Posts
Yeah, I've been watching too much Batman: The Animated Series.
For some reason I decided to burn half my face. Well, actually I snapped a photo with my web cam and did some photo manipulation to create this. I did a Google image search for "burn victim" in order to get some detailed images of burnt skin, then I "grafted" it on to my own face. Altogether it took about 30 minutes. It's not great, but it turned out about as well as I hoped it would.
In case you haven't heard, I've started a new project: planning the Gigantic Anime Super Party!
Summer GASP! '09 will be a fun-filled, one-day, private anime mini-convention. This will be a party full of anime viewing, cosplay, contests, and anime themed games. For more information you can visit the website I set up for the event here.
If you love anime, you'll love this party! Check out the website and drop me a line if you'd like to attend.
It's been a little while since we finished this project, but I've been lazy about writing for this blog so I'm just now getting around to posting a few more pictures of the (nearly) completed project. These were all taken on the last day I was there. We received and helped set up the chairs that day.
Star Trek is a 2009 film that offers a new take on the classic series. The film features time-traveling Romulans from the future causing events that create an alternate timeline. This allows the movie to go back and explore the early adventures of the original show’s characters without facing continuity restraints. The film focuses primarily on Kirk and Spock, showing bits of their early lives and how each of them ended up joining Starfleet. Things quickly escalate when Starfleet is called on to aid the planet Vulcan – a mission that goes sour quickly, leaving many Starfleet vessels destroyed and the enterprise without a captain. The fledgling crew of the enterprise, most of whom are still cadets, must pull together to overcome the Romulan threat.
This film was very well written. It captured a sense of epic adventure and heroism that Star Trek often seems to lack. They also did a good job writing and casting the characters. I felt like I could be watching younger versions of the original cast. This film actually made me like Kirk. I didn’t much care for him in the original series and movies. It also gave a new perspective on Spock, my favorite character from the original show, which only made him more intriguing. I like how they made Spock’s repressed emotions an actual plot point, rather than just a minor background element.
This film definitely revived the franchise for me. I’m looking forward to a sequel.
Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to watch most movies and shows with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Here are some ideas from Star Trek.
Space Exploration Adventures: This movie got me excited for the idea of playing an RPG about space exploration adventures. I’ve been working on an RPG of my own for a while now that would essentially be Star Trek with the branding removed. Some of the things I like about Star Trek that could make for interesting roleplaying are the galactic politics, the alien cultures, and the random encounters made while exploring new regions of space.
Character Driven Plot: To a large extent, the plot of Star Trek is tied very closely to the characters involved. I think the film did a great job of making the characters matter to the overall story. This could/should be done in any RPG, but this film made me a little more alert to strive for that kind of character involvement in RPGs.
X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a prequel to the X-Men movie trilogy explaining the origins of the character known as Logan or Wolverine. The majority of the story takes place 10-20 years before the events of the first X-Men film. The movie explains the relationship between Logan and Sabretooth, shows Logan’s involvement with Colonel Stryker and the Weapon X program, and reveals how Logan lost his memories. One minor detail I enjoyed was an explanation for why Logan adopted the name Wolverine.
I went into the movie expecting a lot of action and only enough story to link the various action scenes together. I was pleasantly surprised that the movie had a fairly good plot with a couple of twists and surprises throughout. The writing and acting was pretty good, and the casting was well done. Hugh Jackman reprises his role as Wolverine, and his portrayal of the character was spot on. While the movie featured a number of new characters, for me the most memorable was Wade Wilson portrayed by Ryan Reynolds. The only character I was somewhat disappointed with was Gambit. In the film he didn’t have enough of a Cajun accent to do the character justice.
My biggest complaint against the film is the special effects. Some of the effects were so obviously fake it was distracting. The most notable example I recall is when Sabretooth drags his claws along the hood of a truck and rends the metal as he goes. The tears in the metal were very obviously drawn in.
Overall, the movie delivered exactly what I expected and a little bit more. I’d say it was about on par with X2 in pretty much all respects. I wouldn’t mind seeing the sequel or the Deadpool spin-off, both of which have already been confirmed as in-production.
Roleplaying
Because of my obsession with roleplaying games, I tend to watch most movies and shows with an eye for what I could take from it and apply to gaming. Here’s an idea from X-Men Origins: Wolverine.
Playing an Origin Story: When playing a long running RPG campaign, it could be fun to take a session or two to explore each character’s origins. This would especially be true in playing a superhero RPG, but it could really work in any RPG that brings a number of characters with very different and involved backgrounds together. I think you would want to play a few sessions first in the setting’s “present”, but then periodically play a session as sort of a “flashback”. During such origin stories, the other players could take on the roles of new characters that are important to the featured character’s background. It could be an opportunity for character development and a chance for everyone to try something a little different.