Battlestar Galactica

Wow. That's all I can say after watching the new episode of the final season of Battlestar Galactica or BSG. Interestingly enough, it wasn't the revelation of the long hyped 5th Cylon that made my day. It was all the other stuff they decided to bring in. Are they all Cylon? It's a possibility. What happens now? In all, the six month wait was well worth it.

I was a fan of the original series, too. While it obviously took a lot of cues from Star Wars, which was a major influence, it was intriguing enough in that the main plot was fascinating. Despite the fact that it was campy as hell, I watched almost every episode of the original series, even watching the god-awful movies that were made from it. I thought the Viper designs were the coolest thing, though the disco light helmets of the viper pilots were bad, even in the days of disco. It was the premise of Galactica that made it so fascinating, though it seemed to be spiraling out of control by the time the series finally was cancelled.

Later on, the computer game Homeworld would pick up the same concept to create a game that was just as compelling as the series. More on this in another post.

I was rather skeptical of the new series when it first came out, I was expecting the same camp, outrageous outfits, the chrome-plated Cylons, the misplaced cheeriness that marked the original series. Instead, I was thrown into an intense, gritty, almost unrecognizable "re-imagining" of the series. It was written with a much more realistic point of view in mind, which made its human drama just that much more exciting. Also, with the introduction of completely humanoid Cylons, even the bad guys were given a human dimension. It was also much, much sexier. They could not have done a better job, in my opinion.


I was hooked. I still am. The new episode re-affirmed all my opinions of the series. Intense, extremely unpredictable, and dark, BSG will be a permanent part of my media collection once the run is finished.

DVD...DVD...DVD...DVD...

Reaction Videos

Watching YouTube cued me in to something that, I think, YouTube invented. The Reaction Video. It's an interesting thing: someone records him/herself watching (and reacting to) whatever controversial video is currently making the rounds. Take the recent spate of reactions to a set of extremely disturbing fetish videos circulated, actually more to see the reactions of people than for the merits (believe me, there are NONE) of the said videos themselves.

It's hilarious to see just how many variations of horror and disgust are out there, apparently. Here's a sample of them:



The downside of the phenomenon are the primary sources of these reaction videos themselves. They are often incredibly disgusting or horrifying; what else could cause people to react to them so violently? And, if your curiosity is piqued enough, you're going to go out and look for them. And then you'll wish you didn't.

I should know. I did just that and was punished for my efforts. The source videos are offensive to an almost unbelievable degree. So, while the reactions are funny, the videos they are reacting to are actually anything but.

That said, I'm still plotting to film my friends watching it. He he.

Watchmen

I'm a comic geek. I gather that's pretty obvious by now. However, I'm not some rabid loyalist to any particular character or group. Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, whatever. I really don't care as long as the story's good. I skirt the edges normally, looking for the unusual and unconventional. Ever hear of Blacksad? Probably not, right?

I guess the popularity of Watchmen was what actually kept me away from it. I've avoided the book for a long time, partially because everyone keeps raving about it. But, with a movie coming up, which looks really good, I finally succumbed and read the thing.

Damn.

I know Alan Moore's seen by a lot of folks out there as God, at least in terms of brilliant comic writing (and if you've seen his pictures, he kinda looks like God, or Rasputin. Take your pick.), but really, his work here is incredible. The world he creates and the characters that populate them are complex and fascinating, and the imagery in each panel is just staggering. The plot is both intricate and insanely over the top, but the effects of it are real-world horrifying.

And everything about that book is deliberate, even the use of bleedingly bright colors for all the illustrations in the book. Even Gibbon's illustration style was deliberately geared to make the comic look like a comic, but the thing didn't read like one. For a while, Watchmen was alone out there. It was pushing comics to its edge, and it did that wonderfully.

Comic books became so much smarter with Watchmen, which deservedly got the nod of critics as a genuine piece of literature. And now it's getting a movie, which has me chomping at the bit to see it.


However, I can't see it covering everything that the book did. More imporatantly, I don't think it should. To try and recreate the intricate works that are in the book on film would be a ridiculously difficult venture. All I hope is that they do a good movie, something that would satisfy everyone's joneses for a moderately intelligent action movie.

Then pick up the book and read the rest.

Zombies

Zombies. Perhaps the lamest of the creatures ever to be turned into horror icons. I mean really, a shuffling, moaning corpse with an insatiable desire for brains is supposed to scare the crap out of someone? Never mind that they are dead and, for the most part, are depicted in various forms of decay and dismemberment. They've always been kind of funny, at least that's how I used to think of them.

I say I used to think of them this way because I just read World War Z by Max Brooks. No, it's not a terribly new book, but it is the first piece of fiction I've encountered where zombies become truly horrifying, though not for what I thought they would be.

Yes, they eat brains. Yes, they're still the shuffling, moaning creatures that we all know. However, in the novel, these creatures become the very thing that drives mankind nearly to extinction, and Brooks does an excellent job of creating a scenario where it could actually happen. How does he do this? He turns the zombie phenomenon into an epidemic, a disease that spreads until every section of the world is infested. Zombie infestation causes mass panic, drastic relocations and refugees, economic collapse, and death to millions.

In many ways, the terrifying thing is not so much the zombies as it is the effects the zombies have on the world, economically, socially, politically. It explores the war from the point of view of "veterans" of that war, and carries with it the traumas, stigma, and wounds that inevitably mark ones' psyche after incidents as horrible as that. But the zombie infestation could have been anything else, disease, a global disaster, or environmental collapse and I would not be surprised to read testimonials which share a lot of the scars that the "veterans" of this war suffered.

Yonkers was the winner of an art contest held for World War Z.
It captures the perspective of the book very well.

It is also an investigation into ourselves, a reflection of how we all are as people, as nations, as societies. And while the zombies are ever present in the novel, they are more a framework, a backdrop, by which Brooks has decided to place ourselves in a position to look more closely at our own follies and weaknesses.

The book was scary, but not for the obvious. It was scary not because of the zombies alone, but it was scary because of what people do, or do not do, when faced with things as horrible as zombies.

It's worth a read. If only to give zombies a little more street cred in the ghoul hierarchy.

Freespace: The Greatest Space Sim No One's Heard Of

Freespace, a space simulator game by the good folks at Interplay and Volition, was arguably the best space simulator ever made. It had everything: an epic, moving story, more fighter ships to pilot than one ever had to, a menacing enemy that was absolutely despicable, and fantastic graphics and gameplay.

I was lucky enough to play both Freespace 1 and 2 when they came out and they blew everything else out of the water. Interestingly, the game was also decidedly bleak in its outlook, the climactic battle of Freespace 2 was not for absoulte victory, but for survival against a vastly superior opponent. The good guys don't win, they squeak through.

Beautiful... except you're running for your life from it.

Freespace was not campy, at least not as horribly campy as, say Wing Commander. Instead, it was a gripping, grim tale of warfare. The missions were often carried out on hauntingly beautiful backgrounds. The ships themselves were masterpieces. And well, as you can see in the picture above, the graphics were stunning.

It also made you feel small. On purpose. You were a fighter pilot forced to duck and dodge ships literally thousands of times larger than you. It brought the feeling of really being there to a whole new level. You were the hero of the game, but you were also just one of many heroes, all taking their part in these gigantic battles for the survival of your race. Great geeky fun!

It was also a truly gripping story, one worth playing through just to get through the story.

It has also been modded by a whole bunch of people, turning it into Battlestar Galactica and Babylon 5 simulators. But, if you ask me, the original story could stand up to these and then some.

If you can, find it in the bargain bins. It's truly, truly worth the search.

A Magazine For Thinking Men

I never thought there would be a time when I would get tired of looking at semi-naked, seductively posed women in magazines. Earlier, when FHM first came out, I bought the magazine just for the fun of being able to legally, with no shame, go up to the counter and buy a magazine with a semi-naked celebrity on the cover. No more skulking about dark malls, moving to the back of some obscure magazine store, where, ahem, "male" magazines were at the back shelf, behind old copies of Good Housekeeping and Home and Garden.

We had arrived, I thought, at a new phase in periodicals, where men could get everything they wanted, including some titillation, in one magazine! It took me a few more issues to realize that, well, no, we didn't get everything we wanted.

The pictures were all well and good, but, moving beyond that, I found the articles forgettable and, at times, just outright wastes of reading time. Eventually, I stopped.

However, finally, there is a magazine that is worth reading. Rogue magazine was a surprise when I finally picked an issue up. My first thoughts were, well, here's another magazine with pretty women on it, though the pictures seem to be more artful than those other ones. I was pleasantly surprised that I actually paid more attention to the articles than the pictures. The articles were intelligent, the (non-female anatomy) pictures beautiful. It was a good, no, a great read.

Their current issue has two available covers. I like the one on top more.

There are quibbles. I sometimes feel like a gatecrasher in some posh party, especially in the fashion and society sections, where society's elite do, well, what they do. The items on their fashion sections are all cool, beautiful, and...beyond my reach, at least for now. But then, what's life without a little aspiration, right?

Interestingly enough, it seems like you have to be firmly entrenched in society to be called a rogue. I love irony.

The images are from the Facebook site of Rogue magazine.

All Hail Lego!

I can't get to Christmas without having at least one Lego memory.

My first Lego arrived as a Christmas gift from my parents. It was a large, flattish box that rattled loudly when I shook the wrapped package. It was the first gift that I actually could not figure out, since it was in a flat box and it was intriguingly noisy. (Pieces weren't in plastic bags yet then) My curiosity eventually got the better of me and I started trying to see into the wrapper, which only revealed the red and white LEGO logo.

Lego? What in the world was that? That mysterious logo would torment me for three weeks.

I had a set just like this one.

I was to find out only on Christmas Day, which finally led me to open the said box to find a cool picture of a moonbase (it was a Lego Space set). Wow! And then, opening it, I found not a cool moonbase, but hundreds of tiny plastic pieces. No wonder it rattled, it was broken! Rising despair became rabid curiosity when my father showed me the instruction booklet. I was supposed to build the moonbase myself! And, if I wanted, I could actually build other things! Way cool!

That began a love affair with making things with my hands. Aside from my own toys, I played with my sister's Legos (she got the City sets), and mixed and matched bricks to make my own space ships and cars. I've had not only other Lego sets, but models, Erector sets (which I hand-carried home from the US, never mind that it weight nearly as much as my luggage), and video games like Sim City, which play a lot like a software version of Lego.

Needless to say, I've been a fan ever since.

I was sad for a while when Lego seemed to fade from the scene here, but I'm glad they're back! My five-year-old son now enjoys building his own toys (and very well, too, considering he's building sets supposedly for nine-year-olds) and I can't help but feel jealous. They've gotten very creative with those little blocks, to say the least. (My jaw dropped when I saw the Death Star set.)

I mean, just look at the thing!

I still get the need to build once in a while, especially with how exciting looking the new products are. However, with my son already collecting sets at a rapid pace, I wonder if I'll ever get the chance. Maybe I'll have to do it outside of the house, like some kind of plastic, blocky mistress.

Sad, I know. Just goes to show how much of a fan (and a geek) I am.

Images from Lego.com