Captain America: Brave New World - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I know this blog has been light on hobby content for a while. I'm planning on changing that. But until then I'll report on some geek-related stuff.

I'll be honest here. I wasn't all that excited about this movie from the start. The trailer didn't grab me and it seemed like another yawn-fest of CGI. As much as I try to avoid spoilers I did end up absorbing a lot about how this movie was forced. I'll get to that.

One thing I will say outright - I don't like that they cast Harrison Ford as Red Hulk. Why? Because the man is ancient. They already recast the Thaddius Ross role when William Hurt passed away and giving a major, probably recurring role like this to another actor who's getting up there in years doesn't make a lot of sense. There's more about the character that doesn't make sense but I'll get to that later.

I didn't like the movie because I didn't like the story. It felt weak and cobbled together. Test audiences seemed to feel the same way, hence Sidewinder getting a bigger role. Adding another bad guy to the mix seems counterintuitive because that brought the number of them up to three so none of them got proper treatment.

There's a lot of preaching going on in this script. Lots of rah-rah, be the best you can be, try to do better, etc. While it's a lovely sentiment I'm not going to a comic book movie to be preached at. Yes, yes I know that the comic books cover a lot of societal issues too. But this is a discrete block of very expensive time to tell a story and you gotta figure out what story you're going to tell.

They didn't tell a story. At least they didn't tell one that held together or held audiences. There's so many disconnects and leaps of logic that it just didn't cohere into a singular line. There was no grand coming together at the end even though they put all the characters into their own moments.

One thing that has come out during the discussions has been the push to make a Black man Captain America. I will say that it wasn't overtly pushed here. There wasn't much if any race contention. It's established that Sam Wilson is Cap. As said in the movie "he's no Steve Rogers" but that was going to happen with anyone trying to take on the story role and indeed did happen during the TV series too. I honestly don't think the producers were trying to force acceptance of a Black Captain America as much as a Sam Wilson Captain America.

I will say that this movie did address two things that were kind of skipped/glossed over until now.

• The celestial in the Indian Ocean is part of the plotline and is now Elemental Island. I'm not sure but I don't think any of the movies since that one even noted it existed.
• Who's supplying and maintaining all the tech now that Tony Stark is gone. It's Wakanda. I did wonder about that one since Endgame.

There's adamantium in them thar celestials. Yes, adamantium is now officially in the MCU. But it's not nearly as rare as it seems to be in the comics, considering one of the plotlines is the attempt to build a treaty between India, Japan, France, and the United States for all the resources. I have no idea why France would be in there. India and Japan make sense. It's in their backyard. The US is because we're greedy bastages. But France? Why the heck would France make a claim?

India and France get the short end of the stick in the movie. They get one Zoom meeting scene where they defer to Japan for guidance on the treaty. That's because one of the (many) plot points is 'the package' that was being delivered/sold/whatever that turned out to be Japan's refined adamantium, which was stolen by ~gasp~ the United States!

There's a naval battle scene between the US and Japan. Japan is rightly upset that the US tried to screw them over and decided to go out and stake their claim on Celestial Island. I don't blame them. It was nice to see a country not roll over for the US for once in these movies. The battle is another issue because it has the President directly controlling the war maneuvers. Yes, I know he was a general. But he's not a general and he's not the captain of the ship. He's not in that chain of command. Mostly. What he's trying to do is stop the mind controlled pilots from starting a war with Japan but it's still jarring to see him making tactical decisions better left to, oh I don't know, the ship's tactical officer?

Whoops. Gave away one of the sloppy plot points. But the underlying plot under these was the return of Samuel Sterns from the original Incredible Hulk movie. Since I still haven't watched that one I needed to read online why he mattered. Considering the character has been MIA since 2008 I think I'm not going to be the only person questioning who this guy is and why he's in the plot. He's doing mind control stuff. Big surprise.

While we're on the mind control thing either someone paid a lot of money to have their cell phones placed in the movie or someone on the production staff really liked a brand because every freaking cell phone looks the same. I know people are addicted to their phones but there was a LOT of obvious cell phone usage here. Spoiler - it's how Sterns mind controls a lot of people. But c'mon. Everyone carrying large black cell phones with four cameras on the back? I don't see that happening without someone making the decision that's how it's going to be.

Mind control is big in the comics. It's a lovely dux de machina that helps shuffle the plot along. Poor Wolverine has a revolving door in his brain for all the times he's been mind controlled. But this one stretches things to the breaking point with how easily Sterns is able to use what should be highly encrypted communications and pinpoint accuracy to mind control people. I know. It's a comic book movie.

Here's another thing that bugged me. When Ross transformed into Red Hulk (like that's a spoiler) he immediately knew how to use his new form. No learning curve on the size, strength, etc. Just right out there tearing stuff up and doing physics-defying leaps, tearing up buildings, exploding and throwing vehicles, having perfect hand-eye coordination, etc. I'd think if you suddenly became a Hulk you'd have to take a bit of time just not to fall over much less walk.

They are going to form another Avengers team. It's not subtle. President Ross told Sam to do it. We've got him as Captain America. He's already got his buddy in as Falcon. The head of the President's security just happens to be a Red Room trained Soviet, just like Black Widow (no security issues there, right?), and I don't know who else will get in on this since the only other major character was Isaiah Bradley as the Forgotten Supersoldier. I guess they could put him in for his super strength but they might need to be careful about dropping him into the Wise Old Black Man trope. He's already the Wounded Veteran and the Resentful Veteran.

Bucky makes a brief cameo so that he and Sam can have a dialog about what it means to be Captain America. Of course this takes place while the guy who's now Falcon is in surgery and they're watching that. Bucky seems to have won an election to Congress too. I have no idea how that's going to figure into Thunderbolts*, or if it even is.

They put the trope of Alienated Parent in there too with the President being estranged from his daughter since the Incredible Hulk thing and he's trying to show her he can do better. That's brought up several times. Sure. The President of the United States is going to make decisions based on making his kid not hate him. There is a redemption arc at the end but it's forced narrative with a 'blink and you'll miss it' cameo from Liv Tyler, who gets billing in the movie for some reason. Granted she's reprising her role from the first movie but billing? Her agent should get an extra percentage point for that.

Nothing comes together at the end. It kind of trails off with each of the bad guys having a moment with Sam. Ross and Sterns are in the special prison and Sidewinder giving up a lot of narrative to get himself into a regular prison, which he promises he'll break out of. There's what's supposed to be a touching moment with Falcon (I don't even bother to try to remember the character's name) that is supposed to have a tension breaking end but overall feels forced.

Forced is a good way for me to describe this entire movie. They wanted to do .. something. I guess it's a transition movie to build The New Avengers? There's only one mention of X-Men and that's the adamantium. There's no Fantastic Four references. This movie doesn't seem to have much of a purpose other than to keep the characters on screen.

There is one after credit scene that tries to build tension by stating that they'll have to face the Others. What Others? It's more confusing than tantalizing. It's said by Sterns who can calculate probabilities and stuff like that but why would he know anything specific outside of his general area? Maybe something they discovered in the celestial? I have no idea and honestly I won't think of it much past writing this. 

So there you go. I'm not nearly alone in my evaluation of this movie as cobbled together and not interesting. Someone brought up the point that with the exception of Ross none of the characters developed. Even Ross is a redemption arc trope but at least he's trying. Every other character is exactly the same as when the movie started so what's the point?

Will I see the next Captain America movie? Of course. I've got the subscription that lets me see movies every week so it's no skin off my nose to use one of my weekly slots to see the new Marvel movie. Will there be a next Captain America movie? Even though this one is getting panned there will be another one. The character IP is too valuable not to keep making movies. I have a feeling it will have different writers and a different director tho.

Gladiator II - My Take (Spoilers)

 

I know I'm writing this before the movie has been released. You'll find out why soon enough.

I haven't seen Gladiator. I never wanted to see Gladiator. I had no plans to see Gladiator. I didn't want to see Gladiator II. I had no plans to see Gladiator II. I saw Gladiator II.

See, AMC has this fun thing called 'Screen Unseen'. They give you the genre and a teaser blurb. Here was the one for this movie: "Save on a never-before-seen film with a secret twist - the title will only be revealed at showtime!" How could I resist that when I have subscription movies to use up for the week? I'd been wanting to go to these but wasn't willing to pay full ticket price for them since they're single 7pm showings. Now? Not a problem.

I mentioned this to my cinephile friend (who also has a subscription) and he decided to go as well. I was pleased because I haven't seen a movie with someone in over a decade. It would be nice to have company for once and someone who's interested in movies is a bonus.

We're watching the leading commercials and previews while trying to figure out what movie it would be. He was looking at December 6 release dates and guessing which one it might be. We both laughed when he said it might be Gladiator II, since we both have the same opinion on going to see it.

As the movie started and the opening credits were rolling they looked ominously familiar. The production companies rang a bell for me. Then the movie title showed up. Gladiator II. We both used profanity as our reaction. AMC tricked us into seeing this movie.

We did discuss leaving because it's not like we paid for the tickets but decided to suffer through it. I think I'd suffer more because of my decades long informal research into the Roman Empire and I wasn't completely wrong. But I also accept that it's a movie, not a documentary, so as long as they make am honest effort I can forgive a lot of mistakes. At least during the movie. After it all bets are off.

My biggest peeve for this movie was the lack of time breaks. It didn't show the passing of time between situations so it quite literally felt like each new plot point happened the day after the previous one. Since there was a time sensitive plot point it got completely lost in the mix. By not showing character development over time there was no reason to get invested in the characters. Without that investment it's a flat movie.

My friend did point out that they didn't linger on the gore parts and that's true. There's enough to show what's happening and what the result was but they weren't extended scenes and gore wasn't amplified. It was inconsistent (two stomach stabs, different stabee responses). Considering it's a movie about arena fighting I'd say that's something in the favorable category.

The story depends on the audience not knowing much about Roman history, especially the legal aspects. Sadly for me, I know those. I'll get into that later. By playing fast and loose with those they can flatten out the story where there would have been significant problems. I'm fine with that for the sake of the movie. Not everyone is going to know the laws regarding slaves, their rights, the various punishments for infractions, etc. so those weren't mentioned at all.

Pedro has a few facial expressions - the weary general, the concerned general, the frustrated general, then back to the weary general. To be fair they didn't give him a lot to work with so they fit the character he was given. The 'weary general' expression at the beginning is a big set up for his role going forward.

The classic 'mad emperor' is doubled by having twins in the role of emperor. So, two of them ruling together. This is historically accurate, oddly enough. There'd been several instances of joint emperors to various extents for a few decades along with sole power ones. Mind you, for a long time the way the position of emperor was attained was to be adopted by the previous emperor who then elevated them into the position so they could keep it after the first one's death. But I'm pleased and surprised they used the real names for this movie. A plus for them and I had to look it up to be sure.

This is where things break down because the movie makes it seem like the position of emperor is a bloodline thing. It most certainly was not. It was a power thing. Romans didn't make much distinction between natural and adopted so it was the name, not the lineage, that mattered when it mattered. Spoiler time - the main character is supposed to be the son of the emperor Marcus Aurelius's daughter which, for the sake of the movie, makes him the heir apparent to the throne. They refer to him as Prince of Rome. This is so not true but again, plot required it.

The main character becomes a gladiator champion with a huge grudge against the general because the general just happened to be doing his job and ordered the person who shot one of his soldiers killed in battle. Spoiler alert - the person killed is the main character's beloved wife. So yeah. Vengeance thing going on here. Big foreshadowing that there's going to be a confrontation later.

The more interesting storyline, in my opinion, is a freeman maneuvering to become emperor. The politics there are glossed over but told enough to show the steps taken to get there. This could and did happen. Pretty much anyone could be proclaimed emperor. How long they stayed emperor was a matter of how well they knew how to hold power. There's not much in the way of buildup to this until he says that's what he's going to do.

This freeman buys the main character to be a gladiator. He promises him he can have the general's head. He's very certain of it but then again the promise costs him nothing. It might have been considered foreshadowing except there wasn't enough going on to make it viable during most of the movie. His 'rise to power' was an accelerated bit of story.

The former emperor's sister was just a mess of a character. She wasn't developed past the necessary parts and is a Mary Sue in that regard. Maybe she's got more importance in the first movie so that knowledge would make her more important in this one so I'll hold off on fully raking her across the coals here. Spoiler - she's the mother of the main character and sent him away after Maximus was killed in the first movie. Second spoiler - Maximus is his father. He's the son of an emperor's sister and a slave, which wouldn't give him any standing in Roman society. If anything it would remove any standing she had as well. Consorting with male slaves was not condoned.

So yeah. Battle scenes, pretty well done. The concept that gladiators weren't disposable, pretty well done and refreshing. The whole 'I'm your mother' thing, poorly done due to only meeting twice before him saying he'd give his life for her. The confrontation, mediocre in general (pun intended). The rise to power, shallow and disjointed.

Disjointed is a good word to describe this movie. As a sequel to a movie where the main character was killed they did what they could. There's a little footage from the first movie and possibly some CGI to make it fit into this one, I can't know whether or not that happened. Slave to possible emperor is the classic rags to riches trope. The inspiring speeches, required. The mad emperor(s), required.

They did a pretty good job representing Rome at the time. The profusion of beggars is a heavy handed visual for the state of the Roman Empire at the time, where the emperor(s) were more focused on winning wars than running the empire. It's pretty to watch when looking at the architecture itself.

On to things that bothered me, both historically and in the movie.

The emperor(s) were too exposed to danger. They had a swordfight staged ten feet in front of them with no guards between them and the two sword fighting slaves with nothing to lose.

The sea battle has crossbows and those are 200 years in the future for Rome. It's a plot point for the main character to pick one up to do a surprise shot at the Imperial Box. But they don't exist at that time for Romans.

The arena fights weren't what they should have been. They didn't just have men show up and hack at each other with swords. Romans demanded spectacle. So they would pair men with different weapons against each other. The only time this happened was when the Emperors' champion, riding a rhino, uses a few different weapons. Otherwise it's some men hacking at each other with swords. The Romans would never have tolerated that when there were important games going on.

The defeat in the beginning of the movie has the captives being branded. Three things here. First is that the new slaves took their branding with barely a wince and it showed up like maybe a second degree burn. The second is that they didn't seem to have any medical attention after that and burns can be deadly. The third is that they wouldn't have been branded on the spot. They would have been sorted into what kind of slaves they were and then sold, when their new owners would brand them. Just because they were fighting in the battle doesn't make them soldiers.

They let the main character keep a ring his wife gave him. I would think that would have been removed/looted when he was captured. Slaves didn't wear gold rings. Plot point but annoying in that respect.

The crowds lined up to watch the carts bringing in the new captives, which would happen since entertainment is where you find it. They were throwing things at them, which probably wouldn't happen because they just didn't care enough about even more slaves to do that and they didn't want to damage someone else's property in case they would have to pay for it.

The general had his troops arriving at Ostia, the port of Rome. Generals were only allowed an honor guard in Rome. Remember 'cross the Rubicon'? The rulers were smart enough not to allow generals to bring their armies into the city. So plot point but very much not happening.

The emperors were far too unguarded in general. The fact that an arrow was shot into the box during the sea battle was proof of that. Plus there's any number of times when they should have been more guarded due to who was in the rooms/area. They were killed (spoiler) because they weren't guarded like they should have been, especially during the time there was a big unrest that they caused.

The Praetorian Guard wore purple horsehair and purple cloaks. Nope. Purple was for the emperor and no one else. I know they did this to differentiate them visually from other troops and I can forgive that one. The purple was also very wrong so I'll have to forgive that one too.

Big spoiler here. The main character kills the guy who bought him and who was almost at the point of being proclaimed emperor. Unless the laws changed drastically the main character, and every other slave the guy owned, would have been put to death. I know, I know. Main character. But it was a very big deal when slaves outnumbered free citizens so they made it so slave conspiracies were something to think about many times over. No matter who the main character's parents are, he's still a slave.

Those were things that stood out to me as problematic. The use of glass? Not wrong except in the street cafe where they would have used something far more durable. The brass trumpets instead of ivory? Not a big deal unless you're really into the minutia of Roman history. The setup of the arena that didn't have the eggs and dolphins for chariot racing? They weren't showing those so they didn't have to have the setup. Flooding the entire arena for the sea battle instead of using tarred ships beams to make a pool? Again, the visual aspect of it. The sharks in the water? Not problematic - they did have them. The lack of variety of performers in the arena? It would have slowed things down since the focus was on the gladiators. The legal stuff? Boring to the audience and better not to mix up real and plot armor stuff.

I would not have chosen to see this movie. But having seen it I can say that if you liked the first one you'll probably like this one. For a sequel I think they did well to tie things together just enough so that this one can stand on its own. It's not one I'm going to watch again even with my free movies and it's not going on my media server any more than the first one did.

Deadpool & Wolverine - My Take (Spoilers)

 

If you didn't read the full title of the post there will be spoilers. I'm not going to white them out. You've got your warning.

I've seen both of the Deadpool movies but none of the X-Men movies. I have them. I just haven't watched them. If you've read any of my blog you'll know I'm woefully behind on my media watching. But these have moved up the list. Any references I make to Wolverine will be things I found from the comics. Not that I've read those either but cut me some slack.

Comparing this one to the previous two it's clear that Disney let them go to the limits of an R rating. I'm going to give an example here. In the first movie the concept of pegging was implied and Wade was reconsidering his decision. In this movie the word is used and it's darn clear that Deadpool isn't new at it. The profanity is easy enough to brush off but this is a whole new thing to bring into Disney. And Disney let it in. Pun kind of intended.

This is a buddy cop movie. Mostly. But the interpersonal stuff is very much a buddy cop movie. And that helps it immensely because I think Deadpool needs a strong straight man to play against. Without that he's quite frankly annoying after a while. With someone to play off and pull the character back it becomes more effective. Wolverine is a very good straight man here.

Small note. I have a major crush on Hugh Jackman at the moment so, sorry.

I know that there's a lot of comic and fan art showing Deadpool and Spider-Man in a ship (relationship, I'm trying to keep up with my slang) of some kind. That won't work in the MCU because of the age they're playing Spider-Man. We'll never get that combination. But Wolverine? Well ...

The Beginning

I think they did a great job bringing back Wolverine without taking away from the legacy that X-Men built. Nothing here diminishes Logan. They used the TVA to open the multiverse to bring in A Wolverine, not THE Wolverine. Because now there's no such thing as A character. By bringing in a completely different variant they could make this version what they needed for the movie. A reboot with the same actor, as it were.

Oh. Someone online pointed out that Mr. Jackman is no longer the only actor to play Wolverine due to one of the cameos. I hadn't thought of that but it also didn't matter too much to me. I don't think anyone should get their hopes up about a change to that actor. It was done for the LOLs and fan service.

The plot is a bit thin if you want my honest opinion. Rogue TVA agent needing to be stopped. X-Man variant about to cause multiverse havoc and needing to be stopped. Confluence to stop them. Buddy cop movie stuff. But honestly this movie isn't about plot. It's about Deadpool and Wolverine. So accept it and move on.

Wolvie and Deadpool (I won't abbreviate him to DP because, well, IYKYK) end up in The Void from the Loki TV series. That sets up a lot of the rest of the movie and allows for an absolute shit ton of X-Men characters to be introduced to the MCU without any regard for what happens to them in the future movies. These are variants in The Void. As I said, MCU used what they had and used it well.

I may get these fights out of order and I apologize for that if I do. Because for me this is a movie where great fight scenes are strung together with some dialog.

The Void Fight

This is the first fight between the two. The long-awaited fight. It showcases both characters' abilities and lots of action. And gore. But since both heal there's plenty more gore where that came from. They did right by the fans on this.

The sound of Wolverine's claws extending through the suit glove? Oh yeah ...

The Sabretooth Variant Fight

Another well done thing here. Yes, this is an important fight in X-Men canon. But it isn't here. So after the fight everyone wanted here's another fight everyone wanted.

They had Wolverine make the smart decision and it was the smart decision for the fight itself.

The Capture Fight

The boys are captured. The head Void bad guy is revealed. Many naughty X-Man variants. Fighting occurs, the boys escape due to Wolverine's knowledge of X-Men gadgets or because he just knows stuff. It's not explained and it doesn't need to be. They get the heck out of there.

Why am I not talking more about this? Because it's not a bad fight scene, it's just not that interesting to me.

The Honda Odyssey Fight

I will put this fight into the top five fight scenes in my personal record book. The fight choreographer deserves an Oscar for the movie but this fight? *Chef's kiss*

This is where two inhumanly strong unkillable (Note 1) characters really try to, well, kill each other. Since they both know it can't happen it's where they can just let go and fight to their little hearts' content. They have different fighting styles, there's a lotta gore, and I love it. There's a break in the fight scene where both of them are sprawled out over seats in the minivan and I'm so going to get a screen capture of Wolverine from that. Deadpool is admittedly in a similar type of position but he just doesn't do it for me and never has, in that way.

The fight is creative and has elements of humor from both of them that make it so much better.

I have to do this and I apologize in advance. There's a fan theory out there that the fight is a metaphor for a different kind of, um, action. I can see that. I can see how it was intended to evoke that question. But I'm gonna leave that one alone because there's other points in the movie where they also tease the question.

The Headquarters Fight

After meeting up with the resistance group they were told about earlier the whole team heads over to do two things - get the boys back to their multiverse and give the variants 'an ending' since they're tired of living in limbo in The Void. Wolverine gets to make an entrance since he at first declined to join them then hitched a ride in the still functional Odyssey, just so he could unfold from the hatch and make up the iconic standing team pose.

Much fighting. They get back to the multiverse. The fate of the others isn't known but at last seeing they were all still standing. Which makes sense since it didn't need that kind of tragedy.

The Deadpool Fight

As a diversion the head bad guy brings in all the variant Deadpools to prevent the boys from doing what they need to do. So one yellow suit in a sea of red. Both red suits and gore. I had to watch the movie twice and focus on following Wolverine because it's fast paced action. I'm honestly not sure if they sped up footage or not. But Mr. Jackman's arms and back must have been sore after filming those due to how many times he punched those claws into various Deadpools.

I'll watch this one a few more times to get a feel for what's going on but overall, not bad. It's going to be more of a challenge to pick out Deadpool Prime (his own term) from the others but I should be able to do it. I like seeing the choreography.

There's variants here from a lot of the comics. There's some cameos as well but it's more difficult to know since they all wear freaking masks. Go to IMDB or fan sites if you want to know those. I won't bother here.

The Ending

The ending has predictable setup of something that needs to be done but will kill whoever does it. There's some pretty good stuff between Wolverine and Deadpool over who should do it. And, predictably, it will end up needing both to make it happen.

This is where the Hugh Jackman shirtless scene occurs. Some people are saying it's CGI enhanced and I can see why but I think it's just good lighting and baby oil that makes the difference. Mr. Jackman works hard to get into shape for these and he went through the standard dehydration routine to make sure the muscles showed to their best advantage. The pose helped too.

Was the shirtless scene gratuitous? Of course it was. But it was also enjoyed and didn't last long beyond the pivotal scene. Then it was mocked so it all works out.

Spoiler - they don't die.

There's a bit of a redemption arc in the final scenes but it works given how things have developed. There's also a little more of why fans are talking about the two of them being closer than buddies, if that's what you want to see in it.

The mid credit scene is backstage, blooper, and clips from all of the X-Men movies. Even never having seen them I will admit I teared up a little. It was a lovely sendoff to the Fox versions.

The after credit scene? Well played indeed.

Summary

I'll get this out of the way first. Deadpool is comic book canonically unapologetically pansexual. Comic book Wolverine is in a thruple with Jean and Cyclops and they've hinted that it's a true thruple with the men also being involved in the situation. In that case Wolverine is at least heteroflexible if not bisexual. So it could happen.

As I said earlier I felt the story was thin. That happens and honestly there was no way the plot was going to or should compete with the two main characters themselves. It was a reason for them to do things and that's enough for a comic book movie, really.

With the amount of money Deadpool movies make and the recent MCU flops I think Disney had to sit on most of their objections and let this movie be a hard R. That gave them creative freedom to decide where to push limits and actually toned down what they might have done otherwise. When you have that freedom you can direct it to where it's best suited to be.

I asked a friend if Wolverine was more openly violent in this movie than in the others and the answer was an emphatic 'Yes'. Fox must have also reined in the visual violence to keep them at PG-13. It makes sense given the atmosphere at the time and the desire to have a larger audience. Comic book movies were meant for kids and fans. They weren't as mainstream as they are now.

The fights all made sense in context. The characters were consistent. The cameos were good. It was a solidly entertaining movie and I look forward to watching it again.

If you have your own opinions or want to correct me about something feel free to comment. If I'm terribly wrong I'll update the post. If it's an opinion thing we'll duke it out in the comments.

Note 1

That whole 'unkillable' thing has issues. There's a lot of debate about just how unkillable each of the characters really is and why. They do have different types of healing factors where what is worse for one is not much for the other. The healing factors are also plot armor in all cases so they're what they need to be in the story. I'll just say 'unkillable for the needs of the MCU' and there you go. No need to rip me a new one.

In the first Deadpool movie Ajax/Francis injects Wade with what looks like blood droplets in plasma. As with so many things it's questioned whether or not that's Wolverine's blood. Given the healing factor thing it would make sense. The comics bring up Weapon X. It's never explained in the movies and I doubt it will be so make up your own mind on it. Didya even remember that injection thing?

But Am I Having Fun?

 

That's always my baseline when playing games - if I'm having fun. Not if I'm winning, even though I like winning, but whether or not I'm having fun.

This brings us to Magic: The Gathering again. There's almost infinite ways to build decks and with that the ability to set them up to play in a way you like. I'm having fun tweaking mine in response to how they play and as I go. I can do that because I don't use real cards, so I have an advantage there.

That advantage is mitigated by my cardinal rule of whether or not I think it would be fun to play. There's a lot of cards and card combinations that would be great if I were a cutthroat competitive player. I can see the advantages and risks of those. But when I look at them I find that I don't want to do it.

One thing I avoid is something called 'infinite combos'. Those are sets of cards that create a situation that create an infinite loop to win the game or at least knock out a player before someone breaks them. I don't like those. I don't want to win that way. I prefer to use tactics and luck rather than a game mechanic that, while perfectly legal and acceptable, isn't fun for me. I also find infinite combos boring since they just sit there and do their thing on their own.

I accidentally had a different type of win condition using a set of cards. I honestly didn't realize that by putting all three together it would mean no one could do anything else (called a deck lock since they can't do anything with their card decks). Again, that's not how I like to win.

I'm finding my current favorite deck has a problem where it becomes a war of attrition. Again, not fun for me. I've had two games where it was obvious that's what would happen unless the other player had some way of chipping away my protection so we called the game. I don't consider that a win or a loss. It's a stalemate and I don't care who would have won since it could go either way in any game.

I spent last night finding and printing cards that would let me get more options while taking out cards that create true attrition. A number of people would say that weakens my deck because I'm making it so other players can attack me. They're right. But I see it as game interaction and it makes it more challenging for me because I don't have the ability to block everything, all the time. I think it makes for more fun play all around.

I did stop into another game store that plays a lot of Magic. I wanted to see what the crowd was like. Overall it was fine but the group I was with also plays a lot of the tournament style game (the format I play is casual) and they play in a tournament fashion. That means playing fast and not always announcing what they did. There's nothing wrong with that play style and I will play there again but if I find that I'm the odd person out by playing slower and playing strictly for fun then I'll move on. I don't have a tournament mindset for any kind of game.

I'm still ambivalent about the game itself. It's enjoyable. It gets me out and social. But there's no way I'm going to turn into someone who has to play it. I'll play it when I want to play it. I'll play it when it's the only game that's going on around the city. But I'll continue to build my random decks in ways that I like and play them in a way I like. If the group doesn't enjoy it I'll find another one because I'm not going to drag down their fun.

I'm finding that the hard core players tend to have very odd decks they like to play at times. They're gimmick decks or odd configurations that they find amusing. I skipped out before someone could pull one of those out last week but I know I can't avoid it forever. Since I'm pretty sure that it's not a deck I'll like I'll use one of my other ones to practice it and see how I want to tweak it.

One thing I have found is that my limit is two games in any one day. After that my brain hurts and I'm tired. There's a lot to keep track of, there's tens of thousands of cards that could be in people's decks, and it's the limits of my need to be social. Maybe three games if two of them are quick but overall it's been two games and done. That sets me apart from the people who can play literally until they're kicked out of the store.

So back to the question of if I'm having fun. Overall I am enjoying myself. I'm finding the social aspect important to me and the ability to play a game well (or well enough) is good. The fact that I don't have to spend money on it means I don't feel I have to pay since I've made the investment in the game. I also like making the cards because it's crafty and I like crafts. So. Yeah. I'm having fun for a given definition of fun.

Some Blog Housekeeping and A Request

 

I've finally started going back into the old posts and replacing the missing pictures. They got lost during one of the many blog migrations and I just hadn't gotten around to doing it. It will take some time but it will be nice to have a complete blog again.

That was the housekeeping portion of the post.

My request is simple. I'm seeing some heavy traffic here but I'm not seeing comments. I like comments. So please leave at least a couple of comments on posts you like to cheer me up. From the high level stats (the only kind I get) I'm concerned my blog is being scraped for nefarious purposes so comments means humans are reading it.

I do have comments set to approval to weed out spam so if you don't see yours, assuming you were nice enough to leave one, wait a bit and it will show up.

The Inertia is Strong

 

Yeah, well. I know there's been a very distinct lack of hobby posts here. And that makes me sad because it means a distinct lack of hobby activity here as well. That's all on me. I'll refrain from adding that to everything I'm going to post about where it applies. You'll figure it out.

The painting area still isn't usable but it's a little better. One thing I've really slacked on is finding a vinyl floor remnant to put under the desk because of the whole paint situation. Better safe than trying to get paint off the laminate floor. There's an independent carpet and flooring store just down the road but I haven't bothered to go there. Maybe this week? Maybe this will be a kick in the pants to get things done?

My friend's brother did stop by to help me sort out some stuff and he's a worker bee. He/we got half of the stacked up area in the front/gaming room out of there and made space for me to start putting things away. I've done a little of that work but kept getting myself blocked when I thought I'd made progress. I need to plow through that and just get things done for now. The refinements can happen when they happen.

Without the painting area there's no need for more miniatures and terrain so the 3D printers are still sitting idle, almost two years later. That bothers me but it's also a testament to me being smart enough not to add to things that won't get done.

I half unpacked a box in the living room because I was looking for stuff and figured it was in there. I was mostly right. That box had split along a side so I took out some things and put the rest in a smaller box. Yes. I know. That's not the right thing to do but it's progress in the respect I can get to the two boxes underneath now.

I'm one again stymied by not being able to do some things. The bins of unpainted minis need to go into the small shed, which opens up the area behind the couch. But getting them there is difficult for me both because of carrying and because getting into the small shed is difficult for me. The area in front of the doors has sunk/eroded so it's a big step up and down. I think I'll get those bins filled (maybe even tracked) and have them as something I'll ask my friend's brother to haul out the next time he comes over.

And he is going to come over again. I'm bribing him with vintage Pyrex cookware but he'd show up anyway. He's a nice guy, he knows I need help, he likes doing stuff like this, and he wants my gaming room set up so I'll run a D&D campaign or two. So he's got an interest in getting this done. I'm OK with that. The only thing is I feel the need to make progress between his visits because I haven't. So no stress, right?

I'm still playing Magic when I can. I started going to another game store that has games on Saturday afternoons as well. I've got three (proxy) decks of my own that play in three different ways. To tell the truth I'm not that happy with the decks the other players use but that's just me. It limits which deck is most effective for me to use but luckily that's becoming my favorite deck anyway. The Friday night group has moved to the new Star Wars game so there's no playing with them and that makes me sad. It's kind of funny that I just get into playing because there's always players only to find that there aren't always players.

The new rules for Warhammer aren't that interesting to me. Maybe when the ork codex comes out I'll get some excitement back but so far they've taken a lot of fun stuff away from us, nerfed other things, and make some of the fun things they left us cost too much. And the new way of building armies flat out sucks because it's tied to the models they sell. That's a big thing now. The armies are designed around the product where in the past they'd put all kinds of stuff out there and let people scratch build what they didn't sell. With 3D printing they're clamping down to only making the rules for models they sell. That's pushing me to a different but similar rule set, to be honest.

Board game night still mostly happens. The problem is that there's generally five people and games are more focused on four players. That and finding games that don't take overlong to play. A 120 minute game is not suitable for a Tuesday evening because it will always take longer. So many games are long games. I'm digging through mine to find ones that fit the criteria and coming up darn short.

I seem to have become the leader of monthly paint day at the store. The owner figured out I know how to paint so he left me in charge the last time and said I can take it over going forward. Um. Ok? I don't really mind because I don't like painting away from home so doing basic stuff and helping others fills the gaps. I still need to write up a PR thing he'll use to promote the paint day. I hate talking about myself so that doesn't help. I think I'll ask someone else to write it up and I'll tweak it.

I'm in an article in the local paper. The student was doing a story on the second game store when I was there and I got quoted a few times. There's pictures of me too, which displeases me but it's done. I'm not saying a word about it anyone because I don't want them to know. I'm fine with being in the paper. I'm not fine with people I know reading the article. If they find it on their own, great. I'm not pointing them to it. I don't think I said anything very insightful. Mostly my part got edited down to how the stores are friendly and safe. Being a girl gets me boxed into those sentiments and yes, I did say it. Oh well.

The sewing room? Still a jumbled mess. I'm back to the 'need to do A so I can do B and then do C' situation. An example is that I need to empty the bookcase that was partially filled, move it out away from the wall, vacuum the whole area, move the bookcase closer to the window so I can fit a set of plastic shelves next to it, then fill it with books. Again. Then I can put the sewing pattern boxes on the shelves. That will empty a number of boxes and free up space. No guarantee I'll get the sewing area set up but the more I can put things away the better the chances.

The living room is another situation of tripping over my own feet. The area behind the couch has bookcases but I can't do much with those until the mini storage bins are out of the way. I also need to swap the extra bookcase for the one my friend insisted I bring but then didn't take. I kind of want to raise the floor lamp behind that bookcase so that means building or finding something to do that. But once the bookcases are available that's more boxes to unpack and get rid of.

So yeah. Plenty to do, not much motivation to do it. I won't even get into the kitchen. I can reach the pantry but the shelves are stupidly spaced to be useful so I'm trying to figure out how to take the stuff from the floor pantry (as I call the bags) and put them in there in a useful manner. I'll always need the steps to get to the top shelves so that's not a concern. I've also got the cabinet in the laundry room that's available for kitchen pantry use. It's also got stupidly spaced shelves. I just can't win sometimes.

The office is a mess and that's something I can do bit by bit, if I wanted. The shelves are up and designated so it's a matter of taking things from boxes and putting them on shelves for the most part. But do I do it? Oh heck no.

My entire hobby situation is at a standstill and I hate it.

I Finally Gave In - I'm Playing Magic the Gathering

Yeah. Whatever. I finally played some MtG. As with pretty much every gaming store in the country my local store has Friday Night Magic along with various and sundry other times when people play. As with Warhammer 40k this is one of those games where you're pretty much guaranteed to find other players.

Now before you start doing the Nelson 'ha ha' at me I have a caveat. I'm not buying cards. Nope. Not a single one. I borrowed decks at the start and I still do. But for my own decks I'm printing proxy cards. 100% printed proxy. I know I can't use these in sanctioned and/or sponsored events and I'm fine with that. But I'm also not buying into the cardboard crack.

The game has thousands of different cards. Each card can have multiple printings. The cards vary in rarity and therefore in price. You can get cards for pennies. You can get cards that cost more than cars. Most of them fall in the lower range of that spectrum but I am NOT going to pay $20 for a piece of printed cardboard that has no actual value. It's ink on cardboard. It's got a secondary market scarcity price. And I just don't care.

So my decks can be 'expensive' decks. Why? Because they don't cost me anything I don't already have. I know that's not completely fair to the people who do collect the cards and buy into the game. I do. And I'm very up front with the fact my deck is a full proxy deck in case they don't want to play against me. It's the same as my 3D printed 40k army. It's a choice the other player makes.

All the disclaimers out of the way, lets talk Magic!

When I told one of my friends I was starting to play he mocked me and rightly so. I can take it. He immediately knew what kind of deck would be best for me and it turns out I had already played a deck like that and found it to suit me. Go figure. Because there's all kinds of decks.

There's five colors that relate to the major play style of the cards. There's also colorless but that's kind of a mix into all of them. And those five colors can be mixed into the same deck if you like. There's names for the various mixes that I'm still learning and then there's the single color - mono-color - decks that are one color and colorless.

I'm a brute. I like to go in and hit things. That's my strength and weakness as a tabletop player. When I play D&D I'm a fighter or a cleric. When I play other games I build my armies to curb stomp my opponents. So it only made sense for me to go with the color that's designed to roflstomp my opponents. That color is green.

I'm going to get spanked for this but I don't know how many people reading this have played Magic. Probably more have than not. But if you haven't played it's a mystery like any other game. I've been learning and still have questions as I go.

The core of the game is to get mana (a term we've all heard) which is what you use to 'cast spells'. Everything is casting a spell. Almost everything. But we'll get to that.

You mostly get mana from the land cards. I put a picture of one because it's pretty. Each turn you get to add more land if you have it in your hand and then use it all to do stuff. There's a few things you can do but the core of it is putting out creatures to attack and defend.

This is what took me longer than it should to figure out. You're not fighting the creatures. Nope. You're fighting the player. The creatures are just there to take the damage that would have been done to the player. For some reason I was more focused on the creatures than the player. Blame role playing games and tabletop for that one. Once I got that through my thick skull I started playing a lot better. Fine. A little better. I still suck.

Each turn has a player setting up to do combat and nasty things to the other player(s), then they each do their thing. A few of the cards let you do things out of turn so that can make it interesting. But in general you're trying to hit the player for more points of life than they have. That's the goal of the game. It doesn't matter how many creatures you destroy, etc. It's all about the life points. I have to keep remembering that.

My first printed decks were ones I found pre-built on one of the many sites that has decks. There's also sites that let you print out cards. This all made it very easy for me to turn a list into a sheet of cards to be printed, cut, trimmed, edged, and sleeved. After all that I end up with a deck of my very own that I can bring to the game.

My local friend has thousands of cards and he's building me a deck that I want to try. It's a pair of colors that take more finesse than the brute strength of my precious green. I asked him if he would make one before I started building my own decks and only then realized just how much work it can be to do that. I consider it work even though I'm doing it all online. I can only imagine how bad it is when you actually have to dig through cards. I'm not pushing for him to finish that. He's got enough going on without that.

The format I've been playing is 100 cards where you have one of each card, except for basic lands. A basic land is what that picture is. It just gives you mana. It doesn't do anything else. You can have as many of those as you like but they recommend your deck has about 40% land since you need that to buy the other cards and do stuff with them. That's a big freaking deck and shuffling is interesting, to say the least.

Games tend to last about five turns or so. It's a build up to get enough mana to start buying things to put into play then it goes in all kinds of directions based on what color(s) you're playing. So it can be a fast game and this format can be multiplayer which makes it more interesting in a lot of respects.

So how do I feel about this? I'm fine with playing. It's not a bad game. I can see where people would get into the artwork of the cards and want to have special sets. I haven't played the other game formats where the decks are built and work different. I haven't had to do it so I don't bother right now. I'm sticking with the format that's most commonly played around here.

Because I print my cards I don't have to swap them around. If I were buying them I wouldn't buy a full deck and then buy duplicates for the next one. That would be wasteful. It would mean tracking what cards I have, what decks they're in, and moving them around. For me it's flat out easier to print an entire deck at once, even if I'm printing thirty of those land cards at a time.

Why would the cards have to be moved? Because the decks are sleeved. That means the cards are in plastic sleeves with opaque backs. That's to protect the cards but more so to make sure that they're not identifiable from the back. There's been big cheater scandals about marked sleeves in the tournaments. So if I were to take cards from Deck A and use them in Deck B I would have to move them. But if I wanted to play both Deck A and Deck B in the same evening in different games I'd have to shuffle cards around. Playing proxy it's just easier to make entire decks.

I just made a new deck tonight, using what I learned from the previous deck I built. I think I may have gone too hard on this one but I won't know until I play it. It may be a nasty deck but in my hands there's no guarantee it will play that way. If it does play too heavy for our casual games I'll sit down with the other players and see what's wrong with it so I can fix it. Again, I can print new cards.

I mentioned all the steps involved with me making a deck. I'll expand a little here.

I print them, either on the inkjet or color laser printer. The inkjet gives a bit of a brighter and clearer image, at the cost of using photo paper and all that ink. The laser printer is a bit duller and lower resolution but they're still perfectly usable. I have a lot of inkjet photo paper I bought at the thrift store over the years so that's not an expense. And now that I have the inkjet working properly again I can take the time to print some that way. The laser is faster and easier.

To cut them I use scissors. I have a fancy paper cutter somewhere but in this case it wouldn't be as much use as it could be. There's a gap between the cards so no matter what the cuts aren't going to be usable right out of the box.

Trimming takes off the bits that were left behind so the cards are nice and clean. I'd have to do this with scissors anyway. Probably. I might be able to do this with the paper cutter too for most of them. I'll have to try that when I find it. But for each page I cut I then carefully trim off any offcuts so the cards are just that card.

I make a decent amount of print and play games so I have a corner rounder punch. You'll notice almost all the cards in games have rounded corners. This is no exception. By rounding the corners the cards suddenly look much nicer.

Magic cards have black edges (mostly) and are printed on black core cardstock. I therefore take a black Sharpie and carefully color the edges so that they're black. I do this on game cards too. I have a bag of colored Sharpies and can edge the cards to match their inks but most of them are black. This step makes a surprising difference in how the cards look. You might want to try it on one of your own games.

The final step is putting them in sleeves. Open the sleeve, slide in the card, push it gently so it's firmly seated in the bottom, put it in the box. Lather, rinse repeat.

I spend a lot of time on this and I don't mind. I like doing print and play stuff. I have the time to spend. I have all the materials here. I did have to buy card sleeves and boxes because what I have here wasn't game appropriate. But that let me spend some money at the local game store so it's not a total waste.

So there it is. I'm one of those people who show up on Friday night to sit around playing cards. Honestly it's not that different than the people who get together to play poker, in my opinion. We're playing cards and having fun.

For everyone who's laughing at me for finally getting sucked into the game you can see where I've kept a bit of my distance. I'm really not going to spend money buying official cards. I just can't deal with that. I'm not kidding about the card prices. There's one I like and I have it in two decks now. The card price is $700. For one card. For a small piece of printed cardboard. People play with proxies for those far more often than the ones that go for $0.05 but for me it's the principle of the thing. I'm not buying into the game any more than absolutely necessary.

I'll get this deck ready tomorrow to use Friday. Hopefully there will be players I like there this week. Otherwise it will wait until they do. I'm not going to jump into another deck type until I've got one or two I'm happy with in green. Then I'll start to branch out. It gives me something to do.