Adventuring During Wartime

I watched You Can't Win Them All (1970) this weekend. It's a heist/adventure film set in Anatolia in 1922 during the Greco-Turkish War (a part of the Turkish War for Independence). While its era and location would mark its genre as "adventure film," in its plot, desert vistas, and horse caravans, it most resembles late era Westerns set in Mexico like the Wild Bunch or The Professionals. In fact, its plot is essentially a reworking of Vera Cruz (1954), with Turkey in place of Mexico, the Sultan instead of Emperor Maximilian I, and Turkish Nationalists for Juaristas.

While these sorts of heist-like films are often heavily plotted affairs with double and triple crosses, the mercenaries/adventurers in a not-too-heavy war zone seems like it would be an ideal setting for a sandbox hexcrawl or pointcrawl sort of game. (This is sort of the less post-apocalyptic cousin to the devastated city hexcrawl.) The breakdown of the previous society by Civil War provides virtually all the elements that a true Frontier has, plus it has the added wrinkle of powerful factions. Emphasis would shift a bit, so that resource management in the wilderness would take a bit of a backseat to social interaction and low level political maneuvering.

Weird Revisited: Five Million Years to Dungeon

The original version of this post appeared in July 2010. I had just rewatched Five Million Years to Earth the weekend before.



Five Million Years to Earth (originally known in the UK as Quatermass and the Pit) was a 1967 Hammer Film adapted from a 1958 BBC TV serial of the same name. This was the third Hammer Film adaption of one of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass serials, featuring the British rocket scientist, Bernard Quatermass’s encounters with X-Files-esque alien incursions.

For those who haven’t seen it, the film starts with the discover of an anomalous primate skeleton by workmen digging a new underground station in Hobb’s End, London. The large-brained primate is found in strata much deeper than it has any business being. If this discovery weren't enough, digging is halted again when what is taken for a unexploded German rocket is found nearby--only the so-called bomb isn’t magnetic.

Quatermass gets called in, and soon discovers the thing isn’t some V-rocket, but something far stranger--an alien spacecraft. The history of Hobb’s End as “bad place” plagued by ghost sightings and poltergeist activity, and a shape suggestive of a pentagram on the outside of the craft, leads Quatermass to link the presence of the craft with the human perception of supernatural evil. When they are finally able to get inside the craft and find tripodal, arthropod-like creatures with horns--suggesting the horn’s of the devil--Quatermass sees his theory as confirmed.

A few more experiments and a lot more ominous psychic phenomena later, and we find out the aliens are Martians who, like Lovecraft’s Old Ones, experimented on human ancestors and influenced our evolution. Their race dying, the Martian’s came to the “hostile” environment of earth and tried to turn humanity into a mental continuation of their race, if not a physical one. This includes, unfortunately, their violent attitudes about racial purity, which awaken horribly in London humanity in the film's climax.

It occurs to me that this might be a good explanation for dungeons, if one wanted to go in a weird science-fantasy direction, rather than a “mythic underworld” one.

Consider this: a spacecraft from a dying world crashes in the ancient past on a fantasy world. Their psychic power is considerable--maybe they're those perennial brainpower-baddies, the mind-flayers, or maybe they're the thri-keen (why not give those guys something to do for once?). This race goes about influencing the evolution of the world. Maybe orcs and other humanoids are derived from hominid stock, or maybe, in a twist, humans (the moral mixed-bag), are derived from goody-goody elvish or dwarvish stock. Unlike Qautermass’s Martians, maybe our hypothetical race doesn’t stop there. Perhaps a whole lot of dungeon monsters are part of their attempt to recreate all the flora and fauna of their dying world? Other things, like undead, might be manifestations of their powerful psychic residue lingering in their semi-sentient technology. You get the idea.

This would probably work best in a world with only one dungeon (a megadungeon, naturally) where this was the “ultimate secret” in its lowest depths. Who knows, after discovering the spacecraft in the dungeons lowest levels, and mastering (or not) the alien psychic-tech, maybe the PCs go on their own voyage of conquest High Crusade style?

Guardians of the Galaxy, Vol. 2

I was not as fond as most people of the first Guardians of the Galaxy film. I saw Vol. 2 last night, and while I still wish I had gotten a Farscape movie instead, I think this one is a better film that the first.

In brief, the new movie pits the Guardians against the Goldenskinned authoritarian snobs of the Sovereign (who they ripped off) and Ego the Living Planet (a universe-imperiling threat). It has plenty of action and perhaps even more physical comedy that the first (too many hyperjumps causes cartoonish facial deformation). It manages to give all the characters some story beats and something interesting to do--something that other large cast Marvel films haven't managed as well. In contrast to the first film, the characters are allowed to grow a bit, in contrast to being reduced from their two dimensional comic versions to one dimensional cliched archetypes. Freed from the need to blatantly tie in to a larger Marvel "epic", Vol. 2 gets to more full psychedelic space fantasy, like Farscape if it were a Heavy Metal comic or Star Wars with a dayglo aesthetic and more dick jokes.

There are still some things I didn't like: I have come to the conclusion I just don't care for the Marvel Studios "fantastic" aesthetic. I thought Asgard looked like a Nike commercial version of the Star Wars prequels, and the first Guardians of the Galaxy managed to make Chris Foss inspired designs seem uninteresting. I'm still not sold; it all looks very expensive video for a pop song I don't like, but there are hints this time of a particular philosophy of design that makes the seedy Contraxia and the ostentatious Sovereign throne room work for me better than anything in the first film.

Also, it still seems like dimension hoping more than space travel. Forget Serenity's "into the black;" except for the fact that people dying in the vacuum is a plot point, you could be forgiven for not realizing they were ever in space. Everything is as awash in color, and planets are passed in travel not as planets but as little tableaux or comedy scenes, like the cosmic equivalent of the hapless fruit vendor getting his stand smashed in a car chase. I think colorful, busy design can be but to great purpose (I love Speed Racer) and in sci-fi (like The Fifth Element or the upcoming Valerian), but something about the way Marvel does it rubs me the wrong way.

Oh, and the music cues are omnipresent. Upping the ante from its predecessor (but in line with Suicide Squad) its much like a series of short music videos for classic pop songs. While not as bad as Suicide Squad in this regard, it also has a few that are so on the nose that the movie is sort of narrating itself to you in song (cf. "My Sweet Lord").

Bottom line: If you liked the first one, you will almost certainly like this one. If you were so-so on the first one, you still might like this one.

Can Willow be Redeemed by Moebius? Let's Take A Look

George Lucas's Willow is no Star Wars. Even though its made from the same sort of stock characters and the same sort borrowings from early sources, but it doesn't quite come together in the same way. At least it didn't seem to to my fifteen year-old self, and it doesn't seem to to me today.

Moebius's concept work, which I first glimpse in a magazine at the time, has only grown in my estimation since. Perhaps it doesn't suggest a weird fantasy Willow or anything that radical, but it does at least suggest to me a decent Studio Ghibli-esque film might have come from the material. Let's take a look and (re-)imagine:

Here's the titular hero and (I believe) one of his Nelwyn fellows. Nothing of the pastoral gentility of a Baggins, nor the too literal "small folk" of the film. These guys make me think of Howard's diminutive and declining Picts in "The Lost Race," but also aboriginal peoples like the Emishi (in Princess Mononoke) or Ainu. A sense of the Nelwyn threatned by humanity (or Daikini) would have been nice. I like the long earlobes, too.

Madmartigan is the rogue with the heart of gold Han Solo type, but with a bit more wastrelness, he could have been a wuxia sort of character, or Sanjuro from Yojimbo, or Mugen from Samurai Champloo--both of which are great swordsman, too. Moebius gives us a design that completely fits with those characters, suggests a world of ronin or wandering swordsmen of some sort.

So at this point, you might be thinking, "basically he's just going to say Willow should have been more Asian?" So now I'm going to throw you off:

King Kael here (General Kael in the film) is described as "bestial" in the third draft of the script, which he obviously is here. Perhaps he is a lover of Bavmorda transferred by her magic? A reverse Beauty and the Beast (there's maybe a bit of Cocteau's beast about him. Maybe)? Or is he the captain of the flying monkeys, so to speak? Anyway, he fulfills a bit of a Witch-King of Angmar role, so fleshing out his badass villainy would have been good.

Now, it's back to the Asian stylings. The mask suggests (to me) childhood mindwarping courtesy of Bavmorda for the warrior woman Sorsha. Maybe she's just go a slight blemish, but has been convinced its a horrible disfigurement a la (some accounts of) Doctor Doom? Maybe her inhuman beauty as a daughter of the Tuatha de Danaan-esque folk of Tir Asleen is her disfigurement to her witch queen mother? Note that the mask isn't just a human mask, it's go that single Oni horn. Probably means something.

Lastly, I believe this is one of two fairly divergent designs Moebius did for the brownies--but in an earlier script draft Willow and baby get captured by elves who are described as wearing "samurai-type outfits and angry little haircuts." These are guys who (in the script) collect baby tears as part of their gig. Now think of these sinister little guys, like a mashup of the Indian in the Cupboard and the evil faerie of del Toro's Don't be Afraid of the Dark remake. I think we could do without the French accent Lucas specifies for their leader, though.

Doctor Strange

First a warning: There maybe be some mild spoilers for the latest installment in the "Marvel Cinematic Universe" in what follows.

I have to admit, that as excited I was that there was going to be a Doctor Strange movie when it was first announced, I have not had much enthusiasm passed on the teasers and early trailers. Some of the that might have been me just tiring of Marvel's house style, but for whatever reason, I was underwhelmed.

The actual film wound up being better than I had expected. The design aesthetic of Marvel's films when it comes to the really fantastic non-superhero elements (Asgard in particular, but also some parts of Guardians of the Galaxy) has always left me cold. Also, the relentless desire to de-mystify or over-rationalize all the magical elements of the Marvel Universe works passably with some things (like the Darkhold on Agents of SHIELD) but hollowed out the grandeur of Kirby's sci-fi Norse mythology from Thor.

Happily, Doctor Strange is not particularly de-mystified. (The Ancient One offers an explanation of magic similar to one of the options Kenneth Hite provided Rough Magicks.) In fact, they really play up the (unintended presumably) psychedelia of the Ditko-era stories, though they convert it to a more filmic approach. There are resonances with both 2001 and Afronosky's The Fountain.

How the magic is employed winds up being a bit like a combination of The Matrix, Inception, and previous superhero films. I like how they moved away from strictly super-powers, and you could see how they were reaching for Ditko and perhaps Starlin with some of it. The spells as mostly sputtering sparks drawn in the air didn't quite suit me, though I don't have a ready alternative in mind. It all worked passably.

The plot is a means to an end. The similarities to Inception and The Matrix at times made its mere adequacy more evident, but when you're a vehicle for elaboration of a shared universe, you don't have to shoulder so much weight yourself, I suppose. All the cast does a pretty good job with what they are given. Tilda Swinton, despite expressly being "Celtic," does the movements, stances, and cryptic comments of the "Asian Master" almost as much as Joel Grey in Remo Williams without the obivous yellowface, so I'm not sure not casting an non-Asian actor as the Ancient One really allowed us to avert all those stereotypes. Still, I liked her protrayal.

The Marvel fan in me exulted to see the Dread Dormammu (Though I was underwhelmed by his dread "we didn't think about this very much" CGI-ness. He was of the ilk of Parallax in the Green Lantern film or "The Absorbing Man" in Ang Lee's Hulk). Further fannishness: Instead of having Mikkelsen's baddie be named for a mook that worked for Baron Mordo in the comic, why not have him be Kaluu, the Ancient One's rival?

Suicide (Squad) is Painless

I was never terribly excited for Suicide Squad. This isn't my preferred version of the team, and the trailers recalled Guardians of the Galaxy, which was not among my favorite of Marvel films. The negative reviews didn't change my perception. After seeing it last night, I feel like I misjudged Suicide Squad, and I think it is a better movie than rap its getting.

First off, it does resemble GotG in some ways, but uses those similarities to different ends. GotG's AM Gold soundtrack and stock characters were meant to pander and reassure. It wants desperately to convince you that this is like those these things you like and in doing so become on of those things. Whatever Warner Bros.' and Ayers' intentions, the film Suicide Squad seems indifferent to your like or dislike. It wants just to entertain. It uses (or overuses) musical cues like captions or narration to save itself time spent with building scenes or establishing drama. It's got other stuff it wants to do. The characters could all be described in a single comic caption box, but unlike GotG, to the extent that any have hearts of gold, it's only to accentuate the realpolitick evil of Amanda Waller (who out dicks Dick Cheney) and sometime sanctimonious soldier Rick Flagg.

Suicide Squad is perhaps the most comic book-y of comic book movies since the Batman 1966 film spinoff.  It's first 30 minutes plays like a Marvel after credits sequence with cameos and references to movies that haven't been made yet. "Of course a DC Universe exists; let's just start from here," it says, rather than wasting any time trying to prepare a timid audience or slowly build suspension disbelief. Metahumans. Superman's dead. Ancient witches. Batman. And on we go! Harley Quinzel was a Marilyn Monroe breathy-voiced psychiatrist who falls for the platinum-capped psychopath she calls "Mister J" is only as convincing as the images themselves burlesque backstory you know. Either you buy it or not, we ain't going to try to convince you.

In the end (again like GotG), it succumbs to defeating a narratively poorly sold and visually uninteresting and CGI swirly world menace, in a run of the mill superhero action sequence. Before that it's a live action 00s comic, and the extent to which you like it may be dependent on how you feel about that.

Star Trek Beyond

I finally got around to seeing Star Trek Beyond this weekend and I would agree with the assessment that it is an improvement over the last NuTrek film, and possibly the most Classic Star Trek in vibe of the bunch. It's certainly as "trekky" as most of the Next Generation era films.

Things I really liked:
- Several Explicit references to Enterprise. Enterprise-era technology comes into play, we see Enterprise-era uniforms, and the Xindi War is referenced.
- The design of the Yorktown Starbase and the swarm nature of Krall's fleet are a departure from anything we've seen in Star Trek before, true, but they're good visuals and good sci-fi, expanding the possible of the Star Trek universe. They also would fit really well in Strange Stars.
- Shohreh Aghdashloo from The Expanse in a small role as a Starfleet Admiral. Perhaps it was a bit of stunt-casting given her role in another science fiction series or maybe not, but at any rate she was a good choice.

Things they continue to be solid with NuTrek films:
- All the main cast members get something to do, and the actors are good in the roles.
- Good action sequences (and better than the last film) and good pacing.
- If you've got to destroy the Enterprise, this film does it in a reasonably gripping and spectacular way.

Things I didn't like:
- I thought the uniforms in NuTrek were great. The change isn't terrible, but it's a step down for me.
- A whole bunch of aliens in multiple scenes but never any we've seen before. (Old Trek films are guilty of this same thing, though.) Would it kill 'em to show me an Andorian or Tellarite?

Dangling Questions:
- What is the "in story" reason that Krall and his cronies' true identities were obscured? Was it purposeful or a by-product of their life extension somehow?

The Sacred Scrolls, Illustrated

Having watched Planet of the Apes (1968) on the big screen this weekend, I've got the PotA franchise on the brain. I've blogged before about a couple of great reference works written by Rich Handley. I discovered there's another by that same author and others: Sacred Scrolls: Comics on the Planet of the Apes.

I haven't got it yet (it's on order), but it promises to cover everything from the Gold Key stuff to BOOM! Studios. As long as the story depicted on this cover gets the attention it deserves , I'll be happy:

Chronology of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Unlike the comic book version of the Marvel Universe with its sliding timeline in order to keep characters perpetually young, the Marvel Cinematic Universe has to employ real live actors and has no reason not to tie things to real dates since the actors are just going to get old anyway.  The movies don't pin themselves down so much on when the actual films take place (or their references are contradictory), but we do know quite a bit about the events before them:

Tony Stark was born on May 29, 1970.

Hank Pym resigns from SHIELD in 1989.

Howard and Maria Stark are assassinated by the Winter Soldier on December 16 1991.

Anyway, check out these timelines here and here.

Civil War

Captain America: Civil War (or as my friend Matt Penn insists it must be called "The War of Superhero Aggression") manages to transmogrify the 2006 crossover even that made me virtually stop reading Marvel into an entertaining film, though it is inferior to its predecessor, Winter Soldier.

Civil War plays with interesting thematic elements: individual freedom vs. control, dealing with consequences of well-intended acts, the destructiveness of vengeance, Iron Man vs. Captain America (ok, not a theme)--but mostly it's about superheroes wailing on each other, and it doesn't think a whole lot about what it has to do to get there. So we get an unelected monarchy lecturing the Avengers about accountability after a handful of civilians die when the Avengers prevent the release of a toxin into the city of Lagos that would have killed who knows how many, and the U.S. secretary of state rushes headlong into putting American superheroes (several of whom were super-secret agents of the U.S. government just a film ago) into the hands some sort of UN committee.

Now, even if all that can be made since of with the pat "the Marvel Universe is different from our own," we also get former soldier Captain America being the staunch "we can't be under someone else's control!" guy, which for most of the translates as "my friends shouldn't have to face consequences for their actions!" The film has to have those who oppose him behave stupidly and heavy-handedly to make his position justified.

The villain in the film seems to have accounted for all these things, because his plan hinges entirely on people performing very specific actions that there's no way of knowing they would do. He and Batman vs. Superman's Lex Luthor must have take the same super-villain prognostication classes.

All this, though, is in service of a superhero punch 'em up, which is a sight to behold. We get all of Marvel's crew and sees some great tricks pulled out including one big reveal I won't spoil, but also the classic bit of Ant-Man riding Hawkeye's arrow. This battle is probably the best done multiple characters battle in a supers film-- it beats any of the X-men films in that regard, I think.

We also get the intros of Black Panther and Spider-Man. I'm ready for that Black Panther film now. This Spider-Man is probably my 3rd favorite cinematic portrayal (though I have no doubt there are many places where Marvel Cinematic Universe adherents are proclaiming he's finally "done right" now that he's in the "Universe.") but I don't blame the actor as much as the writing and the use he's put to in the film.

All in all, it's a solid superhero film. I'd put it above Age of Ultron.

Superman v. Batman is Just Ok, But It Made Me Hopeful for Justice League

I saw Superman vs. Batman: Dawn of Justice last night, and while I don't agree with the degree of negativity in a large portion of the reviews (some of which I suspect were at least partially composed before the movie even came out, given the hate it got and Zack Snyder gets in some quarters), a lot of the specific criticisms aren't without merit. The movie tries to do a lot and at times making this particular movie good in this particular moment seems to take a backseat to setting the dominoes in place for later scenes or future films.

The good: It's generally shot well and well-acted. Ben Affleck is both a good Bruce Wayne and a good Batman. The fight scenes in general are good, but particularly in the area of "Batman vs. normal folks" which have suffered in previous Bat films. Amy Adams as Lois Lane (though she doesn't have as much to do as I would like). Lawrence Fishburne as Perry White. The rationale and structure for how the Justice League sequels are established. The fact that Gotham and Metropolis are across a bay from each other (as suggested by numerous Silver and Bronze Age comics). The result of the battle with Doomsday (which I would not have done but is an interesting way to move forward). And Wonder Woman--pretty much everything to do with her:

The not good: The choppy nature of the first half of the film; I realize "show don't tell," but showing too much makes your film a series of vignettes. Some of that could have been handled as exposition. Batman is far from the world's greatest detective here. Luthor has a nicely set up super-villain ridiculous plan (I mean that to be complimentary) in many ways, but his final push that makes Batman go into a reason-abandoning, anti-Superman frenzy is elementary school level subterfuge. Superman standing or floating majestically instead of--well, doing something--too many times; I realize less-active-Superman is a tactic other media has often engaged in to deal with his power level (even in the DC animated stuff, Superman moves awful slooowwww at times for a guy with super-speed and super-reflexes), but it just makes you mad at him. Here his passive broodiness is suppose to convey emotional conflictedness (I guess), but they didn't sell you on that with dialogue. Lex is sometimes perfect in his manic-ness and other times overdone; my biggest complaint regarding him is that no one in story comments on his clearly mentally ill behavior until he reveals his villainous plan.

10 Cloverfield Lane and the Mystery Misdirection

I saw 10 Cloverfield Lane this weekend. For those of you wondering if it has anything substantively to do with the 2008 found footage monster film: the answer is "no." There are some easter eggs, maybe.

That's about it. For those of you who don't care anything about that and think the trailers look intriguing: you should see it. It's a decent thriller in a confined space with a couple of twists. In brief: Melissa (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is driving--well, somewhere--after a breakup. There are odd news reports on the radio, but before she can register any of this given her personal drama, she's in a car accident. She wakes up in an elaborate bomb shelter built by Howard (John Goodman) who tells her attacks have come from well, somewhere, and everyone else is dead.

Needless to say, Melissa is not immediately convinced that her captor is telling the truth or that his motivates are altruistic.

 From gaming perspective, you could say the the underground bunker in which Melissa finds herself is a variant of the mystery sandbox--or more accurately, a version of the mystery terrarium, because there are two mysteries in 10 Cloverfield Lane and only one is the protagonist (or PC) initially aware of. A game in as small a space as the film would likely need to be very shorter than the usual mystery sandbox or even mystery terrarium, but it show's the way those sorts of campaign set-ups can be made to work longer, by distraction with another, more momentarily pressing mystery.

Doing something like this, you get more time in a campaign before the Big Discovery. The danger is you build in too many "mysteries of the week" that the big reveal doesn't seem so big when you final get there.

The Historicity of The Witch

I got a chance to check out The Witch this weekend and it was well-worth it. It's a well-executed historical horror film that eschews the jump scares and other tropes of most modern horror in favor of building a sense of dread. (It perhaps resembles in some ways It Follows though in style not content.) Though its a very different film, it would probably make a good double feature with A Field in England.

Anyway, my friend Jack wrote a good review here.

Robert Eggers, the writer-director, emphasized historical accuracy in the film, even down to sampling dialogue from period references (though unfortunately, we do know which specific ones for which piece. Maybe an annotated screenplay will be released?). Here's a post on an early American history blog reviewing the Witch's portrayal of witches compared to period beliefs in the early colonial area.

The New York Public library put together a resource and reading list for the film, including the works Eggers specifically mentions in interviews.

Adventure Seeds from the Silver Screen

Here are a few adventure seeds, side quests, what have you, riffed off of films which might not neccessarily scream "adventure fodder."  

Mild SPOILERS follow, if you haven't seen the films. 

"What happened to her eyes?"

Quarantined by fearful authorities in a sprawling but isolated keep, the players combat an outbreak of a strange contagion which turns its victims into raving undead.

"Men like tempered steel.  Tough breed.  Men who learn to endure."

The PCs are hired by a nobleman to rescue his wife who has supposedly been kidnapped by a half-orc bandit chieftain, and taken to his wilderness stronghold.  As the mission unfolds, the PCs find that everything may not be as simple as they've been told.

"Ghost or not, I'll split you in two."

In a rural fiefdom, people live in fear of a monster which strikes without warning, killing people and livestock.  The PCs are hired to find the mysterious beast.  The hunt isn't easy as it appears, as powerful conspiracies fester, and the monster attacks may only be part of a larger, sinister plan.

"There ain't nothing sacred about a hole in the ground or the man that's in it.  Or you. Or me."

The PCs hear that a nobleman is offering a hefty reward for anyone who brings him the head of the scoundrel who got his daughter with child.  A little investigation reveals the scoundrel is already dead and buried, which ought to make acquiring his head easy...Except that the grave's in hostile territory and other bounty-hunters are on the trail.

"ribbit."

A PC excitedly brings an old box he found in the corner of a dungeon to the rest of the party.  It contains an ordinary appearing frog.  The PC relates that the frog told him that it's actually a Slaad potentate imprisoned on this plane, and cursed to this form.  If the PCs aid its return to its home plane, it promises them vast riches as reward.  This is what the frog's discoverer assures the others.  The frog or Slaad, however, never speaks to anyone but the character who found it...

Bone Tomahawk

The Western horror film (or Horror Western) subgenre is a Boot Hill populated enough that you can probably think of a few, but neglected enough that very few of them are particularly good. Bone Tomahawk (now on streaming services) sits comfortably within that small group--and probably among the best of that company.

Briefly, its apparently sometime in the 1890s (though it looks more 1870s-80s) two bushwhacker thieves (Sid Haig at his most Denver Pyle and David Arquette pretty much David Arquette) accidentally enter a secluded canyon where a lot of human bone decoration should tell them they are in a place they shouldn't be.

Eleven days later, Arquette is mark as suspicious by the constabulary of the town of Bright Hope. Sheriff Hunt (Kurt Russell) puts a bullet in his leg to keep him from escaping. The Samantha O'Dwyer (Lili Simmons) either a doctor or a nurse, I'm not sure, is summoned to provide medical assistance, leaving her broken-legged cowboy husband Arthur (Patrick Wilson) convalescing at home.

That night after some strange sounds and the slaughter of the man tending the stables, a prisoner, a deputy, and Mrs. O'Dwyer are missing and presumed kidnapped by Indians. Or not Indians, as a locale Native American informs them; a degenerate, subhuman, cannibal tribe called "troglodytes."

Stalwart Sheriff, hobbled cowboy and worried husband, Walter Brennan-esque "back up" deputy (Richard Jenkins) and dandified former Indian fighter (Matthew Fox) set out to find their townsfolk and bring them home, wholly unprepared for the horrors they will encounter.

People have likened Bone Tomahawk to The Searchers meets The Hills Have Eyes, but it lacks the scope and drama of the former and the visceralness of the latter. All the actors are competent and their characters well-realized and the dialogue is a bit of Tarantino, a bit of Deadwood, and generally good. The only problem is for its running time, the characters aren't given a whole lot interesting to do or talk about. The journey to the Valley of the Hungry Men doesn't really build tension like it could have, and the horror of the troglodytes isn't developed in the same way it was done in a film like The Hills Have Eyes or The Descent. There is violence, certainly, and a bit of gory, but it didn't feel like there was as much of either as the setup called for.

Those criticisms aside, it's a competent film well worth seeing. The nature and proclivities of the troglodytes make me wonder if perhaps the Appalachian crawlers of The Descent are descendants of an eastern branch of the troglodytes?

The troglodyte's eerie communication suggested a number gameable thing to me. It's been proposed than though the Neanderthals lacked full verbal communication as we know it, they might have used singing to convey information and coordinate efforts, as musical ability appears to evolutionarily older. It's certainly a potentially strange and inhuman sort of trait Bone Tomahawk puts to good effect.

Go to the Ants

Ant-Man opened this weekend and likely Marvel has another hit a hero, despite the wisdom repeated in even mostly positive review that the whole concept is ridiculously. Because you know, science fantasy Norse Gods speaking Renfair is gritty realism.

What a guy who shrinks and talks to ant is fantasy in a way super-soldiers, and capitalists in powered armor may not be. It's a a child-like fantasy; one where everyday items become hazards and improvised weapons. A running bath tube creates a tidal wave; a flying ant becomes a steed. It's ridiculous only in the way that Alice in Wonderland or the Wizard of Oz is ridiculous. Ant-Man is just a hero it's hard to grittify credibly. It's stuff too much fun.

if you like the Marvel films, you will like Ant-Man. Marvel Entertainment has their formula (for both better and worse) down to a science. The beats are similar and the humor is there. The review talking points (Perhaps passed out by the production company. They've done it before.) highlight how comedic it is, but I don't think it's really any more comedic than say Iron Man III. It certainly isn't a superhero comedy like The Green Hornet.  Likewise, reviewers will say it's different from the other Marvel films because it isn't about "saving the world"--which ignores Pym and Lang saying that's exactly what they're out to accomplish.

So ignore all that stuff and just enjoy. For the Marvel Comics fan, you get a hint of Hank Pym's Cold War secret hero career. You get to see the Wasp's finest hour. You get a glimpse of the Microverse--excuse me, Quantum Realm. A decade ago, it would have been hard to imagine any of that on the big screen.

The best stuff is the shrinking stuff, though. The special effects look really good and there are a couple of nice set-piece battles between shrunken combatants. The ants have character, too, even if the mix of species is a strange one for the film's location.

It's not perfect. There are some nonsensical bits in the script, that may have come from different versions being stitched together. Is Lang a recidivist criminal cat burglar or a mechanical engineer that burgled a dishonest company just once for revenge? Is Darren Cross made crazy by Pym particle exposure as everybody keeps saying even though we haven't seen him have any particular exposure until late in the film? And there is other stuff.

Fridge Logic, for the most part. These things won't bother you when you're watching one inch tall guys hurl toy trains at each other--and that's really for the best.

The Return of Hawk the Slayer

Long time readers of this blog are aware of my affection for the 1980s fantasy film Hawk the Slayer. Looks like the long-anticipated sequel, Hawk the Hunter, may come to pass via a Kickstarter campaign launching this August after a special screening of the first film at FrightFest in London. Writer/director Terry Marcel has cut a deal with Rebellion (game maker and publisher of 2000 AD) getting Kickstarter assistance and giving Rebellion game and publishing rights. Could Hawk be going multi-media in the future?

Anyway, a bit more information here.

Also, Hawk the Slayer is dropping on blu-ray tomorrow in the UK! I suspect this means a region B release, but hopefully a region A version for us in the Americas is in the works.

Guardians of the Galaxy

Guardians of the Galaxy is probably not a great film as science fiction. I don't mean in the "so implausible!" sort of nonsense, I mean that it doesn't evoke the feel of another world in the way that almost anything in the Star Wars series does. Maybe that's unfair--Star Wars is really good at that, after all--but I would say GotG is less good at that then Serenity or Chronicles of Riddick, as well. It's most sense of wonder inducing location is Knowhere, and it doesn't really do as much as it might with a place that is a giant alien head that people are living in and mining! (I shoud point out that Farscape did something similar back in "Home on the Remains" in 2000).

Also, it probably falls short as an epic. It's villains are sort of perfunctory and at times a bit silly. Maybe it's seeing Lee Pace on Halt and Catch Fire too much these days and knowing Karen Gillan only from Dr. Who, but they seemed almost laughably over the top in early scenes. The makeup designs were good, but it felt like Gunn might be directing them to try to out "drama!" Shatner and Montalban in Wrath of Khan. If either had had a mustache they would have no doubt twisted it. I will say this attenuated a bit as things went on, so either they got more comfortable in the roles, or it was just me.

All that said: I think it's a good movie. It's a fun movie. It has great pacing. It's main characters (while simple in characterization) are all given both good comedy and dramatic moments. While I didn't find it as funny as some, I will say their are really very few groaner lines for this sort of thing.

Most of all, I think it's a great blueprint for a space opera-ish rpg campaign. The characters all have their own roles and the group has their own ship. They are initially mistrustful, but they find reasons to team up. Action takes preference over world-building, but there is just enough of the latter to intrigue players. The climatic battle is big, but structured in such a way to give the PCs central rolls. The ending sets things up perfectly for more adventures.

So yeah, go see it, despite my nitpicks.

Also: Maybe it's just me, but it bears a strong resemblance to Farscape. A disparate band escapes prison, We've got a pop culture referencing, sometimes buffoonish, hero from earth, a badass warrior woman betraying her people who has sexual tension with the hero, a sonorous-voiced warrior mourning his wife and child, a diminutive and amoral nonhuman, and a tender-hearted plant being. Weird, huh?

Ape Days Dawning

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is the sequel to 2011's virtually interchangeably titled Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Fans of that first film will find the sequel does not disappoint. The story picks up 10 after a genetically engineered virus meant to cure Alzheimer's instead kills 90% of the human population and raises the intelligence of great apes. Caesar and his band have been hiding out in the Muir Woods, building a Stone Age society where "ape does not kill ape" and other sensible things, but they again come in contact with humans. Since these films are prequels (or reboots) to the Planet of the Apes series, if you guess conflict with humans is going to disrupt this ape Eden, you would be right.

Anyway go see it. Here are some thoughts I had related to the film, but not specifically reviewish:

1. The whole inadvertently released viral vector origin (at odds with what was presented in the original film series) brings it closer to the origins of the Great Disaster in DC Comics, where the drug cortexin (maybe plus some radiation) leads to anthropomorphic animals of all sorts. You can read about this in Kamandi #16, and the Great Disaster in general in Kamandi and in Showcase Presents: The Great Disaster.

2. The Planet of the Apes world (either the original films or this series) would make a good roleplaying setting. Terra Primate does that, but you could just as easily do it in Mutant Future by toning down the number of mutants and mutations (though the original series suggests you don't need to eliminate it entirely). Over here we've got a the original PotA apes as a race (with sub-races) for Mutant Future. The apes in the new film are more realistic. At the point of Dawn, they all still have the Simian Deformity disadvantage. Speech seems to be a bit difficult (or perhaps just uncomfortable) for them, so they tend to use sign language, and they don't have the manual dexterity of humans either. The subrace system should be ditched, too.

3. A Medieval Planet of the Apes could easily become a dungeoncrawling sort of setting--Beneath already has a dungeon of sorts.  Over at The Land of Nod, John Stater has already thought of this. He gives us "realistic" versions of the original series species for D&D-derived games and a sample dungeon!

Summer Movie Gaming

With the summer movie blockbuster season upon us (even though it's only Spring), it's worth looking at the releases we know about and seeing what sort of summer gaming inspiration we can glean, thereby.

Godzilla
It's that classic tale: Giant monster meets city; Giant monster destroys city. This sort of thing could fit in several different genres/games. You can take the whole "military or scientist types dealing with the disaster" angle in something like WaRP, maybe. Of course, a kaiju could attack a D&D-ish fantasy world (Oriental Adventures did stat "gargantua"), so they could just have a slugfest with high level adventures. "Giant monster horror" (as suggested by Cloverfield) might suggest using a modification of the GUMSHOE game Fear Itself. Worth a shot.

You could also go for a Pacific Rim or Shogun Warriors sort of approach. For that, I'd suggest my own quick and dirty old school Giant Space Robot rules.

X-Men: Days of Future Past
A classic X-Men story-line finally gets a big screen treatment. I know I've generally neglected the comic book staple of alternate futures in my superhero role-playing. If you guys are the same, this film could be a corrective. Also (like X-Men: First Class it follows) it's probably going to have some retro-heroics in an earlier era. With comics relying so heavily on Golden Age versus Modern, I suspect a lot of people neglect post-WWII historic eras for games. I think that would actually have a lot to offer.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
If you can't see the gaming possibilities of virtually all of the ape films, you probably just shouldn't be gaming. Eden Studios even made Terra Primate, so there's a dedicated game to support your Planet of the Apes style adventuring. You could do this sort of thing just as easily in any post-apocalyptic game.

Guardians of the Galaxy
This one is the trickiest on the list; not because it's likely to be hard to get gaming inspiration from, but because it's a Marvel Studios superhero film ostensibly, but it probably offers more inspiration for cinematic space opera like Star Wars. Still, future/space supers is a common subgenre in the comics (Legion of Superheroes, Starjammers, and two versions of Guardians of the Galaxy) so this is a good excuse to give that a try, if you haven't.