sci-fi

War never changes, but it gets a bit more saturated

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , , , , 13 Comments

FALLOUT 4. Now in Technicolor! It’s going to take place in Boston, because we don’t have enough New England as yet in the Fallout lore. *snrk*

I am so happy this is not an MMO. That would have been a monumental mistake, I think. And I really hope they don’t fragment the content the way Rocksteady just did with Batman: Arkham Knight and the pre-order bonuses.

For the uninitiated, the Fallout universe is not, actually, about an alt history with the Cold War resulting in the apocalypse, believe it or not. It sure looks that way, though, with its 1950s arrested development. Instead, in this universe, nobody invents the transistor during WW2, and instead we invest all our tech development on the vacuum tube. The Great War happens in 2077, over resources, because humanity never gets away from the larger and more resource-consumptive technologies. For some reason, culture is slowed drastically, and by the time of the Great War, America is roughly in the 1950s, only with a Mr. Handy helper robot in every kitchen. After the apocalypse — when India, China, Russia, North Korea and America all nuke the living fuck out of each other (and everyone else, for funzies) — the only survivors are those who went underground into Vaults. They emerge to a wasteland that is populated by mutants, ghouls, raiders and the very dregs of humanity.

I’m happy with this incarnation of the Wasteland. It is significantly closer to Fallout 1 and 2 in looks than 3 ever was, and at the moment, during my replay of Fallout: New Vegas, the only way I can stand to look at it for any length of time is with the Imaginator plugin that offers different colour palettes. (I am presently using the Trek Vaseline Cam palette, which makes the Mojave look a lot like that planet where Kirk fights the Gorn. You know the one.) So I’m looking forward to scavenging the wastelands with more varied landscapes, and with my dog inevitably named Dogmeat at my side.

The only way they could have made this better — at least in my mind — is to have the generic character at the end be a woman, because it’s *just* a generic character, and there’s nothing holding you to picking that specific dude they showed. Could you imagine the outrage from certain quarters? The only way I could think of to make hateful antifeminists lose their shit more than that, though, would be to force the character creation to only allow you to create women. In either case the resultant rage could power me for centuries.

War never changes, but it gets a bit more saturated
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Mock The Movie: Battle Beyond the Stars transcript

Jason Thibeault, , , , 5 Comments

I’m somewhat behind on everything after the effort put into Skeptech, and my days are going to be filled for the foreseeable future with fights against Heartbleed. So, no witticisms here. I’m kinda spent at the moment. I’ll get the transcripts and SRTs up on the page as soon as I can, I promise.

Continue reading “Mock The Movie: Battle Beyond the Stars transcript” →

Mock The Movie: Battle Beyond the Stars transcript

5th Doctor, Peter Davison: "The Doctor must never be a woman"

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , 57 Comments

I know a number of people for whom this particular bit of news is a betrayal, because Davison is “their Doctor”. According to Peter Davison, fifth Doctor on the venerable British sci-fi series Doctor Who, the character of The Doctor should never be a woman.

Doctor Who legend Peter Davison risks being exterminated by fuming female fans after declaring: “Doctor Who must always be a man” reports the Sunday People.

Speaking on the eve of the cult show’s 50th anniversary, Peter, 62 – Doc No.5 from 1981 to 1984 – insisted: “If you suddenly make the Doctor a woman you’ve effectively just said, ‘Well let’s give you a sex change’, and I don’t think that works.

“To me it would be a rather odd thing. To have a female Time Lord would be like having a female James Bond.”

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5th Doctor, Peter Davison: "The Doctor must never be a woman"

Mock The Movie: Sol transcript

Jason Thibeault, , , , , 1 Comment

We watched Sol for Mock The Movie last night. I can’t remember what happened in the movie. I have a vague recollection of poor acting, tents and sand. I think I blocked the rest as a defense mechanism. There were more than a few times I simply got distracted from the movie — I’m not used to having commercials in my movies any more, so the Hulu experience was jarring, and I was determined to find out whether or not the music on the Absolut Vodka was done by Woodkid, the same guy who did a song called Iron which was used in the Assassin’s Creed: Revelations trailer.

Participation was thin, so I’m including as an extra bonus Blake Stacey’s solo watching of Prometheus, which was an unscheduled event but certainly better worth your time.
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Mock The Movie: Sol transcript

Seelix on how to spot and how to shame fake geeks

Jason Thibeault, , , , , , , 19 Comments

Seelix (whom you might know as Emily, the comic book costumer) has had it UP TO HERE (err, imagine me waving my hand animatedly at forehead level) with the scourge of the fandom community, the breed of supposed fan that just sucks all the joy out of being a dyed-in-the-wool fan of science fiction, fantasy and comics: the dreaded Fake Geek.

It’s time to put our collective feet down and put a stop to the mindless worship of these faux-nerds. They ruin everything with their perfect bodies and their skin-tight costumes. They ruin everything with their laughing eyes, hiding the contempt they feel for us, the real nerds. They ruin everything when they reject us when we so kindly show them the attention they were obviously asking for with their skimpy outfits. They ruin everything when they pretend to get angry when we give them a little extra grab while they take a picture with us.

It’s why they do it. They secretly love the attention. They love the groping. They love the constant romantic overtures. They only complain because they think they’re supposed to. After all, they wouldn’t dress sexily if they didn’t want the attention.

And that’s exactly why they do it. It’s obvious. They absolutely love the attention they get when donning skintight spandex and prancing around in front of their adoring sycophants.

I mean, look at these guys. Do you really believe they’re nerds? Come on.

I demand that you read on, so you know how best to identify these fake geeks and nerds who have infiltrated our community to pick up poor socially-awkward nerd girls by putting on spandex costumes and being all hot and shit. Preying on nerdy females’ vulnerabilities by pretending to like and know about the things that they like. Bah! Bet they couldn’t even name all the Green Lanterns.

Though, I think she might just be bitter. I saw her boyfriend at CONvergence and he seems to be one of “them” — bet he doesn’t even really know who Hawkeye is, or his real name (no, his first name is NOT “Agent”!), or what his non-Avengers costume looks like. Next time I see him, I’ll ask him all sorts of uncomfortable questions rather than just taking it on faith that he’s actually a fan. Rassin’ frassin.

Seelix on how to spot and how to shame fake geeks

Mock The Movie: Attack From Space

Jason Thibeault, 1 Comment

Mock The Movie moves to Friday this week due to prior engagements tonight by some of our core constituents. This week we’ll be defending the Earth (well, Japan) from starfish-shaped aliens in Attack From Space!

Via MTM’s patron site The Journal of Are You Fucking Kidding, the rules for the movie:

Here’s how we do this Mock The Movie thing:

  1. Start following @MockTM on twitter.
  2. Start watching Attack From Space Friday, October 28th, at 9PM EST.  You can find it on archive.org.
  3. Once you’ve got Attack From Space going, tweet your snarky comments to @MockTM.  Directing our tweets to @MockTM will keep our followers from being overwhelmed with our snark!
  4. Let the snark roll on twitter, but keep in mind… this movie was made in 1959.  In your @MockTM tweets try not to focus on special effects (or the lack thereof).  Instead, focus on the plot, characters, acting, story development, etc.

The starfish shaped aliens are called Spherions, by the way. What, did you think that made them spherical or something? Shows what you know about space aliens!

Mock The Movie: Attack From Space