Chaotek Thoughts

I’ve recently been reading quite a few trade paperbacks. Most recently I’ve read the Watchmen, Batman: The Killing Joke, Batman: War Games, and Batman RIP. Considering that I’m mostly a Marvel fan, its been an interesting experience reading so many DC comics. I’ve found that there are things in these books that I like and hate about trade paperbacks in general.

The first two, Watchmen and Killing Joke, were self contained story lines. This was nice because you can just pick it up off the shelf and enjoy a good story. War Games, with the prequel War Drums, was also a mostly self-contained story. Sure, it took 4 books to tell the story, but it’s all there. War Drums was especially important because it helped catch me up on what was going on before the War Games story starts. It even went as far as to introduce individual characters.

Batman RIP is perhaps the example I have for a bad trade paperback. The entire story made you feel lost, not because it was a complex plot, but because I just no idea who people were and what was going on. Many story points seemed like Deus Ex Machina or just random dribble.

Coming from Marvel books, I was also impressed by War Games by how the stories were integrated into a single whole. Comics from multiple lines, from multiple Batman comics, Robin, and Catwoman, were all intermingled into a single chronological story. Even when the featured character jumped from Batman to Catwoman then to Robin, I never felt like it didn’t make sense. I got the whole story in one pass, which I thought was terrific. Marvel trades, unlike War Games, would have had the core story in one book, and each side-story in its own trade. Some might see this as being nice to the consumer because you can get the basic story at a cheaper cost, but if you were planning on reading all of the stories there was a massive lack of continuity as you read each of the trade paperbacks in order. For example with Civil War or House of M, reading the secondary trades after reading the main story book was difficult because it wasn’t always easy to figure out when this occurred in the main story, or it is irritating because the contents of the side story help the main story and would have made it better if they had been inserted into the main storyline.

DC also produced War Games in a cheaper format. Instead of being a glossy, heavy paper like you typically find in many comics and trade paperbacks, War Games was printed on paper that was very much like newspaper. While cheaper to produce, I don’t feel like the quality was diminished and I got a better product at the end of the day because I could read the entire story, with all side stories, in chronological order for a much cheaper cost than it would be to read a similar Marvel based trade where I would have felt disconnected by the side stories.

I’ve been listening to a number of podcasts lately, with many more downloaded but untried yet. About half of them are related to RPGs.

• Accidental Survivors – Focuses on modern gaming, especially D20 Modern. The group is very entertaining and experienced. Lots of good ideas for adventures and characters.
• Astronomy Cast – This is a great show for anyone interested in the universe around us. The cast is entertaining and does a great job at explaining very complex topics, such as dark matter and dark energy.
• The Onion Radio News – A fun short satire story everyday, great for killing a few minutes.
• Order 66 – A Star Wars Saga Edition roleplaying game podcast. The cast is very well informed in how the system works. Some of the extra skits are hokey at best, but the meat of the podcast is very good.
• Skeptics Guide to the Universe & SGU 5×5 – A good podcast for skeptics. The podcast does a good job at not being cynical, rather they try to evaluate if fantastical news is valid or held to scientific standards.
• Totally Rad Show – A video podcast, reviewing games, movies, TV, and comics. Very entertaining.
• X-Play Gaming Update – A 5 minute video podcast, informing mostly about the latest video game news.

What the hell were they thinking? For decades now, fans and the authors have been dreaming of making a feature film of the Dragonlance Chronicles. So they go out, get an accredited cast, then turn out such a lame, cheap movie. With the exception of the insane fan boys out there, who could possibly believe that this is a good movie…

SCRIPT: I will admit that the script followed the plot pretty well. Of course, some things had to be dropped. Other things were added to try and flesh out the story for non-fan viewers. While there were some flaws, like Paladine fighting Takhisis at the end–which made no sense, but they were few in number. The key story and concepts were all there as well as key character attributes. Overall, the script was satisfactory.

ACTING: With such a talented cast, include Kiefer Sutherland, Lucy Lawless, and Michael Rosenbaum, you’d think that the voice acting was going to be excellent. The problem was the voices were good, but there was absolutely no emotion in the voice. It’s like they were given one line at a time, without any context, to record. Given the talent of the actors, it’s tough to say where to place the blame. Was the director, well, not directing? Or were the actors just going through the motions to get a paycheck? While I wasn’t initially sure on some of the choices for the voices, by mid-way through the movie I had grown accustomed enough to not let it bother me anymore.

2-D ANIMATION: I have a theory that this movie was actually animated by an amateur fan about 30 years ago, because that’s what it looked like. It really reminded me of He-Man and the old Dungeons and Dragons cartoons in the 80s. Considering that anime like Dragonball Z are like 20 years old and still look great, why didn’t they do a better job. Maybe they pissed away their whole budget on the voice talent and didn’t have the cash to get the animation completed. The latest 2-D animation is almost photo-realistic, so why couldn’t they take some tips from the anime? There were many cases where the animation was very jerky, like they left out frames. Overall, it just comes across as cheap given the state of animation today.

3-D ANIMATION: Why bother? Its kind of like seeing the Superman Returns movie in IMAX 3D, it made it worse than seeing it all blended naturally together. Some of it wasn’t too bad, but it mostly seemed like a rough cut rather than a final draft. Once again, it just came across like they ran out of money and threw together what they had.

FINAL ANALYSIS: If you’re a fan of the books, then it’s worth renting. There’s no sense in buying it. The special features are a waste of time and the overall quality is pretty lousy. I think that this movie actually lowers the chance of getting a live-action film made. For one, it took about 30 years for the live action to get made after the lousy late-70s era cartoons. I also think this is going to sell so poorly because of the low quality that any studio will look down on its success. The whole film just seems cheap, like they ran out of cash. I have to believe this, because if someone at the maker of this film actually believes that they made a good movie they should be blacklisted from the industry. Same with the guy that green-lighted Tremors the Series on Sci-Fi.

Rating: (if you’re a fan of the novel)
Rating:  (if you’re not a fan of the novel)