Several Reasons why "Man of Steel" was a terrible movie.

              So I just sat through "Man of Steel" last night, and since the purpose of the internet is to gripe about movies, I thought I'd use this poor neglected blog to take a crack at it. I sat through most of the showing feeling rather angry and resentful at the movie, and thus I give vent to my spleen.

There's spoilers in this, but by my lights the movie was already pre-spoiled so proceed as you may. I haven't had a movie piss me off this badly in a long time.

 Big Problems: 

1:            Postmodernism is the primary kryptonite that makes this movie not work on a fundamental level. Writers who have marinated in that philosophy are left with the belief that the only people with clarity of purpose and motivation are villains. Everybody else, especially those who take the hero's role, have to wallow in angst until enough atrocity has been committed to finally spur them to action. Superman took way too long to get his act together and stand against the evil Kryptonians. I spent most of the film wondering when "The Man of Steel" was gonna show up.

               Writers don't seem to understand aspirational role models anymore. The role of a Superman type character is to demonstrate the values that help us want to be better people. Superman is supposed to be an example of using strength to help and protect others, he's the guy who runs into the fire instead of away from it because he can. The contrast between Kal El and Zod should be the contrast between protector and bully, but Superman dragged his feet for so long and struggled so much it really seemed he wasn't very good at his role. His struggles with the invaders bring me to point 2.

2:            Part of the postmodern view of Superman that hinders contemporary works about him is the view that he's overpowered, that you can't get good drama out of him because he can solve every problem instantly. The writers tried to compensate for this view by piling on the disadvantages for our hero.

               He's facing not one, not three (as in Superman II), but a whole starship full of evil Kryptonians who are born fighters armed with battle armor and an arsenal of terrible weapons. He keeps getting dumped into situations where he's exposed to the power sapping effects of the Kryptonian atmosphere, while any points where Zod & co. have to deal with the problems of Earth's atmosphere are glossed over and discarded. At no point does his long, painful process of adapting to his new home serve to give him advantage over the invaders. The bit where Zod struggles with the sensory overload and pain of adapting to Earth should have been a game winner for Supes. It would have shown a nice contrast between the assimilated immigrant vs. the conqueror, but again they blew it off.

               My big problem with this dramatic deck stacking is they piled on so much of it that it went from "How's the hero gonna get out of this?" to "The hero clearly can't win, so when are they gonna get around to flipping the "hero wins anyway" switch and ending this?" Thus, I was bored out of my freakin' skull waiting for the denouement.

               I guess the makers of this movie thought that having Supes flail helplessly against overwhelming odds some how made him more "human" and "believable". Here's a little tip, o makers of movie "magic". WE DO NOT COME TO SUPERHERO MOVIES TO SEE "HUMAN" OR "BELIEVABLE". WE COME FOR THE OPPOSITE OF THAT!

3:            Collateral damage. Soo much collateral damage. Pursuant to my point of Superman being a defender and protector, he sure as hell didn't do a good job of it. Vast swaths of Smallville and Metropolis were crushed, but only Lois Lane and the handful of Daily Planet staffers were deemed important enough to focus on. Soldiers were casually crushed and killed by the bad guys. Planes were shot down over populated areas. Are we to believe all those skyscrapers falling in a very crass attempt to evoke 911 had been evacuated beforehand? Superman let a LOT of people possibly die (but it's offscreen, so it's okay. Idiots.) while the Kryptonians slapped him around in their overpowered, overdesigned armor.

               Superman's supposed to STOP wanton destruction, not be an accessory to it. Again, a difference between him and the villains that the makers of this film didn't bother with as they gave in to their need to dazzle us with gobs of cgi carnage. It pretty much got to be like drinking from a firehose.

               Supes' little angst spasm, complete with "NOOO!" at snapping Zod's neck at the end was particularly gratuitous and lame. Buildings full of ostensible dead, and he gets his absent little red shorts in a twist over taking out the evil space bastard that caused it all? I can't articulate how much contempt and disdain I have for this sort of wankery.

4:            Jonathan Kent (Kevin Costner) had the stupidest, most pointless death I've ever seen in a movie. He runs out in front of an onrushing tornado to save a dog, then stands there and forbids his superpowered adoptive son to save him as the storm engulfs him in a "poignant" scene.

               What?

               They really garbled the hell out of the message of Superman's upbringing. The classic version is the Kents taught Clark to value life and freedom and to stand up and do the right thing. In this movie Jonathan Kent's lesson was one of uncertainty, don't do the right thing if it could get you in trouble. The lesson of his stupid, stupid death should have been "Inaction when you can help causes tragedy." which should have spurred Clark to step up to the plate and become committed to saving people no matter what, but apparently the lesson, like most of the plot points in this muddled mess, didn't take.

               Clark still had to go ask his mom, his pastor (who we only saw once so they could slather on the film school 101 Christ symbology), and others if he ought to do something about these aliens and their looming doomship and their "surrender or die" talk. My conception of Superman: As soon as they said "We want Kal El." he would have been there with his hand crimping shut one of their gun barrels telling them to get the hell off his planet.

5:            Art direction. Apparently Naboo and Gondor had a baby and they named it Krypton, but the kid looks suspiciously like the milkman H.R. Giger. One part I actually liked was the bit where the ghost of Jor El does his big infodump for Clark, and the whole room becomes this flowing heroic art deco monumental sculpture to illustrate. All of Krypton could have looked and worked like this and it would have been awesome, and a worty successor to the glowing, crystalline Krypton of the Richard Donner version. The whole Krypton as sterile technocracy idea kind of fell apart seeing Russel Crowe in renfaire garb riding a dragon to get back to his lab. Muh. (Meh + duh)

               Everything was too busy and too derivative and too dark. We're going through another baroque period (if not full blown Rococo) and I can't wait until we as a culture don't need everything in a fantasy or science fiction movie to be loaded down with knobbly loopty pointlessly organic art nouveau spluth. How about you present us with images we can make sense of without having to squint, Hollywood?

6:           The whole "Kryptonian Codex" subplot was a garbled mess. So Clark's got the genotype of all of Krypton in his cells and Zod wants that to reproduced Krypton and is gonna kill of the human race but he's pissed at Jor El so he'll make Kal suffer bla bla bla. How about he's a jerk from space who wants to kill us all and needs to be punched?  The krypton scene's dragged on for WAAAYYY too long, and it was a big goofy, ultimately futile and distracting wad of cinematic padding.

7:          Speaking of Krypton. I'd like to join the chorus of voices in the comic/fantasy/sci fi community in begging Hollywood to please. Pleeeeaaase. PLEASE spare us recounting the hero's origin. There are anaerobic bacteria clinging to thermal vents in the Marianas Trench who might not have heard Superman's origin story, but the rest of planet Earth has it covered.

               We know it. Really! And for anybody who might have missed that bus, there are entire stores full of colorful, fully illustrated books, that can spell it all out for you in the time it takes to eat your lunch.

                I want to see Superman, not Clark Kent in a bad beard and hobo outfit re-enacting the first half of "Batman Begins". Plus the repeated flashbacks all the way through the movie, especially rehashing things again and again, really broke up the narrative momentum.

What little I liked. 

                I guess I should be a mensch and say some positive stuff, but there's not a lot to go on.

                I thought the scenes where Supes was dealing with the gov't were in the vein of what I was looking for with the character. He can't be intimidated, harmed, or controlled, but he's a good guy and he wants to help and he's not going to hold it against us that we're nervous little primates. Too bad all that wisdom and self assurance boiled out his ears whenever Zod and his pods showed up.

                Again, the art deco heroic sculpture thing in Jor El's infodump was a nice bit of design, and it would have been cool if all the Kryptonian stuff was that way. (Although in a better Superman movie you wouldn't have seen much of it 'cos you wouldn't be spending a quarter of the film on back story.)

                I thought them wrapping up with Clark Kent hiring on at the Planet was nice, and actually was refreshed by the idea that Lois knows it's Supes under those glasses. Some traditions don't need to continue, and it was as refreshing as Tony Stark looking at the camera and saying "I'm Iron Man." at the end of his movie.

In conclusion:

Long winded, bombastic, tedious, and completely missing the point of what Superman is supposed to be about. Give it a pass. It's everything that's wrong with superhero movies today.

Dodecahedrons of Doom!

Hey look! I'm posting again.

Hoping to be less of a lazyman about this blog and my gaming. So here's something that's maybe possibly useful. I'll get around to rambling about Helgacon and other stuff soon. Got a nice write up of my games from Delta today, so go check it out.

I've been asked to run a game for my coworkers, and so to spice up their first foray into old school gaming I made some Critical charts. (Most of the folks are 3rd. or 4th. ed players, although one guy is an old hand at 2nd. ed. like me.) These are designed to run with Labyrinth Lord, which is my axe of choice in these sorts of situations.

So I give you, the dodecahedron of doom charts, so that the poor neglected 12 sider can take its sweet revenge. These may be pretty simple compared to other critical charts, but they oughta be worth a few laffs for my purposes.

CRITICAL COMBAT FAILURE TABLE: roll 1d12 on a natural 1 in combat

01: You are thrown off balance and fall prone, lose next attack getting up again. Temporary +2 to AC.

02: You swing wide and leave yourself open. +2 to AC for next round.

03: You lose your grip on your weapon and drop it at your feet. Draw a backup or spend your next turn retrieving it.

04: Your strike rebounds wildly from your foe's defense, doing 1d4 damage from your own weapon.

05: You sprain your wrist, -2 to hit until you can stop to bind it.(This action takes at least a turn to do right.)

06: Your grip loosens in the midst of a powerful swing, flinging the weapon for distance. 1d8 direction 1= forward. 2d10 Feet.   

07: You twist an ankle. Movement reduced by 30'(10') until you can bind it.

08: You swing wildly, dealing a glancing blow to a nearby ally for 1/2 your weapon's damage. If no allys in proximity, lose weapon.

09: Your weapon gets entangled with enemy weapon or shield, wrenching it out of your hands. Now they've got it.

10: Your weapon breaks, rendering it useless. Magic weapons will not break but their plus becomes a minus for duration of fight.

11: You trip up an ally with your clumsiness, knocking them prone. If no allies present, fall down and stun self for 1d4 rounds.

12: You manage to hold on to your weapon and not hurt any friendlies, but you look like such a dork that any retainers are reduced in morale by -2 until you manage to land a hit on the foe. If reduced to 0 they flee.

CRITICAL CHECK FAILURE TABLE: roll 1d12 on a natural 20 or 6 on attribute or other checks

01: Throw back out. -2 to all actions until a night's sleep on a level surface can be had.

02: Pull hamstring. Reduce movement by 30'(10') until you can rest for 1d4 hours

03: Sprained wrist. Lose Str & Dex bonus until it can be bound. If no bonus, suffer -1

04: Bang funny bone. Loud cry of pain causes wandering monster check.

05: Wardrobe Malfunction! Split pants, pop bodice, or snap loincloth string. How embarrassing!

06: Piece of fragile equipment (Lantern, potion flask, etc.) works free and hits the floor, breaking.

07: Bonk head on something. Take 1 pt damage and suffer -1 penalty on surprise checks and saves vs. spells until you can rest for hour.

08: Fall down. Roll again on this table, suffer consequences in addition to being prone. Some situations may make this more dangerous.

09: Random pouch, pack, or sack rips open, spilling contents on floor. Roll saves for fragile items.

10: Hit head really hard. K.O. for 1d10 turns, suffer -2 to surprise and saves vs. spells until full night's rest attained

11: Loaded weapon or charged magic item fires off! If none such carried, melee weapon slips from sheath and clatters on floor.

12: Groin smack! Unable to do anything but curl into ball and wheeze for 2d8 rounds. No picnic for lady types either, but effect only lasts for 1d4 rounds. Any monsters or retainers present can't help but point and laugh.

CRITICAL HIT SUCCESS TABLE: 

Players may opt to substitute roll on this table for extra dice damage on a crit. Can be dialed up or down depending on how ruthless a GM you feel like being. Roll 1d4 for mild, 1d6 for mean, 1d8 for not jokin' around, or 1d12 for deadly serious!

01: Disoriented! Foe loses next attack from having its bell rung.

02: Disarmed! Non weapon using foes suffer -2 to damage from erosion of attack method (broken teeth, shorn claw, etc.)

03: DisArmored! Damage to armor reduces AC by +1

04: Scared! Foe must make a morale check from puissant attack.

05: Humiliated! Clothing sliced open, or decorative feature like horn, crest, or tail lopped off. -2 to Morale score. AC unaffected

06: Tripped Up! Foe is knocked prone, loses next attack getting up, suffers temporary +2 to AC

07: Right in the Face! Foe is blinded (-4 to hit, 1/2 Movement)

08: Right in the Goolies! Foe doubles over and wheezes for 2d4 rounds. Female foes for 1d4. Oozes, mindless undead, and constructs unaffected. Enrages self aware undead, who remember having a groin and now burn with jealousy toward the living. 

09: Literally Disarmed! Foe's weapon hand or one of their claws lopped off. Roll Morale check.

10: Crippled! Blow to foe's leg reduces their movement by it's percentage of total limbs. (50% for bipeds, 25% for quadrupeds)

11: Run Through! Foe is impaled. Save vs. Death or die instantly.

12: Beheaded! Instant death! Allies must make Morale check.

Happy Holidays, Everybody!

Have a Merry Christmas, and a Lucharrific New Year! Onward to 2013!

Okay... Here's a little bit of content.

Yeah, I'm hideously overdue to talk about my fun times at Helgacon V. Frankly, as awesome as it was it was so long ago I can't hope to do a play by play.

So here's some eye candy from one of the events I ran, a sugary little concoction in the "gonzo" vein that stirred in influences from disparate corners of pop culture with the strongest flavors coming from Saturday Morning Cartoons, that I called "The Kingdom of Murgatroyd"



These are the pre-generated characters, of whom the players could choose either the spear or distaff versions to play. 
 
Left to Right, we have Gygasaurus the Primusaur, Mostly the Shapeshifter, Twinkle Hooves the Unicorn Pony, Bluered the Dweomon Master, Starfox the Pegasus Pony, Buckberry the Earth Pony, and El Tigre Muchacho, a mighty Handsman


And representing the lovely ladies of adventuring, we have Galgasaurus the Priumusaur, Sorta the Shapeshifter, a Unicorn Pony known as The Fabulous Pixie, Pearl Diamond the Dweomon Master, Vixen the Pegasus Pony, Brandywine the Earth Pony, and La Pantera Muchacha, a fearless Handswoman.

Long and forgotten story short, the doughty team of heroes busted into the secret lair of the nefarious evil world domination bent organization S.K.U.L.L., beat up a lot of goons, and rescued some hapless travellers from the sinister cabal's sweaty clutches.


A good time was had by all.

Memes In Lieu of Content

So here's my gaming bookshelf, a la Grognardia's shelf meme.

Savage Worlds, D&D from Holmes to 3rd Ed, then assorted Old Skool Gems on top.

Curiosities, Relics, Games I Don't Play Anymore, and support materials on the 2nd. shelf

Modules, Miscellaney, and old notebooks full of game notes from back in the day, then Box Sets.

The grey tube you see down at the bottom right corner is my trusty battle mat

So many game books, so little actual gaming. Must remedy sometime...

Still scuppered, but here be a tune t' tap yer peg legs to!

Well, posting still be sparse, but t' tide ye over on International Talk Like A Pirate Day, here be a little ditty for ye bilge guzzlin' swabs.

Yarrrrrrr

Augh! I've been neglecting this blog for so long!

And it'll probably continue until I can get some actual gaming going on.

'Til then, lets have a moment of science with the Aquabats

Yeah!