DW: SS vs. Viet Cong - March 27

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so I felt nostalgic and pulled out the good old ‘Deadliest Warrior’ (DW) out of the storage. For today, I chose the ‘Waffen Nazi SS vs. Viet Cong’ episode, and did not regret it.

…Well, no, I did not regret it in a manner of speaking. This is a controversial episode on a matter of layers. First, the DW team chose to stack the odds in the SS’s favor, as strange as that may sound: rather than some version of AKM, the Viet Cong team here used a MAT-49 submachine gun; I may or may not have written about this earlier, (way earlier), but this was the only time this weapon – or any version of it – was used on this show; whenever else the Viet Cong would appear – as NPCs – they would wield AKM firearms instead.

Second, this was not an episode suggested by any member of the DW main crew – rather there were suggestions that one of the background members of the staff had suggested it, which opens either a realm of possibilities or an assortment of problems or maybe both.

Finally, the DW team was able to depict the final confrontation thusly, that it appeared to be a team of American G.I. is facing off against the Viet Cong, not the SS. That also makes sense, since the American government and society have views regarding the SS and the Nazi regime, so the team SS winning this face-off was unexpected, and may have been one of the secondary factors/reasons as to why the DW show went under, for as I may have written before, (much earlier), DW show had plenty of good points – pity that they haven’t helped the show survive… Anything else?

People showed me an official episode of the new ‘Kiya’ cartoon series. On some level, it is a ‘PJ Masks’ variant with one important difference – and no, it isn’t the musical elements; ‘PJ Masks’ can be overwhelming themselves without it – it is the presence of adults/grown-ups/parents in the show – somehow, their presence keeps ‘Kiya’ grounded and relatively more realistic than the ‘PJ Masks’ are – but ‘PJ Masks’ don’t care about realism, remember?

…In other PJ-related news, the show… still has not gotten its’ act together, it seems. On one hand, there are promo images that show the characters, and especially the main villains, are getting an upgrade and are going against the heroes, in the style of the 1990s’ X-Men cartoon, (remember it? A classic!), while on the other the show tended to have its’ characters pull its’ punches, especially when it comes to physical violence, because It Is A Show for Children! As such, rumors have it that the characters new and old will spend more time getting over their internal issues than fighting ‘external’ bad guys. As I have mentioned before, so far there is no concrete evidence that the ‘night-time bad guys’ are actually real and not figments of the PJ Masks’ imagination. This would make the PJ Masks just a trio of really lonely kids who actually have to imagine people who would interact with them…but I’ve written about this before, and don’t want to get back to it again. Instead, what next?

Nothing, except that the ‘PJ Masks’ show seems to have gotten itself into a corner and is aware of it – the show stalled its’ new release since the beginning of 2023; the first episodes are supposed to be aired starting April 19, 2023, but so far there’s no information as to what they will be about and etc. Clearly, the franchise has ran into problems. Anything else?

Regrettably, no. ‘Kiya’ in itself is not that great; the music content has gone past saturation point and sometimes it makes it hard to make out what its’ characters are saying, but, hey, the children love it. They also appear to like ‘PJ Masks’ as well, of course, but that is children – their tastes are very different from the grown-ups’, but that is another story.

See you all soon!

Honor Among Thieves and Co. - March 23

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us try to find some different topic of discussion. Pause.

Sadly, there does not appear to be any; ‘The Mandolorian’ is already being discussed to death, while ‘Dungeons and Dragons: Honor among Thieves’… ok, let me rant.

‘Honor’ may be a D&D film, supposedly, but it is set in a very specific setting: The Forgotten Realms. Initially, The Forgotten Realms were just one setting within the broader D&D spectrum, but now, apparently, they dominate it, with their rivals, such as Eberron and Pathfinder, seem to have fallen by the wayside.

…Actually, that may not be really fair: the RPG sector began to suffer, just as many other luxury goods and services, ever since the COVID-19 outbreak, and it has not really recovered from it. However, the decline of some of its’ aspects, such as Pathfinder, began pre-COVID-19, and so I’m not fully sold on this state of affairs being the pandemic’s fault alone – something else might’ve worked behind the scenes, but what? Who knows…?

Anyways, ‘Honor’ is set in The Forgotten Realms’ setting, something that has not been openly/officially acknowledged so far. That is one. Two, is that it is a relatively conservative movie rather than a progressive/liberal one: a person of color plays the barbarian character, (so’s the paladin, but he’s more a temporary character in this film), and the druid character is a tiefling rather than a human or an elf. Second pause.

…Since this is a rant, may I point out that lately RPGs have this weird issue regarding tieflings. In fact, tieflings are only one out of several ‘planetouched’ races, a group of humanoids that have extradimensional ancestors… think the InHumans of MCU – initially regular humans with alien DNA, they became a brand new separate species by the time of them being featured in the MCU. The planetouched are similar, save that, the tieflings have demon or devil genes, (to use the term incorrectly, but still), while the descendants of the various celestials are called, the aasimar… and they are represented much less often than their tiefling counterparts are. I have no idea as to why, but this is how it rolls at least since the 3.5 D&D edition. Weird!

Getting back to the film, let us note that the tiefling druid here is a tiefling because the party needed one non-human character, to pass as a fantasy racial minority, probably. Again, this is not exactly new – Pathfinder, for example, tended to stick with human NPCs, when regular old monsters would not do; oh, it had its’ dwarves, elves, half-orcs and so on, but humans dominated. Since Pathfinder takes place on imaginary planet named Golarion, I do not know whose issue this was and why and how it was addressed, if it ever did. Still, Pathfinder 2^nd edition is a lot like D&D 5^th edition, so we do not care about Pathfinder as much anymore. Where were we?

Right. So, ‘Honor’ is peddling a specific setting as a general one, and it is quite conservative with its’ PCs, and it took its’ plot straight from the SW – Forge is a discount Palpatine, (“I cannot bare to see you die, so I’ll leave”) while his ally Sofina the Red Wizard is a discount Assajji Ventress. More precisely, Neverwinter and its’ lords are Coruscant and its’ Jedi, while the Red Wizards are Sith, with Thay being their home country. So what?

So nothing, especially since The Forgotten Realms’ setting itself has changed a lot in passing from the 3/3.5 edition onto the 4/5 one. Not sure, if it was for the best either – but while the different editions of D&D differ quite a lot, none of those changes came into the movie because of reasons. Where we are left with them/without them?

Again, with a conservative film that has several heterosexual couples – Forge and Sofina, Edgin and Holga, and Simon and Doric. This is never emphasized, of course, but it is there; Edgin and Holga, especially, are the Not-A-Couple of the film, as Holga tends to rebuff Edgin’s advances, (at least some of the time), but at the end of the film, Edgin, (and his daughter, who’s a minor character in the film – at least this one), choose to resurrect her than his late wife – symbolism is hitting the audience on the collective head here.

Again, there is nothing wrong with the good old classics, but could you acknowledge it, at least? In Pathfinder – at least the 1^st edition, not certain about the following ones – there were plenty of sexual minorities, (since it is a different world altogether and our rules don’t apply to it) – and so it seems to get cancelled, as I, for one, no longer can find much of it aside from the Internet, but the same can be said about many other RPG rulebooks and the like… Where were we?

Ah yes, the conservative values disguised as progressive ones. It isn’t just RPGs, you know? For a while, I was invested in Mr. Riordan’s PJ novels, as well as those spun-off/inspired by him. On some level, they were progressive as they utilized various racial and sexual minorities, but then-

But then I realized that it was ‘The Whale’ scenario – you remember our discussion of ‘The Whale’ as in the 2022 movie? In the discussion of it, it was pointed out that ‘weight’ and ‘race’ were window dressing for the actual movie message, (such as it was), and the same can be said for the latest novels of Mr. Riordan both about Magnus Chase and Apollo, as well as for the spin-offs.

Take, for the example, Mr. Yoon Ha Lee’s ‘Dragon Pearl’ novels, (there are two of them so far). They’re chockful of sexual and racial minorities… whose gender and race don’t play any role in the series, they’re just window dressing, and the main characters are a gumiho (fox spirit) from ‘the wrong side of tracks’, and a tiger spirit from a noble clan that’d disgraced themselves by treason against the emperor, or whoever. I.e., they are variant Skye and Grant from AoS, (I am going down with that ship). Ergo, does it matter if the supporting cast are not heterosexual? Hint: it does not… and the same largely goes for the rest of the spin-offs. There are some divergences from that mould, for example the ‘Tristan Strong’ series, but they are the ones that I cannot find on shelves anymore since the pandemic ended. Gee, I wonder why… What else?

Ah yes, one final part regarding the ‘Honor’ film – its’ main cast are a bunch of misfits that make a regular experienced N/PC face palm. No, wait, there are two – the team’s sorcerer is a descendant of Elminster. If anyone outside of the RPG community, (especially the parts keyed to the Forgotten Realms) know and care who Elminster is – good for them. They can go back watching ‘The Whale’ – the two sets of media are equally good. In addition, as for the misfit part, now this fossilized cliché is almost a requirement that you need to succeed in a film… unless you are in something akin the SW films seven through nine – but that is another story.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

TLM trailer 1 - March 14

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, and you can always count on your family to make you feel worse, so let us talk about something else – the upcoming ‘Little Mermaid’ film, perhaps?

The movie itself is shaping to be fairly typical for Disney – not unlike the ‘Pinocchio’ reboot, where the film was mostly like the original animated version, save for minor details there and here, and as for the details themselves…

Do you remember us discussing ‘The Whale’ recently? It was pointed out, that the excessive weight of the main character – Charlie – as well as his homosexuality were only ‘window dressing’ to disguise the fact that Mr. A has depicted a thoroughly miserable and lonely man, who was also a deeply flawed individual; in fact, it can be argued that Charlie’s supposedly defining features are actually flat-out redundant and unnecessary for the movie’s narrative. The trick here is the same can be said about the female lead of ‘The Whale’ – Liz the nurse, whose defining trait is her race – she is played by a P.O.C., but, unfortunately, her race never plays a factor in ‘The Whale’, even less than Charlie’s traits do. Still, politics of the day must politic, and so ‘The Whale’ had a token P.O.C., even though Liz’s race never played a factor in ‘The Whale’… Now what?

…The same can be said about the upcoming ‘Little Mermaid’ reboot. OK, Ariel is going to be played by a P.O.C., of an Afro-, rather than of Asian-American origin, but so what? What exactly the role that her race is going to be playing in the film? None whatsoever, and given the fact that it is a movie about mermaids and other mythical beings, the arguments that are being raised both pro and contra Ms. B’s role as Ariel are ridiculous and stupid. Both God and Caesar must have their dues, for TLM reboot to lift-off there must be some POCs in the cast, and so there are. Why does TLM need a reboot in the first place is another story, but it is going to get one regardless. Anything else?

Yes, getting back to the film’s trailer, I just want to talk about the bird – it has changed species completely. In the original movie, it was a gull – just a generic gull, starring in a magical animated film, nothing more. Now, however, Disney is going for realism, and so the bird… turned from a gull into a gannet. Despite being seabirds, gannets do not have any connection to gulls – they and the booby birds are related to frigate birds, cormorants, and darters, and beyond that – to bustards and storks. They do not even look like gulls, and the two bird groups do not act too similarly either, so I do not know why the film’s cast decided to do this. Ah well, human logic does sometimes manifest in odd ways.

For now though, this is it. See you all soon!

The Whale - March 11

 Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks, so let us talk about something unusual: the 2022 movie ‘The Whale’.

Where to begin? Ah yes, ‘The Whale’ is 2023’s ‘Velma’ more obtuse cousin, geometrically speaking, and I feel like I can prove it. Let us start.

MK’s ‘Velma’ was a cartoon TV show aimed to irritate everyone in general… that is it. MK felt that this is the right way to stir controversy and discussion… and she was right, to a point: for a while, ‘Velma’ was the talk about the town, until it stopped, and everyone is doing their best to forget that it’d even existed: i.e., Ms. Ming-Na Wen, who is usually trying to milk every teat – from AoS to ‘Mulan’ to SW and beyond has never mentioned that she was a voice actress in ‘Velma’: the cartoon was that bad! Where were we?

Ah yes, Ms. Wen’s presence in ‘Velma’ – I have been honestly shocked to learn that that is the case – ‘Velma’ might have been renewed for a second season, (why, for the love of God?), but Ms. Wen still is not mentioning her presence on that show. Bully! However, what about ‘The Whale’?

One of the differences between the two is in the degree of their approach to controversy and co. – whereas ‘Velma’ aimed at everyone, and so her contents were diluted… period, ‘The Whale’ tries to talk about one specific group: the overweight people. Right.

Zoom out, and you can see that the issue of weight has always been ambiguous in human history, with each of the biological sexes reacting to it differently. For a start, being overweight slash fat meant that you are successful enough, socially and financially speaking, to afford being so – a peasant and a soldier/warrior were two different social strata themselves in the past, (up to the WWII period), but both were lean; Hell, by the time of the first half of the 20^th century the human society had evolved enough to move past such social labels as ‘peasant’, ‘soldier/warrior’, ‘merchant’, but extra weight was still equated to social success, as it can be a liability, illustrated clearly by Charlie, the main character of ‘The Whale’. Regardless, extra weight is usually tolerated in human men… in human women, not so much. Indeed, most of the discourse regarding weight that arose in the 1980s and 90s up to now, (the early 2020s - and beyond?) is usually dominated by women… and men who love them, of course. As a result, a lot of such discussion is sexualized, fetishized, and so on.

…Going back in time, you can see that while a man was expected to be lean, (unless he was a successful merchant, or moneylender, or something), a woman was not. Rather, she was expected to be robust… why? Because both biology and gender politics: for a good long time, until the second half of the 20^th century, a woman’s worth was most often that of a mother and a child-bearer, which meant that a certain amount of ‘extra weight’ was the norm, actually – if a woman lost too much weight her worth as a mother and a child-bearer was jeopardized, which was bad. It was also sexist and patriarchal in the worst meaning of that word, so when in the second half of the 20^th century women finally won their equality with men officially, they began to slim down – and then the models arrived, women who slimmed themselves down to a point that they began to resembled animated trophies – you know like the ones presented at the Oscars and similar ceremonies – another case of a good enough idea taken to excess. As a result, the human society again began to discuss just what was the norm of a woman’s weight, a discourse that continues into modern times (2020s) and will probably go on beyond.

And now we got ‘The Whale’, whose main character is a notably overweight man. In addition, the issues of sexualisation and fetishisation of weight are nowhere near in sight in the film. Therefore, there was some controversy and discussion about ‘The Whale’, but very little, and the film mostly got accolades rather than criticisms, but…

…But they ring hollow and most critics seem to admit that it was BF’s acting as Charlie that kept the film together, and that is not really good news for the film. See, just as ‘Velma’ has nothing going for it beyond mockery of… everyone, ‘The Whale’ is in the same boat, only while ‘Velma’ went for everyone, ‘The Whale’ tried going for the overweight – on one hand. On the other, while ‘Velma’ didn’t hold any punches, ‘The Whale’ didn’t have any: whereas ‘Velma’ was acute and angular, ‘The Whale’ had all of its’ angles ground down. Pause.

What exactly ‘The Whale’ is about? It is about Charlie, an overweight English professor who hates himself, does not do anything about it, and lies, claiming that he has not had any money to do anything, while he actually does. He also does not appear to be leaving his apartment – in part because he is overweight, but it part because he does not want to – he has no life. The problem with that is that it is his choice. The problem with the problem is that he is overweight and some people are upset about it, i.e. how ‘The Whale’ represents the overweight people. Mr. A, the movie’s director, flat-out dismissed it, but…

…But the thing is that ‘The Whale’ is about a man, depicted actually in a bland, non-controversial and uninspiring manner, which is why most ‘social justice warriors’ (or whatever the proper term currently is) have ignored it – as have a lot of other people, both associated with the WG/WL communities and not. Yes, Charlie is overweight. Yes, his last relationship was with another man, (though he has an ex-wife and a daughter). However, both of those factors are tacitly underplayed, leaving Charlie mostly as a depressed anti-social loser who doesn’t want to leave his apartment and whose only friend is a female nurse named Liz. Next?

Here is the thing. Mr. A is not wrong when he rebuffed his critics – ‘The Whale’ is not entirely about the weight. Only in a certain way it is – the movie is named ‘The Whale’ for crissakes, therefore the excessive weight should play some sort of a critical role… otherwise, why include it? ‘Waiting for Godot’, for example, is minimalist to an extreme, but you do not have actors in fat suits in it either, because it would just distract from the rest of the movie/play/etc. Mr. A tried to play it smart regarding any controversies, (in a manner not unlike Disney/MCU post the first seasons of AoS and the CA: CW film), and he succeeded: ‘The Whale’ of his film’s title doesn’t apply just to Charlie, but to the entire film, as just like the metaphorical whale and Charlie, it is big, grey, and doesn’t go anywhere. But, hey, accolades galore! Yay, really!

…This is it for now, though. See you all soon!