Love Letter: Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic at 6:37 AM

Dead or Alive Xtreme Schutta Volleyball

I suspect that by the point this goes up, we'll be knee deep into the backlash phase of the Star Wars Episode 7 Hype. The point where about half the people who were neutral-to-excited about it are now tired of the the social media saturation of it. You know, like with Frozen. Look, guys, it was  just okay, stop singing let it go.

Still, some excitement is warranted. Star Wars is good again, apparently.  I mean, a lot of people think that the prequels where a Dark Time for the franchise. But I remember the time fondly.

Not, because of the movies, mind you. Some people may be find because of the prequels, but I'm not among them, even though the old movies werent  all that easy to find on the 3 channels we had. I liked them well enough, but it wasn't a particular obsession of mine.

However, Star Wars GAMES are some of the Star Wars experiences I am fond of, particularly Shadows of the Empire for the N64, and Knights of the Old Republic.

Kotor is probably the game I most played on the original Xbox, having beaten it around 10 times, until I lost count. It sort of became a running joke, with people walking into my room, only to say "You're playing THAT again?"

"You don't understand the lesbian option with Juhani is RANDOM!"

Yes, again. For those too young to remember, KOTOR was the first and best Star Wars RPG, developed by Bioware, which made me a life long fan and drew me to Mass Effect,  Jade Empire, and...KOTOR 2...so, yeah, 2 out of 3 ain't bad.

In it, your generic character wakes up in a ship under attack by the Sith 1000's of years before Darth Vader was even around, so you really don't have to worry about setting up how anybody's droid was built. From there, you discover secrets, become a Jedi, meet lots of cool characters, and decide whether you want to be a heroe, anti-hero, or straight up villain.

So, this game has lots of good things, but lots of things that people forget were not so good. The game had a dearth of animations. It got really bad. The repeated alien quips got on my head, too, especially since every single one began with Star Wars' version of "bitch".

"Schutta better have my money."

It's visual customization options make about your character felt less like Mass Effect and more like Deadly Arts. Some graphics looked pretty great, some graphics looked like shiet. And sometimes it was a little to scene by scene to the movies.

 However, the story and characters are where the game sold me. HK 47, a snarky killer droid, Mission Vao, a street urchin,  Canderous Ordo, a war veteran and Bastila Shan, a conflicted Jedi, among others, made the journey felt worth it.  There wasn't a character in there that I felt like kicking off the ship.

The morality system, with it's multiple choices. Oh, my god. It truly managed a balance of giving you moral options without these options being "feed the puppy" vs "kick the puppy". And somehow it allowed you to actually defeat the bad guys as a dark Jedi motherfuckers.


The gameplay was pretty good, too. I am no fan of RPG's, but discovering and unlocking different abilities felt great.  The partially turn based, but partially no combat delivered a significant amount of strategy, while also making it FEEL like  you where in control.

I loved going to the different planets, and seeing the different things and societies, and the different situations you could encounter. It wasn't just "play the action bits of the Star Wars movies" like most Star Wars games, although it did that, too. It was inviting  you to explore this grand universe full of peoples and factions and intrigue and backstory, and made it all compelling through some good gameplay and solid characters. That's why Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, I love you.

The game is out on Android because...I guess Phones can run Xbox games now. I'm old and so's my phone.

Horrendous Theory: Wanted is Star Wars at 6:16 AM

Everybody's talking 'bout Star Wars. Which, is, you know, to be expected. Either because it's  an attractive topic for those looking for a few clicks or  because it's just in the air.

Google Image search, do your magicks!

Put me down  for that last one. Even though I Am  doing a boicott of the last movie on account of Disney Copyright bullshit, I would not pretend to say I won't TALK about it. I read things. I...I've already been spoiled, as you'd expect.

One thing that came up is a Cracked article calling out Obi Wan and Yoda for trying to get Luke to kill his own father unknowingly. And the first thing that reminded me is Wanted.

Wanted is based on a comic by Mark Millar, in that it has the same title as it. The book is intrinsically drenched in comic book references and told of a world where supervillains secretly ruled the world, whereas the movie is about a guy who joins an order of assassins and can shoot bullets in an arc, probably because suits thought comic book shit wouldn't connect with audiences.

HISTORY PROVING YOU WRONG, COMING THROUGH!

Or is that the reason? As much of as a  "child's perception of mature" as Millar's overall aproach to stories can come in, I do believe that maybe Wanted's dropping the comic book super hero conventions of it's source material does not owe entirely to the financial cold feet companies USED to get when considering Men-In-Tights-And-Capes antics, but rather, to a change of medium.

Much like Watchmen, a through skewering of comic conventions since mostly abandoned would not have proven a wise course for Wanted The Movie, creatively. A change of medium required a change of target to skewer, and it is my theory that the target in Wanted's case was the Star Wars series.

Oh, sure, the threads that initially tie both stories can be surmised to be the result of these being common, studied tropes that Hollywood now has down to a science. Both start with a guy who's down on his luck, Luke because he's living in a rural desert and yearns for something more, typical teenager, stuff while Wanted Man has more adult problems such medical problems, cheating girlfriends, and having a job typing stuff.

This guy was supposed to play Eminem playing a Supervillain.

Both characters eventually are roped into the knowledge that they are more than the total losers they thought they where, as they discover that through their paternal lineage they have earned great abilities and a great destiny. In Luke's case, he is the son of a great Jedi, of an ancient order of mystic space knights who follow an unseen, mysterious...THING known as the Force, and inherits his father's weapon. In Wanted, James McCavoy discovers his father was part of an order of superpowered assassins that kill targets given to them by a Loom of fate, which is implied to be all wise despite, you know, being a loom.

So far, this is all Hero's Journey shit. You can't pin it on Wanted for following a formula!

But then it goes deeper. Both Luke and McCavoy-Man have an antagonist, in the form of a man who killed their father. This man, in both instances, turns out to have been his father all along.

This is where both stories diverge. Where Luke goes on to face a conflict and eventually redeem his father not through martial might but through the power of love, Wanted's hero winds up killing his, and then immediately being jumped by the people who had pretended to lead him out of the doldrums.

The Fraternity of Assassins turns out to have been corrupt all along, with it's leader, the mentorly Morgan Freeman(is there any other kind?), revealing that he had stopped listening the the Loom of Fate because it started saying that He and his assassin buddies had to die. James McCavoy kills most of them, Angelina Jolie kills herself to end the others. A smug James McCavoy sends us out of the movie by asking what we've done with our lives. Uh...not joined a cult that tricked me into killing my father, McAvoy. Uh...writing a lot.

Getting by, you know. Trying to build an arcade cabinet, not letting Chris Pratt and Common play me like a chump.

So this movie may kind of have been secretly brilliant. It takes the most famous adventure story series  and hangs it out to dry, exposing the idea of a Star Wars' hero's journey that is flawed and guided by lies told by trustworthy  elderly men. In this one, "The Force" wanted to get rid of the very guys who used it, which, as you may know, is a personal theory of mine.

It would not surprise me of the man who considers Lois Lane not Superman's Jane Porter, but Superman's Cheetah, that he wanted to take such an approach to Star Wars. But if my theory is theory is correct, then it's a reference that flew too subtle for most audiences. You can't parody a space opera without the space part, you goof! But the timelines certainly add up. This movie was released 2 years after Revenge of the Sith, which is enough time for Millar to sit down and think about Star Wars enough to wind up deconstructing it to shit and for that idea to somehow saunter into cinemas.


Or, you know, maybe I'm sleep deprived and everyone is talking about Star Wars too much. I'll  let you decide.

To Err is Jedi at 5:58 AM

I´ve been watching a lot of Moviebob/In Bob We Trust/Game Overthinker. Bob Chipman's dissertations on movies I´ve seen are always somewhat smart, and the videos are short, so I can watch the whole thing on my busted ass LG Venture.

One that caught my attention, though, was his dissection of the prophesy element in the Star Wars prequels. While I disagree that it was a well done element within a vastly not as well done series of movies, I think there is something to the rest if what he said.

The thesis, as it where, he presents, is that the Jedi's strict adherence to the vaguely presented and discussed prophesy within their world of one who would bring balance to the force and or destroy the Sith led them to turn a blind eye to things that where a bit more obvious to the audience: That Palpatine was an evil Sith playing them the whole time and that Anakin was a ticking, expertly hairdressed time bomb. That this is a subversion of  the types of Destined Savior kind of stories that  offers parallels to the story of Jesus.

Ok. Most people know the story of Jesus, Son of God born of Flesh who came to offer humanity salvation, and as a part of that plan, wound up hanging from a cross. But if you go beyond that synopsis(and trust me a lot of people don't) there is a loooot of stuff to discuss in there.

Jesus(ok, in my faith we call him Yashua because it's an actual name an actual Israelite might have had during that time. So I'm calling him that from now on. ) was one of many men who claimed to be the Meshiac, more commonly known as Messiah, a prophesised savior. But they where not expecting a savior of souls back then. Israel had been going trough a rough couple of  centuries, having been manhandled by the Greeks, Persians, Babylonians and at Jesus' time, the Romans. The Messiach was believed to be the one who would finally  pull a combo breaker on those conquerings and establish himself as King of Israel, finally bringing the nation to it's former kingdomey glory.

While that's a noble enough goal in like a movie or something, the biblical account of the actual kindgom isn't all glory. Allowed begrudgingly by the then defacto rulers The Judges, Prophets and God on High, the story of monarchy is resumed in two books that don't agree on everything(and with lots of hooks for a 3rd book that appears to include more detail, but is lost, apparently), but do agree it was all downhill after David and Solomon where out of the picture. King after King is described as having done against god's will, lead the people astray, died, and nothing else remarkable.

The God described in the Old Testament was highly fond of taking all the glory for things. His preffered method of government was a direct form of Theocracy where everything was run by him first. Eventually the monarchy ends abruptly after the king is killed and his heir taken captive. After that, the aforementioned empires took turns battering Israel, deporting it's people, and it's all described as being a result of their bad behavior.

And THIS is where the prophesies of a Messiach  begin. Between berating them for doing no good and being stoned to death, prophets alluded to a savior. And I wouldn't fault them for assuming the saving in this case was "from the skin ripping Persians, faith ruining Greeks, and economically exploitative Romans."

Now that's where it gets interesting.  Messhiach, in the form of Yashua arrives, and instead of offering them the kind of salvation they expected, he offers them advise on their corrupted religious leaders, calls for a return to faith roots as opposed to various  rituals that held no part of the scripturally ordered ones, offers the foreigners a simpler way in on the faith  and tells them that not only is he not about to get on a horse and  eliminate Roman rule, but that he's going to personally see to it that the temple they worship in currently is turned into a parking lot. They didn't take to that all that well.

Now, back to the Star Wars. Anakin is often presented by fans and the actual George Lucas as having EVENTUALLY fulfilled the prophesy by destroying the last of the Sith i.e. Palpatine and himself. While this seems a bit of a backward way to establish that a character fullfilled a prophesy; by having him do the action first, and then later saying it was part of a prophesy, it wouldn't be the first time a character unconventinally fullfilled a destiny. It's very common for characters to create their own destroyers by trying to ensure a prophesy of their own destruction doesn't come forth. But I see a bit more than that.

If we see the Jedi as being purposedly inept and not as part of a series on how George Lucas doesn't know what he's writing, and if we  truly take onto the "your dependence on a prophesy actually wrought about your own demise" narrative Bob describes, we could sort of see a bit of a parallel between the "Dark messiah" Anakin and the Jedi Coincil and Yashua and the Sadducees of Yashua's time.

The Jedi, much like it happens to Saduccees in biblical scripture, are bathed in authority and scriptural know how, but lacked a lot of not being fucking inconsiderate piece of shit people. Their wisest leader advises a young insecure man having terrible and well founded fears of  his mother dying after another Jedi completely opts to leave her in a desert planet and none thought that, with this being the chosen one and all, taking a bit of a trip over there and securing her mother. If there's something you see a lot in the bible, it's helping the foreigner, the orphan and THE WIDOW.

So perhaps there is no coincidence that the Jedi can't see the evil rising to wipe them out right in front of their stupid Jedi faces. One character describes how The Dark Side of the Force is clouding their ability to peer into the future, which taken at face value would indicate that Palpatine is somehow both more powerful than all of them, and constantly able to shroud their powers from often lightyears away. But perhaps it isn't the dark side of the force. After all, the Vanilla Force IS strong in Anakin, and he basically wounds up causing them all to die and the Galaxy to be griped by an empire. What if the force is, much like God is shown to do in Bible Stories like the Exodus, directly guiding people towards a course of action that winds up being their undoing?

In the Bible, it states quite clearly that Pharao would have been good to let the Israelites go after a handful of plagues, because, come on. Bloody rivers and plague of frogs are more than enough for any reasonable man. But God himself hardened his heart, so events would play out  as intended.

If the Force is an extrapolation of mysterious, godly power that subtly shapes the direction of things while occasionally giving people super speed and lightening powers, it seems reasonable that, if it wanted to, say, get rid of a corrupted Jedi Order that has completely lost track of what they truly should be doing, it would obviously not tip it's hand and let them access the knoweledge of a future where the problem is solved and the problem is also them being alive.

The Arc of the Covenant, haphazardly described by a character in Indiana Jones as "A Telephone to talk with God", is said to have been long gone by the time Jesus rolled around, hidden from the seemingly endless series of conquerors  tripping into what was left of Israel. Perhaps in the same way The Saduccees and Pharisees could no longer have that direct contact with God, Jedi wound up having no access to the Force's WILL and, to call it something, mind. The Jedi, desperate to finish what they percieve as their true enemy, cling to the notion that it's probably the dark side, because it's better than admiting they are now obsolete, impotent and cull worthy.

So in comes the Proto Messiah Anakin Skywalker, who is initially outright rejected for training for being too young, and also too emotional, even though they mostly agreed this was the THe ONE. And you don't see that in movies often. "You are the One we expected. Fuck you. Get the fuck out."

It is not until the death of Qui Gon Gin, that Anakin is begrudgingly allowed to be trained in the ways of the force. However, the Jedi doctrine is one that leans heavy on "feelings are bad", and Anakin enters those years where feelings of all kind start to manifest themselves. The oft remembered Yoda saying that "fear leads to anger and anger leads to hate" is dumb if it's for serious, but it's smart if the Jedi are supposed to be complete idiot dullards that say that even feeling afraid is evil. HE'S A KID WHO WAS SOLD TO A MONK BY A SLAVE TRADER AND IS NOW BEING QUESTIONED ABOUT JOINING A GROUP OF MONKS FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE, WHAT THE HELL FEELING IS HE SUPPOSED TO HAVE?

If Anakin hadn't been The Chosen One, if it had been, say, Kit Fisto who took up a wife, the Jedi's complete inability to handle "people feel stuff, you know" would have maybe just ended in Kit Fisto leaving the order at most. But they took their chosen one and emotionally repressed him and treated him as less than an equal.

I sustain that George Lucas was trying to say some not so nice things about the Jedi, until George Lucas got in the way and ruined all that. Emotional and sexual repression can indeed be very damaging if mishandled, and a lot of organized religions kind of call for less exaggerated but non the less difficult to follow emotional regimens. Is this a criticism of that?

On the other side of the spectrum are the Sith. Sith embrace their darker desires with no measure. True Sith, anyway. Maul and Palpatine love the pain and suffering they cause, but Dooku and eventually Darth Vader are not presented as such. Dooku is a "political idealist" who left the Jedi order. It's not clear in the movies what his entire motivation is, but The Jedi order at that point had done such things as fail to send official aid to the invaded planet of Naboo. This is the kind of thing an older, seasoned Christopher Lee might see  happen a few times and go "I hate this club. No nookie, no emotions, and we don't even do good where we should be. Fuck everything."

Again, we don't have the full account of what Darth Maul is about, but if this character has anythign to him it's the appearance of outright evil. Many young men during their rebelious years enter a phase of image modification. Piercings, tatooes, dark clothing. Darth Maul looks like what an angsty teenager would look like if he could  change his appearance to something truly mom-upsetting. He clearly enjoys what he does.

Darth Vader, however, never seems to enter a mad cackling phase. He's not turning into The Joker or anythign like that. His descent into darkness is propelled by emotional frustration of not being able to have anything to love or anything resembling a life while also being told he's destined for great things but treated like dangerous garbage. The Jedi's FEAR led him to anger, and his anger gave way to hate, and the hate gave way to suffering.


In this way, Anakin Skywalker isn't a Dark Messiah that  was fullfilling the will of the force in a different way than expected, but like Yashua he is clearing the table from the thing that's actually wrong with the so called Light side of the force. Not the hopelessly evil Sidious, who is more like the way Rome is brought about to punish Israel for disobeying God's will, but rather the stagnant and unkind Jedi Council who have failed to live up to their task. Perhaps, had they actually done what the Force expected them to do, the prophesy would have come trough the way they expected, I.E. their enemies eliminated. But they didn't so it didn't.



Shit guys, I may have looked too much into it. Or not enough.

What did Youtube think this says? at 5:29 AM

I urge you to actually watch the video this time.

What did Youtube think this says? at 8:39 PM

Allright, team, huddle up!

Top 5 best licensed games to not happen at 12:51 PM

Goodbye, Star Wars 1313. If you  still existed, I'd probably Boycott you because of Disney fumbling around with our copyright laws.

Game development is a tricky thing. Just ask Hideo Kojima and Guillermo del Toro.  Even the shitty licensed games of old should count themselves as lucky, because there were other licensed games that never even made it to the street.

Police Academy-NES

MOMMY! BUY ME!

If making a videogame based on the raunchy 80's Fratboys-as-Cops franchise Police Academy seems stupid, it's because it's not the 80's anymore. But maybe it helps if I say it was going to based on the abysmal cartoon based on the already by then diluted franchise? That help?

Indeed, Police Academy was done, when it was cancelled. Done, done. "Ads in Comics" done.  But it was late in the Nes' life cycle, and sending out a bunch of cartridges with "Police Academy" written seemed about as sensible as sending Hightower to catch the Zodiac Killer all of a sudden, so no dice.

X-Women

"Come on you, guys, you know I can't fly as much as carry myself with telepathy! Where are you going? I'm REALLY POPULAAAAR!"

Did you hear about the all new all women X-Men? Or is...is that still a thing? It's X-Men continuity, as  far as I know they're all wombat babies, now.

But to segue, years ago after the success of X-Men and X-Men 2 for the Sega Genesis, Sega hired "Adventures of Batman and Robin" developers  Clockwork Tortoise to make them a game following the females of the X-Men as they battled Mr Sinister, who unleashed a man-killing virus as a ploy to world domination. Or to challenge Psylocke's claims that she wouldn't do him if he was the last man on earth.

From the short surviving video we can see Rogue, and Storm, playable and flying. Hey, as long as you're doing what I would do,  Devs, how about this(nsfw thingy on link! You been warned!)?

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Tournament Fighter(Saturn)

"Artistic interpretation"

Ok, this one might NOT be true: allegedly besides the Snes, Nes, and Genesis versions of TMNT TF, there was a a fourth version slated to be on the Sega  Saturn. I read it on Taringa, but I can't find the info. It said that it was reported as such on a magazine. Any rabid infomaniacs out there willing to check every EGM and Gamepro from 1993 to 1996?  For god's sake I mailed Konami and friended a guy with the name of one of the devs to FB. HALP!

Marvel Universe Online

Marvel went on to have like 7 MMO's.

Oh, sure, we have a Marvel MMO NOW. But before that, Microsoft had it's meaty paws on the licence, and even had a teaser. Sure, it tells us nothing of who you would be or anything, but it would have given us that first Xbox MMO sooner.

But at some point Microsoft just went "'Nuff Said!" and cancelled the whole thing, perhaps inspired then recent MMO failiures.

Steven Seagal's The Final Option

When even Marc Dacascos won't answer your phone...

Unlike the rest of this list, this one you can play at least a bit of the first stage. Steven Seagal is...The Final Option.

So as Steven "Hard to Kill" Seagal, you infiltrated a base and chopsokeyed anyone dumb enough to try to beat you.  While the pre-rendered images where nice enough, they wern't good enough for the bonebreaking aikido holds and locks Steven was known before being known mostly for needing a stunt double to walk across  a door.

And for whatever reason the game came under siege. It probably wasn't all that hard to kill. It was already on deadly ground by being a Steven Seagal game, but the developers found themselves in the belly of the beast. The game might have been half past dead, but for whatever reason the rom found it's way to the public. If you want to play the game, well, that is your final option.

6 OTHER things you should stop if you're planning at 3:31 PM

In my NEEEEIGHTBORHOOOD!

I made a list last year, urging you to cease and desist certain dumbass actions and if it stopped you from making a new Mario game, then good. If it didn't, well then...is there still time?

As long as we're still here, I've got some more things I'll tell you not to do, but I'll secretly consider doing myself.

Disney Princess...stuff

FUCK YOUUUUUUU!

You know what makes most Disney Princesses great? Nothing. Most of them where fairly unremarkable protagonists to fairly dull and predictable stories...that aren't even that unique. I dare you to write a paragraph describing every Disney Princess without using the terms "young", "pretty" and "talking armadillo".

But Disney made all these princesses into a brand, and now they all live in a single unified Princess-verse, as a way to continue selling merch for movies older than all of us to little girls younger than us. And we've allowed these vapid airheads to continue their reign by constantly doing takes on them.

The Disney Princess as (something else) syndrome has covered The Walking Dead, Alternate ethnicities, As superheroes, as fat, as villains. as...

It just isn't fun anymore, you know? Stop telling me every time some two-bit artist re-imagines Belle.

Calling scandals (whatever) Gate

So Scandalous!

You know, before I was born a guy running for president had his team spy on his opponent in a hotel called Watergate. He had to quit being president or be the first president fuckin' getting kicked out.

It was known as the Watergate scandal. But to hear it now, you'd swear he got caught robbing water, because every single little scandal gets the (subject+gate) title. It's a nice way to put a a name on an event and to say it's big.

But if it's not as big as the time THE PRESIDENT OF AMERICA WENT AWAY, maybe keep the gate shit at home. Videogames? Not big enough. Nude leakes? Not big enough. Skull Girls? Bitch please.

Being unnecessarily amazed/appalled when Black people get the roles.

 

He's also British, and as far as we know, there weren't British people in Tatooine.

Ever since Ive been blogging, there's been been black people being cast in roles traditionally white. And it's been kind of the same thing. Some people want the character to be exactly as white as the original, others embrace the race changing, and then there's some politicals and racist.

In a way, I get it. Even the racists. But we've done this dance, and my feet hurt. John Boyega playing some guy in Star Wars isn't something groundbreaking or super pc. There's been prominent roles for Black people in all but the first movie, without even going into the voice of the best and worst of the series.

 

I mean, look at those guys behind Lando. Totally Black, some of them are.

 This isn't Star Trek. You don't have to make mental gymnastics to explain that a man can be black and also a Stormtrooper( or say,be disguised as one). It's no big deal either way. We're not gonna go into fits for every new black character in an old franchise, are we?

Trying to do a cinematic universe.

Ok, it's sad that he died, but he wasn't a good actor. Settled?

Sometimes I get a feeling if a movie with a guy who wears a top hat on his ass, movie studios would greenlight hundreds of movies with guys wearing all kinds of headwear on their lower regions because "that's what people want" or "that's what sells today."

So now that Avengers made Disney a bunch of money, Sony and Universal want some, but making filmic universes for Robin Hood and The Universal Monsters, which are gonna suck all the nuts. Wb is already knee deep into movie plans up to 2020, even though the last Superhero movie they did that didn't star Superman or Batman was Green Lantern.

And despite it being their one job, these execs can't tell why Marvel could make a movie about characters that, before Ironman, where B listers at best, and somehow made them make more money than proven sellers like Spider-Man and Superman.
　

While the Cinematic universe stuff did help, the inherent quality of the works is what made it all work. You can't just knock a half assed movie and expect everyone to show up for the spin off, just because you say your gonna make more. Buuuuuuuut I guess quality's a little too intangible to emulate, huh? Let's do the ass-hat things.

Unbooting things

Girth vs Lenght!

 
 Look, we all get a little iffy when stuff gets rebooted while all it's participants are still around. "Sean Connery's still around! No need for this Roger Moore fella to substitute him.

But once you reboot something, you don't get to go back. You don't get to make Arnie Conan again. You already made Momoa Conan. If it didn't work, that's the breaks. I think that's in the Bible and stuff.


 And Sony, which is rebooting things like it's Windows Vista up here, is actually pre-emptively rebooting it's all female Ghostbusters by announcing, before it even begins filming, that it's gonna do some kind of "The Original Ghostbusters thing", except with Egon is now gonna be Channing Tatum.

Just stop! STOP! You  had years to get the old crew back, and now they're all  old and dead and shit. You didn't! DON'T FUCKING GO BACK!

Saying someone was gay on your show (just offscreen)

Smells like contempt and chamomile.

 
 I don't want to get into the gay subject. There's nothing in there for a moderate, middle of the road, multiple angle looking guy like me.

But one thing I do want to say is, if you want to make a character in a book gay, go ahead and do that. Don't go ahead and make the character gay after the book exists like some coward, though.

I mean, what you imagine the fictional wizard or princess did doesn't get to be important unless it's jotted down or filmed. You don't get diversity brownies for making a character gay way after the series is over, when it's perfectly safe and everyone who otherwise wouldn't have done so has already bought it.

It's like if in Metroid, they never did get into how Samus is a woman except in interviews. "Shit, she's a hamster too. Did I just blow your mind with how PROGRESSIVE(TM) I'm being?"

You did not. It feels like a cheap cop-out to have it both ways. If it's not important enough to the character that he's gay, then why even bring it up? Maybe the character was a Catholic. Maybe the character was a space pirate. Or maybe you're pulling things out of your ass to get people to talk about it. I guess we'll never know!

The Big "When does this go Public Domain?" Post at 9:55 AM

Mr Burns and Smithers representing the current way copyright and  authors are related.

Copyright; a temporary exclusivity on the distribution and reproduction of a work. A privilege, meant to aid authors and owners be more confident that their works will grant them income during their lifetimes. Maybe when it was instituted at a constitutional level they weren't thinking of sending kids to jail for having Niki Minaj  mp3s or stopping churches from unauthorizedly showing The Messenger without permission from  a company, or keep kids from singing High School Musical songs on they're own high schools, but what are you going to do?

If this makes me a copyright breaker, then I don't want to be nothing else.

After works stop belonging to Warner or whatever, they enter the public domain, a healthy 95 years after their initial publishing. I...think it should be a little less. If you agree, well, go ahead and sign my petition. Meanwhile, we must continue to live in the world where it takes nearly 100 years for works to become public domain. Why don't we check out when some of todays most influential works will enter public domain, according to today's law?

Now, here's my fair warning: unless I say so, this only accounts for the first appearance of the thing. For example, if I say Men in Black, all that enters PD is the initial movie. It'll take 5 years after that for MIB II, and ten years after that for MIB III. So if you use any elements from MIB III, say, the film's villain Boris, or the idea that Kay met Jay as a kid, in the date I give you, you're gonna get sued. I'm only giving you the date for Men in Black 1. Mind you, there's also a MIB cartoon, derived from the movies, and an MIB Malibu comics, which are now owned by Marvel, which inspired the movies. I can't cover every little thing. 

You can do better than this.

Because of this, I invented the Public Domain calculator. You just choose the year of publication, and it automatically shows you when the stuff will go public domain in the states. Want to know when you can use Batarangs, Buffy's sister Dawn, or That Old Strategy RPG Only YOU Remember? Well, give it  a whirl. You can even see when it would have gone  had the law not been changed, if you like indignation as much as I do.

Everyone else, here's a breakdown on when the most popular things today* go PD.  Read it and weep.

Movies:

Movies. It takes a combination of actors, directors, and a bunch of something called "grips" to make a movie. Unlike a book, or a baby, you generally can't just make a movie between two to three people. Which is why most movies, most of the ones we all know and love are owned by corporations. Here's when they won't be.

Alien  

2075

Robocop  

2080

Terminator  2079 (This is just the first movie. No T1000 yet.)

Predator 

2080

Pirates of the Caribean

 2098

Star Wars 

2070 (Just the first movie. No Bobba Fett yet or Emperor yet. On the other hand you can totally come up with your own Prequels at this point. You just can't put Jar Jar Binks in them. {:.(.. )

E.T.

2080

 

Scarface

 2081

(This is just for the quotable Scarface remake starring Al Pacino we all know. The Original Scarface should have lapsed in 2027, You can make another Cut-in-the-face-criminal-who-rises-to-the-top-and-then-has-a-huge-downfall movie after 2027. Or, you know, now, and just don't call it Scarface.)

Planet of the Apes

 2063

Buffy 

2087 (This is just the first movie. The TV show, it's original characters and premises, will not lapse yet. )

James Bond (The first movie) 2048

Superheroes:

Ok, there's plenty of public domain superheroes, awight? You could already be working on that. If you must wait, here's when some of the really popular ones will become as free as the air to use.

Batman

 2034 

(He doesn't have his Batmobile, sidekicks, or code against killing by this point. Below are dates for further Batman elements)

Joker 2035

Robin 2035

Catwoman  2035

Superman

 

 2028 (He doesn't have his final symbol, abilities like flight or heat vision, sidekicks, pets or most of his rogues cast.)

Wonder Woman 

 

2038

Spider-Man

 

 2057

Hulk

 2057

Ironman

 

 2058 He doesn't have the red and yellow yet.

X-Men

 

 2055 The team is comprised of Angel, Marvel Girl, Cyclops, Beast and Iceman. Adding Jubilee gets you sued.)

>Wolverine 2069

Fantastic Four 

 

2056

Dr Doom 2057

Ninja Turtles

 

 2079 (This is just the original comics. Does not cover future cartoons, movies, books etc.)

Dick Tracy

  2026

Books

Did you know that Chronicles of Narnia is already public domain in Canada, and that War of the Worlds is public domain in America, yet still locked up in England? Books are the original IP, and here's when some of the ones you like might become Public Domain.

Lord of the Rings

 2050

Starship Troopers

 2053

I Robot 

2054

Space Odyssey

 2063

Who goes there? BKA The Thing

 2077

Psycho

 2053

Carrie

 2069

I Am Legend

 2050

Cartoons/Animation

Who doesn't love a good cartoon? I know I do, anyway. Animation is, naturally, one of those things that's becoming "Democratized" by cheap and free and easy new tools, and one day it'll be easier than ever for you to make your own version of...

Looney Tunes

 

 2063 (Check for particular character origins. I'm tired)

Mickey Mouse

 2023

Betty Boop

 

 2021( Or...maybe now?)

Inspector Gadget

 

 2078

Dragonball

 

 2090( Check for particular character's first appearance)

Sailor Moon

 

 2087

Flinstones

 

 2055

Videogames

Yeah, we're not getting any public domain videogames within our lifetimes, thanks to those ridiculous alterations made to the duration of copyright. It's sad, really.   What's fun is, once, since rules and procedures can't be copyrighted, you'll get to make as much legitimate Sonic as you like once he does go public domain.

Mario

 

 2078

Street Fighter

 

 2092 (This is just the Street Fighter 1 game.No Chun Li for you, yet. )

Pacman

 2080

Legend of Zelda

 

 2086 

Sonic

 

 2086

Final Fantasy 2082

Final Fantasy VII(the one you all care about anyway.)

 

 2092

Final Fight

 2084

Doom

 

 2088

Tomb Raider featuring Lara Croft

 

 2091

Halo

 

 2097

Metal Gear

 

 2082

Tekken

 

 2089

Mortal Kombat

 2087

So there you go, guys. See you in 95 years!

(Batzarro is not a copyright lawyer. Or a lawyer of any kind. Or very smart. Or not-dumb. Follow his advise at your own risk, asshole.)

* Well, some stuff I know, anyway. Go do your own damn list, then!