This week the team over at Wizards of the Coast that produced the 5th Edition of Dungeons & Dragonsis coming out with the newest addition to the line of hardcover books which make up the rules and playable content for the game. Fifth Edition is by far the most popular and widely-played edition of the grandfather of all role-playing games for the last few decades and may be the most popular edition ever. This newest book is titled Mordenkainen’s Tome of Foes,and its primary function is to provide nearly 150 new monsters for use in the game’s adventures, but the book itself is so much more than that. Previous editions have focused their monster books on stuffing as many creatures into them as possible. The more monsters, the more players will find the book useful, and (presumably) the more copies will sell. What the current team has excelled at is deviating away from that “more stats are better” mentality, and instead focuses on the “why” of the monsters instead of the “how many”. And Wizards of the Coast continues to pull this off beautifully in Tome of Foes.
Whereas previous D&D editions would have had the Monster Manual, and then Monster Manual II, followed by Monster Manual III, etc., 5th Edition has the requisite Monster Manual (reviewed here) but then wowed fans with Volo’s Guide to Monsters (reviewed here). Essentially a book full of monsters, Volo’s deviated from previous norms and expectations in that it provided a wealth of information (re: text) about the monsters, their origins, histories, societies, clans and behaviors rather than just their hit points and ever-more-creative ways to wreck a party of characters. And people bought in, big time. The stories behind why mind flayers eat brains and how they manage to have a functioning society, or about the different kinds of giants and how drastically different their societies were and how they view their own roles amongst giants and their gods, were fascinating, and provided many a DM (and player) ideas for running their campaigns and players.
Limited edition, alternate-art cover by Vance Kelly.
At its core Tome of Foes still is a book full of monsters, but the background information it provides is just as deep and satisfying as that found in Volo’s. The chapters on The Blood War and the Elves are especially valuable in providing players with more sparks for their imagination. There are many new player options available in Tome of Foes in the form of playable races and sub-races. Of particular note are the new options for tieflings (a playable race from the Player’s Handbook) and the gith (a D&D favorite dating all the way back to the 1st EditionFiend Folio). The gith are a race with two sub-races who roam the Astral plane with their silver swords, marauding and fighting each other in an endless conflict that sometimes spills over into the players’ world. Tieflings currently have only one race option in the Player’s Handbook, as compared to other playable races such as elves, dwarves, and halflings, who each have two or more sub-race alternatives to customize their characters. In the Player’s Handbook all tieflings are described as being infused with the essence of Asmodeus, the ruler of the Nine Hells in D&D lore, and they have one set of abilities for their race. In Tome of Foes tieflings are provided with eight other alternatives, one for each of the rules of the eight layers of Hell that are ruled in Asmodeus’ name (he himself rules the bottom-most, or ninth layer of the Nine Hells). These options provide a wide range of play for tiefling characters, specifically different stat modifiers and innate spellcasting abilities.
For the gith, the playable race is an interesting addition to the game, with two sub-races, the githzerai and the githyanki, the two original 1st Edition races of gith. The gith are structured as other races, with a major and minor stat bonus (depending on sub-race chosen), additional abilities, alignment tendencies (though again, as with all previous 5th Edition publications, no restrictions or mandates), and of course, psionics. As with previous psionic abilities, these are spellcasting abilities with a “psionics” attribute, which allows for casting without components. In other words, a mental method of casting. Although many players continue to clamor for a psionics mechanic in this edition, it seems as though the designers are sticking to their guns: psionics is just spellcasting without mumbling, hand-waving, and balls of bat guano. And in the current version of the game, which nicely balances a wealth of meaningful character-building choices with rules mechanics that are easily accessible to the game-playing public at-large, this seems a wise choice.
Wizards of the Coast has been judicious in releasing a measured, steady flow of materials for the 5th Edition of the self-proclaimed “World’s Greatest Role-Playing Game,” Dungeons & Dragons (commonly referred to as “5E” by the roleplaying public-at-large). WotC releases two adventure campaign books per year, one every six months (give or take), in addition to one rules supplement per year. Xanathar’s Guide to Everything is the latest offering of new character subclasses, spells, magical items and a meaty section for the Dungeon Master (i.e. the person running the game for all of her players).
Aimed primarily at players who are looking for new classes to play, new spells for their characters to cast, and new ways to define their avatars inside the collaborative storytelling game, Xanathar’s Guide (or XGE, as I’m sure it will be come to be called) hits all of the expected marks. Drawing on a wealth of material released by the D&D creative team via their popular Unearthed Arcana section of the D&D website and reprinting materials, primarily spells, from the Elemental Evil Player’s Guide,Xanathar’s Guide provides thirty-two (32!) new sub-classes for all of the current class types, including some new sub-classes not previously seen in the Unearthed Arcana material.
Unearthed Arcana was a hardcover book waaaay back in the early first edition of the game. Similar to Xanathar’s Guide, the original Unearthed Arcana was an expansion of material from the Player’s Handbook, the standard players guide to the character classes and mechanics of the game itself. This book title has been re-used throughout D&D’s over forty-year history, and its latest incarnation is the online “alternate rules” or playtest material which the D&D Team puts out for players and dungeon masters to use, experiment and, well, play with. The Team asks for feedback from users on the material, trying to gauge game balance, player likability, and general “fun factor” of this material. When material is popular, well-balanced, and fits a niche in the player character milieu that the D&D Team feels makes it worthwhile, it’s include in a hardcover book. Such was the case with the previously released Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide for 5E, and it is the case again with Xanathar’s Guide, though on a much bigger scale.
In fact, Xanathar’s Guide re-prints a handful of classes from the Sword Coast Adventurer’s Guide as well, such as the Swashbuckler and the Storm Sorceror. Ordinarily, one might fault a company for expecting their customers to pay money for a new sourcebook which includes a wealth of material already found in other sources. And one might be correct. Except that in the case of D&D, these re-prints make a fair amount of sense. As far as the Unearthed Arcana material, the subclasses in Xanathar’s represent an updated, tweaked and in many cases streamlined class which is now officially playtested and provided with rules, which will make the material enjoyable and avoid headaches for players and dungeon masters alike. Also, Unearthed Arcana material is not “legal” for the Adventurer’s League, since it isn’t play-tested, so those players who enjoy organized play have no access to any of those options until they are printed in an official capacity, usually through a hardcover book.
Available this month from Wizards of the Coast, the second non-adventure supplement for the 5th Edition, Volo’s Guide to Monsters, adds new lore, art, and maps for more than 120 monsters–some new and some familiar–to flesh out your Dungeons & Dragons gaming. Different from the D&D Monster Manual, reviewed previously here at borg.com, Volo’s Guide to Monsters will appeal to players wanting to read expanded narratives about their favorite monsters and spark their imaginations for future gameplay.
Stranger Things fans, if you’re looking for stats on the Demogorgon, you’ll need to look back to the Out of the Abyssadventure volume released last year. But you’ll learn more about the culture, characteristics and lairs of Beholders, Giants, Gnolls, Goblinoids, Hags, Kobolds, Mind Flayers, Orcs, and Yuan-ti, guidelines for the heroic races Aasimar, Firbolg, Goliath, Kenku, Lizardfolk, Tabaxi, and Tritons, and the monstrous races Bugbear, Goblin, Hobgolbin, Kobold, Orc, and Yuan-ti.
You’ll also find plenty of great artwork and maps accompanying all-new entries for Demons, Beholders, Dinosaurs, Giants, Kobolds, and Mindflayers. An appendix includes descriptions of beast characters and another appendix includes nonplayer characters including Archdruid, Archer, Bard, Blackguard, Martial Arts Adept, Master Thief, and War Priest, Wizards and Warlocks, and a third appendix includes lists of monster stats by type, environment, and challenge rating. Continue reading →
Stranger Things is a rare thing among plenty of series bombarding viewers of streaming services. It would never get accused of trying too hard. It’s good but not great. It features no major actors. It has developed a cult following yet it is not produced by J.J. Abrams (think Lost, Fringe, Almost Human, Believe, Westworld). And for all these things, it’s just what we want. We’ve had enough of CGI and big budget explosions and special effects. Low budget is just fine–for now. It’s that movie you are looking for late on a Saturday night, but stretched to eight episodes long.
More series like this will make Netflix survive despite all the competition from other services. Stranger Things is good enough–good at sci-fi and horror and coming of age retro fun–to get you to sign up with Netflix for your next binge watch session. More important than its storytelling is how the story is told, and the efforts taken to make the series, the characters, the setting, the dialogue, all look like it was filmed in the early 1980s. Several artists have even mocked up the series marketing material into VHS tape packaging. Were it a movie-length feature it would probably fool many. It’s in the same vein as Disney’s Watcher in the Woods. Like Stephen King’s Firestarter,Stand By Me and Silver Bullet it features kids in a coming-of-age setting. Its monster/alien horror and soundtrack (available here) reflects the look and vibe of John Carpenter movies. The marketing screams Stephen King, especially that red-on-black title font. And it will no doubt gin up nostalgia to spur cassette tapes of its soundtrack like Guardians of the Galaxy.
It’s Steven Spielberg’s E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial, if the story had taken a darker turn, and very similar to Spielberg and Abrams’ Super 8 (Super 8 poster artist Kyle Lambert even created the poster for this series to further lock in the look). Critics have picked apart odds and ends found in the background of scenes–this item didn’t exist then, etc. But ultimately the overall feel is very right. You’ll point to a pitcher on the table, a rug on the floor, a poster on the wall, all that you had back then. And the season one wrap-up is as satisfying as you’re going to find in a TV series.
Every gaming nerd in the world has stories about their first D&D game, their first (and usually favorite) edition played, their first character, first group, etc. I won’t bore you with any of mine (I’ve got some pretty awesome ones, though!) but suffice to say I have been playing D&D since before the hardbound books, so it’s been a long time. My first Dungeon Master’s Guide was the 1st Edition book, all two hundred and thirty-two glorious, black and white, densely packed pages of it. It opened up worlds of possibility for my friends and me. We spent endless hours exploring magical realms of perilous danger and heroic adventure.
I ran most of the games, as I had the Dungeon Master’s Guide (or “DMG” in gamer parlance) and a burning desire to create my own worlds. We played the printed adventures, or modules, and then I created my own. The DMG was a great help in this, chock full of tables, charts, and endless descriptions of magical items, weapons, ancient relics and fearsome villains. I do not know how many tablets of graph paper I went through in my teenage years, but I always had some pages tucked in my text books, my folders, or folded up in my pockets, covered in lines and boxes representing mines dark and deep, full of orcs and dragons and swords of flame.
Remember 1979? We didn’t even have Atari back then. This was the BOMB!!!
Having spent the majority of my gaming years running games, versus playing characters, I have owned and used every edition of the Player’s Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide (except for 4th Edition, and to be honest that’s not out of any dislike for that system but due to a lack of desire of any of my gaming group at the time to make the move from 3.5). And I’ve loved them all, though at varying levels of love. The original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D) Dungeon Masters Guide (note the lack of the possessive apostrophe; this was 1981 for sure) was a genuine first love, wide-eyed and unjudging and incapable of believing we’d even been blessed with such a magnificent gift. It literally opened up worlds of imagination for millions of gamers world-wide. Never mind that the book itself was a jumbled mess of disparate information, random thoughts shoveled into a solid form so quickly that no thought was given to organization or flow. It didn’t even have chapters, but did we notice or really care? Heck no!
2nd Edition was more like Puppy Love; it all looked good on the outside and added in a lot of things we thought we wanted, and we knew we were supposed to love it because we loved the game. But the mechanics weren’t completely sewn together and there were some issues with over-powered spell casting classes.
If they made a Guide to all of the 3.5 Edition rule books, it would be thicker than the DMG.
3rd Edition was a nostalgic love; it was a brave new departure from the old standard but the system was broken from the get-go. The wildly popular Edition 3.5 was a rebound love; 3rd Edition was dysfunctional and a rough break-up, and 3.5 was a welcome bowl of ice cream and a warm blanket. And it worked very well. But after years of fluff and bloat, the system became unwieldy and overly complicated. Especially so for players and DMs who wanted to focus on story, but had to acquiesce to players who wanted to min-max their way to a War Hulk or Shadowcraft Mage build which everyone knew would eventually break the campaign (and the story!).
It’s a big week of comic book releases from IDW Publishing and BOOM! Studios so we have pulled together several previews, including Issue #1 of a new Edward Scissorhands series, Issue #1 of a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles mash-up with the Ghostbusters, Issue #1 of a new Dungeons & Dragons series, and Issue #4 of The X-Files: Year Zero.
From BOOM! Studios we have previews of Issue #1 of an intriguing new series called Memetic, and Issue #1 of 3 Guns–the sequel to 2 Guns, the comic book that became this summer’s Mark Wahlberg/Denzel Washington action movie we reviewed previously here at borg.com.
And don’t forget to pick up Dark Horse Comics’ new Predator: Fire and Stone, Issue #1, previewed here earlier.
So let’s cut to the chase, shall we? Your time is valuable and so are your hard-earned gold pieces, unless you are a thief, in which case let’s face it, it’s not really your gold no matter how hard you “worked” to pick that fat merchant’s belt pouch (c’mon, be honest, we both know it’s true). The 5th Edition Monster Manual from Wizards of the Coast (or WotC, for short), which goes on sale on the 30th of this month, is a well put-together book, with tons of classic monsters in it, and is really a must-have for anyone looking to run a homebrew 5th Edition game, or looking to convert any of their existing modules/adventures to 5th Edition. Go out and buy it, though please do not pay the $49.99 suggested retail price. Most game stores and online retailers will have it for around $30, including Amazon.
Okay, so… if you are still reading this then I will assume that: (A) you don’t fit the Dungeon Master description I used above, (B) need some more convincing, or (C) you have some time to kill right now. Either way, cool.
The book itself is nicely bound with thick high-quality covers which are a must for a book that’s primarily going to be hauled around from game session to game session in a book bag, backpack, plastic tote or other means. So, it’s going to see a lot of handling and miles (unless you are nice enough to be hosting the game, in which case, Huzzah to you!!!), and it should take the abuse quite well.
“Knock, knock.” “Who is it?” “Land shark.”
The pages are also high quality, thick glossy paper stock and the book is lively and colorful throughout. I was not a huge fan of the background on every page which was introduced in 3.0, but in this series of books (the Players Handbook and Monster Manual so far, anyway) WotC is not placing thick borders on every page which in previous versions squeezed the content and gave it a skimpier feel (lots of artwork, less content). The Monster Manual is chock-full of good information and continues their current trend of combining good humor and retro-elements into the content, as was done in the Starter Set and the Player’s Handbook. The references to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Emirkol the Chaotic and the Demi-Lich Acererak are nice touches and an appreciated wink to both older gamers and the previous creators and contributors who have helped keep the game going for so many years. I especially like the disclaimers at the beginning of each book so far, which are quite humorous and show that while the WotC Team took its work seriously, they didn’t fall prey to taking themselves so.
You will find nearly every classic monster you could ask for in the book. And while at 350 pages it is a hefty brick of a book, its usefulness to the Dungeon Master can’t be denied. From the mandatory entries of giants, dragons, fiends, elementals, constructs, undead and humanoids of all flavors, to the more exotic modrons, yuan-ti, the warring githyanki and githzerai, and the ever-present but rarely used axe beak, the book has a ton of monsters across the spectrum of challenge ratings. (Seriously, how many times have you encountered an axe beak in all of your adventures?)
For my top five list of stories I’d like to see turned into motion pictures, I have tried to be somewhat realistic. Some of my favorite stories, whether novels or games or comic books, I have left off as just being beyond realization. The wish of their being turned into a movie is, in itself, a fantasy, due to various factors.
For instance, since I was a teenager, I’ve been dying for someone to make a movie from Grand Poobah Dungeon Master Gary Gygax’s original storyline thread from the first D&D modules: “The Village of Hommlet” modules (T1-T4), the Slaver series (modules A1-A4), the “Against the Giants” series (modules G1-G3), and the “Drow of the Underdark” series (modules D1-D3 & module Q1 “Queen of the Demonweb Pits”). Of course, this would be for the die-hard gaming geeks almost exclusively, and at twelve modules (adventures) it would be difficult to pack into a motion picture trilogy or quintology (!), even if anyone would be so crazy as to provide the funding for it.
I’m stoked for a movie adaptation of Ernest Cline’s recent novel, Ready Player One, but I’m not including it because it’s already in pre-production at Warner Bros. No need to wish for that which is likely to already happen. Then there’s the Wheel of Time series, which isn’t quite over. The final book, currently titled A Memory of Light, is scheduled to be published in January of 2013. And as the fifteen-volume series will clock in at an estimated 11,000 pages, it could never conceivably be condensed down to make any real sense in a few motion pictures.
Trivia: A series of three books is called a trilogy. A series of five books is called a quintology. A series of seven books is called a heptalogy. What is a series of fourteen books called?
Answer: Too damned long!
Note: No offense to Robert Jordan, may he rest in peace, the series is great, but it could have probably ended after eight or ten novels. I really enjoyed the first ten Wheel of Time books! And all of your Conan novels were great, too!
So, too, would I love to hear of a big screen adaptation of some of R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt Do’urden novels, especially the Icewind Dale Trilogy, but alas, it is not to be. I could name some Star Wars and Conan novels that I’d like to see adapted, but those subjects have already been masterfully done on the big screen, so there is no use wasting our time.
Same goes for the less well-known but equally awesome Deathgate Cycle heptalogy from the great fantasy team of Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman. Too many books in the series (few of which really stand entirely on their own), and likely too hardcore (i.e. small) of a fan base. Anyhow, the powers that be (being in power, as they are), would most likely take a run at Dragonlance (ho-hum) before considering Deathgate. Too bad.
In the “slightly unrealistic” column, however, I have included the Elric of Melnibone saga in my list, despite the main character being an anti-hero and thus a difficult win for a motion picture, even with the hard-core fantasy crowd. Strangely enough, this may be the one wish that I am granted (read more in my Elric entry, below).
A lot of fantasy, I know. I’m a fantasy kind of guy. There are a lot of good horror, sci-fi, and other fiction out there crying to be made into films, but really, we get a lot of good stuff from those genres already. But there is a dearth of good fantasy films out there, and they come along so rarely; The Fellowship of the Ring came out over ten years ago, after all.
Man, I’m getting old. Somebody please make a couple of these before I croak.
Other honorable mentions. I’d love to see something done with Gaiman’s Sandman series, but probably too difficult and definitely niche. Same goes for Marvel 1601, one of my favorite graphic novels (also Gaiman). But niche. The books of Michael Crichton have been done (and done, and done) as they are so interesting and have such strong plotlines, but my favorite novel of his is one of his non-fiction works, Travels. He chronicles some of his real-life travels had some great insights into his own life from them. But again, probably too tight of an audience for something like that.
Neuromancer would totally rock, but the conventional wisdom is that cyberpunk is way over. I’m no good at conventional wisdom, though. Maybe it’s so over that it’s ready to be hip again? Disco and bell bottoms keep coming back, after all. On second thought, maybe not.
Anyway, on with the real list.
#5 – The Gaean Trilogy (Titan, Wizard and Demon) from John Varley
A mix of fantasy and sci-fi, this is the first thing I thought of when I saw Avatar. And I wasn’t alone. Space farers explore a foreign planet where magic seems to happen in nature, strange creatures abound, and some of them are intelligent/sentient. Then humans come along and really muck it all up. That’s the Gaean Trilogy’s premise (not the plot) in a nutshell.
Of course, there is much more to it than that. There are far more significant differences between these novels and the movie Avatar than there are broad similarities. The combination of sci-fi and fantasy is what would make this appealing, and the titanides and eventual revelation of the Gaea intelligence (and what follows) would make for a great movie.
#4 – Fallout: New Vegas (video game)
My favorite game in recent years (besides Star Wars: The Old Republic, which I’m itching to play even now while writing this), FNV was a great game because of the amazing, engrossing storyline.
In a nutshell:
In the late twenty-first century, America and China fight a prolonged war over resources that ends with a nuclear exchange. The nuclear warheads and subsequent fallout kills most everyone except a chosen few who retreat to underground ‘vaults’ to ride out the Earth’s recovery from global fallout (hence the title of the series). Life as we know it ends.
Some two hundred years later, people begin to emerge from the vaults, and find some still living humans, along with irradiated creatures, mutants, and all sorts of crazy stuff living in the burnt-out shells of our former civilization. Las Vegas was spared from direct nuclear attack by the defenses of wealthy industrialist and casino owner, as was the nearby Hoover Dam. People died, but the core of the Strip survived (what irony).
A lone traveler enters the area, gets shot in the head and buried, but survives and is nursed back to health, although with amnesia from the wound. He sets about trying to learn about himself and his assailants, and in the process discovers that Las Vegas (dubbed “New Vegas” by the current residents) is being contested over by a growing civilization from California (the New California Republic, or NCR), an army of brutal slave-owning tribals calling themselves Caesar’s Legion, and the wealthy citizen who kept Vegas from annihilation (or is it him?) who runs New Vegas with an army of killer robots and calls himself Mr. House.
The story is compelling, and locations are fantastic, the inhabitants are diverse and interesting, and there are stories aplenty for the traveler to encounter and deal with on his way to the game’s climactic battle between these competing forces over who will control Hoover Dam, the one source of electricity and life-giving water amidst a world of death and dust.
A great movie that would make. We’ve seen shades of this with The Book of Eli (a great movie, but more of a morality tale than a straight-forward action/adventure flick) and The Road (a great example of how really good books can be terrible movies), but nothing like the tale spun in New Vegas.
#3 – The Elric of Melnibone novels by Michael Moorcock
An island of anemic sorcerer kings who rule the world. A savage world of monsters and heroes who strive daily to survive. Magic that allows people to cross into other dimensions and sail through space to other planets. Stormbringer. What an absolutely epic fantasy movie that would make!
Of course, the main problem is that Elric is an anti-hero. In fact, Elric is the very embodiment of the modern-day anti-hero. He’s not a nice guy. He’s not even rough-around-the-edges-but-basically-moral-in-an-immoral-world (like Conan) kind of guy. He’s a self-important, selfish, power-hungry elitist. At times, he’s a murder, though he does begin to show some humanity and regret after a while. But he has a goal, and purpose, and oh, the adventures he has, the places he goes, and the things he sees! All fantastic, and all while wielding what can easily be called the most powerful magical sword in all of fantasy (save perhaps for Shieldbreaker from Fred Saberhagen’s Swords novels, but I digress…)
I would absolutely love to sit in a theatre and watch the albino sorcerer-king travel the planes swinging the Black Sword of legend. Ever since I saw Conan the Barbarian, I have longed for someone to make movies out of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Elric saga. One down, one to go.
Apparently, I am a little late to the party on this one. Director/Producer brothers Chris Weitz (About a Boy, The Golden Compass) and Paul Weitz (American Pie, Little Fokkers) were reportedly in “pre-production” on a movie trilogy based on Moorcock’s dark, brooding novels about my second-favorite anti-hero (see #1, below, for my fave), but that project has been side-tracked and is lately talked about by the brothers in wistful terms of ‘someday’.
Here’s hoping that “someday” actually comes.
Side Note: I’m not 100% certain, but I believe “Pre-Production” is a fancy Hollywood term for people emailing and texting back and forth about great ideas for a movie, then meeting in coffee shops and chatting about how great it would be to make said movie, before moving on to work on real movies that are actually being made.
#2 – Justice League / The Dark Knight Returns
DC Comics is sitting on a goldmine, but they have had some trouble translating the shiny stuff in their mine into coin of the realm. The Batman movies of late being the obvious exception, DC Comics has not enjoyed the great success of Marvel in translating their characters to the big screen. Superman was ground-breaking back in the seventies, and the first couple of Batman movies of the late eighties / early nineties paved the way for what was to come. And then there is Batman Begins, The Dark Knight (of course), and this summer’s Dark Knight Rises.
But taking the long view, that’s maybe six or seven hit movies over a thirty year span. Not horrible, but not that great. But compare that with Marvel’s run in just the last twelve years, and you can pick twice that number of successful movies based on their characters. The X-Men movies (at least two of them), the Spiderman trilogy (again, at least two), The Fantastic Four, X-Men: First Class, and the movies leading up to and including this summer’s The Avengers (Ang Lee’s Hulk and Iron Man 2 notwithstanding).
I’m not bashing DC here, don’t get me wrong. Their characters are iconic, to say the least. And maybe they don’t value movies as much as Marvel does, which is fine. There is certainly more money to be made in movies, but money isn’t everything; no movie is better than a bad movie, when the protection of a brand is essential to the company’s success.
But DC has such a wealth of great story that it’s hard to fathom that there hasn’t been more translation from the inked page to the lighted screen. Just imagine this movie trilogy, my friends…
The Justice League – A movie centering on the core of the League, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Arrow and the Flash (possibly also Hawkman and/or the Martian Manhunter, depending on the ability to introduce the movie-going public at large to these characters), coming together to form the group to thwart Prometheus along the lines of Justice League: A Cry for Justice, except using the central characters rather than a competing alliance / ideology, with internal group conflict as to how to deal with the situation as would be natural. Prometheus is murdering foreign superheroes, then planning to destroy cities of the League’s superheroes (maybe limit it to three key cities, rather than the sprawling destruction in the mag). After being defeated he negotiates his escape, proving he’s not bluffing by detonating one bomb as in the book. In this adaptation, Superman is the negotiator and Batman (along with Green Arrow) wanting to make him pay no matter what. End with the Green Arrow scene (no spoiler here), with the barest hint that Batman helped him (but didn’t necessarily know what he was going to do).
The Justice League: Legion of Doom – The League battles the formation of the Legion of Doom. The Legion is forming along the lines of the backstory from the Justice series in 2005-2006, with Brainiac (and Lex Luthor) fooling even his fellow baddies and planning to get the League to wipe out his ‘competitors’ of evil. But unlike in Justice, their motivations are to take over the American government (as depicted in Miller’s The Dark Knight Strikes Again). The League wins the apparent victory against the facade, but Brainiac and Lex succeed behind the scenes with their real master plan. At the very end, the League is disgraced and talks of disbanding. Superman is called away on an emergency he won’t discuss… (Lex has Kandor and is going to blackmail him, but don’t reveal that until the last movie in the trilogy).
The Justice League Returns – The movie everyone wants, Superman vs. Batman, pull out all of the stops. This movie would basically blend The Dark Knight Returns with a little bit of The Dark Knight Strikes Again, blending the emancipation of Batman’s fellow Leaguers a-la DKSA into the main storyline of DKR (yes, it might be sacrilegious, but this is Hollywood we’re talking about). The Justice League disbanded after their failure in The Legion of Doom, and Brainiac and Lex have taken over America and put a computer President in place. With Kandor held hostage, they have forced Superman to help capture or banish the other League members (similar to the backstory of DKSA and DKR both: “Diana returned to her people; Hal left for the stars…” Leave Shazam out, he makes things too complicated). This bit could be the prologue to the movie itself (before credits). Batman is the bitter retiree in DKR and follows that storyline back from retirement to defeat the Mutants gang and/or the return of Two-Face, then sets about freeing his fellow Leaguers (DKSA), which leads to the confrontation with Superman as the puppet of the Braniac/Lex regime (weak not from the DKR nuclear missile but from the faux ‘catastrophes’ that Brainiac/Lex cook up for him in DKSA; the asteroid, the volcano in Hawaii, etc.) along with Batman’s fellow Leaguers (similar to Green Arrow in DKR, but with Hal Jordan and Barry Allen also assisting as in DKSA). No Kara, though, and no Dick Grayson craziness, and take out all of the future media “super babes” hype and whatnots.
Ok, I’m done geeking out. And I realize that the fanboys would cry FOUL (and worse) and this kind of hacked together plot from what may be their favorite series(es). Me? I’m not a purist, I just like good story. Perhaps that’s why I seem to be one of the small minority who absolutely loved both the Watchmen comics and the spectacular movie equally.
Hollywood can ‘just’ make DKR and I’d be ecstatic.
I know there was (is?) a JL movie in the works, announced as being in “pre-production” (oh, boy) last year by Warner Bros., but couldn’t find anything recent on the subject. Anyone have any fairly recent scoop on where that one is at? Still in pre-production? Man, those guys drink a lot of coffee.
#1 – The Chronicles of Amber novels from Roger Zelazny
This would make a great movie trilogy, no question. The great thing about this story and why it would translate to the big screen is the beginning: the hero is a seemingly normal human being on planet Earth in the current day. He awakes in a mental institution, not knowing how he got there, but it’s apparent he’s being kept sedated and held against his will. He escapes but has amnesia (I know, it’s a tired plot device, but here it absolutely works). He finds out he has a sister, goes to her home to investigate, and finds some things that are… weird. He confronts her, and then meets more family. And things get a bit weirder.
As his journey progresses, the audience learns things as the protagonist does; bit at a time, little by little, slowly building up this incredible picture of the hero as a long-lost prince of a magical kingdom in another dimension. Sound like a book for young adults? Hang on to your britches, cause it’s anything but. Don’t let the terms “long-lost prince” and “magical kingdom” fool you. This is hardcore fantasy at its absolute finest.
Once the hero, Corwin, loses his amnesia, he finds that he is a talented swordsman, a gifted military leader, and a cunning strategist. He’s also an able sorcerer and in line for his absent father’s throne. However, his family is currently vying against each other in cabals and alliances for the crown, and there are as many of them as there are books in the Wheel of Time series.
It has the fantasy swordplay of Conan (the original), the magical flair of The Matrix (if you haven’t read the books, it’s hard to explain that reference, but believe me, it’s apropos), the political in-fighting of A Game of Thrones, the gritty war drama of Braveheart and Platoon (again, the reference works, trust me) and the narrative genius of the multiple Hugo and Nebula award-winning author, Zelazny.
Yeah, it’s that good. At least to me. That’s why it makes the top of my list of stories I’d love to see made into movies.
Come back tomorrow, and Jason McClain will give us his take on adaptations and being true to the source material.
It’s been a little over two weeks and I’m already jonesing for another Skyrim fix. You heard that right. Over 200 hours already played over two months and after only two weeks, I’m thinking of playing again. (That’s a lot of twos.) Not just picking up with my old character, but starting all over again. (Maybe I’ll name my character “Two.”) This time though, when I play, I’m going to specialize.
You see, the first time through, I did it all. I hacked. I slashed. I cast fire and ice out of my hands. I snuck in people’s houses and I killed them in their sleep. I stole valuables and I planted stolen goods. I became a werewolf, I watched as people feasted on human flesh, I lured people to their deaths and I did the bidding of the Daedric princes. I was a fighter / thief / bard / assassin / magic-user, which as far as I know in the world of Dungeons & Dragons is impossible.
Maybe it’s cool that this game can keep track of all of that and let you do all of those things at once and advance you up in the levels appropriately. There’s something to be said for experiencing as much of the game as possible. It is pretty nice that no matter what you choose, you can still try different aspects of the game.
It doesn’t mean that it doesn’t feel weird. I think of it like being a MMA-Fighter / Accountant / Actor / Senator / Physicist.
Real-life WWF fighter / USNavy Special Forces / Actor / Governor
Yes, you can be all of those things and maybe there are people that can do all of them at once and can be elite at each of them. However, I have yet to see or meet that person. (If you are all of that and you are a 5’11” redheaded woman (or blonde or brunette or taller or shorter, I’m open), feel free to contact me on Twitter and I will take you to as many sushi dinners as you want so that I can hear all about it.) Editor’s Note: Hey, Jason, I didn’t know this was your personal dating site.
Scarlett--graduated law school with honors, skilled in martial arts and acrobatics, has advanced military training... and she's a redhead
Now that I put it like that, maybe that’s why I like this game so much. A jack-of-all-trades and master of all is a pretty cool thing to aspire to being. To combine the brain of physicist Brian Greene with the fighting skills of (insert MMA fighter here as the only one I know is Brock Lesnar and he’s retired now) along with the political savvy of Barack Obama (check back here in nine months for that – if he doesn’t get a second term against the Republican candidates that are out there, I hate to say it but I’d have to replace him with George W. Bush or Bill Clinton), the charisma of George Clooney and the Oscar tabulating ability of the accountants at Price Waterhouse Coopers, you’d be better than Frankenstein’s monster, you’d be Frankenstein’s best monster. (Maybe I’ll name that character “Apex.” Nah, I still like “Two.”) As long as the scars didn’t show, you’d also easily be at the top of all the beautiful people lists in the grocery store magazine shelves.
Strangely enough, combining Brian Greene, any MMA fighter, Barack Obama, George Clooney and a PWC accountant makes Willem Dafoe
However, we all have to make choices as our time and life is finite. I think a review from Michael Shermer from “eSkeptic” says it best:
“If you read a major newspaper such as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal cover to cover every day for a week you will have consumed more digital information than a citizen in the 17th century Western world would have encountered in a lifetime. That’s a lot of digital data, but it’s nothing compared to what is on the immediate horizon. By comparison, from the earliest stirrings of civilization thousands of years ago to the year 2003, all of humankind created a grand total of five exabytes of digital information. An exabyte is one quintillion bytes, or one billion gigabytes. That’s a one followed by 18 zeros, and from 2003 through 2010 we created five exabytes of digital information every two days.”
So, we eventually have to choose. Which choices will I make? When you stray into a dungeon, a crypt or even walking around outside, you see a red dot and there’s no talking involved, all there is a mass of spells, claws, teeth and swords all trying to tear you into pieces. Within that framework, I grew accustomed to dealing death because that seemed to be the only way to survive. I didn’t see the possibility of going through the game as peacefully as possible (which you can through spells like “Calm” or letting your follower do your dirty work, which still seems not to be particularly peaceful but rather the exploitation of an exception.) For my skills it may not be possible and as I aspire to be lawful good, maybe my hand-eye coordination won’t allow me that possibility. Then maybe I’ll rationalize and say that part of being lawful good, like the beliefs we hold dear now, is to put an end to the ideals of those that are chaotic and evil. In the game, it is to kill the thieves, assassins and no-good-niks of the world. Here, in real life, it seems to be to shout down those who don’t believe what you believe, whether it is in a paper, a television program or a blog. Maybe that is the way to be lawful good. Thinking about that and about Andrew Breitbart who just passed away (and who James Poniewozik gives an eloquent eulogy) and I don’t think that is me. I don’t want to yell down someone else. I don’t want to grind other ideas into a pulp.
Maybe that means I’m more of a neutral person. (Until you start to threaten science education and then I’ll yell at you for that though it may just be under my breath.) Once I start the game again, I’ll see where specialization and my choices take me. Looking in the mirror though, I expect it will take about five hours to realize that I still want it all and fighting against everything is a losing battle. But, I promise I’ll still try to be nice. Until you appear as a red dot.
After about exactly two months to the hour from when I purchased the video game Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim I finally finished the game. How close to two months? I bought the game on December 9th, a Friday evening around 9 pm. I finished the reunification of Skyrim set of quests at around 12:30 am on February 10th. Finishing that set of quests got me to 48 of the 50 possible achievements for the game on Xbox. I don’t think I’ve ever written a more obsessive-compulsive geeky sentence than that one, or for that matter a more obsessive-compulsive lede.
I finished the 49th achievement by 1:30 am that same night (escaping from jail.) I completed the last achievement (get a 1000 bounty in each hold) at about 5:30 on Friday night. Then, after I went to each hold again to clear my name, I went to my home in Whiterun, took off all my weapons and armors and sat down to rest. I had become Arch-Mage of the College at Winterhold, I had become the listener for the Dark Brotherhood, and I had become a member of the Nightingales as well as the guild master of the Thieves Guild. I had become the Harbinger of the Companions. I had slain Alduin and I had reunited the factions of Skyrim. I think my character deserved a little sit down time, a little time to sit and reflect before beginning more adventures.
I could easily see picking up the game again and playing more even though I’ve finished it. Starting it up, grabbing a selection of weapons, armors and magical trinkets from my storage locations in Whiterun would take about five minutes. There are still areas that I haven’t explored. I still haven’t mastered the schools of magic or the use of a shield. (I tend to be a bow and two-handed sword guy, both of which preclude the use of a shield.) Then again, I could pick it up and start from the beginning and instead of doing everything, maybe just do quests that relate to being a mage. It would be tougher to do, especially with my poor hand-eye coordination skills in the middle of a melee, but I could eventually get to the same place in the game, I’m sure.
That’s the beautiful thing about this game and it reinforces the idea that I had when I first started playing the game: it’s like automated Dungeons and Dragons (or D&D for those in the know and that don’t mind abbreviations and so that I can save quite a few characters going forward.) I loved D&D because you could take the same character, find their strengths and flaws and update your style of play to that every time you went on an adventure. You could play that same character again and again and just like a model airplane, a drawing or a long piece of writing, you saw it improve with each new addition and you took pride in getting it to that point. On the other hand, each time you played, you could create someone new and start that process again because I found enjoyment just creating a new character. Playing the game no matter the character or adventure was fun.
The tough part of D&D (and to some degree another old favorite, Strat-o-matic baseball, hereafter known as Strat to save characters) was that there was such minutiae to track that sometimes you chucked things out the window or didn’t bother to track them because it would make the game take too long. For example, there is encumbrance. You shouldn’t be able to carry everything you can buy or find as you walk through the world. Maybe a sword, a bow, your armor, some gold and some various bits of miscellany and that’s it. However, writing down the weights of each, adding it up and then tracking it as you add and subtract things is not the fun way to play a game. Skyrim does all that for you. You want to carry five chunks of dragon bone? You can, but then when you find an ebony sword, if you decide to carry it, you can’t run. You slowly plod along. I tried it a couple of times. It’s not a fun way to play.
For Strat, I liked to keep the stats of my players. I liked to track all of the stats you’d see on the back of a baseball card. But, if you asked me would I rather look at the past game and write up all of the statistics or play another game, I’ll take playing the next game every time. Catching up on stats can wait until that time when all of your friends have to go home for the night. My friend Jon introduced me to Diamond Mind Baseball, I found automated stats and all I had to do was play the game.
However, not all is rosy in the world of the Elder Scrolls. The first negative with Skyrim, and you can probably guess what it is from the previous three paragraphs, is the lack of a social aspect. It’s a single player game and there is no multi-player option. (Boy, would a multi-player option be great.) What made D&D and Strat so great was the chance to get together with friends and play a game. I’m not saying that there isn’t a social aspect to Skyrim; it’s just not in playing the game. If I know someone has played or is playing, I want to hear about their character. What race did they choose, what paths did they try, where they are in the story, did they get married, did they buy houses, what are their strongest traits, what shouts do they know or whatever comes to mind in what I just did in the game. Most everyone likes to talk about their characters and how they choose to interact with the world. The great thing about these conversations though is the thought to return to our youth. Playing Skyrim has led me to a few different conversations to play some D&D or other role-playing games. That has me more than a bit excited. I love games.
The second negative with Skyrim is my problem with pop culture addiction. Playing Skyrim ebbs and flows, there are times when it becomes a little less interesting as it feels like you are just running errands, but at other times, you can’t wait to see where the story goes next, where your abilities and skill with the game match up perfectly with the difficulties of fighting and every battle is a perfectly tuned challenge. Those are the times that I can’t stop playing and just like staying up until 3 am to catch up on Mad Men, watching the sixth episode of the day of The Wire or Doctor Who or reading books until 5 am because after every chapter I want to know what happens next, Skyrim fits into that danger zone of compulsion where I don’t leave the house and push off sleep until the early hours of the morning. I stayed up until 3 am for four straight days and woke up at 8 am every morning as battles with Draugr and dragons filled my dreams and I had to battle the temptation to immediately turn my Xbox on again. (I failed more than a couple of those internal battles.) I became a walking zombie with Skyrim replacing the quest for brains.
As you can see, those negatives don’t reflect that poorly on the game, just my ability to manage it and my expectations for it. I did love playing it, but its greatest magic comes from opening the past portals to my life, the joy from getting together with friends to play a game. I’m sure I’ll still play Settlers of Catan or Apples to Apples with friends, but the chance to play a little D&D now that it has stirred in the minds of friends and myself makes me smile a little inside. First level never sounded so wonderful.
