and frankly it's become just as tired as people think straight comic book movies are.

I'm convinced that Whedon's touches are the only reason Justice League was watchable.  Before he stepped in, Justice League was destined to be another four hour angsty snorefest.  Of course, the movie was too far along for Whedon to completely save, and he didn't want to alter Snyder's vision too much anyway.  So it's still a Snyder movie for the most part, and as such, it got mixed reviews.

I, for one, think it's underrated.  Like "Solo: A Star Wars Story", Justice League paid for the sins of its predecessors.  A lot of the people who hated BvS didn't even bother seeing Justice League, and I don't blame them.  I'm pretty sure a lot of the hate for the movie comes from people who didn't even see it.  But it still could have been better, and it joined the ranks of soon-to-be-forgotten super hero movies like Amazing Spider-Man movies or the Fantastic Four reboot.

And then rumors of the Snyder cut surfaced.  And for once, those rumors turned out to be true, or at the very least a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The new version of the film is on its way, much to the joy of Snyder fans.

Except... there aren't any Snyder fans.  BvS saw to that.  I mean, there's an exception to every rule, but I've yet to hear a lot of people stick up for BvS.  In fact, some of the people who hated on BvS are the same ones who demanded the Snyder cut of JL.

So what's the deal?  Explain this to me like I'm a five year old.  Why are people so interested in seeing a worse version of the same movie?  Who saw Justice League and said, "This would be better if it was twice as long, and featured a ton of slow motion dream sequences."  Might as well name Steppenwolf's mother "Martha" just for the hell of it.

Look, I want the Snyder Cut to be good, and I do plan to see it.  And I'll admit, some of the new footage does make me a little excited.  But I'm just not sure why anybody expects it to be better than the original cut.  We already know what Snyder is capable of.

William Gibson's Alien 3

I'm not claiming precognizance, but my life does contain a fair amount of serendipity.  And by that I mean, sometimes I'll wait months to post a blog, only minutes later to find out more information that would have been useful in that blog.  Like back in 2009 when I posted a blog about the Metroid series, and later that same day learned that another game was in the works.  I'm like a psychic that can only predict the wrong time to write something.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I posted a blog about sequels, and one of my examples was the Alien series.  Among other things, I mentioned that Alien 3 was not only a bad movie, but it screwed up the canon so that further sequels would be worse off as well.  Shortly after posting that blog, I learned of a new comic book adaptation of Alien 3.  Well, it came out in 2019, but I just now learned of it.

A little history:  To say Alien 3 had a troubled production is an understatement.  Cyberpunk legend William Gibson was originally tasked with writing the script, but his version wasn't quite what the executives wanted.  So it was edited and rewritten, again and again, until it no longer resembled Gibson's version (or anything interesting, really).

Back in college, about six months after Alien 3 hit theaters, I remember an "early Alien 3 script" floating around.  I only read the first few pages, but I believe it was Gibson's version of the script.  I even signed a friend's petition to remake the movie with the original script.

Fast forward to last year, and Dark Horse comics has released "Alien 3: The Unproduced Screenplay", a comic adaptation of that original script.  It stars Bishop, Hicks, and several new characters.  Ripley and Newt are in it, but only enough to establish that they still exist.  You can tell this was written before they thought Sigourney Weaver would be coming back, because Ripley stays unconscious most of the time.

The story establishes that the xenomorphs were created as a weapon, which is sort of alluded to in Alien, but not really confirmed until Prometheus.  But it directly contradicts some of the canon in the theatrical version of Alien 3.  The comic explains that under the right circumstances, any drone can become a queen, which I much prefer to the movie's idea that a queen's characteristics are already evident during gestation.

What didn't sit well with me is that the comic has humans transforming into xenomorphs.  These aren't true xenos, but the result of an infection after some scientists try playing around with xeno genes in the story.  So it doesn't really change the alien canon.  It's a neat bit of body horror a la "The Thing", but the transformations themselves are hard to swallow.  Like how a six foot scientist can just rip their skin off to reveal a seven foot xenomorph, complete with elongated head.

Okay, I'm exaggerating, but it still would have looked better on screen, where they could really show the transformation process.  One problem with comics as a medium is that since you only see still panels, you can miss the actual nuances of movement.  There were several action scenes in the story where I couldn't quite figure out what was supposed to be going on, because the artist had chosen the wrong part of the movement to draw.

I also had a bit of trouble following the story, which takes place across several space stations and ships.  Maybe it's just my aging brain, but I had trouble keeping track of the rival factions and who was in which location.  I also felt there was too much exposition, bogging the story down in places, but again I blame that on the comic format.  A lot of the conversations that took multiple pages would have only taken two minutes of screen time.

Overall I think it's a worthwhile read.  Unfortunately I still can't say I love it, but it's definitely better than what we got in theaters.

Dark Horse has also started working on an adaptation of an early version of the original "Alien" script, back when it was still under the working title "Star Beast".  This script predates the involvement of HR Giger, so the monster is probably totally different.  I haven't read this one yet.  Only one issue (of five) has been released, and I'd rather wait and read it in one sitting.

Bad Sequels or No Sequels?

There is a trend lately where sequels are made that ignore some of the earlier sequels.  The most recent Halloween and Terminator sequels come to mind, but they aren't the only examples.  I kind of respect that - working off the canon that supports the story you want to tell - but 100 years from now it's going to make things confusing.  I can only hope future archivists are extremely well organized.

I've heard some people say that certain movies just shouldn't have sequels.  Some movies are such perfect self-contained stories that sequels can only make the story worse.  Highlander, for instance, ended with Connor being the last immortal, and some of the sequels had to be very contrived to keep the story going.

But you know my feelings on sequels.  You miss all the shots you don't take, so if you think you have a good idea for a sequel, film the sucker.  If people don't like it, they'll just declare it non-canon.  I'd rather live in a world with a thousand Highlander 2's than to live in a world without Aliens.  

Aliens is a good example, because the first two are decent movies, and the rest are... well... of varying quality.  Some people hold this up as an example of a series that didn't need more sequels.  I disagree.  The existence of a bad sequel doesn't mean a good sequel couldn't have been made.

The problem is everyone keeps trying remake the first Alien movie.  The writers just can't get past the concept of an isolated crew being picked off one by one by a monster.  That plot has already been done to perfection.  And the monster isn't nearly as scary now that everyone knows what it looks like.

But in high school, I used to read Aliens comics by Dark Horse, and some of those took the universe in all kinds of interesting directions.  People locating the original xenomorph homeworld.  A grown up Newt dealing with her inner demons.  An egocentric general trying to train xenomorphs for battle.  Learning more about the elephant-like species that transported the eggs to LV-426.  A scientist designing an artificial xenomorph to infiltrate a hive, harvesting "royal jelly" to use as a steroid on humans.  

Sadly, not only did the script writers ignore a wealth of interesting plot ideas, but Alien 3 and Prometheus directly contradicted (and therefore erased) the comics canon.  The comic writers decided to go with the new canon, even going as far to re-release the older comics with Hicks and Newt getting renamed in the dialogue.  Ugh, just accept that it's an alternate canon, people.  I'll admit it, that's one of the few times my "bad sequels don't hurt anything" rule was proven wrong, since it introduced canon that ruined the spin-offs.  

I would love to see a future Alien movie where an aging Ripley talks about the bad dreams she had in hypersleep - crashing on a prison planet, getting cloned, etc.  Picking up about 40 years later, people still don't believe Ripley, Hicks, and Newt, but the trio still managed to live long, happy lives thanks to an undisclosed settlement they received from Weyland-Yutani.  But Newt's now-adult daughter hears rumors about some disappearing colonies (a la Roanoke), and gee, some of the details are awful similar to the crazy stories Grandma Ripley used to tell.  Curiosity leads her... well, literally anywhere as long as it's not just another "seven people on a ship get murdered one by one" story.

But anyway, the screenwriters think there's only one way to write an Alien movie.  Which is funny because the first two Alien movies are as different as night and day.  Aliens took a risk when it turned a horror story into an action movie.  But later sequels refused to take risks, and are all the worse for it.

Terminator is the same way.  I also read Terminator comics in high school.  Some of them took place in the war-torn future, which sounded like a great idea for a movie until Salvation came out and soured the concept.  I still think a good war movie could be made from the franchise, though.  If the writers could just get past the idea that every Terminator movie requires time travel, and approach it as a war movie first and a Terminator movie second, then something really cool might get made.

The bottom line is, the existence of bad sequels doesn't mean a sequel shouldn't have been attempted.  It just means the producers should be more selective about which script they pick.

Divergent and Intentionally One Dimensional Characters

One of the criticisms I've seen of Guardians of the Galaxy is that Drax's literal-mindedness isn't consistent.  For example, when Quill says, "This is our chance to give a shit," Drax's response should be more like what is shown in this HISHE video.

But I don't agree with that.  He isn't magically literal-minded.  He hasn't been enchanted with some sort of anti-slang spell.  He just grew up in a culture that didn't use metaphors.  He's since been living among people with more normal speech patterns, and some of it is creeping in.  His first instinct is still to take everything literally, but he's spent enough time away from his people that his instincts are going to be inconsistent.

That's kind of the problem with intentionally one-dimensional characters, though.  If they truly adhered to their defining character trait at all times, most of them wouldn't survive a week.  A 100% literal version of Drax would have starved to death the first time he saw a stop sign.

It's said that Drax is in prison for 22 counts of murder, which he probably committed while on his quest to avenge his family.  But I'd rather believe he just accidentally broke a few laws based on his misunderstanding of some culture's metaphors.  Maybe he heard an actor say "break a leg", or complied with a valley girl's request to "gag her with a spoon."

One dimensional characters make me think of those "One of us always lies, the other always tells the truth" people they have guarding dungeons.  I mean, what are these people like at home?  How do they even begin to live a normal life, if they can't control their honesty/dishonesty?  Or do they only follow that rule when they're on the clock?

I'm currently reading the Divergent series, which is all about one dimensional characters.  It features an entire society of people who each have one of five personalities.  You're either brave, kind, selfless, honest, or inquisitive, and if you're more than one of those, you're considered a criminal.  

Of course such a society could not work.  In fact, that might be the point of the series - it shows us why such a system couldn't work, by showing us how it breaks down.  But I'm also finding the story a bit inconsistent.  At the choosing ceremony, 16-year-olds are expected to commit to a faction, a decision that they will have to live with for the rest of their lives.  

But they're still allowed to choose.  Even though they're given tests that tell them which personality type they have (which should be obvious by that age anyway), they're given the freedom to pick the wrong faction, which will undoubtedly lead to them being factionless.

To me, this is where Divergent fails as a dystopia.  In the totalitarian dystopia the author was going for, the tests should indicate where the kids go, period.  You obviously want this society to work like a machine, so why give them free will?  You might say that giving the kids the illusion of free will makes them less likely to revolt, but they already know they don't have a real choice.  They know their lives will be ruined if they choose the wrong faction, fail, and become factionless.  Just going with the computer assessment would be more efficient.

And it's obvious why the author couldn't do that.  It's a form of the Anthropic Principle. If Tris hadn't been allowed to choose her own faction, the story couldn't happen.  And if she'd been required to retake the computer test until they got a clear result, she would have been executed before she even knew what a Divergent was.

Also, in a true dystopia, the factionless would just be executed.  For one thing, they would be considered a drain on society's resources.  Secondly, they're statistically more likely to be Divergent (who are executed), since they obviously couldn't cut it in their own factions.  And third, they have the most reason to rise up and overthrow the system.

Anyway, I've finished the first book, and I'm a couple of chapters into the second.  I'm taking a break at the moment because my attention is too divided by D&D stuff.  I don't know if I'm going to bother reading the third book, because I've heard bad things about it.  The third movie sure didn't impress me.

Minor Distractions In Media

Sometimes weird little things distract me when I'm watching movies or reading books.  For example, thanks to TVTropes and other nitpicky websites, I now notice certain sound effects more often than I would like.  There's a specific "rusty gate opening" sound that to me is as distinctive as a Wilhelm scream.  Plus there's that one owl hooting everybody uses, that standard cat yowl when someone throws something out of a window, and let's not forget that red-tailed hawk screech that's used to show a scene takes place in the desert.

Some people like to watch the glasses when characters are drinking in movies.  The liquid levels tend to go up and down a lot, since the takes are often re-shot or spliced in a different order than was filmed.  That's never been one of my distractions, but I do have a tendency to watch smokers a lot.  When a character is smoking, I subconsciously keep track of their inhales and exhales.  Sometimes a character will take a long draw on a cigarette, but thanks to editing, they never blow it back out.  This bothers me, and makes me feel like I'm choking.  And I don't even smoke.

Another thing that bothers me is characters who don't go to the bathroom.  I know, it's boring to show the mundane part of people's lives.  I'm not saying they should show characters in bathrooms more often, that's not my point.  I know a lot of this stuff happens off screen and between scenes.  But I'm talking about the times when there is no "between scenes".

I'm bothered by the times you specifically know a character didn't have time to go to the bathroom.  For example, right now I'm reading Divergent.  There's a scene where Tris wakes up and she's running late for a field trip.  We know she didn't get up in the middle of the night, because she's so sore from fighting the previous day it would have mentioned how difficult it was to get out of bed.  Her friend runs off to get her a muffin, and it takes the entire time she's gone for Tris to change shirts.  Then they run off, jump on a train, and so on.  

In fact, the book explicitly lays out her every waking moment from around mid day the previous day, until they take the train to the fence.  There is no time for her to have gone to the bathroom for nearly 24 hours, and yet - in a first person novel written in the present tense - she never even mentions trying to find time for a bathroom break.

I can't imagine waking up in the morning and not having to use the restroom.  It bothers me in stories when they don't mention this normal part of a morning routine.  I'm not asking for a detailed description of what transpires on the toilet, but stories where it's obvious they couldn't have gone to the bathroom fill me with anxiety.

I'm also bothered by novels that don't make clear a character's state of undress.  I've read several fantasy novels where (this is a made up example) a fighter is woken by a noise and ends up in battle for the rest of the day, and it's unclear whether he ever found time to don that exquisite plate armor the author described when the character was first introduced.  Am I supposed to believe he's fighting in a loincloth, or that he sleeps in his plate armor?  Because he jumped directly from his bedroll to his horse, and you can't tell me he put his armor on while riding.  (He probably didn't go to the bathroom either.)

Divergent again - there's a scene where Tris - who is shy about undressing around others - goes into the bathroom to put on her pants.  The pants no longer fit because she's put on muscle, so she puts on a towel when she leaves the restroom.  Then she gets assaulted.  Her attackers take her towel, and she runs off naked.  Maybe.  It's implied that she's nude, the attackers even make fun of a birthmark on her rear.  But at the same time, I'm surprised she isn't wearing underwear.  She wouldn't have been putting on her pants without putting her underwear on first, and there would have been no reason to take her underwear back off before leaving the restroom.  Is there no underwear in the Divergent universe?  If so, that seems like something the author should have mentioned.

There's a scene in the Doctor Sleep novel that screams "clothing continuity error" to me, but I'd be happy to be proven wrong.  I mean, it's Stephen 'effing King, for crissakes, I hate to think he's capable of such a mistake, but we're all human.  

But it's the first scene with adult Dan Torrance.  He wakes up with a hangover, next to a nude woman who's name he has trouble remembering.  He looks down and sees he's nude too.  He runs to the bathroom to throw up, grabbing his underwear on the way. He goes through the woman's medicine cabinet, finds three pills he wants to save for later, and he puts them in his pocket.  Then he puts on his underwear and goes back to the bedroom.  He disentangles his clothes from hers, then puts on his t-shirt and jeans.

In case you missed the problem - he's naked when he puts the pills in his pocket.  The only piece of clothing in the room is his underwear, which probably doesn't have pockets. 

Anyway, those are the only examples I have at the moment, and I might be misremembering some of them.  But this is the kind of thing that stands out to me while I'm reading or watching movies.  I'm not obsessive about a lot of things, and I'll accept a lot of unusual fantasy tropes.  But bathroom breaks and clothing status are vital to my suspension of disbelief.

Ranking the Nightmare on Elm Street Movies

Ranking movies is fun, and I would like to do more blogs that rank movies of a series.  However, I have strict criteria that prevents me from making all the lists I'd like.  My two rules:
1. I have to have seen every single film in the series.
2. There needs to be at least six movies in the series.  I picked six arbitrarily, but less than that just doesn't feel like enough to be worth ranking.

A friend suggested I rank the Friday the 13th movies.  The problem is, I don't like most of them, so the bottom six or so would probably be tied with each other.  Plus, I don't think I've seen the 2009 reboot, so I would be violating rule #1.  I considered Alien, but I still haven't seen Covenant.  Plus I'd want to combine it in the same list as the Predator franchise, and I haven't seen the most recent Predator either.

I'm also behind on the most recent releases for the Halloween and Terminator franchises as well.  Some would say I'm better off, that most of these recent entries would be at the bottom of the list anyway, but I'm not going to cheat on these lists.

So until I either catch up or think of another prolific film series to rank, here's my list of the best Freddy Krueger movies.

1) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors
2) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
3) Wes Craven's New Nightmare
4) Freddy vs. Jason
5) Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare
6) A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010 reboot)
7) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master
8) A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child
9) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

More details:

1) A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors - This is the peak of the series.  It has the perfect balance of scary imagery and comic one-liners.  It has some of the most iconic scenes in the series, and the special effects were decent for the time, too.

2) A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) - The original movie still holds up.  There's some bad SFX in there, and they hadn't quite figured out Freddy's personality yet, but it's a solid slasher movie if you're into that.

3) Wes Craven's New Nightmare - After the series peaked at 3, Freddy became less scary with each movie, and was more of a comedic character than anything.  New Nightmare managed to actually make him scary again.  Plus, I like sort of fourth wall, "movie within a movie" theme.

4) Freddy vs. Jason - I'm a sucker for crossovers.  I'm probably giving this movie more credit than it deserves, but I do appreciate how faithful it was to both characters, right down to each having their own theme music. 

5) Freddy's Dead: The Final Nightmare - The series had leaned heavy into comedy by this point, and I can't say this is a good movie.  But it was surreal enough to be entertaining, and at the very least it's my favorite of the bad movies.

6) A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010 reboot) - I barely remember the reboot.  It was serviceable, but didn't leave much of a mark.

7) A Nightmare on Elm Street 4: The Dream Master - Four and five are actually tied for me, and the scenes in both movies run together.  At this point the series was just, "Let's see what funny death scenes we can think of."  They needn't have bothered having a plot at all, the teens buying tickets just wanted to see gore.

8) A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child - See above.

9) A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge - This one is bad, but almost enjoyable if you want a good laugh.  They hadn't really decided what direction the series was going to go yet, and this one feels very out of place when compared to the rest of the series.

Ranking the Star Trek Films

I saw some people were ranking the Star Trek films, so I thought I'd join in the fun.  I have a hard time ranking anything that's covers such a long span of time, because I have to weigh sentimentality versus rewatchability.  Plus some of the movies are wildly different genres, so it's like comparing apples and oranges.  But this is as close as I can get:

1) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
2) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
3) Star Trek: First Contact
4) Galaxy Quest
5) Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
6) Star Trek (2009)
7) Star Trek: Generations
8) Star Trek Into Darkness
9) Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
10) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
11) Star Trek: The Motion Picture
12) Star Trek Beyond
13) Star Trek: Nemesis
14) Star Trek: Insurrection

So, some specifics:

1) Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - This one gets the gold because it ranks high on both sentimentality and rewatchability.  It has good pacing, it's quotable, and it stands the test of time.  Khan is still one of the best villains of any franchise.

2) Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home - Star Trek struggles on the big screen, because the TV's tone and pace don't always translate into blockbuster films.  Some Star Trek films add more action, some add higher stakes drama, but Star Trek IV leaned heavy into comedy.  And somehow, it worked.

3) Star Trek: First Contact - This one might be personal bias.  I was a latecomer to Star Trek, so Next Generation is my favorite series.  This is the best of the NextGen films, and features the best of NextGen's villains, the Borg. 

4) Galaxy Quest - Yeah, the fourth best Star Trek film isn't a Star Trek film, bite me.  But it does a stellar job as both a parody and an homage, making fun of Trek and its fans without being cruel.

5) Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country - Just a good, solid movie.  This one is special to me because it's the first Star Trek film I saw in the theater after becoming a Trekkie.  (I had seen first two movies in the theater as a kid, but I didn't like Star Trek then.)

6) Star Trek (2009) - A few years ago I saw Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn at a comic convention.  Somebody asked them how they felt about the reboot movies.  They weren't fans.  They said that the TV shows usually have some sort of message, but that the movies were just flashy action with no message.  I agree, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing.  The 2009 reboot is sleek and shiny, and not nearly as deep as the TV shows, but it does its job well.  It shows us that Star Trek movies can be summer blockbusters with broader appeal, as long as they abandon what Star Trek was all about in the first place.  I think there's a place in this world for both styles of Star Trek.

7) Star Trek: Generations - This one's just fanservice, but that's okay.  Star Trek fans are often the type of people who enjoy fanservice the most.  I'm pulling this statistic out of my ass, but there was a time when 90% of Star Trek fanfiction involved crossovers with other TV shows.  (I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I had a Star Trek / X-Men comic book.)  So having the generations meet was a no-brainer.  It's not a great movie, but it was a fun way to pass the theatrical torch.

8) Star Trek Into Darkness - A lot of people don't like this one, due to the clumsy handling of its fanservice.  They're not wrong.  It wasn't the best way to reintroduce Khan.  But if you get past that (and some other minor nitpicks), it's a fun movie.  Cumberbatch is a terrific villain no matter what you call him, and overall it's a decent film as long as you don't think about how it relates to the rest of the Star Trek franchise.

9) Star Trek III: The Search for Spock - First off, let me just say that there isn't a single Star Trek film I hate.  But around here is where my list goes from "fun to watch on a Friday night with a big tub of popcorn" to "I would leave it on as background noise while I play Sims 4 on my laptop."  Search for Spock is a utilitarian movie.  It does a serviceable job of tying up the loose ends from Star Trek II, but it doesn't do much else for me.  I do like Christopher Lloyd as a Klingon, though.

10) Star Trek V: The Final Frontier - I have to say, "What would God need with a starship?" is one of my favorite lines in a Star Trek movie.  Beyond that, there's just not much here to write home about.

11) Star Trek: The Motion Picture - I vaguely remember seeing this in the theater (I was six) and being bored.  I watched it again when I was seventeen, and it was still pretty boring, but I can imagine how cool it might have been to a Star Trek fan.  People who loved the original series, and were then starved for ten years, only to see it return on the big screen with more expensive special effects - it had to be an experience.  I like the twist - that V'ger is Voyager - but beyond that it's a slog.

12) Star Trek Beyond - I saw it once in the theater and forgot about it.  I remember some of the imagery, but I actually had to go to Wikipedia to be reminded of the plot.  And wow, it turns out I remember even less than I thought.  I do remember having fun, but it obviously isn't the most memorable movie.

13) Star Trek: Nemesis - Honestly I barely remember this movie at all.  I didn't hate it, but there just wasn't much to love.  I remember reading at the time that it was written by a Star Trek fan, who was trying to give Picard an arch enemy as compelling as Khan.  If they were going to emulate Khan, they should have used an enemy from the NextGen series, someone who has an established reason to hate Picard.  For example, Gul Madred from "Chain of Command". 

14) Star Trek: Insurrection - And finally, we have the reason you shouldn't use TV plots for movie scripts.  Insurrection is a perfectly fine story.  It feels like a dozen other episodes of the NextGen TV series.  But that's all.  I came out of it feeling like I'd just spent $20 to see something I could have seen on TV.  If it had actually been shown as an episode of the series, it would have been a decent episode.  But there was just nothing theatrical about it, nothing that warranted a big screen budget or leaving the house.  But it also proves that even the worst Star Trek movie is still a pretty good time.

Second Look: Tron Legacy

I saw "Tron: Legacy" in the theaters ten years ago, and was severely disappointed.  Yesterday I gave it a rewatch, and it was slightly better the second time.  But it's still severely disappointing.

To recap: Sometime after the first Tron film, Flynn disappears.  His son Sam goes looking for him, and gets sucked into the virtual world.  He thinks he's been reunited with his dad, but it turns out to be "Clu" - Flynn's pet program that turned into an evil dictator, leaving the real Flynn Clu-less.  Sam is made to fight in the games, and is rescued by a mysterious woman named Quorra.  She takes Sam to the real Flynn, who has been living in exile.

Quorra turns out to be the last member of a species called "ISOs", the rest of whom were killed by Clu.  Now Clu is focused on stealing Flynn's identity disc in order to do bad things.  Flynn refuses to fight because he knows it's dangerous to let Clu know where he is.  Sam and Quorra go off on their on to foil Clu's plans, but run into trouble, and are rescued by Flynn.  The three of them try to escape the virtual world together, and everyone fights on the way to the portal.  In the end (spoiler alert), Flynn and Clu kill each other, while Sam and Quorra escape to the real world.

What I liked: It's a very pretty movie.  Other than Flynn's de-aged CGI face, most of the special effects hold up ten years later.  Michael Sheen's character is over-the-top in the most delightful way - he should play the Riddler someday.  Quorra is a pretty neat character, presented as a stock "badass female fighter" character, but not so powerful that she seems like a cliche.

What I didn't like: Almost everything else.  Admittedly the original Tron isn't nearly as good as I thought it was as a kid, but at least it was cheesy enough to laugh at.  Legacy is more serious, and feels heavy handed.  But the story isn't good enough to support a serious tone.

Quorra's "last of her kind" backstory felt pointless.  The ISOs could have been taken out of the script entirely without losing much.  It feels like they just threw in an act of genocide to make Clu seem more evil, but he could have just killed a lot of the regular citizens of the virtual world and had the same impact.  Random trivia: There's actually a word for something that's the last of its species: "Endling".

In a way, the visual design was actually too good.  It didn't look like they were in a computer, it just looked like an alien planet, or futuristic Earth.  I wish they had dumbed it down a bit and given it a more jagged look.  The fashions in the virtual world just looked like modern racing gear, with some illuminated piping.  I miss the circuit-style aesthetic of the original.

Meanwhile, the CGI de-aging on Jeff Bridges was pretty bad.  Now, that would have been okay if they'd only used that special effect in the virtual world.  In fact, maybe they should have made everybody CGI in the virtual world, in order to sell that it's a computer generated world.  But they definitely shouldn't have had so many shots of young Jeff Bridges in the real world.  It might as well have been a scene from Roger Rabbit for how artificial it looked.

I also didn't like the soundtrack.  It was too generic and atmospheric.  During one major fight I noticed that the soundtrack was practically asleep.  Some heart-thumping boss battle music would have ramped up the tension.  But I really miss the techno-esque score from the original, and wish they had updated it.

The actual character of Tron - despite his name being in the title - is turned into an evil henchmen, and basically serves as this movie's Darth Maul.  He's an okay villain, but it's really a disservice to the character.

The plot is not interesting.  To be fair, the original Tron is just a Wizard of Oz remake.  Dude gets trapped in a fantastical world (complete with a different color palette) and spends the rest of the movie trying to get home.  Yeah, there's a subplot about wresting back control of his stolen copyrights, but the main story is basically an escape plot.  It's the same plot as Jurassic Park III, now that I think about it.

Anyway, Legacy has a similar plot, but it fleshes out the universe more, which ends up making it worse.  I really liked the 80s Tron universe, and would have liked to have seen more movies, games, comics, and cartoons set in that universe.  But the universe of Tron Legacy is bland and soulless, and left me cold.

What a wasted opportunity.