Railroading

I've done quite a bit of tabletop role-playing in my life and one of the things that gets on my nerves is "Railroading". For those not familiar with the term, it means a set of situations where the Game Master gives the Players a single option and will not allow any other possibilities. In many instances, this can be handled effectively without making the Players, who are controlling the heroes of the story, feel like they have no agency. Playing around with their suggestions and throwing up barriers works, especially if the GM handles it with good humor.

Several instances of Railroading occur when playing through a module, which is a pre-written adventure. In most of those, there are a few options but only one correct one. The game that I'm running for the Class 1000 podcast is like this, which has certain events in a certain order. I try to work with the players, though, to make sure they feel engaged.

The major issue is with GM's that create their own story and they have such a great idea that the players just HAVE to go this way. Again, this can be handled effectively, but when the GM doesn't even give the possibility of other ways to handle the plot, it causes the players to get frustrated. This leads to a game that is completely against the point of playing. It's supposed to be FUN, but taking away the free will of the characters involved sucks all of the fun out of the experience, meaning that the game will fold sooner rather than later.

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Cell Phone Addiction

Kira's dance recital was this past weekend and they had an announcement before the show. No flash photography - OK. No video recording - Sure. Please turn off your cell phones - This one people apparently had a problem with.

One guy the the row behind me said, "Yeah, that's gonna happen." I'm giving this a pass because he could have said it sarcastically, and I didn't see what was going on behind me.

Another guy in the row in front of me would take his phone out every now and then to check text messages. I'm going to give him a pass as well, since it could have been something important that he needed to check on. Plus, it wasn't constantly. He probably checked five times in the three hours we were there.

The one person that I'm NOT giving a pass to is the woman sitting right next to me. She had her phone out for the whole show and do you know what she was doing on it? Playing a GAME! Seriously? You came to a dance recital for, presumably, someone who care about and that's how you're going to spend your time? The person sitting next to her even had to nudge her during the acts that she was supposed to pay attention to! We're talking a woman at least in her 40's here! If the show was that unimportant to you, then why even bother going? Just stay home, sit on the couch, and have your face stuck to the phone there. You'll save everyone a lot of aggravation.

Is it really that hard for people to not be with their cell phones? It just doesn't make sense to me. This past winter I saw someone shoveling snow that took at least three times long than they should have. Do you know why? It's because after every second shovel, out comes the phone because Odin forbid they went more than a MINUTE without seeing someone's status update.

My phone gets turned off when I get home from work and doesn't get turned on again until the next morning. I've got better things to do with my life than stare a 4.5" x 2.5" screen constantly, especially when my family is involved.

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Repetitive Lyrics

One of the things about "cutting the cord" is that I don't see a lot of commercials, which is nice. However, there are some services that we use that have commercial put in them, to keep them free to the user. One of these is Pluto TV, which we watch for their MST3K and RiffTrax channels. The downside is that they put their commercials on in blocks that last a couple of weeks, so you're constantly seeing the same thing repeatedly. While that can be annoying, it's usually tolerable.

One of the recent ones, however, is definitely intolerable, and that's the iPhone X commercial. (Quick Tangent: Is it the iPhone "Ten" or the iPhone "Ex"? Since no one speaks on the damn thing, I have no clue.) This commercial uses a song called "Do Your Thing" as the background. How do I know this? The entire commercial is the following:

Do your, do your thing
Do your, do your thing
Do your thing
Do your, do your thing
Do your, do your thing
Do your thing
Do your, do your, do your thing
Do your, do your thing
Do your thing

Do your, do your thing
Do your, do your thing
Do your thing
Do your, do your thing
Do your, do your thing
Do your thing
Do your, do your, do your thing
Do your, do your thing
Do your thing

It's MADDENING! It's also a pet peeve of mine, which is why I HATE "We've Got The Beat" as well. It's not the style of music, the performer, the instrumentation, or anything like that. It's the SAME. DAMN. LINE. OVER AND OVER AND OVER. I have never been able to stand that.

There might be more to this song (and I really hope there is) but since it's not my style of music, I'll never know. I can tell you this, though. If I hate the commercial that much, I'm NEVER going to buy that product.

OK, rant over. Go watch Black Panther or something.


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The Fandom of Others

Recently I listed to a podcast* that I had to turn off halfway through. This was due to the conversation on how people who didn't agree with the hosts were somehow stupid or coming into the subject with preconceptions. They weren't being mean about it, but that was, essentially, what they were saying.

I have no problem with people not liking something involved with geek fandom. There are things I like and things I don't like, just like everyone else. What I CAN'T STAND, though, is how people have to make themselves feel better about their opinions by putting others down. It is perfectly possible for someone to disagree with you about Marvel/DC, Star Wars/Star Trek, etc and have them be an intelligent human being with their own particular tastes.

It's one thing to say something like "I prefer Star Wars over Star Trek because it's more action packed," but another to say "I like Star Wars and anyone who doesn't just isn't smart enough to appreciate the storytelling." People are capable of disagreeing in a civilized way, but in this era of "group think", it seems like this is getting lost.

So, please, keep in mind that those who disagree with you have their reasons and maybe, just maybe, they are valid and well thought out. So, before you go accusing people of lower intelligence or being closed-minded, maybe have a conversation with them. It might turn out that you were the one being closed minded.

Besides, if you have to tear down others just to make your point, then your point must not be that good to begin with. (See my other blog for more.)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled geekiness.


* I will not be naming the podcast or the people involved, since this is a more general topic, and I don't want to bring that show, which I otherwise enjoy, under a negative scrutiny.

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Podcasting Pet Peeve

I listen to a good number of podcasts. In fact, if I'm not listening to old radio programs, I'm listening to a podcast. Heck, one podcast even plays old radio programs for me.

That being said, I tend to work my way through a show's backlog before I listen to the most current episodes. I find that this gives me a nice background for the show and allows me to get whatever references the hosts are currently making. There is a problem with that way of doing things, however.

You see, if a show is dealing with present day stuff, be it comics, movies, or TV shows, and trying to predict what's to come, it makes it hard to listen to after the fact. Trying to predict the plot of Batman v Superman, for example, is all well and good, except if the listener doesn't hear that episode until after said movie is already out. Now, that's alright for a show to do as a small segment, but if entire episodes are devoted to that, it makes it practically un-listenable later on.

I've actually stopped listening to shows because all they did was review the then-current comic and try and predict what the next issue would hold. Well, that episode only has a shelf life as long as the next issue isn't out. For someone like me who is listening after, sometimes years after, the topic was current it just sounds silly. I'm not saying people can't do that for their shows. These are their shows, after all. I'm just saying that it's something I have a hard time listening to.

That's why the shows I do tend to look at the past. Things I loved growing up, or have rediscovered, but very little on future events. I hope that makes my shows, at least somewhat, evergreen. So that a new listener can start at episode 1 and work their way up to current without what gets on my nerves with shows.

How about you, dear reader? Is there anything about podcasts, or other shows, that just rubs you the wrong way?

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Dissecting Trailers

When the trailers for "The Force Awakens" and "Batman v Superman" came out, a lot of people, and I mean A LOT of people, would sit down and judge whether the movie was going to be good just from what they saw there.

"This character is going to suck because ..."

"They got that dead right because ..."

It's a trailer people! It's there simply to get you to buy tickets to the movie! There is no way that you can tell how good or bad the movie/character/writing/what-have/you is going to be just from the trailer. There simply isn't enough time for you to make that decision.

What you can do, 9 out of 10 times, is decide whether that particular movie is for you or not. Usually I'll see a trailer a decide whether I want to see it as soon as i feasibly can (pretty much any Marvel movie), wait for it to come out on DVD or TV (most films in my interest area), or avoid it all together (Star Trek: Beyond). That is simply based on the style or subject matter of the movie, not the perceived level of quality.

So, can we please, as the new year dawns, stop over analyzing 3-5 minute advertising snippets of films? Please?

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Why SDCC Doesn't Excite Me

There are a few reasons that I really don't care about what happens at San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) doesn't hold much meaning for me. First of all, I'm not reading any current comics, so hearing all about these panels and such where the latest news on comics titles break really doesn't appeal to me. It's great that people are excited for the new Bunnyman ... sorry, I mean Batman, but they lost me with that character a long time ago, and DC just keeps reinforcing that.

Second, while the name is "Comic Con", it's really more about all media. Oh, I watch these movies & TV shows, but if I watch them anyway, I don't care about reveals outside of the show. Much like Andy Leyland of Hey Kids, Comics!, if I've already made up my mind to see something, seeing trailers is probably going to spoil more of it for me than add to my excitement. Heck, I'm the guy that stops watching when the TV show says "Next Time on ...", because I plan on watching it next week, so I'll see it during that episode.

Lastly, and this is from an actually visiting there point of view, I'm not huge on crowds. It's not that I have a fear of them, I just get annoyed when I want to get from Point A to Point B and the people in front of me decide to stop in the middle of everything and point over somewhere. In a place like Walt Disney World, that is unavoidable, kind of like strollers, but at least there the good far outweighs the bad. At SDCC, I would be annoyed at trying to get somewhere to hear news that I didn't care about.

Take all of that and add to it the time and expense to get to San Diego, or just the time to watch the videos, etc, and I can honestly say that I really don't care about SDCC. Much like Major League Baseball, for which I also have no interest anymore, I prefer the smaller conventions. You know, ones that I can actually buy comics at. Or at least the ones that have an identity and don't try to be the end all, be all of every possible media type & genre.

OK, rant over. Now get off my lawn!

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Muppet Babies Syndrome

I recently started listening to Trentus Magnus Punches Reality and in his first show Magnus defends Smallville. I've only seen a few episodes of the show myself, so I'm not qualified in commenting on the quality of it. I do agree with him that the premise of the show is the journey to becoming Superman, so having Clark put on the suit before the last episode doesn't make sense. One thing that I do have a problem with, and not just in this show, is what I call "Muppet Babies Syndrome."

What's that, you ask? That is the trope that we see, in TV and comics mostly, where just because characters know each other as adults, that means that they MUST have known each other as kids. Muppet Babies, Smallville, Flinstone Kids, A Pup Named Scooby Doo, etc, etc. All of these shows show horn in characters from other versions that, if you think about it, shouldn't be there.

Let's look at a typical person's life. They have friends growing up, that live near them and go to the same school. Fine, no problem. When they grow up, they go to college/get a job and meet new people. People that they didn't know as a kid. The older you get, the more people you meet. Some become closer to you than those you grew up with, some don't.

To take a character, like Superman, and say that EVERYONE he ever met in the comics knew him, at some point, before he put on the suit makes NO SENSE! You want Lana Lang, OK that works. Lex Luthor? I'm not a fan, but there's precedent there. Lois Lane? Um ... alright, if it make story sense. Green Arrow, Aquaman, Batman, and the ENTIRE Justice Society? Nope, sorry, I'm drawing the line. Superman was the hero that inspired others to become heroes, not the other way around.

Of course, the biggest problem with this is that DC then said "Wow, this show is successful. Let's bring all of that into the comics!" That was one of the things that made me stop reading the Superman comics. When Clark Kent runs into Lexcorp Tower claiming that he can talk to Lex since they grew up together, and I can pull out an issue where they first met, years after Superman made his debut, and no Crisis was involved, you lose me.

Please keep in mind that I have no problem with alternate takes on things. I can compartmentalize characters. Christopher Reeve =/= George Reeves =/= Brandon Routh =/= Tim Daly =/= Henry Cavill =/= Dean Cain =/= Tom Welling. Each exists in their own universe and doesn't affect the others. When they do bleed over, though, especially when they change the comics just because of this show/movie/whatever is popular and not for any valid story reason, that I don't like. Of course, I'm not buying new(er) comics any more, so it's kind of a moot point.

Let me stress that these are MY hang-ups. This is why I don't read the comics any more or watch Smallville. They have nothing to do with the products themselves by more my mentality. I know that I'll get annoyed by them, so why put myself through that? If you like this stuff, as Magnus obviously loves Smallville, good for you. We don't all need to like the same things.

OK, I just had to get that off my chest. We now return you to more light-hearted fare.

The Bane of my Vacation

My family recently got back from our first true family vacation and, since my daughter is 5, we figured that it was a great time to go to Walt Disney World for her first visit. We had a great time and saw everything that we wanted to, some things multiple times. There is one thing that I would change if I could, though, and that would be the strollers.

Here's the thing, my daughter is 5 and she has a hip problem that means one of her feet turns in too much, and she was able to walk everywhere we went. For 10 days at Walt Disney World she walked, usually at a good pace, and was not once carried. However, there were people there that had stroller for kids older/bigger than her. Then there were the people, yes more than one, who had babies that were only a few months old. Can anyone tell me what a baby that young is getting out of WDW?

So I've come up with a handy list of things that you should consider if you are going to any theme park, but mainly Walt Disney World, and have children.

1. If your child is so young that they cannot walk around the park all day, they are too young to go there. The whole point of going to a park like this with kids is so that they have a good time. If they are that young that they can't walk on their own for an extended period, then they either won't be able to go on a good number of rides, or they simply won't have any idea what is going on.
2. Strollers, at least from what I have seen in the park, are a hassle. They have to be parked somewhere before you get in line for something, meaning that you're leaving your property out in the open, unguarded. You also can't set them up near the trams in the parking lots, so you have to walk with the kid out a ways anyway.
3. You don't get to cut in line. Period. Just because you have a stroller doesn't give you a special jump in the wait. You actually have to take longer to get to where your going due to the stroller parking I mentioned above.
4. Have you ever been walking on a sidewalk behind a group of people who are talking and going so slow that they might as well be stopped? That's what people with strollers are like in these parks. I was in Orlando for two weeks and didn't see anyone pushing a stroller that looked like they had somewhere to go.

Bottom line: Strollers are more of a hassle than they're worth and only serve to annoy EVERYONE ELSE in the park. LEAVE THEM HOME!!!

My Issues with First Contact

I have a problem with the movie Star Trek: First Contact.  Actually, I have several, and I wanted to lay it all out here.  First of all, let me just state that I have no problem with people liking the movie.  That has no effect on me at all.  I just can’t watch it because I can’t forget what has come before.  So here are my issues.

1.       Zephram Cochrane – In The Original Series episode “Metamorphosis”, Cochrane is shown as being an independent person.  He wanted to die in space and left, at the age of 87, to go out into the galaxy on his own.  He has been on the asteroid for around 150 years and has managed to survive, with the help of The Companion, but he can’t leave.  The Cochrane portrayed in the movie, however, is a drunk and a coward.  There is no way that someone like this would have gone into space, alone, as an old man.  He doesn’t even want to launch his own ship until the TNG crew goads him into it.  Yes, people can change, but not THAT much.

2.       The Borg Queen – Up to this point, the Borg have been shown as a collective, with one hive mind that works jointly between all of the members.  They are so powerful that they overwhelm Picard in “The Best of Both Worlds” and it is extremely difficult for the crew of the Enterprise to get him back.  In First Contact, though, this is all thrown out and they show that there is a single personality in control of everything.  It does not work, at all, with the previously established idea of what the Borg were.

3.  The Prime Directive – I understand the idea of the movie is making sure that the Borg do not prevent Cochrane’s flight and, therefore, the Vulcans discovering humanity is advanced enough to contact.  However, why can’t that be accomplished without beaming down and DIRECTLY influencing the events?  All this preaching from TNG about why they shouldn’t interfere, especially in time travel, was thrown out the window with this movie.

4.       The Vulcans – Since the events of the bulk of the movie take place before the Federation and, therefore, before the Prime Directive or First Contact Protocols have been established, why would the Vulcans bother to investigate?  And even if they do decide, why would they land?  Wouldn’t it be more logical to study the planet with sensors rather than hope that they won’t be attacked on sight?

5.       The Holodeck – Alright, with all of the holodeck problems that the Enterprise crew has endured, WHY would they have a way to turn the safeties off and make real, deadly bullets!?!?!?!  That makes no sense, in universe.  In fact, the safeties on the new ship’s holodeck should be hard wired in and unable to be turned off!

Alright, I think that’s enough for my blood pressure.  Do you want to refute any of these?  Agree with me?  Add to the list?  Either leave a comment or send me an e-mail at Gene@thehammerstrikes.com

Homage vs Rip-Off

Are you ready for a rant?  If not, skip this post.

Maybe it's the fact that I am mentally about 30 years older than I am physically (meaning that I'm mentally a crotchety 68 year-old), or it's the headache I have had for the past couple of weeks, or even the podcasts I've been listening to, but I thought I'd post my thoughts on what the difference is between an Homage and a Rip-Off.  First, some definitions from dictionary.com.

hom·age  [hom-ij, om-]  Show IPA

noun

1. respect or reverence paid or rendered: In his speech he paid homage to Washington and Jefferson.
2. the formal public acknowledgment by which a feudal tenant or vassal declared himself to be the man or vassal of his lord, owing him fealty and service.
3. the relation thus established of a vassal to his lord.
4. something done or given in acknowledgment or consideration of the worth of another: a Festschrift presented as an homage to a great teacher.

rip·off  [rip-awf, -of]  Show IPA

noun Slang.

1. an act or instance of ripping off another or others; a theft, cheat, or swindle.
2. exploitation, especially of those who cannot prevent or counter it.
3. a copy or imitation.
4. a person who rips off another or others; thief or swindler.

Today we will be concerning ourselves with the bold definitions as they relate to the entertainment industry.  Do you know what the difference is?  In my opinion, whether or not you liked the final product.  Let's use Star Trek for some examples.

• Those that like JJ Abrams' Star Trek movies would call "Into Darkness" an homage to the original series and movies.  Those that don't would call it a rip-off of The Wrath of Kahn.
• Those that like The Next Generation would say that "The Naked Now" is an homage to The Original Series episode "The Naked Time".  Those that don't would call it a rip-off of the same.  (Personally, I consider it a sequel.)
• Those that like Deep Space Nine will take it for what it is, a Gunsmoke version of The Original Series' Wagon Train.  That don't like it will see it as a rip-off of Babylon 5.
• Those that like Voyager will take the show as a struggle for a Starfleet Ship to both get home and explore a strange part of the galaxy.  Those that don't like it will see it as a rip-off of Lost in Space.

So, to paraphrase Obi-Wan, it all depends on your point of view.  My point of view, however, is that the entertainment industry as a whole, and Hollywood in particular, needs to work on some original ideas.  Did any really need a remake of The Poseidon Adventure?  And what was the point of making Titanic when A Night to Remember already existed?  You want to do your own spin on Robocop?  No problem, just don't remake the original, do your own thing.

A good friend of mine, Sean Strain, has written a mob movie and, unlike everyone else since the Godfather, he based it in Maryland.  It is a fully original piece, called Spit Boys by the way, and while it does the basic "war between the families" thing, he puts a new spin on it.  It's not just a Godfather or Goodfellas rip-off, or even an homage, but <gasp> something new!  Is it really that hard to come up with something new now a days?  Does everything have to be a rehash of something else?

OK, rant over.  I just had to get that out of my system.  We now return you to your regularly scheduled geekiness.