Author Archives: Wendigo Fantastico

Yay, we have rights

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I mean, we won them back in the Magna Carta, but now SCOTUS says that we really seriously for-true have them. The Supreme Court just ruled that detainees at Guantanamo Bay can challenge their detention in civilian court. Congress has tried to weasel out of this by re-writing the law in the past, but let’s hope that the end of Dubya’s presidency and growing sentiment against the war lets this ruling do what it’s intended to do.

For those afraid of them dangerous terrists, It’s not like SCOTUS is mandating busing insurgents to mid-American primary schools here. They’re just saying that people being detained under force of law have the right to go to a court and say “Show me why I’m supposed to be in prison.” This is, quite literally, the oldest established right under English common law. Restricting this basic legal right reflects terribly upon this administration and even worse on a public that’s complacently let it disappear without a fight.

My more elaborate review of Sky Captain

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I knew that this movie would look cool. The standard for computer animation, and the craft end of Hollywood moviemaking in general, is unbelievably high. All the press stories about Kerry Conran emphasized his love of old movies, his long labors over the initial film of giant robots in New York, his innovative idea to use computer animation for dialogue and exposition scenes in addition to special effects extravaganzas. Sky Captain stars Jude Law, Gwyneth Paltrow, and Angelina Jolie, three beautiful and talented actors who have generally good taste in projects

What I wasn’t expecting was a great script, and I got it in spades. There were a couple of minutes at the beginning when I was analyzing the animation, looking for the obvious references to cliffhanger serials and Golden Age Hollywood, but I was swept up in the film before I knew it. The pacing is spot on, building tension into big action scenes, then slowing down and letting the characters regroup as they search for clues to their enemy’s identity and whereabouts. Paltrow gets to play a cynical gal journalist in the Irene Dunn/Katherine Hepburn mode with shades of Veronica Lake noir, while Law is a charming, heroic aviator from a slightly earlier era. You don’t really mind when the pseudoscience crops up, any more than you mind that Tie Fighters make sound when they explode.

I’m generally easygoing about differences of opinion in film. I like 2001: A Space Odyssey, but I understand why a lot of viewers found it overlong and pretentious. Heck, I enjoyed Euro Trip, but I couldn’t debate its merits against someone who found it juvenile. Sky Captain is different. To people who thought that it was plodding and had no character development, I politely suggest that you scoop out your brains and install ones that work better.

Some interesting threads

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I know that several of you have spent some time on the forums at RPGnet. This is a list of a few of my favorite threads over the years. THey range from interesting adventure ideas to GM resources to pure silliness.

Methods of FTL travel

The Libraries of Faerie
One of the finest examples I’ve ever seen of the kind of creativity the web can promote. The posters could throw out ideas without having to work it into a whole game and were prodded by a competitive need to come up with something as cool as everyone else.

Cool history websites

Embarassingly bad MS Paint images
One of those threads that started out as somebody’s bored whim and became oddly epic.
Continue reading →

The Ziggurat Barley is as high as an elephant's eye

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There was a hilarious thread on RPGNet recently about arrogance in game design. Many indie game publishers act as if they’re the first people in history to create storytelling games and point out the problems with D&D. D&D obviously has a metric f*ckton of glitches, but it’s the attitude that exudes from some of these books: “Finally, a game for real storytelling without that pointless grognard dice-rolling!” Many of these products are very rules-light as well–three or four stats, a few self-designed skills, and a die mechanic altered ever-so-slightly from another game. This was one guy’s very funny attempt at parodying such systems. I don’t think you have to register at the site to view posts in this forum.

SPULTURATORAH!
the dark narrativist game of gamist simulationism in ancient retro-future Babylon