Ready Player One Review

Game on

(This review contains minor spoilers!)

          I’ll be perfectly honest here: I liked the book Ready Player One. I don’t care what the internet says, I thought it was a fun adventure in a world that was great to spend some time in for a few days, even if it got a little self-indulgent at times. It’s not high art, but it’s fine.

          I wasn’t super impressed by the trailers for the movie adaption, but as release date approached, the critic reviews came rolling in and it became clear Spielberg had left his magic touch on it, I was pretty excited to see what they were going to do with the concept.

          And yeah, I had basically the same reaction here as I did with the book: it’s a fun adventure, but nothing that’s going to make you drop to your knees and beg for more.

          The plot follows the same basic outline as a book, but that’s really it. The characters are all the same, the world of the OASIS is the same, and the end goal of finding the secret Easter Egg at the end of the game is the same. Everything else is completely different. While I definitely can see people who didn’t read the book being fine with the path the story takes, for me it was pretty surprising how several crucial parts of the story were either altered or removed entirely.

          The good news is that there’s not an outright bad change in the bunch. One thing I especially liked was the far more positive and optimistic tone of the movie when compared to the often cloying and relentless cynicism the book tended to wallowed in. The characters are usually just seem happy to be enjoying the adventure they’re on at times, and their enthusiasm translates to the audience’s enthusiasm. Main character Parzival is much more enjoyable as a lead in the movie instead of the oftentimes annoying and bratty person he tended to be in the book.

          Speaking of the characters, they’re all done fine. There’s no Jar Jar Binks here or anything, but part of me wanted to see more of some of them. It’s clear the movie is focused on Parzival, his friend Art3mis, and main villain Sorrento, but I really would’ve liked to see more of the side characters too. The gang’s Japanese friends Daito and Sho (apparently they thought Shoto, as he’s called in the book, needed to be changed for some reason) are only really here because they played a pretty big part in the book, and a lot of their storyline is excised.

          Thankfully the main characters are all good, albeit a bit underdeveloped. Parzival and Art3mis have great chemistry with each other and they both get a lot to do throughout the film, especially towards the end. And, of course, Ben Mendelsohn is great as every villain he plays, and he’s no different here as Sorrento.

          The true star of the show though are the action sequences. The opening race scene glimpsed in the trailers lives up to the hype and then some. If you like crazy car chases with giant monsters chasing our heroes, you’ll want to watch that opening over and over and over. There’s also a brand new middle scene where the whole gang goes inside a movie (I’m not spoiling which one) that goes on juuuust a bit too long, but it’s pretty funny overall. And, of course, the grand finale where all the geeky characters come together to fight as one is just as awesome as you’d hope.

          Ready Player One is a super fun movie, plain and simple. It doesn’t really try to be more than that, and honestly, it doesn’t need to be. It’s a fun action adventure that gives you a few sly winks about pop culture and gaming along the way. If you’re looking for a movie where you can just relax and watch some great action and likeable characters, this one is a high scorer.

FINAL SCORE

7/10

Good

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Review: “Rise and Shine”

HYDRAwarts

(This review contains spoilers!)

          I think at this point it’s safe to say that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Season 5 has been a pretty big miss for me. The budget restrictions have been pretty blatant with the constant reuse of sets, episodes go by without anything of value really happening, and the overarching plot really isn’t that compelling if you ask me.

          But we have had a few winners in the overall sludge, and this episode was one of them. This episode had the humour, surprises, and best of all the fun that made me fall in love with this show in the first place, and even better this was the first episode in years that truly embraced the ties S.H.I.E.L.D has to the greater MCU.

          Also, Cap’n Crunch is HYDRA. I always suspected something wasn’t right with him.

          Coulson has been taking to the ultra-secret underground HYDRA base where Hale tells him that it’s time S.H.I.E.L.D and HYDRA work together to stop an oncoming alien threat (Thanos tie-in maybe?).

Through flashback we see her origin in a creepy HYDRA boarding school alongside several baddies from MCU past, including Whitehall, Von Strucker and even Sitwell. This episode was full of fun nods to the wider MCU, something we really haven’t seen from this show in ages. In an age when fans are relentlessly debating whether to count the TV shows as canon to the universe or not it’s nice to have some new arguments for it.

It was also nice to see Talbot return again as we finally got a concrete answer of what happened to him in the wake of Season 4. His one-liners were as amazing as ever, but it was also nice to have a bit of a darker side to him this time with his injury. I’m really looking forward to seeing where they go with his character.

Speaking of awesome character development, Fitz had a few brief scenes this week too, one with Daisy and one with Simmons. It’s pretty clear that Daisy isn’t exactly a fan of his anymore, especially with him refusing to apologize for what he did last week. His scene with Simmons is far more interesting though. According to her since Deke is their grandson (much to Fitz’s hilarious disgust) the two of them are invincible, since they know they can’t die before raising a child.

I’m sure that’s going to go over well when they inevitably change the timeline.

Finally, we got a bit more development towards what’s going to cause the future we saw. It turns out Hale has a project that will infuse an Inhuman with gravitonium to allow them to destroy the oncoming alien invasion. The project’s name? “Destroyer of Worlds”. Coulson is of course unhappy with this revelation, and is put away for safekeeping.

The only real thing I wasn’t huge on this week is that I’m still not sold on Ruby as a character. She just seems like the type of character an angsty teenager would come up with: a ninja badass who cuts people’s limbs off with her frisbees of doom and just doesn’t care about anyone else around them? Yeah, I’m pretty sure I’ve seen her before on fanfiction.net. She doesn’t have any real personality as a result, meaning that I’m neither invested in her as a person nor am I entertained by her as a villain. Hopefully she’ll get some development down the line because right now she’s basically Sinara from the first half of the season except less blue.

This episode was a ton of fun. The HYDRA High School was cheesy in a good way, bringing back all these old characters and references to the outside MCU was great, and I loved all the great jokes and surprises. If we’re finally changing course back to the S.H.I.E.L.D I know and love, I can’t wait for next time.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Star Wars Wednesday: The weirdest Star Wars action figures

The weirdest Star Wars action figures

          Merchandising has been a massive part of Star Wars since Day 1. We all know the story of how George Lucas cleverly made his millions by putting it in his contract that all toy profits go to him in an industry that didn’t really put much stock in the sale of stuff like that. Since then Star Wars toys and action figures have become a staple of playtimes everywhere.

          And with a franchise as massive as Star Wars, nearly every character’s gotten an action figure or two. From Aayla Secura to Zuckuss, the sheer “we have to make a toy for every single character”-ness has led to several laughable ones that nobody outside of collectors would want rotting away on store shelves for all eternity.

          So today, in honour of the death of Toys R Us (at least in America, ‘cause we Canadians still got it!), we shall salute the worst, ugliest, and just plain weirdest Star Wars action figures.

          And hey, how about we have a bit of extra fun? For every weird action figure I list here, I’ll also list the current asking price for one of them on eBay. I’m sure it’ll be…interesting to see how much people will ask for one of these.

          Without further ado…

The Rancor Keeper

          Good lord. I can tell we’re starting off with the cream of the crop.

          You remember the Rancor Keeper, right? He’s that guy who gets all sad after Luke kills the rancor in Return of the Jedi. It’s a moment both pretty goofy and also kinda sad.

          Well, now you and your kids can re-enact that scene with the official Rancor Keeper action figure! Now with realistic chest hair!

          eBay Asking Price: $125.00

The Power of the Force collection

          The 90’s were a…special time for geeky entertainment.

          In the middle of what is now referred to as the Star Wars Dark Age between Return of the Jedi and The Phantom Menace, Hasbro tried to revive the franchise’s toys. But for some unknown reason the characters' bodies here closer resemble those of He-Man and She-Ra than how they actually look in the movies.

           I guess the "Power of the Force" is more akin to steroids in this universe. 

          And hey, what’s up with Leia’s face? Did they get a chimpanzee to model for the toy?

          eBay Asking Price: $12.74 (each)

Polis Massan Medic

          This is an especially strange one. I adore everything Star Wars and even I don’t know who this is supposed to be.

          I guess it’s supposed to be from Revenge of the Sith, but I honestly find it hard to believe I wouldn’t remember something that looks like that. But hey, they made an action figure of it, so it must be in there somewhere.

          I especially love this one because of how freaky it looks. Forget being a medical droid, this thing looks more like something you’d come across on a spooky-themed planet. The fact that it’s armed with a weapon makes it all the more unnerving.

          eBay Asking Price: $44.89

The Lucas Collector’s Set

          For the Star Wars fan that has everything.

          This Revenge of the Sith themed box comes with action figures based on George Lucas and his kids’ cameo appearances in Revenge of the Sith. Bearing such memorable names as Baron Papanoida and Zett Jukassa, this one is clearly aimed at core collectors and not the typical Star Wars demographic. But even then, it’s a little strange. Were people really asking for an officially licensed George Lucas action figure?

          eBay Asking Price: $51.82

Yarna D’Al Gargan

          AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

          Seriously, imagine going over to a friend’s house and he asks to play Star Wars action figures with him. He tells you to grab your favourite character, and instinctively you go for Darth Vader. Meanwhile, he grabs…whatever the hell this is.

          Again, this is another one that I’m not sure where you can find in the movies. If I were to take a guess I’d say she (is it a she?) can be found somewhere in Jabba’s Palace, but I don’t think I’ll be actively seeking her out during my next watch of Jedi.

          Seriously, collectors, I know you guys love buying this stuff, but…were you really asking for this?

          eBay Asking Price: $47.27

Gragra

          This one actually holds a bit of a special place in my heart. During my many childhood trips to the local Toys R Us, a stop in their Star Wars section was always a must-do. And every time we’d go to see if they got any new and cool new stuff me and my brothers didn’t have yet, Gragra was always there, gathering dust and greeting us with a terrifying grin. Seeing the lone Gragra action figure still stuck on the same rack month after month became such a staple part of the Toys R Us experience that I almost considered buying it a few times.

          Almost.

          Gragra disappeared sometime around when the new Force Awakens merchandise started to move in, and I’ll never know if someone finally bought the poor thing or if an employee chucked it to make room. But I’m probably the only person in the world to look back fondly on Gragra as a small but funny part of my childhood.

          eBay Asking Price: $32.30

Bacta Tank Luke Skywaler

          Uh…I’ll take a hard pass on this one.

          eBay Asking Price: $59.87

The Star Wars Early Bird Certificate

          And here it is: the crown jewel of awful Star Wars action figures. I mean, technically it isn’t even really an action figure, but the insane story behind it is too good to pass up.

          Back in 1977 toy companies had no idea that Star Wars was going to be the insane success it turned out to be, and as a result making sure the toys were ready for Christmas wasn’t a huge priority. Of course we all know what happened, and the toymakers were caught with their pants down. The action figures weren’t ready, so they had to come up with a solution.

          Their fix? The Star Wars Early Bird Certificate. Kids all over the globe opened up empty cardboard boxes that Christmas morning with pictures of what the figures were going to look like, a voucher for Luke, Leia, Chewie and R2, and a promise that they were going to release soon enough. Whoopdie-doo.

          eBay Asking Price: $375.75

          Your kids’ reaction to getting an empty box on Christmas morning: Priceless

          For everything else there’s MasterCard.

          (author’s note: I’m not sponsored by MasterCard)

Editorial: Zelda: Ocarina of Time vs. A Link to the Past – Does it matter?

Zelda: Ocarina of Time vs. A Link to the Past – Does it matter?

          People love pitting things against each other in gaming. Nintendo vs. Sega, Microsoft vs. Sony, Old vs. New, and so on and so forth.

          But very few game rivalries match up to the internal battle between Zelda fans: which is better, the Super Nintendo classic A Link to the Past or the groundbreaking N64 title Ocarina of Time? It’s a question posed countless times over the internet and everyone has an opinion on it one way or another.

          And today I’m here to ask a new question: can we even compare the two?

          Don’t get me wrong, they’re both very similar games. They’re both from the same franchise, thematically they’re pretty alike, and their storylines are pretty close to each other. But for me, that’s where the similarities end. Once you get past surface value stuff, the games completely diverge from each other.

          A Link to the Past is still considered by many to be the absolute pinnacle of the 2D top-down flavour of Zelda over 25 years after its initial launch. It took the initial game on the NES and built on it a thousand fold, creating a linear storyline-based adventure that would become the base formula for the franchise until Breath of the Wild turned everything on its head in 2017. It added new weapons and tools that remain series favourites to this day, and the strong gameplay mechanics still holds up.

          On the other hand, we have Ocarina of Time. The first 3D Zelda ever made, to date Ocarina of Time is still considered by many as not only the best Zelda ever made, but the best game ever made period. Taking the formula A Link to the Past established and adapting it to a 3D setting, Ocarina is a nostalgic milestone for many who grew up in the 90’s, featuring a (for the time) large open world full of secrets to explore, some pretty groundbreaking graphical feats, and the first real in-depth combat system in a game.

          So those are our two combatants. And honestly, I think it’s about as fair to compare them as it is comparing a director’s first ever work in a brand new setting with their absolute masterpiece in a genre they’ve honed and perfected.

          The thing with Ocarina of Time is that yes, it’s an amazing game that pushed the envelope for its time and yes, it’s just as replayable as A Link to the Past, but it’s not the absolute perfection of 3D Zelda that the people who are on Team Link to the Past seem to think people think it is. Ocarina of Time can be clunky, cumbersome and slow at times, especially when you’re playing the original N64 version. It just doesn’t feel fair comparing a Zelda that’s the first of its kind in a 3D environment with a polished and honed 2D Zelda that had a predecessor to draw inspiration from.

          Perhaps the culmination of this argument happened when the now infamous “Zelda Sequelitis” video launched. Although most of this video’s points have now been debunked thanks to creator Egoraptor displaying a profound lack of understanding of how Ocarina of Time works in his full Let’s Play of it, while the video initially suggests that it will serve as a platform for positive, safe discussion about which game is better than the other, it quickly devolves into 30 minutes of nothing but screeching about how Ocarina of Time sucks, godlike praise being given to A Link to the Past, and…Skyward Sword complaints. For some reason.

          Instead of examining both games thoroughly and exploring their strengths and weaknesses like it initially says it will, once the façade is down it becomes clear that this video is just a platform for Egoraptor to say that anyone who likes Ocarina of Time is just nostalgic while he is ironically defending A Link to the Past to the death.

          At the end of the day I still think it’s basically like comparing apples and oranges. Why not compare A Link to the Past against a Zelda game that has a predecessor just like it and is a more honed experience? Like, why not Wind Waker or Twilight Princess vs. A Link to the Past? Or if we really want to compare A Link to the Past against a more archaic game, why not talk about how it improves on the first Legend of Zelda?

          There’s no real answer, but that’s my two cents. What do you think?

Timeless Review: “Hollywoodland”

Hooray for Hollywood

(This review contains spoilers!)

          Let’s just cut to the chase: Timeless hit another home run this week!

          While on a mission to 1940’s era Hollywood to save the only film reel carrying Citizen Kane from Rittenhouse’s grasp, Lucy and Wyatt are finally forced to admit their feelings for each other. The mission goes off without a hitch, but a surprise twist ending makes things a little more complicated.

          One thing I liked is that you’re already seeing the impact of the Rittenhouse sleeper agent subplot. Every time a new character was introduced I was always quick to think that they could be Rittenhouse, even though we saw the actual sleeper agent in the first moments of the episode. They put this to use when the team first meets the producer character. In the end he doesn’t do much in the episode, but there’s a really fun bit where it looks like he’s gonna turn out to be Rittenhouse before joking that it sounds like a really clichéd spy story.

          This episode was really fun overall. I liked all the modern-day references peppered in here and there, and the set design and costuming were especially top-notch this week. I loved the scene at the party where Lucy sings. It captured the feel of that era of showbiz perfectly.

          The one gripe I had this week was with the scene where Lucy and Wyatt finally admit their feelings for each other. Don’t get me wrong, the two of them have fantastic chemistry and I can’t tell you how happy I am that we aren’t gonna have a season of will they/won’t they (by the looks of it we’re getting something far more interesting), but I really think the kiss scene should’ve been done a little differently. It felt very soap opera-y to me with how it was shot and with the overdramatic music playing in the background. Maybe that’s what they were going for given the time period, but personally I think it was a little too on the nose.

          But the real draw of the episode is the ending. Talk about a double whammy here. First off you think that the big closer for the episode is them breaking Flynn out of prison to come help them, but that’s nothing compared to the grand finale. It turns out Wyatt’s wife is still alive somehow. They killed someone in the past and made an effort to very clearly show that he was dead, so it’s likely that whoever that guy was had ties to the guy that killed her in the past. This is a real gamechanger for the show, not just because it throws a monkey wrench into Lucy and Wyatt’s relationship but because of the further possibilities it opens up. What if she turns out to be Rittenhouse? How cool would that be?

          Timeless Season 2 has been unstoppable these past few weeks, so much so that having to wait an extra week for the next episode just seems cruel. I’m glad to see that viewership has been higher than ever for this amazing show, and I really hope this level of quality is kept up throughout the next seven episodes.

FINAL SCORE

9/10

Amazing

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Review: “The Devil Complex”

Fitz v. Fitz: Dawn of Fitz

(This review contains spoilers!)

          What do you know, after I spent most of last week talking about how S.H.I.E.L.D should be preparing to take its final bow, this week they bounced back with an actually good episode. I think the biggest culprit for why S.H.I.E.L.D’s been so underwhelming this season is the main overarching story itself. I just can’t get invested in this weird “we gotta break the time loop” plot. But here, this episode was character driven, moved the plot forward in several significant ways, and employed a few of this show’s trademark surprises.

          While Coulson is trying to track down who’s responsible for Yo-Yo’s disarming, Fitz is spending this week trying to close the fear dimension portal for good. Unfortunately things get complicated when Framework Fitz returns, bringing with him a potential (albeit sinister) solution.

          I was hesitant about seeing Framework Fitz again at first, but after just a minute of him back onscreen I was reminded of what made him such a great bad guy last season. Iain de Caestecker plays a villain just as well if not better than he plays a hero. Every scene he’s in he just dominates everything and you love to hate him. I wouldn’t complain if we got even a teensy bit more of him during the season.

          But, of course, things get complicated. Framework Fitz wants to remove Daisy’s Inhuman inhibitor chip to allow her to use the gravitonium to close the portal, but of course real Fitz isn’t feeling it. Simmons shows up to help and then, of course, because even after marriage these two aren’t allowed to be happy, it turns out that Framework Fitz isn’t a creation of the fear dimension, but rather a split personality in Fitz’s mind.

          Talk about a great surprise. The whole episode (plus the previous two) makes you think that Framework Fitz is another creation of the portal, but having it not be the case is far more interesting than a cameo that just gets poofed at the end of the episode. Fitz has always had a problem or two in every season, but having his Framework personality still be hanging out inside of him leads to so much potential.

          Seriously, why didn’t they reintroduce it earlier?

          Meanwhile Coulson captured Hale, that general looking lady who’s been in charge of the random bad guys that’ve been hanging around lately. But, of course, it was a trap. Turns out she’s working with Absorbing Man and The Superior to make her own little League of Super Villains, and she wants Coulson’s help with something. They didn’t devote too much time to this subplot (it’s probably just setting things in motion for next week), but it was cool to see these old characters again.

          The episode ends with a shocking revelation: HYDRA is still around!

          …Yay?

          I mean, really? I feel like this show’s done everything it could do with HYDRA. I’m not super eager that we’re gonna be seeing them yet again. I guess they’re kind of this show’s main villains but I just feel like there’s nothing really new we can see from them.

          Aside from that, this was a great episode, and it was so refreshing to enjoy S.H.I.E.L.D again with how ho-hum most of this season has been. Fitz’s awesome storyline carried everything, and the way it ended was simply genius and broke all expectations. More of this, please.

FINAL SCORE

8/10

Great

Behind the Screens: 10 things you NEVER knew about Pacific Rim!

10 things you NEVER knew about Pacific Rim!

Welcome back to Behind the Screens, the series where I’ll be talking about some of the most popular movies, TV shows, games and more and teaching you 10 facts about each that you likely have never heard!

          Ah, Pacific Rim. Perhaps the action flick magnum opus of newly crowned Oscar winner Guillermo del Toro, this is one of those movies that asks the audience burning questions that they’ve thought about their entire life, such as “Hey, you wanna see giant mech suits punch shark monsters for 2 hours?”

          Very thought provoking.

          As always, Pacific Rim has a lot of fun secrets hidden behind the screens, and we’ll be looking at 10 of my favourites today!

1. Mako wasn’t always bilingual

          While Raleigh and Mako’s relationship makes up the emotional crux of the movie, there was initially an extra dimension to the growth they make together as they train to become Jaeger pilots.

          According to writer Travic Beacham, an early draft of the script featured Mako only being able to speak Japanese and Raleigh only speaking English, but as the movie went on and their connection grew stronger they would slowly start to become bilingual, ending the movie by speaking to each other in their native languages. While this would’ve been pretty darn cool, it was likely excised in favour of having them communicate through dialogue throughout the movie.

2. The Kaiju were designed traditionally

          While the film’s inspirations rooted in the days of old Godzilla movies and stuff like Power Rangers are obvious, del Toro wanted to ensure every facet of his movie felt like watching a modern upgrade of one of those.

          While the Kaiju were always going to be CGI from the start, each one was designed to resemble a costume that would be worn by an actor in one of those classic movies. Each Kaiju in the movie had to be not only possible, but plausible that the CG model could be remade as a costume with little difficulty.

3. del Toro wanted to create a pacifistic action movie

          Despite having scene after scene of mechs smashing up cities while fighting the monsters, del Toro, a known pacifist, wanted Pacific Rim to inspire as little violence as possible.

          While admitting that big action sequences involving lots of collateral damage were integral to the movie, he directly avoided showing the Kaiju stampeding over hapless citizens. He also employed the use of traditional Western ranks such as “ranger” and “marshal” instead of typical military terms like “general” and “captain”. His ultimate goal was to avoid creating a movie that said war and human on human violence was good.

4. The movie holds a secret for video game fans

          Iron Man has JARVIS, Luke Skywalker has R2-D2, and the Jaeger pilots have…Portal’s GLaDOS?

          Believe it or not, it’s true. While the computer voice in the mech suits isn’t the game character herself, they share the same voice actress in Ellen McLain. del Toro, a huge fan of the game series (a love he shares with your humble author) specifically wanted her to voice the computer in the movie, though he avoided direct similarities to her most famous character by keeping her role minimal and altering the voice slightly so it didn’t sound like GLaDOS and the computer were one and the same.

5. The kaiju had to go through an audition process

          Part of what makes the monsters in Pacific Rim so great is how awesome they look, and this was an aspect of the movie del Toro wanted to ensure he got right. He wanted his Kaiju to be as iconic-looking and memorable as classic Japanese movie monsters like Godzilla and Mothra, and came up with a clever solution.

          He had the art department design 40 different silhouettes of Kaiju, and then tasked the rest of the production team with voting on their favourites American Idol-style. They would eliminate the lower ranking monsters and keep the winners until only nine remained. The winners are the ones you see in the movie.

          That just begs the question: when are we getting Kaiju Idol? I’d be way more interested in that than the crappy reboot they’ve got going right now.

6. The kaiju were designed to be more like animals than monsters

          Similar to Jurassic Park, del Toro wanted the larger-than-life beasts in the movie to act like real animals instead of monsters hell-bent on destroying cities.

          Instead of incorporating more alien or monstrous designs, the designers looked to nature for their biggest inspirations on what the Kaiju should look like. This is why you see throughout the film that they all have some resemblance to some real like creature, particularly the crab-like Kaiju Mako encounters as a child.

7. The Jaeger connection was initially deeper

          In early drafts of the scripts pilots got more than just a glimpse of the memories of their partners when they were connected. An original idea was that the two minds would come together in a virtual world known as “the headspace”, where they could interact together while piloting.

          This idea made it into a Pacific Rim comic where the pilots that met in the headspace had a rather…passionate time. del Toro, on the other hand, decided against shooting scenes in the headspace for the movie, saying it would be a waste of filming time.

8. Why Jaegers are called that

          It isn’t exactly the first name that comes to mind when trying to decide what you want to call you giant mech suit that fights shark monsters. So why the name?

          First of all, “jaeger” is German for “hunter” (although it’s spelt “Jäger”), which is fitting as what the Jaegers do all day is hunt Kaiju. In-universe the reasoning is because the mechs were invented by a German scientist, but according to del Toro he called them that because he wanted the movie to have a more international feel and not just inspired by American or Japanese culture.

9. The Jaegers were designed to each be fun to look at

          Similar to the Kaiju designs, del Toro wanted each Jaeger to looks different and recognizable from each other in silhouette. In-universe the reasoning for the vastly different appearances is that the military wanted different mechs that specialized in fighting any type of kaiju thrown at them.

          But for del Toro, he wanted each Jaeger to look unique. Starting with silhouettes, he and the production team picked five they thought looked the most fun and built off of them. The initial use of silhouettes also helped pick out which Jaegers would be the easiest for the audience to differentiate from each other in scenes set at night during a storm.

10. The young Mako scene was designed to act like a real monster was there

          One of the biggest character moments in the movie comes when Raleigh winds up in Mako’s memory of the first time she witnessed a Kaiju tearing up her hometown as a little girl. But what you may not know is that the set was specifically designed to match what was happening in the scene.

          Each time the supposed Kaiju would take a step, the entire set would shake. This made the scene feel much more real for the actors doing the scene, as when the rumbling got more intense they knew that the monster was getting closer.

          Are there any I missed? Let me know and I’ll see you for the next Behind the Screens on April 18!

Editorial: Why people love Smash Bros

Why people love Smash Bros

          In case you missed it (but let’s be honest, if you’re reading this you didn’t), Nintendo announced recently that the next game in the Super Smash Bros. series would be coming to Nintendo Switch. Like everyone else, I freaked out when I saw the reveal, and while details are scarce right now, it got me super hyped for E3 to see what the game is truly going to be like.

          Smash Bros is a rarity in that even the lead-up to the game’s release is a blast. I remember checking the Brawl Dojo website every morning when I was a kid to see what new info director Masahiro Sakurai would drop that day. Whenever a new fighter was revealed they would be all I could think about that day, and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I woke up and saw Sonic the Hedgehog’s big blue face plastered on the “New Characters” section on that one special morning. Similarly I got super excited every time a new bit of info was dropped in the months leading up to Smash 4’s release, as the internet speculated on what characters would show up next.

          With the internet hotly debating the same classic topic of who will and won’t make it into this new game (I’ll have a list of my picks soon!), it got me thinking: what makes Smash Bros so special in that every time a new game is announced it turns into a year-long event of sorts?

          I think there are two reasons why. First of all, Smash is the only real game nowadays that allows you to fight as characters from different franchises in one single package.

          I mean, unless you count PlayStation All-Stars, but…nah.

          Smash’s roster appeals to everybody, regardless of what your favourite Nintendo franchises are. Everyone from Mario to unorthodox third-party surprise guests like Snake and Bayonetta are welcome, so you’re sure to find a favourite somewhere. The unpredictability of the roster announcements are also primarily what makes the pre-release material so much fun to follow. You never know who’s coming next, making it all the more exciting to follow along as Nintendo slowly peels the curtain back.

          But what really makes Smash such a fan-favourite for me is how accessible it is when compared to other fighting games. It takes a real pro to get the most out of Street Fighter or Tekken, but anyone can pick up a controller and figure out how to play Smash Bros. The controls are super easy to learn, and while skilled players can do some insane stuff, it’s the type of game that anyone from any background can pick up and play.

          At the end of the day Smash Bros is a game that brings us together, despite being a game where you kick the crap out of your friends. There’s nothing better than a bit of friendly competition when all your friends gather together to play a few matches. In a way Brawl and Smash 4’s awful online modes help bring friends closer together because you kinda have to be in the same room as the people you wanna play with to really get a match going.

          Seriously though, Nintendo, you’ve gotta fix the online in Smash for Switch. Give us Splatoon 2 quality servers. They’re not perfect but they’re a damn sight better than the laggy mess 4 was whenever anything happened on the screen ever.