November 2022 - Arkhaven Site

30NovNovember 30, 2022

RE:Play – The Last Express

This one is a lost gem. I believe I have made my extremely low opinion of the live-action puzzle games from the 1990s crystal clear. Sure, they made money for their companies, (briefly), but the truth is they were bad. The limitations of green screen studios, plus several hundred-page scripts, combined with the intrinsic problem of multiple dialog trees ensured terrible performances from the actors. And not all of these actors were the result of a community theater casting round-up. Ripper from Take-Two starred...

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29NovNovember 29, 2022

Drive By Reviewers As I Get Ready to Run Out the Door

Blog business first. I will be offline from Dec 1st through the 12th. I am way the hell overdue for a vacation. As of Thursday, I. Am. In. The. Wind. FIRST The Dark Herald Recommends: Andor I think this show was padded eight ways from sunrise. I strongly suspect that this series was originally meant to be about six hours in total. Then Kennedy got excited because something, you know, good, had crossed her desk for the first time in years. The reason I say this is that every three episodes...

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25NovNovember 25, 2022

The Dark Herald Recommends: Disenchanted

I hadn’t planned to watch this, but it was on at the in-laws after Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll give the movie this much. It knew what it wanted to be. It just wasn’t a realistic goal. The original Enchanted was Disney sending itself up and it was kind of endearing. A Disney Princess comes to the real world and brings a little magic with her. The Central Park musical number was really good and did everything it was supposed to. At the end, Giselle gets the high-power New...

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25NovNovember 25, 2022

I Wished I’d Watched This Instead

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t9Pccq0DZVc

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24NovNovember 24, 2022

Appendix N Heroes: Imric the Elf Earl

NOTE: I'm using the term "hero" pretty loosely in this case. It was written in 1954, you can tell it was written in 1954 because it couldn’t be written today. This is a work of high tragedy that is strongly influenced by the Norse sagas. If you like Game Thrones but would prefer that it be written by a non-sadist that can actually fit a story that should only take two hundred pages, into two hundred pages. This is the book for...

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24NovNovember 24, 2022

Disney Rumors

Rumor: Kathleen Kennedy is leaving LucasFilm... Again. Sorry, not buying that one even if John Campea is. There is supposedly an agreement that she leaves the company after Indy V launches. I've heard that one before. I'm not buying that one either because she wants to leave on a high note and no project that she is headlining will be successful. How did Kathleen Kennedy get to where she is today? W-e-l-l-l-l, I do know that when she...

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23NovNovember 23, 2022

The Fan Hierarchy

I’ve frequently heard the claim that superhero movies are dead or dying. That they have worn out their welcome. This is usually being said by people who were never interested in them in the first place; like film critics. However, superhero movies have been around since 1978 when young Gen-Xers were first made to believe a man could fly. It’s frequently stated that these franchises go in cycles, but this really isn’t the case. What happens, (and it happens every time), is that the franchise...

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21NovNovember 21, 2022

I’M B-A-A-A-A-C-K

FLASH! Midnight coup by Disney’s Board of Directors. Bob Chapek, is out. Dragged from his bed in the middle of the night and stood against a wall. Bob Iger is back in as CEO for the next two(?) years. That is a weirdly abbreviated contract. Susan Arnold is remaining as Chairman of the BOD. Iger had both jobs until he was hit by a boardroom revolt in February of 2020. The institutional investors all knew that the next two or three quarters would be losses. That was baked in. It was...

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21NovNovember 21, 2022

Book Discussion: The Wandering Earth by Cixin Liu

The Wandering Earth is an anthology of novellas by Cixin Liu, the (2015) Hugo Award-winning author of the Three-Body Problem. Which incidentally was the last time the Hugos reflected the voice of the entire fandom instead just 300-pound, purple-haired weirdos. I found this collection as intriguing as the Three Body for similar reasons. When I read his first novel, I was honestly rather surprised by what he was able to get away with in Communist China. That book began with an unflinching look...

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20NovNovember 20, 2022

Greg Bear 1951-2022

One of the last members of the Old Guard of hard science fiction has passed. During his career he authored over fifty books. He won five Nebula awards and two Hugos (back when a Hugo was worth having). He was also one of the founders of San Diego Comicon. Greg Bear suffered a massive stroke last week, his wife Astrid (daughter of Poul Anderson) released a statement saying that per his wishes, life support would be withdrawn. He breathed on...

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Monthly Archives - November 2022