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I'm Back... And So Is Disney!

I'm not going to declare a Disney Renaissance just yet. One movie just isn't enough. But! Disney's Frozen is a step in the right direction at last. I'll try to stay spoiler free in this review, but I can't make any promises. It's an incredible film that's deserving of all the praise its received so far, and this is coming from someone who saw the trailers and said “Oh. Disney's doing a Christmas movie.”

Frozen is a love story, but it's not a love story about a princess and a prince. It's the tragic love story of a sister suffering from oppressive fear and anxiety and her younger sister desperately trying to reach out to her to comfort her and help her through her illness. The movie builds this up in a number of striking images. The opening sequence during the parents funeral, where Elsa has hidden herself away in her room demonstrates a character afraid to face the world outside her room. The mantra that becomes a bit of a motif in the first two acts of the movie “conceal, don't feel” is a concept any sufferer from anxiety or depression, myself included, would be familiar with. The idea of hiding your emotions, bottling up what you're feeling so that other people aren't worried, is clearly something Elsa builds up for herself as a defence against the destructive potential of magical powers. This is aided by the connection between her magic and her emotions. When she's happy or feeling strong positive emotions, her magic is creative and even beautiful, as seen in the very famous “Let it Go” scene where she builds her ice palace, and the scene in the very beginning of the film where Elsa and Ana are playing, as well as in the very last scene, where Elsa builds an impromptu skating rink complete with beautiful ice sculptures in the fountains, in contrast to the wicked and twisted fountain she creates when she's first outed as a sorceress.

The movie plays a lot with typical Disney conventions, but never once feels hateful or disparaging of Disney in the way that Shrek did, and also manages to continue feeling like a Disney film. Although I have heard at least one reviewer criticize the animation, saying at times the main female characters felt too “doll-like” for him, I have to say that the animation in this film is incredible. The faces of Ana and Elsa are extremely expressive and engrossing. The men have less expressive faces, but as the main focus of the action is on Ana and Elsa I rarely noticed. The expressiveness of the two main character's faces really helps you to feel for the characters and helps you feel their ups and downs. In particular, Elsa's expressions demonstrate pain and fear extremely well, allowing for subtlety that's so rare in animated films. I also have to commend the animators on the way fabric and hair moves in this film. The dresses and capes let the movie feel dynamic and lively, and they flow realistically. In particular, the image where Elsa is feeling across the swiftly freezing fjord is striking and gorgeous, aiding in the over all epic feel of the film.

A large part of this emotional draw however comes from the cast. Olaf, voiced by Josh Gad, is a character I thought I was going to loathe but never quite gets to a point where he's annoying and instead manages to actually serve a purpose in the movie. Rather than using screaming and over-the-top wonky-bonkers comedy, he uses a quiet voice for his best lines. Kristen Bell brings an energy and a youthfulness to Ana, while still being a loveable and relatable character, a beautiful contrast to Idina Menzel's reserved, regal, and suffering Elsa. Kristoff, voiced by Jonathan Groff who is another alumni of Glee, does a good job as Kristoff, and has excellent comedic timing and plays off of Kristen Bell well.

That said, the film is by no means perfect. The first moment that I really disliked was the song “Fixer Upper” sung by the trolls. Unlike most of the songs, it does little to movie the story forward and feels largely like filler. While the scene itself serves some purpose, the role of the trolls feels like it either really needed to be condensed or expanded. For the most part they serve as McGuffin's to explain how Elsa's magic works, and the song felt pretty useless except for a few lines that could have also been delivered well in simple dialogue. This marks the beginning of what is largely a weak third act. There is one twist in this scene that I felt was pretty ridiculous and unearned. At this point, if you don't want spoilers, please turn away now.

Are the “no spoilers, plz” people gone? Good.

Prince Hans, it turns out, is evil. Not necessarily a bad thing, as it becomes necessary as part of the set up for the second big twist, but at the same time it felt unearned. The third act desperately tries to set up its climax, and that's where most of the weakness comes from. To quote Eudora Welty “The hardest thing ... is getting people in and out of rooms.” In this case, instead of getting people in and out of rooms, its getting them all onto the frozen fjord. But the pay off makes it all worth it, and the climax contains easily one of the most powerful images I have ever seen in an animated film, and a striking testament to the strength of love. Not romantic love, but the love of family and of siblings.

Frozen is a powerful movie, with gorgeous imagery, a strong moral that everyone can agree on that still manages to be delivered in a powerful way. 

Random Aside: Stats for Xan made in Fate Core

Hey everyone, today's blog post is not a review. Instead, I'm going to try something fun with two things I did reviews for, Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition and Fate Core. I'm going to take my favourite companion NPC from Baldur's Gate and make him a character using the Fate Core rules.

First things first: What defines Xan enough to be his High Concept? Well, what we know is that Xan is an elf from Evereska sent to Nashkell to investigate the happenings at the mines. He's a rather dour, sarcastic and pessimistic fellow, doesn't get along well with Eldoth the bard and often wishes him ill (even showing a brief moment of happiness should Eldoth fall in battle), nor does he get along with Ajantis whom he sees as having an over-simplified worldview. Xan also has a powerful Moonblade, and is a Greycloak (a sort of magical law enforcement agent) of Evereska. Additionally, Xan was chosen by the Moonblade to be it's wielder--this hints that he's probably going to be someone important later on.

Most importantly, however, Xan is a Lost Greycloak of Evereska.  That tells us how he fits into the game universe.

For his trouble, I'm going to take a quote directly from his voice set. Our Quest is Vain. Or perhaps We're All Doomed might be more fitting. Our Quest is Vain has a little more zazz and proactiveness to it, so I'm going to go with that one.

Xan's Moonblade is a pretty powerful item, as well as something indicative of him having an important role later not (never happens in BG or BG2, but if the BG:EE guys are reading this... Baldur's Gate 3? Maybe Xan should become someone important!) and something that defines his position in Evereska, so for his background aspect, rather than going with his capture by Mulahey, I think his Moonblade should get its own aspect. Chosen by the Moonblade has a lot of clout to it, especially once you realize the importance of the Moonblade beyond being an awesome item for a mage to haul around.

Xan having as many lines as he does for Ajantis and Eldoth makes him stand out in Baldur's Gate, so I think we can assume those would make good aspects as well. Ajantis Lives in a Black and White World is a pretty catching aspect, I think, and really establishes his relationship with the paladin squire.

As much as I try to stick to his dialogue for these aspects, he doesn't have a really snappy line that defines his thoughts on Eldoth, so I'm going to have to make something up. We know he doesn't like Eldoth because he views him as crude, unnerving, and just plain mean-spirited, so lets say Eldoth Should be Locked Up, as I think that pretty much sums up why he can't stand the guy. Aside from Eldoth being evil, he's also quite unashamedly criminal, and Xan is a law enforcement officer.

That covers Xan's 5 aspects. Next, we're going to cover his skills.

As Xan is an enchanter, Lore is quite obviously going to be his peak skill at +4. Xan is also an investigator, so Investigation and Empathy should fit nicely at +3. I think he'd be pretty good at telling when people are lieing, and he is an enchanter. Next down we have Will, Contacts, and Rapport at +2. As pessimistic as he is, he's also the only person who can keep Ajantis from just randomly attacking evil party members. Finally, I think Notice, Fight, Athletics, and Resources. He can use that Moonblade if he has to (I mean, sure he's a D&D mage, but I'm not going to let the mechanics trump story here), and he's pretty good at keeping out of trouble. If he were back home in Evereska, I think he'd have more resources at his disposal than he does here on the Sword Coast. As an investigator, he's kept his eyes trained, but that's not his main method of investigation.

As for Stunts, I'm going to give him the stunt Arcane Enchanter. This lets him use Lore to Create an Advantage by casting mind-affecting spells such as Sleep or Charm. If I were trying to translate him as a D&D mage, I'd also let his magic attack, but I always used him purely for Crowd Control. I mean, he is  an enchantment specialist, and he's darned good at it, so I think this is a fairly simple stunt for him to have handy.

Next I'll give him the Practiced Investigator stunt, which gives him a +2 to Overcome aspects meant to hide a criminal's trail of clues.

For his third stunt, I think something concerning the Moonblade would be appropriate so, I'll give him a stunt Chosen by the Moonblade, which grants him a +2 when using Fight to attack in melee with the Moonblade. Some might think this gives him a +2 all the time, but then they forget that something as simple as having the "Unarmed" aspect put on him by a foe, or the GM being mean and compelling his "Chosen of the Moonblade" aspect to mean he left his moonblade at home will deprive him of this +2.

So, to recap:

Xan
Lost Greycloak of Evereska
Trouble: Our Quest is Vain

Other Aspects:
Chosen of the Moonblade
Ajantis Lives in a Black and White World
Eldoth Should be Locked Up

Skills:
Lore +4
Investigation, Empathy +3
Will, Contacts, Rapport +2
Fight, Notice, Resources, Athletics +1

Stunts: 
Chosen by the Moonblade (+2 when attacking melee with Fight if wielding the Moonblade)
Practice Investigator (+2 when using Investigate to Overcome advantages intended to conceal a criminal's trail)
Arcane Enchanter  (Can use Lore to create an advantage by casting a mind affecting spell such as a sleep spell or a charm spell. This can be defended against by Will.)

Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition

13 years ago, I began a journey. This journey was abandoned for a good 10 years, but yesterday I accomplished something. I beat Baldur's Gate. In this case, it was Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition, meaning I had available to me class kits that weren't introduced until Baldur's Gate 2. I used an Inquisitor Paladin, but I didn't use any of the new party members introduced in the Enhanced Edition.

What a blast! This game is a tactical RPG of the highest degree. Through playing, I've earned a new respect for Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition, and a realization that I'm a lot smarter now than I was when I was 12.

After battling my way through dungeons, investigating corrupt merchant houses, fighting devious mages and making friends along the way, I discovered my true calling and defeated my most wretched of foes: The nefarious Sarevok.

And I beat him.

By a fluke.

The hilarious voice acting, and the uninteresting companions aside, I only have one beef with this game. That beef is with the Sarevok fight. Nothing prior to that fight prepares you for it. Prior to the Sarevok fight, no mages had any pre-cast defensive spells on them. At Sarevok, the mage hasn't just cast them on himself, he's cast them on the archer as well. And there are traps everywhere, and they're almost impossible to find as well. It is an absolutely brutal fight. I turned the difficulty down to Novice, and I still didn't beat it... fairly, anyways.

No, what I did was set my mages to drop fireballs and skull traps on them while they were still off screen, and then I sicked Minsc on them in Berserker fury. That still  wasn't quite enough.

I kept my main character hiding in the back, and what finally killed Sarevok was the fact neither he nor Tazok could see my main character hiding in the back corner, so they stopped chasing me.

And stood in a cloudkill spell instead.

That's  how I beat the game. By the main bad guy standing in a deadly spell and killing himself when he couldn't see me.

That said, Baldur's Gate is still insanely fun, and it's a tent-pole classic. It and its sequel Baldur's Gate 2 are the godfathers of the Western RPG, and the reason why Bioware has the ridiculous standards put on them that they have. Both games have great writing, interesting characters (even if the NPC companions don't banter as much in the first game), and Baldur's Gate 2 introduced the ability to romance your party members. The games took risks that few games would have dared, and created the modern RPG.

They're available on Steam, and the iPad store and well worth picking up.

The Day of the Doctor

Well, I watched the day of the doctor on Space's website last night. And I have to say, I was... unimpressed.

I have a love-hate relationship with Doctor Who. I like the show's premise, I like a lot of the actors, and on occasion it has stories that really interest or excite me. Most of the time, however, I find the stories to be lacking, or to be ham-fistedly pounding in nihilistic anti-religious worldview in the Tennant seasons. My favourite episodes (The Impossible Planet, parts 1 and 2) weren't written by the standard writers, unsurprisingly and most likely because it dared to claim not everything can be explained, even by The Doctor.

The Day of the Doctor was over-all underwhelming. After all the hype, all the build up in the preceding episodes, what we got was a rather disappointingly average Doctor Who episode. The best part was when he met the Curator, only because the actor was my favourite doctor, and he was delightfully eccentric as always.

Even more disappointing, I think we all had it in our heads that this was when the 12th doctor would die, and we would finally see the 13th doctor. But all we got of the 13th doctor was his eyes. Cool shot, but rather disappointing.

On the plus side, it was nice to see David Tennant again. He's a fantastic actor and was a great doctor, and John Hurt did a fantastic job in his role as well. Could have done without the not-Rose-Tyler character. I never liked her actor much, and I liked the character even less. All in all, I'd have to say the 50th anniversary special was a massive disappointment, and proof that we need to fire Moffat and hire that guy who wrote The Impossible Planet, because he's awesome and we need more episodes like that.

Mass Effect Overview, or Why The Mass Effect 3 Ending Wasn't That Bad (And why I'm Excited for ME4)

To anyone who knows me, it comes as no surprise that I love the Mass Effect games. I'm a complete and total Bioware fanboy, dating all the way back to the original Baldur's Gate games. I even wrote my business letter to them for my junior high language arts class. So one can understand why the vehemently negative reaction to the Mass Effect 3 endings kind of irked me.

"But!" I hear you say, "It completely invalidated all our decision through out the games! Without my own unique personalized ending, everything I decided was worth nothing!"

Well, first of all, that's complete BS. If you make it the bottom of the dungeon and get the Orb of Zot, no decision you've made up till that point matters at all. All that matters is you got the Orb of Zot. When you beat Bowser, it doesn't matter if you took a warpzone or not. The only thing that matters is that you beat Bowser. 

I think this mindset serves to demonstrate very powerfully just how much Mass Effect has mastered the illusion of choice. Because in the end, there are actually very few truly meaningful decisions. Up until Mass Effect 3, decisions you made had very little impact on the actual plot. The biggest impact was mostly on who would survive and who would die.

For instance, lets look at Mass Effect 1. This game is an absolute rail road. You get to Eden Prime, no matter what you decide you end up saving the opposite gendered human from you, and getting blasted by the beacon which gives you whacky visions. After that you have a few choices on where to go next, but ultimately no matter where you decide to go next the story plods along exactly the same. All the missions end the same way. There are a few instances (like with the Thorian Beast, or more memorably at the Krogan Breeding Facility) where you get to make decisions about who lives and who dies. But in the end these decisions have little impact on the actual plot of the story. You will still end up in a crazy fight against Saren. 

And the side quests don't really lead anywhere either. Scanning all the keepers gets you an Acheivement, and a little e-mail in ME2 that tells you "Oh yeah, by the way, keepers? Totally some kind of like thing that takes care of the citadel and used to be connected to some kind of alert system" which tells you nothing new about the keepers that you didn't already learn from Vigil. A few side quests get you some neat cameos in 2 and 3, but for the most part these side quests don't really net you anything--in fact, the simple fact that they net you resources in ME3 which can be used to help you get all the 3 endings is a vast improvement from the complete lack of impact they have in ME2, except to get the Asari business woman to recognize you rather than be stumped as to who you are. 

So, after two games in which your story had little to no impact on the actual plot, what, exactly, where people expecting out of the Mass Effect 3 endings? Did the original endings fail to tie things up? I think that's pretty reasonable. They didn't provide the sort of denouement that we wanted after spending so many years with these characters. Is it a reason to complete hate the game? I'd say "NO". The game itself was very well polished, took risks with the ME3 story and provided exciting and dynamic game play that the series had been crying out for since the original, which had stiff controls and confusing cover mechanics, and nearly impossible to aim guns.

That's another complaint I've heard. That the game play has "Sucked since ME2". What. A. Joke.

Mass Effect 1 couldn't decide if it wanted to be a Real-Time Sci-Fi ARPG with some third-person shooter mechanics, or a Cover-Based Third Person Shooter with some ARPG level-up mechanisms. It was poorly designed from a game play perspect, it's dungeons were all the same dungeon just with different rooms locked and unlocked (*COUGH*DRAGON AGE 2*COUGHCOUGH*), and movement mechanics that were baffling at best, and killed you off at worst.

ME2 was a vast improvement. The cover mechanics actually made sense, aiming the gun was far easier, and it had finally decided how to get that balance between RPG elements and cover-based shooter in such a way that it felt like it had a cohesive game design. Each of the classes was unique in its own way, but operated in such a fashion that everything made sense.

This illusion of choice, however, put unrealistic expectations on the endings of ME3, which for whatever reason drowned out the stellar gameplay, world design, and the rest of the ME3 story telling. 

A lot of people are now accusing EA and Bioware for "Milking" the Mass Effect series because of the announcement of Mass Effect 4. I'll admit I can't honestly see how furthering the series will work unless its assumed only the Red or Blue endings are canon, as the green ending was a little bit too weird admittedly, even with the expanded endings.

Ultimately, I'm excited to see where they take the Mass Effect stories from here, and I can honestly say I'm looking forward to it.

Machete directed by Robert Rodriguez

This movie is FANTASTIC. It gets a lot of flack for a lot of stupid reasons - it's goofy plotline, it's supposed political motivations (HAH!), it's grindhouse tone and the nudity (which isn't bad compared to most hollywood blockbusters), but for what it is, Machete is simply AMAZING.

Conceived originally as a joke trailer for the Grindhouse double feature (Death Proof and Planet Terror), it keeps up this tone and gives us a movie that is cheesy, violent, sexy and all around bad-ass. Danny Trejo commands the screen in this film, and every moment with him in it is fantastic. He fits the film's tone perfectly, and he immerses you into the genre immediately. The film's violence is so completely over the top (at one point, Machete spins in a circle and decapitates six people) that even my normally-squeamish wife was laughing along side my at the computer generated blood spurts and the decapitations.

This is definitely not a movie for small children, but it IS a movie that taps into the man-child inside all of us. Don't go in expecting some deep Quentin Tarantino film that's secretly some loaded political message. This is schlock for the sake of being schlock. It's the kind of movie that you just have to separate yourself from the stupidity of it, and just enjoy the ride.