What were the Lessons in The Nightmare Before Christmas?

25 years ago (geez, I'm getting old) the stop motion film "The Nightmare Before Christmas" came out. This is one of those films that I think everyone likes, and many of us love. It also manages to straddle the entire time between October and January, making it not only really re-watchable, but worth it for Disneyland to do a makeover every year on the Haunted Mansion.

One thing that isn't so obvious, though, is what the movie is trying to tell the audience. I have it narrowed down to two possibilities, one constructive and one destructive. Let's tackle the destructive one first, since it's quick and I'm less fond of it.

"Stay in your box with your friends and leave everyone else alone." Not a great lesson, but one that it pretty easy to see in the film. Jack tries to branch out of what he normally does and royally screws things up. Santa verbally slaps him down and goes on to fix things. We're left with Jack realizing that he should have just left well enough alone and focuses again on Halloween. Like I said, I'm not fond of that lesson, so let's go on to a more positive take.

"It's great that you want to learn new things, but don't ignore the input of others." This is a much easier pill to swallow, since we see Jack trying to figure out everything to do with Christmas on his own. Not only does he sneak around and not actually talk to Santa or anyone in Christmastown, but he ignores Sally's warnings. All of this results in Jack setting off on a quest without knowing everything that he should, and makes a mockery of Christmas. Santa reinforces this lesson by telling Jack to listen to Sally, which leads Jack to the realization that she means more to him than he thought. We end with a possibly good, possibly bad situation where the rest of Halloweentown are enraptured by snow the way Jack was earlier. Hopefully he's learned enough to know how to focus them and will work with Santa in the future.

Those are my takes on the "messages, morals, and meanings" (to steal something from Mission Log) of the movie. What do you think? Do you have an alternate take on the movie? Let me know in the comments.

=========================
Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes

Sexy ... Michael Myers?

Did you ever come across something and you do the dog hearing an odd noise head turn? That was me when I came across this in a story by Otaku USA Magazine.

https://www.kotobukiya.co.jp/product/product-0000003086/

Yes, that is a sexy, female Michael Myers statue. I know that these statues exist for many anime and manga characters. They're not my thing (as all I see is dust gatherers) but I know some people are into that. When I saw this one, complete with the bloody knife, I just had to stare at it as my brain tried to decipher what was going on. Then I found out that the series also includes Ash from Evil Dead and Pinhead from Hellraiser, and I just gave up.

If this is what you're into, I'm happy these exist. For me, though, I'll continue to do this:

=========================
Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes

Castlevania Requiem

Last week, the video game company Konami announced that it was updating two of it's games exclusively for the PlayStation 4. Here's the announcement trailer:



That's right, I will be able to play Symphony of the Night on the PS4! That is one of my all time favorite games, and one of two that were the reason I got an original PlayStation way back when. Plus, I will be able to play Rondo of Blood for the first time! SotN is actually a sequel to RoB, so it will be very interesting to see where some of the story elements come from.

The game is downloadable only, and is currently available for pre-order. If, like me, you're a PlayStation Plus member, you can get it at a 20% discount, which means that it's only $15.99! For two classic games, that's a pretty decent deal. The game drops on October 26th, which is the same day that Season 2 of the Netflix Castlevania series comes out. I think my plans for that weekend are set.

=========================
Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes

PlayStation Spider-Man

With all of the hype recently about Spider-Man on the PlayStation, I couldn't help but jump on the band wagon. Fighting the comic book villains, swinging through NYC, using the cheat code to get the Amazing Bag-Man costume ...

Wait, you thought I was talking about the new game? Nope, I'm talking about the game from 2000 and the original PlayStation. That game was great, with a nice little story element preventing you from going to ground level with the poisoned gas. For the time, the graphics were pretty good and, while not a true open world, the map was pretty extensive. And let's not forget the narration by Stan Lee himself!

The story was on par with what was going on in the comics at the time, and I was really happy that the main villain was Doc Ock and not the Green Goblin. While there wasn't a time limit, there was a web fluid limit, which tied right in with the comics and really made you think about what you wanted to do. You could get a couple of costumes, like the Symbiote or Captain Universe, that gave you unlimited webbing but in most cases you had an upper limit on what you could carry. The Amazing Bag-Man one that I mentioned above could hold a maximum of two cartridges, for example.

This was one of those games that anyone could play, but those of us that knew a lot about Spider-Man would really enjoy. Here's a video that has the costumes and game play for your viewing pleasure.



=========================
Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes

Make sure to check out the public poll over on the Patreon Page. Open until September 30th!

The Lost Art of the Long Shot

My wife and I have started a watch through of St. Elsewhere on Hulu and one of things that I noted is the number of long, uncut shots they have. What I mean here is having a single camera, using it to follow a character but then switching to follow another character or conversation, and maybe even switching AGAIN before finally having a cut to a different camera shot. What this does is just immerse the viewer in the world by making it feel like a real place.

I know exactly why this isn't used more often, since if even one person flubs a line/action, you have to start all the way back at the beginning. Add to that the expense of moving the camera around as necessary and it does seem like a hard thing to pull off. I still miss it, though. The feeling like you're walking through a real place, with all these little things going on around you, just pulls me into a show more than anything else.

=========================
Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes

Make sure to check out the public poll over on the Patreon Page. Open until September 30th!

The Universal Table Explained

The Universal Table - Root of the FASERIP system

Adam Worth and I have recently started another podcasting endeavor, this time it's a live role-playing podcast were we play the original Marvel Superheroes FASERIP game. It's called Class 1000: A Marvel Super Heroes Live RPG, or The Class 1000 Podcast for short.

For those of you that have never played in the system, but want to follow along, I thought that I should explain the Universal Table (pictured above) and just how it gets used. You see, every Ability and Power in the game is assigned, pretty much randomly, one of the levels you see on the chart. They range, starting anyway, from Poor (4) to Monstrous (75). When you want to do something in the game, you find the rank on the table, roll percentile dice (giving a result from 1-100), and see what the color result it. Here's a quick example:

A hero wants to punch an opponent. The hero has a Remarkable (30) rank in Fighting and it attempting a "Blunt Attack", since he's just using his fists. Let's look at the possibilities.

• A Blue result is a Critical Fail. Not only does he miss with the punch, but now he's so out of position that his enemy has an easier time hitting him, or even just getting away.

• A White result just means that the punch misses.

• A Green result is a straight up hit. The hero does his Strength rank in damage, unless he was pulling his punch, to the enemy.

• A Yellow result means that the enemy was hit but he also might be Slammed for additional damage or effects.

• A Red result, the highest possible, was a hit that might also result in a Stun effect.

OK, so what happens on a Stun or a Slam? Well, the enemy rolls on the table as well, but this time he rolls his Endurance and sees what color he comes up with. Let's look at the Slam results first.

• A Blue result is still a Critical Fail. This guy gets Grand Slammed and has to roll on the Stun table.

• A White result means that he is Grand Slammed, which is what you would see from a Sal Buscema drawing with one of the characters flying away from the hit.

• A Green result means that he was knocked back one Area (the unit of distance measurement for the Marvel system).

• A Yellow result means that the enemy was only staggered. No additional damage, but he gets a minus on his next action.

• A Red result means that he resisted the Slam entirely.

Now onto the Stun possibilities.

• A Blue result means that the enemy is knocked out for anywhere between 10 to 100 rounds, which is a LONG time for encounters.

• A White result means that he is only knocked out for 1 to 10 rounds.

• A Green result means that he was knocked out for a single round only.

• A Yellow or a Red result means that he resisted the Stun entirely.

That's the basic idea of what's involved in making the rolls for this game. I hope it clears up any possible problems you might have listening to the show. If you have any questions, please feel free to post them in the Facebook Group we have, so the other listeners can get in on the conversation.

=========================
Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes

Make sure to check out the public poll over on the Patreon Page. Open until September 30th!

Statistically Speaking, Flying is Still the Safest Way to Travel.

I will say that there wasn't a huge amount of planning that went into how we're getting down to Florida for the cruise. We had the same three options to get down there, driving, auto train, or flying. This time we opted for flying and the main reason being, we won't need a car in Florida. The whole point of going down there is to get on the ship, so ground transportation isn't a huge deal.

So I went over to Priceline and checked out what our options were. Frontier was off the table, since they don't book this far out, so that pretty much left us with American Airlines. They had flights in the right time-range for us to get down and back with a good buffer in case of flight or ship delays. One thing that I did do is spring for First Class. This is for both money and comfort reasons. The comfort is self explanatory (bigger seats), but you might be wondering about the money.

Well, one of the things that pretty much all airlines are doing is charging for checked bags. American is charging $25 for the first bag and $35 for the second. I'm estimating that we'll be checking two bags each, which would bring us to $180. The premium for upgrading us all to First Class was only about $100 each, which would be $300. First Class passengers also get free checked baggage, so that means the premium seating is only costing us $120, or $40 each. I would say it's well worth that money.

You might be wondering just how it is we'll be getting between the airport and Port Canaveral. Not to worry! This is Disney we're talking about. As I mentioned in my last post, we're going to be using Disney's Magical Express, a bus service that will not only take us to the ship, but also pick-up our baggage for us! At $70 per person, I think that will save us a lot of hassle, and I know that we'll have a dedicated service to and from. Plus, it get's us in the Disney mindset right off the plane. Just look at the bus:

=========================
Like what I'm doing here on the blog and podcast? Why not check out my Patreon Page to see how you can help me do more? http://www.patreon.com/TheHammerStrikes

Make sure to check out the public poll over on the Patreon Page. Open until September 30th!