Redwolf's Journal (continued)

I finally got caught up and finished watching the latter half of Star Wars: Rebels , of which I'd only seen an episode or two. I have some mixed feelings. I was never really a fan of the art style. It felt a little too simplistic and areas too isolated as if arbitrarily limited by polygons on screen. It wasn't a huge drawback, but a little bit of one. Narratively, there were ups and downs. It re-canonized several things, like Thrawn. It brought back Ahsoka, who remains one of my favorite characters in Star Wars in general. It called back to one of the most questionable and unnecessary episodes of Clone Wars (in my opinion) that focused too much on origins of the Force. It established a Force-based space-time Stargate network of sorts... for some reason. It wiped out an Imperial fleet with a bunch of space whales, which is somehow both cheap and glorious at once. I think I like the overall arc of things, but individual episodes often felt formulaic/repetitive to me, which ...

It's definitely odd to see so many retail and office spaces closed downtown. Wrrf. Even businesses that are open are going to be suffering from all this. About the only places I can think of that aren't going to take a major downturn in revenue may be shipping and grocery stores - and that assumes they aren't directly  hit by infection issues. Steven Universe came to a full end this last week. Appropriately enough for a series that dealt heavily with relationships, identity, and helping people work through their problems, the final arc leaned heavily into Steven himself needing to find his way. It felt a little too simple for me, though. I feel like it may be unfair of me to say, considering this is a series in which many things span beyond the 15 (10?)-minute episode run time. Many issues have been resolved quicker than they probably "should" have been. I'm not sure if maybe it's just because it feels close to home, but shining a light on Steven's ...

So, yeah... it's not been a good... hmm... week? Give or take. Not quite the spiraling down into utter lethargy and heavy chest I've experienced before at my worst, but a truly pervasive dull grayness. Work has been less than engaging or satisfying lately, which makes for several hours a day of just existing. That doesn't help. It hasn't all sucked, but even good entertainment feels fleeting and leaves me hollow. I was able to catch up on the first couple episodes of The Mandalorian . I'm generally enjoying it so far, though not without a few issues. A little like diving into an RPG with a character created in a vacuum, there's not a lot of engagement between the lead character and... well... anyone else. That makes for a lack of dialog in general. He's tough, cool, and a man of few words, but that's usually not as entertaining as good banter. I'd also say there's already perhaps an overuse of montages between childhood flashbacks, learning t...

I don't know if it's a good or bad thing to have seasons getting into the 6-7 episode realm. It's hard for me to think of them as seasons. Then again, some shows have 50+ episodes in a season, so what's it really mean? Ah well. After watching season one , I was perhaps fairly critical. With these seasons, I may be a little less so. It's still overly simplified in a lot of ways. Catra is still the best part of the show, in my opinion. Watching her rise and fall (and rise and perhaps fall again?) remains more compelling to me than basically anythings else while the good guys are repeatedly learning to work together and Adora spends most of the seasons stressing out about trying to live up to a legend that's pretty vague to begin with. Catra is smart, tough, and manipulative as fuck. If she actually stopped seeking validation of others, she might be the most dangerous person on the planet. Then again, without that motivation, she might not be so badass. The plo...

So, yeah, I took in the second season of The Dragon Prince over the weekend. Looking back at my notes from the first season  I see my opinion has changed little. I enjoyed it and am invested. I like most of the characters and their interplay. The animation feels decidedly more fluid this season, much to my appreciation. And I still have an issue with the tonal shifts and fluctuating feel of some characters. Claudia is cute, caring, a little ditzy... and so utterly amoral in her quick usage of dark magic. The way she turns to it in desperation to heal Soren would, in may stories, be a display of how noble intentions can lead to atrocity, but the impact is sort of lost due to how gleefully she uses that same power the rest of the time. Soren picks a fight that puts him in a position that could lead to some serious character development as he's forced to face the consequences of his actions. Though the final fallout hasn't happened by season's end, I fear taking away the mo...

Heh. A week later, and I still have Steven Universe songs bouncing around in my head. What can I say? For as much as they're often short, there are a lot of them, some are quite catchy, and most have some solid meaning behind them. Stronger Than You remains a favorite, its significance wrapped up in a main character - or a few, depending on how you count. Change , from the movie, has been a new contender. For being only a couple stanzas, there's solid message and meaning to it that's tied into the climactic fight. It was definitely the characters and interplay that drew me into the series. If I'd been watching seriously, it might have happened earlier, but it was actually the 38th episode that clicked with - watching the Crystal Gems creating a test chamber for Steven (with no actual chance of failure) in an awkward attempt to boost his confidence. Steven is understandably upset by being treated like a kid (even if he may be one), but actually manages to swallow tha...

Eh, I'm not really down, per se, but feel a tiny bit in that direction, if that makes sense. My car is running. The water heater is heating water without spilling it all over. My sink repairs seem to be successful. I have functioning video and audio for my desktop PC. All of these are good things that bring life back to "normal." In the process, though, my summer was a few thousand dollars more expensive than it otherwise would have been. That isn't world-shatteringly painful, but it does make me more conservative with spending. I've definitely held back on a few games I otherwise would have picked up. It also means when I saw some clothing online and thought "hey, this is a cool style that could go with the costume stuff I was making," I had to take a step back. My sorta-spending-freeze kind of halted my work in that regard. And while there are certainly some things I could do with the things I've already gathered, my drive to do any costuming h...

So, I recently watched the season of She-Ra and the Princesses of Power. I feel a couple disclaimers are in order before I start talking about it. First, while I was perfectly aware of the old series as it tied into the expanded MotU continuity, neither that series nor He-Man was a top-tier interest for me as a youth. It doesn't have the weight of nostalgia that some IPs do for me. Second, I feel the current series is definitely aimed at a younger demographic. There's nothing wrong with that, and it's probably natural. It just projects a vibe to me that implies adult appeal is more incidental than, perhaps, the more recent Voltron and Thundercats outings. With that out of the way, I have to say I don't really get the early "this redesign is too social justice-y/'woke'!" outcry. I... guess that was about She-Ra herself wearing shorts under skirt and not showing cleavage? Whatever, it didn't come across as preachy or political beyond the typical th...

I started watching Altered Carbon a while back and ended up taking a break partway through because... hmm... perhaps because the episodes are an "hour" long plus general seriousness. But I came back and finished it, and I don't mean any of that as a knock against the series. It's set much more in the future than what I typically think of as "cyberpunk" but it very much holds true to the themes of the genre - AI, gentrification, questioning humanity. There's a mystery for the main character is hired to unravel that turns into much more along the way. It does all that well and looks good. The characters are generally solid. There are some truly great moments of acting when certain characters are dealing with their consciousness being loaded into very different bodies. I think the series leans a bit heavily into unveiling new things to open up more questions every episode or two. Whether that's a good or bad thing may be up for interpretation, but I c...

I feel like the few things I can vent out of my mind recently are all spoilerish. How much should one protect people from spoilers, though, when they probably won't even see the source material? Hmm... Well, here there be potential spoilers, anyway. With some newish access to Netflix, I was easily able to get caught up on the latest (6th?)season of Voltron: Legendary Defender. I like the show and the development of the setting and characters for the most part. This season has some major ups and downs. On the one hand, it's getting to explaining and elaborating on a good number of things that were hinted at before. Lotor and Haggar's histories and perspectives lose some mystery. Keith and Krolia get to explore details of their past via (very convenient) time disruptions. We get a little bit of a love triangle going on. We find out what's up with Shiro. We get some Altean reveals. And even if it took up basically a whole episode, I enjoyed seeing the group playing Mon...

There was a time when a "season" of a show had a pretty clear meaning to me. For most, it seemed to be 26 episodes - one for a new weekly episode for half the year that could then be rerun the other half. There were some exceptions, but back then they were usually on the generous side, like a 52 episode season or some such. Now, seasons seem most commonly around 13 episodes, but sometimes there might be more, or less. Show seem to fluctuate so much that the term "season" is largely meaningless, especially when they might be released all at once or in blocks and be in reruns after a week or two. With shows released in online streaming media, you often get a "season" dropping all at once. Which brings me back to Voltron: TLD, which split up an intended third season into a 7-episode season three and a 6-episode season four. And now there's another 6-episode season five.  It doesn't feel like the show has really earned claim to five seasons yet. That...

Through season one and into season two, I'd say I'm enjoying the series and I'm fairly invested. I'm not quite sure what it looks like to someone without I-watched-the-old-series nostalgia glasses, though. Of course, it's not perfect. I could use with the comedy being tuned back - not removed entirely, but the more serious episodes resonate better for me. The first season ramps up sharply in the last couple episodes from establishing setup and working to add some depth to cast members to "whoa, stuff is happening!" the series has a tendency to introduce plot points semi-subtly and then either forget about them entirely or bring them back a couple episodes later as a "big reveal," all the while leaving me thinking "shouldn't they be talking about this?" in the meantime. Also, the setting feels kind of hollow. That was probably the case in the original more than I remember, and many more flesh-out-feeling settings are accomplished...

I came across Gravity Falls while looking for Star Wars: Rebels on Disney XD. It's one of those animated show that may not be immediately striking in one viewing. The animation is pretty standard, relying a bit more on style than detail. Some of the voices were familiar, though, and the teasing of a mystery were enough that I made some effort to watch more. From there, I was fairly impressed. Certainly some episodes come across as "monster/mystery of the week" for the 12-year-old siblings visiting their great-uncle (or "grunkle") in a rural town with weirdness just under the surface. There's a lot of attention to detail, however, and continuity that I appreciate in the storytelling. The show did build up some level of mystery and actually answered most, if not all, the questions is posed. I like that infinitely better than the shows that just keep throwing out more questions for the sake of stringing an audience along. This week, it ended. That's...

... occasionally aren't. In my periodic casting about for distractions, I picked up Pillars of Eternity , a crowdfunded computer RPG in the vein of the old Baldur's Gate games. There's a lot of nostalgic value that really takes me back and technical improvement. It's definitely higher resolution than those games, though you still don't often have reason to zoom in and portaits are used for conversations. There's more voice, I think. It's also an original fantasy world rather than licensed D&D, so there are interesting things to discover. On the down side, the format does not lend itself to getting caught up in the story as easily as some others. Perhaps my attention span was longer back in the day, or I didn't have the alternatives, but it's easier to put this game down for a few days than 1) I remember or 2) newer, more active games. Also, the drawbacks of crowdfunding bonuses are a distraction - there are backer-submitted visions and tombsto...

Let's see... After some discussion, I may be doing ARIN GW2 stuff on Saturday nights rather than Sunday - not a huge deal, especially given that it's usually just been running around and dealing with dailies anyway. Considering how empty Saturday evenings have been in the absence of WoW, though, it seems to work out fine. And it still leaves the earlier AW guild missions in the game for Sunday, though that's more late afternoon these days. I'm always a little amazed when something I initially disregard on TV ends up grabbing me at some point. Avatar did that when I noticed the story arcs going beyond the moral-of-the-week episodes. Venture Brothers seemed like an old adventure cartoon, but deconstructed some of those tropes and spun out it's own impressive mythos. Adventure Time seemed overly childish, but caught my attention when I saw the rather tragic story behind the Ice King. Most recently, Rick and Morty seemed like a throw-away show until I noticed some ...

Would you believe I've been getting up the last several Saturday mornings to catch cartoons? Ah, just like old times. Well, not quite so early. Green Lantern: The Animated Series hit the middle of its first season by closing its main story arc. It looks like the second half is another arc to itself, but there aren't many threads left unresolved. Thundercats (the new series) has had some ups and downs in my opinion, going from some cutesy stories to some fairly interesting more adult ones. Though there's no word about continuation (not cancelled, but on hiatus), the fight against Mumm-Ra is definitely not over. The season ended with a battle that showed unity of the "good guys," but was a net loss overall, and the story took a turn I wasn't expecting by showing Pumyra loyal to Mumm-Ra. Yeah, they got me with that one. The Legend of Korra had a reasonably solid first season, but felt a bit rushed to me. The inter-character romances build up and play out...

I was chattng last night about the current state of movie properties for the two major comic companies. With The Avengers, Marvel's definitely still on a hot streak of movies that are "reasonably good" to "great." The X-Men and Spiderman trilogies started well, but faded as they went on. Still, since about Iron Man, they've all (or nearly so) done really well, especially considering that Iron Man and Thor weren't really (at least in my estimation) flagship characters to the non-comic-reader audience. It's quite impressive. We'll have to see if sequelitis bites Iron Man 3. In contrast, DC has... well, a Batman trilogy coming to a close. Superman Returns did reasonably well. Green Lantern not so much. And what else have they got? Well... Man of Steel next year perhaps, which is another Superman reboot as far as I know. But it seems to me there aren't a lot more big names in the DC universe to put forth. Wonder Woman? The TV series that was in...