Amamao Paint Pens Review

2 years ago a friend gave me a box of Amamao paint pens for the holidays.. and I was skeptical. I'm really happy using my reaper paints on my minis, and I didn't see what advantages these brought to the table.

I remain skeptical on their use painting tabletop minis, but I discovered back in April that they are fantastic for working on my 3D printed terrain. I also this month discovered that they're great for my 5 year old to use to help me paint my terrain. 

Not only does it minimize the mess he can make as compared to the craft & hobby paints, but he has a lot more control with the pens. An additional benefit is that he has the entire array of colors to choose from, and a love of rainbows, so everything he's worked on has ended up a lot more colorful than it would have been if I'd been doing it by myself. 

Being 5, and easily distracted, he's a little sloppy, but with the pens it's easy enough to go back over and tidy things up. I've also made sure to use the craftsmart antique white somewhere on all the buildings to help tie it all together. 

As for the pens themselves, each pen actually has 2 colors, one on each end. Interestingly the tips on each end are different. One has a larger tip, and the other a smaller one. Both come to a pretty fine point, but for terrain painting, I've largely found the larger tip more useful, and have switched pens and colors if I wanted the bigger tip. There are a few narrow spots the pens can't reach into, but that's a minor issue overall, and mostly spots I'm going to paint a dark shadow color anyway. I've also found that the paint colors don't always match the tip. Not a wild difference, but enough that I've a couple of times swapped pens for something more to my liking. 

 

The color selection is almost perfect. My biggest issue is the lack of a good red in the set. Seems an odd oversight. The selection of metallic paints is fun, but I would have liked a dirty bronze color to work with. 

I have to say that for the price these are absolutely worth it, especially if you have a bunch of terrain to paint. 

Review: Star Thugs

More and more I find myself much more interested in interesting settings than in new rules systems. I'm generally happy with the OSR and related rules systems. They do what I like, in ways I like, but that doesn't stop me from looking at other rules systems to steal ideas from.

I picked up Star Thugs at a used book store for cheap. Cover price is $17.95, and I'm pretty sure I paid $5. The PDF is currently $6.40  It's an interesting game, mechanically, drawing a lot of inspiration from collectable trading card games, with actions tapping your characters when they do their things. Each player runs their own ship, and its entire crew. The captain is the player's main character, but when it comes to actions, having a larger and more diverse crew means you can do more.Plus you can, though various means, have additional ships under your command. Because everyone is running their own ships and crew, this seems like it could get kind of cumbersome to RP everyone. In some ways this feels more like a board game, or a CCG than a traditional RPG.

Resolution mechanics are on the simple side, with a single 1d12 roll rolling equal to or above the target difficulty. If you have a skill in whatever it is you're trying, and you roll equal to or under that skill, you get to roll again and add both together to try to hit the target number.

The setting of Star Thugs is our own galaxy, and set today. There's a solid chunk of the book that describes the local sectors around Earth. Major planets/systems get write-ups of varying length. Like many sci-fi games, planets are generally looked at as homogeneous entities. It's hard to avoid when each one only gets a couple paragraphs. It also feels like a lot of these planets and systems were based on a 14 year old boy's ideas.

This just feels unnecessary. 

Overall I enjoyed reading this book, but it does have a couple of flaws that really bugged me the longer it went on. The book is almost entirely written with an in universe narrator. While I enjoy some of that, I much prefer it when those in universe bits are flavoring, rather than the meat of the book. I also kinda hate the layout. The font is a little on the small and cramped side, and the non-spaceship art is all uniformly bad (see above).

Where Star Thugs really shines though is their random tables for character background and random mission generation. These few pages alone might be worth the (highly discounted) cost of entry.

Halloween Movies: Halloween (1978)

Last October I decided to start watching some of the classic horror movies from the 70s and 80s that I missed as a kid, and I started with Nightmare on Elm Street and was shocked at how good it was. Now I didn't get very far into this little project, so this year I'm starting a little early, and Tuesday night I watched Halloween.

Not I'm not a big horror fan, which is obvious given my lack of having seen this classic, but because it's such a classic so many elements of it have made their way into pop culture that much of it felt familiar.  I also have to give props to the film maker for not relying on cheap jump scares. Mike Meyers isn't scary cause he jumps out at you, but because he just keeps coming. Of course they don't start there... they rightly build up to it, slowly just having him be there. Just bring present, watching, lurking, and freaking out the kids.

Overall I really enjoyed it, with only 2 complaints. 

1. I felt the sound balance was off. The music was just a tad too loud

2. He killed the dog. I hate that. Go ahead and murder the randy teens, but leave the animals alone 

Interestingly I expected more blood/gore. For all the violence, it was remarkably restrained.

The real question becomes, how do you make a D&D monster like that?

Review: Picard Season 3

This review contains spoilers

I just finished the series finale for Star Trek Picard, and overall, it was a good ending. Season 3 delivered on the promise of being The Next Generation's swan song. It loaded the show with nearly heaping levels of nostalgia. They didn't over do it, but it was a near thing sometimes, and much of the final episode was pure fanservice. And look, I wanted it too, and so for that want, I'm satisfied.

However....

The was the Seven/Raffi relationship was sidelined this season, how little Troi got to do, how Beverly was so entirely focused on her son, meanwhile the emotional anguish of Picard, Riker, and Jack (three straight white men) was placed center stage just feels like a step back, and not in a fun nostalgic way. And then, AND THEN, at the end, with Jack being fast tracked through Starfleet to serve on the new Enterprise as special counselor to the captain? While there is a history of Crusher children getting special attention, the level of nepotism shown was so high they even pointed it out themselves in the show. 

While we're talking about the Enterprise, seeing the D in all her glory, with the crew back on the bridge? Honestly, my eyes welled up with tears of joy. Having the Titan-A rechristened to Enterprise-G? I can kinda understand why they, in universe, made that choice. The shipyards were destroyed less than 15 years before, and then with Spacedock and all the other orbital defences destroyed, there probably weren't a whole lot of extra ships being made. (Ignoring the entire fleet of copy/paste ships from the end of season 1) 

In spite of the name change, I do hope that we get to see the further adventures of Captain Seven and her crew. 

And that mid-credits scene? While I was thrilled to see Q again, I had kinda hoped it would have been Jack's brother instead. I guess if they do continue things, we might get to see him again... as well as Elnor and Soji who I really missed this season.  

But now it's onto Strange New Worlds in a couple months! Then more Prodigy and Lower Decks, and a Section 31 movie! It's an amazing time to be a Star Trek fan. LLAP. 

Review: Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness

Finally I was able to watch Doctor Strange 2. Due to the pandemic I've been avoiding going to the movies, and sometimes waiting for stuff to come to streaming is... less than fun. Thankfully this was worth the wait. 

 Warning, this post contains spoilers. 

Okay, I'm not going to recap the movie. Either you've seen it, or you've read about it. 

What in the hell was Strange and/or Wong waiting for to go talk to Wanda. Dudes, powerful emotionally unstable witch, and you all just... ignore her? How'd that turn out? 

Raimi's style definitely shines through, especially with the more horrific bits. Probably one of the most visually frightening of the MCU movies, and certainly one with the most named character deaths... Including Strange... twice. 

I was sad at the lack of Loki/Sylvie.

At the end I find myself wondering how dead Wanda/The Scarlet Witch is. With the destruction of the necronomicron, I mean the Darkhold, maybe she can finally move forward? I kinda felt like a good chunk of WandaVision got kinda ignored. And sure, maybe the Darkhold was corrupting her, but... eh. I wanted more of the Other Other Other Stranges, and less of what they settled on for Wanda. 

Still glad I finally got to see it. I give it a 3.5/5. Would have been better to have taken more from What If... and treated Wanda with more understanding.

Review: The Tower of Jhedophar

Another adventure from the stack of Frog God Games grab bag I got, The Tower of Jhedophar is another higher level adventure for D&D 3.5e, this time for mighty 13th-15th level characters. 

Designing adventures for high level characters isn't easy. And this adventure shows why. It's basically a very linear deathtrap with very few meaningful choices allowed to the PCs. The entire goal of the adventure is a powerful wizards staff, but the pile of magic items that can be collected along the way make it just an added bonus. 

 

For more context, the impenetrable tower is surrounded by an equally impenetrable "labyrinth" that can only be entered through the front door. Or the giant hole the squatting red dragon (who also wants the staff) made. Once they enter the front door, a thick steel wall materializes, sealing them in. The labyrinth surrounds the base of the tower and once inside the disk, the party can go left or right. Once they've explored the outer ring of the linear "labyrinth" they can then explore the inner ring. Once past the monsters and traps there, they can enter the tower, which is even more linear than the "labyrinth" as there isn't even the choice of left or right. 

There are some interesting new monsters, but that's about all that was good about this adventure. At least the writing was better than the Six Spheres.

Review: The Six Spheres of Zaihhess (It's So Bad!)

Over the holidays I picked up a big stack of Frog God Games books for pretty cheap. It was a random assortment of stuff, but thankfully most of it was from their Sword and Sorcery side of things. 

Mostly setting books, with a couple of adventures tossed in. One that caught my eye was an older 3.5 edition D&D adventure for characters leveled 7-10. Nothing too original in the basic concept, hunting down an artifact from an old evil cult and stop them summoning a big bad monster. 

But right from the start I knew things were going to be bad.

The writing doesn't get better. Between the clunky language, typos, and just incorrect word usage, it's jarringly painful to read. Whoever (didn't) edit this should be fired. Reading through it, I find myself wondering if this was written in another language, and someone used Google Translate it into English, and then they just... published it.

Seriously, there is no excuse for this (above) or this (below).

 

I know this was at the tail end of the 3.x glut, but this is ridiculously unreadable and unnecessary. And, yes, some of this comes from viewing this through my predominantly OSR sensibilities, but I can't imagine anyone used this stat block. 

Speaking of stat blocks, the main settlement has a trio of merchants that run things. For some unknown reason only 2 of them get full descriptions. There is a line at the beginning of the section that says "only the major NPCs with whom the PCs are likely to interact are fully detailed, but it's so arbitrary to only have 2/3 of them included. 

This also brings me to the organization of the book. A mess, just like everything else. The maps are all in the back, and the descriptions are all over the book. Which leads to lots of flipping back and forth. Not only that, there's nothing telling you which page the map you want is on. And on the flip side, the maps don't give you page numbers of where they're referenced in the book.

The adventure itself is a railroad in the finest traditions of railroads, and weirdly, is written with numerous bits of "how to run this adventure" type text that would make far more sense in an introductory adventure rather than in one designed for 7th to 10th level characters. For example this bit.

Tracking torches? Really?

I'm only about 1/3 of the way through the adventure so far, but there are a number of instances where stuff happens around the PCs and they can have no impact on the event... Also, spots where the adventure tells us, for example, that an NPC will absolutely NOT do a thing like sell their magic items. But then it'll give a (Diplomacy Check DC 40) immediately after.

Final Thoughts:

If I had paid good money for this on purpose, I'd be so pissed off. As it is, I'm going to finish hate reading it to see if there's anything worth stealing (there's gotta be something?!) I'm also really tempted to take the adventure, completely rework it for classic D&D while also making the damned thing usable and good. I won't, as I'd rather come up with something original, but I'm tempted...

Review: Kid on Bikes

Have you ever wanted to play Stranger Things? Well, have I got the game for you! Ennie award winner for Best Family Product 2019 Kids on Bikes. 

Now, this review is based entirely on a reading of the rule book. I haven't played or run it. 

In under 80 pages the game is a concise little system in a slick graphic novel feeling format. Most of the rules are covered quickly, and about a third of the book (the appendices) is tables to help with world building and to provide some basic templates for characters. 

The game does suffer a bit from being so rules lite. Much is left up to the Game Master to decide with vague suggestions about how they might go about it. Actions  are resolved by rolling the appropriate die against a difficulty number, and then comparing the variance of the rolls against one of the charts in the back of the book. For a rules lite system this gets a bit complicated. I suppose if you play enough you'll memorize the chart, or at least have a good enough feel to wing it, but at least at the start I bet it'll feel clunky. 

One design element that I thought was really interesting was the way it handles the powered/psychic characters. For one thing, the powered character is co-controlled by all the players. Each player is given a couple aspects of the powered character, and when that aspect is important, that's when that player gets to control the powered character. When none of the aspects are particularly important, it's a group decision. 

All in all, this is an interesting game that I'd love to try at some point. It puts a lot of work onto the GM, and I don't necessarily see it having good long term campaign playability (especially as it seems to lack a leveling up/getting better mechanic) but for a short campaign or one shot? It'd be fun.

Retro-Review: Star Wars: Return of the Jedi

Back to my Star Wars reviews... 

The conclusion of the original trilogy!

After the bit of a downer end of ESB, we find our heroes rescuing their friend Han from the clutches of Jabba the Hut. As with the entirety of the original trilogy, the practical effects, the puppetry, and the shooting locations help ground this movie in a way that to many modern movies and shows fail at.

One thing I'd specifically like to take a moment to comment on is Slave Leia, or, most appropriately, Hut Slayer Leia!! Carrie Fisher does such a wonderful job in her role as Princess Leia. I really love how over the years she embraced the fandom, in spite of her own difficulties. She really did become the space mom we all need, flipping off the haters, and spreading love and glitter wherever she went.

RotJ does suffer a little, coming after the powerful ESB, but it makes the best of it, hitting all of the powerful beats it needed to. Luke going off to confront his father and the emperor, the struggle in the throne room as he watches his friends fighting and dying, the moment of temptation as he reaches for his lightsaber in anger, and of course the redemption of Anakin Skywalker.

Then there's the ewoks. I get that they aren't the most impressive things in the universe, but they are kinda impressive in not only how they helped to take down the empire, but in how they had so many traps ready for the fight!

The original celebration on the forest moon of Endor is added to in the new version that shows celebrations on planets all over the galaxy. While I appreciate them showing it that way, it fails to blend in as seamlessly as I'd like.  

All in all this is a satisfying conclusion to the trilogy. 

Next up: The Force Awakens!

Avatar the Last Airbender Live Action Abomination

Some friends and I decided to binge Avatar the Last Airbender when it hit Netflix last month, and as an added bonus decided to do a drunken Netflix party for the live action movie after we were all done.

Now, we knew it was bad going in.

Nothing prepared us for just how truly bad it was on so many levels.

Warning, this review has spoilers for the cartoon (though I’m assuming you’ve seen the show), and, I guess, for the movie, but if this review tells you anything, it’s don’t watch the movie, not even as a drunken late night there’s nothing better (trust me, there’s something better) to watch.

The movie is basically the first season of the TV show (around 8-9 hours), condensed into about 90 minutes. All of the broad brush strokes of the show are there, from the basic storyline to the characters.

Yet it gets just about everything wrong. It’s almost as if "M. Night" Shyamalan only watched The Ember Island Players, and wrote the movie based on that. And none of the actors was allowed to watch the show at all, based on their performances.

Let’s start with the characters.

Aang, the fun loving airbender rarely cracks a smile and isn’t shown playing around.

Katara looks like she’s constantly on the brink of crying, can’t act, and just looks wrong, and not just because she’s white. She’s missing the hair loops! Actually, bad hair choices are a constant, but we got here first. Plus it feels really awkward for her to be hitting on Aang.

Sokka is the most whiny Anakin Skywalker character since Hayden Christensen. Where are the jokes? Where are the sarcastic comments? Where is anything that makes Sokka the ‘normal’ member of the Aag Gang that we know and love? And back to the hair… they ALMOST got it right… Which makes it kinda worse? Cause it stands out when no one else is even close… except for Aag, who’s just bald. Hard to screw that up.

Zuko… What’s Zuko’s defining visual characteristic? The scar. What’s barely visible in the movie version? The scar. His face should be seriously messed up. The scar should be angry and livid. Zuko should be Angry, full of the fire of pain and shame and resentment, and the scar should be the visual symbol of it. Instead Zuko comes off as the second whiniest Anakin Skywalker character to grace the big screen since Hayden Christensen.

And look, I think Hayden Christensen gets a bad wrap. He wasn’t exactly working with stellar script writing, and Lucas is crap at dialogue. But since Episodes II and III, there’s no excuse for any teen character to come off this poorly.

Appa… good lord, that face will haunt my nightmares…

Momo was… there.

Fire Lord Ozai was also there… and didn’t need to be. The Emperor didn’t show up in Episode IV. Ozai also totally lacked any of the menace the cartoon version presented. Just… He was a rich dude in charge and… eh?

Commander Zhao also just came off like a chump. Seriously, where’s the menace? Where’s anything that looks like they’re actually a danger? Where’s the fact that the Fire Nation has spent the last CENTURY taking over the world? Also, why does Zhao spend all his time at the capital? Doesn’t he have an avatar to capture? Instead we get him briefing Ozai, and delivering tons of exposition (more on this below). You know what’s not menacing? Briefings.

General Iroh… Were they even trying? At all? There was a vague attempt to make most of the characters look at least sort of vaguely like their cartoon counterparts, but Iroh? Not even close. Also no focus at all on his love of tea. How do you set up season 3 (or the 3rd movie) without mentioning tea?

Princess Yue was… good. I think they actually got her look right. The actress was fine given how little she had

Then we get to all the random changes to the plot from the original that they changed for no good reason that I can tell. A couple of these really stuck out to me.

Master Pakku/Waterbending - Instead of the Push/Pull theory of waterbending, we get “acceptance” a kinda of wishy washy go with the flow line of BS that divorces it from the yin/yang of the ocean and moon spirits… Why? Yet another example of Shyamalan shooting himself in the foot.

Also where were all the anti-sexist themes that ran through the show and made it more than a cartoon? Sokka’s big character arc (one of them, anyway) was outgrowing his sexist attitudes. Katara had to fight Master Pakku to get him to teach her. Princess Yue was being married off to a young promising soldier. All cut out.

The Siege of Ba Sing Se from 600 days in the show to 100 days in the movie… Why? Instead of seeming impressive with a 600 day siege, this makes Iroh seem weak, and the Fire Nation toothless.

Aang has a dragon spirit guide instead of Roku. Why? The whole deal with the Avatar is that he has the power of all his past lives living inside of him. Another failure to properly set up future storylines.

Firebenders have to have some fire around them to do their bending. That’s a HUGE change from the show, and changes the entire nature of the relationship of the Fire Nation to the other nations of the planet. Was M. Night Shyamalan actively trying to make the Fire Nation as neutered as possible? Again, where’s the actual menace? This movie doesn’t even have a Phantom Menace, it’s got negative menace.

The drill hats of the Fire Nation for the assault on the Northern Watertribe’s city were brilliant. The lone moment of genuine amusement in the whole depressing movie. They’re ridiculous, but I really liked them.

That out of the way, the editing and pacing of the movie was completely off. For example, early in the movie when the Fire Nation comes to the southern water tribe’s village looking for Aang, Zuko threatens the village if Aang refuses to come with him. Aang says he’ll go instantly. Zuko barely even finished the threat before Aang agreed. No pause to look around, nothing. Then… THEN a firebender kicks some fire toward the villagers. WTF?

The interruption of the action of the movie for long boring moments of exposition were painful and frequent. For what should have been an action movie, there was way too much telling, and not showing. Most of the exposition seemed unhelpful and confusing on top of being delivered in the most boring way possible. Even the info scroll at the beginning of the movie was less helpful than the tv show introduction.

Since I’ve mentioned the “action” can I just say how unconvincing it was? Not even getting into the bending, just the basic martial arts were pretty terrible. When you can have the Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo Montoya perform one of the most brilliant sword fights ever captured on film, even though neither actor was a trained martial artist, when you can have someone like Jackie Chan do amazing things, when you have countless trained fight choreographers and martial artists there’s no excuse for such lousy fights on a martial arts film.

And the bending… I get it. It had to be CGI. But it was done in such a way as to look like CGI. No one bending ever looked like they were actually bending, they never interacted with it like it was real. They didn’t believe it, and so neither did anyone watching.

All in all, this was perhaps one of the worst movie experiences I’ve ever had. My friends and I all stopped the movie multiple times to vent at how bad it was, and to refill our respective drinks of choice, because there was no way we’d have made it through the movie sober.

I haven’t even gotten to the horrible racist casting choices. Making the Fire Nation all Indian/Middle Eastern looking while all the protagonists are white? Really?

REALLY? That's some messed up internalized racism there.

But going on about this is beating a dead horse.

In the end, the best thing any of us could say was the drill hats were funny, and Aasif Mandvi has a great voice, even if it was criminally used. The worst things (and it was really hard to pick) were Iroh, Sokka (his hair especially, but everything really), and Appa.

Save yourself, and never see this abomination.

Retro-Review: Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

The Death Star has been destroyed! But the Empire's grip on the galaxy is still growing tighter. The rebellion is staying just ahead of Darth Vader...

It's generally accepted that ESB is the best of the Star Wars movies. It's darker than the first, introduces some amazing new characters (including Lando, Yoda, Boba Fett, and Willrow Hood), and has one of the most repeated (and misquoted) plot twists.

The special effects are even better than before, from the yeti monster to the AT-ATs to Yoda himself. There's something so amazing and timeless and real that comes from practical effects. As good as anything in the prequels, the effects here far surpass them.

As with ANH, I watched the "updated" version for this review. I actually had to go and look up to see what had changed. It was far more seamlessly done. Plus the shots of Cloud City I have to say were much improved (IMHO) with the changes.

So, is it weird that I praise the old effects on one hand, and then praise the updated effects that were cut in? Maybe.

Either way, as Lando and Chewie fly off, leaving Luke and Leia behind to go find Han, things wrap on a bit of a downer, and you're left feeling rather emotionally drained... Time for a short break, then we Return for the next Retro-Review!

Retro-Review: Star Wars A New Hope

We're back to the beginning... A long time ago, in a galaxy far far away...

There's been so much written about Star Wars since it first lit up the big screen back in '77 that there is literally nothing I could say that hasn't been said in fan discussions, college papers, books, magazines... It is literally a cultural touchstone, a cinematic masterpiece, a sci-fi work that everything that has been made since is compared to.

And look, I'm a Star Trek fan at heart, but even I feel the stirring in my chest when Luke stands out watching the twin suns set and John William's score kicks off.

In the decades since, with prequels, sequels, books, comics, cartoons, and everything that has come from this first movie, it's impossible to watch it with the innocence of someone in 1977. Can you watch Alec Guinness and not think about Ewan McGregor? (or James Arnold Taylor?) Can you watch and not think about Chewie knew Yoda, or how Vader is Luke and Leia's dad?

That said, I tried my best.

A New Hope stands the test of time. The special effects are still special, the music is AMAZING, the acting is better than a silly sci-fi romp deserves, and there's little that needs improvement. I have watched both the original versions and the improved ones, and honestly... Some of the improvements are actually improvements. I like the extra characters in Mos Eisley, and the slightly expended landscapes.

But one thing that absolutely needs to be said: HAN SHOT FIRST.

That said, A New Hope is wonderful... though i kinda wish we could have gotten something a little closer to this fight.

Review: Neverland: The Impossible Island

While D&D is very often somewhat jokingly described as being able to play as Gandalf and Conan and go on adventures together, there's a large grain of truth to it. The stories, the movies, the fairy tales that we grew up watching and reading directly impact what we want and expect to see and do when we sit down to play. So often though the stories that are told in children's books are ignored in favor of of more "adult" tales.

Which is silly. There are amazing stories that can be told from children's literature. Sometimes what you need is a little bit of fairy dust, and a guide to help you find the way.

Neverland: The Impossible Island is one such guide.



It would be easy to do a copy/paste of Peter Pan, slap some stats on a few key things, and call it a day. The author does so much more than that. Taking the original source material, and looking at it through not only a lens of what would be fun to play, but also tweaking and updating the source material to better fit modern sensibilities.

Yes, that means there aren't racist native american caricatures to be found here.

We can all admit this was trash, okay?

Instead, you get several interesting factions of island inhabitants, descriptions of various locations, and of course stats for important characters, including Pan, Hook, Smee, and the Croc. Interestingly no stats for Wendy or Lilly... But they do get a write up.

One of the things I most enjoy about Neverland are the figments. The creatures of the island aren't natural, and are created from the bits and pieces of the inhabitant's imaginations. There's a fun and infinitely expandable chart for creating simple figments, but as they're literally creatures of the imagination, there's no limit to what you can come up with.

If you've ever been interested in adding a bit of fairy dust to your game, it's worth the suggested price of admission (though it's PWYW) to pick up Neverland: The Impossible Island.

Review Star Wars: Rise of Skywalker

Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker is the generally satisfying conclusion to the Skywalker saga.

This post contains spoilers, but first, the non-spoiler review.

Overall I enjoyed this final installment of this trilogy. It gave me everything I want and expect from a Star Wars movie, delivered in a slick Disney approved package. There were lightsabers, an extravagant amount of new ships and exciting space battles, new aliens, new planets, old planets, familiar old faces, and the battle between the light and dark sides.

It's no spoiler that Palpatine is back, and no shock, pulling the strings. I wasn't sure I'd like how that got fit into the story, but it worked. It wasn't necessarily the way I'd have done it, but then there were a bunch of story choices in it that I'd have done a little differently. None of it was bad, just... it never really reached what I thought could be great.

Also, for a 2.5 hour long movie, it actually needed another 20-30 minutes. Everything was just so rushed, and the movie, the story needed a little extra time to breathe.

Spoilers below

I appreciate how much of the story is Ben Solo's story. His arc is as important as Rey's, especially as it's such a good mirror of hers. He struggles to embrace the Dark Side, has to work at it... and in the end fails. His cracked helmet is the most visible sign of the struggle. He is redeemed, at least a little. He's still responsible for the deaths of countless individuals, the destruction of multiple planets. So by any measure, he's a war criminal of epic proportions, but at the end he found redemption in his sacrifice. I wish that they'd have skipped the kiss at the end. I get it, he and Rey have a connection, but...

Rey and Ben's fight on the Death Star was interesting. I really appreciate how everyone has different fighting styles, and how much is communicated through them, and what I got most out of that fight was that neither of them actually wanted to be fighting the other. Especially Rey. She seemed to be working really hard to just get on with her mission, and Ben was just in the way. She wanted to stop him, but a lightsaber battle wasn't gonna get it done.

Rey's battle with the Dark Side continues to show just how seductive it is. I really felt it was all cheapened by the revelation of her parentage. It was just so unnecessary. The last thing the story needed was to tie her in to the Palpatine bloodline, especially as there was no hint that Palpatine was married, or had kids, or a clone, or... something, anything?

Fin being force sensitive makes sense. Poe being a former drug smuggler wasn't much of a shock either. Scoundrels do bad things. Even if they have hearts of gold.

The way the movie handled General/Jedi Master Leia Organa worked. I do wonder how much of that was forced by Carrie Fisher's death, and how much was planned.

The Knights of Ren were, hands down, the biggest disappointment of the movie. They didn't really DO anything, they never SAID anything, they were just sort of... there. And lacking lightsabers or force pikes or anything... just. Eh. Such a waste of a cool idea.

Overall, it was a solid movie. I'll certainly watch it again, but probably not while it's in the theater.

Bones IV Review

Now that I’ve had a chance to go through just about everything, I have some thoughts on the minis. Gonna go through them by expansion… hang on. This is gonna take a bit.

Chronoscape
My first hands on look at the new Bones Black material for standard sized figures. Overall first impression is WOW!! They managed to get a whole lot of detail in these minis!! Aside from the space-dino minis, these are all older figures from Reaper’s catalog. Thankfully there aren’t many repeats from what I already have in metal, so this set was worth it for me. I was very surprised that just about everything here comes with a blank integrated base. I’m gonna have to think about how I want to deal with this… likely I’ll just cut it off, which is a shame. If there had been some sort of detailing on them, it would have been great.

Favorite Figure: Pudgy short alien dude with attitude
Least Favorite Figure: robot with big guns
Pleasant Surprise: Bulldog options!

Dreadmere
Once again, top notch for the Bones Black material. I already have a significant number of these minis in metal, but with everything else in the set, and the conversion potential, again well worth it. There’s some delightful characters in this themed set, from the turtle and alligator buddies to the various townsfolk. The monsters are creative, and well sculpted. The pack tortoise was a bit of a problem. The pack was miscast/warped. I’m going to attempt to get it into shape, but if not, I’ll have to ask for a replacement bit.

Favorite Figure: Hard to pick, but the brain one is just a great sculpt
Least Favorite Figure: Guards - they’re okay, just kinda cartoonish.
Pleasant Surprise: The herbalist came out way better than I expected.

Darkreach
Another mix of old and new minis, but not a single figure I had in my collection. There’s a nice mix of underdark monsters, fungal creatures, and humanoids, perfect for an underdark campaign. I’m gonna need more of the little rock gnome/goblin dudes. I really like the new dark elf sculpts too. Such crisp detailing.

Favorite Figure: Gloom Stalker and Burrowing Behemoth
Least Favorite Figure: Dark elf queen on the throne? This is a great set and hard to pick a mini I don’t like
Pleasant Surprise: Stone Lurker has a lot more personality than I was expecting!

Lost Valley
Dinosaurs and Cavemen! This was an interesting set that broke with my expectations. First, most noticeable was the Mumluk. He’s twice as big as I was expecting. Based on the graphic, I thought he’d be between 2.5” - 3” tall, in line with the various avatar minis from Bones 3. Instead he’s big enough to be going toe to toe with just about any of Reaper’s dragons.
On the flip side, the long house was smaller than I expected. Still a nice sculpt, but…
Casting /Sculpt quality was a little off on the Raptors. Not terrible, but softer than I was expecting, especially given the quality of everything else so far. They were also a tiny bit bigger than I thought they’d be. Maybe scaled down by 1/3 the detail would look less soft?

Favorite Figure: Jade Fire Tribe
Least Favorite Figure: Mumluk - Probably gonna turn him into a terrain piece.
Pleasant Surprise: the Clubtail is both a solid sculpt and a SOLID mini! You could really hurt someone with it…

Fan Favorites
This hodgepodge of a set suffers from a lack of a theme, and works best as a complement to the other expansions. The flail snail, dark dwarves, demon toads, and beetle all fit in with Darkreach, the mimic bed, undead shark, bog skeletons, Izzy, skeletal ogre, and tidal lurker all fit in with Dreadmere, and the mammoth and penguins in with Lost Valley. Then there’s the portal… which is even better than was promised!

Favorite Figure: Tidal Lurker and Ogre skeleton
Least Favorite: Demon toads. They just don’t do it for me.
Pleasant Surprise: Isobael and her dog.
Unpleasant Surprise: Cavalry… Clearly this is still an area that Bones doesn’t handle super well…

Core Set
Unlike the expansions, the core set was made from traditional Bones material, and after spending all the time I did with Bones Black these feel…. rubbery. They’re also largely not assembled, and since they store better that way, I didn’t glue anything together. I did dry fit a few things to make sure that I had all the bits, but, as compared to the other sets, inventorying this one felt more like a chore.

Favorite Figure: Duelist 161
Least Favorite: Greybeard wizards… 5 old style classic robe and pointy hat type wizards was 4 too many. Old wizard and apprentice plus a coven of 3 witches would have been a better use of those slots.
Pleasant Surprise: The dragonman has a sprue of hands to choose from!

Add Ons

Baba Yaga’s Hut is a SOLID hunk of plastic. I’d planned on and expected it to have removable legs, but apparently that wasn’t to be. Due to issues at the factory, it was determined that the legs needed to be attached. I’m probably going to cut them off. I might still try to make it so I can add them back on later, but it’ll be much more of a project than I was planning on. The giblet will be used elsewhere.

Barge of the Dead
Not as solid as the hut, but BIG and so many parts. I love the ghosts and Charon that comes with it. Not sure when I’ll be able to build and display it. The sucker needs a mantlepiece to sail around.

Fantasy Scenics & Statues
The astrolabe is gonna need some work to assemble. It’s also a little bigger than I was expecting. I wonder if there was a scaling issue with it?
The ruins, well, summoning circle, etc. are all solid bits and will see a lot of use, as will the statues.

Dinosaurs
I got both the tric and the carnosaur and they’re both great. The back plate for the carnosaur is kinda weird, and will need some greenstuff, but that’s totally doable.

Wraiths
The Nine… sorry, what? Six… the Six are out ring shopping, and wearing their sunday best. Fantastic set, and one of the first things I added on. No regrets, only a wish that there were 3 more… plus some mounted versions…

Tree
Love it. Not sure what I’ll do with the spare torture victim. Hope the buzzards will be available separately.

Rulers of Hell
Their wings are thicker than I was expecting, but they’re gonna be great additions to the demonic legions.

King of the Jungle
Solid mini. The bottom of the throne suggests that there should be a base that goes with it… He’ll go well with the Mumlak as a terrain piece.

And that’s my review!

Review: Avengers Endgame

This is a spoiler free review!



It did not go like I thought it was going to go. It did tie up a lot of loose ends, and paved the way for the next Phase of the MCU. Having 5 years go by made for some really interesting storytelling, and I wonder how some of the MCU shows are going to handle it.

I kinda hate that we're not going to get to see those 5 years play out with the Defenders. 

There was a bit of ugly crying, shocking deaths, and good laughs.

I'm excited to see where they're going to go from here. I'm curious how they're going to handle certain movies that are supposed to be coming up in light of the events of Endgame.

Shazam!

Good Goofy Fun!

This post will contain spoilers



My cousin took my out to see Shazam for my birthday. I’ve been iffy on DC superhero movies, since they can’t seem to find the right balance between silly and… not even serious but EMO!!!!

Shazam nails it. Orphan Billy Batson, lost in a fair at 3 years old, is looking for his mom, ends up with a cool foster family (seriously, I wish they were all like this) and gains the powers of the wizard Shazam!

Before Billy though, there were other children… children who failed… and one spends his life hunting down a way to get the power he was denied. Dr. Sivana made for a really sympathetic villain, and also you could tell Mark Strong had a blast playing the part.



Honestly, the story exactly what it appears to be in the previews, but the way it’s handled is so perfectly done, and with just enough twist to make it memorable. Especially when Billy finally does find his mom, and it turns out she was just a scared teenager who made a bad choice, and has apparently made more bad choices going forward. I didn’t expect that they were going to go that way with the story.

I also appreciated how important family was in this movie. And it didn’t matter that it wasn’t family by blood, but rather family by choice. Found family, collected family, family that’s a little broken, but still good. Yes, I’m thinking of Lilo and Stitch here.



DC has finally managed to make a movie that should be the template for their cinematic universe. Now, obviously there isn’t going to be anything quite so silly as “Big, but with Super Powers” but they need to step away from the GRIM DARK EMO MY PARENTS ARE DEAD schtick, and make it FUN.

And stay for the scene at the end of the credits. Totally worth it.

The Orville S2 E1+2

Well, that was disappointing. I’ve been excited for the return of The Orville for months now, and the first two episodes did not meet my expectations.

The season premiere was all about the captain and his ex’s issues (she’s dating someone!) while Bortis needs to pee, and the doctor’s kid gets in with a bad crowd. Meanwhile the helmsman works up the courage to ask out the new scientist on the ship.

This was an entire episode of B and C plots stitched together, and nothing at all interesting actually happened. Boris pees (yay?) the helmsman chokes, and new science officer flirts with the captain instead, and the mess with the doctor’s kid gets resolved… that’s it.

Beyond the issues with the fact that this is a boring episode in which there’s nothing that couldn’t have been done on any other sitcom, the whole storyline with the doctor just ruined any sense of disbelief I could manage.

First off, this is a ship with only 300 crew, and somehow the CMO hasn’t met either of the bad kids parents? Hasn’t given a routine examination to the bad kid? Seriously? Also why is the android hanging around all the time? This is seriously the least competent crew in the galaxy.

Episode 2 focuses on Brotis’ holo-porn addiction, which is kinda interesting, but didn’t necessarily deserve the A plot, especially when TNG did this same story with Reg Barkley 2 decades ago… The B story was actually the more Trek-like bit of the show with a scientific/exploratory story that morphs into the attempted rescue of a lost civilization. In the end though, it lacked the emotional weight that it could have carried since so much attention was given to the more titillating(?) addiction story.

I've heard things improve later in the season... but I haven't gotten there yet. We'll see...

Star Trek Discovery Season 2 Red Carpet Premiere

I attended the Star Trek Discovery season 2 premiere at Battery Park. I signed up for what I thought I was getting was to see the first episode of the season on the big movie theater screen for free…

What I got what the whole friggin Red Carpet with the cast and directors and composer, swag bag, signed poster, and episode one AND two!



























And if I’d have signed up for the 8pm show instead of the 6:30 show, all I’d have gotten was to see the cast briefly, and the first episode.

It was SO MUCH FUN!!

And best of all, the first 2 episodes were great. Seriously well written TV (I only have minor quibbles) and it was so much better than the first 2 episodes of The Orville’s second season... but that's a post for next week...

Iron Fist season 2

Iron Fist - Season 2

Sadly I finished watching this excellent season just as it was announced that Netflix was canceling it and Luke Cage, which kind of put a damper on getting my review written. And it’s a real shame, because this was such an improvement over the first season, especially for Danny, who, let’s be real here, was probably the single worst character to come out of Marvel’s netflix shows. I’m not even just talking main characters here. Danny was a train wreck of a character.

Spoilers below


One thing that the Netflix shows have done an excellent job of is character development. Everyone has a story arc, everyone grows and changes. Danny, after returning to NYC as the Iron Fist goes through a lot in season 1 and in the Defenders. And in season 2 we can see that it’s had an effect. He’s a bit more mature, but still struggling, and a bit afraid of his power controlling him. Like Luke Cage he’s struggling with the gangs, and you can see that he’s very clearly doing his best not to set himself up as the defacto kingpin.

However that hesitancy to use the Fist’s full power is one of Davos’ major issues with Danny. And when he steals the Fist from Danny, he starts using it indiscriminately. Davos is a remarkably sympathetic antagonist, far more in the mold of anti-hero rather than villain. He’s grieving the loss of everyone he’s ever loved, his home, and the feeling of betrayal by Danny. Honestly Davos mirrors Danny’s journey in a way that looking back should have been more obvious to me before sitting down to write this.

Colleen Wing’s journey this season begins with her having put up the sword, and trying to live a life of peace. Hard to do with the Immortal Iron Fist as her live in boyfriend, and she keeps getting dragged back in. There’s also a fun subplot with her family that helps push along the season to its conclusion.

The Meechums… Ho-boy… These two very damaged people both looking to reinvent themselves and going about it in conflicting ways.

Ward is doing all the things you’re supposed to do on the road to recovery, trying to deal with the myriad of issues he has in his life while also running Rand Corp. Except, of course, he’s fucking it up (in part by hooking up with his sponsor).He’s desperate to reconnect with his sister. He’s still incredibly selfish, which Joy is happy to point out, but he’s trying. He is, I think, the most sympathetic character of the series.

Joy, teaming up with Davos, is out to hurt Danny, and wants nothing to do with her brother. Some of the best scenes with her revolve around the dinner at Colleen’s apartment. It was so delightfully forced and awkward. More like a scene out of a comedy of manners than something out of a superhero tv show! It was so incredibly uncomfortable for all of the characters for all of their different reasons. By the end of the season the anger she’d been nursing and the danger she’d been courting have run their course. Where she’ll go from there will be interesting to see. Or it would have if the show hadn’t been canceled.

Joy hired Walker (aka Typhoid Mary) to help Davos steal the Fist. Played by Alice Eve (who I know as Dr. Carol Marcus from Star Trek Into Darkness) she does a fantastic job playing both Mary the sweet artist, and Walker the cold ex-special forces killer. Typhoid Mary is yet another character I’m unfamiliar with, but this version fits in really well with the rest of the street level characters.

Things get really interesting as the season progresses. Danny without his power, Colleen conflicted, Misty pushing Colleen to work with her, Joy getting what she’d planned, and it not working out like she thought… Then things get CRAZY, as Colleen gets the Fist, while Davos ALSO has the fist… and then that ending. Again, just like Luke Cage, the last few minutes of the season put it over the top.

It’s a crime that we doesn’t get to see Danny and Ward out on their quest, see Colleen and Misty cleaning up the streets…