It costs nothing to make a tweet, so when whichever cops runs their station’s Twitter get bored during a very cold winter making a fun post doesn’t cost the taxpayers anything. And so numerous states called for the arrest of Elsa, the ice-powered character from Disney’s Frozen. Geez, the poor girl can’t get a break from anybody. Persecuted simply because of her powers. I guess Disney owning Marvel and the X-movies means she’s a mutant now.
Of course, Jake’s organizing doesn’t include cutting the collection down.
The good news is I’m making huge headway with this project, as you can see in this week’s Clutter Report. I’m at the point where I can resume the daily comic reviews, which is nice. This Wednesday I’ll review the last of the Real Adventures Of Jonny Quest comics I have to review, since issue #12 was lost in the disaster but now has been found. The Friday Phantom reviews are going to backtrack a bit since I found earlier comics from the Moonstone run that I didn’t remember I had before returning to where I left off. (Luckily I finished the “Invisible Children” storyline, since Nightwing, Thunderbolts, and Transformers all stopped on cliffhangers before I started this project but I had to start sometime.)
As for this…last…year’s Captain Yuletide I’m hopeful that will go up Saturday depending on how things go. I missed the last Friday Night Fight so I hope not to miss the next one. Fantastic Voyage continues this week. Not sure what else I have to say here, so I’ll just get back to work.
Dragon’s Lair (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I don’t discuss game shows often here at the Spotlight because this is a storytelling review site, and it’s rare that game shows tell a story. However, I thought this would be interesting for SNS. Does anybody remember the video game competition game show Starcade?
Created and developed by James Caruso and Mavis Arthur, Starcade was originally intended to be a gaming competition, like you see today. However, that pilot didn’t go over well and the show was retooled into the game show we all know today. The show featured two contestants using video game trivia and skills to win their own home arcade game. For whatever reason, Shout Factory’s YouTube channel has a special episode as their only sample, in which the usual options for the game playing round had been replaced with Dragon’s Lair.
Dragon’s Lair was the first of the laserdisk games. You play Dirk The Daring, off to rescue the Princess Daphne from the dragon who kidnapped her. Ahead of its time, the game didn’t use game sprites but cartoon animation produced by Don Bluth’s animation studio. By following the proper prompts you send Dirk through various challenges in the dragon’s castle before finally defeating the dragon and saving the princess. It led to a sequel, Timewarp, a few unofficial sequels using regular game sprites or computer animation, and a second laserdisk game, Space Ace. Both also became animated series, Dragon’s Lair showing up on ABC while Space Ace was one segment on CBS’s Saturday Supercade, neither of them done by Don Bluth’s studio. I’m mainly posting this to spark memories of the show but this isn’t a typical episode. Nice choice, Shout Factory!
The Iron Throne, from GRR Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I don’t watch Game Of Thrones and even if I had HBO I still wouldn’t. Death and betrayal in a fantasy setting where sunlight is a rarity are four things I’m not typically interested in. However, for those fans of the show who aren’t steeped in everything Iron Throne related should know that 2019 will mark the end of the TV series. I don’t know if they’ve gone through every novel yet and if not I’m surprised they’d give up their most popular show. I guess they’re hoping Westworld will pick up the slack or something?
Like most Star Wars fans there are things about the Special Editions and the Special Special Editions that I don’t like. However there are a few that I do, like the Jabba scene finally getting back into the first movie, whether Greedo and Han Solo’s conversation said it all or not. And yes, I don’t like the Greedo shooting first part. However, a recent documentary has allowed me to better understand why George Lucas created them and why he felt the need to meddle with his own movie, as well as why I think he was wrong. As a fan I disagree with it but as a storyteller I understand it.
Yesterday SF Debris completed his own trilogy, collecting behind the scenes information about the history of Star Wars and George Lucas’ legacy. Hero’s Journey covered the first movie, Shadow’s Journey covered the rest of the first trilogy and what it ultimately cost Lucas, and the more recent Hermit’s Journey followed the prequels and the Special Editions as well as the spin-off material. You really need to see these to fully understand what Lucas was thinking when he was creating this franchise. It’s the last one where I really understood why he made the Special Editions, from the perspective of the creator (although I chose writing over film making). The question is…was he really wrong?
J.J Abrams and Disney ignored what George Lucas had planned to do with the third Star Wars trilogy. In the Expanded Universe we saw the tale of Han and Leia’s twins as they grew up in the Force, based on early ideas Lucas had before the Prequels. According to information Disney has released part of his finally drafted concept, parts of what he intended did end up in The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi but I’m kind of skeptical after seeing what Disney did to Lucas, but I’m not ready to disbelieve based on his creative process. More on that in tonight’s commentary.
A Philips CDi console with controller. This is possibly a 400 series model, though the poster didn’t think to check specifically at the time. I have a 550 with built-in digital video card.(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The Compact Disk Interactive system, or CD-I, was produced by Philips after Nintendo screwed them over like they did Sony. However, the CD-I wasn’t as popular, even as Philips tried to promote it as a multimedia system, playing Video CDs (the predecessor to the DVD) as well as educational software. Philips also played into the “full motion video” craze and since that was rarely a source of good games that hurt them as well, even after partnering with Magnavox. You may remember during my Video Game Clutter pilot for my other site (and if I can get a video capture device that works with old systems I can finally make that a series) I mentioned having one of the Magnavox systems and I rather enjoy most of the games I bought for it.
However, the system is really vilified by the gaming community, heaping most of its collective ire against the Mario and Zelda games they managed to produce from the failed deal, which admittedly aren’t very good. And yet there are good things about it. So imagine my surprise when I came across an episode of Battle Geek Plus’ Awesome Video Game Memories that actually found nice things to say about the CD-I. BGP and I were both on Reviewers Unknown when they were picked up by Channel Awesome, so this video features a guest appearance by the Nostalgia Critic, but it’s BGP member Ryan and another reviewer, Magnatrex, who do the review. I have their permission to post it here at the Spotlight, so enjoy.
The Clutter Reports (my other site) Atop The Fourth Wall Crisis On Earth Prime Lean Into Artcast Bully Says “Comics Oughta Be Fun” Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery
Cartoon Hero’s Lair SF Debris Four Million Years Later
