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Space Hamsters To Return
So it looks like Spelljammer is coming back.
In case you missed it, Spelljammer was a setting for second edition Advanced Dungeons and Dragons1 which introduced wooden space-ships and let players ‘set sail’ to other worlds (other D&D settings).
Now you may wonder how that works. Most D&D worlds are pseudo-medieval after all, how does all the space stuff work? The answer is magic. Powerful devices called spelljamming helms ‘power’ the wooden ships and gravity works in a way convenient to the plot. They also borrowed ideas for 2nd Century AD astrophysics2 to add phlogiston and crystal spheres; basically oceans and mountains but ‘in space’. Because fantasy.
The setting blends 1950’s era pulp sci-fi with age of sail style fantasy. So we get pirates, buccaneers, mysterious ports and so on. The setting came out in 1989, a messy time for D&D. The company owned the rights to Amazing Stories3and Buck Rogers4at the time and this informed the game. They’d taken the things that had inspired Star Wars such as John Carter of Mars and added swashbuckling pirates and high fantasy magic. It was an amazing idea.
Of course, the initial boxed set was a mess. Not enough setting and too many rules, lots of cardboard. The supplements where better and it’s big move was to give the brain-eating squid monsters known as Mind Flayers their own evil space-ships, that looked like horrific sea beasties. On the other hand, it had Giant Space Hamsters. Which worked exactly the way you think they would, big tubes to crawl in and everything.
It did well enough. It also almost became it’s own ‘Video Interactive Boardgame’ – TSR had produced one for vanilla D&D called DragonStrike and Spelljammer: Wildspace would have been next, had the company not headed into financial difficulties. Instead all we have is this:
Spelljammer sort of went away as the game moved on, but was not forgotten. Later editions couldn’t resist dropping it in as an Easter Egg here and there and Third Edition did get a mini-supplement in an issue of Dungeon Magazine. Spelljammer ships have appeared in a couple of the adventure supplements for D&D Fifth Edition as well (I won’t say which ones because of spoilers). The new Baldur’s Gate video game also features something very familar to fans of Spelljammer.
So why am I saying it’s back? Well there’s two massive clues. One is that Wizards of the Coast recently released an article on their ‘Unearthed Arcana’ blog heavily features beasties from the old Spell Jammer game, as well as a few things from elsewhere. (You can find it here if you fancy a quick look.) These articles tend to ‘test the waters’ before a book comes out.
The other massive clue is a lovely sneak peak we got recently in a “Future of D&D” panel. It seems that one of the books features Boo on the cover. Now Boo is the hamster companion to Minsc, one of D&D’s iconic heroes. But he’s not just any hamster. He’s a miniature giant space hamster.
It also doesn’t hurt that lead designer Chris Perkins admitted to having written screen plays based on another old property, Star Frontiers. Which is Spelljammer adjacent, sharing a lot of the feel and mood of the setting. So it really looks like D&D Fifth Edition is about to boldly go into some sort of wild space like setting. It’ll be fascinating to see how this effects more up-to-date D&D settings like Eberron and Ravnica. Will we see the Vox Machina crew take on Space Pirates? We’ll have to wait and see.
1: Nothing terribly advanced about AD&D – the ‘advanced’ was added so Gygax didn’t have to share royalties. Confused the heck out of me when I was 11 and put loads of kids off. Nice one Gary.
2: The word astrophysics is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.
3: Amazing was a big deal when it came to science fiction back in the day. Deserves it’s own post.
4: TSR produced a Buck Rogers RPG. It was much better than it had any right to be.
When Titans Attack
The Attack on Titan series proves the point that you can make even the most ridiculous idea and make it all dark and serious.1. I watched the first season ages ago, and enjoyed it for the high-tension nonsense that it was. I also got to interview Bryce Papenbrook, who does the English dub for the shows main character, Eren Yeager.
The interview is somewhere out there in the Starburst archives, but the thing that stuck in my mind is the Bryce was very proud of his ability to act and shout at the same time.
In case you’ve no idea what I’m on about, The Attack on Titan series is a pseudo flintlock fantasy world which takes place in a vaguely German like country. Mankind is under siege and lives in a massive walled city, with the upper classes living in the thickest wall in the center, with thinner walled bits of the city protecting the peasants.
The threat everyone is hiding from are giant man-baby monsters2 with grotesque heads that walk like toddlers and eat people whole. These are the titular ‘Titans’. It’s utterly daft and the animated TV show and accompanying comic books are hugely popular across the world, especially in their native Japan.
The main protagonist is a chap called Eren, who shouts a lot and hates Titans. He works with a team of scouts who swing around on gas powered grappling hooks smacking the monsters in their weak spots with huge swords.
The Roar Of Awakening is the third ‘movie’ instalment of the series. You may note that I’d only seen the first season at this point, though I’d read some of the manga (comic books) and felt up to speed. I was wrong. Between the blood, the shouting and the silly plot twists I had no idea what was going on.
‘Roar’ ramps up the conspiracy and paranoia, but it’s mostly lots of characters jabbering on at each other about nothing until another fight scene happens.
This is because Attack on Titan: The Roar of Awakening is a compressed and re-edited version of season two of the TV series. The editing makes for some interesting scenes; dramatic freeze frame with some dialogue over the top is used quite a bit in order to stitch the narrative into something vaguely understandable. The result is action scene after action scene, with lots of dramatic music, shouting, violence and the more shouting. The animation really shines at these points, with some great cinematic scenes of huge monsters punching normal sized people. Then eating them.
The problem is that if you didn’t know any about the series going in, well this is part three in an ongoing series; this is going to make no sense . It’s hard to really understand what this is for. Fans of Attack on Titan will want to five the full series a watch, rather than this butchered shorthand. At two-hours, it’s a heck of a long recap.
Though I get why these things exist, I really wish they didn’t. Honestly, if you’re going to watch this weird and macabre thing, you need to invest the time into it.
1: Genuinely not a good thing. Not everything has to be dark and edgy, after all.
2: Yes you read that right.
Power Grid
The board game that most of us learn to play whilst growing up is Monopoly. When played incorrectly (which most people do), it teaches the players that managing money is all about luck, bluffing and buying the first thing you see. When played using the rules provided in the box1, it teaches us that managing money is all about arguing and swindling. As life lessons go, both of those are pretty rubbish, which goes to show that if you want to learn about money, don’t learn it from anything called Monopoly.
Instead, you should learn some lessons from the excellent German boardgame, Power Grid. Designed by the award winning Friedemann Friese, this complicated looking but surprisingly simple game actually does what Monopoly only claims to; it’s about seizing corporate control and being the sole controller of a particular resource. As the name suggest, the commodity in question is electrical power; you and your friends via for control of a nation’s power stations. The game is German, so the default map is Germany. However, other boards are available for those obsessed with maps and simulation. The aim of the game is to provide power to as many different cities as you can. Players bid on types of power stations, some more efficient than others.
The game in which everyone wants the Wind Turbines. Except Daily Mail readers, of course.
The twiddle here is that this is really a game about managing cost, making budgets and bluffing. At the start of the game, the less useful stations are the first available to buy. Typically, these are also hungry for fuel, and you also have to buy those resources. The more efficient you are in your bidding power stations the better, as it means you can afford to get better equipment as the game progresses.
You might be wondering how a game about budgeting can be fun; well, it’s all in the way to try to outthink and out-bluff your fellow players. This is a game about picking your moment and purchasing wisely. Instead of the utterly random elements of Monopoly, the player gets rewarded for thinking ahead and out thinking their competitors.
The map provides a number of strategy elements as well, but handling power and cash is the key part of winning here.
Power Grid is a family game, though one that is squarely pitched at teenagers and older. Though the subject matter feels dry, it’s absurdly fun to see that there’s a bargain on the table and then plotting to see how you can be the one to own it. It’s fun but also sneakily educational, which is always nice. Of all the games that combine world domination with shopping (and they are quite a few) Power Grid wins hands down.
1: Johnny Nexus wrote an excellent article on why Monopoly never gets played properly here.
Black Library Weekender
Rather than the usual format for a blog post, in which I wax lyrical1 about some nerd thing or other that has caught my eye this week, I’m going talk about what I did this weekend. Which is go to a luxury hotel in Nottingham and hang out with book geeks.
The Black Library Weekender was a two-day event focusing on the books produced by the world’s fifth largest publisher of Science Fiction. I am a big fan of the Black Library, partially because I was bitten by the Warhammer bug at a very young age2, but also because it deals with expanding consistent world settings; everything BL produces is part of a growing mythology, and everyone is invited to dive in. The imagination, much like sports, can be more fun with the addition of some basic rules, and the loose guidelines that define the worlds of Warhammer tend to be a lot of fun.3
So what happens when hundreds of fans turn up at a really nice place with conference facilities, a bar and a spa? A good time is had by all it seems, though I didn’t see many other fans in the swimming pool (they were mostly in the bar). Personal highlights for me include getting to chat away with the likes of Clint Werner4, who is very epitome of a Texan Gentleman, getting to geek out slightly at Aaron Dembski-Bowden5, and talk to a host of authors, editors and fans. (I was stunned to learn that they are people still using the old-school Rogue Trader rules to play RPGs. That is deeply hardcore.)
I also got to interview Dan Abnett for Starburst Magazine. I’m a big fan of Dan’s work, and it was a lot of fun to do. He’s a nice chap and I got some great stuff to write up later. I probably came across like a huge fanboy, but then that is who I am.
I totally played it cool, as you can see.
As an event, it was mostly seminars and signings, and there was quite a bit of overlap with the Horus Heresy talks; I learned a lot about what was coming up over the next 18 months for that series, and much less about other lines. However, I was also able to grab multiple viewpoints and takes on that bestselling series, so nothing was wasted. Another highlight was some great insights into the adventure gamebook industry.
The evening social events included The Pitch Factor, a Pop Idol style event where nervous unpublished authors pitched their ideas to two editors and an English teacher6. I had a go myself, and got the reality TV experience7, but it was an awful lot of fun. There was also a quiz, which was essentially authors versus the fans. Technically the fans won, but judging by the amount the laughter, I think everyone did.
It was a large, but intimate feeling event. The Black Library ‘tribe’ is a rather awesome one, and I can’t wait to do something like this again soon.
1: Or if you’ve met me, babble in excitable Geordie whalesong.
2: There is no known cure for Geek. It may mutate, but it can never be cured, and that’s fine the way it is.
3: Black Library, and indeed Games Workshop, have a policy that can best described as “It’s all true, especially the lies”. Much of the work is told from a specific viewpoint, and no one pretends that any one faction has the full facts. This means that stories are stack upon stories, creating a deep yet flexible world. This is a very British approach to dealing with story settings that feature multiple creative talents. Doctor Who has a similar policy.
4: He writes some cracking stuff; if gritty fantasy featuring rat-men and disease sounds like your thing, check out Dead Winter.
5: Aaron is a great writer who should be more famous than he is. He also wrote a great article on canon here.
6: Legion of the Damned writer Rob Sanders. Possibly the coolest English teacher ever, for a given value of cool. I may have babbled incoherently at him at one point about his cinematic scenes in The Primarchs.
7: I should have gone for My Little Primarch, also known as We buy any Khan.
Person of Interest
Once in a good long while, you get a crime drama series that does something different with the basic premise of ‘they fight crime’. Alongside the many variants of Law & Order and CSI we now have Person of Interest, a show that owes more to classic crime fighting action heroes such as The Shadow and Batman than it does to the usual formula of “the law always wins”.
The premise is very comic-book like. A reclusive billionaire genius has access to limited information on forthcoming crimes. He recruits a down-on-his-luck ex-CIA agent to help him to get more information, and together they fight crime. The agent, John Reese, is a one man army with his own problems. His motivations for doing the things he does are complex, but you always get the feeling that he’s always one step away from being a true villain without that being played up a clichéd, angst-driven way. Actor Jim Caviezel1 does a good line in gritty voiced, hard boiled bad-ass, and it’s hard not to like this hero, who’s known to the police as ‘that guy in the suit’2.
The Shadow is a grandaddy of crime dramas featuring people with unusual abilities, and a clear source of inspiration for Person of Interest.
He’s supported by Harold Finch3, a crippled genius who has access to all the surveillance systems ever, and an unusual way of predicting crimes. I’ll avoid spoiling exactly what that is, but this element lends a further air of the fantastic to the whole show; it’s entirely believable, and yet incredible at the same time, making a Person of Interest less of a cop show and more of a super-hero story where nobody has super powers or wears a cape. It might not surprise you to learn that the producer is Jonathan Nolan, who co-wrote the relatively down-to-earth Batman movie The Dark Knight alongside his brother Christopher.
As the show progresses, the cast grows; we meet further heroes who again are regular people with an interest in keeping the streets clean and saving lives. Indeed, they’re introduced so subtly that it takes a while for us to realise that actually these characters are remarkable crime-fighters in their own right. Of course, they are recurring villains as well, and they are exactly what they need to be; real people, with real motivations doing bad things for reasons that they can justify and feel righteous for doing.
Person of Interest is now in its second season, and it keeps getting better and better as it goes on. I have high hopes for this show and I hope it inspires a renaissance in good solid story telling which features not indestructible action heroes, but remarkable people doing amazing things.
1: As badasses go, he’s an excellent choice. He’s also played incredibly powerful humans in the past; he was Jesus Christ in the The Passion of the Christ.
2: A regular suit, not a superhero costume. Though it may as well be.
3: Played by Michael Emerson, who’s made a career out of playing the quirky and off key. Previous roles include clowns and serial killers, which I’d argue is almost the same niche.
Prometheus
Fear is one of the greatest challenges that art faces; trying to communicate fear is a difficult task, and fear in and of itself can restrict and strangle an artist in such a way that their work comes out warped. One could cheerfully argue that Hollywood, with its urge to ensure that each and every movie it produces is a blockbuster, is plagued by fear. Fear is also hard to use in art; truly scary movies are rare, and the true spine-chillers are always memorable.
I bring this up because this is the main problem with the movie Prometheus. What starts out as a great film about the nature of man and gods is plagued by having to be part of a legacy of scary movies. By attempting to place itself in the Alien1 mythology, it also attempts to emulate parts of that franchise that fans will enjoy. I have no idea why, but I suspect it’s easier to make a movie if you can strongly link it to other successes.
Looks gorgeous, great acting, great idea. If only they had the guts to make it not part of a franchise and go with the promise it gives in the first minutes of the movie.
Sadly, this ruins the feature. It fails to use fear to entertain, and fear of being a failure means the production was attached to something it never needed to be part of. Which is a shame, as the first 40 minutes of Prometheus are near-perfect. Atmosphere is established early on, and a good, old-fashioned tale about mans place amongst the stars is begun2. The sets are gorgeous, the actors are superb, the characters, though plain, seem up to the task of carrying the story and the whole thing looks fantastic. Anyone who grew up with a H. R. Giger poster on their wall will find a lot to love here.
And then, for no good reason, it descends into gore-splatter, knee jerk horror. I am loathe to give out spoilers (so I won’t), but there is one scene which is so trope filled, so cliché ridden that I simply turned off, and it made me feel like I was watching two movies stitched together. I expect Ridley Scott to handle his characters much better than this, and though it’s not as bad as other scenes in the same franchise 3, it brings the movie to a nadir it never quite recovers from.
Throw in a truly dire, CGI heavy scene towards the end and we are left with no surprises and a broken promise. Prometheus should have brought fire to the fearful movie moguls of Hollywood, banishing concerns about clever movies. Instead, it fails, and becomes just another movie about monsters in space.
1: Various people, including the movies producers, have stated that it’s not a prequel to Alien, and they’re right; that would be Alien Versus Predator. The problem is that the movie is hampered by its ties to franchise.
2: One could talk a great deal of horse-hockey about wounds in the side of Promethean giants, the nature of god and all the rest of it. Indeed, this sort of deep examination of the movie is valid, and probably what the director wanted. It’s just that because the last half of the movie is so dire, I cease to care about the clever subtext – make the movie not a pile of pants first, then add in the things that will keep Film Studies teachers in a job for the next 20 years.
3: If you’ve seen Aliens Versus Predator: Requiem you know what I mean.
The Grind
Like many a genre defining movie, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels has a lot to answer for, because it has inspired not only a huge box of rip-offs, most of them have been terrible. Sad to say, low budget feature The Grind can be added to the list of gritty, London based dramas that promises much but fails to deliver.
It stars Danny John Jules, an extremely fine actor who is best known for his role as The Cat from Red Dwarf, but is one of those incredibly talented types who shines in many roles. If you’re very old, you may remember him from Scum, a much better gritty British b-movie that I was really hoping The Grind would be. It also features actress Zoe Tapper, who should be familiar to fans of Demons1 and Survivors, though she’s almost criminally underused in this. The film’s star is Freddie Connor, who turns in a credible performance as a man who’s in over his head. Connor carries the story as best he can, but it’s clear that there isn’t much to carry.
It’s main selling point is “some bloke from Eastenders.” I’m sure the Jamie Foreman fanclub is delighted with The Grind. And by fanclub, I mean his mum.
The Grind is well named; it takes about 90 minutes to tell a half-an-hour tale, and though I’m typically loathe to be overly negative about a small-budget movie, its biggest flaw is that the story isn’t that good. The production is fine (though obviously on a budget) and it has a great supporting cast. It’s just a huge pity that the central premise has been done to death, and adds nothing new to genre.
There’s very little here for any sort of fan; fans of the Danny John Jules are better off watching him in Red Dwarf or maybe Maid Marian and those who love gritty, cockney based dramas have much better things to choose from. There just aren’t enough dans of boring, low budget trash, I suppose.
1: By fans, I mean Stephen Smith in Burnley, and his cat.
Eternal Law
If you were very lucky, you will have missed ITV’s recent attempt at genre drama; supernatural stinker Eternal Law1. The idea is quite a nice one; angels in the form of man take the guise of barristers to defend the innocent, typically fending off similarly disguised demons as they do so. Potentially, this could have been a great mix of court-room drama and supernatural adventure.
What we got was a poorly acted, badly thought out melodrama. It’s almost as if the producers thought that the idea (which though nice, isn’t terribly original) would be strong enough to carry the whole show by itself. The problem wasn’t just one element; this was a potentially brilliant, genre defining TV show let down by a lack of decent stories. Plenty of good ideas and yet not a single one of them was handled well.
The main characters had a lot of potential; the naive and child-like Tom, the bitter yet savvy Zak and the mysterious and capable Mrs Sherringham may have been a bit cliché, but they were strong enough to carry the story. Sadly, instead of letting the viewers getting to know the heroes, we instead got a lot quick fixes and most of the problems in the plot seemed to be resolved either by having the heroes shout at someone, or another character having an inexplicable change of heart.
Great idea, pity about the execution
Eternal Law was filled with some great moments; two angels sitting on top of York Minster having a swift drink talking about saving the world through better legal-aid sold the show to me initially, as did the various one-liners. After all, few shows ever get to have someone say “Hosanna singing ponce”. But nice set scenes do not a story make, and it’s main problem was that it couldn’t decide if it was a low-budget courtroom drama show or a low-budget supernatural thriller. By trying to be too many things, it ended up being nothing.
The real shame here is that not only has the show been cancelled, every botched job like this makes it harder for similar ideas to take their place. Eternal Law wasn’t a bad idea, it was just badly made. It’s tempting to poke fun at the show, but its so poorly put together that I suspect strong language may somehow make it fall apart. I haven’t the heart to be mean, because it’s so naff that I feel sorry for it.
If you want an interesting take on the divine and infernal interfering with the affairs of man, I recommend you check out Chris F Holm’s latest book Dead Harvest instead. Not only is it a better idea, it’d make a cracking bit of telly.
1: Previous efforts to make interesting genre shows have included Primeval and Demons. Whereas the former probably deserves its own post, the latter was the forgotten offspring of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Coronation Street without any of the charm that might imply. Best let sleeping Demons lie.
Black Dynamite
In recent years, Hollywood has not only looked to its past for new ideas, it’s also began to be brutally honest about its history. This has yielded some great movies, but one you may have missed is Blaxploitation1 parody/homage, Black Dynamite.
Nostalgia works best when it’s done with open eyes. This is doubly true for parody. Black Dynamite is not just a pastiche of the highlights of the Blaxploitation genre, it’s a love poem to a wealth of cinema history that many of us disregard.
The plot of the movie follows the adventures of Black Dynamite, a Vietnam veteran and former CIA agent who cleans up the streets in response to his brother being killed. So far, so clichéd, but then, that’s the point. Dynamite is an excellent martial artist, a genius and of course, a superb lover. As the plot of the movie gets more and more unlikely, Dynamite’s near super-human prowess gets equally ridiculous. This allows the movie to start with a parody of the better examples of the genre and then continue to poke fun at more shoddily produced films that where so popular in the Seventies.
A near perfect parody of the genre
In addition to being genuinely funny, clever and well observed, the attention to detail on the feature is incredible; for a start, its shot on the sort of film they used back in the 70’s. Deliberate continuity errors are made, as anachronisms. If you aren’t into the sort of film , Black Dynamite is parodying, you’ll find it amusing. If you’re a massive nerd who happens to know that Rudy Ray Moore used a red boom mike (and frequently kept it in shot), you’ll be bowled over. 2
At its heart, Black Dynamite is one of those American comedies where they layer the jokes on thick in the hope of making you laugh. The reason it makes you laugh so loud is because though many of the gags will fly straight over your head, the sheer volume of ridiculous, genre driven laughs will crack a smile, even if you’ve never even heard of Shaft.
1: Blaxploitation is a genre of movie that came from the 1970’s. They tend to be set in the USA, and feature a heroic black character (usually a man from the ghettos) fighting corruption on multiple levels, and are typically action-driven crime thrillers like Shaft.
2: Okay, you and the one other person in the world who noticed that. Nerd.
Pulgasari
Some movies are weirder than others. Take, for example Pulgasari. A North Korean monster movie, set in feudal times may sound pretty odd to begin with, but it gets even stranger when you realise that this was a movie produced by recently deceased dictator and all round bad guy, Kim Jong-il.
It gets stranger; Jong-il was a big fan of Godzilla movies (and at the time, merely the son of a tyrant), and had decided that he was going to boost North Korea’s movie industry. Rather than simply invest in film schools and encourage home-grown talent, he decided to go for the Bond-villain route of kidnapping an actress called Choi Eun-hee, who happened to be the ex-wife of a South Korean movie-maker called Shin Sang-ok, who was kidnapped by North Korean agents shortly afterwards. Kim Jong-il then imprisoned the pair and forced them to re-marry. Only then did he ask them to produce movies for the state. 1
So what about the movie itself? Well, it’s a big budget monster movie, in the style of Godzilla, that was made back in the Eighties. This means many of the effects rely on a guy in a rubber suit2 thrashing around and knocking down lots of models of buildings. This actually lends a lot of charm to the picture, which it needs when you consider it’s rather dark origins. It’s a period piece (as if they could make this even stranger), and it features lavish costumes and sets, as well as a huge cast. It’s also only 90 minutes long, which is about the right sort of length for this kind of thing.
Cute, in a goofy looking giant metal eating monster sort of way
Like most good monster movies (and it is a good example of the genre), the plot focuses on the human elements, whilst the monster moves the story forward. At its core, Pulgasari is a tale of ordinary people overthrowing tyranny. The titular monster’s creation story is one of tragedy, it being created through the dying wish of a humble blacksmith forced to starve to death by an evil king. The creature grows by eating iron, and because most of the metal belongs to the kings’ army, it attacks him and his forces first. Eventually, of course, the monster turns on the people and has to be destroyed, but only after a great price has been paid.3
Much has been made of the story by those looking to read a deeper political context into the feature; it’s hard not to given the movies origins but in this case it really is a well made but dumb monster movie. I gather that the original folk legend the film is based on goes much the same way; it’s a parable on the dangers of wealth not being shared rather than a searing critique on a totalitarian regime. The monster turning on the people is more to do with that being a convention of the genre rather than any sort of social commentary.
Oh, and in case you haven’t gathered, this is a foreign movie with subtitles. So of course, the Americans remade it; it’s called Galgameth.
1: Seriously. The pair eventually escaped, by seeking political asylum with the Americans during a business trip to Vienna back in 1986. Shin Sang-ok changed his name to Simon Sheen, and went on to produce the 3 Ninjas series of kids martial arts movies. They have Hulk Hogan in them, which is all you really need to know.
2: Kenpachiro Satsuma, no less, the chap who played Godzilla from 1971 to 1995. The costume itself was produced by the legendary Toho Studios, the firm that produced all the original Godzilla movies.
3: Those aren’t spoilers by the way, that’s how monster movies are supposed to work.
Ed Fortune 