I was revisiting Babylon 5 on HBO Max when I learned that the whole thing was being rebooted and there was much rejoicing.

I love Babylon 5. It's a show that seems incredibly prescient in today's world. Way before its time, it tried to tell one overarching story in five seasons rather than make a series that had individual stories that unfolded one episode at a time. This model of making a series is now normal in 2021. However, the show hasn't aged all that well visually even if the special effects and sets were considered good for the time period in which it was made. I was alive in the early nineties, and I remember thinking that stuff being made then was soo much better than the entertainment options of the seventies and sixties. It's kind of shocking to look back on all that now, and think...man...these things were terrible and I actually liked them. Was I insane or just completely ignorant? The truth is neither of these things of course. I just had no idea what kind of technology would arise within the next thirty years.

So, am I happy about the reboot? Absolutely. There have been some discussions online (since the announcement dropped yesterday) that have complained about the CW being the station upon which it will be aired. I don't see a problem with this at all. I love the CW. I watch all the DC Universe stuff from The Flash to Batwoman to Superman & Lois and Stargirl and Supergirl, and I have enjoyed them all. My favorite indulgence is the Legends of Tomorrow. I even enjoyed The 100 until the point where I just fell behind and decided not to catch up as they kept killing off characters I liked. I've also enjoyed the Berlanti-related productions of Titans and Doom Patrol that air on HBO Max. So the choice of the studio doesn't bother me at all.

Furthermore, J. Michael Straczynski is helming everything. He's busy writing the pilot episode, and he's going to be heavily involved with the writing going forward. He's also serving as the showrunner and producer. It's going to be his baby. Sure, the characters will all need to be recast, but that's entirely okay. As a fan of Babylon 5, I know that (behind the scenes), J. Michael Straczynski didn't get to do the show the way he wanted to the first time around. He thought he only had four seasons to tell his story, and he compressed a lot of the Shadow and Vorlon war to fit in with that timeline. But it became such a big success that they renewed it unexpectedly for another season or two, and he had to scramble to come up with stories to tell and they were never as good as the Shadow and Vorlon war.

Going into this thing, he's got complete control. His seasons will probably be shorter as is the norm these days, but that will force him to compress for content and not drag things out like the Nancy Drew series ends up doing a lot. And I imagine he will have the same kind of special effects team as the Expanse gets with Amazon, and that has me completely excited. If you've at all checked out Babylon 5 on HBO Max, the Shadow look absolutely terrible. It's shocking how stupid they look. I cannot wait to see what this menace looks like in a rebooted Babylon 5. I have high expectations to be sure.

Another thing that Babylon 5 really had going for it were the numerous compelling subplots. The shining example of this was Londo and G'Kar. These were two politicians from opposite sides of a war that started out hating each other, and both of their characters and their respective relationship developed over time.

There is (of course) the question that gets asked most often: "Why not make a new thing entirely?" As being a creator of sorts (I write and run D&D games for people), I know that creating a new world is really hard. I created one in my youth that I still use for new D&D players thirty years later. And it's better, it has evolved as I have evolved, and I know its history. People compliment me all the time by saying, "I love playing D&D with you, because your characters and your world seem so real." I'm sure that J. Michael Straczynski has plenty of ideas. He's way more creative than me. But Babylon 5 is an idea that he's had for decades, and I bet it has evolved in ways that building something new (from scratch) simply wouldn't be as good or as satisfying (in the same way it would be for me were I to attempt to do the same thing). I remember when Berke Breathed retired Bloom County because he didn't want it to be Garfield. And then he started writing Outland, which then (over the course of time) slowly became Bloom County again. That's because he loved the ideas and characters he came up with in Bloom County and decided to incorporate those ideas into his new project. Well, then he scrapped Outland and now he's back to publishing Bloom County. So...he never should have stopped writing Bloom County, because that's what he enjoyed.

And finally, J. Michael Straczynski is excited. I think that right there is enough for me to be excited about this reboot. So, I think I'm going to put away rewatching the show and await the new reboot with eagerness.

I wonder if Netflix's Sandman will be better than American Gods on Starz.

 

American Gods on Starz went really off the rails. I actually never finished the show, but I think that the showrunners had trouble making a series out of the limited content that they found within the book. I mean, American Gods is only so long...and it has a bunch of characters with the main character (Shadow) being quite arguably the most boring of the bunch. I liked the read, but a lot of Gaiman's works tend to be cerebral with complex characters who are shocking modern interpretations of ancient religious symbols. Interacting with these characters briefly was the fun part. But spending extended amounts of time with them stretched out over a series in the context of modern Americana wasn't as fun as I thought it should have been.

That being said, The Sandman is my earliest recollection of the Vertigo imprint of DC Comics, and I actually used to own a Sandman number one, which is probably worth quite a bit these days. I got it relatively cheaply by purchasing it brand new when the comic debuted. The artist was the one who drew me in, but Gaiman's writing was solid as well. The thing is, Gaiman's adaptations tend not to translate well to American television.

I think the last adaptation I actually enjoyed that was made from Gaiman's works was Good Omens. But I wonder how much David Tennant and Michael Sheen made that possible as opposed to the writing of Gaiman. I've actually never read Good Omens, so it's a legitimate question.

The problem with Sandman is that the characters are pretty out there. My guess is that the show will need to tone down and streamline a bunch of stuff that is at the crux of what makes the entire story compelling in the first place. Additionally, Death's look in the comics was a hugely entertaining part of her character. However, I don't remember "goths" being a thing back in the eighties when I saw this comic for the first time. Now "goths" are everywhere, and the look is honestly really tired. One can blame places like "Hot Topic" for cashing in on this trend I suppose. But the blamethrower really doesn't solve anything after the genie has escaped from the bottle. What's done is done.

I am reluctantly excited for this, but I'm skeptical that Netflix can pull this off. Down below, I have attached the "first look" from Netflix. Bonus that we get Charles Dance pretty early on in the show. I've been a fan of his for years.

I am both intrigued and disturbed by the hyper-realistic and lifelike statues being sold to online collectors.

I am both intrigued and deeply disturbed by the life-like $3k to $4k limited edition statues (and yes they are statues and not the actors) that makers like "Sideshow" are putting out for superheroes and other iconic and powerful people from the entertainment industry. And just to be clear, I probably will never own one of these. In particular, the Tom Holland one as Spiderman actually creeps me out because it is so realistic. It gives me the heebie jeebies, because it feels like someone taxidermied the actor to put him on display. The Gal Gadot as Wonder Woman feels less so mostly because that particular bust still has its arms (the Tom Holland one does not). Anyway, I thought I'd share, because I find them deeply fascinating. It seemed appropriate on this first Friday of Autumn.

He-Man and the Masters of the Universe 2021 is an excellent update to a beloved series.

If you had asked me at the beginning of 2021, I would never have guessed that Netflix would launch two He-Man and the Masters of the Universe series. The first (called Revelations) dropped at the height of summer, and it was a revisit of a lot of nostalgia and helmed by Clerks creator and comic book geek, Kevin Smith. Ultimately, I wasn't really satisfied with that series, because it was only six episodes. It felt too short, and the plot barely seemed to get going before it ended with a cliffhanger. I do hope that it gets renewed for season 2. I wasn't even upset that Teela was the main character, as telling the story from her point of view seemed right to do in this moment of time.

However, this latest offering from Netflix of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe doesn't pretend to be any kind of offshoot, sequel, or conclusion to the original. It's a complete prequel wrapped in a solid suit of reinvention. I found that to be kind of interesting. The animation is the same that we got in the series Trollhunters in case you've watched that. But if you haven't, kinda think of Pixar-level animation and then take it down a notch to where it's essentially a very cartoony version of Star Wars: The Bad Batch.

I ended up really loving this show a lot more than I thought I would. In this particular reinvention of He-Man, the power of Greyskull which transforms a gangly teenage boy into the very swole hero, is shared between a bunch of people. Teela is now cast as a lady with dark skin who is a powerful magician in her own right even before Greyskull empowers her further. Afterwards, she's essentially a sorcerous supreme, capable of incredible feats of magic. Then Prince Adams best friend is Ram-Ma'am, who is a gender-swapped version of the original cartoon's Ram-Man. The others joining He-Man in sharing the power of Greyskull are Man-At-Arms, and Cringer (Battle-Cat) who comes from a tribe of talking cats and who has no claws. Orko doesn't make an appearance until about midway into the series, and he's the reincarnation of a powerful ancient magician who is trapped in the body of a metal robot that flies around.

Skeletor is actually Prince Adam's uncle, who makes a terrible choice in Castle Greyskull and ends up getting his flesh all melted off. That was interesting to make Skeletor of royal blood. I don't know if that was something in the original series, but hey...it works in this reboot. Another thing that works is the humor. There are several one-liners which are quite clever and had me laughing (some of them obviously break the fourth wall and allow the show to poke fun at itself).

The story is definitely for kids. However, there's lots to like about it for adults who don't mind taking a nostalgia pill and opening their mind to new possibilities with regard to the intellectual property of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. I also really liked how it was diversified now, and that He-Man as the hero doesn't exist within a vacuum. He isn't a deus ex machina. Rather, his friends are extremely important to his success, and they wield just as much power as he does. In other words, he is no longer unique in being able to channel the "power of Greyskull." The animation sequence of the team "powering up" is straight out of video games, and I have no doubt will make kids eyes bug out with amazement even if I got a bit tired of it after several episodes (my only real complaint).

Has anyone else watched this show on Netflix? If so, what did you think?

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is a ton of fun to play with friends.

A little over a week ago, I started playing Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3: The Black Order on the Nintendo Switch. I'm "late to the game" on this one, but better late than never, right? I heard about this game only because I hadn't used my Switch in over a year, and my friend Meg expressed a desire to continue to play a Breath of the Wild game she'd started about a year earlier. So, as I watched her play the game, I looked online for anything that might play more to my interests. I've always liked cooperative games (games you can play with other people in the same room as you) to ones that you play alone on a computer or a game platform like the Nintendo Switch. And that's when I discovered that waaayyy back in 2019 (before Covid was even a thing...can you imagine?) this game came out and was rabidly enjoyed by its fanbase. So, I bought a copy and started playing it with friends. And I'm here to tell you that I've had SO MUCH FUN.

If you're a comic book fan, you really should give this game a go. You can play up to 80 characters in the Marvel universe, and like I said above...you can team up. Each character starts out with a pretty basic superhero package, but you can level your character up by performing cooperative missions called "Infinity trials" and unlock all kinds of nifty stuff. There's a whole laboratory section of the game that you can go into to further customize the synergies and power that your four person team can do. If you pick characters that have similar abilities (Hulk and Thor for example are both "heavy hitters") this allows you to synergy your attacks together for spectacular amounts of damage against the foes on the screen. The game also has a level cap of (I think) 300, and you start out at level 6. So...you can play for a really long time, and there's always more to explore. My friend and I have been playing a game for over a week now and we are like level 35 now, which shows you just how far we are into the game.

Right now, I'm alternating between Spiderman, a hero called Crystal, Wolverine, Captain America, and Nightcrawler. I've wanted to play Doctor Strange, so I'll probably play that character next, but we just unlocked Cyclops and Colossus so those are strong contenders for wanting to explore. If you think that most video games might be too complicated for you, and you are intimidated...I would say, "I think that this will not be a problem with Ultimate Alliance 3." The reason: both Meg and I are old fuddy duddies, and we don't have the best response time on the controllers. So we play on friendly difficulty level.

Aside from that, the strategy of playing comes more from timing, team composition, energy management, and just dodging enemy attacks. There are no fancy button combos to memorize or special attack patterns to use on the joystick. There are also some really challenging puzzles, and some mechanics that you must use in order to bring down bosses. One of the more difficult bosses that we faced was Dormammu in the Dark Dimension. You had to hit him with rocks that you picked up, but you needed to charge the rocks with Dormammu's own attacks before you threw them at him, or they would do no damage. So that was a lot of fun, once we realized what we had to do.

As for the story, it is a ton of fun. The big bad is Thanos, and he's trying to collect the Infinity Gems. In this alternate universe, the Infinity Gems are scattered through the cosmos and we are trying to get our hands on them before Thanos and his Black Order can beat us to it. I imagine that there will be a pretty incredible boss fight with Thanos before this is all over. There were also three expansion packs that are available for the game that I purchased and downloaded. These unlocked the Fantastic Four, some more game to explore in Doctor Doom's kingdom, and a bunch of new abilities and alternative costumes for characters.

Anyone else out there own a Switch? If so, have you played Ultimate Alliance 3? Please let me know in the comments.

Star Trek: Prodigy looks to explore even more of the Delta Quadrant in October with a hologram Janeway providing advice to a bunch of kids

There's a lot of new Trek happening on Paramount+ (formerly CBS All Access). With Lower Decks solidly marching on with its second season, I'm also aware that Star Trek: Prodigy, the second animated series in the shared universe on Paramount+, is due to drop October 28th.

Star Trek: Prodigy's plot is going to have a pretty basic framework that can be built out as needed for some truly entertaining episodes. The crew (with the exception of the hologram Janeway providing advice) consists entirely of teenagers who find an abandoned starship and go flying around the galaxy in search of adventure. All of the characters are from the Delta Quadrant, and the show is set just a few years after the USS Voyager's return home.

The synopsis reads like this: five kids are incarcerated on an obscure planet in an uncharted part of the galaxy. They escape from their imprisonment and race across the planet to find a defunct starship buried in the planet's surface. They enter the ship, but are unable to make it work. With prison guards hot on their heels, they suddenly stumble upon an Emergency Training hologram in the form of Captain Janeway.

There's Gwyn, a 17-year old member of the Vau N' Akat, which is a new race to Star Trek. She was raised on her father's desolate mining planet and grew up dreaming of exploring the stars.

Next up is Jankom Pog, who is a Tellarite. Pog loves a good argument and regardless of his own opinion, he'll always play "devil's advocate" for the sake of hearing all sides.

There's also a purple alien who race has not been released yet. The name attached to this alien is Dal, who fancies himself a maverick and holds strong onto his unwavering hope even in the toughest of times.

Murf is an indestructible blob with really good timing.

There is an 8-year-old Brikar (race), which is a hulk-like alien. The name of this character is Rok-Tahk, and they love animals. 

And there is a Medusan named Zero. From the original series, these are a non-corporeal and genderless energy-based life form known to cause insanity to any humanoid who gazes upon their natural form. Zero wears a containment suit to protect those around them.

Below is the first trailer for the show. I'm kinda excited about this one....

The Locke & Key season 2 trailer for Netflix seems to channel a bit of Sauron forging the One Ring.

Just in time for Halloween, the second season of Locke & Key is about to drop according to the shiny new trailer that aired online this week. I really enjoyed the first season of this show on Netflix (which seems like it aired a loooong time ago), and I believe it is from Joe Hill, who is the son of Stephen King and (honestly) a doppelganger for the aging horror author. As far as Joe's mind goes, well it seems to me that you can truly inherit genius (or insanity). Look (and for clarification) I wouldn't want to live in Stephen King's mind. However, I'm glad that someone does, because Stephen has been a great entertainer of people for generations. And now, Joe Hill appears to be carrying on that legacy just fine.

Joe's other offerings like NOS4A2 kept me on edge as well. I watched some of the series on Hulu, and I do intend to get back to it. But what I did see kept me wanting more. However, I'm not big on horror unless it also manages to combine fantastic elements (or science fiction). It's why I can watch Aliens type movies without feeling anxiety. But I can't (for example) watch Halloween or Malignant.

In the trailer (which I will link below), Dodge (played by Laysla De Oliveira) is in the form of Gabe (Griffin Gluck), and another demon in the form of Eden (Hallea Jones) forge what appears to be a dangerous new key. The scene reminds me a lot of Sauron forging the one ring in the fires and forges of Mount Doom.

People who have read the original comic book series by Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez (artist) have claimed that the series has gone off the rails from the original source material, which honestly isn't surprising. I haven't read the comic book series. And that probably works in my favor, because I think the show is one of the best offerings on Netflix.