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Guardians of the Galaxy vol. 2
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A pretty great movie that I thoroughly enjoyed. It's got the fun, adventurous heart of the first film without being burdened by following conventional "superhero" plot - which is to say it's not another origin story (which is getting pretty worn out these days) and it's not really a second installment where the hero falters and questions everything before re-embracing their role. Rather it's more about family - some literal and some more figurative/adoptive.
The banter is great. Young Groot is cute. Rocket is still my favorite, even if he does cause some serious trouble. I feel like I don't have a lot to say about Gamora, yet she doesn't feel so underused as last time. My only real complaint gets a little spoilery, and that doesn't actually take away from the movie much for me.
Let's see if I can do a spoiler cut here...
My complaint: Ego kind of devolves rapidly to mustache-twirling levels of evil at the end in order to give the group a reason to fight him. Now, I get the seed was planted (literally) for this in the beginning of the movie. But his interactions with the main group up until the end leave me seeing two possibilities: 1) His being nice was just a facade while he found if Peter could use celestial power. If that's the case, it shows an understanding of social interactions and emotions enough to bother manipulating people, which means it should have been sooo obvious everything would go smoother for him if he didn't admit to killing Peter's mom. 2) Being a celestial being, he doesn't "get" people enough to see that would piss Peter off and make him an enemy. If that were the case, it would have been better conveyed by a few "cracks" in his mask earlier on. As presented in the movie, it feels like the shift from playing nice to being evil was enforced by a narrative need and time constraints, which takes away from a natural feel of the characters and their interactions. But... for all the thoughts and words I've devoted to it, that's actually a fairly minor quibble against the movie as a whole. What else? - I loved the beginning fight, with Groot still hiding his dancing from Drax and the "main battle" being a background element. - Taserface! Ahahaha! - The twist in the Gamora-Nebula relationship and reconciliation is something I appreciate, casting the "good guy" Gamora as the one who really stoked their conflict in their youth - it gives her something to think about and makes it more complex. - So many end credits scenes. Aiee, teen Groot! Does this prove Stan Lee is a Watcher reporting to the others, or is he just a person there telling them stories? - I'm a bit surprised at the timing of Adam Warlock's "first appearance," as it probably means he won't really appear fully until GotG 3 and probably miss the Infinity War movies, when he was a big part of the story line in the comics. - Yes, Ego lives up to his name. - I guess Rocket told the Ravagers only what Yondu told/hinted to him, since from what Ego said, it sounds like Yondu still delivered all those other people to him, so he still broke the code. - And a Zune! That gives us another 2-3 decades of possible songs to pull from! Yay! ;) I also find it amusing that Rocket seems to be into the music as much as Peter, even if he doesn't admit it.
Whether it's chat on game nights, or just wandering thoughts, I sometimes reminisce on old games and what we experienced versus what was actually in the rules. I just dug out my 2E Players Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide to have a look at some of those old rules and have a look at some things... - Ability Scores have some uneven bonuses, usually only kicking in at 15+. 3E consolidated a lot, 2E bonuses are all over the place, but you generally don't get anything of note for a score below 15 or 16. Only warriors get a HP bonus for Con above +2. Int places a hard limit on the maximum spell level of wizards and their chance to learn a specific spell (failure means able to try again next level). Priests have it a little easier with a chance of spell failure at less than 13 Wisdom, and bonus spell slots for 13+. Classes have hard ability requirements. - Races make a lot of difference. Demi-humans are seriously limited in available classes, cap out at a maximum level o...
When I watched the pilot for Hazbin Hotel , I adored it. It had a good balance of serious vs. silly. The musical nature worked. The characters were appealing. And I suppose I could say it has an irreverent edge that drew me in too. The series was one of the few bits of entertainment I would say I truly anticipated and even was the final nudge to get me to subscribe to Amazon Prime. The first season was pretty great. Some of the voice actor changes were a little off-putting, but grew on me. The season was filled with banger songs. Really, I loved it all around, I think. The second season didn't quite hit with me in the same way, though. Releasing two episodes (of eight) a week was a detriment in my book. The first two episodes were largely showing fallout from perspectives of Hell and Heaven, without moving things forward much at all. The next four then set up the stakes, explaining a few things and revealing others, but they felt moving a little fast and left me thinking "tha...
That would be Not My Sandbox Syndrome, a label I'll ascribe here to a psychological reluctance to mess with things not of one's own creation. It came up recently in some conversations that I don't "run" much on FurryFaire. A couple scenes in sequence with very little plotline and involving only a PC or two? Sure, I do that maybe a couple times a week. Any longer continuity, any wider influence on the setting, and I pretty much skip it. Why? A lot of reasons, actually, some of which I may discuss in most depth later. Inspiration is fleeting and fickle - I can't just conjure up applicable ideas at will, but its easier to manage in this area if there are other things going on to play off of. Time can be tricky - I have had numerous scenes fall by the wayside because when I was interested in pursuing them people weren't around or something else required my attention. My GMing skills, especially online, have waned - I have enough trouble wrangling two or ...
We liked that Rocket liked the music. And it was amusing to watch Baby Groot stop dancing every time Drax looked at him. That was a nice callback.
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