I know it has been awhile since I took the time to write a post on here, apologies for that. Once again I kept hoping to finish somethings for a cool update post but priorities kept shifting and distractions as well as delays kept coming up. Even now, I am typing this from a secret location far from my Gnomish workshop.
As you can see above we decided to participate in the Dwarven Forge Wildlands Retail “Hunger Games” to buy some things we missed out on during the Kickstarter. We were not able to get everything we wanted then, nor were we able to get everything we wanted this time. Funds as well as availability playing their parts in this.
Still, we managed to do ok. Dwarven Forge is expensive but also rare, which means it tends to be expensive even second hand. So unlike many of our other hobby items we’re have to generally pay “full price” but we like the products enough to pay that price. It is just so durable, modular, “plug and play” (for the factory painted pieces) and we like the quirky aesthetics that suit our Jim Henson style fantasy tastes.
We did not expect to love the new Ruins so much but we do indeed love them. So much character and they will work nicely in so many of our projects. I may end up doing some touch up painting to pick out some of the details eventually but for now they will work fine as is.
We had to buy the barge unpainted but we are very glad to have gotten it. Surprisingly it was designed to allow a mast to be stepped so it is even more versatile than we expected. Being modular it will mix nicely with bits from the earlier Dwarven Forge boat we have… and we are thinking of getting another of the earlier (and smaller) boats for even more modularity.
In addition to Dwarven Forge we had our latest Archon Studio Rampart (the Third Edition) Kickstarter pledge arrive.
As you can see we did not back this one as extensively as we have back other Archon Kickstarters. I had originally been pretty optimistic about this Kickstarter whereas Mrs. GG was not very enthusiastic. As the campaign progressed my hopes diminished with it appearing to have some great ideas initially not coming to realization the way I had originally foreseen.
At this point I can not really give these Rampart 3 pieces a proper review. I am very disappointed Archon chose not to use this KS to give us proper Kazumi Temple floors/roofs but atleast we got what looks like some passable sci-fi floors/roofs for an urban sprawl battlefield setting. I can not see these pieces covering a whole table without looking too repetitive but they should make a couple decent buildings. The stretchgoal “freebie” scatter pieces are not as good as Dungeons and Lasers KS’s but that has been the way with Rampart 1 and 2 as well.
Archon makes some greats stuff as prices that are excellent value for money. However, their projects seem to lack a coherent, over arching design management that conveys a sense of comprehensive gameplay application. In other words, there are a lot of cool pieces but there feels like gaps in the product line which would be apparent to the designers if they actually played with the pieces they are designing. Especially if they were filling a 6×4 game table. This is the kind of thing Dwarven Forge excels at. You get the feeling Dwarven Forge staff are staying after hours at the workshop to play games on their terrain where as with Archon I feel like they make a couple of small vignettes for photographing and leave it there. Games Workshop terrain design seems a mix, some feels like disjointed L-shaped ruins as scatter terrain whereas other sets of GW terrain create immersive game boards.
We also had our Monster Fight Club Icy Wilds Kickstarter pledge arrive.
At the time of the Kickstarter we decided to manage our gaming budget by forgoing winter themed terrain. This meant we intended to do a warmer version of Frostgrave in part to save money but also to keep a standardized template for our miniatures’ bases. We were also unsure how much we would like the Monster Fight Club terrain. Since then we picked up some MFC terrain both second hand and retail on sale… and we like it a lot! Very durable but not as modular or well painted as Dwarven Forge. Not the cheapest terrain but worth it, especially if you can find it on sale. And it blends well with Dwarven Forge terrain after a bit of work.
Speaking of painting, the bits we got in the Kickstarter were not painted as well as the retail pieces we bought previously. I like to add my own touches anyway but these new pieces will require more work. They are ok for now but more work to do it seems! And we did not suffer as badly as some backers have according to comments on the Kickstarter. All of or pieces had at least some paint on them… barring the additional “freebie” Wizard MFC threw in as a “thank you/apology” to backers.
In other news, we have managed to watch a few shows. As it is, there is never enough time for us to watch everything we want to. Very different from what I remember of TV in my childhood.
We finished Season 4 of “The Rookie” and was disappointed.
The show was at its best for us when it dealt with more mundane policing and the dynamics between the characters. The increasingly outrageous plots are feeling… unsustainable and ultimately less captivating. The show would do better now to make Nolan and FTO and each new season be about training a new rookie. And get more realistic, mundane policing on the screen. Help the public better understand the world of being a cop.
Originally I’ve resisted watching “The Orville” because we were not keen on the idea of a Star Trek wannabe with comedic flavor. But once we gave it a chance we enjoyed it. So we decided to give “Star Trek: Lower Decks” a chance and enjoyed season 1 and 2 so far. Admittedly I get a lot more of the “inside jokes” than Mrs. GG does as I am a bit of an old Trekkie. But the show is surprisingly upbeat and optimistic. It is not nearly as cynical, sarcastic and mean spirited as I expect from contemporary shows. It is definitely satirical but it feels more like it is laughing along rather than laughing at if you catch my drift. It just makes for a nice, light hearted show to finish the evening with before bed.
But we have not seen season 3 of either “Lower Decks” or “The Orville” yet and have heard the shows change their tone in their third seasons.
We wanted to love Amazon’s “Rings of Power” but we went in with low expectations after being very let down by “Wheel of Time”. I really resented a lot of the pushback the show was getting over casting choices. The whole “go woke, go broke” movement really irks me. But identity politics seem to be something we have to confront right now. I am not fussed about skin color and I do not think Tolkien and Middle Earth is some sort of “White Heritage” that needs to be protected. At the same time I do not think it is cultural appropriation if my son wants to dress up as a Native American for a kids event party while on holiday.
“Rings of Power” has a problem and it is not the skin color of some of the actors… it is the writing. In so many ways the show has hit it out of the park. It looks gorgeous. And I am surprised to find myself liking the Harfoots, which I expected to hate as much as Ewoks. Yes, I hate Ewoks while loving Jawas and Harfoots. Go figure. But the writing has been disappointing. And the actors could do so much better if only the writing was better. The characterization of Galadriel so far just does not make a lot of sense to me. There seems to be a choppy inconsistency to the feel of the world as it is being presented. The scenes, even when they are not always individually awkward just do not like together well. I am not getting a sense of true, comprehensive world building…. And world building is what sets Tolkien apart from so many other authors.
And to be fair I did not realize just how much better the writing could be until I saw the first three episodes of…
“Star Wars: Andor”…. Which has knocked my socks off! Considering I was not a huge fan of “Rogue One” and certainly did not like the Cassian Andor character it has amazed me just how well this show has hooked me. The immersion is brilliant. Now I get Cassian Andor as a character. He makes sense to me. He is part of a tapestry woven to create a believable setting that makes me want to learn more about it. The writing, the dialogue, the world building is getting right just what “Rings of Power” is getting wrong.
And it manages to do that with flashbacks, which I hate. A show that can be that compelling with a storytelling technique I hate has my respect. I watched those first three episodes without Mrs. GG, now I am going to have to rewatch them with her so we can pick up on the rest of the series when we get home… and I do not regret having to rewatch them at all!
It often seems like movies come out in pairs. There were two “War of the Worlds” tv shows in 2019. I watched the BBC one quite some time ago. Only recently was I am to try the French one. The BBC one was grim, certainly more grim than the movie with Tom Cruise. But let me say, this French “War of the Worlds” has been so depressing I had to take break and watch Walking Dead to lighten the mood!
It has had some interestingly new things to add but to be honest it is so far removed from the Original “War of the Worlds” that to use that title seems like false advertising. Especially after the season 1 finale reveal. There are several horrific child related scenes that precluded Mrs. GG being able to watch the show and even made me uncomfortable. The kinds of things often implied but left off screen are in this show lingered over entirely too long. When folks talk about gratuitous violence or gore these are the kinds of scenes I think they mean. And in a “Game of Thrones” kind of way, no character is safe. Normally I would think this is a good thing but it makes it difficult to follow exactly what story we are being told. Starting to care about a character? Careful, you may be wishing them an early demise. And the show also wants to highlight some of humanity’s worse traits on top of everything else, although to be fair not quite as much as I was starting to expect. This show rates for me almost as depressing as Threads.
So in that break from season 1 of “War of the Worlds” I watched the first half of season 11 of “The Walking Dead”…. Which was mediocre.
I think the only reason I find it compelling is the investment I have in the main characters. The writing is ok but not great. It could be so much better. Oh, so much better. There is so much more they could explore in the world of “The Walking Dead”. Make military characters act like military characters. Why is it so hard to get, and listen to, veteran military technical advisors. The idea of a veteran US military group turned civilian mercenary group prior to the collapse then surviving because of their special skill set is great. But then let us see that done by people that know how to do that instead of looking and acting like the previous biker gangs and religious fanatics we have already seen. And that does not even include an unimpressive set of fairly incompetent security guards dressed like Stormtrooper wannabes led by a supposed West Point Graduate.
Living in Germany means I have to wait for the delayed releases of these shows and that is annoying as I have to actively strive to avoid spoilers.
I did manage to see the first episode of Tales of the Walking Dead….
…. and was reminded that I can watch Terry Crews in anything. I love that guy! He just radiates a charm, a kindness that I love. I identify with him and he characters he chooses to play. He strikes me as a good person and he makes me want to be like him. Granted this can limit his acting range but I think his personality really helped make the episode a much more optimistic story than most of the Walking Dead stories. And I enjoyed that… even if some elements of the story made little sense.
Congrats to the people that made it this far. Apologies for such a long, rambling post. It has taken days to write this all down and I really should have done it in smaller, bite sized chunks but I got lazy and I just wanted to have it all done. I have a couple of other things to talk about but will put them in a future post.
As always I would love to hear your thoughts on what I have written. It would be great for this to be a two way communication and I genuinely care what you think.
Home of the Grumpy Gnome 
As always, envious of your terrain collection.
I recently bought the figures that went with Gale Force Nine’s Another Glorious Day in the Corps Alien game and have a question about Battle Systems/Core Space wall terrain. Does it hold up to repeated builds? I like the look of it for building my own space environment but it isn’t something I would be leaving up so am curious about how it works after a few putting up tearing down scenarios.
My wife and I enjoyed the first two seasons of the Orville but haven’t seen it since it went to Hulu here.
The character of Cassian Andor I didn’t like in Rogue One and after the first episode of Andor I liked him less. I understand anti-heroes but they need to have some redeeming features to them. I just need to get out of my grumpy stage and give the show another shot.
War of the Worlds – Didn’t like the BBC version, had hopes for the French version since they were going to be scientific about defeating the aliens but after watching the first season and two episodes of the second, I’m not sure if I want to finish it for a lot of the same reasons you mentioned. It seems like the aliens would be easily defeated given their design but the military, etc are having a hard time of it.
For my relief from the show I finished Vikings and now am also in the last season of the The Lost Kingdom.
Rings of Power is beautifully shot being dragged down by the dialog. Fighting styles is also bothering me, not every weapon needs to be spun either before or after a battle. Still watching it but doubt I will rewatch it.
Tales of the Walking Dead, got two and a half episodes into it before I decided I had better things to watch. Did enjoy the first two episodes even with their faults.
If you have a list or bingo card with end of the world / disaster movie tropes, watch Moonfall with Halle Berry, you will be guaranteed to find all of them plus add more. Do not make a drinking game out of it though, you will die of alcohol poisoning. It is a fun movie to watch just to count the tropes used.
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Thanks mate! If you want to see a glimpse of my end goal when it comes to terrain….
…. How are the sculpts on those GF9 Marines? I heard they were soft. I picked up some of the Xenomorphs on sale at a convention but have not opened the box yet.
I love Battle Systems cardstock terrain but you need to watch all the tutorial videos on their website not just the marketing spiel. To get the most out of the terrain you have to treat it with care. Glue some pieces together and use glue on some edges to toughen them up. And you need to be really careful when punching them out. Be prepared to use a modeling knife/scalpel. And use markers to color the edges to really bring out the best. But once you do that pieces look great, especially in photos and the store so easily. And they take soooo much less time than painting plastic terrain like Dungeons and Lasers or MDF.
I understand Andor now… in for a penny, in for a pound and trapped in a broken system but no, I do not really like him very much yet. But I feel like I might be able to one day. In the same sense that I prefer when Han shot first. The characters make sense. Liking them is a second priority for me. Now Andor killing his informant in Rogue One (which I hated) makes some sense and I hope the tv series can help me understand the Saw character (Forrest Whittaker) in Rogue One better rather than have him be a 2d terrorist. So in other words, the show has me more optimistic than when I started and that works for me.
The military incompetence in War of the Worlds is infuriating. Maybe it gets better in season 2 but things like not wearing helmets and then having guys get domed as well as using relex holosights as some sort of telescopic sights tells me they did not listen to their military technical advisors or armorers. Then of course there is the French military blob formation. I have seen airsoft rookies do better tactical maneuvers. I get that the “aliens troops” are an unusual opponent and challenging to engage with conventional small arms but there are plenty of ways for even civilians to adapt, improvise and overcome. It just feels like lazy writing.
I still need to get around to finishing Vikings and it’s spin-off. We did enjoy Last Kingdom even with all its flaws. And it’s final big battle has some real flaws.
We have not seen the most recent episode of Rings of Power but it seems you and I are in agreement. From what I have heard I will not like the fighting scenes in the most recent episode. It sounds like yet again the military technical advisor was not listened to, if there even was one.
I wish we could get a Walking Dead series focused on Terry Crews.
I have heard future Walking Dead spin-offs will include Daryl going to Europe. I am sure I will hate the probable plotline going into the “new breed” of walkers, er I mean runners, in France but I do enjoy Norman Reedus as Daryl.
When I am in the right mood it sounds like I will need to watch Moonfall!
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Because of the thinness of Battle Systems, I found it’s really easy to leave some pieces connected and still store them away. Good call on using the marker on the edges. I forgot about that. For my needs, I used Battlesystem to get a table setup quickly until I can make/purchase my own terrain bits. It’s good as is, but I want something with a little more dimension that I made myself. Granted, that is taking me forever, so thank goodness for Battlesystem!
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I was originally concerned about how traditional 3d scatter terrain would look mixed with Battle Systems cardstock but I have subsequently found that, with the sci-fi stuff at least, it looks fine. So yes…. Thank goodness for Battle Systems!
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Thanks to you and Faust below on your opinions/ideas on Battle Systems terrain. I like to make terrain but for the Aliens environment I think I will give Battle Systems a go. I looked at GW, etc but like the storability of using the cardstock as long as I treat it well.
I think the GF9 marines have nice detail, not soft at all. Of course that opinion might change once I start painting them, which will be a challenge since I haven’t done camouflage before.
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Camouflage can be a real headache but it is always a great sense of achievement waiting to happen as well, once you complete it to your satisfaction!
I believe you will be well served by Battle Systems terrain mate.
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Congratulations on all your new terrain! I don’t know how you manage to get it and not feel overwhelmed. I feel like I’ve bitten off more than I can chew and I suspect my backlog is a bit more modest sized than yours. I can’t wait to see some of it painted up!
My Dad has joined the streaming age and is very enthusiastic about Cassian Andor. I’ve heard it is what Star Wars needed from some media sources which is great to hear. I’m still enjoying Rings of Power quite a bit. The latest episode was the best yet for me. My only complaint is that the fighting can be a bit over the top and doesn’t feel as realistic or grounded as I would like. I can drone on further about things I like about the show but I’ll stop there as I can tell you’re not enjoying it as much as you hoped.
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Oh I feel overwhelmed sometimes but the thing is, I try to remember I am in this for the long haul and I want to maximize our resource application.
In other words, get things as cheaply as possible. Looking at what we have bought, what we paid at the time and what things cost now… we are already ahead of the curve. Things are not getting cheaper. And some things are going out of production. Having a bunch of Kickstarter stuff arrive at once is misleading when you consider the lead time it took for those items to be ordered. And much of this is factory painted, which while not perfect is atleast playable for now.
So FOMO is part of it, fear of missing out. It is not as if I can just leave something on a FLGS shelf and expect to pick it up in six months. Better to grab it now and if I turn out to not need it later it can go on eBay.
My sprue library is growing to a healthy “need a mini? Build whatever I need” level of diversity with kitbash conversions. But there is always something new that catches my eye since companies keep producing cool new kits. But will that continue? If so, for how long? I have not been that enthused with 3d printing so far… no matter how excited others have been.
By all means drone on about what you like about Rings of Power. I’d love to hear some positives. I think the casting has been great, they even convinced me of Elrond which was a big sell. The costuming has been excellent. I dislike the color of the Numenorean scale armor but otherwise it looks great. Halbrand’s armor looked amazing in that final scene on the ships departing Numenor. Bear in mind we have not yet seen the latest episode with those big fight scenes folks have been talking about. Speaking of ships, I think they look great. Fresh new fantasy ship designs that look plausible to me with my somewhat novice sailing skills. For a guy who used to live on a 100 year old wooden cutter I really should know more about sailing and ship design.
So tell me what you have liked, I would love to hear it!
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I get overwhelmed from time-to-time too. Though sometimes I think, I have this huge backlog and I’m not in the mood to paint any of it at this moment so you can’t win. FOMO is hard to avoid and I think we all fall for it. Especially with eBay. Sometimes good deals come along that end up being hard to resist.
I think Adar’s character is very good and interesting. I can’t say too much without spoiling the latest episode but I believe he is a good villain for LOTR. One of the things that is true for both LOTR/Hobbit and Star Wars is that interesting villains are few and far between. Adar seems like he might be the best ones in Tolkien’s world because he has fleshed out motivations. Only Saruman has this kind of depth as a villain. I don’t love all of the costumes and designs but many of them are well-done. Seeing Numenor was a delight and I agree that the ships generally look great and I don’t have an eye for that at all. These are little things in the grand scheme of things but with the exception of Theo (who is intentionally annoying) and Galadriel, I generally enjoy all of the characters in the show and look forward to seeing how the rest of the season goes. Having said that, I really don’t see a miniatures game being spawned from this show like many hoped. I just don’t see how there is enough in the plot of the show to try and make a miniatures line work. I think that hope/dream for a lot of LOTR fans may not come to pass or at least not anytime soon.
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I have to remind myself it is a hobby, not a job. Part of the hobby is collecting things, not just painting/playing and I forget that at times. I tend to be unsatisfied with things I paint “Just to get it done, even if I am not in the mood.” So given that I am invested in this hobby now “Until the End” I can pace myself to paint what I want, when I want. It is not like I will ever be able to get it all done anyway… unless immortality comes tomorrow.
We are about half way through episode 6 of Rings of Power… better than I had heard it was, so far anyway… but it does have me sighing with annoyance at times. I am not a fan of the overly used slow motion camerawork. I agree with your observations. Adar is an interesting villain. I wonder how much the writers were influenced by the Shadow of Mordor computer game… because I am picking up that kind of vibe…
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle-earth:_Shadow_of_Mordor
I think the show has done, and will do, well enough for us to see some miniature wargaming come out of it. I am not sure it will be GW though.
It is always a joy to hear your thoughts mate!
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Keeping your motivation up is key and enjoying the hobby also helps. I’ve been burnt out focusing on one project before so I think having a bit of a backlog is wise for that reason alone.
I never played Shadow of Mordor (I felt like it wasn’t going to be true enough to Tolkien, ironically enough) but I like how Adar sows doubt in the last episode. I thought it was a realistic depiction of how Sauron and his minions can spread evil with mere words. It isn’t easy to depict that in a convincing manner. I play Lord of the Rings Online and they don’t really manage it, for example. Either way, I’m curious to see where the season goes from here after all of the excitement in the last episode.
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I quite agree with you yet again mate! Like minds and all that I suppose.
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Great terrain collection there. Love the mech. Is this available in store?
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Thanks mate. I do not think it is their retail store yet. Nor can you count on it ever reaching retail. If you like the design your best bet is to late pledge. Last time I late pledge with Archon it only took a couple of weeks for them to deliver.
https://gamefound.com/projects/archon-studio/rampart-third-edition#/section/project-overview
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Thanks will give it a go.
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I hear the Archon Rampart pledge manager is closing soon though so do not procrastinate amigo!
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Good to catch up on what’s been happening! 🙂 That is a nice haul of scenery and bits as well (and I like the look of that Masmmoth walker)! I’m still enjoying The Rings of Power. I don’t watch many series and can usually accept them at face value – if I don’t like them I stop watching them, and I probably don’t worry about how they may stray from what might be expected from them. I’m with you on Ewoks, but I do like Jawas!
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I can quite easily criticize things I like. Hopefully it is seen as constructive criticism as I just want to see things keep getting better.
One of my criticisms of the Mandalorian was how quick the show was to make disintegrating Jawas a joke. Same with Grogu eating a sentient creatures eggs. But at least Jawas got some well deserved screen time.
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***Spoiler warnings*** I mention some stuff that happens in the Black Widow movie and the first two, maybe 3 episodes of She Hulk and Rings of Power. Besides revealing who the main antagonist in the Black Widow is, the spoilers are minor and don’t give away any major plot points.
I’d like to explain what I feel the meaning of “Get Woke, Go Broke” is and hopefully don’t lose you in the process.
I don’t feel that hating a show simply for the change of a fictional character’s gender, color or sexual orientation is necessarily a bad thing. And to hate a show simply for those facts is definitely stupid. When it comes to some established characters, I can understand a little bit of a ‘why did they do that?’ mentality but if the story is good, then I’m entertained. One of my top five supers from my comic book days was Taskmaster. The idea of “photographic reflexes” – being able to immediate duplicate any physical skill they saw – was amazing to me. All those minions that caused a superhero to do more than just wade through them like a light rain? Those were trained by Taskmaster.
In the Black Widow movie they made him into a her.
Ok, I didn’t see that coming, but at the same time I was thinking “Ok, let’s see where this goes.” But it didn’t go anywhere. She was just a mindless person who was ‘damaged’ by a failed assassination attempt, mind controlled and computer chipped upgrade to get the skill stealing ability. But was just a goon and one that had zero personality.
I didn’t hate the change because Taskmaster became a she. I hated the change because it was an incredible character that they just made into a bond villain’s bodyguard that could stand up to supers.
When you mentioned not liking the writing of Rings of Power – that is also the issue at hand. When you look at the writers for a lot of these shows, they have only a couple of credits under their belts. The head writers, Patrick McKay and John D. Payne, only have a single uncredited writer for Star Trek Beyond in their IMDB profile. And they put them in charge of a Billion dollar franchise.
There are gaping writing issues in it. Besides turning Galadriel from a woman of power through her presence, wisdom and magics into one who kicks ass, is brash and wants to leave one of her band behind to die in the snow because he can’t keep up with her. The elves in the watchtowers with their ‘elven eyes’ couldn’t see the destruction that was being wrought across the land by the orcs? So blind to it that they get ambushed? And don’t get me started on the Harfoots. Someone twists their ankle and they cut them from the caravan? Damn, those proto-hobbits are vicious, uncaring little things. They sing songs about those lost on the travels but it seems they’re the ones who make their fellow travellers lost.
She Hulk is another one where they put together an (almost) all female writing staff to create a combination Alley McBeal/slice of life style show. But hired writers that had never worked on a law drama/comedy nor were comic book fans. The shows, IMO fall flat of comedy, the courtroom/law stuff reminded me of a Little Rascal’s play and the misogynistic male co-worker she started off with was a caricature of male toxicity – literally referring to a woman as ‘it’.
I don’t care who is playing the parts as long as they can pull it off and the writing is good. But lately it feels that shows are all but baiting the negative comments to come in. The entire promotion of the Rings of Power focused upon the diversity of the cast and all but nothing about what the show was about. When the film promotes race, gender and sexuality more than the story they’re putting forth, it’s hard not for some of the fans to focus on it. And then when the writing is poor and people say they don’t like it, the show runners simply dismisses them as toxic trolls. It can’t be the story, the acting or the costuming (scale armor screen printed under clothing? REALLY?). It’s because they hate strong women characters.
Sorry that I rambled a bit. It’s late here (3am) and I should know better than to post after midnight.
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Sorry my first sentence out of the gate doesn’t make sense. I was trying to say that I don’t find changing a character’s physical makeup in fictional writing as a bad thing in and of itself. It allows people to explore other avenues and facets that may not have been done before. To simply hate a show because the lead is black, a woman and/or gay is stupid. But I can understand when some people may be upset when established characters are changed. One argument I slightly agree with is if shows want to have strong leads that aren’t cis, white, heterosexual men – doesn’t it weaken the point a bit if they need to take on the title of an established character instead of creating a new character/story/world to stand on their own?
Eh, it’s the late hour again. 😛
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I figured that was what you meant mate. 👍
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You make some excellent points and yet again our thoughts align.
I had not considered the possibility that showrunners might be intentionally creating “controversy and negative press” in order to assist in marketing. But that makes sense now that you mention it.
One thing about the Mandalorian that was interesting for me was that it could take tired old tropes and still make them fun to watch. Unlike The Book of Boba Fett. I can not believe just how different those shows feel from each other.
I just do not yet understand exactly what story/stories Rings of Power is trying to tell me. Maybe it will eventually make more sense. But right now it feels disjointed and contradictory to the previously established lore in a way that has nothing to do with skin tone.
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Thoroughly enjoyed it. Cheers, Geoff.
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Glad to hear you enjoyed it mate! It always helps me justify the time and effort I put in to know that folks get something out of it.
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We’re still enjoying Rings of Power. One of my friends (a big Tolkien fan) is pissed off because “it’s going nowhere!”. I don’t know, I’m holding off to see how this season ends.’ I can see your points about the writing and characters, but it’s mostly ok to me. I know it could have gone a lot worse, and we’ve seen that in the past with a lot of stuff. Andor is on my watchlist, but I’m really not fond of the main actor. Didn’t like him in Rogue One, and I’m guessing I probably won’t like him in this either. Hopefully enough other stuff in the show to keep me entertained. Oh yea, nice haul on the terrain! I had to look up Pokorny paints, as I had never heard of them!
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Thankfully Rings of Power is not as bad as the Wheel of Time tv series was but I do wish it was better. We are about halfway through episode 6 and while some of it is not as bad as we had heard it does have me sighing in annoyance from time to time.
Pokorny Paints were a real find for us. We hesitated to use them at first because they seemed an expensive gamble but we are glad we did. Great for painting the Dwarven Forge as well as other terrain. I still need to experiment with using them in my airbrush though.
Cassian may or may not grow on you. He has grown on me. He is a rogue, no two ways about it, but he seems like a believable person just trying to survive. I can empathize with him and his situation even if he lacks the charm of Harrison Ford as Han Solo. Give him a chance, it may prove worth your while. I am half way through episode 4 and I just keep loving this show more and more. So much potential! I should be complaining about how I miss the campy Pulp feel of genuine old school Star Wars but instead I find myself deeply immersed in a world I “believe in” and want… no… need…to see what happens next.
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I will definitely give Andor a shot. I like rogue characters, so it’s mainly the actors talent that will make it or break it for me. Hopefully for the good!
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I think you will like it… although now that Mrs. GG is watching it (and I am rewatching it) she has remarked on how relentlessly dark it is. Very dystopian. More my kind of thing than hers. I will be curious to hear your take on it.
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I do like dark stuff and was hoping Mandalorian would be darker than it was. Though in retrospect, I kind of like how the show ended up anyways. I’ll let you know about Andor though. It won’t be till we get through the three shows we got going now. Anymore than that, and I’ll have to close down my blog!
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Never enough time mate!
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Fyi, I usually like to have some terrain that fits what I’m painting so I bought the Battle Systems Alien Infestation set. I will be getting the Cyberpunk Core set as a gift but didn’t want to wait for that. Thanks for the tip on watching the tutorials, but it was hard to not scream at the screen to tell the guy to cut his fingernails. Also painting the edges does improve the look of the pieces so thanks for that also.
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Glad to help. I am unsure why Colin is so attached to that fingernail. I suppose it helps him punch out terrain. He is aware it draws attention, one of the shop names in the game is an “inside joke” about that fingernail.
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I figured it was for punching out terrain but it still bothered me.
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I hear you mate.
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