A blog for Rick Stump, gamer since 1977. Rants from my fevered brain about Old School Gaming, the state of the industry, my ongoing campaign (it began in 1979) and the supplements created by Harbinger Games
I was very lucky and was able to get a review copy of Jim Breyfogle's book Paths of Cormanor last week. I read it as an ebook formatted for iBooks.
The Technical and Such: The ebook layout was far superior to the majority with good, crisp fonts and text, a nice layout, proper use of various textual cues, and top-notch editing. If there was a spelling or grammar error, I missed it. The team of writer-copyeditor-editor-layout did a fine job and I was actually impressed with an ebook's composition!
The Plot and Such: Breyfogle did a fine job by keeping the plot very simple and straightforward. This does not mean the characters don't face mysteries or quandaries, it does not mean it is predictable, and it does not mean it is not entertaining. he just understands that a simple plot combined with good pacing and good writing makes a great story.
The characters were well-drawn and engaging and had a verisimilitude that I find lacking in a lot of contemporary fiction. There were even understandable motivations driving the errors made by the various characters, another thing that seems rare these days. Even minor characters were well-defined.
The setting was well-crafted and built by hints and implications rather than a data dump. The magic within the book was very, very far from World of Warcraft and retained a sense of wonder rather than a sense of level grinding.
The worldbuilding was subtle rather than ham-handed and very engaging. I liked the strong sense of a German/Polish/Russian culture that was not intrusive.
The Review: The book is quite good and I heartily recommend it. Although Breyfogle's writing style is different the setting and story reminded me of Vance and Lyonesse while the action was akin to Burroughs in A Fighting Man of Mars. It has been some time since I enjoyed a fantasy novel as much as I did this one, and that book was over 50 years old!
My relationship with modules and ABOP (adventures by other people) is complex; In the '70's and '80's i ran many "official" modules set in Greyhawk for one of my groups. The other group was all-new, all-original Seaward. Most of the modules were gifts, as was Greyhawk.
Now every year I take a 'classic' module and run it at Halloween. I have play tested a few (notably A Baker's Denizen which I modified to fit), and I will steal a map or a monster here and there. I like to occasionally use a map by someone else, totally restocked, to avoid becoming too predictable.
But I do not like just using ABOP; they are usually very, very heavily modified unless it is a Halloween adventure. And while I really enjoy a few contemporary adventures, I usually don't get much more than elements for my own games from the work of other people.
That's me, not you. I am idiosyncratic and quirky, so are my campaigns. My Hudson City based campaign for Champions is so modified I am, in the end, just using the map.
But I do review things. And I am rather frankly merciless in my reviews. After the 8th person in 4 months asked me to review Death Frost Doom I said,
"I ain't buying it."
When they gave me their copy, I was on the hook. I am told this is the original version.
How I am Reviewing
I am drinking G&T's while I do a 'read through and review' where I give first impressions, so it might end up a drunk blog, too.
Then I will sum up.
No edits!
The tagline of this blog mentions that I rant.
Buckle up.
Ever know that guy that bad-mouths a movie, or a book, or something and then you learn he hasn't seen/read it? Or the guy that starts disparaging something and the more he talks the more he reveals that the problem is the guy talking made an error? You know what I am talking about.
Hi! First, I haven't seen Star Wars: The Latest, yet, and I have no plans to [we will get to that]. But I want to talk about it a bit.
Full warning: I rant, I got whisky for Christmas, and it is late.
Review: Finn Jones continues to be terribly miscast, which is a shame. Rosario Dawson shows up and, just like I said about Carrie Ann Moss - when a competent actress is on screen is shows how bad the two female leads are. The show is doing the origin story of Colleen Wing as a superhero (and not doing a bad job of showing how she is able to do things only a superhero can do!) and the actress is so wooden I care less than before.
The real problem, though, is the writing. There are a few moments that are good, even really good. But based on the overall tenor, I suspect those are from the showrunner - i.e., the stuff that is being forced on this particular writing team so that Iron Fist matches Daredevil, Luke Cage, etc. is pretty good because someone else wrote it while Iron Fist wallows because the dedicated writers aren't very good.
The interactions between Danny and Colleen in particular are really... odd. My theory is that the writers know that Danny has a vow of chastity (i.e., 'no sex outside of marriage') and simply have no idea how chaste people act. Jennifer (The Wife) disagrees because she thinks Colleen's dialog and such are worse - her theory is the writers just suck in general.
So we are in a weird position of liking the comics, thinking the villains are solid, and recognizing that a lot of the incidental characters are great AND being interested in the overall plot while disliking the female leads, the secondary male lead, and thinking the protagonist is terribly miscast.
After the slog of reviewing Stranger Things an episode at a time (which I eventually just abandoned) I want to look at Iron Fist, which I have hopes for.
Daredevil season 1 was very good (I will eventually review that since I think people missed a lot) and the first half of season 2 is good so far. Jessica Jones was a snoozefest. I am watching Iron Fist before Luke Cage mainly because I am terrified Luke will be as boring as Jessica. My Background: I was never a huge fan of Heroes for Hire. Sure, it had its moments, but it was one of those early '70's comics a lot of comics nerds don't like to talk about in public - pop-culture comics.
Enter the Dragon was released in 1973 started a massive pop-culture focus on martial arts. Marvel made Master of Kung-fu by the end of '73 and Iron Fist within a few months. While Shang-Chi was associated with a license to make Fu Manchu comics, Iron Fist was off to the side, being all topical and relevant, so they teamed him up with Power Man who was...
...another pop-culture comic character. In this case, blaxploitation. Luke Cage's dialog was peppered with 'jive turkey', 'sweet Christmas', etc. for the first few years. By combining the two characters they survived the short shelf lives of their pop-culture origins until '86 when their combined comic was cancelled with a real shocker of an ending. Crew: Scott Buck is showrunner and head writer. he has experience and has been on some fairly successful shows. He's joined by Dwain Worrell (who hadn't done much prior) and Quenton Peoples (more experience than Worrell). The directors for these were John Dahl, who has a fair amount of TV experience, and Tom Shankland (also a decent TV resume). In all three the cinematographer was Manuel Billeter, who was solid if not exemplary. Good use of lighting, his day scenes were as interesting as his night, and he captures fights well for a Western cinematographer. I'd like to see more camera motion, though. Editors were (in no real order) Jonathan Chibnall, Miklos Wright, and Michael Knue. Editing was decent, although Chibnall was a little 'heavy-handed' without detracting from the quality. Main Cast: Finn Jones is the male lead. He is obviously a skilled actor with range. Jessica Henwick is the (so-far) lead female protagonist. So far she is pretty one-note with 'irritated and dismissive' her only mood. Tom Pelphrey is the primary male antagonist and he is doing very well with little and is slipping a little pathos into his character (and is the only one that seems to notice how ridiculous some things are). Jessica Stroup is the (sofar) female antagonist. As an actor, she's pretty enough, I guess. David Wenham is the hidden male antagonist. A talented actor, he's virtually wasted here so far. I hope he gets a chance to do more later. So far the best scenes are Ward and Harold in the penthouse because Wenham and Pelphrey together are wonderful. Acting: I am breaking up the flow I usually do to get this out of the way. The real problem in the first three episodes is the actors and the acting. I separate them for one reason - Finn Jones. He's a competent actor: you can see it on the screen. He is just horribly miscast. For being 6' tall in real life, Jones comes across as a loveable hobbit onscreen - all I want to do is tousle his hair and give him a cookie. Again, he is obviously competent, he just isn't the guy to play one of the deadliest kung-fu masters on the entire planet filled with smoldering anger over his past losses. Wenham and Pelphrey are good and are great together, but they don't get to do enough in the first few. But the real problem are the female leads. Henwick is giving a master class on how to play every scene as 'mildly irritated' and Stroup might as well be the boom mic for all the emotion she projects. When Carrie-Ann Moss shows up in a minor role and actually, you know, acts, it is a painful reminder of how the female 'leads' aren't. Plot and Writing: The origin story is a solid one and the writing is better than I expected. It is certainly better than it appears. The lousy acting from Stroup and Wenham is effectively erasing the emotional content from 2/3rds of the story. The miscasting of Jones is watering down almost all the rest until Iron Fist is almost just people on-screen talking and who cares?
That is a shame because there are some really interesting bits in the story. For example;
-Danny Rand does his best to always tell the truth which virtually always lands him in trouble. This is rather pointed commentary in the contemporary world!
-A couple of characters believe that anyone can be bought and are surprised when this isn't true. Another interesting critique of contemporary outlooks.
-Plenty of people know, for a fact, that Danny really is Danny, but they need specific physical evidence for this to be official. Nice examination of objective truth versus official truth that could be really interesting.
There is more, of course, but plenty to be done.
I do see some weaknesses, however. My main one is how Danny's emotional instability. Yes, I get it - he's back. But wouldn't a kung-fu master with 15 years experience in deep meditation be able to get a grip?
When Colleen Wing defeated a much larger man in the ring there should have been more discussion along the lines of 'that's impossible!', etc. After all - she's a superhero! That was her origin story. It should stand out that she was only able to do it because she is Special.
But it is early, so I hope these concerns will be addressed.
So far the action is pretty good, even though we need a lot more. Bottom Line: I enjoy it enough to keep watching. If you aren't a huge fan of Marvel, don't seek it out. But don't avoid it on a rainy Saturday afternoon, either.
I just finished a collection of short stories about the beginning of the end of the world. The End is Nigh is edited by John Joseph Adams and Hugh Howey. It is the first in a set of three set just before, during, and after various apocalyptic events. I will be doing bullet reviews of each story.
Earlier I wrote a little something about an article by Mr. Genesson where he attempted to 'defend' Dune against a review one of my sons wrote.
He has responded.
His response is, well - more of the same.
My second oldest son, Alex, had his short review of Dune published at the Castalia House blog the other day. He wrote it in about an hour a few days after finishing the book and I shared it with the editor of CH who was kind enough to put it up.
Alex wrote a largely neutral review ('some parts were great, some parts were terrible, overall average so I don't understand the hype' is a solid summary, IMO) and the overall comments largely boil down to 'yeah, that sounds accurate'.
Reviews are tricky things to begin with because they are subjective opinions. Reviews of older, well-regarded things are even trickier because there are a lot of other subjective opinions already formed. You expect some pushback, especially from the True Fans, and Alex frankly expected a lot more than he has (so far) received.
While still a minor, Alex is a big boy and I usually let him fight his own battles; he has so far declined to even read any of the comments since "...the sorts of people [he] cares about know it is just [his] opinion...".
But there is a review I was made aware of I would like to point out as an example of terrible defense. Alfred Genesson's reply titled 'The Sleeper Must Awaken: A Defense of Dune'.
Let me begin by saying - Mr. Genesson is entitled to whatever opinion of the book Dune he wishes to hold. If he wants to call it the pinnacle of human arts and letters - fine! he can. I am talking about the fact that his post is objectively bad and he should feel bad for writing it.
Let's begin!
Mr. Genesson writes,
" Alex Stump has gone and made some rhetorical opponents with a tirade against Dune. Sure, he claims he's "meh" towards it, but who on Earth gets that passionate over something you're ambivalent towards? Sorry, the word count alone belies not apathy or ambivalence, but rather, antipathy."
I must ask - if the essay was only 1,000 words would this be under the 'antipathy limit'? If the final rating had been 7/10 rather than 6/10 would this raise the 'antipathy limit' word count threshold? Is there a PDF Mr. Genesson could share showing how many words indicate approval, admiration, and pure animosity?
All kidding aside, what Mr. Genesson has done is impart motive with no actual proof. He is saying, essentially, 'no matter what he wrote, I know what he really felt' and trying to justify it with something totally unrelated to the actual point. This is terrible writing, especially when he could have just asked.
He goes on to show a picture of a 1st edition of Dune, which is cool. He continues,
" I'm a going to have to say, his summary and "good stuff" section is well, overly simplistic..."
It is a less than 2,000 word review, so simplistic is the key. This seems like a cheap dismissal of the fact that the review does speak positively of the book and Alex admits it 'sucked him in'. Of course, that would mean his 'antipathy' theory is wrong, so....
He then writes,
"...he gets bits wrong here. Melange does indeed grant longer lifespans, but prescience? Only to the Kwisatz Haderach, the Messiah figure of the story."
Let me be very blunt - the instant I read this I came very close to dismissing the rest of Mr. Genesson's reply and almost didn't finish reading it.
Why?
It is very badly wrong. As in, 'sell off that first edition because you don't deserve it and go actually read the book' wrong.
A central plot point of Dune is that melange is essential to FTL travel because the astrogators use it to see the future. The book Dune explicitly states that melange gives prescience to Bene Gesserits that have access to it, to astrogators, to Fremen during their communal events, etc. It is strongly implied in Dune that anyone who consumes enough spice gains at least limited prescience. The Kwisatz Haderach is different in his level of clarity, etc. but it is a matter of degree.
This is a critical misunderstanding of what is arguably the central plot point of the book and means that I personally find Mr. Genesson to have very little credibility as he continues to discuss Dune.
Mr. Genesson then writes,
"Alex calls the "man vs. machine" story cliched, but how many times have those in the Pulp Revolution crowd pointed out that the so called cliched stories of the old Pulps are in fact, better, and more compelling stories?At any rate, this is centuries after the Butlerian Jihad, and I fail to see the point of complaining about a background piece that the book isn't even about. His immediate comparison here is to The Matrix, and honestly, that's only a mediocre film addressing VR, AI, and philosophy. It looks pretty, but if that's compelling to you, I'm guessing you don't or watch much SFF."
Whether a story is good or bad does not change whether or not it is cliched. Also, Alex wasn't complaining, he was discussing the background. And Alex never mentioned whether or not he found the Matrix compelling, he was mentioning that Dune was written well before the man v. machine concept was recently popular. Just as with the 'antipathy' bit at the beginning Mr. Genesson is inventing emotions and motivations out of thin air. This strawman he is erecting seems to be so he can try some character attacks.
Mr. Genesson starts to really go off the rails,
"Mr. Stump believes this book to be painfully long. I suggest he avoid Mr. John C. Wright's Somewhither at all costs, then, if he can't handle that. I find this argument specious and indicates a lack of attention span and possibly discipline. Please, try getting though Pierre Bayle's Commentary, I did. Get back to me."
In addition to the strawmanning for character attacks, Mr. Genesson is now bragging about his own 'abilities' [he seems to be obsessed with the length of his... reading materials]. This was rather cringeworthy as I read it, but I soldiered on.
It also reveals he misunderstands the point. War and Peace is a long book, but a pleasant read. A Jack Chick tract is only a few pages, but still 'painfully long'.
Mr. Genesson joins a list of other people who miss a plot point,
"As to Dr. Yueh's betrayal, everyone has a breaking point, and the fact is that nobody is immune to such, and even hardening and conditioning only go so far. Since it's the Harkonnen that have her, he was likely shown the horrors they have or will visit upon her if he doesn't cooperate. Where does loyalty and honor dictate one protect first? Yueh has an impossible decision to make, and acts with as much honor as he can given the situation."
Yup. Totally misses the point.
The book explicitly states that Suk School conditioning is so intense that it is assumed that anyone who has gone through it would die before telling a lie or betraying an employer. It is so incredibly powerful if the Emperor knew they had broken it House Harkonnen would be wiped out. Herbert has Yueh break over what an illiterate street tough would try first. It isn't the fact that Yueh broke that is a plot hole, it is that it was so damned easy it was laughable that is a plot hole.
I have my own take on it here.
Mr. Genesson again misses the point,
"Further argument against this [argument that Dune is pro-Palestinian/anti-Israeli] is the fact that the Arabs have not reclaimed any of the desert, yet the Jews in Israel have indeed done so."
Alex didn't say 'Arabs', he said 'Palestinians'. You know, the landless, wandering, looking for a home Palestinians? The ones that OPEC nations marginalized and largely refused to shelter, a stance Palestinians in the '60's thought was because they were focused on protecting their profits from spi..., I mean, oil? The ones that fought the Israeli army that was largely considered unbeatable and that lived in its own harsh desert "world"?
Yeah. Them.
Mr. Genesson just keeps digging,
"Not to mention that Mohommadans do not search for a Messiah..."
Wow. Just... Wow. Yes, Islam has a Messiah figure. In Islamic eschatology the "Guided One" (or the Twelfth Imam, etc.) will come to earth just before the Last Days and the yam al-quayammah, the Day of Judgment, to fight the Masih al-Dajjal ('anti-Messiah') to rid the world of evil for Allah.
This is Comparative Religion 105 level stuff. This is 'I watch PBS sometimes' type knowledge. This is an 'I am too lazy to spend the time to google 'Islam messiah' and read the top hit' error of fact.
In Dune Paul takes the name Muad'dib
The Arabic word for "Guided One" is Mahdi.
Yes - Paul is meant to be a messiah figure!
Mr. Genesson also keeps building that strawman,
"Addressing his criticism of the Bene Geserrit..."
What criticism?
No, seriously. Alex never criticised the Bene Gesserit. He simply mentioned they are obviously patterned on the Jesuits. Period. The end. Nothing positive or negative, just - 'look at this parallel'.
Mr. Genesson is trying to refute something that never happened.
Mr. Genesson goes on to state that he has a different opinion of Dune's characters and dialog. Sure!
Mr. Genesson continues his wave of assumptions with this gem,
"I get the impression that Mr. Stump doesn't understand stoicism..."
I'd like that turned into an essay so I can figure out why, personally.
Mr. Genesson signs off with a non-sequitur,
"When you play Social Justice, the world loses."
Which seems apropos of nothing. Perhaps he ends every blog post that way.
Now that I have gone through Mr. Genesson's "defense" let me be blunt;
Mr. Genesson, the title of this blog post is for you.
I don't know you and I refuse to speculate as to your motivations, but here is why your response is objectively bad and you should feel bad.
You made errors of fact about the essay you are responding to.
You made errors of fact about Islam.
Most damning, you made at least one critical error of fact about the book Dune.
My oldest sister and her husband are cool, like jazz musicians and rock stars. They got me the Buck Rogers collections when they were first printed; they introduced me to King Crimson, Jethro Tull, and Dave Brubeck; they got me a subscription to Dungeon magazine for Christmas.
And they bought me Aftermath! in the Summer of 1982.
I was already running 2 AD&D campaigns, a Champions campaign, and was pretty active socially so I never ran it, but I remember the first rules read-through was great fun.
A classmate of mine, Derek, ran an Aftermath! campaign called Broken Sky in '84-'85. I have described it elsewhere in this blog, but imagine if The Road Warrior was crossed with the Dark Crystal, then re-written by Monty Python and directed by Mel Brooks. Everything was lethal, everyone was insane, and it was hilarious. He was using Spell Law for the various magical/super-sciency stuff but everything else was Aftermath! mechanics, including the rolling to hit with Firebolts and the gaining of spell lists. I played 4-5 sessions as one of the 'Shinermen of the Apple-Atcha' Mountains.
It appears that, barring a sudden change, my father will not be with us much longer. As his children, grand-children, great-grand-children, and various in-laws gather (there are about 65 of us, all told!) to see him, my thoughts are on what he shared with me.
Note: My father passed away while this was being written. We were able to see him before he died.
In the Spring of 1982 I was 14-going-on-15 and very excited because Conan the Barbarian was coming out soon. My father, who was a huge fan of the pulps, had introduced me to Conan when I was very young (even the De Camp stuff) and I had been mining it for my D&D games for years, along with Howard's works on Kull, Kane, and even his Breck Elkins stories. The day that Conan hit the theaters my father took me to see it.
Over the weekend I saw that the 1982 film was available on streaming and watched it again (the 14th or 15th time, I am sure). I had seen the remake with Momoa in the intervening years, as well as the TV series (Well. Some of the series).
Sorry for the light posting - I started a new business and have been busy and my free time has been going to projects.
10 Cloverfield Lane
The Fun Lads Four and I saw Cloverfield in the theater but waited on the semi-sequel to hit streaming.
BTW - we cut the cord on cable about 18 months ago and never looked back, We got a Roku stick and Sling TV subscription for Christmas and are sorry we didn't already have Sling! I recommend Netflix + Sling. For $30/month I have more TV and movies than I did with cable
We watched 10 Cloverfield Lane (TCL from now on) last night and then discussed it for about 40 minutes.
Howard Beleiff was kind enough to send me a pre-release copy of his adventure A Baker's Denizen for review. Edit: It can be purchased here!
The Review Layout and Such: I like the design and layout and found the page art very nice. He uses a classic illustration you better recognize!
Editing and Style: The adventure has a nice, conversational style that imparts a mood without overwhelming you. The writing is crisp and fun to read. The editing is great.
Content and Adventure: Try to come up with an adventure in an urban setting that is fun, engaging, able to be dropped into almost any campaign, and still has a unique hook. It is hard.
Howard pulled it off.
He uses rarely-seen monsters, a nice master villain, unusual layouts and floor plans, and a nice hook to craft a simple, fun adventure that is still capable of being adapted and changed.
This is not a "full review", which involves me watching a film 5-12 times, but more of a 'pocket review' [meaning I watched it once].
SPOILER HEAVY!!
The Nuts and Bolts Direction: The Russo Brothers. Did well with Winter Soldier, although I am amazed their careers survived You, Me & Dupree. Writing: Markus and McFeely. Pretty much have only written for the Narnia series and the MCU as a team. Production: A large team, but I am focusing on Bell and Woebocken. Bell is a line producer for the MCU and Woebocken is a pro for years. Music: Henry Kacjman, whoi mainly does superhero and action films. Cinematography: Trent Opaloch who did Chappie and District 9. Editing: Ford and Schmidt. Ford has more experience (his One Hour Photo work was great) and Schmidt is pretty much an MCU guy.
The Good Acting: Chris Evans had to carry the acting on this one and he did a yeoman's job of providing the emotional content without being melodramatic. Downey did a solid job portraying Stark as wracked by emotions to the point of being untrustworthy in an understated manner. Olsen and Bettany had a little side movie going on that was done well, if point on. Everyone playing an avenger showed up and read with conviction.
Paul Rudd and Tom Holland were a ton of fun. They knew why they were there, they knew what was expected, and they delivered.
Chadwick Boseman was better than I had expected and did a great job of portraying a man with dual missions. Action: The fights were fun. The use of powers was fun. Car chases, aerial chases, fistfights, etc. - a nice amount of well-delivered action. Camera work: Opaloch was especially good with the crowd scenes and was very good with cameras for dynamic work. Production: Sets, locations, props, costumes, etc. were all great.
The Bad Editing: The Matrix showed an entire generation of film editors a very important lesson - when you shoot melee like the 1980's you get confusing jumbles but when you shoot melee like classic Shaw Brothers wuxia movies you get compelling action sequences that can carry great emotional weight.
The people involved in editing this film never learned that lesson.
Great fight set pieces were cut so rapidly and jarringly the viewer had to fill in and figure out what was happening. As a result the fights had less emotional impact. Camera Work: Dialog was bog-standard two camera work akin to a 1980's sitcom far too often. During fights individuals were so tightly framed it was hard to tell what they were doing, let alone who they were fighting. Directing: I was taught that underacting/wooden acting is the fault of the actor while over acting is the fault of the director.
I found some faults with the directors.
The directors had a weird combination of taking 'show, don't tell' too far (how many times did we flash back to the exact same thing in 1991?) for motivating events and then doing info dumps in a tell not show way for plot critical information. It is like they were in reverse film land, or something. Writing/Plot: First, they take one of the most iconic of Marvel's villains, Baron Zemo, and turn him into a weaker version of the rather forgettable villain from The Peacemaker. His motivation is obscure until the very end and then? It is ridiculous. We have no idea how this obscure third-world soldier somehow broke codes that the CIA, NSA, and SHIELD couldn't, nor how he tracked down super-deep HYDRA agents, nor how he was able to place a massive bomb well within the security perimeter of the UN while also placing an EMP device at just the right spot at just the right time and also assassinate and replace a well-known man and then slip into a secure facility WITHOUT a disguise and use his real name on security footage with no one noticing while alone with one of the most wanted men on the planet to manipulate some of the smartest men in the world to hate each other (despite saving each other's live multiple times) to have them travel to an obscure place in the middle of nowhere after he needlessly kills supersoldiers to stage a fight for...
I can't even write about how effing ludicrous the backstory of Helmut Zemo is, anymore. But it boils down to this,
"Obscure nobody from nowhere with no powers, no support, no agency, and no money can predict exactly how a bunch of people he has never met will react to information they might never encounter so well that he can manipulate the entire planet into doing his bidding and no one notices."
It is the sort of plot a 12 year old dreams up for his first attempt at fan fiction, then discards when he is 12 as 'childish'.
So the plot was horrible. Actively, objectively terrible.
And elements of the film were as bad or worse.
The United States Secretary of State shows the avengers some video to show them how bad they have screwed up. What does he who them?
1) The Hulk jumping around fighting an invading alien armada intent on conquering the entire planet.
Who is expected to feel bad?
The avengers, who literally saved the entire world during that encounter.
2) The helicarrier fight from when clandestine terrorist organization Hydra came within minutes of taking over the entire world using technology given to them by governments that were compromised by Hydra and that almost prevented the Avengers from saving the world by manipulating an oversight group to stop the avengers!
Who is expected to feel bad?
The avengers, who defied the corrupt oversight group, revealed the compromised government actors, and saved the world from slavery to Hydra.
3) Footage of Ultron preparing to cause an extinction-level Tunguska eventthat would destroy all life on earth using alien technology from the invaders in clip 1 and technology from the international terrorist group in clip 2. The event was disrupted by the avengers saving all life on earth.
Who is supposed to feel bad?
The avengers, who ignored the calls of various pressure groups and governments that tried to stop them so they could (again) save the world.
4) Footage from the beginning of the movie. A team of terrorists led by a high-ranking member of that same terrorist group from #2, attempts to steal what appears to be a bioweapon of incredible lethality and rather than be taken prisoner detonate a suicide vest to kills scores-to-hundreds of innocent civilians and potentially release the plague. Scarlet Witch is able to channel the blast away from the crowd bit it still kills many innocent people.
Who is supposed to feel bad?
The avengers (especially Wanda) who demonstrable prevented terrorists from gaining a potent bioweapons and saved scores of innocents from a suicide vest.
I am going on a bit, but the point here is that we are expected to believe that the ENTIRE WORLD is so enraged by collateral damage that the overwhelming majority of people want to strictly control the handful of people that saved the entire world three times in 6 years and are SO UPSET that one of them did not completely stop a suicide bomber to the point that any one of them that does NOT submit to government oversight (which has already been PROVEN to have been compromised in the past!) will go to prison?!
...
...
...
As my oldest son pointed out during the movie,
"Anyone who ever took a course on morals, ethics, theology, or philosophy would have ended the movie in 1 minute."
Or, as son #3 opined,
"If I show footage of a gendarme kicking down a door at the bataclan theater I can blame the police for the Paris attacks?".
The stupidity was bad in many other places, too.
A) Based upon a blurry photo a terrorist attack is blamed upon the Winter Soldier and a 'shoot to kill' order is issued immediately even though the investigation cannot have properly begun yet and with the governments of the world being aware that the Winter Soldier was a brainwashed Hydra asset.
B) The Head of State of a UN Member nation chases down and fights with a known assassin who is wanted for multiple crimes, is the focus of an international manhunt, and when the assassin is apprehended the police also arrest the head of state?!
C) Wanda Maximoff, a foreign national, is held in the avenger's compound against her will on orders of a private citizen (Stark) for fear of 'bad press'? That is at best false arrest and at worst kidnapping and threats with a weapon (Vision is a machine) which could put Stark in prison for life.
D) A group of people, one of whom was never an avenger (Ant Man) are involved in a brawl. He (who was never incited to sign the accords!) is placed into a secret prison along with the 'bad' avengers without any form of trial and they are put there not by the UN, not by Interpol, not even by the Department of Justice, but by the US Secretary of State(!) personally(!!) and then interrogated by a civilian (!!!) Stark. I don't think Sokovia would be too pleased with Wanda being treated thusly by the US, do you?
The sad thing is, I only watched this movie and I could go on that much longer about the idiot plot, the plot holes, and the shabby, third-rate writing.
The Fun Marisa Tomei: Back in the '90's RObert Downey was in a RomCom called Only You with Marisa Tomei - the two of them flirting on a couch was a nice shout-out to that. Alfre Woodard: Downey also made a movie in the '90;s with Alfre where she played, essentially, his conscience. She sorta' does that in this film, too. Comics: Too many, from the spidey signal to the birth of Giant Man!
Bottom Line
A deeply flawed movie that is still fun to watch.
Review
1) We meet the protagonists, and they are Good
2) The antagonists are bad and do bad things to the protagonists
3) Training montage
4) The protagonists gain vengeance Genre: Kung-fu
Review
1) We meet the protagonist and he is Good, if Flawed
2) The antagonists are bad
3) Escalating action encounters
4) The protagonist wins in a final showdown Genre: Action
Review
1) We meet the protagonist, and he is Bad
2) The secondary characters are also bad, the antagonist is Worse, and everyone does bad things
3) Betrayals happen
4) The protagonist kills the antagonist Genre: Film Noir
Review
1) We meet the protagonists, and they are Good
2) We meet the antagonist, and he is Not Good
3) Musical Numbers and gunplay
4) The protagonists prevail, and sing Genre: Singing Cowboy
Review
1) We meet the protagonist, and she is Nice
2) We meet the antagonist and he is Handsome
3) 50 minutes of miscommunication
4) The protagonist and antagonist kiss Genre: Chick Flick
Review
1) We meet the protagonist and he is Smart
2) We meet the antagonist and it is Dangerous
3) Science!
4) The protagonist prevails Genre: Sci-Fi Peril
Review
1) We meet the protagonists, and they are Wholesome
2) We meet the antagonist and he is Greedy
3) Let's put on a show!
4) The protagonists prevail Genre: Andy Hardy/Shirley Temple, etc.
Ultrabrief Capsule Review:
Number of theater-wide chuckles: 2
Number of theater-wide laughs - 3
Number of theater-wide 'wow!'s - 2
Number of theater-wide 'daaaaaaammnn's - 1
Ovation at the end? - yes, not standing
Out of 5 stars? - 5
It is hard for me to write a review of Blade Runner.
No, for a funny reason. I picked the director's cut of Blade Runner as my thesis topic for my Film class in college. I've already written about 250 pages on this sucker and I just want to post the papers as PDFs!
But I recently watched it with my older kids and wanted to write about it, so....
Quick review follows.
