J.B. Norman's Blog, page 364
October 28, 2020
Recommendation: The King of Elfland’s Daughter
I couldn’t find any good pictures directly related to the book, but this one’s got Elves and looks pretty whimsical and evocation and cool, yeah?
More information on Wikipedia here.
And on TvTropes here.
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: Boy meets Girl, Girl is an Elf Princess, Boy marries Girl, Girl can’t find joy in the world of mortals and goes back to Elfland, Boy goes on epic quest to find Girl. Magic ensues and eventually, everybody lives happily ever after.
And that’s basically The King of Elfland’s Daughter. A book written by this handsome fellow:
[image error]Edward Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany, popularly known as “Lord Dunsany”.
Image via Wikipedia.
Lord Dunsany is notable for being one of the prolific Fantasy authors to predate Tolkien. Granted, Tolkien didn’t invent the genre, but due to his singular influence upon said genre, remains a pretty handy point of reference to compare everything that came before with everything that came after.
Lord Dunsany’s stories tend to be really outlandish and just plain weird — that’s not a bad thing, by the way.
The King of Elfland’s Daughter isn’t really an exception to that, as you’d perhaps except from a book about a dude questing through the world of the Elves. It’s pretty weird top-to-bottom: weird characters do weird things, events and places are described with weird imagery and turns of phrase. Even the writing itself is weird. It feels less like a modern novel and more like an old fairy tale.
Hardly surprising, given that it is literally a fairy tale.
The upside to this is that the prose itself is so well-written and evocative that even when the story is dragging on (which it definitely does towards the end of the middle third, or so), actually reading the story is still worthwhile because the style of how its written and the choice and use of words and language is always just so sublimely overawing.
October 27, 2020
Recommendation: Power Rangers
The Power Rangers official website is here.
More information on Power Rangers on Wikipedia is here.
And information about the original Japanese franchise on which it’s based is here.
And here’s the recent 2017 movie, which was all-in-all pretty decent.
[image error]Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Season 1, Episode 1 “Day of the Dumpster.
Power Rangers: Hasbro
Haim is a genius.
[image error]Image via Wikipedia.
You can get the long version on the Power Rangers episode of Netflix’s excellent documentary series The Toys that Made Us (which I would also recommend; it’s a heck of a nostalgia trip of you’re about my age).
Speaking of nostalgia…
But the short version is this: Haim Saban has gone from the bassist of an obscure Israeli rock band to the creator of a franchise that has been going steady for 27 years. Also, dude’s worth nearly three billion (with a b) dollars.
Like I said, dude’s a genius. And Power Rangers is one of the smartest series that has ever existed on TV.
Well, no. Power Rangers is and always has been super dumb and kind of a hot mess where its storytelling is concerned. But from a production point of view, it’s absolutely brilliant.
Each new seasons of Powers Rangers has really only needed to film half a show’s worth of content. For the most part, any scene that involves the Rangers in costumes, the villains, or the Zords reuses the original footage from Super Sentai with the English actors’ voices dubbed in — the advantage of most of the characters either wearing helmets or being monsters whose mouths don’t move when they talk. The only new footage, which a few exceptions, that needs to be filmed is when the Rangers are in their civilian clothes going about their daily lives.
This, combined with the fact that every transformation sequence, every Zord formation sequence, every decisive final blow via crazy special move, and more than a few of fight scenes just reuse the same stock footage over and over and over.
Basically, this exact sequence happened about 57 times.
And, of course, Power Rangers is one of the most merchandise-conducive franchises ever to exist: every individual Ranger, every inevitable mid-season power up, every monster, ever Zord gets a toy. So, not only is the production saving a lot of money only filming half a show, they’re making an insane amount of money with merchandise.
Which brings us back to my first point: Haim Saban is a genius.
As for the show itself, Power Rangers isn’t what you’d call “good”, but I’d also objection to categorising it as “so bad it’s good”. I genuinely don’t think that Power Rangers is trying and failing to succeed as a proper, legitimate work of televisual mastery.
I think that the production has realised from the very beginning that they’re making a cheesy, low-budget adaptation of an original series that is itself pretty cheesy and low-budget and decided to deliberately lean into the inherent ridiculousness of the whole endeavour (“Recruit a team of teenagers with attitude”).
From the very beginning of the very first episode, the producers have recognised the futility of making Power Rangers something it’s not and fully embraced the thing that Power Rangers is, even though (and maybe precisely because) that thing is “ridiculously dumb, but also awesome.”
And, seriously, how uptight do you have to be not to enjoy 27 years of racially-diverse teams of transforming teenagers (with attitude) with themed superpowers (usually, that theme is some variation of “Dinosaurs”) and giant robots fight hammy, intergalactic supervillains with the help of a sentient lava lamp?
As a final aside, if I were an actor, Power Rangers villain would be my dream job, because you don’t have to act well so much as loud.
As a final aside to the final aside, the first season of the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers featured several monsters voiced by none another than Best TV Actor in History , including one who was, and I quote, “half-snake and half-lizard.”
Yeah, the writing has never been one of the franchise’s strengths…
On the other hand, if the past 27 years have taught us nothing else, it’s that Haim Saban is a genius.
October 26, 2020
My Greatest Strength…
… is clearly my humility and refusal to self-promote.
Well, other than my sheer, staggering writing talent and ability to produce memes of the highest quality.
October 24, 2020
Recommendation: Eyewitness Books
Eyewitness: DK Limited. Images via DK’s company website.
More information on TvTropes here.
And on Wikipedia here.
And the books listed on the publisher’s website can be found here.
You may remember my recent realisation:
[image error]
Yeah, that’s the one.
Keeping with the spirit of said realisation, here’s another book recommendation. This is, to the best of my recollection, the first time I’ve ever recommended a non-fiction series. But this is definitely one worth recommending.
The Eyewitness books are essentially the illustrated guide to everything. The series has entries on, for example: most of the major world religions, religion and mythology in general, various periods of world history, most kinds of animals, geology, geography and culture, and science and technology.
As I kid, I’m pretty sure I checked out every last Eyewitness book from either my school or local library. Except, of course, the ones about bugs. Because bugs are gross. And the one about mummies, because mummies scared the heck out of me.
[image error]Picture is largely unrelated; I just needed more visuals.
Photo by Ekrulila on Pexels.com
The Eyewitness books each contain a not-insubstantial amount of content: each book I looked at for an example had exactly 72 pages — but it’s a big series, so I can’t say for certain if that’s an absolute rule. Now, that might seem daunting for a young reading, but most of those pages are filled with pictures, and some of those pages are only pictures.
[image error]An example of a page of an Eyewitness book.
From Eyewitness Mythology: DK Limited.
Image via DK’s company website.
And that’s the biggest strength of the series.
While the books have enough information in writing to teach kids something, the fact that everything is there for them to actually see is going to do most of the teaching. With the Eyewitness books, kids can see what a Roman legionnaire actually looks like, what a viking actually looks like, what the stages of a butterfly’s metamorphosis actually looks like, what a great white shark actually looks like when it’s biting into a chunk of bait (which incidentally, was my favourite part of the Sharks book).
If nothing else, it also means that the Eyewitness series is filled with very pretty books.
October 23, 2020
Recommendation: Horrible Histories
[image error]Heroic French knights being heroically shot full of arrows at the battle of Agincourt, one of moments of historical horribleness described in the series. Image via Wikipedia.
More information on Wikipedia here.
And on TvTropes here.
And its official website here.
Following a moment of sombre self-reflection, specifically this one:
[image error]
I realised I had to actually to think of recommendable books. Fortunately, that didn’t take very long, and I found some, specifically, these ones:
[image error]Horrible Histories: Scholastic.
Horrible Histories is, as the name would suggest, the series of history books written by famed late-1700s Prussian historian Aloysius von Horrible, seen here in a 1200% real and factual, genuine 1797 woodcut.
[image error]Author’s Note: Not a real person.
That was a joke.
What Horrible Histories actually is is a series of is a history of the world — though one with a not insubstantial Britain-centric point of view (it is a British series) that basically plays up the horrible aspects of said history: the wars, the political intrigue, the crazy Emperors, the murders, the assassinations. Hence, the name of the series.
Notably, Horrible Histories presents the horribleness of history in a way that’s fun for kids. Yes, really. And it works, thanks in large part to the series being written with a very dark, very dry, very British sense of humour.
And, honestly, things like “Even the heroes were jerks”, “The things we take for granted didn’t always exist”, “War is terrible”, and “The past was generally awful, be happy it’s over” aren’t terrible lessons for kids to learn.
The book series also lead to a BBC show (which I also recommend), which is basically a fast-paced sketch comedy show that happens to also be educational and informative. If you’re curious, it’s available on Netflix (at least in Canada) and a lot of individual clips have been posted on its YouTube channel.
And it’s got one heck of a theme song:
October 20, 2020
Recommendation: Koei’s Warriors Games
It would take a while to link to each of the different sub-series, so here’s a link to the general Koei Wiki instead.
And here’s Koei-Tecmo’s company website.
[image error]Warriors series: Koei-Tecmo. Images via Koei Wiki.
Now, if I could summarise the Warriors games, it would be “ludicrously violent”.
By that, I don’t mean that the violence is especially graphic or lurid — by the standards of modern video games, it’s downright tame. What I mean is literally that the nature of the violence is itself ludicrous: you press a button, your character slams his sword into the ground, which causes an explosion that sends eight people flying.
Koei describes the gameplay of the Warriors games as centring around “one vs. a thousand” combat. You’re a superhero running wild through crowds of regular dudes and occasionally throwing down with other superheroes. This is, incidentally, completely faithful to the source material.
Koei-Tecmo’s 20th Anniversary Dynasty Warriors Sizzle Reel.
The flagship series of the Warriors games is Dynasty Warriors, set during China’s Three Kingdoms period of about AD 180-280 (if you want to be entirely accurate, the Three Kingdoms didn’t start until 220; but for now, that’s neither here nor there). The series started in 1997 with the original Dynasty Warriors, which was actually a fighting game, rather than the hack-and-slash action style that the series ultimately settled on.
The most recent entry in the series is Dynasty Warriors 9, which had some interesting ideas and pretty solid character designs marred by rather lacklustre implementation, and a voice actors’ strike that led to a non-union dub that is hilarious for all the wrong reasons — even the several competent performances were pretty egregious miscast.
In the opinions of most fans, the high point of the series came with 7 and 8.
The second most notable Warriors series is Samurai Warriors, set during Sengoku period of Japan, focusing specifically on the time between the rise to promience of Oda Nobunaga in in the 1560s and the siege of Osaka in 1615. By now, there have been four mainline Samurai Warriors games and several spinoffs and expansions, so the series has had time to set itself apart from the earlier Dynasty Warriorses.
The fundamental “you vs. everybody; press a button, punch eight people into orbit” gameplay remains, but there are differences in both the peculiarities of the gameplay — Samurai Warriors characters have sequences of crowd-control attacks not present in Dynasty Wariors — and the storytelling — this period of Japanese history isn’t as neatly divided into the same several large factions as the Three Kingdoms; even focusing on the most prominent regional clans and factions means that each game now has about ten separate story modes.
The two series have crossed over several times now in the Warriors Orochi series, which has a completely new, not-restricted-to-real-world-history story and involves evil gods fighting good gods and time and space collapsing in on themselves.
The Orochi games aren’t necessarily better than games in either of the main series, but their biggest strength is that they are allowed to tell a completely novel story, rather than having to relive the same historical events over and over and over — as much as I like the Warriors games (a lot), their being bound by real-world history and refusing to deviate from it is my biggest complaint.
This formula was taken to its logical conclusion in Warriors All-Stars, which actually expanded the roster beyond the Warriors games and created an opportunity to watch the most popular (according to Japanese fan polls) Koei-Tecmo characters beat each other up. It is, however, probably the least well-executed Warriors game.
Also worth noting are the various other Warriors games based on other franchises: there’s a series based on One Piece, there’s one based on Gundam, there’s a couple of Dragon Quest ones. The only ones from these licensed games I’ve actually played at any meaningful length are the Nintendo ones: Hyrule Warriors and Fire Emblem Warriors. Of those two, Hyrule is probably the better one, but Fire Emblem has the advantage of having characters who are capable of speech.
Critics don’t seem to like the Warriors game, decrying them as mindless and repetitive. And, yeah, they kind of are. Recently, though, the games have done a lot more to emphasise the importance of tactics and managing the battlefield, rather than just plowing through the enemy. They’re maybe not for everyone (but is anything), but if they’re the kind of the thing you like, then you probably like the Warriorses a lot.
And even if you hate the gameplay, you’ll probably love the soundtracks.
As a final note, Koei’s Warriors games are most assuredly not to be confused with 1979 movie The Warriors (or the book that inspired it).
… And it occurs to me now that I should probably be recommending more books.
October 19, 2020
Quick Update
So, I have the most recent edited version of the next Realmgard story: Forward, the Lyte Brigade.
Unfortunately, I’m also an editor in as my day job, and I’ve got a manuscript for work I need to finish before I can get back to working on Realmgard. The good news is that I’m most of the way through that work manuscript, so this isn’t really a huge, indefinite delay, most of a week, maybe.
So, yes, work on my next story is not progressing as quickly as I’d like, but it is progressing. Optimistically, Forward, the Lyte Brigade will be ready before the end of November. More cynically, it’ll be ready before Christmas.
I should have a sufficiently finished section done to have a preview section up and available before too long.
In the meantime, here’s Godzilla’s victory dance again:
[image error]Image via Invasion of Astro-Monster, Toho.
October 18, 2020
Recommendation: Mysticons
More from Wikipedia here.
And TvTropes here.
Basically, there’s two ways to summarise what exactly Mysticons is: it’s either CanCon Sailor Moon, or it’s animated Power Rangers — note to self: do write-ups on Sailor Moon and Power Rangers later.
[image error]Mysticons: Nelvana and Nickelodeon.
The basic premise of Mysticons is pretty straightforward — and, to be fully honest, something we’ve seen a hundred times before (that’s not necessarily a bad thing). They’re a team of transforming superheroes that fight bad guys and learn valuable life lessons each episode.
The character archetypes of the team members are all tread pretty familiar ground (again, that’s not a bad thing; why mess with what works?). There’s the naturally-talented but insecure princess, her childhood friend bodyguard, the tough streetwise orphan, and the funny streetwise orphan. It is, however, worth noting that all four of the Mysticons are female and stand as pretty solid role models for the female audience (and those among the male audience that aren’t bothered by shows with female leads).
The most interesting element of Mysticons is the fact that it’s set in the Fantasy equivalent of essentially the 21st century. It’s hard to explain it well in writing, but watch an episode and it should become clear what I’m trying to say. Basically, it’s what TvTropes (by way of, as I understand it, Final Fantasy) calls “Magitek“
On the most fundamental Mysticons is a fairly typical Fantasy world: there’s Elves and Dwarves and magic and monarchic government. But in terms of the characters’ day-to-day life, the world the magical equivalent of 21st century North America: they have computers and cell phones and video games and Instagram and public transit and pizza joints, but also, to remind you that this is a Fantasy world, they also have teleportation and astrology and speeder bikes and sky-boats.
Their society and technology is all based around advances in magic, rather advances in real-world sciences. Again, it’s hard to convey with just written words, but trust me, I really respect how much novelty it brings to an otherwise pretty familiar concept (again, familiarity is not automatically a bad thing).
Overall, the pacing of the plot moves pretty quickly and is delivered pretty well to wrap things up in 40 episodes (two seasons of 20 episodes); whether or not there’s ever going to be more still seems to be up in the air at this point. The overarching struggle against evil is pretty standard for the kind of show that Mysticons is (you know what I’m going to say here), but plenty of the individual episodes manage to make the most of the uniqueness of the setting. Some of the long-term story arcshave one or two too many twists for their own good, but ultimately, even these things end up being not quite as good as they could have been, rather than actually bad.
And, ultimately, Mysticons deserves a shout-out from me because CanCon’s gotta stick together. Much like good waffles.
[image error]The Simpsons. Season 5, Episode 6 “Marge on the Lam.” Image via Frinkiac.
October 16, 2020
Further Reflections on a Giant Lizard
Or this.
Inspired by my last post, here are some of quick thoughts on some of the other Godzilla movies.
The original Godzilla got two separate releases: the original Japanese version in 1954 (Godzilla; Gojira in the original Japanese), and an edited American version in 1956 (Godzilla, King of the Monsters). Incidentally, there was also a really weird Italian re-cut of the film. In terms of cinematic merit, the original Godzilla is probably the best in the series, because it’s a stone-cold serious horror movie and a pretty sombre, sobering reflection on the perils of the Atomic Age.
Sure, the special effects haven’t exactly aged well, but the original Godzilla still manages to be genuinely scary and upsetting in a lot of places. And, honestly, the appearance of the original Godzilla still really scares me.
Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster is notable for being the first appearance of King Ghidorah (duh), who’d go on to essentially become Godzilla’s primary antagonist. It’s also notable for being the first of many, many time Godzilla would team up with Mothra and/or Rodan. Most significantly, this is the movie where Godzilla first became a good guy, setting the course for Godzilla’s characterisation for basically the entire rest of the franchise.
Godzilla vs. Hedorah is really, really weird and probably made under the influence of something.
It’s got an expository theme song that’s almost like something out of a James Bond movie, bizarre animated scene transitions, and Godzilla using his Atomic Breath to fly around like a rocket.
It’s not even necessarily bad (especially not for an early 70s Godzilla movie), it’s just so singularly, unprecedentedly strange that it’s nothing like any Godzilla before or since. If nothing else, it’s entertainingly bizzare.
Notably, its director was initially expected to do a sequel, but was immediately fired by the higher-ups at Toho after the movie was released.
Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack! is a mouthful a more recent Godzilla movie, from the so-called Millennium Era of the series (2001, specifically). Even at this point in the series, the movies (especially the dubs) never stopped being goofy and cheesy, but GMK is notable for being a rare return to Godzilla being a villain. For reasons that are never made entirely clear, the Godzilla that was destroyed in the 1950s (i.e. the original movie) is reanimated by the vengeful spirits of those killed the Pacific Theatre in World War II.
Subsequently, the three Guardian Monsters — Baragon (who didn’t even make it into the title for some reason), Mothra, and King Ghidorah (in his only appearance as a good guy) — awaken to stop him. With, uh, mixed results.
As a result of turning heel for the first time in decades, GMK Godzilla also gets a significant upgrade in this power levels, while the Guardian Monsters get a proportional downgrade, which means they spend most of the movie getting beat up by Godzilla. Though, on the other hand, the Guardian Monsters’ stated goal isn’t necessarily to beat Godzilla, it’s to help the humans help themselves stop Godzilla.
Shin Godzilla is the most recent Japanese Godzilla movie (unless you count the Netflix anime trilogy). Released in 2016, Shin Godzilla (shin being a Japanese word that means either “new”, “true”, or “god”, all of which the title is trying to invoke) is basically the 21st century version of the original Godzilla. He’s no longer a destructive protector god, and is once again an inexorable force of destruction.
Where the original Godzilla was a metaphor for the atom bomb, Shin Godzilla is a metaphor for the 2011 tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster. Shin Godzilla himself is an absolute nightmare, even before he starts doing anything — and, man, when he starts, things start going south fast. He just looks so horrifying and wrong by every possible metric.
Shin Godzilla is also a fascinating satire of modern Japanese politics. Part of the reason Godzilla is able inflict as much destruction as he does is because the government’s response is held up by bureaucracy, red tape, and indecision, as observed and navigated by the film’s primary protagonist, a mid-level bureaucrat. And, honestly, he’s one of my favourite human heroes in the entire franchise
Finally, Legendary’s Godzilla movies, 2014’s Godzilla and 2019’s Godzilla: King of the Monsters are two of my favourite movies, like, ever. Legendary Godzilla is just that awesome. Also, and are along for the ride.
Now, they didn’t really do well with the critics, but I feel like critics expecting a proper work of cinema are unable to enjoy the simple pleasures of watching giant radioactive monsters kick each through buildings. If you like Godzilla, these are pretty much the perfect movies.
Also, King of the Monsters is clearly the best movie ever, because Godzilla goes Super Saiyan.
October 15, 2020
Recommendation: Destroy All Monsters!
Destroy All Monsters! via Toho and the Criterion Collection.
More information:
IMDB
Wikizilla (the Godzilla wiki)
Wikipedia (the non-Godzilla wiki)
In retrospect, it’s kind of amazing how everyone’s favourite giant, radioactive dinosaur turned from a titanic monster rising from depths of the sea and lumbering out of our collective nightmares created by the rise of the Atomic Age to, for all intents and purposes, a big, green superhero.
I took a mere three movies and eight years from Godzilla to go from a walking natural disaster to a fairly goofy, albeit still antagonistic, character.
The first two Godzilla movies are dark, sombre, and genuinely frightening.
The third, King Kong vs. Godzilla, was much lighter and more comical and based on the premise of watching two of the most famous movie monsters beat each other up.
Also, promotional images for the film heavily featured Kong spinning Godzilla around by the tail a la Mario 64.
This is not the goofiest thing Godzilla would ever do in the Showa-era (i.e. the 50s-70s, basically “classic” Godzilla; named for of the Emperor of Japan at the time).
[image error]Godzilla’s infamous “Victory Dance”,
from 1965’s Invasion of Astro-Monster .
Long story short, as the franchise continued, Godzilla got progressively goofier and more heroic and, with a few exceptions, the films themselves got more and more lighthearted and kid-oriented.
This era of the franchise culminated with a film that was initially intended as a potential grand finale to the entire franchise (clearly, that didn’t happen).
That film is 1968’s Destroy All Monsters!
By this point, Toho, the studio behind the Godzilla movies had comfortably settled into a formula for the franchise: aliens are planning to invade Earth for reasons with inconsistent degrees of satisfactory explanation, the aliens somehow mind-control the Earth monsters and set them loose, the human heroes find a way to undo the mind control and free the Earth monsters, and then Godzilla and whichever other monster he’s teaming up with this time around beat up the aliens’ monsters and save the day.
Destroy All Monsters! doesn’t upset this formula, so much as take it to its obvious conclusion.
In the wondrous future of the late 1990s (remember, the movie is from 1968), the monsters have been comfortably settled on Monster Island, which I’m told is just a name —
[image error]The Simpsons. Season 6, Episode 8, “Lisa on Ice.” via Frinkiac.
— until an all-female race of aliens called the Kilaaks get involved and mind-control, well, all monsters. Eventually, the monsters are freed, leading the Kilaaks to go to their Plan B, summoning King Ghidorah and setting him loose.
This of course leads to the climactic final battle between Ghidorah and, well, all monsters. Given that he’s outnumbered about eighty-six to one, he fares about as well as you’d expect, and the day is saved and everyone lives happily ever after.
Except, of course, for everyone who got smooshed by the monsters.
Destroy All Monsters isn’t necessarily the best Godzilla movie, and despite being intended as the grand finale of the Showa-era films, it’s actually still a pretty good place to start or to just be the one Godzilla movie you ever watch. It’s worth watching if only for the chance to watch, well, all monsters get their moment to shine.
It’s not the best Godzilla movie, but it is probably the most Godzilla movie.
