Category Archives: movies

Giggle, giggle, laugh, laugh

We all have moments of comedy. We all have that moment that touches us, some in good ways, some not so. For the most I avoided a lot of the Will Smith issues. It was for the most a very personal one. I saw 1-2 clips in the beginning, because I never watched it live, and it was extremely unlike Will Smith to do what he did (as far as he has been illuminated), so that was my first moment that I got introduced to alopecia, until the slap I had never heard of it and there we see the part that bites a lot of us. We like comedy, we enjoy it, but to make fun of someones disease is a very dangerous act and a professional like Chris Rock should have seen that coming. I am a mere amateur in the giggle department. I have made fun of people at times. There was the Mattel case, they launched the Gamer of Throne characters. Jon Snow with sword and cape (Kit Harrington), Daenerys Targaryen with cleavage and a dragon on her shoulder (Emilia Clarke) and not to forget Tyrion Lannister played by Peter Dinklage, the only life sized figurine Mattel ever released. Talking about Peter Dinklage, in one movie he plays an attorney, complete with pew. Awesome, brilliant defence (aka excellent written script), but then the nightmare begins, in comes Vin Diesel, hair on his head. It took took two bottles of Buspirone, just to get me back to hysterics.  Humour is seen in many forms, in many shapes and many directions. I have no issues with this level of humour. I see no issue coming in a car with the license plate made by Hillary Duff (a Ricky Gervais smirk). 

Yet, when I think of Kenny Baker I feel sadness, we lost him too early (he was 81). You see, we missed out on a legendary moment that did not come. In 1970 the UK launched Catweazle (and his frog Touchwood), I still think of that character 50 years later every now and then. I believe that Kenny Baker could have surpassed that achievement for another 50 years and lets be clear, Geoffrey Bayldon did an amazing job. There are moments that touch our hearts, Catweazle touched us in many ways, but comedy has an equal option to hurt us by touching all. And Chris Rock went there. Even a person like Will Smith, with heart armour that the claws of Wolverine cannot scratch, the arrow of Chris Rock did the job and there lies the rub, when someone loves his partner and family to such a degree there will be fallout. Not all of it good, but Hollywood wants its shock moment so that they can sell the event on to next year and now that I see the news that Will Smith has resigned the Academy, accepting whatever the disciplinary hearing will bring. It is time for the other side to come as well. You see the Academy forgot about the other side. They could have blown it off with a stage of steam and high emotions, they could have simmered it down as a comedian made one wrong joke, a joke on the disease of someone’s partner. They want the full furlong, so let me give them something to think about.

I hereby plead to all who see this, to all who forward this. If any consequence sticks to Will Smith that we all avoid the 2023 Oscars. We can watch the BAFTA’s, we can see the Tony’s, Grammy’s and others, but the Oscars next year we give a miss. That is my request and do not worry of forgetting, the media will milk the slap every year for years to come and when the viewers stay away the Academy will have some thinking to do. We all saw #OscarsTooWhite, we see message after message but we do not act, it is time to act. So give the Oscars a miss in 2023 when the Academy chastises, or give career consequence to Will Smith. Lets see how that goes over with the money hungry tycoons in Hollywood. There is only so much one person can take and Will met that point, it is time for the exploiters and milkers to feel a bit of that too, when the money moves away, watch them smile it away, laugh it away, giggle it away like a bad joke, but then it will be about the complexities. So lets do that, it is merely a request, you can do what you want, that has always been your right. But ask yourself, if you have a family member who dies of the big ‘C’ and it was because a neon sign stating ‘Curry’ fell on that members head, will you laugh it off?

Consider that part of the equation. 

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The stage selected

That is what I keep on seeing. Not the slap, not the presentation, not the conversations. The setting of the stage. For me the question remains why Dune was not an option for best Director. This is not the objection to who won, I never saw that movie. I am not debating the winner, not objecting to the winner, my mind is screaming at Dune becoming a non-nominee as best Director. And the competition was seemingly fierce this year. The mind screams when something happens that we cannot comprehend, or perhaps seemingly comprehend. 

And the screams are oud within me because I am not the only one feeling this, the internet has been busy for a while on this and it is not the first time the Oscars are under debate. #OscarsTooWhite, is merely one of many objections over time. So when I see  movie that blew me away, getting 6 oscars that it shined in and is a non-competitor in another category is just a little too weird. Denis Villeneuve outdid any other director ever involved with Dune, he outdid what we expected and he outdid what we could not grasp. So I am not opposing that Jane Campion won, merely that Villeneuve according to me and many many others deserved to be a nomination. It is that simple. When we are confronted with such a blow normality goes out the window, and there is no stopping the confused mind and it is also a larger station, I cannot debate that the others did not deserve to be nominated, according to many they really did, I do not oppose that, perhaps it was as simple as number of votes, and I am willing to accept that those who became nominees just had a few more votes. Still the boggled mind stares out of the window trying to make sense of it. Yet in all this, I also recognise that 007 fans wonder why they only won one of them, it is perhaps the setting of what we think should happen, to what we think does happen. A stage that overshadows us all. In the end we are all slaves to what the mind perceives and I get that, I really do, but the mind still screams and that is hard to swallow, especially when we see a movie that blows us away. Perhaps within ourselves we nurture the populist voice, it is something that is not easily stomped and it seemingly in charge of us to some degree.

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Chaos on the brain

Yup that was me alright this morning. It started actually pretty good, I was enjoying some tea (yes I drink that every now and then), I was enjoying being in my bonnet and behold, a thought passed me by. It was a mix of Queen, a thought of Ted (the teddy) and things started to click. You see, when I grew up (a really long time ago) I got my hands on some Flash Gordon comics and the mix started to rattle. 

I loved it, it was just different. So I was a fan before Queen, Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson decided to have a go at Max von Sydow. I loved the music, the movie all because the comic woke something up. Even nowadays, I miss the comics, I can still enjoy the Queen album (they truly outdid themselves) and the movie was for a 1980 movie quite enjoyable. But something was missing. You see, now we have the streamers and they could transform the original comics into something dark, gritty and closer resembling the comics. Who? I have no idea, but Amazon, Hulu and Netflix should seriously consider it. No matter who wins, if they can make it truly dark and more resembling the comics, they could have a large win on their hands, merely my point of view. Nothing more. So whilst that process started chaos came knocking on my display. It was Hogwarts Legacy (at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AZmuZNu5LA) and it blew me away. Not by a little either. Even now as I am still enjoying Horizon: Forbidden West, I cannot stop thinking of what Avalanche Software has set in motion. What I saw was unique and flawless.  I plays a century before the Hogwarts we know and it works out that way. Yes, we recognise parts, we see things and creatures from all kind of places, but there is so much new to be seen, so much art in nearly every screen that I believe that on view alone, it will drive millions of Harry Potter fans insane with the need to get this game. Yes, I heard about the critique, I cannot say how I feel as I avoided (intentionally or not) most of the information as it was too far from release date. So whatever goblin issue there was the clip I pasted was my first introduction to the game and it looks utterly stunning. So even as some will say, I saw that. I avoided the 2018 leaks, I see no need to get hung up on something 4 years before release, and I still believe that. I saw some teasers that were released, and now some real stuff and this game could optionally set a new bar for many game developers. First Guerrilla, now Avalanche and Ubisoft cannot release anything to that level of gaming as I personally see it. Can you not see that Ubisoft is about to become a ‘has been’, like Microsoft (just a thought). So why the link?

I believe that any new IP, could be linked. Could transgress from comic to both games and series and here the path for Amazon becomes a lot more clear, but there is nothing stopping Netflix to seek an alliance with a real hungry and futuristic software house to unite and create both using one design and art team. There really is no need to reinvent the wheel and nowadays these wheels are a lot closer alike and a lot closer together than was the case in the past. 

In this fantasy and science fiction seem to be more easily adapted to both stages than others, but that is merely a personal view. And in this, what happens when you consider what games like Horizons: Forbidden West and optionally Hogwarts Legacy allows for. So what happens when the world of Flash Gordon become a much larger RPG styled game than ever before? It goes further than this. Consider Hansel and Gretel. Not the fairy tale, but the movie that gave us a bad ass Jeremy Renner and Gemma Arterton. Now consider the environment. Take Southern Germany, a map that maps Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria in the 11th century. And the Black Forest is only a small part of Baden-Württemberg. Now consider what you need to do to become a famous witch hunter. And optionally the golden Emma Watson statue if you kill more witches than anyone else (no need to avoid humour, is there?) And consider the era, the first Crusades are in full swing, so there is an abundance of criminals and charlatans, there are corrupt officials and in that stage you will need to put your stamp. And it does not come easy. In the movie they had the weapons, but in this game you will not get far without the help and alliance of a really nice blacksmith and they only work for coins. We are so gung-ho about the kill-shot that we forgot that before we get to do that kill-shot a lot more needs to happen. Would it work? I honestly do not know, but in this day and age, the larger entertainer and the larger holder of a unique piece of IP has a much better chance than all others. Guerrilla showed that and believe it or not, I believe (from what I saw) that Hogwarts Legacy is on that same track. Avalanche did something really good and I cannot wait to find out. And if I had to choose? I honestly do not know. I would look forward to all three games and it has been a while since more than one game was on my list. At present HFW is just so fulfilling, it is almost scary. 

But that too is part of gaming, the anticipation and finding out that it was well warranted, Ubisoft used to be like that, but now it seems the new software makers are on that path whilst the old makers are exiting the stage on the left side.

Chaos is on my brain, but it comes from a weird mix of the old, the new and what might be, and in the stage of a place that now has more than 20,000 castles? I reckon that any witch would want one, so there is a reason to play this in southern Germany and there is no reason to think that the map is limited to merely there. In 5 years, no telling what systems are capable of in 2027/2028.

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A view in the East

There is a new stage coming, I believe that it is a new part towards ‘Residuam vitam’ but I cannot place it in the whole story at present. There are gaps in the setting, but as far asI can tell, it is all happening in China. There is an open cave, a pipeline between north and south of the mountain. The stones are dark grey and profound. The cave pipeline looks like a stretched oval, with a width of 2 meters and about 5 meters high. The funny part is that the wind always comes through here and always from the north, that wind is quite strong and never lets up. I cannot tell whether the cave is below the snow-line, or I am seeing this in summer, it does not feel warm. When you walk into the cave, a cave the locals for unknown reasons avoid we see two large rotors. They are half in the mountain, half sticking out like teeth hungry for the north wind. The vanes are about 120cm wide, so these rotors must be about 2.5 meters in size and they stretch for a height of about 3 meters. They must have been here a while, they rotate, as the wind pushes them both. Between the two rotors is a gap, but not natural, it is man-made. It goes into a container, the container looks quite good, but the electronics are old, like they were installed in the 50’s and it is then that I hear the hissing sounds. I look around but I see nothing. It is at the other end of the container when I see a door and I open it slightly, the hissing is quite loud now and my flashlight illuminates hundreds of snakes. I have no idea how poisonous they are, so I do not go in, but the large surprise is in the back, quite visible. It is Wimshurst machine, it is huge, 5 meters across easily. Made of wood, with points in between and as the current inhabitants seem nasty, I will not venture forth. But those discs are no longer moving. I reckon that this is what the rotors were for, to power the Wimshurst. If this works there would be an unstoppable amount of energy for an entire valley. What made it stop? It was then that the hissing stopped and the snake sounds made one noise ‘Ao Shun’ it was the sound I had hoped to hear. Ao Shun is one of the few living aspects that could lead me to Ereshkigal, Queen of the Great Earth and she was the only one who once visited the true throne of Anubis and returned from there. So she was the only one who could tell me where Anubis rested and recuperated and that was preference to meeting him anywhere in the world. Anywhere else he could avoid me and not face me, in his place he had to face me and accept me as more then all the other mortals, a weird and dangerous stage, but the only one that could lead to results. So as I contemplated this I took a step onto those steps towards the Wimshurst machine and figure out why it had stopped working.

Then I woke up (darn), a nice setting towards the mini series which I believed would be all in New Orleans. This little sidestep proves me wrong, but I have no idea where it will take me from there at present. 

 

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More to a script

In the previous article ‘Lights, Camera, Action!’ (at https://lawlordtobe.com/2022/03/05/lights-camera-action/) I discussed a new movie idea, and now I want to add to this. You see, a concept starts nice, but we need to follow it through, drive the dagger home as it is called at times. So in the image below I added a few tracks to the movie story.

Fictive example

As you see in the charts, it is a straight line, and it needs to be. No matter how the movie is made, these tracks tend to have a ‘clear’ path. So we have two tracks added to the real path, now if we merely go through the steps, it becomes a dull exercise and one that relies on all kinds of action sequences. But what happens when we consider the green dots? These are the dots that overlap other tracks and other options, perhaps the two interact, but I try to avoid that, as I feel it becomes rather messy at that point, but I did make references in the first article. I mentioned the Youm7 News Agency, the Mobica store, and they are relatively together. All options to make the change interesting and set the starting point in a different way. As for the export license, it has been done before to implement weapons in cars, but who took the time to see how you fit an M60  (taken apart) in the spare-parts of cars the firing pins UNDER the tools of a trolley chest tool chest? There are all options and there are more and when we interact one with the other we see opportunities arise. So doe the enemy (the opposition of the movie). What if we are aware and we ignore their part and let the work FOR us? Leave them holding the bag so to speak, all whilst the RFID sticker on the potted plants now holds 512GB and the plant is the export tally for the stolen data? (see below) 

200% of real size

The sticker obfuscates view and whilst some inspect the content, the sticker with an RFID stamp is overlooked. 

There are so many more options and that is where the movie would optionally be a new unique setting, bad boys working for governments. It is not unique, but for the longest time we have not seen that kind of movie. Do not get me wrong, I loved True Lies, I love the MI series and many more, but the stage where the hero is not clean and white is ignored, it seems that Hollywood needs pure polarisation in characters, whilst the story should provide that. That is merely my view on the matter. And I did get a few more stages done. And when you think of the Russian war, consider that my articles have a nice bonus hidden, I will let you figure that one out. I need a sandwich!

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Lights, Camera, Action!

Well, this Saturday is getting weird in a number of ways. In the first the Dutch politician Geert Wilders is making a fuss, which works out well for me. You see the more waves that person makes, the easier my initial movie idea can be sold. Especially in the Middle East. You see he is the main event in ‘How to assassinate a politician’. I came up with the setting around the same time Charlie Hedbo got killed. I was all up about that and it was THEN that I learned that it is blasphemy to have an image of the prophet Mohammad. I reckon that a lot of people never knew that and as such the actions of Geert Wilders and his drawing event suddenly makes sense. So I designed a movie that takes care of people like him. And as I was contemplating that I came up with a new kind of secret agent movie. With in the lead the rapper 50 Cents (in Russia he is known as 4,000,000 ruble) and Tom Cruise. 

The setting is a weird one. You see 50 cents has the lead and in the movie he is not the ‘good saint’. He plays a rapper who is also a dealer of chemical delights. Coke, H, MDMA. He has it all and in that setting he travels the world. In this case a concert in Egypt. It is in the day before the concert we start seeing his other side. He is a high tech thief and data robber for the US government. In this case it is his job to get the data from a server in the Chinese Embassy in Cairo. Tom Cruise is his backup and also plays his manager, he is also not snowy white, he dabbles in black market military hardware but the combination makes them welcome in all kinds of places. So we get the story that has three circles, the drug circle, the weapons circle and the two are played so that they get access to the Chinese Embassy, where they will unload a few TB of data. 

You see, a movie like this has not been made before. The hero’s are always squeaky clean, the opposition is always so dark that black seems like a snowflake white, yet the grey mix is not usually see. Life in this world is expensive and you need an alternative income to pay for the bills at The Smokery Heliopolis and the Four Seasons Hotel Cairo at Nile Plaza. The US government allows for it because as data thieves they are unsurpassed and as they have no affiliation the government (CIA) has deniability. 

The nice part is that the VFS China visa center is in actuality right next to Youm7 News Agency, so there are all kinds of options opening up.

There are still a few (read several) issues to deal with. I want to avoid that it is all action and shooting. There should be a chase (optionally from Mobica) but they need to remain ‘invisible’ to the outside world. It is about the suspense of the data theft and that would also allow for a twist or two (doesn’t it always?) And the funny part is that this all took me less than an hour. I know more needs to be done, but it seems that I have put more ideas and scripts online in my blog than most writers for Netflix have ever cleared, so I feel pretty good now. I reckon I earned my bowl of orange jello (with whipped cream). 

And for tonight? Cheese baguettes with Irish stew. Perhaps another idea, depends whether my brain will allow me to get some sleep and recharge the figments of delusional imagination.

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Netflix Prime

Yup, that is it and it is not a conundrum. This setting applies to both Amazon Prime and Netflix (other layers too). You see, their valuation is set to a larger stage of WHAT and HOW MUCH they can bring. And in a stage where we are on the brink of active militant debates, having an alternative is never a bad idea. You see, for some unknown reason I have been thinking of the Dutch movie ‘De Prooi’ (1985). 

I remember how stunningly beautiful the leading lady played by Maayke Bouten was. But there is more (there always is), the story was quite good, it was done as it always was in those days. Like a race to the destination with several scenes in the middle. Yet the foundation of a decently good movie was there and it could be remade, the story needs a little adaptation, and if it is set to a different location (San Francisco, Vancouver, Fort Lauderdale, New Orleans) a little extra work might need to be done. A script ready for collecting (whomever has the rights) and it is not a small setting. There are hundreds of scripts out there where the rights are no longer active, where the rights to a movie are nickels and dimes away from ownership (instead of tens of thousands or more). A setting that all streamers need at present and they are all over Europe, all over the commonwealth too. We forgot about the younger watchers, did we not? So what happened to the dozens of movies that were part of the Enid Blyton collection, the hardy boys, and there was a female version too. Sweden has its treasures (beyond Pippi Longstocking that is) and so forth. Even the Netherlands has its share of treasures. All forgotten, all in some drawer catching dust, all whilst everyone is chasing the next mediocre version that comes from one of these great stories. 

As such I wonder how long these stream chasers keep on chasing a reinvented wheel, whilst there is a place where you can find a good collection of second hand wheels at 10% of the price. You will spend op to 5% rewriting it, but is one in 5 is a decent success, you will have an interesting track record as well as a decently fast growing library of works. If we look back to the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s we see movies all with a gimmick, but as long as the story is good, it can be rewritten with the gimmick of today and tomorrow. So where are these writers? What will Netflix (Amazon Prime too) do when the budgets are trimmed down? I did not forget about Apple and Disney, but it seems that they have a different approach to where they want to go, or how they want to get somewhere. I might be wrong, but that is how they feel to me. It is up to them and it is up to Netflix and Amazon, they might to get ahead of the curve before the are chasing it in some uphill battle against that very same curve, because that is what falling behind the curve tend to be. A never ending uphill battle. 

And I reckon that this is a race where the number two has no reward, they merely chased the other one too late. Who will it be? I have no idea, I am not buddies with either on that level, I need not be (not entirely true), I have my own stories to write and for now I reckon that I might have a new chapter coming up in the mini series ‘Residuam vitam’, I think it had a different name earlier. For some reason the others have titles set in stone, this one does not. I cannot figure that part out, even as the story was pretty much set, but now there is a new stage, but I need to write it differently, because the party involved are not like us and that changes the stage. I should say that Meng Po alerted me to that part, but I cannot, because every time she serves me soup I forget what I was doing, but the soup is so delicious.

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Four days to wait

In four days people who missed the big screen release get to see it and those who saw it will see it again. For me it will be awesome. Dune (2021) was an amazing trip. ‘Ticket to Arrakis, one way please and make it a window seat’, but the masterpiece by Hubbard is to be read, to be seen on the screen and not yet seen and felt in person. I have several versions and I saw the other one too. Until this version arrived the SciFi channel edition with Alec Newman, Ian McNeice and Giancarlo Giannini was my favourite. It is a really good version, it felt real, it felt down to earth and told the story in an amazing way. So until I saw the new edition (which was always going to happen) I had my doubts, mainly because the SciFi edition was awesome and we all tend to resent anything troubling that view. It was nice to see the announcement that Thanos was coming, Bautista looked a lot more like the written monster Rabban then László I. Kish ever could. In all versions of Dune we see a slim man, so it felt right that Jason Mamoa was chosen. I was toiling on a lot of things, that was until I saw the trailer. 

The trailer was the clear indication that this was going to be next level stuff. I knew nothing about Denis Villeneuve (other than he seemed to be that guy who won several GP’s in the 90’s), but the trailer put him on the map for me. Of course I realised later that he was Canadian, not a French racer and responsible for the Arrival and the Blade Runner sequel. They were good movies, really good, but it was nothing compared what I saw when the lights in the cinema turned off and Arrakis (Caladan too) was shown to us. The ornithopters, the machines, the works and especially the sands. We saw a new look on the Sardaukar and the Atreides family. In this Denis might have chosen Chalamet because he is a good actor and looks like a boy. The 155 minutes that followed blew my mind. The music was off and not from this world, it impacted the film in a massive way. The lighting and the stage of using lighting in this way was truly amazing. Dune rocked and ruled the world in unexpected ways, so as soon as possible I will get this movie and watch it again and again until part 2 arrives, which is set to be released on October 20, 2023, which is another 20 months of bloody waiting (not happy me). But that is how it is. 

Dune (2021) has set a new level and set the bar for anyone else optionally much to high to ever attempt it ever again. 

It is here that I need to take on critique “Stephen M. Colbert of Screen Rant noted that its complex story and Villeneuve’s directorial style were bound to have selective appeal, and that this is reflected in negative reviews thus far”, I disagree. The story starts on Arrakis (the Zendaya scene) and it sets a good tone, The story is clear and follows the book, it skipped one or two issues, but there is every chance that the second part will take these parts up, and lets be clear they are small issues, really small issues. As to the side of ‘selective appeal’ I cannot completely answer. The movie has an uncanny realistic approach towards lighting, it is seen in several ways and at times it makes you wonder what the appeals was of CGI lighting (like the Black Widow movie). This is not an attack on the movie Black Widow, it shows that Denis Villeneuve took the extra 5 miles to get it near perfect (perfection is an on location movie on Arrakis). The ornithopter scenes are unreal and the filming of Charlotte Rampling in the Bene Gesserit scene transgresses from perfection into overwhelming in a few ways. The movie checked all the marks and added a dozen more. This is one of those ‘must see’ movies whether you are into Fantasy/Science Fiction or not. 

I really cannot wait to see it again, it will help pass the time until part two is here and the complete story is shown to us. This is more than the continuation, there is so much more to see, I cannot wait to see how Dennis Villeneuve brought them into the light. In this light I merely wonder to some degree how he was missed as Best Director in the upcoming 94th Academy Awards. I do get it, the other film makers did amazing work in the past, and optionally now too (I did not see all of them), but this time around he is up against Spielberg, Branagh, Campion and Anderson. So the competition was fierce, still Dune is on the list for best movie (and 9 other nominations), so there is that. 

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Direction of education

I have been contemplating a separate direction of optional IP. You see, the studios are all focusing on the ‘next big thing’, to seemingly achieve that they tend to go towards the big successes and hope that they have one more slug to deliver. This is not a bad plan, but there is an equal danger on that larger stage not meeting expectations. This is not some curse, it comes from expressions like ‘it rains on the just and unjust alike’, ‘dress for success’, and that list goes on. Yet when we look back, what did Star Trek look back on? What inspired ‘Dallas’, ‘MASH’ and several others? Then I remembered something, something I saw 45 years ago and it still comes up in my mind every now and then. It was a series called ‘Once Upon a time’ and it ran for a long time. It was originally called “Il était une fois…”, a French educational program created by Procidis.

It is time to dig into such a corner (not that corner). You see, we forget that those who inherit the world might not vote, but they are a powerful group and the big wigs seem to forget that THEY too were young once. Consider Marcus Aurelius, the fifth of the good emperors. He died in 180 AD, he was also a philosopher who wrote Meditations, a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. Some still call it a literary monument to a government of service and duty. I was taken aback when I read [6] “to disbelieve the professions of sorcerers and imposters about incantations and exorcism and the like” written by a person who died 1600 years before BS Puritans decided to burn 14 women at the stake in Massachusetts Bay for witchcraft (Salem). All whilst these puritans optionally were afraid of women who merely needed a good fuck (optional speculation). In the end 19 people and two dogs were burned, 1600 years an Italian told them the truth of the matter, and it is time that historic figures more in a life like setting are the stuff of inspiring on TV and not cartoon like. I have nothing against cartoons, yet it is time for the next generation learn on how inspiring, innovative and generation crossing these greeks and Italians were. Some of the Italian practices are still in use 2000 years later. Julius Caesar started encryption by coding his messages. Aurelius wrote a guide that still inspires today. And that is before we consider Homer, Aristotle and a few others. History needs to teach and the classrooms aren’t getting it done, so it is time to give them a hand and the streamers are always looking for new IP, but they seemingly forgot to what the past achieved and what could be possible. Everyone wants another Game of thrones, yet those under 14 needs to be prepared for the future and a good grasp of history is the way to go. If I can create a way to create a concept of burning down a nuclear reactor using an invention from 1900 by Mr Perzy I, what could the next generation achieve when they get a good grasp of Homer, Pythagoras, Gauss and Hilbert, how good could this world end up being? There are of course no guarantees, but considering that the Pentagon cannot be relied on to properly vet translations, people elect a person as president who seemingly is proud on ‘I grabbed her by the pussy’, we seem to ignore basic knowledge and it goes beyond mathematics, or basic philosophy. As I personally see it the media (TV) has forgotten to educate, it is all about the wow, the numbers and the profit and there is every chance at least one generation is coming up short, and we get that it is not all fun and all Game of Thrones, but we need to do more, or streamers should do more to offer a wide interesting scope of educational programs. We could rely on the Squid games to control the population but is that the way big wigs want to go at present? They need numbers for circulation, for ratings and when you decrease the population by X, those numbers would never be reached. Now an argument could be made that certain ratings are easier met when you only have 78% of the population to work with but that requires math, does it not? 

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Out with the old?

It is a saying and I have heard it many times. Out with the old, in with the new. Yet in the world of media as an aggregated whole, that saying does not make much sense. For a few reasons my attention came back to Infamous:Second son I gave it an 83% rating when it initially launched (and I stand by that). You see, the game has brilliant and spectacular moments. In all but one setting it is close to brilliant. The one setting is linearity and in a near open world it is worse than a death curse. Linearity makes everything too predicable and that was the short coming of that game. It starts brilliant, the brother setting, the awakening of being a conduit and the power of smoke. It was amazing and until the second power comes into play it is all great, after that the party sizzles and linearity sets in. But that first area in Seattle is just grand. Then I thought what to do and I do not need to do anything, but Sony might. Consider that the game has a good and a bad setting. What if Reggie didn’t had a brother, but twins Delsin Rowe and Darren Rowe. One goes good, the other bad and that becomes a much larger story, one for the TV or whatever streaming service Sony has. They already own the IP, so that would not stop them and the setting could be larger, not larger in the stage, but it could give Seattle more than Amazon and Frasier (to opt an idea). The setting in the game was great and the antagonist Augustine was better thought up than most other antagonists in TV world. They both get the stage to clean Seattle each in their own way and there we need to set the station where the good one wins the concrete powers (and cleans up the streets and heals the reservation victims), as well as open up a much larger conversation. Can we separate people who are different? You see, Augustine is seen as evil, but her motives were pretty pure (from her point of view) and even as the game never went into that, the TV series might just do that and to be honest, the powers we saw in that game were freakin awesome. 

I am a little surprised that no one had thought of that track with a game that was optionally much larger than we all thought it could be. Especially as studios are vying for streaming successes. Sony has a few IP’s in stock that they could alter in many ways and Infamous:Second Son is merely one of them.

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Filed under Gaming, Media, movies, Stories