Game of Thrones season 8 – a review

We are at the endgame now. We’ve got numerous major characters and two major battles to fight; one against the undead and one against the mad-queen. Not everyone is going to survive ‘till the end; this much we know, it’s Game of Thrones after all.

As the series is reaching its end this season also has half the episodes it used to have. Less episodes means a bigger budget one could surmise from a meta-perspective. But, from a narrative perspective one should also acknowledge that most of the storylines of the major characters are done. Theon has, pretty much, reformed himself. Arya and Sansa have found each other again. Sansa is (finally) the dark queen we wanted her to be. And Bran, well, I don’t really know about him yet.

I’m writing this post as a sort of diary as I watch the show weekly.

First things, first
In good Game of Thrones fashion the first episode is all about advancing some character-plots forwards. Not too much, just enough to get the chess pieces in place.
This time ‘round, however, there is an urgency behind it all (in the form of an undead army coming to visit Winterfell). So the episode quickly addresses the matters that are left on the table like some people getting reacquainted (Arya and Jon) or Jon’s heritage- a question that is tackled with suitable attire (I love Sam and Gilly deeply).

From the first episode on there is a build-up to episode three, aptly called: ‘The long night’. All those side-remarks from old Nan in the past are now coming true. -As is visually depicted by that tableaux the Night King left at Last Hearth for Tormund and troupe to find. But still there’s an episode to go before we get to this first big battle of two.

The calm before the storm
The second episode felt a bit like the penultimate episode of Lost: A very separate (‘bottle’) episode to what we’ve known. As this episode focuses all its attention on characters and their motivations for aligning themselves on the ‘living side’.

This episode is a goodbye to the characters. Like a well-made World War I movie likes to invest in characters for one last time before they go over the ledge. After this episode there truly is a feeling that all has been said that should’ve been said. Now there’s only battle left.
This  makes this episode the last episode to have characters fix the final strands of storyline lingering; like Arya’s list, or Jamie’s honour.

On a side-note: The Arya sex scene. Can I just say that I enjoyed the shock that went through the internet when we all found out that the actress has become a grown woman. This always happens when a (former) child actress does a lewd scene as they've grow up (Natalie Portman in Black Swan, anybody?). Please don’t ever change; online-people! I think it is healthy to be a bit shocked about this.

Let’s start the fight
And there it is! The first big fight! The one massive ‘kill-your-darlings’ showdown the show has been teasing since the very first shot of the very first episode.
The battle of Winterfell is the dark half of the Battle of the Bastard. Apart from the shift between day and night;I mean that where Ramsay Bolton was clearly insane he also had some warped feelings about justice. The Nightking, however, has no feelings. The night king is pure apathy who only seem to enjoy smirking when he cheats (by raising a new dead army).

The biggest critique I have about this episode (apart from the Deuce-Ex-Arya and the lighting) is probably the lack of budget. No money in the world could’ve made this episode live up to (my) the expectations the show built towards it.

Even though this episode showed what a good storyteller can do with a constrained budget (the Dothraki lights-scene was a stroke of brilliance).

Whilst, at the same time, it has to tell a story of a limited number of men against an unlimited supply of enemy; and the episode wasn't afraid to show the world the way World War Z should've been.

Still, calming down from my initial (irrational) disappointment, it is amazingly good episode. The episode obviously didn’t do what I wanted it to do

like Bran warging into the ice-dragon or Lady Mormont doing some kick-ass battle (or simply glaring a ice-zombie to death).

I guess a zombie giant has to do.

of course it doesn’t –and I don’t want it to; ‘surprise me’. And surprise me this episode did! Whilst, at the same time, using a clever narrative/visual structure of  the Halloween-(horror-movie)-spacing technique.

Meaning: you start out grand in wide open spaces and as the tension grows and things become more dire for the characters you care about you make those spaces they inhabit smaller. This same 'trick' was more recently used in Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom.

That with the Game of Thrones technique of adding ‘little’ mini-battles within the grand siege makes the episode quite enthralling. As is Game of Thrones (or any anthology series) this episode lets you skip from one character to the next so you don’t bother if you are stuck for a minute or two with a character you don’t like.

At the same time a good fight for honour and valour can make the most unlikable, weak, character (=Theon) earn his way back into your respect. In fact, now that he’s gone I actually miss his storyline even if it included an entire season of torture.

One choice that did cloud the episode a bit was the chaos near the end. This a definite choice made by the showmakers; basically telling the audience: “The plan is shoot everybody is now out for survival.”

Chaos, however, doesn’t make enthralling visual storytelling because the final goal is gone. It works of course on a character level but in visuals the ‘time spent in chaos’ should be kept at a minimum. Subplots should be introduced (like Jon reclaiming his Valerian sword) that lead up to the final goal.

In the battle for Winterfell these little subplots were only glanced over at the end and the main focus stayed on the survival of the characters. Which bloated the episode a bit with unnecessities.

Licking our wounds
The next episode, then, is yet another build-up to the next battle. The armies of the living (good) have diminished quite considerably. Yet, the army of the evil queen is strong as ever. What’s more, there is a slow growing feud between aunt and nephew on who will sit on the iron throne when all is said and done.

It is, however, a good time to turn another leaf. As I said above most of the lingering story strands have been solved in episode two; so now it is time to focus on some of the consequences in combination with the survival of the characters. And this is exactly what this episode does.

Let me talk a bit about ‘houses’. By now, most of the houses of Westeros are dead:

The Bolton’s, the Mormont’s, the Frey’s, the Baratheon’s (apart from a bastard son), the Tyrell’s.

 The ‘united nations’ has never been so bloody.

This, episode is, therefore the perfect moment to re-introduce the storyline of Bronn –the man without a ‘house’ (and without honour, as he said it –though we all know he has: he honours a good person; in this sense he’s like an ‘angel’-character).

Like Cersei, Bronn is underplayed this season. But when he gets his moment to shine he does. And with his sudden appearance the lays out the theme of the episode: ‘You might have won for the side of good. But the Game of Thrones is still being played and getting bloodier by the minute. How bloody are you willing to get?’

Hells bells and buckets of blood
After the long night comes the shimmer of summer. New lines are drawn in the sand for the final stretch. People who used to be good turn unhinged. People who used to be smart make foolish choices. And people who used to be merciless become kind.

Like the later episodes of every completed television show it is in the final stretch that some characters have to be ‘gotten rid off’ rather quickly and thus without a lot of pump and circumstance. That is why Varys made the ill-gotten move of openly discussing his idea for treason to Tyrion. And for that same reason it was Melisandre who (from a sea of people) managed to get herself caught –and recognized for who she was- by the pirate king.

Like the famous submarine-episode in Lost this method of clearing the board is rather sloppy -but in that perticular show it (I figure) was the only way. One could argue, however, with Game of Thrones why the show-runners didn’t just opt to up the casualty count of the previous episode by including these characters? Everybody was dying back then, it was war; thus, much more believable than these coincidental coincidences or sudden character flaws.

But after this episode of reshuffling the card and setting some pieces back on the board it is finally time for the penultimate episode which, in the world of Game of Thrones, means: get ready to get your heart broken in a million pieces. And it certainly did for a LOT of online people.

One thing I can tell you: a lot of people are going to politicize the show after this episode.

Set in the (not so wintery yet: Is winter here yet or still coming?) city of King’s Landing. This episode could aptly be called the slaughter instead of 'Bells'. Daenerys has finally lost her bells marbles

Again, I think this could’ve worked better if she lost everybody she cared about (plus one of her children) in the long night.

Call it PTSD or Shellshock (as George Carlin would have it).

But then again, there would be no need for her to project all her anger at Cersei.

and is running with it. ‘Running with scissors’ would be a more accurate description (“somebody is going to get hurt”).

Basically all of King’s Landing are now her enemy and she wants her baby to feast. I can only guess what she could’ve done with three dragons?

Using three (reasonably) ‘good’ characters as a leitmotif first it is up to Tyrion ‘the God of tits and wine’ to plead for mercy. As is the case with ‘Bacchus’ (or Dionysus) –the ‘original’ God of tits and wine- he enters the battlegrounds after the battle and sees the slaughter that those who do not follow his believes have brought.

Then, the viewer, looks through the eyes of Jon Snow, the battle-hardened general who always manages to get his peoples’ support in the end (even if it kills him). This, because, his main flaw (and positive) is the fact that he always sees the goodness in somebody’s heart. The game of thrones in King’s Landing –if the, then, boy travelled with Sansa and Arya to the capital instead of the wall- would’ve eaten him alive.
Now he is shocked to see that those who learned to love (Grey Worm) and those who follow orders are death incarnate when commanded by a mad queen.

Finally there’s Arya who, this season, constantly shifted between psycho-girl who baked human pies and loving sister. She’s loving once more, and just in time because The Hound gives her the age old lesson about revenge: ‘always be prepared to dig two graves’.

As she officially scraps him of the list and makes her way through the crumbling city the camera smartly uses her petite size as a method of emphasizing the destruction going on around her.
As her young body gets slammed around from wall to wall, covered in scratches, blood and dust, the audience feels the pain with her. The final shot of the majestic white horse and Arya in the Pompeii-like rubble is unworldly because neither shouldn’t have survived. That’s how much focussing on the character made me-the audience- aware of the destruction going on around her. And entire city got levelled.

Still, the most epic fight scene throughout this episode has to be ‘Cleganbowl’. There is is! After five seasons of memes it has finally arrived –and it is a doozy.
Everything about this fight sequence works. And even though it is a tad predictable (especially how it ends) it is a lovely scene with some beautiful shots.

At times this episode reminded me of a short passage from The gentlemen bastards series by Scott Lynch (to paraphrase):

‘When the wizards were done with the castle only the floor and an empty throne remained’.

Quite the striking image for a fallen kingdom.

After this episode it is rather clear how everything is going to turn out. There’s just the question of whether Jon Snow is going to survive it all or if the end will be bittersweet.

Then, of course, there are my pet peeves (Bran? Who still has his cart clamped in Winterfell.) And only one episode left to finish the bloody televised tale of Westeros.

Fly, sail and ride towards the horizon
The final episode. After a long winter week of ranting people online (and even a petition)

The same happened with Lost and numerous highly popular shows before and after.

There will always be an overtone of critique rather than praise (whether justified or not).

There are only a few  ‘hyped shows  out there’ that actually managed to go out without a barrel of muck poured out over it by online people.

the end is finally there. The episode comes without many surprises. Jon does what he needs to do and the rebuilding can begin. Some old faces are re-imported from previous story-strands - I love seeing Edmure Tullymaking an a** of himself (a small, fun part, to play). And jolly molly did suckling-little bird grow up; still mad as a hatter I’m certain.- and then it’s all so long and farewells.

Like the Grey haven-scene in The Lord of the Rings I never really care for these kinds of goodbye scenes. It really is the dot after the sentence. The brewing, plotting and planning is over. Still, the few glimpses we get of Westeros after goodbye makes for a laugh or two (the council meeting is hilarious). Then the main Stark children start their new adventures with a good, heartfelt goodbye to the king the world of Westeros didn’t deserve: Aegon Targaryen.

Conclusion
What to make of this season? Was it a bit rushed? Yes it was. Like last season Game of Thrones has a bit of a problem with incorporating time-jumps. Where in the first season it took several episodes to get from Winterfell to King’s Landing now people arrive in a blink of the eye.

Then there are those nasty coincidental coincidences that I always dislike with a vengeance (e.g. a surprise army fleet with pinpoint accuracy). But, to be honest, that happens all the time in visual fiction be it computer-games, television shows or movies; so I might complain, but it is never going to go away.

Finally there are my pet peeves. Me being an avid fan of the more supernatural storylines would’ve preferred The Nightking battle to take place at King’s Landing. Or, in the same vein, I would’ve loved to see Bran do some real three-eyed-raven mumbo-jumbo because the kid is powerful like that.

I didn’t get what I wanted! And like I said above, maybe that’s a good thing; it kept me guessing long enough and it showed me one way of how the story ends that still, to me, was satisfying enough.

Game of Thrones didn’t overstay its welcome. It ended its story firmly and decisively. And with the smaller amount of episodes the scope of things could increase. What, to me, truly stood out this final season was the visual style of it all. The battle of the Clegane brothers, Jon staring down a dragon, the destroyed throne-room; visually Game of Thrones is as strong as it ever was before.

But, one must argue, back in season one the show pulled a smart trick of knocking Tyrion Lanister out just before a battle just so the show didn’t need to show said (expensive) battle. Then they filled the rest of the episode with cleverly written dialogue and pitting characters against each other.

The final season, therefore, feels like visuals against the words from seasons previous: fire against ice.

But in the grand scheme of things this final season of Game of Thrones serves as many of us wanted it to be: the end to a magical tale about good versus evil (with some grey mixed into it). A political minefield in a world where dragons roam.
And to craft such a mighty tale, regardless of the critiques, is a fantastic feat!

My watch has ended - Sorry I had to do this one.

Pet Sematary (2019) – a review

The Creed family moves to the countryside to start a calmer, peaceful life. But when tragedy strikes and death knocks his bony knuckles at their door, their life takes a turn to the grave.

Sometimes a remake is better than the original. Sometimes it’s lesser. With 2019’s Pet Sematary it’s the latter.
To me this is symbolized by the credits-song. A half-hearted cover of the ‘Pet Sematary’ song sung by Starcrawler. This version doesn’t have the bravour and enjoyment the original song has and, unfortunately, the same goes for the movie.

I’m not saying that the movie is terribly bad, it’s actually rather good for an entry in the ‘creepy kid’ sub-genre of horrors. But, one can’t help but compare and, by doing so, seeing that not all things changed for the better.

The cat
It’s not good to compare an original and the remake. A movie should stand on its own two feet and be judged as such. This is true.

And I can tell you that on its own Pet Sematary is a good horror movie. There are some nice shots of the woods; a fun little dance-routine (really) and the sets and make-up are spectacular.

I even believe there is a drone shot in there as well.

How far we’ve come from Kubrick’s clearly visible helicopter at the beginning of The Shining (1981).

However, there are also some mistakes; like trying to build tension during the daytime in a fully lit house. Masked kids plot-points that come by one moment and then are fully forgotten for the rest of the movie. Or monsters that can, apparently feel pain and fear. It’s the humanity that this movie is banking on in the last act that doesn’t work for me.

Intermezzo: Trailers and buzz
Around two weeks before a movie comes out there is a press-screening. All these viewers (naturally) have twitter. So, around that time the buzz starts. People who’ve seen the movie will go on their twitter account and tell the world how much they liked it (or how special they are for seeing a movie before anybody else does – one never really knows with ‘social’ media).

Movie websites collect these messages for us to read. However, one thing always strikes me: it’s always positive. And with positive I mean like ‘Leonardo DaVinci came to us in a time-machine and painted another Mona Lisa’-positive.
Regardless of the movie (it happened with Terminator: Genesys) the buzz will always be positive.
So, to me, whenever I catch an article on one of my movie sites that collected all these twitter-posts I become wary. My reaction, thus, is the opposite of what is intended. It’s like the ghost of Pascow warning me in advance.

Trailers
What do you show in a trailer? Do you show everything (Dream House -2011) or nothing (Psycho -1960). With Pet Sematary someone decided to take the exact same route that happened to the Carrie (2013) remake a few years back: ‘let’s just assume everybody has seen the original and so we’ll show you everything’.
It didn’t work for that movie and it certainly doesn’t help with Pet Sematary.

And to delve slightly into spoiler territory here (though, as I said, it is in the trailer) I’m not talking about the whole switcheroo. I’m actually talking about the fact that the trailer specifically shows when and where Jud dies. So, seeing the movie, his manoeuvring through the house looking for the aggressor wasn’t scary for one bit because I already knew exactly when and where Judd was going to die.
It’s like seeing a scary movie the second time, it’s not that scary anymore.

The child
One shouldn’t compare two movies. But compare one does.

I’m not comparing to the book because I actually never read it.

I did see the original adaptation and the documentary about that movie (Unearthed and Untold: The Path to Pet Sematary (2017)).

What this new version of Pet Sematary does really well is bring logic into the movie. Jud’s reasoning for helping Louis  is logical when you think about it. Not all old grey-bearded men are wise. The same goes for Rachel’s fear of death which she actually accepts as irrational. The original character was a bit more unstable about it all.

This version is also a lot more streamlined that the one before it. Wherein the original Pascow, to me, pretty much died on the first day of the doctor’s new job. Here the movie gives the Louis-character time to settle in and meet his colleagues.

Not enough time to build a fence in front of the house though...

Which is exactly one of the many things changed from the original that just doesn’t work in this movie. True, no moviemaker could recreate the Zelda-character better than she was in 1989. But, then again, it isn’t wise to underplay the character as she is now.

Also it feels like this movie increased the amount of jump-scares over the original. Never a good sign.

The same goes for the sick relationship between Louis and his father in law. There is none in this version. Yet it was one of the strengths behind the original. Louis didn’t join his wife at her parents because he knew he would end up in a fistfight with his father-in-law; who is, in fact, quite the bastard when you think about it: you do not let a nine-year-old-girl take care of her dying sister while you go out clubbing.
And then there’s the spoiler:

The reason why this movie switched the children around is understandable when you see the ending.
An ending that, I think, doesn’t really have much of a reason for being there.

I would argue that this strange ending actually destroys some of the underlying themes of the story (e.g. ‘ignoring good advice’, ‘overcoming grief’, ‘making the same mistakes over and over again’)
But having an older child as the aggressor means you can talk to it. Plus she’s capable of doing a lot more horrendous stuff.

I remember learning about the moviemakers of the original coercing Milo Hughes into some kind of playtime that involved eating Fred Gwynne’s neck.

Yet (and this is the point) she doesn’t. What extra layer does the movie receive because Louis can talk to the creature the daughter has become? Nothing much.

In the original the toddler boy started to kill. The boy didn’t truly have a lot of a moral compass yet so he actually became quite the effective killing-machine.
Now you can talk to the ‘killing machine’ but instead of some Wendigo story-line or a deeper unravelling of the family dynamic it ends up with the daughter killing: just because.

The dead
Still, the cast give this movie their best turn. Again John Lithgow is the one to look out for as he can capture a character’s lifetime in a single wink. But all are well cast and more than capable of their job.

The toddler, obviously, looks directly at the camera at times but who can blame the kid.

It is more the setting that makes this movie stand out over the previous version. Advanced effects (the smoke-machine was working overtime), newer make-up techniques and some CGI tomfoolery manages to update the sordid tales of the Creeds’ to 2019.

Still, in the end, it is a remake that doesn’t feel needed. It’s a good movie on its own. But the second you start to think back at the original this new version unravels.

Sonic – bad advertisement is still advertisement

So the main CGI character in the upcoming Sonic movie is going to be remade. I guess that’s good because...well... I don’t know what happened but the creative department surly dropped the ball on this one. Sonic looks pretty horrifying.

Paddington (2014) – when his first poster was released the internet mocked his placement and dead-eyed stare.

But one thing everybody at least agreed upon was that the character actually did look right.

But now the question. We are currently living in the end-days of the ‘old internet’. Meaning; when the internet first started we questioned everything we saw online. Then there was a period in which we accepted everything as gospel online and now we are back again at questioning (fake news), Full circle.

So, of course, there is a pretty solid theory that the moviemakers purposely released a terrible looking Sonic to the public to get some awareness for the movie. Bad publicity is also publicity; moreover it often spreads like a wildfire. And if you, then, play the humility card right and let ‘fans’ have their way you might actually have the perfect movie-marketing-combination in hands: worldwide publicity + audience’ goodwill = success.

As everything on the internet one can never be sure if this ‘theory’ is accurate. But, true or not, I can tell you that this is quite the clever way of tackling advertisements in the crowded cinematic landscape of the later ‘10s.

Skyrim – a short guide for upping your mage skills

I’m an avid gamer. I am not (!), however, a social gamer. I don’t like to spent my time in an online world with various fourteen-year-olds bothering me with PVP requests every single time I walk by. I tried social gaming with World of Warcraft and, basically, this grew old very fast (even if I was on an RPG server).

But I do like exploring, on my own, no mumbo-jumbo of people bothering apart from the occasional NPC with some ‘urgent business’.

So Skyrim was/is perfect for me. A gigantic sandbox game in which I get to explore every nook and cranny. It’s my second game in now and still I have felt no need to find a mod because I’m done with the main game (and it’s additions).

The second game
Where, in the first game, I pretty much followed the main storyline I had saved the world at level 50. After that I only had some silly side-quests left that, somehow, felt a bit sub-par for me ‘the great dragon killer’.

Now in my second game I decided to postpone the main quests as long as I could. And, most of all, not pick a side between the Empire and the Northerners.

In my first game I found it rather silly of me that I joined the Empire (even though they tried to behead me –but they were nice to Elves) and after killing Ulfric decided to kill the Emperor as well in the Dark Brotherhood storyline. This game makes a lot more sense if you don’t pick sides.

This being my second game I knew most of the tricks of the trade by now and decided to level my character to a clean level 100. Which, unfortunately means that you have to level your mage skills as well.

It never felt ‘right’ to me that I somehow became the Arch mage of the magic college with only the most mediocre capabilities as a mage.

I’m  a double sword, light armour, man - woman (now, in my second game) all the way. What do I need magic spells for? Besides, those spells are a nightmare to level. Swords and armour increase whenever you pick a fight. Speech increases when you sell lots of stuff. But magic just annoys the heck out of me because, whenever, I got the enemy good and ready my magica pool is ‘zero’.

So, as a nice little post on this blog I wish to highlight my way of dealing with levelling those pesky mage skills.

First things first
For starters: higher levels are best.
Just play the game ‘til you reach level 65 or something. By that time you’ve completed most of the quests, seen most of the dungeons and are pretty strong to accept some health-damage.

Preparations: Smiting
I’m a big sucker for smiting. What you need for smiting is a shoot-load of gold. I’m not the kind of guy that wishes to spend a lot of time taking my pickaxe to some ore-vein if I can just as simply sell some Northern armour to a blacksmith and get an equal amount of ore in return.
The more raw material you have the easier smiting becomes.

Plus it would certainly help if you finished the Stones of Barenzia quest.

It’s not that difficult a quest. And by level 65 you probably visited most of the places it requires anyway.

Just remember that making jewellery is the easiest way to level the smiting branch.

Preparations: Enchantment
Enchantment is the second step after the smiting branch (if you made enough jewellery). Just collect every soul stone and every single magical item you can find (in your journey to level 65) and then just make a heck of a lot of magical items. Easy peasy.

Once you’ve got those two skills completed (including, of course, filling in the ‘dots’) you can get started.

Now you can make rings, necklaces, armour and circlets that ‘cut’ 25% of your magica usage for a certain branch. So, let’s say you enchant these four items to cut 25% of your destruction magic. 4 times 25 is a full 100 – meaning: you’ll be casting spells for free!
If you do this you can make several items that will make you free to cast spells. So now we can learn some spells:

Spell learning

If you have a follower get them to wait a while off. Especially (I found) Serena has a tendency to wander in front of you when you are casting destruction spells. She doesn’t like that.

Alteration
Just wear (ring, necklace, circlet and armour) items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch. Go to Whiterun –a crowded city- and hide behind a building (so nobody will interrupt you-especially kids). Use the spell: ‘Detect life’.

Now all that’s left is the press the button and keep it pressed. Tape it down and take a stroll, a shower, whatever. By the time you return you are a full 100 level Alteration wizard.

And alternative way is to use the Black Book ‘Secret of Arcana’ blessing.

This blessing allows, once a day, for somebody to cast as spell (for 30 seconds). As long as you don’t release the mouse-button this blessing allows you to take much longer.

Illusion
Wear (ring, necklace, circlet and armour) items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch. Then go to a secluded place (again, so nobody will interrupt you). Place the spell ‘Muffle’ in both hands (L and R). Then cast the spell left, right, left, right…and so on. Time it right and you’ll level like the wind.

Conjuration
Wear (ring, necklace, circlet and armour) items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch. Find a dead body (in a secluded place).

I happened to have a (lucky) glitch of a dead body of some fanatic lying in a corner of Whiterun that simply wouldn’t go away.

Any dead body will do (animal, human). Then arming both ‘left’ and ‘right’ with the spell: ‘Soultrap’ and go crazy on it. Left, right, left, right...time it right and you will be fine.

Restoration
Again, wear (ring, necklace, circlet and armour) items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch.
For restoration it’s best if you are a bit higher level. Find a dungeon with some Draugs (Dead man’s respite worked for me –the first room) and cast ‘Repel dead’ on those beings. Again: left, right, left, right...et cetera. The timing here is a bit more difficult but not impossible.
The main point here is to trap the Draugs into a corner and just keep blasting this spell at them.

The reason I advise you to become higher level is because the AI sometimes directs one of the Draugs (if you have multiple victims) to walk off behind you. Of course, those will attack you once the spell wears off.

Destruction
Much like the sword-levels Destruction-spells rely on enemies. But, as I said, I don’t like using spells in combat. So how to tackle that?
The main trick is this: get Shadowmere form the Dark Brotherhood quest-line.
Once you’ve got this undying horse you can blast each and every destruction spell at it to your heart’s content (I advice ‘Ignite’ and ‘Fireball’).
Just remember to wear items that cut a 100% of your magical pool for this branch; obviously by now.

A slight cheat to end with
If, like me, you don’t like to be an assassin. There is some handy cheating on the PC for this quest-line.
You could always skip the quests in code. But, to my (deranged) mind that actually felt like cheating.
Instead I cleared my conscience by fulfilling the quests of killing somebody and then, after I got the ‘ok’ from the main quest-thingy, pressing ‘¬’, click on the body and type: ‘resurrect’. Suddenly the victim is alive and well again and has no hard feelings.

Then, at the end of the dark brotherhood quest-line I pressed ‘¬’ typed ‘ModPCMiscStat “murder -16” and gone were all the murders I committed.

I know it is somewhat cheating, but, then again, the game rather forced me to become and assassin in the first place. Just like I can’t get rid of that silly Boethiah quest simply because I picked up a book.

So there you have it! My tricks of the trade to level your mage-skills in Skyrim. Now for those pesky ‘Block’, ‘Double Handed’ and ‘ Heavy Armour’ levels...

What to think of Dungeons & Dragons? (2000)

A queen has a sceptre. A dark wizard wants to overthrow the queen by gaining another sceptre. There´s a thief involved (with his sidekick). And everything turns out right in the end.

This is the story in a nutshell. It’s a solid story that takes the viewer from A to Z. There´s space for more but, alas, the movie feels no need to elaborate.
Dungeons and Dragons is, overall, considered: a bad movie!

Dungeons and Dragons is right there on the pile of ‘bad’ movies like the sorts of White Chicks, The hottie and the nottie  and Norbit.
For a movie buff like me this brings a question: Why is this movie so bad? What went wrong?
The short answer: A lot of things!
But to explain this I need you –reader- to understand the  movie business and, more importantly: the time this movie was made in.

The premise of a lord...of the rings
When Dungeons and Dragons was made in 2000 there was a promise on the horizon. Deals were made and struck that promised a movie shot in the obscure country of New-Zealand called: The Lord of the rings. Now, as is common in Hollywood, competitive moviemakers tend to take a stab at a new genre before the competitor by quickly putting in a ‘toe in the pool’, as it were, and –if it works- maybe invest into it (and maybe the competitor ‘walks away). If it fails, then there’s another possibility: maybe, they’ve managed to lure the public interest away from this particular genre.
Moviemaking is a ‘cutthroat’ business!

Dungeons and Dragons crashed and burned at the box-office. People saw it. People disliked it. People forgot it. It’s the worst kind of scenario for any competitive moviemaker. There’s not even any backlash to the other studio.

So when The lord of the rings: the fellowship of the ring (2001) was released people –the world ‘round- had already forgotten all about Dungeons and Dragons and flocked to the cinemas.
And so, The lord of the rings could begin its victory tour across the world.

Intermezzo: The past haunts
Moviemakers (producers) don’t like to take chances. When Cutthroat Island (1995) failed miserably, the common consensus was that ‘pirate’ movies were dead. It was only when Pirates of the Caribbean (2003) came to be that studios dared to take a stab at the pirate genre again. But, and this is interesting: only on the TV-level of Black sails (2014).

This is important to keep in mind: moviemakers will ALWAYS consider TV-productions lesser than movies. TV here is the ‘try out field’.
Therefore it was quite the shock to moviemakers that Netflix simply merged TV and movies.

Bad casting
When you look at Dungeons and Dragons from an objective perspective a lot of things that went wrong are obvious. This movie had NO budget or capability to even come close to a, possible, threat to The lord of the Rings.
It’s truly like the moviemakers ‘somehow’ decided to make the weakest possible effort into the ‘swords and sorcery’-genre as they could.

Yet, somehow, I feel that there is enough ‘love for the material’ in this movie that makes me wonder (even more) what went wrong.

The actors, however, can’t be blamed.
This –I think- is important to emphasize!
This movie mainly cast TV actors like Justin Whalin, Marlon Wayans and Zoe McLellan. People of little consequence. If the movie failed only some ‘TV actors’ would get hurt. But for those actors, however, the ‘gamble’ was opposite: ‘If the movie succeeds: I’m in the BIG game!’

The moviemakers also casted BIG names for the crucial roles of the Queen and Villain parts. Why this was is interesting since it was obvious by now that the moviemakers didn’t dare to TRULY invest in this tale of Dungeons and Dragons.

To start with the villain. The moviemakers managed to get hold of Jeremy Irons (an actor trying desperately to find a, steady franchise – one he now got with being the new Alfred Pennyworth). He just got off the Die Hard-franchise and wanted to do more in ‘mainstream cinema’. So a British-sounding villain was right up his alley. He did Dungeons and Dragons, The Time Machine (2002) and  Eragon (2006) and then quickly changed his mind.

Even though Marvel made the idea of franchises more common today, the idea is far older.

I argue that the notion is as old as the ‘Studio system’ (1930-on).

Then there’s Thora Birch who after her star-turn in American Beauty (1999) could get any job she wanted (for a little while - it’s still Hollywood) and chose to do this ‘disaster flick’.

Gossip press quickly pointed out that her father (a wannabe actor) had a lot to do with her career.

And, most of all, that he might not have been the wisest person to be this little girl’s’ manager.

But how does one fire a father?

Sufficient to say all of the actors in Dungeons and Dragons had a different agenda: ‘Dad wanted me to’, ‘I want a steady job’, ‘I want to make it in movies’.
All this tells us that Dungeons and Dragons was a problematic movie to begin with. But it became worse.

Bad acting galore
Acting is a tricky subject. When you visit a stage-play you see what you get. It could be bad, it could be good. Since it’s theatre it is often overacted just so the people in the back row can get the gist. But in movies the acting performance is in the hands of the editor. A good editor can make the worst performance (cut-short) look good.

This doesn’t happen ‘one bit’ in Dungeons and Dragons. Actors scream in remorse from the top of their lungs and there isn’t an editor in the room to save them from ‘overacting’.

Truth be told most of the cast aren’t the most gifted actors to begin with; but to treat them so harshly is almost (to me) a willingness to let the movie fail.

Bad effects: because?
Which brings me to ‘Bad effects’!
I was young when I saw this movie. But even I couldn’t disregard the fact that the effects in this movie weren’t on par with the most basic Playstation™ CGI.

The moviemakers never invested. This much is clear by the casting and –now- the CGI; it is abysmal!
Truly. Even when one looks at the CGI through 2000-eyes it is a horror story to witness. The visually stunning Hollow man (2000) was just around the corner. Even the CGI of ‘reptile’ in Mortal Kombat (1995) looked more convincing than the dragon attack inDungeons and Dragons.

Truth be told, I did enjoy the idea behind it all: a massive dragon war in the sky. But without the capabilities (read: money invested in the CGI) to support it: it will fail miserably.

Script: it works!
Which brings me to the screenplay that, surprise, actually works a charm. It has all the things an adventure movie wants: set pieces, characters growing together and humour.
Moreover, the dialogue is actually rather withy and well written.
So why, then, does this movie fail so miserably as it does?


Dungeons and Dragons stands, to me, as a movie that had a million bits of potential but was somehow degraded to a TV-show special by ‘moviemakers’.

I keep using the term ‘moviemakers’ throughout this article because I simply don’t know who agreed on this mess.

Another word could be: producers. But as any movie-knower knows: ‘producers’ hardly know what’s going on half-of-the-time.

So I’ll keep it vague: ‘moviemakers’.

Somebody messed up ‘BIG time’ on this movie. I’ll call him: ‘moviemakers’.

A final downside before: love
Truth be told; first time director Courtney Solomon probably wasn’t the best choice in town to counter the rumours of The lord of the Rings.

Everything about this movie tells me that the moviemakers were ‘cheap-skating’ a chance: as I said above: ‘trying to make a buck of an upcoming movie’. But, contrary to our current yearly landslide of Asylum movies these moviemakers had the budget to make something that’s actually: Good!

Still...
Still...to be honest here....when you get ‘right down to it’...I still love this silly movie called Dungeons and Dragons.

It has everything to do with my personal life. I just saw this movie in the right time of my life (when I wasn’t very critical). When I saw Ridley Freeborn endeavour the trap-filled maze I was amazed about this clever setpiece. Seeing Jeremy Irons chew all kinds of scenery –delicious. A pre-Game of Thrones dragon fight: wonderful.

Objectively, however, Dungeons and Dragons isn’t a very good movie.
The movie currently stands at a 3.7 on the IMDB-scale and has, pretty much, destroyed the career of most of its main actors.
Still, to me, the movie remains special. It might be bad but I like it.

Lucius III – a game review

Art by Flexith

Lucius, one of the many sons of Satan is ready to take his place next to his father and start the apocalypse. To do this he has to kill various ‘horsemen’ to unlock a sacred scroll.
It’s time for the young boy to start killing again!

Lucius is back again and this time the game-format is back to the first part but on a larger scale. What I read online was that some people disliked the second game for some reason or another (I personally enjoyed the freedom). So the developers decided to let the final entry in the unholy trilogy to be more reminiscent to the first game: kill people and there are only a handful ways to do it. A shame really!

And there is no tricycle in sight.

Bigger, buggier and uncut
The file-size of this third instalment is massive. This game hasn’t been compressed at all and relies heavily on modern-day processors to render the open world in real time. Of course this works but, I argue, if it would work better if the game was divided up a bit more.

Now technological issues pop up like being able to reach into a room through a wall because the room itself is part of the world and not a separate level. Another (hilarious) example had me walking around on the roof of the police station. There I was a young boy doing something immensely dangerous and as I walked past the window of the chief of police he greeted me with a charming: “Hello Lucius.” This was weird.

Other problems had to do with lighting of the various sets. This caused the constant lingering question whether the failure of lighting effects had everything to with bad design or my pc specs.

According to YouTube- the first.

As a final notion I feel that the open world is a bit too open to have a lot of fun in.
The natural barriers the sandbox-notion of this game sets (a mountain and a sea) are well chosen but too far apart. This isn’t a town but rather a collection of houses with a million miles between them.

Also, nobody inhabits this town. There isn’t a single person on the street for some reason.
The filling of empty space therefore of some trees here and a cornfield there doesn’t really add to the scope of things because the game doesn’t ‘feel’ lived in.
Still, I understand why the game makers decided to let the playing-field remain big: you can transform yourself into a raven and fly. But such a gimmick only works if the world itself is interesting enough to fly over it.

I think Lucius III would have benefited from either a smaller playing field or a large space with various interesting nooks and crannies.

Just look at what a ‘lived in’ undead world the creator of State of Decay (2013) managed to create. So it is possible.

Unfinished?
What does bother me is that (apart from the massive amounts of bobble heads to be found throughout the game –too many- sometimes three or four in the same location) the game feels unfinished.

Plus these bobble heads respawn due to a glitch.

There are various spots you can visit and see some kind of newspaper clippings on the ground or on a desk and a dialogue states: that you learned something. Great...I guess...what’s the point?
It’s like there are these plans that will only come to fruition in later updates and patches. That, to me is not a game; we’re not going to be all EA gaming here.

Buggier
As I said Lucius III is a lot buggier than the first two entries. Truly, at times, it is a marvel that I managed to finish it on my second try (it bugged itself short on my first try – I couldn’t get past the final church). Especially if you keep in mind that the game’s save system is rather terrible. Take for instance, the strange occurrence that if you load a previous save before and then a later save the game will automatically resort back to the tasks you had back then in this later chapter.

Strange structure
You have to be wary during this game or you’ll suddenly find yourself finishing it without realizing it.
For a moment there I actually thought that I had managed to glitch myself to the end. Here I was happily murdering a Norman Bates-wannabe and suddenly I found myself in a church burning the remaining survivors to smithereens.

Hitchcock will be turning in his grave if he sees what Lucius III did with his masterpiece.

It is a blatant rip-off but without the ‘good guy’ suspense. Nope, Norman is a murderer and he must die instantly.

Still kudos for bringing a game in which I can actually explore Bates Motel in real time.

The enormous amount of cut-scenes in this game rather pushes you forwards on the main narrative instead of allowing you to have some fun on the side by trying to kill secondary characters. That’s why my church was filled to the brim with characters trying to attack me in the end because I didn’t take the side quests. I figured I would have time near the end. Nope, the cut scene immediately dropped me at the church.

This is especially annoying since the main narrative (and the helper character MacGuffin)

How about a Hitchcock reference.

Isn’t/aren’t very interesting. You don’t want to hear a reaction from some clearly insane guy every time you do something bad. You want to carve your own path in this open world. Or, at least, I did.

And then there are complete narratives missing. Like the judge. One appearance and then he’s gone. The minute you find him you immediately kill him even though I did want to know a bit more about his relationship with the Dante family.

Never very subtle.
As I said when I reviewed parts I and II: ‘subtlety isn’t Lucius’s game’. Now, with those games the balance between wicked fun and borderline distasteful was quite well struck. Lucius III, however, goes overboard quite a few times.

For instance, at one point you literally dress up like a member of the Kluk Klux Klan to lynch a character. Or there is a family called: the Friedman’s (and a chapter called: capturing the Friedman’s). These are real-life cases that maybe shouldn’t be put in an entertaining videogame.

Then again, I must, admit that the Lucius series is blatantly cruel to people of the Christian fate; so maybe the makers whished for me to feel uncomfortable as well.

On a more pop-culture level the game is, once again, filled to the brim with little (or blatant) references. So far I got: A perfect day, Jaws, Psycho: the remake, The children of the corn, It and The ring.

Conclusion
Lucius III, like its predecessors, remains buggy as ‘hell’. But in a buggy-its-hilarious kind of manner. I could reach through walls; the lighting often disappeared completely on me and not the mention the fact that I could hear the Norman Bates-wannabe masturbate for miles.

I did not expect that I would ever write the above sentence.

Also the fact that the game pushes you forwards constantly is a bit of a miss for me. That and the overkill of cut-scenes rather destroyed the ‘sadistic entertainment’ of figuring out how to murder various characters. In the end I miss the freedom I had in part II to just walk around and kill people whichever way I saw fit.

Finally the game is too big for its own goods. Uncompressed in file size but also too big a world to explore in the game itself. Bigger isn’t always better. Now there is this vast open world with very little to do.

As I’m writing this there are already two massive updates available for this game. I assume more will follow. Something tells me that the game was released too soon and that the developers still have tons they want to add to it. So maybe I should consider Lucius III: Lucius II.5.

Maybe, in a year’s time the game makers will have fixed the many technological, graphical and narrative issues that bog this game down. ‘Till then I will thank the makers very much for this third entry but rather return to the first two entries of Lucius’s demonic journey.

Mixed Tape Movies: Who is who?

In the eighties it was the-thing-to-do to make a mixed tape (like an mp3 but touchable, always in need of a pencil and definitely cooler). On it you would make a little playlist of all the cool songs. Now the trick was to make each song correspond with the rest of the tape. In this post I will try to do the same with movies.

Every once in a while I will select a general topic and select movies to accompany it. As you can see the more child-friendly movies are at the start of the day, but  when night falls: ‘here be monsters’. Please feel free to give suggestions of other unknown movies.

One rule though: Auteur themes like ‘Shakespeare’ or ‘James Bond’ are not allowed. ‘Spy-movies’, naturally, are.

Theme: Who is who? .

Identity is a strange concept when you think about it. I am me! But there a millions of people on the world who ‘think’ like me. Then there are hundreds of thousands of people on the world who like the things I like. And, then, there are probably a few thousand people on the world who like their coffee they way I like it. The point being: I am unique; yet there a quite a few people around on this silly little planet of ours who are exactly like me.

They might even look like me according to the popular theory of ‘seven doppelgangers’.

This time ‘round I want to focus on movies that delve into this concept of ‘identity’. ‘Who are you’- really and can somebody else fill your shoes. We will soon find out.

08:00-10:00

Freaky Friday: The original body change routine between a mother and her daughter. I prefer the 1995-version because that movie is a bit less over the top for me girl.

Still, the original is the best of the bunch. There’s nothing better than a (young) Jodie Foster telling her classmates how it is.

10:00-12:00 

Hilfe ich bin ein junge: A German movie in which a young girl and boy switch places. Hilarity ensues. It’s tame childhood fare as only the Germans could produce in their years of dividedness.

12:00-14:00

Like father, like son: The boys took over. That’s the way to look at this particular genre. Girls go first (if it’s a hit!), the boys follow. This tale isn’t very different from the first if not for the fact that the ‘cringe’ is nudged to eleven!

14:00-16:00

Vice Versa: Accepting the mood this movie goes down on the ‘cringe’-factor and merely plays it as a boy trying to understand his father (and ‘vice versa’). Yes, there are those terrible scenes of a boy pretending to be an adult (which always fail). But at the same time this movie has an sweet paternal love story between father and son at its core. And some adventure to boot!

16:00-17:00

Switch: The difficult one. Here we have a guy being killed by his former lovers. This guy is a bastard! Period! But then he ‘re-awakens’ as a gorgeous girl. What to do? Hunt donwn his killers (check), get accustomed to his/her body (check), accept the fact that he was quite the bastard in his previous life and the women were (rather) right to kill him (double check).

In the end Switch is a story about accepting your flaws and becoming a better person. Only, in this fantasy, murder had to come first.

17:00-19:00

Prelude to a Kiss: Alec Baldwin and Meg Ryan at their most charming. It’s a small story about love and aging as a young woman and an elderly man switch places.

19:00-21:00

Face/Off: An action flick by the master of the genre John Woo. A criminal and a terrorist change places. Be prepared for some, almost, operatic violence and the white dove or two as the forces of good and evil collide.

The best part of this movie is the ease with which Travolta and Cage manage to mimic each others little habits. Having strong capable actors in such a silly tale almost makes the fantasy it is based on plausible.

21:00-23:00

Dark reflection: (Yes, I’m almost cheating) Another switch this time between grown up clones/ or brothers – separated at birth. A guy finds out that he was a clone and his older ‘sibling’ comes to meet him.

His brother wants to take his place and all kinds of shenanigans happen in-between. But, the true question happens in the end: when we are talking about reality. Who is real and who is false?

I excluded Multiplicity here because this movie doesn’t really feature a switch between two different souls as it were.

23:00-01:00

Fallen: ‘Ti-i-i-me is on my side; yes it is!’
According to Biblical stories: when the war in the heavens ended God punished each fallen angel accordingly. Some angels were stripped away from a body, cursed to live eternity without a permanent host, dependent on the humans de detest.

We are in the horror genre now (well, supernatural-thriller, at least).
What is identity? Is it our mind or our body or both? Think about it. Then imagine that the ‘body’-part gets stripped away.

This is what the villain in Fallen is experiencing. He has no body anymore –he’s all mind. What does that do to a being? For starters: he becomes everything, with no identity of sex, race, color or creed.

Lou Diamond Phillips' The First Power (1990) uses the same concept but Fallen is the better movie.

01:00-03:00  

The Thing: Talk about identity. Here we have a shape-shifting Alien monster intent on killing every single living soul it can find. Who is who? Who can one trust? What’s that around the corner?

Honourable mentions:
I decided to let most of the movies on this list have a bit of ‘magic’ behind it all. So I’ll probably keep Trading Places, Big Business and Filofax for another time. Still there are many other movies to mention:

18 again!, Dream a little dream: An elderly man and a teenager switch places. I like the use of this concept better in Prelude to a kiss because of the romantic angle and the fear of aging after marriage.

It’s a boy girl thing: Boys and girls switching places is a staple of this particular niche genre. This movie is one of the better outings.

All of me: A woman’s soul enters the body of a young man. All kind of hilarious things happen along the way as he tries to help her (and she helps him).

Horror movies: Lot’s of horror movies use the concept of the ‘switch’ or ‘unreliable/reliable’ character dynamic. But including it on the list would be spoiling the movie. One I can tell you is the underappreciated The witch in the window. The other is a brilliant 2005 movie. That’s all I can say.