Author: Shmee

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No One Needs Wonder Woman More Than Warner Brothers!

So I know this came out Saturday, but I was rather busy yesterday, so I am going to talk about it today.  Is that okay?  I hope so because you really don’t have a choice.  The trailer above is very good, but Warner Bothers has a great marketing department.  The trailers for Batman V Superman and Suicide Squad were also good, but the movies themselves were lacking.  Warner Brothers needs Wonder Woman to not only be a hit financially, but critically as well.  As a mater of fact they would probably take less than stellar box office returns as long as people really liked the film, like they did with Batman Begins.  People tend to forget Batman Begins was a flop compared to its massive budget.

Warner Brothers needs to prove it can make good movies so they can keep up in the franchise arms with Disney.  Disney has the upper hand, but mostly because Warner Bros keeps bungling their releases.  Right now Warner Brothers needs a hero, and that hero is Wonder Woman.

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Mass Effect: Andromeda’s Launch Is Imminent, And I Am Ready!

It has been five years and a few days since we have had a Mass Effect game, and that one had its share of controversy, but in a couple of short weeks that wait will come to an end!  People with EA/Origin Access will start playing the game on the 17th, while the rest of us will have to wait until the 21st, and I am jonesing for it!  I will be counting down the days.  Check out the final trailer for the game above to amp up your excitement even more!

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{Sigh} Here Is A Thing…

Well against our better judgment they are making a Jurassic World 2.  Here is the photographic proof that it is shooting right now.  The first Jurassic World had its moments, but I wasn’t counting the days to its inevitable sequel.  None the less it is on its way, and I am guessing there will be children in trouble and only Chris Pine and Bryce Dallas Howard will be able to save them…  We will find out for sure next June.

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Amazon Is Gearing Up To Take On Valve’s Steam With Twitch!

I am sure most of you are aware that Amazon bought Twitch for almost $1 Billion three years ago, but I was always curious as to why.  I was even more confounded when Amazon Prime members like myself could use Twitch ad free if they linked their two accounts.  I love not seeing ads, but it didn’t seem like a move that would help Amazon’s bottom line, but then they launched their Banner Saga promotion, and finally this is all making sense.

In late February all Twitch Prime members could download The Banner Saga through a new app called the “Twitch Launcher”, and for every download the game got Amazon would give a dollar to Stoic, the game’s developer, for The Banner Saga 3.  Then on top of that if you actually played the game through the Twitch Launcher the devs would get yet another dollar.  Amazon did the same thing again in early March (AKA now) with The Banner Saga 2.

This may seem like Amazon is just being nice, and I am sure that Stoic is thrilled to have the extra development funding, but to me it looks like Amazon is gearing up to sell games through Twitch.  It makes sense.  The audience is already there watching the games, so why not have a little “buy now” button over the stream of the game that they are playing, and then the game loads on to the Twitch Launcher and boom you are playing it yourself.

Giving away a free game or two is a great way to get that app installed on a ton of PCs.  That way the audience is all ready to go.  Not to mention it will have all the hooks built-in, so streaming the game they just bought back out on to Twitch will be easy.  It is a self advertising loop, and one where Amazon gets to keep all the profits and not share them with Steam.  It is just amazing it has taken three years for this to take shape.

I for one am excited.  Steam needs the competition.  The Windows Store is starting to gets some major games, but gamers don’t trust Microsoft, especially after the Games for Windows fiasco, and GoG, while great, doesn’t get a lot of AAA titles because of their lack of DRM.  That just leaves the publisher based game stores like Origin (EA) or UPlay (Ubisoft), but they are mostly just places for those publishers’ games, and gamers like being able to keep all their stuff together.  Amazon is just the type place gamers would go, and with Twitch, Amazon has the brand recognition.  Amazon and Steam can keep each other honest, and Microsoft and GoG can be there to fill in the niche gaps.  Sounds good to me.  What do you think?

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Why Does X-Men: Apocalypse Exist?

After watching Logan it occurred to me that I had never seen X-Men: Apocalypse, and now having watched it I am angry at Fox, Bryan Singer and Co. for not learning anything from X-Men: The Last Stand.  Now granted X-Men: Apocalypse doesn’t kill any major mutants off screen, and it isn’t anywhere near as bad as the Last Stand, but it is still overstuffed with characters, it has a plot with too much going on, and a bunch of actors that are there just to pick up their paychecks.

I would try to summarize the plot, but honestly it wouldn’t make much sense, but needless to say Apocalypse (Oscar Isaac) shows up to destroy the world so that only the strong can survive.  He is like a hardcore ancient Egyptian Darwinian terrorist.  Of course I would forgive you if you didn’t figure that out from watching the movie.  He mumbles about it a little, but he never truly explains why he wants to destroy everything, I just know from the comic books and the cartoon show.

I think Apocalypse is a lot of the problem with the movie.  There is nothing really interesting about him.  He is super powerful and he wants to destroy everything.  That is all you need to know, so the writing team decided to try to add some interest by throwing in the old and tired, “Magneto your not really that bad!”, B plot.  Let me tell you, I never need to see Professor X stare at Magneto with sad puppy-dog eyes ever again.  They also threw in just about every fan requested mutant they could, but none of them are given any screen time, so they are all wasted.

You could tell Isaac gave Apocalypse everything he had, but his costume and makeup made him look like an evil Smurf, not the biggest X-Men villain of all time.  Not to mention Isaac isn’t that tall, so other characters were towering over him.  Apocalypse is supposed to be huge.  This would have been fine ten years ago, and I generally commend teams for using CG sparingly, but Apocalypse should have been a CG character.  It also didn’t help that Michael Fassbender and Jennifer Lawrence looked like they were falling asleep the whole time.  It is probably hard being in what you know is going to be a bad movie, but please don’t make it worse by phoning it in.

Luckily Bryan Singer is a better director than Brett Ratner and Gavin Hood, so X-Men: Apocalypse is better than The Last Stand and Origins Wolverine, but it is worse than the rest of the X-Men films.  X-Men was on a good streak too.  It seemed that they had learned from Ratner’s mistakes, only to fall victim to the same traps.  More is not better, and everyone should have known better.  That way X-Men: Apocalypse wouldn’t have had to exist.