Re:Creators Episode 4 Review

Talking about it

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Re:Creators has been a really entertaining watch thus far, being a fun take on several tried and true anime genres. The thing is, for the last few weeks it’s mostly spent it’s time setting up everything for whatever they’re planning later, introducing the characters bit by bit and explaining the rules of the world.

          This episode definitely served as more of a way to learn about the characters, specifically Meteora. Since the spotlight has more or less been on Selesia since day one, it’s nice to see the other main character finally get screentime other than as an exposition machine.

          Meteora learned that her creator passed away in a motorcycle accident some time before she arrived, which is dismaying as she was going to base her views on the world on how he felt about it. With him gone, she played the game he made and enjoyed it, deciding to ally with the humans once and for all.

          It’s kind of a plot point that came out of absolutely nowhere, considering we were never hinted previously that Meteora was anything but loyal to the main character guy and his team. It’s a nice scene though, adding more depth to her character.

          Speaking of main character guy, I still have to question whether he serves a purpose in this show aside from providing a place for Selesia and Meteora to stay. Honestly, Selesia’s creators have done significantly more than he has in the last four episodes. Maybe he’ll do something cool later on down the line? Because right now he just feels like a complete waste of space that distracts from the real main draw of the series, that being the creations.

          Over on the villain’s side, the knight girl from a few weeks back (named Alice) has actually captured her creator. After being ordered to turn her war-torn world into one of peace and failing, he’s now being held hostage by the Military Uniform Princess. Poor guy.

          Alice and the magical girl also strike up a really fun relationship. I love that the writers chose these two to pair up, because they play off each other incredibly well. Coming from two different anime with extremely different genres, their different views on the world lead to a lot of cute and funny moments, and it’s something I hope to see more of.

          Apparently the Military Uniform Princess’s master plan is destroying the world by bringing in more and more creations that bend the laws of physics, but that’s only a theory by Meteora. What’s really interesting is that she’s likely a creation herself considering the powers we saw her use in Episode 1, so there’s a possibility she could only be the Darth Vader to someone else’s Emperor Palpatine. This is definitely a show that leaves you wanting a lot more, and since this is a two-cour anime I’m hoping it’ll deliver on everything.

          This episode was extremely dialogue heavy, but it never really felt exhausting like a certain other anime I dropped last week. I think it helps that I’m already really invested in the story and characters here and I really want to know the master plan behind all of it. The character relationships are also very entertaining, and the writers are doing an excellent job of using the characters to create some very entertaining situations. I still wish the male lead had more to do though. He still feels like he’s there just because this type of show usually has a male lead. Other than that, though, Re:Creators continues to be a fun and interesting anime that I really hope more people check out.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Review: “All the Madame’s Men”

The long road home

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Season 4 of S.H.I.E.L.D is coming to a close, and that means we’ve got quite a few episodes coming up filled with action, suspense, and of course more surprises than doctors consider healthy for stress management. That means this episode had to do a lot of the heavy lifting in setting up for the next three weeks, tying up the loose ends of the plot that need to be ready for when everything goes down. A lot of this week was spent talking about how to escape and what Aida’s master plan is, and it served a good job of getting us excited for what the grand finale will entail.

          I’ve always been amazed at what S.H.I.E.L.D can accomplish in such small amounts of time. Remember when they killed off Rosalind in Season 3 in the first two minutes of the episode, making jaws drop around the world? This episode was no different, as Daisy (now with her powers back) literally pushed Madam Hydra out of one of the top floors of the Triskelion before the cold open was over. And this wasn’t an “oh, she’s going to get right back up because she has special Framework powers” situation either. As we saw later her spine was broken, which led Fitz even further down the path of the dark side.

          We got a glimpse as to what the mysterious Project: Looking Glass the two are working on was as well. While we’re still not sure exactly what it was, it’s supposedly Darkhold-based technology that will give Aida a human body in the real world, allowing her for free thought and emotion. If this is the case, it does bring up an interesting question: why not use that machine to bring other characters from the Framework into the real world, like Tripp, Ward, Hope and Radcliffe? While I like all four of those characters (and this is likely the route they’ll be taking), I kind of want to see the reactions the characters get from having these people back in their lives and then losing them again. We’re all excited to see how Fitz reacts to what he did in the Framework, but how will Mack deal with losing his daughter again after seeing what she could’ve been? Or how will Daisy handle having a Ward who actually cared about her? It’s an interesting realm I’d like to see explored, and I feel that having these characters get a Get Out of Jail Free card back to the real world would be kind of a cheat. Conversely, it’d be interesting to see how Framework Tripp, Ward and so on react to what the real world is like, but I feel that’s a novelty that’d wear off fast, especially if it’s multiple characters having the same story arc.

          Anyways, back to the episode, this week had a bunch of hidden goodies and easter eggs for long-time S.H.I.E.L.D fans. This entire storyline has been filled with little winks at the audience about the show’s past (Fitz’s dwarf drones and Daniel Whitehall being in the history books being some notable ones), but this week had loads. Season 2 villain Bakshi played a fun role as a HYDRA newscaster with some funny similarities to modern politics. There were also a lot of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it easter eggs hidden on his show, such as a mention of Gideon Malick on the ticker and a tribute to John Garret/Bill Paxton.

          The last really interesting thing about this episode was Ward’s role in it. He had a really good scene with Daisy where he acknowledged that he knows he can’t go back with her, but he wanted to know if he could get Framework Daisy back when the real one left. Honestly, to me this scene is just screaming “he’s coming with them at the end!”, especially considering what Project Looking Glass is. Again, while I really like Framework Ward, I worry that the novelty of him will wear off if he sticks around too much. That’s just my opinion though, and I’m sure that whatever the writers have planned will be fantastic.

          This episode definitely served as setup for the finale, but it was done in a way that made it still entertaining and interesting. The character moments were good, and I liked seeing Framework Ward grapple with the realization that his world isn’t real. Fitz also had a lot of great moments this week too, as he continued to go darker and darker in his pursuit of the ones who broke Madam Hydra’s spine. Coulson gave an awesome speech at the end of the episode that was as empowering as it was culturally relevant. All in all, while this episode was lighter on action than S.H.I.E.L.D’s usual fare, it was still just a very stellar episode.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Yooka-Laylee Review

Banjo on a budget

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          Rare is a company that’s really been put through the wringer over the past few years. Once Nintendo’s right hand man during the N64 days, they suffered a number of setbacks and problems after they were completely purchased by Microsoft in 2002. After a long string of good but underselling titles (I’m still waiting on a third Viva Piñata), the legendary developer behind such classics as Goldeneye 007, the original Donkey Kong Country trilogy and of course the Banjo-Kazooie franchise was essentially sent to the gaming salt mines, forced to create tech demos for Microsoft’s new Kinect peripheral.

          At this the Rare braintrust jumped ship and decided to form their own indie development studio known as Playtonic Games. There they used the power of crowdfunding to create Yooka-Laylee, the spiritual successor to Banjo that Microsoft apparently didn’t want them to make.

          Fast forward two years, and the game has finally arrived. So where does Yooka-Laylee lie on the Kickstarter-funded-game spectrum? Is it as successful as Shovel Knight or as dreadful as Mighty No. 9?

           Unfortunately, in my opinion it's closer to the latter game, although it’s not nearly as much of a disaster as Mighty was. Yooka-Laylee legitimately feels like it could’ve been made in 1998, but I don’t really think that’s a good thing. Yooka’s main goal is to remind players of how great Banjo-Kazooie was back in the day, and I feel it accomplished that with me. In my entire time playing I found I’d much rather be playing Banjo than this worse homage to it.

          The game stars the titular chameleon Yooka and his bat friend Laylee. The two of them spring into action when the nefarious corporate overlord Capital B steals the magic pages of a mysterious tome with intents to use it to take over the world. It’s up to the daring duo to collect all the pagies (as they’re called) to defeat Capital B because…I honestly don’t know. The two of them are never really given a reason as to why they’re on this mission. They just kind of go chasing the book because it’s something to do. Granted, the story isn’t exactly what’s important in a colourful cartoony platformer, but I wanted more of a reason to be going on this quest. At least Banjo had you rescuing your sister, so you had a reason to care.

          And since this game so desperately wants to remind you about Banjo’s glory days, that’s what I’ll be comparing it to.

          The first thing you’ll notice upon starting up the game is that Yooka-Laylee employs the same goofy gibberish-text speech in the dialogue that Banjo did. But for whatever reason, this time around Playtonic decided to make all the character noises way more annoying than they ever were in Banjo. Expect to hear lots of screams, whines and moans throughout your playthrough, enough to make me almost want to mute the sound.

          The only reason I didn’t was because of the soundtrack, composed by Grant Kirkhope of Banjo, Viva Piñata and Donkey Kong 64 fame among others. This time around the music is…passable. It suits the atmosphere fine enough, but it’s not memorable the way the music in Banjo was. While Banjo has extremely hummable tracks like Gruntilda’s Lair, Mumbo’s Mountain and Freezeezy Peak, the songs in Yooka mostly serve as just atmosphere.

          The visual design isn’t bad, but it’s not exactly a treat to the eyes either. The game looks about the same as Super Mario Sunshine being run on an HD emulator. It’s not great, but for an indie game bending itself backwards trying to make you nostalgic it’s not as bad as it could be. The character models, on the other hand, are just depressing. They range from stiff to full-on lazy in their design. Some NPCs are just random objects with googly eyes pasted on, as if the designers ran out of time making characters and had to throw something together at the last minute. All the NPCs act like animatronics out of a bad Disney World attraction. They remain completely still aside from an animation or two looped infinitely, and when you walk up to them a spotlight shines to let you know that they can be interacted with. You never feel like this is a real world you’re existing in. Instead the worlds of Yooka-Laylee feel like something out of a Six Flags themed area.

          Speaking of the worlds, they’re just ghastly in all respects. The hub world is atrocious, quite possibly the worst I’ve ever seen. It’s a maze of twisting hallways, ramps, gaps and dead ends, and you can never tell if you’re going the right direction. At one point I got so lost I needed to consult YouTube just so I could find Level 2! Comparing this to Gruntilda’s Lair from Banjo-Kazooie, while that hub was large and cavernous, the pathways were clear enough that you always had an idea of where you were going. Capital B’s fortress feels more like the labyrinths from Breath of the Wild, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.

          As for the themed worlds you visit to collect pagies, I only got to the third one before I gave up on the game. Apparently they only get worse from there, so make of that what you will. None of them are memorable by any means, but they all share one big problem: they’re way too big and confusing to navigate. It’s 2017. If you’re going to give us giant worlds and not provide a map of some description, go home and rethink your life.

          So yeah, the worlds are enormous and without a map system there’s extreme difficulty in figuring out not only where you need to go but where you’ve already been. Landmarks are few and far between, making everything look frustratingly similar. You could be running around in circles looking for the next pagie and have no idea you’re doing so.

          And that’s just the design aspects. We haven’t even gotten started talking about the gameplay yet.

          Remember how at the top of the review I said this game feels like it could’ve been made in 1998? I’m talking about the gameplay when I say that. The platforming is archaic, the combat is brainless, and the camera is just plain sad.

          Just as with Banjo, Yooka is a collect-the-doodads game. Collecting pagies allows you to either open new worlds or expand the ones you’ve already unlocked. There’s also quills scattered around, which you can use to purchase new moves and abilities from Trowzer the snake. While collecting pagies is initially as satisfying as getting jiggies in Banjo, it quickly becomes a chore as Playtonic does everything in their power to keep you away from your papery prize. Most are trapped in cages and need to be unlocked via puzzles. The only problem is that Yooka does an awful job at telling you what the puzzles are most of the time. More often than not you’ll come across a caged pagie and have absolutely no idea what you’re supposed to do to free it, even after searching the surrounding area.

          There are also collectible ghosts, but god knows how you’re supposed to get them. They all seem to have certain tasks tied to them, but the game decided not to tell me what those tasks were so I just left them alone.

          Most often you need to complete a platforming challenge of some description, but that falls flat on its face as well. Just like the rest of the game, the platforming physics would feel more at home on the N64 than a modern console. It’s extremely hard to figure out just where Yooka currently is, making precise jumps a near impossibility. The camera doesn’t help either. No matter what you do it will always be firmly stuck behind Yooka, limiting your field of view and not allowing you to try different angles for the platforming. Aiming and firing with power-ups is also horrendous, as you often need to shoot buttons to open doors with such small hitboxes that you need to jiggle Yooka back and forth until he’s directly facing the button itself, and then firing.

          Oh, and while we’re on the subject of power-ups, they’re a complete joke. Once purchased early on in the game, Yooka gains the ability to eat certain flowers that temporarily give him fire, water, bomb, ice powers and so on. When I say temporarily though, I mean it. You have these elemental abilities for less than a minute, and Yooka’s absolute favourite puzzle is the “grab the ability, make a mad dash to the puzzle you need to use it on, and hope you get it right” puzzle. This is a trick the game pulls with extreme frequency, and it results in a lot of frustration from the player as oftentimes the puzzle is miles away from the power-up flower and if you make a single mistake you need to do the whole thing all over again until you’re pixel perfect. Usually even when you complete the marathon sprint to the puzzle perfectly, the power-up on the ability runs out of time while you’re trying to use it on the puzzle!

          But amazingly that’s not even the worst part! The combat manages to climb to the peak of the garbage and crown itself the absolute most dreadful part of the game. The enemies are extraordinarily dull, with most of them just being the same designs repeated ad nauseam. They brainlessly run at you with all the intelligence of a zombie from a bad asset flip on Steam, and all you have to do is use Yooka’s spin attack to dispatch them. But even that doesn’t work, as sometimes the spin attack fails to connect for whatever reason. You can be right up in range of a little goblin guy, but the spin will phase right through him and you’ll take a hit because of it.

          The only other variety Yooka has are minigames, but they all feel like something you could find for free on the App Store. There’s a top-down kart racer that controls like garbage, a Temple Run knockoff that controls like garbage, a hurdle race that controls like garbage, and more. Notice a pattern there? All the minigames are boring and uninspired, but they also come equipped with multiplayer functionality in case you’re ever throwing a house party and really want your guests to leave.

          Yooka-Laylee’s biggest problem is that it never allows itself to be its own game. It’s too busy trying to remind players of how Rare struck gold in the 90’s to actually do something new with the Banjo collectathon concept. In the six hours I played of the game, not once did it take me by surprise or introduce something I wasn’t expecting, and by the time I called it quits the game felt like it was just going through the motions as it marched ever closer to the end credits. This, plus the less-than-stellar aesthetic, bad map design and just plain terrible gameplay, leaves Yooka-Laylee as just another game with a nostalgic façade and a yawn-worthy core.

          Still, despite my many criticisms the game has enough charm that I’d say it’s not a complete wash. If you’re a massive fan of Banjo and Rare’s glory days, I’d say it’s worth giving a chance. Just maybe rent it first or wait for a sale instead of buying at full price. Everybody else on the other hand, if you really want to play a platformer, save your money and hope Super Mario Odyssey turns out good.

FINAL SCORE

4/10

Mediocre

Editorial: Spoiler Alert!

Spoiler Alert!

          Nobody likes spoilers. When someone or something comes along and ruins an upcoming bit of media for you, it’s hard not to get frustrated or even angry. There are trolls everywhere on the internet who attend midnight screenings of the latest blockbuster and then post spoilers in comment sections of unrelated stuff, or people who rapid fire through games and then upload a video to YouTube with the surprise final boss in the thumbnail. It’s frustrating trying to avoid spoilers in this day and age, which is why I love when people swoop in and help clean up the mess so others won’t have their experiences ruined.

          But there comes a point where you must ask yourself: how much is too much? Yes, it’s true nobody likes having something they’ve been looking forward to spoiled for them, but the real question is where do you draw the line between what is and isn’t fair game to talk about?

          Persona 5 developer and Sega subsidiary Atlus made waves earlier this month when they unveiled their spoiler policy for the long-anticipated release in a blog post. “We don’t want the experience spoiled for people who haven’t played the game.” the Japanese developer politely said on April 4, later mentioning that since fans have waited years for this game they don’t want someone to accidentally stumble on the final boss by accident.

          But, as things tend to do in this industry, Atlus’s statement quickly went from a request to a forceful demand. For whatever reason you aren’t allowed to make videos about Persona longer than 90 minutes regardless of what content is in them. You’re also not allowed to feature certain story-crucial items or characters in videos, as well as most major boss fights. Nor are you allowed to make movie-type videos of cutscenes stringed together.

          But the blog post ends with the biggest demand of them all, labeled under “Streaming Content”.

Atlus concluded the blog post with “This being a Japanese title with a single-playthrough story means our masters in Japan are very wary about it. Sharing is currently blocked through the native PS4 UI. However, if you do plan on streaming, video guidelines above apply except length. If you decide to stream past 7/7 (I HIGHLY RECOMMEND NOT DOING THIS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED), you do so at the risk of being issued a content ID claim or worse, a channel strike/account suspension.”

But it doesn’t stop there. Inspired by their subsidiary’s plot, Sega decided to pose restrictions on another recently released game: Puyo Puyo Tetris. While these restrictions only apply in Japan, they’re no less scumbaggy than the ones Persona has. Japanese content creators are only allowed to post footage of the forthcoming game as long as the videos aren’t being put on commercial sites. That removes the big-name stuff like the previously mentioned YouTube and Twitch, as well as barring anyone hoping to make money off creating content based on the game.

So why is Sega doing this? It’s apparently because they’re afraid of someone getting spoiled on the puzzle crossover game’s Adventure Mode.

Guys. It’s Tetris. We all know how it ends. You make a few mistakes, the blocks start piling up, and then it’s game over. Am I breaking the rules by saying that?

The gaming market has changed significantly in the last few years with the advent of let’s plays, video reviews and of course streaming hitting it big, allowing people to gain fanbases to rival that of major celebrities just by talking about a game and why they like or dislike it. Unfortunately, the businessmen that run a lot of the major Japanese gaming companies have been having extreme difficulty accepting that this is the way things are now and fighting it only breeds contempt. Nintendo got a lot of flak a few years ago for their content creation policy and Konami regularly sends copyright strikes to any YouTube video with even just few seconds of any of their games in it.

I like to think that Atlus’s heart is in the right place with all this. After all, they’re just trying to keep people from finding out major plot points in their extremely story-based game from outside sources. But here’s the big problem: streamers and YouTubers have become a quick and easy way to generate positive press about your game. If millions of fans watch someone like Markiplier or PewDiePie play your game and hear them say they love it, odds are they’ll go out and buy it for themselves. At the end of the day, the developer gets a bunch of copies sold, the YouTuber receives ad revenue from the video, and the viewer gets a new game they’ll hopefully love. Everybody wins. For a good example look at the Five Nights at Freddy’s series. Despite what your opinion may be on the games, there’s no denying that they wouldn’t have grown to the ludicrous popularity they now enjoy without the word of mouth from popular YouTubers and streamers.

So while Atlus might find it noble to be looking out for the little guy who doesn’t want one of the boss fights spoiled, they’re also costing themselves massive amounts of free publicity in the process. This isn’t even mentioning that telling people not to do something only starts up the Streisand Effect again, making everyone do exactly what you didn’t want them to do in the first place. Streaming and YouTube have become mainstays in the gaming industry, and by trying to block it through sheer force your company only comes across as behind the times. Catch up or be left in the dust, Sega.

 Song of the Week

          PuyoTetroMix – Puyo Puyo Tetris

          (am I breaking the rules by putting this here, Sega?)

Little Witch Academia Episode 16 Review

Deep freeze

(This review contains spoilers!)

          While I’m enjoying the overarching plot of Little Witch, I can’t deny that I think these characters work best in one-off settings where they have to solve a magical problem or meet a wacky character. This episode was able to juggle the best of both worlds, creating a delightful one-off that also managed to further the plot a bit.

          Akko, Lotte and Sucy are visiting Lotte’s family in (if I remember correctly) Scandinavia, while at the same time searching for the fourth word. Of course, while they’re there things start to go horribly wrong. It turns out some of the pies made by the next door neighbour are cursed in a hilarious bit of coincidence, trapping everyone but Akko in moss. So now Akko needs to find the five ingredients required to brew an antidote to save everyone.

          Akko really carries this episode on her shoulders like never before, and does a fantastic job of it. She goes through a lot of character development in this episode alone, almost making it feel like a mini-arc for her. All the ingredients are achieved through patience, and watching her go from not being able to stay in a sauna for three minutes to being able to convince a yeti to ignore internet trolls so he can make the last and most crucial part of the antidote. This episode really personifies what makes Akko such a great character: despite her many faults, her determination and optimism really makes her someone you want to cheer for, even if she gets annoying at times.

          This episode was also one of the funniest in a long time, with lots of great visual and spoken jokes. I loved that the yeti is wearing jeans for no particular reason. It’s such a silly little touch that doesn’t need to be there, but that’s what makes it great. There’s also a fantastic joke towards the end of the episode while Akko is making her way back to Lotte’s house, but I dare not spoil it. I’ll just say that it comes completely out of left field and it made me laugh out loud when I saw it.

          The plot is progressed a little this week, mostly by Akko unlocking the fourth word through her patience. We also got another peek at what Croix is up to, but it really felt unnecessary to me. She seems to be experimenting with emotions to see which will make her magic the strongest, eventually settling on anger. I’m almost certain Croix has some sort of grudge against Chariot because of something she did in the past, especially considering her cubes are what built the monster at Chariot’s concert in the first episode. Perhaps the two were friends or even partners at one point before something went horribly wrong?

          While this scene does add a bit more mystery to Croix and Chariot’s relationship, I kind of wish we’d gotten more time with Lotte’s family instead. They get barely any screentime at all, and I would’ve liked to hear about their family history or how magic vanishing has affected their business. I’d much rather have seen that than a random scene with Croix that comes out of nowhere and doesn’t affect the episode’s story.

          Still, this episode was a complete joy to watch, and reminded me once again why I adore this series. This one-off story was a complete delight, with humour, heart and even a little bit of suspense towards the end. While it has a few faults, I can’t deny that it ranks up there with the other fantastic episodes this series has given us.

          Seriously, this show’s gotten more 10/10s from me than anything I’ve ever reviewed. It’s just that good.

FINAL SCORE

10/10

Legendary

My final thoughts on Alice to Zorokou

          

          Well, I didn’t think we’d be getting one of these this early on.

          I’ve been reviewing anime on this blog for over a year now, and in that time I’ve only dropped one show I reviewed weekly: last year’s really bad adaption of the Ace Attorney games. Today I’ve decided what will be the first anime to join it in the hall of shame, as I cannot bear to watch another second of Alice to Zorokou Episode 4.

          This anime’s been on a pretty steady decline since the pilot, and I kind of figured this was coming after last week’s episode stuffed with filler and corporate sponsorship. While Episode 4 is nowhere near as mind-numbingly boring as the pilot to Sagrada Reset was, it’s still enough for me to call it the last straw.

          It was just talking and talking about things we already know about from the last three episodes. Then at one point they try to throw a curveball where someone says Sana might not be human…which then segues into more talking!

          I was so bored that I looked at the video’s progress bar to see how much longer I’d have to put up with it. Much to my horror I saw that I was only seven minutes in, at which point I looked back at the screen to see what must be the most uncomfortable moment in recent anime history.

          Sana is drugged by the evil hairy-arm wielding agent from last week, and once she’s injected with the serum she pees all over the floor. I find it hilarious that this show can barely animate their main characters half the time, but when they need something gross and unnecessary happen they make it look as good as they can. We then go into Sana’s mind where she meets either her mother or a future version of herself or whatever. Upon meeting this apparition, Sana, who I’m sure has plenty of questions about the legitimacy of her humanity as we saw just a few moments earlier, makes a comment about her breast size.

          Who wrote this?

          You mean to tell me that Sana, who looks to be about eight years old at most, who’s been separated from the only family she’s ever known, and who just learned she might not even be human at all is making stupid and juvenile boob jokes!?

          No. I’m done.

          I’m not scoring this episode either. It doesn’t deserve the satisfaction of joining trash like Lego Worlds and the Sagrada Reset pilot among others at the absolute bottom of the barrel stuff I’ve reviewed on this blog. This episode just plain doesn’t care about anything, so I won’t either.

          Between the awful animation, the inexplicable corporate sponsorship, the garbage writing, the eye-gougingly painful CGI and the overdose of talking and exposition, I cannot stand another second of Alice to Zorokou. If you’re looking for a new action anime to watch this season, I beg of you, watch Re:Creators instead.

FINAL SCORE (This Episode)

DISQUALIFIED

FINAL SCORE (Overall)

2/10

Awful

Bill Nye Saves the World Episode 1 Review

The Artist Formerly Known as Science Guy

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          Bill Nye the Science Guy is the rare show that is just as popular now as it was when it went off the air in 1998. Classrooms everywhere were quick to pick up on how the show was able to teach students about various scientific subjects in a fun and entertaining way that everyone could enjoy. I personally remember always being excited whenever the teacher would wheel in the good old CRT TV and put on some Bill Nye. It ranks up there with Magic School Bus and the Humongous Entertainment Junior Adventure games as some of the best edutainment you can find for kids.

          With the advent of Netflix, I guess somebody decided the time had come for Bill Nye to return to the small screen. Bill Nye Saves the World is meant to be a more adult oriented take on the classic formula, as Bill takes on modern and controversial topics such as climate change, asking the audience big and difficult questions. However, the biggest question viewers will have upon finishing the pilot is how Mr. Nye expects to save the world when he can’t even perform the simple task of keeping his audience invested in what he’s trying to say.

          Saves the World’s biggest problem is apparent from the first five minutes. This show has absolutely no clue what it wants its target audience to be. Right off the bat Nye comes out and explains that this show will be much more adult-oriented than Science Guy was because of the more grown up topics he’ll be focused on. But this is very quickly thrown out the window as he goes into a science experiment/stand-up routine about climate change, spouting millennial lingo and cringe-worthy jokes that are so painful you don’t pick up on the actual science he’s talking about.

          If there was ever a show that personified the “how do you do, fellow kids?” meme, it’s Saves the World. Adding to the problem of the demographic confusion, the show that is so proud about how “adult-oriented” it is that it proclaims it in the cold open seems to be vying for attention from millennials more than anything. Bill seems to have visited the Duke Nukem school of humour since the last time we saw him, because now he apparently thinks that references = jokes. Everything from emojis to hashtags are covered, and it feels less like Nye trying to be funny and more like your weird uncle trying to be hip with the kids. In the end Saves the World, which is so content in tooting it’s horn about how adult it is, comes across as more childish than Science Guy was.

Even worse is that this show has a live studio audience, which means a laugh track every time Bill makes an attempt at humour. Can we all agree it’s time to get rid of laugh tracks? The only purpose they serve is to try and convince the viewer that something not funny actually is.

          Actually, come to think of it, that’s exactly why this show needs one.

          So the humour sucks. Is the science interesting at all? Well, I’m sure what he’s talking about is pretty cool, and it’s very refreshing to see a show that isn’t afraid to tackle culturally relevant and controversial subjects, but it’s delivered in such a way that it’s hard for anyone to be engaged by it. The reason why Science Guy became such a classroom mainstay was because it delivered knowledge in a way that was fun, with quick scene changes and fun visual humour to keep kids interested in whatever subject Bill was talking about. Here it’s just Bill either standing or sitting and rambling on and on and on about climate change while you desperately try not to cringe at the painful attempts at humour. And when the show decides to get more serious, it actually becomes even worse! A massive chunk of the episode is Bill sitting at a desk talking in a monotone voice with three science experts in boring grey suits for what feels like decades. Once I realized this desk chat wasn’t going to end anytime soon, I got up and went to bed, and I won’t be returning anytime soon.

          Bill Nye Saves the World has no idea what kind of show it wants to be. It so desperately wants to be taken seriously as an adult-oriented science show taking on controversial topics, but it also wants to be a successor to Bill Nye the Science Guy by throwing in lots of lame attempts at jokes and millennial references. While the show’s heart is definitely in the right place, the cringe-worthy humour makes it hard to focus on the message Bill’s trying to pass, and when the show decides to go full serious it becomes so boring that it’s hard not to be tempted to switch to something else. Maybe it gets better later on, but I’m not wasting more of my precious time on it. At the end of the day, the most interesting scientific experiment to come out of this show is how it can help cure insomnia.

FINAL SCORE

2/10

Awful

Re:Creators Episode 3 Review

Shapeshifting

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Over the last few weeks, Re:Creators burst out of the gates as the surprise best show of the Spring season thus far. With a creative take on a genre saturating anime for years now as well as a great cast of characters, this one has the potential to go far.

          This week was no different, although it was quieter than the past few weeks. Several big early questions got answered, all the while new characters were introduced.

          Picking up where last week left off, the magical girl was saved from the new purple edgelord character by a knight lady riding a flying chariot. We didn’t see either of them for the rest of the episode (except for a cameo by the magical girl at the end), so I’m guessing they’ll be more supporting roles.

          The edgelord didn’t have a huge role either, but he did serve as a catalyst for answers. While we still don’t know why all these characters have been transported to the real world, we do know that the girl in the military uniform from the first episode is somehow behind it. We also learned that the characters are tied to the traits given to them by the authors, finding it difficult to break the mold.

          Most of the episode took place in the home of Selesia’s creator, as he invited his artist over to see if they could use their powers as creators to somehow change how the characters behave or look.

          One of the highlights of Re:Creators thus far has been the humour. I like the fish-out-of-water comedy the characters are going through as they adapt to the new world, as well as the meta humour the writers are using to poke fun at the industry. There’s a fun scene where the artist is telling Selesia about several twists she doesn’t know about because the anime she’s in hasn’t caught up with the manga yet. While there is less of that this week, what we did get is a lot of fun.

          It turns out the characters can’t be changed, since they were already iconic when they were brought into the world. The public has to accept the changes to the characters in their respective stories before the characters themselves are allowed to change. It’s a little confusingly explained, especially for something that’s most likely going to come into play later considering it’s a concept being introduced this early. Still, I like that the creators don’t have total control over their creations once they have established personalities.

          Re:Creators remains a very stellar new anime, one that I’m a little dismayed people seem to be overlooking. While this week didn’t have the action or humour of the previous weeks, it proved it didn’t need it to create an excellent episode. If you haven’t checked it out, now’s a great time to get started.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Star Wars Saturday: A Frame-by-Frame Analysis of the Last Jedi Trailer

A Frame-by-Frame Analysis of the Last Jedi Trailer

          And now for something I’m sure everyone else has already done by this point.

          The first trailer for The Last Jedi’s been out for over a week now, has been viewed millions of times around the world, and it’s gotten everyone pretty excited for what Lucasfilm and Rian Johnson have in store for us come December. So I thought it’d be fun to take a closer look at everything in the trailer, give my thoughts and theories as to what’s going on, and all that good stuff. So with that being said…

          We start off the same way we began the first Force Awakens teaser: a really loud note accompanied by footage of one of the main characters suddenly appearing.

          This time around it’s Rey popping up, and she seems to have just been through something tiring. Has she just escaped something chasing her? Is there some sort of monster on Ahch-To? Or maybe she just smelled Luke’s robes? 

          And here we have a shot of the beautiful Ahch-To island. It kinda looks like a shoe from this angle.

          One thing I’d like to know is whether this island was what Luke was looking for when he disappeared. Han mentions in Force Awakens “People who knew him best think he went looking for the first Jedi Temple.” Judging by what we’ve seen of the island so far it looks like the kind of place where an old order of Jedi would settle down and start training. And while Ahch-To is listed on Wookieepedia as the location of the temple, I don’t know if we’ve heard anything official from any of the books or comics or anything that confirms it.

          While we get these beautiful glamour shots, we can hear Luke’s voice. “Breathe. Just breathe. Now, reach out. What do you see?”

          I think it’s safe to say Luke’s going to be somewhat of a reluctant master to Rey similarly to how Yoda was for him back in Empire. Considering the Force has been thrown out of balance yet again according to Lor San Tekka in Force Awakens, teaching Rey to stick to the light side might be a crucial point of their relationship, especially since Luke’s been tempted by the dark side before.

          Rey contemplates swimming away after spending twenty minutes with Luke.

          This shot actually has an interesting parallel with shots from not only the Original Trilogy, but the Prequel Trilogy as well.

          For starters, here we see Luke with his back to the camera as he burns dear old dad in a red-hued scene from Return of the Jedi.

          And now here’s Anakin hanging out in Theed Palace in a green-hued scene from Attack of the Clones.

          Not only do all three scenes feature the main protagonist of the trilogy with their back to the camera, they each have a specific colour. Plus if Rey turns out to be a Skywalker this’ll be a fun way to tie the three together. Whether coincidence or intentional, it’s a really cool nod in my opinion.

          I think this scene takes place at about the same time as the one that starts off the teaser. Similar if not the same location, Rey’s got her hand down on the rock, and so on. She seems to be using the Force to levitate these pebbles around, but I’m sure there’s more context we’re not getting here.

          Our dearly departed General.

          What’s really interesting is the layered audio in these next three shots. The music, Rey’s dialogue, and even bits from the Original Trilogy are mixed together. These shots begin right after Luke asks “What do you see?” When Leia appears, we hear a snippet of Rey’s Theme while Rey herself says “Light.” Meanwhile, you can faintly hear in the background Leia from A New Hope whispering “Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi…”

          And continuing on, here’s what’s left of Kylo’s mask. Judging by the look of this trailer (and the fact we see maskless Kylo later on) I’m guessing that he’s done wearing a helmet for the rest of the trilogy. It was a cool way to give him Vader parallels the first time around, but now without it he might become more of a stronger villain himself.

          Continuing with the layered audio, this shot is paired with Kylo’s Theme and Rey says “Darkness.” Faintly in the background you can hear Obi-Wan from A New Hope say “Seduced by the dark side…” Obviously in context he’s talking about Vader, but it also works for Kylo’s story.

          And finally we’ve got a mysterious bookshelf. No real music cues here, but Rey finishes by saying “The balance.” with Yoda in the background saying his famous line from Empire “Surrounds us, binds us.”

          So what’s interesting about this bookshelf is obviously what books it has on it. Judging by the wooden look of it I’m going to take a guess and say it’s on Ahch-To. So if Ahch-To is the first Jedi Temple like we’ve been speculating, what books would be there?

          Perhaps the Journal of the Whills? For those who don’t know, the title for A New Hope way back in the first script drafts was “Adventures of Luke Starkiller, as taken from the Journal of the Whills, Saga I: The Star Wars”. Doesn’t exactly roll of the tongue, does it? Despite the Journal of the Whills being one of many things dropped from the title, it lives on even in the canon universe. The novelization for Force Awakens begins with a passage from the Journal, Yoda explains in the Revenge of the Sith book that Qui-Gon learned the secret of how to become a Force ghost by studying the Whills, and Rogue One’s Chirrut and Baze are “Guardians of the Whills” with a new book coming out titled exactly that. And just for clarification, the Whills are holy shamans extremely spiritual to the Force, and the Journal chronicles all the major events that happen in the galaxy.

          So what better place to find the legendary Journal of a holy group of Force shamans that’ve been hinted at in the two most recent Star Wars movies than at the first Jedi temple itself? It’s either that or I’m completely wrong, which is more likely than you’d think.

          This could be the cover of one of the books, and since this shot is immediately after the bookshelf the trailer is obviously trying to make us think that. Whatever this is it has the symbol of the Jedi Order on it, and it’s definitely seen better days.

          You can see someone put their hand on it, but we can’t make out who it is because they’re wearing a glove. We’ve never seen Rey wearing gloves and Luke isn’t wearing any in Force Awakens, so it might not be one of them. The colour of the gloves is not dissimilar to the colour of the outfit we saw the new character Rose wearing in a screenshot, but I think that’s stretching it. This will likely be a mystery we have to wait for December to be solved.

          Here’s a tracking shot of Rey swatting flies with her lightsaber while Luke looks on.

          Some people think they see Yoda sitting on top of that big rock to Rey’s left. To those people I say you should probably watch Return of the Jedi again.

          Concluding the conversation between Luke and Rey, Luke says “It’s so much bigger.” Just for clarity since it probably got lost in all my rambling, here’s the whole exchange.

LUKE: “Breathe. Just breathe. Now, reach out. What do you see?”

REY: “Light. Darkness. The balance.”

LUKE: “It’s so much bigger.”

          Now you could argue that this conversation doesn’t actually happen in the movie and is in fact three separate lines tied together through the power of trailer editing. If not though, this could add a lot more depth to the Force. In all movies before we’ve seen only the light side and the dark side, with Anakin bringing the balance (through murdering all the Jedi) that’s now been thrown out of whack. Could Luke or Rey become the first ever Force-user that wields both sides?

          I really love the visuals here of these ships kicking up the bright red sand as they fly through the desert. It’s little touches like that that make Star Wars feel so amazing.

          We know from the Disney Parks panel at Celebration that this new planet is called Crait, and will be the site of a major battle between the Resistance and the First Order. In the distance you can see the First Order walkers that were only glimpsed in Force Awakens. As cool as it looks, it does bring up one big concern for me. While I love Force Awakens a lot, I definitely agree with the gripe that it follows a lot of the same story beats as A New Hope. Having a scene with land-based ships fighting walkers definitely bears a resemblance to Empire Strikes Back, and I really don’t want another repeat movie. I could be completely wrong, but stuff like this does make me feel a bit cautious.

          Here’s Finn being placed into some sort of medical capsule. We know he’s going to be back in action before long, so I think he’ll be out of his coma within the first half hour of the movie.

          Poe continues to fail to get into his X-Wing before it explodes.

          I think it’s become law that every Star Wars trailer needs a shot of the Falcon fighting some TIE Fighters at some point. The real question for me here is what’s happening here. We last saw the Falcon on Ahch-To with Chewie and R2, so could the First Order finally manage to locate Luke? I get the feeling he’ll be leaving the island before the end of the movie, and being pursued by the First Order is a good reason as any to get going.

          Rey charging at something with her lightsaber ignited. There’s really not much to say about this, since the lighting and blurry background make it impossible to tell where this scene is taking place. Whatever it is, she doesn’t seem happy about it.

          Here’s our first look at post-Force Awakens Kylo, complete with the scar Rey left him with on Starkiller Base. I like the fun parallel that his scar is similar to the one Anakin has in Revenge of the Sith, being over his right eye.

          One thing I’d really like to see in this movie is Kylo’s training. At the end of Force Awakens Snoke orders Hux to bring Kylo to him to “complete his training”. It’d be interesting to see the parallels between Snoke training Kylo and Luke training Rey.

          Here’s a familiar shot. This obviously takes place at the burning of Luke’s academy, but what’s really interesting is what Luke himself is doing. In Force Awakens when Rey has her vision after touching Luke’s old lightsaber, one of the first things she sees is a hooded Luke putting his hand on R2 while something burns in front of them. Well, here’s hooded Luke sitting next to R2 while the academy burns in front of them. But what I find really interesting about this is the next shot.

          Here we see Phasma leading a Stormtrooper platoon out of fire. Normally this wouldn’t mean anything, but take this in context of what we just saw. Could this be the same scene as the burning of Luke’s academy? Was this where the First Order made their first big move against the galaxy, and Kylo was the one that orchestrated it? That’d be a good reason why they keep him around; they owe him for getting them the power they didn’t have in the first place. Well, that plus the fact that a force user is someone you really want on your side.

          Of course it wouldn’t be Star Wars without a space battle of some kind (unless of course you’re Battlefront 2015) and here’s the Resistance and the First Order facing off above what I’m pretty sure is D’Qar. I’m guessing this takes place pretty early on in the movie, since it apparently starts immediately where Force Awakens ends and the Resistance needs to pack up and move somewhere new before the First Order storms their base.

          And to finish off, quite possibly the biggest moment of the trailer. We see Luke’s shadow, and he says “I only know one truth. It’s time for the Jedi…to end.”

          So the big question on everyone’s mind is why oh why does Luke Skywalker of all people want the Jedi to end? We spent three movies watching the guy work his rear off trying to become a Jedi and now he’s just done? What happened to him in the last thirty years?

          A theory I’ve seen making the internet rounds is that Luke’s gone to the dark side, but I kind of find that hard to believe. His entire arc in Return of the Jedi is being tempted by the dark side before ultimately choosing to stick to the light and succeed where his father failed. Having him go dark out of nowhere would kind of make Jedi feel even weirder than Force Awakens already made it.

          I think the far more likely possibility is that Luke thinks there’s no place in the galaxy for the old style of Jedi any more. We know from the prequels that their connection to the force made the Jedi become arrogant, which allowed Palpatine’s master plan to come to fruition. Could Luke have made the same mistakes as his predecessors and accidentally led Kylo down the wrong path as a result?

          What I love about this trailer overall is that it does a great job at getting you excited for what The Last Jedi has up its sleeve, while at the same time barely telling you anything. Most of this recap was just me speculating over what’s going on in these shots, and I love that. Unlike the Spider-Man: Homecoming trailer from a few weeks ago I really like going into a movie barely knowing what the plot is. Considering how Force Awakens pulled a similar tactic I find it likely we’ll be seeing it again here.

          So that’s it for me. See you guys in two weeks for my May the 4th special.