PBS Eons Bats - Sep 11

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. So, let us talk about some real life animals, the bats. Why? Because the YouTube channel PBS Eons have started a discussion on them, or rather – on their evolutionary history, as to how they have evolved, as well as from what ancestor, and what other mammals did they share their ancestor with. Those are some genuinely interesting questions, so let us begin.

First, what has evolved… well, first: the bats’ echolocation, their power of flight, or both? That is an interesting question, made complex further by the fact that there is a group of bats, the so-called megabats or flying foxes that do not really use echolocation at all. Why? Because they do not need it – they are fruit-eating mammals, as well as nectar-eating. What next?

Well, the tricky thing is that if previously megabats were something of a sister group to all the other bats, (which do use echolocation, in one way or another), now they are proven to be close relatives of false vampire bats, (which are called that because they don’t suck blood, but are active carnivores instead) and of horseshoe bats and their relatives, all of which have elaborate nasal leaves or similar structure that they use in echolocation instead. The rest of the bats mostly lack such elaborate nasal structures and even if they do, they still echolocate using their mouths instead. So what?

…Well, it can mean that echolocation could have evolved in the bat order at least twice, following two different evolutionary lines. Is it a stretch? No more so than the theory that states that the pinnipeds consist of two mammal superfamilies, each with its own affiliation – true or earless seals one way, the walrus and the eared seals another – instead, but we digress. Even professional scientists aren’t entirely sure as to how echolocation has evolved – as it is usual with fossils, fossil bats lack soft tissues, and without them it’s hard to trace the anatomical evolution of bats’ echolocation, as well as the bats’ evolution properly – the first bat fossils appear to be largely similar to the modern species, and their differences (that people can see) aren’t connected to echolocation. Therefore, let us turn to the evolution of flight.

How did the bats’ flight evolved? Was it from the ground level up or from the tree tops down? Here, we can safely say that it was the former. Why? Because it is active, or true flight. …As opposed to the passive or the gliding flight, utilized by the flying squirrels, the colugo, the marsupial gliders and so on. Those animals do not have front legs modified into wings, what they have instead is an organ named the pataglia that connects their front and back legs; it isn’t exactly a handicap, but all of the gliding animals – mammals, reptiles, amphibians, etc. – live in tree tops, or in case of the flying fish – in the water instead…

Wait. Don’t bats live there too? (Just not in the water?) Well yes, which brings us to the matter of the bat evolution in general – until recently, they were considered the members of the so-called Archonta group that includes primates, tree shrews, colugos or flying lemurs (but they are certainly not lemurs at all) and etc., but now that group is obsolete, (it has expanded and now includes also rodents and lagomorphs, aka rabbits, hares and pikas as well), and bats, instead, belong to the Laurasiatheria clade instead. This means that they are more closely related to European insectivores like shrews and hedgehogs, as well as to the true carnivores such as cats and dogs, as well as hooved mammals and cetaceans, among others. Pause.

…A while back I came across the concept of Afrotheria – a clade of mammals that includes elephants and their cousins – sea cows and rodent-like hyraxes, as well as the various African insectivores, (which are not related to their European counterparts at all) and the aardvark. It is a motley group of mammals, but still nowhere as motley as the Laurasiatheria clade instead. The Afrotheria clade appeared in the Palaeocene, the very beginning of the Cenozoic, the Age of Mammals. The Laurasiatheria again has done one better – scientists claim that it arose 99 MYA, which puts into the Cretaceous, aka the Mesozoic, the age of the dinosaurs and various other reptiles, extinct and extant. A second pause.

One of the initial advantages of science over religion, (we are talking eighteenth/nineteenth/early twentieth centuries here), was its’ clarity and straightforwardness. Just how good this quality is is another question, true, but the thing is that those days science seems to be going too far in the other direction instead. In particular, most scientists themselves differentiate the Mesozoic mammals from their Cenozoic cousins and keep them separate; to pronounce that at that time – aka the Mesozoic, 99 MYA – bats had a common ancestor with European hedgehogs (plus gymnures), shrews, whales, and hooved animals, for example, is simply pretentious and deliberately obscure, nothing good can come out of this take on science. But we have digressed.

…The evolutionary origins of bats are obscure, no matter what the keen scientific minds behinds the Laurasiatheria and the Afrotheria and the other such clades (whatever they are) might proclaim. However, we can safely assume that the evolution of the bats’ wings came from the ground level upwards, just as the birds’ did. In the first half of the twentieth century and beyond there were plenty of arguments regarding the birds’ evolution, there were many people claiming that the ‘protobirds’ had been tree-dwelling animals that learned to glide first and then to glide; Zdenek Burian, who was the founding father of paleoart in Europe, (that’s my opinion, and I’m sticking to it), has even painted a, well, painting, of this theoretical animal; the result was… a more subdued version of the real life Microraptor. If anyone doesn’t know yet, this was a tree dwelling dinosaur with a gliding flight, wings on its front and rear legs, and though it was a ‘raptor’ it wasn’t a close relative of either the ‘true’ raptors – Velociraptor, Deinonychus, Utahraptor and etc. -  or the first birds. Yes, the evolution of birds itself is still a tangled mess, for example Archaeopteryx, which, for a long time, had been something of a canon ‘first bird’, has now been rather demoted or sidelined… but regardless, Microraptor wasn’t a part of it, it wasn’t, or isn’t, the ancestor of modern avians – but it glided, it lived in trees, and by now scientists are certain that the various family branches of theropod dinosaurs evolved various versions of flight several times throughout the Mesozoic. Period. Where does it leave bats?

Well, basically, lucky that they were able to evolve at all – Bruce Wayne might be their mascot, but birds are still the true masters of the sky that bats are not. There is a reason as to why almost all bats are active at night, (except for the fruit bats aka flying foxes, again, which can be active around the clock), and it’s because otherwise they’d be outcompeted by birds. This raises a question again as to how did the bats evolve their wings, as well as why. Possibly, because they could not compete with other small insect-eating mammals of the early Cenozoic, and birds, seeing how they are real life modern dinosaurs do not function so well at night. All birds are theropod dinosaurs, baseline daytime hunters as their cousins the raptors did, (by contrast, tyrannosaurs had a very evolved sense of smell, so maybe they could hunt at night as well), so at night they are at a disadvantage; the proverbial owl hunts during the day as well as at night, (it might be a case of case by case preference of when to hunt, because there’s plenty of footage showing owls not being intimidated by falcons and hawks and similar birds of prey at all), and the other birds that are active at night are oilbirds, nighthawks and their relatives… essentially, bird counterparts of bats. Nature does love its’ ironies, it appears. The ancestral bats found an ecological niche in the early Cenozoic ecosystem – the same one that they are still occupying in modern times, that of a flying mammal – and have stuck with it. That is the generalization; the details still must be hammered out and uncovered, which brings us back to echolocation.

…We have no idea per se just how and when did echolocation evolve in bats, as fossils so far haven’t yielded a clear-cut answer to the scientists, and neither do the modern bats – as we’ve discussed, they can be grouped into two major groups: bats that echolocate using their mouths…and those bats that don’t. This raises the possibility that echolocation evolved in different ways in different bat groups and that complexes the picture further. Ah well, this is what science is for – to give us the common folk answers to question that we did not know about. Good luck to them and good luck to PBS Eons with their thought-provoking videos! (Seriously, check out their YouTube channel. It is truly impressive!)

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

Forged in Fire - Sep 8

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Especially if you are that person who had died from vaping recently – then you have proved to be the equal to the opossum that I have talked about last time, as it is also dead. Ouch. Real life sucks, and then there is TV. Yes, it cannot compare to real life tragedies, such as the ones experienced in the Atlantic, but regardless…

So, let us talk about ‘Forged in Fire’. A friend of mine recommended it to me, seeing how it gone down for a while now and I have never watched it; they claimed that ‘it was as the Deadliest Warrior had been’, (DW). I liked DW back then, and so I watched the sword of Attila episode. And?

And yes, ‘Forged’ is reminiscent of DW, sort of. It is also reminiscent (in my personal opinion) of AFO (‘Animal Face-Off’) and ‘Chopped’, of all things, (namely a cooking show). Where to start?

Like the cooking shows that I have watched, on and off, over the years, FIF has four contestants, three judges, and a host. Except that instead of chefs, cooks, or what else have you, you got bladesmiths, competing in the quality of their blades and bladed weapons. Details? Well, yes, just as the fact that to make the titular weapon – the sword of Attila in this case – they get not several hours, but several days: four on today’s episode. They are secondary, and do not diminish from the show’s enjoyment – or the lack of it.

Where does AFO come in? Like FIF, it had included making models and replicas, though in AFO’s case it was more of casts of skulls and paws and claws of big cats, bears, and so on. Then those models would be tested as well, though not on human replicas. Then again, today’s episode of FIF has also featured horse skulls, and one of the final contestants’ swords failed, it fell out of the handle or was broken, so that is it, game over. He went home and his rival got the 10 000-dollar prize. Yay!

…And yes, those replicas – horse skulls, armor suits (cuirasses, I think), and what else have you is what reminded me of DW, fair enough. It just… it is not my show. The cooking shows… yes, I do not watch them regularly either, not like AoS, or AC, for comparison, and FIF is a variant of them. Yes, the details are different… no, the premise is different, and the details are largely the same, so that may be it. I do not know; maybe FIF is actually a great show, and I just find it boring; I certainly did not find FTB show boring, and it was on the same channel – the Canadian History channel – as FIF is. Therefore, maybe the issue is with me instead. Does anyone has any opinion on this, then? I am ready to listen.

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

Face the Beast - Sep 7

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Just ask the dead opossum I came across the other day – it clearly wasn’t dead via road kill, but died after tangling with some bigger animal, and it was a fairly large opossum – about the size of an average house cat or bigger. I do not know just what would have attacked such an animal – probably a red fox or even a coyote, but regardless, the opossum is dead. The world won’t be quite the same after its’ passing. Now, onto the TV land.

Well, speaking of animals, I watched ‘Face the Beast’ miniseries today, and I must admit, it was good. It involved a couple of scientists/investigators… well, investigating various infamous animal attacks in human history: First, the saltwater crocodile attack on the Ramree islands, and then the sharks on the Hispaniola shipwreck. And you know what? It was good.

It has been a while since we’ve talked about AFO and its’ episodes, which had featured CGI versions as well as robot replicas of crocodiles and sharks, (as well as various other animals), and for a certain reason, ‘Face the Beast’ brought it back: sure, there was plenty of excitement and entertainment, but there was data collecting and at least some educational factors as well. Unlike whatever is going down on Animal Planet these days, the History channel in Canada tries to be educational too; whether it really succeeds is another story entirely, but it tries. In the first part, the FTB team actually ended up capturing a saltwater crocodile to rescue a village on the Ramree island, (it’s located in the Indian ocean, if anyone cares); in the second, they did a series of experiments, and proved that, you know, sharks are smarter than how they are credited to be, plus they can communicate with each other via their bioelectricity, I say. Go team FTB! …Pity that it is only a two-parter, but it works.

What it works about? In both parts, the FTB crew proved, that under a right combination, normally shy animals – yes, crocodiles and sharks are shy, especially if they have plenty of space to maneuver around humans – can become man-eaters and as such deadly dangerous, pun intended. Yes, it is not quite clear if FTB research will help avoid such scenarios in the future, but it is not the show’s concern, so there. The show’s primary role is to entertain us, its’ audience, and it quite succeeds here. Anything else?

BA has defeated SW in tennis. It is real life, not TV, so go team Canada! Not every Canadian’s life sucks, as it did for the opossum that I have come across, (remember that guy?). Life sucks, but you can feel proud for your country, this is what I am saying here.

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

Pennyworth: Sep 5

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. With that out of the way, now, after Pennywise the clown we turn to Pennyworth the (future) butler, from one of the latest DC/CW shows, ‘Pennyworth’. ‘Based on characters from the DC comics’, this show features our titular character before he became a butler, but after he quit SAS and is trying to be his own man, whatever – and whoever – that is. He has met Thomas Wayne (and maybe Martha Kane, the future Mrs. Wayne), and became a piece in the struggle between the Ravens and the No-Names. Waynes are on the latter team, which supposedly makes the No-Names the white hats in this struggle… though in one of the early scenes of the pilot episode we learn that the Ravens want to destroy the government and built a fascist utopia, while the No-Names are going for a socialist utopia instead, so who knows? As ‘Native Son’ – a real-life American novel – shows, the American society was heavily involved with communism, and right now – in 2019 – it is still involved with socialism, (and maybe communism will come back? It is still better than the banana republic that the RF currently is). It would be interesting to learn that the Wayne parents were actually socialist/communist at heart… Bruce Wayne is notable apolitical. Maybe he/Batman is a communist as well? That would certainly be an interesting turn of events in the DC worlds…

Back to ‘Pennyworth’ the TV series. The premise above sounds interesting, but on TV, the Ravens at least are something else: as soon as I saw their leader make an appearance, I knew exactly who he was: professor Ratigan from Disney’s ‘The Great Mouse Detective’ animated movie. Seriously, you should look it up, it is one of the more obscure Disney films, but it is still good to see – and it is very British.

Pause. We try to move away from the secondary details, such as the black-and-red cloaks that even rank-and-file of the Ravens are wearing to the more important facts.

Firstly, ‘Pennyworth’ is visually overwhelming, as its’ set designers tried to cram as much of U.K. visual imagery into it, all done with rich, even lavish, details. That, coupled with all kinds of British accents, (Good God, Professor Henry Higgins), makes ‘Pennyworth’… simply overwhelming and tiring. ‘Swamp Thing’ may also be a CW/DC TV series, but it is more moderate…and enjoyable to watch.

Secondly, the premise. On one hand, it brings to mind MCU, and more precisely… not exactly, AoS, but AC, which was set in the beginning of the Cold War, 1950s and 60s, and was featuring not just the titular character, who was also British, remember, but also Jarvis, the human, who was British and a butler of Howard Stark… who would eventually marry a woman named Martha, and whose younger version is rather reminiscent of this younger version of Thomas Wayne as well. Bring on the copyright issues? We will just have to wait and see.

Thirdly, MCU’s AC aside, ‘Pennyworth’ is also reminiscent of ‘The Three Musketeers’, especially the Soviet version, which closely followed the original novel…unlike the later Western adaptations, some of which went steampunk and ended with the British launching an air fleet of zeppelins in order to invade France. Yes, the original novel also involved the French-British conflict over La Rochelle of that time, (the reign of Louis XIII, if anyone cares), but still, zeppelins. There was a reason as to why that movie, though it ended on a cliffhanger, never got a sequel.

Back to ‘Pennyworth’. The titular character and his two friends are three of the musketeers, with Thomas Wayne becoming a fourth. Alfred’s new girlfriend, Esme, is Constance, a chambermaid and go-to-girl of the queen and d’Artagnon’s love interest. She has been already kidnapped by the show’s version of the milady de Winter… period. Just like Constance – spoiler alert – Esme is going to die, though later on in the show; why? Because otherwise Alfred is going to marry her, and screw the Waynes. On the other hand – more spoiler alert – Al and Martha are going to develop some sort of a relationship, at least for a while, so maybe Al is actually Bruce’s real father instead? Got to admit, didn’t see that coming, especially in the canon, (fanon is other thing entirely, fair enough), but regardless, Esme is a dead girl walking because reasons; another one of them is that she’s a civilian and Al and his mates are about to join DC’s rip-off of S.H.I.E.L.D., whatever that is going to be, but anything but civilian, period.

And then there are the ravens. No, not the fascist utopists who are the main villains of ‘Pennyworth’ so far, but the actual birds. Now, in North America, there are several species of ravens/crows, (aka corvids), but the most common is the American crow, (Corvus brachyrhynchos). From beak to tail it measures about 46-50 cm and weighs up to 500 g – a very formidable bird, I’ve seen it kick the metaphorical shite out of the red-tailed hawks in my neighbourhood, for example; but-

-But in Europe, the raven is the so-called common raven, (Corvus corax), and that includes the U.K. – the tower of London has a lot of semi-domesticated ravens, because supposedly if they are gone, London will fall. (I do not know if Martin’s Westeros has anything similar to that concept). If the American crow looks impressive, the common raven doubly so: it is even bigger than the American crow is – about 60-65 cm long, and it weighs up to 1.2 kg, making it the biggest and heaviest bird in the Passeriformes order… aka perching birds or songbirds. Think of that next time you want to get yourself a pet canary! …This brings us back to ‘Pennyworth’, as we saw several times flocks of ravens flying around the show’s London. In Toronto, for comparison, the sight of several American crows flying around can be very impressive, as they are big birds that can catch one’s attention especially if they start to croak, and common ravens are even more so, but… unlike their smaller cousins – the American crow, the hooded crow of Europe, the carrion crow of Eurasia, they are solitary birds that don’t like humans very much, which is why the raven is also called the northern raven, and it prefers to live in remote places – Scandinavia, Siberia, Alaska and northern Canada, for example. They just do not form flocks and do not live in London, England, in a natural state. A flock of wild common ravens in London would certainly be a newsworthy event, Cold War or not. Atypical for a comic-book TV series, ‘Pennyworth’ tried to get involved with the natural kingdom, and as usual for such franchises, it is an especially bad idea. Even ‘Swamp Thing’ does not try to go there, and it is actually partially set in a swamp!

…The reason, of course, is that in a certain movie-verse iteration of ‘Sherlock Holmes’, Moriarty had a pet crow or raven, (yes, a single pet bird). As the leader of the Ravens (we are back to talking about the human secret society) has shown, the cast and crew of ‘Pennyworth’ has also tried to go for that look for him, but instead they ended up with Ratigan. Yes, Ratigan was also based on Conan Doyle’s canon Moriarty, sort of, but that probably isn’t the direction that ‘Pennyworth’ wants to go, given that the relations between DC and Marvel (Disney) are not so good, eh?

Will I be watching ‘Pennyworth’ in the future? Probably not – if I want to see a fictional take on the Cold War, there is AC, which is not overwhelming, but is actually just right, (especially S1 – S2 is more ambiguous but still fun to observe) and it does not go for ridiculous either. Yes, ‘Pennyworth’ is DC, but so’s ‘Swamp Thing’, for comparison, and it is nowhere being as over the top as ‘Pennyworth’ is – but that is my opinion, and it is subjective: if anyone disagrees, I will be happy to hear from them.

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

NaGeo - Sep 4

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In this particular instance, it is because the NatGeo news website is now a paysite. The fuck?

Now, this development is not exactly a surprise: for the last few years the NatGeo magazine online was almost exclusively for money only, aka The Same Deal You Got for the Paper Copy. No biggie. The fact that the general news articles on the website are for money only starting this September (2019) is still annoying. A while back – when the ‘Pathfinder’ franchise was only beginning to prepare to put itself into its’ second edition incarnation – we discussed how ‘Wizards of the Coast’ site for D&D and co. has become a paysite whereas the ‘Pathfinder/Starfinder’ site is an online/Internet store for the different ‘Pathfinder/Starfinder’ merchandise, with a forum where ‘Pathfinder/Starfinder’ fans can discuss the pros and cons of the various ‘Pathfinder/Starfinder’ goods as well as talk about any other topics regarding this franchise. It’s not a bad idea, for a while the franchise also included various novels and comics, but these days the novels are gone, finished, they aren’t made and published any longer, whereas comics seem to be going this way too with barely any presence in the real world. You can, probably, buy them online and all, but how many people do that? – And where does it leave NatGeo?

Now that is an interesting question. This website was never very popular among the Internet users to begin with, and now that it costs separate money from your usual Internet bills and taxes… yeah. Plus, what is its’ point? You can watch NatGeo videos freely on YouTube and similar sites, and the news themselves are often reposts from other sites, sites that are not necessarily paysites and you can read the news there for free again. What is the reasoning behind this tactical move of NatGeos, again?

...Hard to say. For a while, NatGeo tried to be more interactive, literally, we are talking an interactive Internet site here, but sometimes it does not always work. It certainly does not work for the NatGeo magazine, which has grown increasingly clustered over the years, as the magazine’s crew tried to cram more and more info into the same amount of space within the magazine’s physical parameters and the result is largely a glorified photo album with minimum of printed information. Does Disney owe the NatGeo or the Discovery franchise? If it is, the former then they probably are not getting their money’s worth, is what I am saying, and if it is the latter, then this NatGeo strategy is even dumber. Sad face emoji here. End rant.

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

It Chapter 2 - Sep 3

Obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. Now, back to the evil clowns. Here, we are talking about the Steven King novel that was adapted into movies/TV series in the 1990s, and now into another two movies – the first one was in 2017, and the second one coming to the cinema screens later this year (2019). It is ‘It’, to wit. …Pennywise the clown, being the titular character-villain, (look it up), rocked in his white and red make-up, as opposed to his (its’?) natural form, which is something shapeless, grotesque…and not so evil at all. Somehow, being altogether all too human made It the Pennywise clown more evil than whenever it/he, well, was an invertebrate instead.

…Do I want to discuss the details of the movie/movies, past and present and future? No. While ‘It’ was not a bad film per se, neither it was very debatable, at least not by me. Horror movie genres aren’t my thing, and I wouldn’t be mentioning ‘It’ at all, save for it being about an ultimate evil clown, (as opposed to, say, an ultimate evil werewolf – the titular monster can do a convincing lycanthrope too, BTW), which brings us back to ‘Joker 2019’, of whom we talked recently, and to the fact that ‘It Chapter Two’ comes back from its’ 90s incarnation later this year too. Does it make ‘It’ deserving of a mention? Yes, but nothing more. Anything else?

…’Pathfinder’ continues to churn out more ‘2^nd edition’ rulebooks and game books and stuff, but so far people are not being very overwhelmed. On top of anything else, the second edition had broken down the old structure: in an adventure path book, after the actual adventure description, there was an NPC gallery, then some supplementary material, and finally info on the new monsters that appear in this adventure, (if any). Intersecting the adventure path were the descriptions of various special treasures found during the adventures, as well as some sidebars – comments and advice from the adventure’s author. Now, this structure is gone, or at least – simplified, as NPCs, treasures and monsters are jumbled into one cluttered mess, though there is some supplementary information in the second edition adventure paths, I was told. However…

…However, the point is that the 1^st edition ‘Pathfinder’ was different; it stood out from its’ competition due to their dissimilar layout; as I have written before, ‘Pathfinder’ had more in common with the d20 Modern games than with D&D, which made it special and noticeable, but now that aspect of ‘Pathfinder’ is gone, and I cannot help but to question the logic of that move – is it really a good thing? Judging by circumstantial evidence, I cannot help but to wonder if the ‘Pathfinder’ cast itself is having problems adjusting to the new shift, time to prepare for it be damned… but that is their issues, and they will resolve them somehow. Alternatively, ‘Pathfinder’ will go down for good and people working for this franchise will lose their jobs. Pity, but that is real life for you. It sucks, and here ‘it’ is not Stephen King’s novel. Period.

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

Joker 2019 - Take I: Sep 2

Let us now speak of the Joker, that ‘merry prankster’ of ‘Batman’ the franchise. Switch off the sarcasm? Maybe. Now onto the main event.

Firstly, the obligatory disclaimer: real life sucks. In this particular case, it is also one of the messages of ‘Joker 2019’, as the titular character, initially known as Arthur Fleck instead, gets to be life’s bitch – even without spoilers we can admit that he got more than he received, at least initially. Therefore, he became the Joker. The end?

Well, no, not at all. Why ‘Joker 2019’ is already a success, a month before the public can see it for real, (and we should not worry about spoilers either)? Because it’s zeitgeist. In canon, Joker is even eviller than in the 2019 movie incarnation, but here, he is more chaotic than the average. (Which is very low, given that it is the Joker, but still). He either does not care about right and wrong, or perceives them in such a manner that most people on the street, (even in Gotham), cannot relate. He is unpredictable; he might get inspired for his new op by his itchy left (or right) heel, or by the fact that it rained on Thursday, (and we are talking about a completely natural rain here), and go onto his latest rampage, (or whatever). Back to real life – and we see that the US currently have the POTUS Donald, who is also unpredictable, uncontrollable, and just hated. Now what?

Well, you would think that by now the Democrats would start an impeachment process regarding that man, but no. They do not. In part this is because in that case the Donald’s most likely political heir will be Mike Pence, whom the Democrats and co. hate and fear even moreso than they do the Donald – but that is their problem, and if they have principles, they should be acting upon them – right? They do have principles, correct? This is their main difference from the Republicans, who lack them… Wait. What? The ‘Joker 2019’?

…The ‘Joker 2019’ movie depicts a Gotham that is a mess. Yes, it is the default social setting of this city, but here it is less of a gothic, film noir, crime-ridden horror story, and more of a painfully mundane, banally evil, everyday soulless city. It is realistic, very reminiscent of reality, (especially in the phase 1 Marvel movies), and not really like the Gotham canon, (if there is such a thing). Into this morass come two men – the Joker/Arthur Fleck, who is clearly determined to bring laughter into this world, and Thomas Wayne, who is just as clearly determined to do something about Gotham, in a manner that seems to be based on that of the real life Donald. Now what?

And now, there’s a fight in Gotham, over its’ soul, with no winner in sight, as there’s no hero per se – Joker may be the titular protagonist, but he’s still the Joker, he is still not a hero, for he isn’t good or evil – he’s chaotic; he’s been mastered by chaos rather than master it, and as such, whether for good or for evil, he’s unpredictable. And an asshole. Just look at the current Batman meeting the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles for example. And Thomas Wayne?

…He comes across as a soulless corporate douche instead. Mind you, this isn’t your typical depiction of the elder Wayne; he is usually a better person, and sometimes even – the Batman himself, (but then again there are worlds in DC where Joker’s role is carried out by Martha Wayne, as in Batman/Bruce’s mom, so there is that), but in this 2019 movie? He is dislikable, he is unpleasant, and while he is saner than Arthur Fleck is, (but then again, anyone is saner than the Joker is, even the rest of Gotham’s villains are), he is not any better for Gotham city and its’ state of being than Joker is.

Pause. The truth of the matter is that for all of Joker’s different aspects, he is never a creator, always a destroyer. Period. Even in the 2019 version, he is not trying to create anything; at first, he is just trying to survive, and then he just goes berserk, spreading out his rage, insanity, misery, and what else have you into the rest of his world, (Gotham city). And Thomas Wayne? He is trying to preserve the society that had created the Joker out of Arthur Fleck; in the first half of the movie, Arthur is harmless, but as the external factors add on, he becomes Joker instead, a revolutionary. Pause.

Joker may be a revolutionary, but he is no communist; rather, he is an anarchist-maximalist by the Soviet classification chart; he just wants to destroy the old world down to the basement, and then what will be, will be. Yes, Arthur Fleck is almost certainly politically obtuse, even by the modern American standards, but that is exactly what kind of a revolutionary he becomes and it is precisely what kind of a cult following Joker gets in the second half of the film. Put otherwise, the social order in the 2019 Gotham city is unjust, unfair, and bad and etc., so the Joker just wants to destroy it, plough the land with salt and seed it with lime, and Thomas Wayne… just wants to preserve it, in part because Joker wants to destroy it and in part because he’s benefitting from it, (the Waynes are one of the most powerful Gotham families in the DC canon). Yes, he wants to implement some superficial changes to the society, but this is it, and quite a few of Gotham’s citizens don’t like it; so where does the real world come in?

Oh, the real world is there already, at least USA-wise. Half of the people are fed-up with the current status quo and just want to tear it down; half the people want to preserve it, regardless, or maybe even because, of its’ flaws, because they are benefitting from this, and the rest can go hand; and the rest want to do something without going to either of those extremes, but they are being overwhelmed by the noise from the above two extremes. Will the US get out of it? Judging by how ‘Joker 2019’ is already crazily famous, (and that is even before we get into the entire unreliable narrator/fake media aspect of the film), it is a long shot. We will have to wait and see what will happen to the USA (and the rest of the world) next before making any predictions.

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