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Need A Show For Summer? How About Orphan Black!

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Orphan Black is now in its second season which means that the first season is streaming on Amazon, and that means I have finally gotten around to start watching it.  If you haven’t heard of it before, it is about a con artist that finds out she is a clone, and she has to figure out what is going on.

A show like this would be pointless if you couldn’t find the right person to be the clone, and thankfully the people of the Space channel in Canada and BBC America found Tatiana Maslany.  She is able to handle all her roles very well, and give each character their own voice even if they all look the same.  The supporting cast is good as well, but they do not stand out like Maslany.

The show is gripping, and it manages to give a few genuine surprises.  It can get a little spicy, so this not for the younger crowd.  If all your favorite shows are off the air, the ten episodes of Orphan Black might be just what you are looking for.  Now if they would just start streaming the second season I might be able to make it through the rest of the summer.

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So Thor Is A Woman Now…

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As you can see from the image above, and announced by The View yesterday, Thor is now a woman, or at least he will be a she in October when the new Thor #1 comes out.  The internet is reacting like this is biggest thing to ever happen, but I think it just makes sense.

Comic books have been a male dominated media for a long time, but lately that has started to change.  Whether that is due to the Marvel movies doing so well, or just the rise of geek culture in general, but whatever the reason Marvel wants to broaden their scope to get a few more readers, and a great way to do that is to make some more main line women heroes.  The got Captain Marvel, but they are need of a few more, so enter Thor.

Thor is the perfect character for this.  He is well known enough that it will be a big deal when he looses the hammer and a woman picks it up, but he is not so well loved that all the fanboys will cry and whine about how Marvel is messing with their favorite hero (though there is still some of that happening).  I personally don’t care as long as the comic books are good.  I mean Thor was a frog for a while and that was awesome, so a woman isn’t that big of a stretch.

I am curious how long this new lady Thor will last since it doesn’t sound like they are killing off the guy.  It is just that he is now unworthy to carry the hammer, but this new woman is worthy, so she is Thor.  I hope it lasts a long time because I think it will be a fun change to the Marvel universe.  Who knows maybe if it is successful we will see Pepper Potts put on the Iron Man suit.  Heaven knows she would be more reliable than Tony.

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DC Wants Another Show? The Spectre!

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So DC hasn’t even gotten The Flash, Constantine, or Gotham launched yet, but they are already talking (according to IGN) about giving Constantine a spin-off with The Spectre.  I am not sure why they are having so much trouble making comic book movies, but they are having such an easy time making TV shows, but hey it seems to be working.

For those of you that don’t know who The Spectre is, and that should be most people,  he is a police officer by the name of Jim Corrigan who dies and then comes back with the ability to haunt and terrorize bad guys.  He would be a good fit to hang out with the supernatural focused Constantine.  If they can work Dr. Fate in there like they hinted at earlier, they would have three pretty good heroes hanging out on NBC.

Still I have to wonder if there are enough channels and enough time in the day to watch all this comic book based television?  I will have to try for all of us!  I wonder who DC will pitch for their next TV show?

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Netflix Gets Into Anime With Knights Of Sidonia!

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I used to watch a lot of anime, but since I have consumed most of the decent material, my viewing has slowed down.  However since Netflix imported Knights of Sidonia only months after it finished airing in Japan, I thought I would give it a try.  It has been fun to watch some anime again, and the 3D animation can be cool sometimes, but this series is fairly generic.

Just by looking at the promo shots most anime fans could tell you the plot without even having to read the description.  A teenage boy, who is kind of a looser, is the last hope to vanquish an alien foe.  Only he has the skills to defeat the Gauna, giant alien monsters who destroyed Earth, and protect the last of humanity.  Yes the way he defeats the monsters is to shoot and poke them with his robot suit of armor, and of course the remnants of humanity are floating around in a giant gun shaped spaceship.  Do all the girls like him even though he is a weirdo?  Why yes they do!

Thankfully this show cuts down on all the fan service, and the wondering about the meaning of life and what it is to be human, to focus on why we are all watching this show in the first place: Watching robots and monsters beat crap out of each other.  Thanks to the 3D animation it looks really cool too.  Sadly what the 3D animation doesn’t do well is allow the human characters to interact with each other.  They are stiff, and they don’t emote well.  I think this is why the show doesn’t focus on that a lot.  They just didn’t have the money to do that part right.

What also struck me while watching this show is how close it is to Battlestar Galactica.  Then I realized that since this show is a generic anime, that all Battlestar Galactica was is a long live action anime.  I mean it had sexy robots, space battles, the last of humanity on a spaceship, and a lot of questions about what it means to be human.  Crazy I know.  It blew my mind!  Anyway back to Knights of Sidonia.

I have enjoyed watching Knights if Sidonia, but it is not really a great show.  Just a watchable one.  It is generic, and due to the poor 3D animation the character interaction lacks a little punch, but watching giant robots versus giant monsters is always fun.  If you are not an anime fan this show will not win you over, but if you are, it is a fun diversion.  I hope Netflix keeps directly importing its own anime because that is one way to insure that I keep renewing my subscription.

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ThePaladin gets Guacamelee all over his Xbox

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Thanks to my Xbox Live Gold Membership I am able to download free games for my Xbox 360 and Xbox One each month. Last month was the start of games for Microsoft’s next-gen console, giving me Halo: Spartan Assault and Max: Curse of Brotherhood. This month, eschewing games with colons in their title, Microsoft has given unto us the super fantistico game – Guacamelee! Super Turbo Championship Edition. The title right there tells you the tone of the game.

Guacamelee is a Metroid-style side-scrolling platformer, which in layman’s speech means you travel across the screen fighting bad guys, jumping from platform to platform, and gaining new skills that you can go back to earlier in the game to use and reach previously locked areas. Guacamelee is about a young man who gains a mythical Luchador mask to aid him in his quest to rescue El Presidente’s Daughter. Throughout the game you learn powerful moves, like the Goat Jump, which aid you on your quest and allow you to reach more places in the world.

Platformers are not my favorite genre, so I was reluctant to give this game a try, but it was free so I though why not. Thus far the game has been a lot of fun and not as unforgiving as I remember Metroid on the old Nintendo being. What really makes the game is the humor. It is full of geek and video game references and just plain silliness.

I haven’t gotten far in the game and I’d love to try Co-Op, but I would recommend the game on the game’s humor and writing alone. Its fun to giggle as you play and figuring out how to pass an obstacle is not so frustrating that I want to quit in a rage. I give Guacamelee – Five out of Five Chickens!

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