Week in Geek, episode 3, recorded 9/7/17. News since last recording , including: good reviews for The Shape of Water and IT; a bad summer at the box office; upcoming NetFlix including The Magic School Bus and Punisher; set photos and casting discussions and whitewashing and live action adaptations (especially Aladdin); and Terry Pratchett’s final manuscripts being steamrolled.
This gives us a few years to still enjoy some of the classics of the early Internet. For instance, I don’t know where I would be without Homestar Runner.
The final tweet in that Twitter Moment was a plea hoping that someone does something about preservation for Flash videos – and I second that thought. Hopefully someone figures out a way to do that. Would be an amazing museum exhibit. Or a good conversion project to some newer technology – even if the best they can do is uploads to YouTube, like with Homestar Runner.
What Flash videos and games are you sad to see go?
Well, apparently I’m disconnected from the “meme warriors” and the men’s rights folks and the gatekeepers and whoever else… I just wanted to see if there were any fun memes about Mass Effect Andromeda, post a few perhaps, and head off to play the game a bit before bed.
Instead, I found that apparently, there’s a whole backlash of people who are saying that the game has bad graphics. Specifically, bad graphics for the female characters. Making them less attractive. I’ll skip linking to anything, but the main article I’m seeing is from the Sun in the UK, so, tabloid. Good times.
It’s a chance to complain about social justice warriors, to just keep pointless vitriol going. If I had to complain about something in the graphics, it’s definitely font size: trying to read anything in the game is a pain!
So I didn’t find any memes that weren’t somehow revolving around this, most of them crude and awful. To be fair, many of them resemble some of the awful screen captures of male Shepard from the first series… which tend to be in the same vein, so probably the same folks making and sharing them.
Ugh. Had you heard of this controversy? Noticed anything on your own? (I haven’t) What do you think?
Netflix is on a roll for shows that David and I like. Recently I started watching one of their new shows Trollhunters and so far I am thoroughly enjoying it. It is great because instead of taking human lore they turn it on its head a little bit and the lore is actually about the trolls. The troll hunter is actually traditionally a troll who hunts bad trolls. Then through a series of events it ends up being a human teenager, Jim Lake Jr. (played by Anton Yelchin), who happened to find the troll hunter amulet. Then we get to dive with him into this secret hidden underground world where trolls, gnomes, shapeshifters and more exist. At the same time he is also figuring out how to get through high school and not let his mom and others find out about the whole other life. It is a fun time and I highly recommend the show.
So an interesting show that I discovered on Netflix is Dragons Race to the Edge. It is a continuation of the How to Train Your Dragon movies. David and I both loved the How to Train Your Dragon story, partly because: who doesn’t love dragons?
The show brings us to the dragon riders having explored most of the area, discovering most of the dragons along the way. At the beginning Hiccup is having a bit of a crisis as to what to do now, so of course suddenly they discover something that opens up a whole new world!
It has been interesting to watch the continuation of these stories, but they only got some of the voice talent back so when first watching it there were moments that were a little jarring, but overall it has been a fun exploration.
Continuing the Story
How to Train Your Dragon actually functions as a perfect story for a larger series. I mean who doesn’t want to see a group of people riding around one dragons, finding more dragons? It is great because they have trained some dragons, but they show that there are dragons that they can understand yet cannot be tamed.
The other side is that with the introduction of the dragon hunters they can use that to create an appropriate villain for dragon riders. Besides just general dragon hunters there is also a crazy Viking from Bart who is obsessed with Hiccup, which makes for a pretty good counterpart to our main character. In general it is a fun ride and the more dragons they find the better!
Different Voice Actors
Luckily they got some of the main voice actors for the show, but there were enough that were different that it is a little jarring at first. Now getting Hiccup, Astrid, Tuffnut, and Fishlegs helps a ton because those are the main characters, although Ruffnut is a different voice, which can be jarring. The more difficult one is that Stoik was voiced by Gerard Buttler in the movies and it would be difficult to get someone to replicate that voice – so they don’t really even try. As the show goes on the different voices become a little less weird, but it would be difficult to go back and forth.
Netflix Originals
Netflix has been doing some interesting shows lately and this is just another one in a growing list. It is a fascinating choice to take two in-theatre movies and choose to continue the story on the small screen. Yet, they seem to have kept the heart from the movies, which helps make the show successful (with 3 seasons currently on Netflix). It will be interesting to see what other shows might end up on Netflix that you wouldn’t think it would be continuing.
Comparative Geeks 