Category: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

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I am thoroughly sick of the phenomenon I call the Draco Malfoy Effect. This is the process by which young (and not-so-young) women become convinced that not only are evil bad-boy types desirable, but completely reformable. Liking the maverick is nothing new for the Hollywood-hypnotized masses, especially seeing as how he’s so often played by a desirable star. However, liking the villain–the kind who has not yet been definitively shown to possess a heart–to the point that you believe he can be saved through sex with either a) you, b) your Mary Sue, or c) the ingenue of the cast is, to my thinking, simply bizarre.

I’d love to have a discussion on this. Please comment. (Even if you think I’m the one with her head on crooked.)

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I realized this morning what struck me as odd about the original crew of Moya: they’re not a crew, they’re a D&D party. Two warriors, a priest, a thief, and Ordinary Guy (who’d probably be classed as a bard). We started trying to categorize everyone else who shows up and realized that we’d need to know all the kits and extra subclasses to do it right. Then I thought of trying to determine alignments and couldn’t decide whether to use the D&D system or the TMNT system (which I barely know but seems to work better for actual people). It was at that point that Kelson said, “You know, it’d be easier to sort them into Hogwarts houses.” So we did. Continue reading →

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When it comes to serial entertainment, everything will end at some point. I’m sure even Superman and Spider-Man comics will cease someday. A show can end before or after it’s run out of things to say, but it’s worst when it hasn’t finished speaking.

We’ve all seen shows that kept going long after, by any rights, they should have been cancelled. Is there any doubt that Voyager only lasted 7 years because it was Star Trek, on a studio-owned network, and the previous two Treks had also run that long? “The Far Side” and “Calvin and Hobbes” ended while the artists were at the top of their form. Compare that to “Peanuts,” whose last 20 years were hardly worth reading, or the new “Opus” from Berkeley Breathed (although it does have its moments). Continue reading →

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Things that went through my head while watching Troy:

  • That’s a bloody awful lot of ships.
  • OK, so where’s Cassandra in all this?
  • Gee, the way they’re portraying Agamemnon, I’m glad his wife is going to kill him when he gets home.
  • That’s odd, the computer-generated orc army looked more realistic than the computer-generated Greeks.
  • Ah, political context. They’re right, it doesn’t make sense to send that many soldiers just to avenge one man’s honor. There’s usually something else going on.
  • Where the hell is Cassandra?
  • Wait, wasn’t this supposed to take 10 years?
  • Aeneas, eh? Nice throw-away line!
  • Wow, this Agamemnon really is a bastard. I wish I could remember what happens to Brise– uh, waitaminute.
  • Uh, what happened to Cassandra?

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