Doolittle-2020 - Jan 23

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. It sucks just because, and your family, as well as yourself, are a part of it. Yes, every new day is different, one way or another, but as a rule – real life sucks. You may want to discuss the long-tailed duck or something, but you cannot, simply because real life sucks, and your personal life sucks, and you suck. Plus – priorities. No matter how much you love nature, sometimes you just cannot master the enthusiasm to write about the ducks, (or the woodpeckers, hedgehogs, squirrels, etc.). So, let us talk about something else – the doctor. He, (i.e. Doolittle), is in the house!

…And apparently, he sucks almost as much as real life does, according to many reviews and critics. They are wrong. ‘Doolittle-2020’ is not bad. It is insipid.

Does anyone remember Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ that’d aired several years back? If not, it is not surprising – the show lasted for a single season, and it numbered only eight episodes. Yes, in the pre-Disney+ era Marvel TV shows didn’t last for more than two or three seasons, (AoS is the exception, period), but even so, ‘InHumans’ stood-out: they were that bad.

And yet… there did not appear to be something that was specifically damning that prevented them – in theory – from continuing from another season or two. (Marvel’s ‘Runaways’ ended after 3 seasons, for example). Instead, it was an entire assimilation of small flaws, including bad script and rushed acting that did Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ in. In different hands, under different management and circumstances, they could have been good, but because real life, they failed to launch instead. ‘Doolittle-2020’ is in the same boat, even though it is a single film and not a TV series instead.

On one hand, it had a lot going for it, actually, starting with the Iron Man being the titular character and a story plot that sounded good on paper. On the other, with such an illustrious name playing the main lead in a film that just couldn’t be anywhere near the level of the last two Avenger films, (let’s be honest – even in the best of circumstances ‘Doolittle-2020’ wouldn’t be anywhere near the level of ‘Infinity War’ and ‘Endgame’), enough people would feel gipped, as if this was a step down or something – and they were probably right.

 …And top of those failed expectations and the subconscious feeling of being cheated out of something that is Avenger-level film, the film itself is flawed, let’s be polite. The plot felt rather like Stark’s new Welsh accent – completely unnecessary and a straight-out failure. Queen Victoria is poisoned, so Stark – er, Doolittle – is off to bring back the miracle cure? What is this – the Avengers, Victorian era? Well, maybe – we did also get Sony’s current version of Spider-Man voicing a dog, so it could have been a start. Instead, we got a failure with a bunch of grown-up jokes in a decisively pro-child film, (children under the age of 10 will enjoy ‘Doolittle-2020’ moreso than their parents, yes), the titular character farted by a dragon, (what is this – mockery of GoT? If so, then ‘Doolittle-2020’ is excessively late for this party), and, oh yes, a gorilla fighting a tiger, (sort of) among other things.

Off topic, if a gorilla fought a tiger for real, who would win? In AFO, when a gorilla faced-off with a leopard, it actually won, but a tiger is much bigger and heavier than a leopard is and carries a much heavier punch than a leopard does. In a feline clash, tiger will triumph over a leopard, as ‘Jungle Book-2016’ showed openly and clearly – even though it is fiction, it actually did a good job of being realistic, at least to a point. But a gorilla is completely different beast than a leopard is. A tiger is a professional hunter and killer, but if it fails to get a drop on the modern world’s biggest and strongest primate, period, then it can go either way – and, of course, ‘Doolittle-2020’ went in a completely different direction to begin with. What next?

Well, for me, Chee-Chee the gorilla brought back memories of the Soviet adaptation of Doolittle, (where Chee-Chee was actually a capuchin monkey instead). To wit, this adaptation consisted of one large poem where the Soviet Doolittle went to Africa to cure all the cute animal babies there, because they all were sick; and of another large poem, where the good doctor comes to Africa to rescue a couple of human children from the Soviet analogue of Rassouli; and also a couple of novellas for children where the good doctor crosses swords with the pirate leader time and again, until he defeats the villain for good. Not such a small assimilation, especially by children’s standards, after all.

…And then the Soviet cinematography produced a cartoon series, and a couple of movies, all about the good doctor confronting the wicked pirate and his crew, and frankly, one of them, ‘Soviet Doolittle-66’ is just as crazy, but much more coherent and enjoyable than the U.S. 2020 version. Not unlike the gender-flipped ‘Ghostbusters’ reboot, ‘Doolittle-2020’ is just bad as in uninspiring and insipid, which brings us back to Marvel’s ‘InHumans’ TV series – they had the same problem and collapsed, though compared to them, ‘Doolittle-2020’ is better, (and it is certainly better than ‘Cats-2019’, cough), simply because the younger children will enjoy it with all the poop and fart jokes as well as periodic clothing, and, hey, the Iron Man is riding an ostrich in this universe, while a giraffe is talking to him in voice of Selena Gomez. Fun! Anything else?

Well, the second ‘To all the boys…’ movie is coming out on Netflix on Feb 12, 2020. Why before 2020’s Valentine Day – who knows; who cares, too – while the first film had its’ flaws, clearly, the entire franchise has proven to be tough, enduring and popular enough to bring forth a second movie. (Jenny Han wrote a trilogy about LJ’s adventures, so there is at least one more movie in store for LJ and her love life). By comparison, ‘Crazy Rich Asians’ franchise apparently hadn’t – so far there’s no news about a second movie in this franchise; maybe because it tried to be a pro-American propaganda piece among other things back when it aired and ‘Boys-1’ didn’t? Who knows, but ‘Boys-1’ was a very good romantic movie, surprisingly so, given all the flaws of both it and the original novel…but it was not insipid. It delivered. It gave enjoyment to the views. It made real life slightly more endurable than it is on its’ own. I am actually looking forwards to ‘Boys-2’ coming to Netflix next month. Yay.

…This is it for now, see you all soon!

Cats & whales - Sep 7

…Recently, on YouTube, I came across a video discussion about ‘big cats’ vs. ‘little cats’, and how those terms are confusing. Here are my two cents about them.

Firstly, these terms are not scientific, but more of lay. In reality, you can describe all animals, including wild cat species, as either ‘big’ or ‘little’, but from taxonomy’s point of view, most of the big cats belong to the genus Panthera, or – the roaring cats, (because they can roar). Currently, this genus consists of the lion, the tiger, the leopard, the jaguar, and – the snow leopard, (or ounce). The clouded leopard, (well, leopards – there are two species of them), belongs to the sister group of the Panthera cats, Neofelis, and together, the two genera compose the Pantherinae subfamily of the cat family.

So far so good, it can also be added that the ounce, while it is more often called the snow leopard, is much more closely related to the tiger, while the scientists are not currently sure, just who is more closely related to the lion – the jaguar or the leopard. The tiger and the ounce are the closest relatives of each other among the roaring cats though, even though the ounce really does look more like a leopard, which is why it is much more commonly called the snow leopard. What next?

The other ‘big cats’ of the modern world are usually the cheetah and the puma, (also cougar, mountain lion, catamount, panther, etc.). They are a part of the Felinae family, aka the non-roaring cats, which contains all of the cats that do not belong to the Panthera and Neofelis genera. Usually, the scientists call the cheetah and the puma ‘the Puma lineage’, which consists of the cheetah, the puma, and the jaguarundi, which looks nothing like a jaguar. Really, this small-headed, short-legged, long-bodied wildcat looks more like a weasel of some sort, not a cat. It lives in Central and South America, eating various small animals – rodents, birds, small reptiles, arthropods. They even eat some plants too. It is much smaller than the cheetah and the puma are, but then again, the cheetah is not really big, it is merely tall, as is the giraffe. I.e., the giraffe is tall, the elephant is big, (look at the two side by side to see the difference), the cheetah is also tall, while the lion is also big. This is different.

The cougar, (or the puma), on the other hand, is genuinely large, about the same size as the leopard, (or the smaller jaguars) is, and is built like a leopard too. As such, it is truly is a big cat size-wise, but on the other hand? It cannot roar. The jaguar can, and so can the leopard, but both the cheetah and the puma cannot, just as their cousin the jaguarundi cannot. As such, they are ‘little cats’, even though there is nothing little about them, particularly the puma, but from taxonomic point of view, they are. Period.

Hence lies the root of confusion between ‘big’ and ‘little’ cats: the scientific and non-scientific terms do not fully match. The wild cats are not unique with this problem; other animals have it too – the whales, for example.

Just like ‘big’ and ‘little cats’, ‘whale’ isn’t exactly a scientific term; science divides the cetaceans into two parvorders: the Mysticeti, or the baleen whales, and the Odontoceti, or the toothed whales. …There’s also the Archaeoceti, but all of those mammals have died out, (or not, and instead they are the truth behind the sea serpent myth as some cryptozoologists exclaim, but until a genuine sea serpent is captured and studied, they are still considered mythical, and the Archaeoceti – extinct).

Anyhow, most of the cetaceans known as ‘whales’ belong to the Mysticeti, the baleen whales; the Odontoceti or the toothed whales have proportionally far fewer ‘whales’ among their number, as opposed to ‘dolphins’, ‘porpoises’ or ‘blackfish’, and only the biggest of them all – the sperm whale – is usually treated as a ‘proper’ whale in non-scientific terms. Everyone else is usually considered ‘something else’; that is especially ironic since the sperm whale’s closest official relatives, the so-called dwarf sperm whale and the pygmy sperm whale, are among the smallest members of the cetacean clade. Sadly, they are also among the most obscure, shy, retiring and least studied members of the clade too, so we’ll talk about them some other time instead…

…And that is that for this talk; see you all soon!

Black Panther and Co. - Jan 23

…With both ‘Gifted’ and ‘Runaways’ first seasons done, there is only AoS left to carry us until February 2018, when ‘Black Panther’ makes its’ debut in cinemas. So far it seems to be fairly true to its’ source material, (not counting prince Namor of Atlantis outright destroying it…again), though one thing has caught my attention: why is Kilmonger declaring himself a ‘golden jaguar’ to fight the titular hero?

…The problem is not about the villain being ‘a dark mirror’ of the hero again, (something that plagued MCU for a while now), but rather – the jaguar bit. There are no jaguars in the Old World, (i.e. Africa and Eurasia), just as there are no leopards in the Americas (or the New World). Of course, the zoo- and circus-based animals are the cosmopolitan exception here, and big cats do escape from them into the wild, but so far, there are no true feral populations of the leopards in the Americas, or of the jaguars in Africa and Asia. (On the contrary, there are populations of feral hippos in South America, for example). So yeah, for Kilmonger to call himself a ‘golden jaguar’ is somewhat bizarre, but – understandable.

The leopard is the second-biggest cat in Africa. The panther here is still the leopard, just the all-black, not the spotted, color morph. Bagheera from the ‘Jungle Book’ franchise was a leopard, technically, but because of coloration issues, he is ID’d as a ‘panther’, rather than a ‘leopard’. In the New World, (i.e. the Americas, including USA), ‘panther’ is a name of a wild feline also known as the ‘puma’, the ‘cougar’ and the ‘mountain lion’, a wildcat that is more closely related to the cheetah and to the less-known jaguarondi, and none of them are what is known as ‘big cats’ – the leopard, the jaguar, the lion, etic. However, MCU’s Wakanda is in Africa, rather than in the New World, so the ‘panther’ here is the leopard, not the puma… while in RL Wakanda apparently is an apartment complex in the American state of California…right. This is just messed-up.

…Aside from the leopard, the other big cats of Africa, (small cats as the serval do not count, they just do not have the same imagery), and they are the cheetah and the lion. Cheetah is already the name of one of DCEU’s villains, one of Wonder Woman’s archnemeses, so giving this name to a MCU character could cause a major copyright/trademark fight, something that neither company really wants, while the lion…

Yes, a lion can be a villain – just ask Disney, but somehow a fight between ‘a black panther and a golden lion’ can raise a question as to who is the villain here. Kilmonger, of course, has the same question here, but MCU is on team Panther here, so no lions. They are probably all waiting for Captain America to arrive in Wakanda anyhow.

That is that for ‘Black Panther’ the movie; anything else? Well, awhile back we saw the first proper clip of MCU’s ‘Cloak & Dagger’ web TV/TV series. So far it seems that the titular characters are slightly older than their ‘Runaways’ counterparts are, not in high school, but in a college or a university. ‘Dagger’ is a girl named Tandy, who forms daggers of light. ‘Cloak’ is a boy named Tyrone, who forms a cloak out of shadow. Given that they are also one of the first distinctly interracial couples of TV, (something that AoS has not had mastered properly by now yet, for example), ‘Cloak & Dagger’ are going to have plenty of contemporary interracial, racial, and just socio-political content as well. Considering that ‘Runaways’ already tried this, sort of, especially with Alex…bully for ‘Cloak & Dagger’, I reckon. I mean in Canada you can see this sort of couple on the street, but ‘Cloak & Dagger’ are an American web TV/TV series, and this sort of thing is big deal in Hollywood and etc., so there!

Finally, there is another upcoming movie – ‘Rampage’. Based on a video game with the same name, so far the trailers were centered on a giant gorilla and his best friend, The Rock. Yes, that man – he certainly gets around in the movies, doesn’t he? Anyhow, aside from the already-mentioned gorilla and a Godzilla-like lizard, ‘Rampage’ is also going to feature a wolf-like monster that can…fly. Well, glide in a ‘flying squirrel’ style, but still. Giant aerial wolf. I have played ‘Rampage’ the game back in the 90s, and none of the monsters there could actually fly/glide through the air, so ‘Rampage the movie is going to be something else.

…and that is that for now. See you soon!

PS: Here is a sea-spawn from Pathfinder: Worldscape. How does it come across? Does it work?

Sea-Spawn ranger 3

CE Medium monstrous humanoid (sea-spawn)

Init +1; Senses darkvision 60 ft.; Perception +9

DEFENSE

AC 14, touch 11, flat-footed 13 (+3 armor, +1 Dex)

hp 36 (3d10+15)

Fort +5, Ref +4, Will +2

OFFENSE

Speed 30 ft., swim 30 ft.

Melee 2 mwk handaxes +5 (1d6+3/×3) or

Bite +5 (1d3+3) or

Horns +5 (1d6+3)

Ranged mwk heavy crossbow +5 (1d10/19–20)

Special Attacks favored enemy (animals +2)

STATISTICS

Str 17, Dex 12, Con 16, Int 8, Wis 16, Cha 8

Base Atk +3; CMB +6; CMD 17

Feats Double Slice, Endurance, Quick Draw, Two-Weapon Fighting

Skills Intimidate +4, Knowledge (geography) +3, Knowledge (local) -1, Knowledge (nature) +4, Perception +9, Stealth +7, Survival +5, Swim +17*; Racial Modifiers +8 racial bonus on Swim checks

Languages Common

SQ amphibious, favored terrain (sea +2), track +1, wild empathy +2

Combat Gearpotion of bull's strength, potions of cure light wounds (2), potion of hide from animals; Other Gear masterwork studded leather, masterwork handaxes (2), masterwork heavy crossbow with 20 bolts, 63 gp

Jaguar: a few facts - Feb 20

‘Big Cat Week’ has begun. Let us talk, in the honor of it, about the jaguar, since it seems to be the only non-African big cat on it, so far.

The jaguar is the third biggest wild cat in the world; it is twice as heavy as the leopard and can be as big as a lion, (which can twice more heavy than the jaguar itself). The Latin-Americans call it ‘el tigre’, which means ‘the tiger’, duh! This is why sometimes things get wonky in translation, and South America ends up having tigers instead. The puma – the second biggest cat in the New World – has its own share of problems with literature; sometimes it is described as a ‘panther’, which is also the alternate name of the leopard, especially its melanistic, black, phase. Bagheera from the ‘Jungle Book’ franchise is a ‘panther’, rather than a ‘leopard’, as an example. Now the puma just is not black; rather, it is uniformly colored from light grey to tawny brown, to brick red with creamy white underparts. Temperate pumas tend to be larger, with paler, greyish coloration, from the tropical individuals are smaller, with richer, redder tones. The cubs, BTW, are spotted, but these spots vanish around 1 year of age – so the giant black cat cryptids of U.S.A. most likely are not pumas, but the ‘panther’ versions of leopards and jaguars, which have escaped from zoos, public or private.

(Of course, wild cats as a group tend to have varied coloration in almost all species, so I am not dismissing the possibility of black pumas completely – it still can happen).

Back to the jaguar. Unlike the leopard or the African lion, for example, it is a very private, introvert feline; part of the reason why the African wildlife appears in documentaries is because it is somewhat used to the presence of people; all those lions and leopards, cheetahs and elephants aren’t domestic, but neither are they afraid of people too much – hence the problem of man-eating cats, rogue elephants, etc. Animals should not fear people and vice versa, but a healthy dose of respect between the two must remain, or else there is going to be tragedy and blood.

Well, the jaguar? It does not appear to be a man-eater, unlike its’ close cousins the lion and the leopard; it tends to avoid people, which is why it is hard to film. Why? Because it used to being the underdog, so to speak.

Not so long ago, about 10-11,000 years ago, the jaguar shared the New World not just with the puma and the ocelot, which are smaller than it is, but also with the American lion and the sabre-toothed cats, Smilodon and Homotherium, which were bigger than it was, and stronger. The African lion is particularly notorious for harassing and killing smaller carnivores, such as hyenas, so there is no reason to assume that the American lion was any different, and probably would go after the jaguar just as the African lion tends to go after the leopard and the cheetah. That said, the jaguar is much stronger than the leopard and especially the cheetah, so tackling it was probably a team effort for the American lion; the jaguar can bite through skull bones of peccaries, and shells of armadillos and tortoises, so if an American lion faced a jaguar one-on-one, the fight could go either way instead.

On the other hand, Arctodus horribilis, the extinct short-faced bear of the Americas also bit bones in two to eat the marrow, and it was one of the biggest and strongest carnivores of the New World; its’ relative the spectacled bear still lives in South America, but it prefers more mountainous habitat than the jaguar, and it is also one of the more herbivorous bears, so it probably doesn’t conflict with the modern American big cats very often.

None of this applied to the short-faced bear – it was a carnivore, and a hypercarnivore to boot. Between it, the American lion, the sabre-toothed cats, and other Ice Age carnivores like the dire wolf, (yes, it was a real animal, George Martin did not invent it, BTW), the jaguar was usually outmatched, one way or another, hence its’ reclusive, out-of-way, rather nocturnal, lifestyle. When the humans replaced the previous Ice Age megacarnivores, the jaguar adjusted to this development with few changes to its’ lifestyle; it could’ve lived alongside the European colonists as did along the previous, Native American civilizations, but—

But the European colonists brought something else with them – livestock. The jaguar may be avoiding humans as a rule, but their pets and especially livestock such as cattle is fair game. Hence the hunts for the jaguar; that, and the destruction of its habitat caused America’s biggest cat to be expatriated from about half of its previous range; it is extinct in the U.S., Uruguay and El Salvador – yes, it may be coming back into the U.S., but now that president Donald is trying to build his Great Wall, it probably means more bad news for these big cats.

Speaking of Great Walls? Matt Damon’s version of it…okay, the movie version with Matt Damon in it, did not go so well, and it can be seen why: the plot sucks, even moreso than the plot of ‘Fifty Shades Darker’. Sometimes the plot is not as important to the movie, the ‘LEGO Batman’ film attests to this, but unlike the ‘Great Wall’, it had some very good acting and the way it was delivered saved the film. The ‘Great Wall’? Not so much, even though it did have some amazing quasi-medieval warfare in it.

Speaking of quasi-medieval warfare? Yes, by now it is obvious that ‘For Honor’ has ballistae in it, or something like this…

The thing is, when one thinks of a ballista, one thinks of something more similar to a medieval catapult instead, maybe something like the torsion catapult featured in the S3 of DW, used by William the Conqueror against Joan of Arc. In reality, the ballista appeared back in S2 of DW, when it was used by Alexander the Great against Attila the Hun. Essentially, it was a giant, stationary crossbow, used more in siege warfare than in the field. It had scored the least amount of kills in that episode, (i.e. ‘Alexander the Great vs. Attila the Hun’) and was one of the reasons as to why Alexander the Great lost the battle: he and his team had inferior weapons. The torsion catapult of William the Conqueror had its own flaws, it was inferior to the cannon used by Joan of Arc, but it was still better than the ballista.

…None of this applies to ‘For Honor’, of course – for all of its realism, it still doesn’t go for authenticity; its’ role is to amuse, not to educate, and in the end, it is all about the fighting, with or without a ballista. Shall we get back to the jaguar?

There is not much left to be said about this big cat. It has a lifespan similar to that of the leopard – 22-23 years in captivity, 14-16 in the wild. It is classified by CITES as Near Threatened, and it deserves protection, not prosecution. Now let us sit back and enjoy the ‘Big Cat Week’.

Big Cats & etc. - Feb 18

Let us start with the obvious: ‘For Honor’ got released earlier this week. So far, the reviews are unanimous – the story mode of the game is the weakest link, but everything else is very good. ‘For Honor’ has figured out how to play up to its’ strengths – the players’ interactions, the fancy armors, the combat maneuvers, etc. – and there are not too many weaknesses left; mostly some bugs that shall be fixed in the future releases of the game. Also, even the Lawbringer and the Valkyrie are playable characters, bringing the roster to the full dozen, (four for each fraction). All right!

Secondly, this week’s episode of ‘Powerless’ is the best one so far – the show seems to have found its’ footing at last, and it is mostly corporate humor with some DC trappings, especially in the main plotline, where Van and Emily have to convince the Atlanteans to sign up with Van’s company as clients. The humor is still very low-brow, (to put it mildly), but there is less of it, and when it does occur, it is presented in a very absurd manner, so it is impossible to take it seriously, or be offended by it – mostly. Plus, ‘Powerless’ is a sitcom after all, it isn’t even trying to pretend to be anything like ‘AoS’ or ‘Blindspot’ or ‘Arrow’, so one shouldn’t dig too deeply either. ‘Powerless’ is here to entertain, it entertains (the audience), end of story. How exactly ‘Powerless’ does it, is another story, but occasional profanity aside, ‘Powerless’ works.

…Unlike AoS, BTW. The next episode will come only next week, of course, but judging by the clips by now the show is robbing its’ villains off their dignity as human beings; this is why these days all of AoS’ villains are unsympathetic, period – Grant, and Kara, and even Malick and his crew were somewhat sympathetic, so when ‘the good guys’ began to kill them, the ratings began to slip even lower, and right now AoS is still at its’ lowest; the ratings are going up and down, but they are still currently lower than the ratings of ‘Powerless’, and the latter has only aired 3 episodes so far. We will just have to wait until the next week to see what AoS does next.

Finally, next week is ‘Big Cat Week’ on Nat Geo Wild, meaning plenty of nature documentaries about the big cats of the wild, (duh!). That is very good, but, FYI, most of them appear to be filmed in Africa instead – I have already touched this issue when I discussed AFO’s ‘Gorilla vs. Leopard’ episode, and here it is more of the same: lions and leopards of Africa, plus several other African wild animals, (spotted hyenas, wild dogs, cheetahs, etc.). Again, I’ve no idea why the Asian big cats – tigers and leopards, (different subspecies than the African leopard), snow and clouded leopards (completely different animals from the ‘ordinary’ leopard) aren’t appearing; maybe it all comes down to the differences between Africa and Asia in general and how the West perceives them in particular?.. I have talked about this before, if anyone else has any other ideas, I am listening…

However, there also going to be some sort of a special about the jaguar, the biggest cat of the Americas of the modern time. Incidentally, its’ closest living relative is the African and Asian lion, not the leopard.

Let us pause and talk about taxonomy of the pantherine, or ‘roaring’ cats. The already-mentioned clouded leopard belongs in a sister group or genus to the rest of them: Neofelis. It consists of two species of clouded leopard, so let us put them aside, (they are very different from the rest of the pantherine cats). The jaguar is most closely related to the lion, the tiger – to the snow leopard, and the leopard itself is more closely related to the lion and the jaguar, but it is not as derived as either of them. In this case, the scientists mean that the leopard retains most of the basic feline features; it is not as specialized as the lion and the jaguar are.

The numbers, (let us take the AFO approach for a while) seem to support this theory. The jaguar and the leopard look superficially similar, but the jaguar is twice as long and twice as heavy as the leopard. A male jaguar can be the same size as a male lion, king of the beasts, but the lion is twice as heavy as the jaguar is, so the leopard is not even in the same league as the lion – and it shows. In their respective behaviors, that is.

This technically brings us to the puma, (or the mountain lion) and the second point I want to make about ‘Big Cat Week’, which is also about the cheetah: the cheetah and the puma aren’t ‘big’ or ‘roaring’ cats, they actually belong to the so-called small cat family – basically every other cat, wild or domestic, that isn’t a lion, a tiger, a leopard, a jaguar, etc. According to the latest data, the lion and the rest of the ‘big’ cats parted ways with the rest of the felines about 11.5 MYA – way before there were humans on the planet.

Then, 8.2 MYA, the feline evolution produced the so-called puma lineage, and by 5 MYA that lineage has split into branches that produced the cheetah of Africa and Asia on one hand, and the puma itself, as well as the jaguarundi, on the other.

BTW, the jaguarundi is nothing like the jaguar: it is a small wild cat, less than a meter in length, less than 10 kg in weight, and is built a bit like an otter, with short legs, an elongated body, long tail and short, rounded ears. They still hunt mostly on the ground and behave as the rest of wildcats do, too, but then again, most of the cats, not only look similar, they behave similar: a feral cat, a bobcat and a puma behave similarly, their main differences are their respective sizes and the prey that they can take down, (according their size and strength). With the ‘big’ cats, such as lions, the comparison gets vaguer, but as the Asian lions show that this difference is largely secondary, caused by the life in savanna: in Asia, the lion lives a more solitary life, not unlike that of the tiger or the leopard; there are small family groups, but that is it…

(BTW, the now-extinct American cheetah was a closer relative to the puma than to the modern cheetah).

Getting back to ‘Big Cat Week’, let us be precise. Aside from the old reruns, (whatever they will be), it will show more footage of African wildlife, (‘big’ cats, ‘small’ cats, other animals), and a Sir David Attenborough’s special on the jaguar, (possibly with other American wildcats guest starring as well). This is not a bad layout, just…weird, in regards to Asia and its wildlife.

So, this is it for this installment; see you in the future!

AFO & For Honor VIII - Feb 13

With all the excitement of fictional TV shows old and new, I neglected AFO – but not really. 

Recently I have rewatched yet another one of its episodes – ‘Gorilla vs. Leopard’, and several things hit me this time.

Firstly, why did the leopard have to fight the gorilla? Whereas the tiger is found only in Asia, and lions live in Africa – and also in one tiny spot in India – the leopard is found on both of these continents; it is a more versatile cat than either of them, so why is it that the nature documentaries depict the leopard only as an African cat?

Maybe it is because the Western world views Africa and Asia in two different ways, these days. For the West, Africa remains wild and challenging in this sort of way; almost like ‘the Old West’ cliché of the American fiction (not sure about the European, though). Asia, these days, is certainly not – rather, that is where the new big business lies, the hope for the future civilization lies, etc. The leopard has no place there – pity that no one has told that to the leopards, who are actually making a living alongside people, as racoons do in North America and red foxes in Europe – but the leopard has a much bigger punch than either of them, speaking both metaphorically and literally.

Yes, the African population of leopards is probably bigger than that in Asia; yes, the African leopards have greater swathes of wild habitat to live in, but still. The last time someone talked about the Asian leopards properly and in detail was the National Geographic magazine, in December 2015, when they published an article on leopards – on all of the leopards, African and Asian. Given how humans treat the rest of the planet, including the big cats, it is about time that someone did that! (I.e. publish the article and bring the public’s attention to the big cat issue).

…Wait. This doesn’t have anything to do with AFO; you can just as well go on a tangent about how the apes have a similar situation to the big cats: gorillas and chimpanzees are found only in Africa, orangutans and gibbons, (called the lesser apes by the scientists in modern times) – only in Asia. True. One can also get back onto the proper topic by pointing out that the real reason why ‘Gorilla vs. Leopard’ episode was so problematic is because the two animals in question was so different, a fact that the show itself had to admit in passing…so why did the leopard lose?

Let us step back from AFO for a moment and return to ‘For Honor’. After making the nodachi sword for Kensai, the ‘Man at Arms’ group at ‘AWE ME’ channel made…not Warlord’s Viking sword as I expected, but the Dane axe of Raider. The process of making the axe was interesting, the ‘field testing’ even more so. Unlike the nodachi, which was a slicing weapon, the Dane axe also smashed – through bricks and the like. Thus?

Well, here lies a difference between Viking and Samurai methods of fighting in the game. The nodachi itself is not a light weapon, just as with the Dane axe, you have to use two hands to wield it, (hence why the Westerners called their version of this blade a greatsword), but still, it is thin. It is sharp, it is strong and resilient, but it is thin. The Dane axe is not – yes, its’ cutting end is thin, but everything else about it is thick. If the nodachi struck you with a flat side, it would still sting, but you would be safe. If the Dane axe hit you, you would still be knocked prone, probably with several broken bones too. The Vikings, of course, did not let such facts of life stop them, they were that bad ass, but this point still has to be made. Unlike the nodachi, in fact, unlike even the Viking sword, the Dane axe could be used not just as a weapon of war, but also as an axe, used to cut down trees or whatever. Hence, why it is different from the nodachi; also – how is it different, too.

So, how does this bring us back to AFO? Let us look at the gorilla and the leopard once again. The leopard is a killer and kills monkeys and apes, including humans and gorillas; the gorilla is not. It isn’t really a fighter either, the fights between silverbacks (mature gorilla males) tend not to end in violence; flatly, the gorilla is a much more peaceful animals than its’ cousins, humans and chimpanzees, are. So, why did the gorilla win?

Let us return to the Vikings’ Dane axe. When DW has put the Viking against the Samurai in S1, the put the Samurai katana against the Viking sword; but the Viking axe was put against the Samurai kanabo – a wooden club with iron rivets stuck on it. As DW showed in its own experiments, the Viking axe was powerful and heavy, but the kanabo was more so. (In ‘For Honor’, the kanabo is the weapon of the Shugoku, remember?) That was one of the reasons why the Viking lost in DW – but lost it fairly.

…Of course, throughout S1, DW did make a point to judge it all fairly – and it did so, (save for the ‘Shaolin Monk vs. Maori Warrior’ episode, but that is another story). Sadly, this fairness revealed that the American Green Berets were worse than the Soviet/Russian Spetznaz, so post S1 DW did its’ best to be prejudiced instead, so after S3, when George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt defeated Napoleon Bonaparte and Lawrence of Arabia, the show got cancelled – for the lack of funds, (and maybe sponsors): the Americans aren’t that dumb to believe that sort of propaganda – and we’re talking about a nation who says that most of its’ evil immigrants come not from the South, Mexico, from the North, Canada – so the DW cancellation was just sad. Prejudice just does not deliver in the long term.

The same goes to AFO, only because it was depicting animals, rather than people, it was less obvious, but the principle was the same. That is why the gorilla won its’ face-off, and the anaconda – with the jaguar. (According to Luke Hunter, the giant otters of South America sometimes eat anacondas, and honestly, they tend to stay away from jaguars instead). Not because they were more efficient fighters/killers/etc., but because the cast of the show decided it so. DW used real actors; AFO – CGI’d animals and robot models, so AFO’s prejudice was less obvious, again, but the end result was the same: both shows got cancelled.

And ‘For Honor’? ‘For Honor’ is a computer game, not a TV show, so it is subjected to a different set of standards – and as such, it is a different story.

Jaguar: the ghost of the rainforest

And so it came to be that about last week I got to see some very interesting photos on ngm.com – how a jaguar stalked and killed a caiman (South American alligator); interesting not just because of the actual events depicted in them, but because of the jaguar.

What can be told about the jaguar, where does he appear? So far I have seen it on TV only twice, and at least the first time it was controversial to say the least: it was an Animal Face-Off episode, facing off against a green anaconda; unsuccessfully too. And unlike the Lion vs. Tiger episode, which caused various arguments as to whether or not the lion really should have won against the tiger, in case of Anaconda vs. Jaguar it was largely unanimous: the jaguar was duped.

Let us dwell on this for the moment. For all of AFO’s supposed data, the final CGI face-off was straightforward: the two combatants would basically stand face to face at each other and then just charge in a direct confrontation. Other shows, like Deadliest Warrior and Death Battle do the same thing, but their combatants are humans, or at least – sentient creatures who do fight like this (though they have other styles). Animals (mammals, reptiles, fish, etc) do not do that: in the NatGeo’s photos, for example, the jaguar clearly ambushed the caiman, attacking it from the back, not face on.

And in AFO that is exactly what happened: the CGI anaconda and jaguar attacked each other face on. In such confrontations the bigger and heavier animal is often the stronger combatant, which is exactly what happened: the anaconda was able to overpower the jaguar with its mass and brute strength. In real life this situation would probably be different: there are videos on YouTube where a jaguar runs down and eats an anaconda instead...

The second time I saw a jaguar it was a nature documentary called “Jaguar: the Year of the Cat” and unlike the AFO episode it was strictly professional and real life. In this documentary, the cameras followed a life and times of a jaguar in Belize, as it (well, technically ‘it’ was a ‘he’, because there also was a female jaguar) lived free in the wild.

In the wild, the jaguar is a powerful and graceful wild cat, but when it came to hunting, its record was relatively lackluster: it was able to catch a terrapin, an armadillo and a fish – all relatively modest sized, while larger animals – peccaries, curassows – escaped. For all of its strength and power is not exactly the ultimate hunting or killing machine as it may appear at first – it has its flaws.

Well, not exactly flaws – more like strokes of good and bad luck related to its hunting strategy: ambush. This was shown particularly vividly in case of a coati that the jaguar failed to ambush and chased up into a tree – unsuccessfully. Size, strength and weapons are not everything in the animal kingdom.

And what are the jaguar’s statistics in size, strength, weight et cetera? The males can weigh up to 160 kg (that is fairly heavier than the leopard), reaching up to 1.95 m in length. The tail can add up to another 75 cm to the overall length, and the jaguar stands about 75-76 cm in height.

By contrast, the leopard does not go over 1.65 m in length (it is actually smallest of the big cats) with a tail up to 110 cm in length. It weighs no more than 90-91 kg, almost half as much as the jaguar does, and reaches up to 80 cm in height. In other words, it is a much graceful animal than the jaguar, with a much weaker bite: according to some sources, the jaguar’s bite is almost as powerful as a spotted hyena’s with its bone-shattering bite. Jaguar may not go as far, but in the documentary I have seen the jaguar bit through the terrapin’s shell without any problems – not an easy feat for anyone, even a large animal.

The leopard’s bite, of course, is quite weaker by comparison, but as the numbers show, the leopard is the more graceful and less powerful animal of the two: it got more finesse. Why? The answer lies not in anatomy, but in ecology: in New World the jaguar is the top predator of its environment; in Old World the leopard is not – it has to content with tiger and lion and possibly the brown bear, whereas the jaguar does not live where the grizzlies do and the spectacled bear of South America is not only a smaller beast, it also prefers to live in the mountains that the jaguar tends to avoid as it is too cold for the big cat.

Admittedly, there was once a big cat in New World that dominated the jaguar the way the tiger dominates over the leopard, and it was a famous one: smilodon, the famous sabre-tooth. While it was alive other big cats had to adapt to its power, and as a result both the jaguar and the puma became something of a Jack-of-all-trade, surviving in a variety of habitats both north and south of Panama, at least until humans came and seriously decimated their numbers... Now both of those big cats are considered to be Near Threatened: it is far from the worst state of affairs for an animal to be, but it is not the best either...

So there we have it, ladies and gentlemen: the jaguar. It is big, it is powerful, it is the top cat of the Americas – and that makes it different from the leopard, but more similar to the tiger, which is the top cat in Asia instead: both the tiger and the jaguar are masters of their domains, both are solitary assassins (not fighters as the lion is) and both are only big cats that enjoy a dip in the pool, at least on occasion, as opposed to the lion and the leopard that shun the water as the other cats do, big and small. Sadly, humans have seriously decreased the number of the jaguar population, so now, perhaps, it is time to go out and conserve, save our nature before it vanishes – and the jaguar with it.

What do you think?