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The Paladin graduates from VGHS

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Video Game High School (VGHS) is a series on YouTube made by the guys at Rocket Jump. VGHS was a long form series that brought high production value, professional acting, and well written scripts to a place on the web mostly known for music videos, make-up how-to’s, and cat videos. The third and final season came to a close about a week ago and I thought I’d share my thoughts on it.

A brief intro for VGHS is as follows – VGHS is an exclusive Video Game High School where students learn, master, and play video games as part of the school curriculum. The stars of the school are the First Person Shooter (FPS) team led by The Law, the greatest, most handsomest, man alive. By accident lowly Brian D is able to kill the unkillable The Law and earns a scholarship to VGHS. Here he meets his new best friend Ted Wong, highly intelligent Ki Swan, and the driven Jenny Matrix. Hilarity ensues, many other colorful characters are introduced, and the video game world is brought to life via Rocket Jumps signature style. You should totally check it out.

VGHS Season 3 however just didn’t do it for me at first. The first few episodes reintroduced the problems leftover from the last season – Ted hates Brian, The Law plays for Napalm Energy Drink High School, and Ki is facing Shane Pizza in a battle for Class President. Brian and Jenny’s relationship is progressing and the FPS team is doing pretty well. That all falls apart in the lackluster second episode, which does have a good film noir section, but is otherwise for me a shift in VGHS’s tone. Overall the third season seems too much like a rehash of previous season arcs – I mean we’ve already had the Brian and Jenny breakup because she’s driven to be the best and he’s afraid of losing someone he loves and therefore overreacts. And as I said the tone is a little crasser this time around; not that VGHS wasn’t juvenile to begin with but this time around there was more stuff that took away some of the show’s innocence.

The last half makes up for some of the season’s mistakes and the final episode feels like the epic conclusion the series really needed. I especially liked how it ended the Napalm Mega Mall part of the story. I also liked how the last shot, showed us good friends who were connected through games and then so much more. In this season of gaming, where gamers are bitterly fighting other games, it’s good to be reminded that games can also bring us together and should. If you’ve watched VGHS’s first two seasons be sure to follow up with this one. If you have not enrolled yet, do so and remember – It’s all about the game.

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Jurassic World Verus Pan!

Two major trailers came out yesterday, Universal’s Jurassic World and Warner Brothers’ Pan.  While they may not have a lot in common, both studios hope that these will build to future franchises, and they are both trying to use existing material lure you in.  Let’s start with Jurassic World shall we!

I have been skeptical of this movie since it was announced, but this trailer did a good job of getting me interested.  I love the idea of exploring a working Jurassic theme park, also Star Lord, but I am less keen on having a giant velociraptor be the main threat.  With that many people in the park it doesn’t seem like a super-smart predator is necessary.  But like I said, I am interested in this film now, so job well done.

Let’s see what Warner Brothers brought us with Pan shall we?

Again I am more interested in this movie now than I was before, but I still have a lot of reservations.  I am not sure that Peter Pan and Hook need an origin story, and this movie has the same problem that all prequels do, we already know where this movie ends up: One’s experiences make him a hero, the other a villain (I will let you figure out which is which).  Oz The Great and Powerful suffered for the same reason.  Though the special effects look amazing, so it may be worth the price of admission just to see cool stuff.

Two big movies banking on you wanting to see more based on well known material.  Do you?  I am still struggling to figure out if I do, but it is hard for my inner thirteen year old self to turn down dinosaurs on the big screen.

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DC Comics TV/Movie News!

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First up it looks like Constantine might be DC TV’s first casualty.  According to Deadline, NBC has halted production after 13 episodes.  Now for most shows this would be the end, but it looks like NBC is going to continue to evaluate how the rest of these episodes do.  The ratings are getting better.  Its per-episode reviews are going up, not that they were ever bad, and its online fan base continues to grow, so it has a better shot then a lot of shows to get picked up for another 13 episode run next year, maybe as a midseason replacement or something.  Though once production is halted getting back on the air is always a long shot.

Now to the two DC TV shows that are no where near getting canceled, Arrow and The Flash, it looks like we will not be seeing Batman or Superman any time soon.  In an interview with ComicBook.com the producer of those shows, Andrew Kreisberg, has said that the big two are completely off limits, as are their cities. It looks like Nightwing is still on the table though, so we may not get Batman, but we still may get his former ward.  It is a shame Warner Brothers Movies and Warner Brothers TV can’t work together better.  If we can have two Flashes, we can certainly have two Batmen.  Heck it would make my Earth 2 theory work better anyway.

From TV to movies, Wonder Woman has a director!  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Michelle MacLaren, who has directed some of The Walking Dead‘s best episodes, has signed on to direct this block-buster for Warner Brothers.  It has been long rumored that DC/WB was looking for a woman to direct this movie, and it looks like they found her.  She has been doing good work on TV for a long time now, so it is a great time for her to make the move to feature films.

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I Wish ‘This Is 40’ Had A Story!

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This is 40 had a lot of things going for it:  It was written and directed by Judd Apatow.  It was the spin-off of Knocked Up, and it was based on two of Knocked Up’s well liked characters.  It featured a lot of great talent, but the problem is that none of it went anywhere.  It was still funny in places, very funny in fact, but it just lacked cohesion.

This movie follows Debbie (Leslie Mann) and Pete (Paul Rudd) as they try to navigate turning 40.  Their kids are getting older and harder to deal with, their parents drive them crazy, and their jobs are not going well.  They are just having a hard time making it all work.

Now Mann and Rudd are very funny, so this premise sounds great, but the problem is that there is no real story.  It is just them having a hard time getting older.  The crappy parents thing could have been one story, or their jobs going south could have been another, but instead of picking something and exploring it, we get a bunch of little vignettes, so nothing really keeps us engaged.

Like I have said the cast is wonderful, and they almost make this movie work.  Considering all of this movie’s flaws, I would still probably watch a sequel just to see all these people work together again.  Because if they had gotten a script with any meat on it at all this would have been a good movie.

It has been awhile since Judd Apatow has given us a full fledged hit, and I think This is 40 could have been one, but instead of giving us one decent story, he gave us like four ‘meh’ stories.  Still, these are all good actors in good roles. so maybe Apatow can bring it all together for This is 50.