Lucas Cats

by on January 9, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: The Races of Humanity

San Lucas is home to several species of large cats genetically modified from Terran species. The panther-derived Gangani ruled an empire hundreds of years old when we arrived. Our ships painted fire in the sky as they came down and sparked rebellions from those the Gangani ruled, both other panthers and the jaguar-derived cats they had conquered centuries ago. It was a slow serious of rebellions, some cold and others hot, as province after province chose to leave. The Gangani let some go with little to no response. Those were invariably on the outskirts of the empire, backwaters they did not care about. The important regions that wanted to leave garnered a different response, and several bloody rebellions were in progress when reformists inside the Gangani made Contact with us. They had been watching us, you see. And some among them thought we could help.

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Winter in Paradise

by on January 8, 2018 at 7:28 pm
Posted In: Art, Character Profiles

We’ve had a fun last couple weeks up here in Minnesnowta. The cold front finally came in and decided to stick around for some encore action. Sub-zero weather gets a bit chilly when it sticks around day after day after day. But it kills the bugs, and I can put on more layers, so I’m fine with that.

Layers? Yeah, for those of you who don’t live where the air hurts your face, we wear multiple layers of clothing to keep the cold out. There’s no such thing as a single coat good enough to keep us warm that is also affordable to buy, so we tend to buy coats two or three sizes too large, and wear them over sweaters. Or spring and fall coats. Which we wear over other clothing. That’s layers.

We learn to dress in layers when we are kids because how else are we going to go out and play in the snow for long hours? Plus, if we are playing and get too warm, we want to only take off one or two layers so we don’t start getting cold again. It’s a delicate balance, figuring out exactly how much to wear when the air is cold enough to hurt your face. And it depends heavily on how active we are at the time. We need less clothing when we are working, since we generate body heat from action. So seeing somebody wearing a light spring and fall jacket, with thick gloves and hat to protect our ears and fingers from the extreme cold, is a fairly common sight.

It also depends on whether or not we want to take a picture. We tend to toss off the outer layers so we look good for pictures that are going to go out all over the world, smile like we aren’t already starting to shiver, and then snuggle back up into our outer layers within seconds of hearing that lovely click of the camera shutter. Because we wouldn’t want any of our sissy southern friends and family to realize that we actually think it’s a bit chilly out there too. But that’s winter in paradise. Just the way we like it.

High rez version available for free on Patreon

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Jurassic Park

by on January 7, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Yeah, I’m going way back now with Jurassic Park, but there’s a reason. I’ve seen all of the Jurassic Park movies, even 2 and 3. I’ve loved Jurassic Park and Jurassic World. But you know one thing I’ve never done? I’ve never read the book.

So I decided to fix that oversight this week. So I’m reading Jurassic Park as I write this. Technically I’m listening to it, like all of my reading these days. Audible is a bad, bad, drug pusher.

As usual, movies are different from the book, but the original movie was actually a really good version of the book. And so was Jurassic World. And 2 and 3 ended up borrowing many elements from the original book that didn’t end up in the original movie as well. Which is pretty awesome to see as I go through.

The second movie starts with the one of the opening scenes from the book, though quickly devolved into militant Earth Firster propaganda. One of the main characters spends his time protecting the dinos from the bad soldiers by breaking them out of cages and sabotaging weapons. Even when they are defending him from the T-Rexes who are hunting them. Which gets dozens of people killed, and him a glory shot of looking smug about how he’s so much better than those people. About then, I was wishing he’d get the same kind of glory shot as the lawyer from the first movie.

The third movie, and Jurassic World, show the aviary, and one of their primary plots is of a boy lost in the park whose parents are divorced or divorcing. Two boys in Jurassic World. And the third movie features the river that Doctor Grant travels down in the book as well. It’s amazing how many movies could be made from the genesis of a single book.

Also of note, I have friends who dislike watching Jurassic Park because of all the stupid stuff in it. They love to tear it apart over idiotic things done in it. Basically, critics who love to complain. I can now smile and say “It was explained in the book. They weren’t mistakes. They were onpurposes.” That makes me giggle just a little bit. No…let me be honest here. That makes me giggle a LOT.

At this time, I’m not done with the book, but I’ve read other books by the Michael Crichton and he’s never failed me before. Yes, I’ve read other books by him and never read this one. I know. I loved the movie so much, I didn’t think I could love the book more and didn’t want to be disappointed like I was with the second movie. So I just never pulled the trigger. Now I have, and I love it more than the movie. All of them.

So that’s two thumbs, way up. Look higher. Look higher. Those aren’t tree trunks. Those are legs. Look higher. Yeah….now you see the T-Rex against the sky. That’s how high the thumbs are up for Jurassic Park, the novel edition. Also for the first movie and Jurassic World. The third movie gets one thumb up for a fun romp through the second island, with the second movie gets two thumbs down because I want those two hours of my life back.

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Aeon Flux

by on January 6, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Aeon Flux is a surprisingly deep movie about life, death, and life. Rumor, and directorial statements, have it that the studio recut the movie after she was done to make it less artsy. A part of me would really like to see the director’s cut, but that is mainly because I love director’s cuts. They are almost always better in my experience than the studio cuts.

Anyways, I have seen this movie before. It was a long time ago, and I slept through most of it, so this was my first real time viewing the movie. After having seen now, I can say that it was not the fault of the movie that I fell asleep. It was all me. I worked overnights at the time, so I slept at odd times, and the people who wanted to see it wanted to see it in the middle of my sleep schedule. So what do I think about the movie, now? I like it. Very artsy in style, though artsy with blood.

It is placed four centuries after a plague killed all mankind. One man managed to find a cure and save a few thousand people, and their descendents live in a single city state now. Walled off from the world, they live in a near utopia with some dark aspects. People are having more and more nightmares as the decades go by, and people disappear from the streets. This is led many to form an underground resistance against the government, and that is where our heroine comes in.

She is Aeon, the best operative the resistance has, and it’s her job to change the future. That’s the quick intro there, and the full story gets complicated fast. Complicated in a good way, actually. Charlize Theron does a very good job playing the namesake, and in fact was badly injured doing some of the stunts. And looking at the stunts, they were looked like Matrix-level quality stuntwork to me. The movie was filmed in several real world locations that had never allowed filming before, and they are amazingly beautiful. They really nailed the idea of the paradisiacal utopian surface of the world, from the virtual world scenes to the real world botanical gardens.

All that is well and good, but did I enjoy it? Yes, I did. It’s not my favorite movie in the world, but I’m very happy to have seen it. I know the critics panned it, audience reviews are mixed, and it didn’t earn out its costs in the end. But here’s the thing. It’s an action spy movie with science fiction, philosophical, and art film elements, directed by a lady, and starring a lady. It’s not an over-the-top film like Bond, Kingsman, or those Expendables films that practically lampshade themselves. It actually shoots for being a serious movie, with real serious questions about the quality and nature of life.

I think it succeeds in that, but I can understand why it wouldn’t do as well in the theatres. Artsy, serious movies usually just don’t make great blockbusters, and the studio wanted a blockbuster, recut it as a blockbuster, marketed it as a blockbuster, and tried to get the critics to accept it as a blockbuster. Neither the critics nor the audiences accepted it as a blockbuster, and so it failed to earn out its production costs in the theatres. But I think it is a movie worth seeing. It is beautiful, well crafted, and I would greatly like to see a director’s cut version just to see what the director wanted it to be.

I’ll give the studio version a solid thumbs up for now, though.

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Jonah Hex

by on January 5, 2018 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Diaries

Before Josh Brolin played Thanos and Michael Fassbender played Magneto, at least three movies were released where Confederates build a super weapon they plan to use to destroy the Union and end America in the late 1800s. That is the main story of Jonah Hex, and I’m sorry to say that it was done better in Wild Wild West and the Legend of Zorro. And those two movies had the advantage of having likeable protagonists. Jonah Hex does not.

Don’t get me wrong, here. Brolin does a good job playing Jonah Hex. And Fassbender does an amazing Irish mad bomber, but neither one is likeable. John Malkovich plays an excellent bad guy with a touch of crazy. Ok. Make a whole bucket full of crazy. And Megan Fox does her usual acting job. Keeps her mouth shut most of the time, arches her back to show off her best talents, and otherwise shows that anybody who wants to get close to her is a whole WAGON load of crazy. Most of the characters are actually acted very well. I have to give the actors props on doing a good job of bringing a lackluster story to life the way they did. And the special effects were pretty cool.

But in the end, this is not a movie that goes on my recommended list. It’s not as fun to watch as Green Lantern or Constantine, the two underrated superhero movies I use as a general bar for whether or not I like a movie in that genre. I didn’t like any of the main characters. And I was more relieved than anything when the credits rolled and I could get back to an exciting day of work. OK. That might be a little harsh. But honestly, I doubt I’ll ever watch this movie again. I certainly hope I never will, because I have other things to do.

Now I’m not going to ask for my time back, here. I’m glad I watched it. Because I have now finally answered the burning question of whether or not I would enjoy the movie. And for that, I’m happy to have spent the time to figure that one out, and I’ll be just as happy to never repeat the experience. No thumbs up from me.

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