Andor - A Longer Take

 

I know it's not been doing well in the ratings but I decided I was hearting enough good things about Andor to take a look and I'm glad I did. There's a proven principle in box office analysis that a sequel movie's opening weekend is heavily impacted by the quality of the prior entry. A good movie can have a bad opening if the previous film was bad, and a bad movie can open well if the prior entry was strong. Word of mouth will have some mitigating effect over future weeks - particularly on a bad entry, which is why you see some movies open strong and then fall off of a cliff thereafter.

I say this because I think this is what is happening to Andor: it's a good show but it follows two series with a mixed reception at best - Book of Boba Fett and Kenobi. Plus it faces the basic question of "who asked for this?" which is something I was asking myself when they first announced this one. Who was out there saying "wow I wish I knew more about this Cassian Andor guy" after watching Rogue One? I love Rogue One but even I never thought we needed a follow prequel series for anything in that movie. I also think that Star Wars fatigue is a real thing and having a near-constant flow of Star Wars shows runs a real risk of making them less special, especially when some of them are just not that good. 

So why is Andor an exception to this? Or, why should it be? Why was I pleasantly surprised?

First up, it is a story about the formation of the Rebellion. Now maybe not everyone cares about that but it's a pretty significant event in  the overall story of Star Wars and 40+ years in it feels like that's something we could spend some time exploring - surely there are some good stories to be told there and some interesting characters to meet along the way. Andor himself gets involved at the lowest level but we also see one of the main agents (who recruits him) and high level subterfuge as Mon Mothma tries to get support from various entities. We also see the lack of cohesion among the various sub-factions such as Saw Gerrera's band and some others that are mentioned. So it's a more complex situation than just "hey we're the rebels" and that could keep things interesting down the road.

Second it's a good look at the Empire taking power. The gradual imposition of restrictions on imperial society. The growing fear and unease among normal citizens. The unfairness of it all shows up in trials and sentencing and the revision of those sentences after the fact. This might be our first good on-screen look at the ISB which was a pretty regular opponent in a lot of early Star Wars RPG campaigns. People are uncertain at best about the Empire as the show begins and it only gets worse as it goes on.

Third it's an interesting look at normal life and normal people in the Star Wars universe. We see corporate security in action and some of what their life is like. We see criminal activity. We see a guy looking for a job. We see a guy dealing with his mother's expectations and concern for his career. We see relationships pushed in different directions both through individual actions and because of Imperial crackdowns. We see some prison life. There's a fair amount of people trying to go about their normal daily business as events unfold around them. It's just an interesting element that has not come up a lot in prior Star Wars media.

The downside is that it does move a little slow for a Star Wars show. There is a lot of setup and while the payoffs are solid there is not a ton of action - early on it's a heist, not a space assault. There are no Skywalkers and no lightsabers and no mention of the force at all. It's much more of a thriller than an action movie. 

I loved Rogue One and it had some similarities so if you hated that movie I suspect you will have a hard time liking this show, but if you liked it then you should give this one a look - it's worth your time. 

Andor Short Take

 

40K Friday - Warhammer Plus ... 8 Months In

 

So I've talked about the service at launch and a month or so in but I haven't said much since - so how is it?

The short version? It's ... disappointing.

There is some really cool stuff here but they are so slow to release material that it feels like something is out of balance when it comes to price or content  - it just feels like there are problems in the pipeline somewhere. 

Animations are supposed to the big draw here, right? Well ...

• Angels of Death is very cool, the "most" 40K thing on the service. There are ten episodes adding up to 190 minutes of space marines doing space marine stuff. It took the over 3 months to get all of that out, so it was not even an every week kind of release schedule, but the end result is good.
• Hammer and Bolter has also made it to ten episodes. Now it took 7 months to get there and considering they launched with 3 episodes ready to watch it has been roughly one new 20-minute show per month. Seriously. That's terrible. What they have produced has been mostly interesting, at least. These are stand-alone stories and the subject matter has varied from orks to chaos marines to eldar to adeptus mechanicus and more so this is the not-marine area of content. I am still not a fan of the animation style but I can deal with it for now. It's just really slow to release. 
• Oh look - they put Astartes up on the service ... all 13 minutes of it. Yeah, I'm not giving credit for something that was produced and freely available on YouTube before Warhammer Plus went live.
• They have a 5 minute video of the armoring of a space marine.This is listed with the other animations as if it's a comparable work. It's not. This is effectively a videogame cutscene or a videocard rendering benchmark.
• The Exodite - alright, it looked like we were getting a tau-focused show with some serious animation and we did ... for an episode or two. Then it became much more about the eldar ... then it ended! yes, apparently 3 ten-minute "episodes" are the complete series. It took 5 weeks to get the 2nd and 3rd episodes out. It looks pretty but there's no depth to it at all. This really just adds up to one episode of a show, not a complete series. 

They have battle reports too. In 8 months they've managed to put out 8 40k batreps, 3 Kill Team batreps, 5 Sigmar batreps, and 1 Warcry batrep. So, 17 battle reports showing people how the game  is played on a service that touts weekly content updates. That's roughly one every two weeks so far. That still seems light for the company that makes these games, makes these minis, and has staff devoted to making and testing and painting these things. There are YouTube channels with strong production values that release more frequently than that. 

There is an internal talk show that discusses their other shows, sort of like "Talking Dead" was with Walking Dead. I've never been super excited about these kinds of shows because I have a)friends and b) the internet where I can talk about them myself ... interactively. They've managed 4 episodes of this and if it's your cup of tea that's great but I would never pay for this kind of content. 

Beyond these we have:

• Loremasters - there are 15 episodes of this now. It's the same thing I discussed in September. It's a guy reading well-travelled lore from other sources - there is nothing new here - mixed with slow pans and zooms of artwork you've seen many times before. I suppose it's something you could listen to while painting but even then if you've read, for example, any of the Gotrek books, you're not going to learn anything new about Gotrek in his episode of Loremasters. It's 18 minutes of summary ... like the Cliff's Notes version of an abridged audio book. 
• 24 episodes of "Citadel Colour Masterclass" - it's a painting tutorial. Each one focuses on a specific subject - faces, ork flesh, grey knight armor - and it's totally fine but there are many, many painting tutorials out there on YouTube and the rest of the internet. I would never pay for this - considering the nature of the business, this should be something they put out on their YT channel and their web page for free. They do have videos like this on the Warhammer YT channel but it looks like they are different videos. Regardless, there are a lot of good painters out there who are happy to show off techniques for free. This is a nice extra but it's not a reason to subscribe. 
• They have a "Learn to Play" series of videos for each of the games they make. Excellent! They should! Many game companies do this now - and no one should ever pay for them. Again, there are many free resources out there on the internet that can show you how to play Game X. 
• Finally there are trailers. They have a trailers section for shows they have produced, are producing, and will be releasing in the future. They also release these on the YouTube channel so it's not as if they are exclusive or anything but I think it's symptomatic of this company's, and this service's problems - they think trailers are content. They're not - they are advertisements for what should be your real content. But when you don't have enough content you start announcing trailers as if they were the real show. 

The other part of the Warhammer Plus subscription service is the Vault and this is something I think could have some real value but it weirdly implemented right now. This web site allows you to access issues of older White Dwarf magazines and the "lore" parts of older codexes and game supplements - stuff from prior editions. This could be really cool but it's presented as  PDFs that can't really be downloaded separately, say into a reader program of some kind. They also have all of the game-specific material cut out which is jarring to those of us who were around in those days. It's a weirdly insecure policy, as if they're afraid someone might try to (gasp!) play one of those old versions of the game if they left the stats from Curse of the Wulfen or Warzone Valedor in there. I have mixed feelings about it right now but I think it could turn into a really cool repository of old Warhammer lore someday.  

The 40k app still has problems - I see bugs brought up almost every day in various online groups. I trust Battlescribe far more than do the 40k app, even after this much time. I have no idea what state the Sigmar app is in as I haven't touched it in months. 

Overall I have very mixed feelings on Warhammer Plus. Part of me says hey, it's only 6$ a month and if you're using one of the apps then all of the rest is a bonus. The problem is that there are free alternatives to everything it offers - many of which are better than what GW is offering. There are many battle reports, painting guides, lore channels, and even army builders out there. Even the vault material is out there in physical from, albeit for a price. The only thing that is truly exclusive to this service is the animation content and I feel like that was over-promised and under-delivered. It's been slow to release and when it is released there have been multi-week gaps between episodes which damages interest in the story - well, where there is one. I'm going to ride out the rest of my first year but at the end of that time I'm going to have to think about whether I want to keep supporting something that feels this lackluster. 

The Wheel of Time TV Series

 

So Amazon has a new fantasy series ... based on the well-known book series which I know about (ha!) but never read. It was a big deal in the 90's but I opted out as my interest in overlong fantasy -ilogy's was worn out by then. 

So I'm going into this one fresh. I have no preconceived ideas or perceptions about it other than there were more than ten books in the series which should certainly give them enough material to run for a while. I've seen the first 5 episodes and ... I don't hate it. 

I'm sure many of you know the feeling when a new fantasy show is announced, particularly one you do have some attachment to, and maybe you feel some cautious optimism, then it comes out and just completely fails in some way. Maybe the acting is bad, or the writing, or the effects are just terrible, or it's done as camp instead of taken at least semi-seriously ... I'd say most fantasy TV shows fail. Even Game of Thrones, which was looking unstoppable there for a while, managed to drop the ball at the end. 

This one so far though looks pretty good. The acting is decent. The effects are decent. The writing has not jumped out at me as bad. The landscape and scenery has a Middle-Earth look to it but is not exactly the same.  It is serious and not a comedy show. It's made me interested in seeing more about the world and the various power groups and the characters and how it all goes together and that's rare these days. At this point in life I've seen a lot of bad fantasy and I do expect to be disappointed - I am not disappointed thus far. 

There are some tropes - there is an ancient dark power that is reawakening, there is one man prophesized to be the reincarnation of the one who can defeat him, and a group of good wizards is searching the world for him - not super original there. There is a wrinkle in that they aren't sure who he is, exactly, and apparently it might even be a she so they are rounding up a lot of candidates. Now I was worried that it was going to be a little too simple black and white but then the various colors of wizard started showing up and some of them are not very nice. Ah - nuance! Conflict! Then the magic-hating even-more-religious organization showed up and ... yeah, I like the angles developing here. So far these are all supposed to be good guys" in that they follow "the light" but they clearly have different agendas and some of them will not get along at all. I hope they keep it complicated and interesting for a good long time. 

Episode 4 is where it picked up for me - if you're not sure I'd say give it at least that much of a try and see how you feel about it. 

I know they changed some stuff from the books. I'm sure some people are unhappy with that. I didn't read the books so I don't care. 

And no, I'm not going to go read the books. I want to see where the show goes as its own thing.

So Say We All - The History of Battlestar Galactica

 

If you are a fan of either BSG series then you should read this book. It's that good. 

The first part focuses on the 1978 series - the road to getting it put together, the background of the people behind it, and the peaks and valleys it experienced from conception to the end of Galactica 1980. 

The second part is all about the 2004 miniseries and subsequent full series up through the somewhat controversial finale.

The best part of this effort is that is not just a narrative written by some outsider. most of the book is comments from interviews with damn near everyone who worked on these shows - producers, directors, writers, actors, special effects guys, wardrobe people, technicians ... it's incredibly thorough. You do get a network perspective mixed in as well for both series which adds an intersting side to things. Even those who are no longer with us are recalled in anecdotes from people who worked with them. Lorne Green is discussed a fair amount in the early part of the book for example. 

Richard Hatch contributes quite a bit as he is the one guy who was heavily involved in both series and went from being opposed to the reboot to jumping fully on board. It's interesting to read his take on various aspects of both shows and what might have been. 

The chapters on the second series benefit tremendously from Ronald D. Moore, the main guy for the show, being totally open to discussing every aspect form getting it created and out there to writing work, casting, various limitations they were operating under, and just generally opening up about the whole run. 

After reading it I have to say it's as thorough a breakdown of a show as I have ever seen and I feel like I don't need to worry about digging into anything else on my own - I've read the definitive work on the subject. If you're at all interested you should go get it. 

Now to go find their Star Trek books ... 

Babylon 5 Reboot with JMS

 

Well this is not something I expected to see. Details are here. 

• Positive: It looks like JMS is charge
• Neutral: It looks like they are aiming to re-tell the original story. Is that something we really need? Could we not get a "Next Generation" type new chapter building on the old?
• Red Flag: It's on the CW.  

So ... wow. Unexpected news I would say is generally good, could be terrible, but also could be spectacular. I rate the original as a top 3 Science Fiction series, maybe the best ever. I hate to see someone messing with it but if that someone is the original creator, well, I have to give it a chance. 

Plenty more to come here I am sure.

40K Friday - Checking in on Warhammer+

 

This new service? Product? "Thing" started in late August and I gave my initial impressions here. Now it's been a few weeks  - how is it going?

I admit - I am a little disappointed. New material comes out on Wednesday so we've had the launch plus three release windows and it has been s-l-o-w - much slower than I expected. 

The high point: Angels of Death. This black and white and red CGI series is exactly the kind of thing I want from a Warhammer Animation Studio. It looks right, it sounds right - the voice acting is solid and the music is good too - and the developing story is interesting. The service released with the initial episode and a new chapter has dropped every Wednesday so far. 

Hammer and Bolter is the more traditional animated series with one-off stories from around the 40K universe. It released with 3 episodes and now has ... 3 episodes. Yes, the same 3. It makes no sense but that's where it stands. 

Battlereport is their channel for ... battle reports. There was one 40k battle and one Age of Sigmar battle at release and now we have three 40k batreps and one AoS batrep - yes, the same one.

They have added a new show "Loremasters" which talks about stories and backgrounds in the Warhammer universes. So far we've had one episode discussing Abaddon the Despoiler. 

They've added at least one painting guide. The 40k app has been updated regularly. They've released a beta of the AoS app which I have not tried yet. The vault has had some new material added like extra issues of White Dwarf.

So far it feels slow and underwhelming. Angels of Death is amazing but the rest of it is just ... intermittent. What was the plan here? Was there not enough in the can to sustain a steady release cycle for these other shows?

Where is the rest of Hammer and Bolter? I wasn't overwhelmed with the first 3 but I was hoping it would get better. So far we have almost a month of nothing. Great job!

It's GAMES F'ING WORKSHOP - How on earth can you not produce a battle report for at least one of your games every week? It's what you do! What a tremendous dropping of the ball.

What is the point of "Loremasters"? A game design type explanation from "outside" the universe might be cool, or hey, maybe this kind of stuff would make for a good animated series topic? More show, less tell? Nope! We get 18 minutes of a guy basically reading the Abaddon info from pretty much any of the Chaos Marine Codexes over the years. The first half of it is more about Horus anyway so we get to hear that story again. They intersperse a bunch of art that you've already seen if you're a chaos player but a lot of it is literally showing a man's face as he reads a bunch of well-known lore. It's like an incredibly dull audiobook which should not be something we have with the 40k universe. "Abaddon did this. Then he did this. There was a battle. He won. Then he went somewhere else. Then he destroyed Cadia." - it is incredible to me that they landed on the least interesting way to convey information about some of the biggest events in 40K . It drains all of the life and energy from them. 

I'm not giving up on it but I do feel like they are letting the opportunity get away form them. A steady, solid stream of content would make this thing look a lot better. The battle report thing especially seems like a missed opportunity. It's not that expensive to make, you have people on staff already, you have the models and the terrain, and it shows people what they are supposed to do with your game! I don't understand why they don't have one for every single game they currently produce  on there already!

Anyway check back in a month or so when I touch on this again - hopefully with more positive things to report.

40K Friday - Warhammer+

 

I did go ahead and sign up for this. I've been subscribed to the 40K app since it came out so I went from spending 3$ a month for that to 6$ a month for that plus some shows and it doesn't bother me at all. I spend a great deal of my free time thinking about, building, painting, playing, and watching 40K stuff and do some side work in Age of Sigmar at times too so this is just an extension of that. I've watched most of what's available at this point so I thought I would share. 

But first ... there has been a lot of complaining online about this, threats of boycotts and such. GW had a talk with some of the people making videos online a while back and some of them joined up, some of them quit. This stirred up some people and had them slagging GW as doing bad corporate behavior, treating fans badly and then it turned into the usual piling on about increasing prices as well. 

I don't care about any of that. 

Some of the videos were cool, sure - but you don't own it. Trying to make money making videos of something you don't own ... there's your sketchy behavior. We've seen this with CBS/Paramount and Star Trek fan films already so  it should not have surprised anyone. 

As far as prices ... I started buying Warhammer miniatures in the mid-80's ... before 40K was a thing. I could give you a bunch of "back in my day 30 marines cost $22" stories but there's not much of a point. Prices go up, GW prices doubly so. No one is making anyone play this game - it is completely optional and a luxury. Just part of the deal.

So what about the service? 

• The 40K app is the same app it has been - there were no major changes for the launch. It's very nice having the rules and FAQs and codexes all in one place. For research and theorymongering it's handy. For army building ... I still like Battlescribe better.
• There is not a new Sigmar app yet. It's supposed to be coming but the Azyr app that's been out for a few years now works pretty well. We will have to wait and see how this goes. 
•  "Battlreport" - right now there is one for 40k and one for Sigmar. Each one is about an hour long. The 40k one was competently done with some nice informational graphics as the game was going on. There are YouTube channels I would still rank higher for entertainment value but it was their first effort. I would expect to see a lot more of this.
• "Hamer and Bolter" - there are 3 episodes of this right now and I have very mixed feelings. They are about 20 minutes long and cover very different parts of the 40k universe. The stories are OK but nothing really knocked my socks off. My biggest issue is that all 3 are in that limited-motion anime-style that honestly just looks cheap to me. I see people defending it as a "style choice" and sure ... maybe it was ... but it still looks weak.  Hopefully they will consider changing up the "style" moving forward too. 
• "Angels of Death" - the best part of it so far. It's a Blood Angels story with an incredibly cool black and white ... and red ... color palette. It's CGI but it's done in a visually interesting way. It too is only about 20 minutes long but it has by far the most promise in my eyes and I am very much looking forward to more. 
• There are some other videos - painting guides, how to play videos for each of their games, but a lot of them are out on YouTube for free already so it's not really adding a ton of value here. 
• The Vault - this is a repository of books and magazines that I expect to become more interesting over the next year or two. Right now it has the fluff sections from the Gathering Storm books, some other campaign books, last year's White Dwarfs, and all of their "Warhammer Visions" magazines. If they fill in a lot of the older material it could be a lot of fun.
• The miniature - if you subscribe for a year you  get to pick a 40K mini or a Sigmar mini as a bonus. I picked that nifty Vindicare assassin pictured up there. It's a nice bonus but honestly I would not subscribe just to get a miniature - if you really want one they will be on eBay next year one they start going out. 

 

So - overall take? I'd say it's an interesting experiment with a lot of potential down the road but with limited material right now. If you're into either of their major games I'd say give it a try but if you don't care about the app or the videos it's safe to wait a while and see where it goes. 

Super Stuff - Umbrella Academy

Feels like I should catch up on some things after so many gaps this year so I'll be doing that this month. One big thing - lots of super-activity this summer!

Several independent super-shows came along earlier this year and I feel very differently about each of them so let's start with Umbrella Academy. I have not read the comic books or any other version of the story so I was coming in cold. It seems like it was fairly popular on Netflix but I have to say I was ... underwhelmed.

What happens at a reunion years after a kid superhero team splits up? Well ... they all hate each other so they spend a lot of time bickering and not a lot of time doing super stuff. I mean, I get the "dark", the "modern take" - or is it "postmodern" now? I forget. I kept feeling like the stuff they were doing in the flashbacks would have been more interesting than what they were doing in the "now" of the show.

First up - the Attitude:

• They mostly seem to hate each other
• They all hate their father
• They almost all hate that they used to be superheroes
• There's a fair amount of self-hate on the team too

I don't mind having one or two "dark" characters on a team show but when the whole team is that way ... it's a lot. 

Second - the Bounty Hunters:

Was this originally a completely different story? Was it just grafted on to this one? Because there's nothing terribly original or interesting about it and it really doesn't add that much to the main plot. maybe it was supposed to be the lighter or funny element of the show but it's just not that much. 

Third - the Padding:

Even with only ten episodes it feels like there was not that much story here. Trim out the 90% of the Hunters story line that was unneeded and you could have cut this down to 8 episodes, maybe less. I mean you have a team of 7 super characters, a stern father figure running them, a chimpanzee major domo, a robot mother, and time-travelling assassins and yet it somehow feels like you didn't have enough to fill out ten hour-long episodes of a TV show.

I did stick with it through the end though I considered dropping it multiple times as I was watching. I was curious how they would resolve the big plot ... and even that was a disappointment! Get to the last episode, things are unfolding, and  - welp - see you next season??!! It's cheap and artificial. I'm still debating whether I will even watch the next season after that.

The thing I liked most:

 Mr. I-see-dead-people #4 triggers a device and finds himself in the Vietnam War. We don't see much of it in real-time, mostly it happens in flashbacks throughout the following episodes but he spends a year there, develops a significant relationship, and lives through some pretty rough stuff before he finds his way back. In one episode he goes into a VFW post and starts crying over some old pictures -which he is in- and then gets into a fight with the older members who are inside and think he's being disrespectful. It's funny, touching, and wrong on some level and to me it was by far the best scene in the whole show.

Greatest Hits #25 - The Greatness of the Game of Thrones Dragons

Still one of my favorite recent-ish posts...

I was talking to a friend the other day about fantasy TV and movies and one of the things that came up was dragons - mainly how poorly done dragons have been in most TV and movies yet they are somehow still cool. The outcome of this was that dragons Game of Thrones has really amped up the presentation of dragons over the last few seasons, to the point that I think it has the best dragons ever presented on film.

Warning: There are many spoilers and many pictures in this post. If you haven't seen seasons 6 & 7 and want  to enjoy them naturally, do not continue. 

Think about the major movies that have used dragons in some important way. I can think of four main movies:

• Dragonslayer (1981) - Vermithrax is pretty well done and appropriately impressive in size and violent capabilities but is limited by the technology of the time, mainly that its glory shots are all done in stop motion animation. Now I grew up on this kind of thing but my kids just laugh at it and it does detract just a little bit from the spectacle. 
• Dungeons and Dragons (2000) - This terrible movie, the first with a shot at CGI Dragons, did nothing to make dragons more impressive. After Jurassic Park I know my own hopes were high, and they were dashed pretty quickly. Lots of dragons in the finale, but all of them look terrible.
• Reign of Fire (2002) - It's not a great movie to me, but the dragons are almost right. I initially thought it was the design here, where they don't have forelimbs, just wings and back legs like a bird, but I think it's that they are too skinny - altogether it just puts it "off" some for me. The D&D'er in me says they're big wyverns, not dragons. 
• The Hobbit (Desolation of Smaug - 2013) More than a decade after the D&D movie and done by the team that did the Lord of the Rings movies you would think the dragon would be the showpiece of the trilogy. Sadly, you would be wrong. Smaug in these movies looks so cartoony I thought it was some kind of joke in the theater. "Underwhelmed" is the nicest way I can put it. Sure, he thrashes Laketown nicely but the wyrm himself ... sigh. 

Honorable Mentions:

• Smaug in the animated Rankin-Bass Hobbit movie is really cool. That cat-like face really sells that he's something different than just a big animal and the fire spiraling around him and the screen in many shots almost makes it seem like he can control it. He's just more magical, more of a fantasy creature, then the later movie version we saw. 
• Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty - so much scarier, meaner, evil looking than a lot of the presentations over the years. 

So Dragons have been ... iffy ... over the years as far as being fearsome magical fantastic beasts, at least in movies and TV. 

 Game of Thrones has completely overcome this and set a new, much higher standard. Daenerys has three dragons who started out as eggs, then hatchlings, then dog-sized, then horse to elephant-sized, and in this last season or two are finally the awesome army-smashing beasts they should be.

The first time we see one in action is Season 5 episode 9, "Dance of Dragons" - The Queen and her companions are trapped in an arena as a rebel faction that dislikes the changes she has been making seize this moment to try and assassinate her. It looks pretty grim - then she closes her eyes and seems to be concentrating and then we get that awesome moment with fire, a roar, and an angry dragon making his entrance ...

Even here he's say elephant-sized. Big enough to ride but not humongous. It also demonstrates that they can be hurt by weapons, at least a little. He gets hit by several spears and clearly feels them but they don't really seem to slow him down. It's a great scene and marks the emergence of the dragons as an actual, not just a theoretical, threat.

The next time we see them in a glory segment is in Season 6, episode 9 "Battle of the Bastards". Everyone remembers the other big fight in this episode but the dragons get a nice sequence here where everyone learns that wooden ships are not a great weapon against fire-breathing opponents,

This is the kind of stuff we didn't see as much in the early seasons of the show. It's the kind of thing that makes it a fantasy show and not an alternate medieval history series.

The next big scene for them is in  "Spoils of War", Season 7 episode 4 where we learn that supply trains and foot armies are vulnerable to even a single dragon - oh, and a screaming horde of barbarians.

It's just spectacular.

They're huge, they're terrifying, they're nearly invincible ...

Even a hero can have a hard time facing one down:

The whole thing is just really well-done.


Sadly, they are not invulnerable, and about the time they start fighting, you know they're going to get hurt. Mortal opponents and weapons seem to be painful but not all that dangerous to them. Then, they had up north for the first confrontation with the Night King in a sort of Black Hawk Down scenario.

The white walkers have been really well done here too. Also - flaming swords! In combat! Plus an undead polar bear attack! It's a great episode. So much more fantasy than most other shows or even movies ever get too. Easily the best look and best story and characters since Lord of the Rings.

Surrounded and facing the ultimate bad-guy-lich-thing of the setting, what do you hope for?

Air Support!

Look, fire breath works just as well on the undead as it does on the living! All 3 dragons are in full action here, flying and flaming. Unfortunately for our heroes, the Night King knows about dragons and is not without a means to deal with them.

It's a shocking moment as the dracos have been unstoppable so far on the show,  It's sad, amazing, and one of the highest and lowest points on the entire series to date.

Even more amazing, you know it's not going to end there. I mean, he animates the dead, you know?

To conclude: Game of Thrones is an amazing show and has only gotten better over time. These last few seasons, the last two in particular, have really turned it into an epic fantasy show with dragons, undead, giants, magic weapons, and barbarian hordes fighting knights ... it's just the most fantasy thing on TV now or ... really ever. It's just spectacular. The dragons are at the heart of it, awesome and inspiring - as they should be.

Astro City TV Series

Well here's one I missed in my offline time: Astro City is wrapping up as a monthly book and is being seriously attempted as a TV show. Of all of the "modern"? "Retro"? -whatever - comics out there Astro City is my favorite and has been for a while. A decent take on it would make a great show.

Between this and the word that Wild Cards is also in development as a show from a year or two back there are two super-universes that I really like making their way into new channels. Cool!

The Greatness of the Game of Thrones Dragons

I was talking to a friend the other day about fantasy TV and movies and one of the things that came up was dragons - mainly how poorly done dragons have been in most TV and movies yet they are somehow still cool. The outcome of this was that dragons Game of Thrones has really amped up the presentation of dragons over the last few seasons, to the point that I think it has the best dragons ever presented on film.

Warning: There are many spoilers and many pictures in this post. If you haven't seen seasons 6 & 7 and want  to enjoy them naturally, do not continue. 

Think about the major movies that have used dragons in some important way. I can think of four main movies:

• Dragonslayer (1981) - Vermithrax is pretty well done and appropriately impressive in size and violent capabilities but is limited by the technology of the time, mainly that its glory shots are all done in stop motion animation. Now I grew up on this kind of thing but my kids just laugh at it and it does detract just a little bit from the spectacle. 
• Dungeons and Dragons (2000) - This terrible movie, the first with a shot at CGI Dragons, did nothing to make dragons more impressive. After Jurassic Park I know my own hopes were high, and they were dashed pretty quickly. Lots of dragons in the finale, but all of them look terrible.
• Reign of Fire (2002) - It's not a great movie to me, but the dragons are almost right. I initially thought it was the design here, where they don't have forelimbs, just wings and back legs like a bird, but I think it's that they are too skinny - altogether it just puts it "off" some for me. The D&D'er in me says they're big wyverns, not dragons. 
• The Hobbit (Desolation of Smaug - 2013) More than a decade after the D&D movie and done by the team that did the Lord of the Rings movies you would think the dragon would be the showpiece of the trilogy. Sadly, you would be wrong. Smaug in these movies looks so cartoony I thought it was some kind of joke in the theater. "Underwhelmed" is the nicest way I can put it. Sure, he thrashes Laketown nicely but the wyrm himself ... sigh. 

Honorable Mentions:

• Smaug in the animated Rankin-Bass Hobbit movie is really cool. That cat-like face really sells that he's something different than just a big animal and the fire spiraling around him and the screen in many shots almost makes it seem like he can control it. He's just more magical, more of a fantasy creature, then the later movie version we saw. 
• Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty - so much scarier, meaner, evil looking than a lot of the presentations over the years. 

So Dragons have been ... iffy ... over the years as far as being fearsome magical fantastic beasts, at least in movies and TV. 

 Game of Thrones has completely overcome this and set a new, much higher standard. Daenerys has three dragons who started out as eggs, then hatchlings, then dog-sized, then horse to elephant-sized, and in this last season or two are finally the awesome army-smashing beasts they should be.

The first time we see one in action is Season 5 episode 9, "Dance of Dragons" - The Queen and her companions are trapped in an arena as a rebel faction that dislikes the changes she has been making seize this moment to try and assassinate her. It looks pretty grim - then she closes her eyes and seems to be concentrating and then we get that awesome moment with fire, a roar, and an angry dragon making his entrance ...

Even here he's say elephant-sized. Big enough to ride but not humongous. It also demonstrates that they can be hurt by weapons, at least a little. He gets hit by several spears and clearly feels them but they don't really seem to slow him down. It's a great scene and marks the emergence of the dragons as an actual, not just a theoretical, threat.

The next time we see them in a glory segment is in Season 6, episode 9 "Battle of the Bastards". Everyone remembers the other big fight in this episode but the dragons get a nice sequence here where everyone learns that wooden ships are not a great weapon against fire-breathing opponents,

This is the kind of stuff we didn't see as much in the early seasons of the show. It's the kind of thing that makes it a fantasy show and not an alternate medieval history series.

The next big scene for them is in  "Spoils of War", Season 7 episode 4 where we learn that supply trains and foot armies are vulnerable to even a single dragon - oh, and a screaming horde of barbarians.

It's just spectacular.

They're huge, they're terrifying, they're nearly invincible ...

Even a hero can have a hard time facing one down:

The whole thing is just really well-done.


Sadly, they are not invulnerable, and about the time they start fighting, you know they're going to get hurt. Mortal opponents and weapons seem to be painful but not all that dangerous to them. Then, they had up north for the first confrontation with the Night King in a sort of Black Hawk Down scenario.

The white walkers have been really well done here too. Also - flaming swords! In combat! Plus an undead polar bear attack! It's a great episode. So much more fantasy than most other shows or even movies ever get too. Easily the best look and best story and characters since Lord of the Rings.

Surrounded and facing the ultimate bad-guy-lich-thing of the setting, what do you hope for?

Air Support!

Look, fire breath works just as well on the undead as it does on the living! All 3 dragons are in full action here, flying and flaming. Unfortunately for our heroes, the Night King knows about dragons and is not without a means to deal with them.

It's a shocking moment as the dracos have been unstoppable so far on the show,  It's sad, amazing, and one of the highest and lowest points on the entire series to date.

Even more amazing, you know it's not going to end there. I mean, he animates the dead, you know?

To conclude: Game of Thrones is an amazing show and has only gotten better over time. These last few seasons, the last two in particular, have really turned it into an epic fantasy show with dragons, undead, giants, magic weapons, and barbarian hordes fighting knights ... it's just the most fantasy thing on TV now or ... really ever. It's just spectacular. The dragons are at the heart of it, awesome and inspiring - as they should be.