Reviews

Review – Transformers – RiD – Steeljaw

Like a lot of folks it seems, I pretty much avoided the Transformers Robots in Disguise line early on in it’s release. Most of the toys seemed, and were, pretty mediocre. There also was an extremely one sided assortment of mostly Autobots. In fact, Steeljaw was the only Decepticon until something like wave 4, which is really annoying on a lot of levels. One thing that Transformers always felt like it had going for it above other lines was a pretty good balance of heroes and villains. What good is a hero with no one to fight after all?

Even more annoying, the Decepticon designs on the show itself are all super interesting and unique. There’s a neat animal theme running in the robot modes, which gives them fun heads and little design queues related to their respective animals. Steeljaw, for example, is very obviously wolf themed. From his wold head to his wolf tail, he’s one of the more obvious animal designs. The vehicle itself is also somewhat wolf-like in it’s styling.

While his design is pretty neat, Steeljaw is also one of the weaker toys in the line. The main issue is the “This should have been a Voyager” problem that pops up occasionally. The larger size would have allowed a bit better balance and a few more joints while also stopping the robot from being so small and stocky. As he is, because of his weird joints in his legs he pretty much needs the tail as balance to keep him upright, which is a shame because it’s nicely jointed and would be great used for more dynamic poses.

He also has some weird sliding arm/elbow joints that feel a little fragile and leave his arm movement options a little stiff. I guess the point is, the robot mode is cool looking, but it’s really only usable in one or two poses, due to the awkwardness of the toy.

Steeljaw is basically the physical embodiment of the early problems with the Robots in Disguise line, all wrapped up in a nice package. The design is ambitious but suffers for it. He should have been a larger price point, but RiD had no Voyager price point. He was the only Decepticon for a while, and while he looks nice in a group assortment with the eventual, later, Decepticons (which are mostly pretty stellar), he’s probably not worth putting a ton of effort into tracking one down.

Funko Legacy – Firefly (Malcolm, Kaylee, Jayne, Zoë, Wash)

Jun 7th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

1 comment

Funko is a pretty controversial company among toy collectors, by which I mean collectors more like me and less of the “casual” variety. Their primary line is the Funko Pop Vinyl line, which amount to small uniformed statues. Funko has also had a few “actual” figures recently in their Funko Legacy line, which so far has mostly been Firefly or Game of Thrones related, though they did a set of Bethesda related figures for Fallout and Skyrim as well as The Book of Life and The Rocketeer. These figures are done in a style very similar to what NECA does for a lot of their lines. Six inch figures with mostly decent articulation and a pretty good attention to detail to the source material. They also seems to have inherited a lot of the issues that NECA figures often have however in stiff or fragile joints and sometimes dodgy sculpt choices.

There are 6 total figures in this line and 5 characters. Jayne Cobb has a version with and without his iconic yellow and orange knit hat from the show. Having one version with a swap-able head or hat accessory would have been cool but I guess it was easier just to do two versions. The Hat version is a store exclusive, but as near as I can tell, it’s exclusive to everywhere, that the regular figures are found anyway.

I’m going to touch a bit on each of the figures before wrapping up with some thoughts on the set as a whole.

Malcolm Reynolds

Malcolm, the captain of the crew, is probably the most well rounded figure of the set. This is good since he’s probably the most desireable figure of the line up, being sort of the main characters. The articulation is good, the sculps is good and looks like Nathan Fillion. He has a bit of an issue in his design where his hips are a bit too wide, but it’s an issue that spans across the line and isn’t exclusive to this figure.

He includes two accessories, a shotgun and his pistol, both of these guns can be held appropriately and both can be stored int he holster on his leg (individually, not together). The paint is a little spotty in a few places, but this is also an issue that runs across the line.

Zoë Washburne

Zoë is almost as nice as Malcolm in terms of well roundedness. The sculpt isn’t quite as nice in the face and head but it’s still recognizable as the character. She has a pair of guns, one of which has holster attached to her belt. Her hips also have some of the wideness issue that Malcolm has, but her proportions make her look less pear shaped than Malcolm, so it’s not quite as noticeable.

Wash (Hoban Washburne)

What use is Zoë without her husband? Wash is probably my favorite figure of the line. The sculpt all around is pretty good, though I’m not sure why is face is so heavily washed. His hair is a little odd, but overall, his outfit does a good job of hiding the major sculpt issues present int he other figures (goofy elbows, weird hips). He portrays the nerdy goofyness of the character.

To just drive this home, while Wash doesn’t include any weapons, he does come with two small dinosaur toys. Wash was shown playing with these toys a few times up on the bridge of the ship, where he spent a lot of his time. His hands are both sculpted to allow him to hold both dinosaurs well, which also gives him some kind of fun “claw hands” for regular poses as well. The dinosaurs themselves are very nicely done.

Kaylee

So, moving on to the bottom of the barrel zone, I’ll start off with Kaylee. I want to like Kaylee, and she is so close but there’s just a few off putting things and one bad experience that has pulled her way down in my book. First, the sculpt is a little iffy. The face is a too puffy and mine has a bit of a derpy eye going on. Her accessories are irritatingly light as well, especially given she is the smallest figure. She only has her wrench, which works, but a few more tools, or maybe a chunk of machinery as a prop would have been a nice way to offset the value proposition here.

My main issue comes from her hands. While across the line, I’ve had to deal with a few stiff joints, one of the hands on my Kaylee broke right off, with almost zero “effort”. I glued it back on, so at least she has a hand, even if it’s now stuck in one position, It’s still an irritating issue. She feels like she is more prone to this issue since her arms are considerably skinnier than the other figures in the line. A couple fo more accessories and less fragile joints, and I probably would completely overlook the slightly off face sculpt.

Jayne Cobb

Then there’s Jayne Cobb. I debated a bit on which version I wanted but ultimately opted to pick up the one with his hat. I don’t need two Jaynes and the hat is a fun and memorable piece from the show. Jayne really solves a lot of the issues that the other figures had, and I suspect part of this is due to his two figure release. In terms of “background” in the design and budget area, the dual release should have effectively double the budget for this figure’s design. The joints look better, partially due to his larger size, but he also includes three accessories, his knife, his pistol, and his gun, Vera.

My issue with the figure is that I can’t get him to hold Vera. It’s a nice looking gun, and I’ve seen where other’s have gotten the gun into his hands, but the hands on my Jayne are too stiff and tight to fit the larger gun into either hand. I also worry about breaking the gun as well.

Which leads me into the overall line, and it’s many issues. These are relatively cheap figures, at $20 each (less these days since they are on clearance anywhere that still has them). Still, there are wonky quality issues across the board. The paint on all of these figures have some issues, it’s not clear how much is just shoddy work and how much is intentional to make things look “dirty”. There are ugly plastic seams plaguing almost every figure as well, especially on hands and arms where there is flesh tone paint. The joint designs are functional, but very ugly, just take a look at the elbows on Jayne and Zoë, or the wrists on all of them. These figures really feel like they could have benefited from a higher price point, put towards polishing them up. The basic idea and execution is there, everything just falls short in some pretty major ways. The details on Kaylee’s overalls and Wash’s shirt both are great, and the two mini Dinosaurs are really good, it’s a shame this level couldn’t have been executed consistently across the line, especially since this is essentially Funko’s “Collector” level line.

The other shame is that the line is effectively dead as near as I can tell. We’ll probably never get River, or Simon, or Inara, or Sheppard Book. Which is a bit of a shame because Firefly is a fun cult series that really could use a nice set of figures.

Are the figures worth picking up? At this point they can be had pretty cheap, they aren’t the best, but if you’re a fan of the show it’s likely the only chance you’re ever going to have to get figures from the show, and at sub $15, most of the figures are worthwhile. Wash and Malcolm are pretty fun figures to add in with say, Star Wars Black figures. Jayne and Zoë are both allright, though flawed a bit. Kaylee, not so much, at least the one I have isn’t great.

Review – Movie – Warcraft (2016)

May 19th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

No comments yet

I have to say, I was pretty excited to see the Warcraft movie. I don’t currently play World of Warcraft but I got pretty deep into the game in recent years. I played all of the original Warcraft games back in the day as well, especially Warcraft 2. I also enjoy films such as The Lord of the Rings, which kind of felt like the same idea, a large sweeping epic.

Ultimately, I ended up really let down by this movie. I’m not sure that it’s really a bad movie, it’s just not particularly amazing, despite the pretty impressive visuals. The entire film, something just felt really off. I worry a bit that my experience with the video game series was part of the reason for the sense of distraction I felt throughout the movie. Warcraft isn’t a straight retelling of the Warcraft story, it’s simply, heavily influence by the lore.

It’s also important to know that the movie Warcraft is intended to be based more on the video game Warcraft, that old RTS game, and not World of Warcraft or the books. This feels like it shouldn’t be notable, but it is, because World of Warcraft has expanded and mildly retconned things to make them work for it’s story. It’s also worth pointing out because the original Warcraft didn’t exactly have an amazing, deep story. Orcs come through the Dark Portal, Orca and Humans battle it out in a series of medieval battles.

All of the proper players are present on both sides, Gul’dan, Doomhammer, Blackhand, King Wrynn, Lothar, Medivh, Khadgar are all characters who would have had some hand in the events of this time period of the Lore. The movie shows the Orcs baely leaving the area around the Dark Portal, though the game was a large war across several regions and Stormwind was eventually raided by Orcs. I mostly wanted to mention this because the movie presents a really odd mix of set up for sequels while not quite explaining things that really could be important later in sequels.

The main set up element is Durotan’s Orc baby, who makes several appearances in the film though doesn’t do much, since he is a baby. This baby orc, in the Lore will grow up to be Thrall, aka Green Jesus, who is the first leader and founder of the modern Horde. The real missed opportunities though come from what feels like the complete omission of anything before the orcs enter the portal at the start of the movie.

I really feel like even a narrated montage of events leading up to why the Orcs are entering the portal would have really helped. There isn’t any mention of Sargeras or the Burning Legion that I recall, though Fel Energy is a large part of the plot. There also isn’t any mention of Grom Hellscream. Grom isn’t part of the “First War” featured in this film, but he was the first Orc to be corrupted by the Blood of Mannoroth which lead to the downfall and corruption of the Orcs. He later becomes friends with Thrall and in general is a very pivotal character in many later plot elements. He is also the father of Garrosh Hellscream, though it would take a dozen movies to get to the events that make Garrosh Hellscream important. Maybe the plan is to tell his story with flashbacks in a later film.

Like I said, the little things like this kept coming up as distractions, which may have tainted my enjoyment of the film, though there’s definitely more to it. It’s easy to compare this movie to The Lord of the Rings, both are grand tales of high fantasy with a large following of fans. Visually the effects, especially the orcs look great, but there’s also this odd factor where everything just feels extremely clean, TOO clean. You never really get the feel for the grittiness of the war, it just feels, much like the original game, like an excuse to have some Orcs and Humans fight each other.

The other major problem is the schizoid all over the place plot. This is also part of where a bit more fleshing out of the back story would have really helped a lot. Giving us some better glimpses as to the corruption that seduced Gul’Dan and Medivh would have gone a long way to show the motivation behind these two. A montage sequence at the opening of the power of Sargeras (effectively, the devil), and the Burning Legion, and their quest for power and how it led to the fall of the once peaceful and noble Orcs would have done a lot to make characters like Durotan and Garona, who question the actions of their people, more sympathetic. Instead the movie just opens on a giant portal and Gul’dan sucking the life from a bunch of blue people to power said portal. No real premise provided.

Ultimately, while I did find this film disappointing, I accept that the early Lore of the Warcraft universe is in fact, kind of bland. There’s set up in this movie to eventually to run through Thrall’s story, which could easily have interweaving bits setting up the story of Arthas. Both of these events are really good plot lines and would make incredible movies. I just hope that the poor performance of this film doesn’t hurt the chances for sequels, because I’d love to see Thrall’s time as a gladiator and his eventual creation of the Horde on the big screen. I’d definitely love to see the fall of Arthas as well, as his story is such a tragic tale that would work well as a movie. While Warcraft kind of falls flat as a film, I’m holding out hope that things can get better in some sequels. It’s just so bad this weak initial story pretty much has to be told first, since it’s the foundation of everything else

Review – Change Agent by Daniel Suarez

Apr 17th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

No comments yet

NOTE: This book was provided by the publisher for free to the reviewer in advance of release.

I should probably start off by mentioning that I am a huge fan of Daniel Suarez. I have read all of his previous books, a few of them more than once. He definitely has a great “not too distant” future sort of style that comes off as very plausible in his Sci-Fi Techno-Thriller novels. While I wouldn’t rate Change Agent as his be best work yet, I still give that to Daemon, it’s certainly not on the bottom of my list. They all rank pretty high in my opinion.

The general plot follows Kenneth Durand, who has been genetically altered via a Change Agent, sort of a DNA virus, to have the form of the wanted criminal Marcus Wyckes. A large proportion of the story follows Durand as he travels through Singapore and Thailand to try to find a way to return to his former self. He meets a variety of folks along the way good and bad, and must deal with some inner turmoil in the concepts of what truly makes a person who they are. Much of the near future aspects of this revolve around the concept of genomic manipulation primarily, but other more familiar concepts such as the mass use of drones and AR/VR style interfaces for technology.

The core story is well done and there is a nice sense of urgency along the way to Durand’s mission, mostly from the constant pursuit by the authorities. The main areas where it falls apart is the periphery. Some of Durand’s colleagues are involved in the pursuit of Durand/Wyckes but they don’t really seem to every question the possibility of Durand being anyone except who he appears to be, despite the world around them. There also isn’t a much done with Durand’s family, which is his entire motivation, beyond surface level exposure. Meanwhile many of the people Durand meets later feel like they don’t really have any good reason to trust him yet they often do explicitly. The subplot involving (the real) Wyckes’ henchman never feels quite fully explored either.

These sub plots could have been fleshed out a bit further and could have helped the story feel more complete. The core plot works regardless, though there are some parts that felt like they dragged a bit early on and around the three quarters mark. The real fun, like all of Daniel Suarez’s books, comes from the “what if” world that is presented. Daemon and Freedom looked at the web and AI, Kill Decision was AI and drones, Change Agent looks at genetics and technology overexposure.

If you enjoy the writing style of Daniel Suarez or similar authors such as Neal Stephenson, John Scalzi, or William Gibson, you’ll probably enjoy Change Agent.

Review – Movie – Logan (2017)

Mar 17th, 2017

by Ramen Junkie.

1 comment

The latest and supposedly last outing for Wolverine, or at least, Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, Logan is one of the better comic book movies we’ve had for sure, though not totally flawless. Most of my complaints with this movie however stem more from how sloppy Fox has been with the X-men universe continuity, and not so much with the film itself. Much like the previous Wolverine movie, The Wolverine, this film pretty much exists in a vacuum from the other movies in the series. There’s a vague underlying theme about how awful Logan’s existence is because, while he never dies, everything he cares about eventually does. There’s also a brief mention of “The Statue of Liberty” which is a throwback to the original X-men when Hugh Jackman took up the role, but it felt more like an Easter egg than a plot point.

It also brings up the question of “Where does this fall in continuity”. Is it the old time line or the new timeline? If he mentioned the Statue of Liberty from the first X-men, that would imply this is old timeline, except there are a few little nods to the new timeline, like the return of the mutant Caliban seen briefly in X-men Apocalypse. Or the point about how there haven’t been any new mutants in something like 25 years, which seems contradictory to X-men 3, which showed us some future where there were clearly some young mutants in the school.

Nitpicky continuity stuff aside, the movie starts off a little rough but ends up on a pretty good note overall. It’s also worth noting that this movie, like Deadpool, is definitely rated R. Where Deadpool was more R rated for it’s crude sexual jokes, Wolverine gets it’s rating for language, a lot of gory violence, and one moment of very, very brief, non sexual nudity. I only bring this up really because it’s worth noting in case anyone wants to take their 9 year old to the film and because it kind of felt a little unnecessary. I hate to sound like some sort of grump over language, but given the history of the X-men franchise and the character, adding in a bunch of “fucks” almost makes some of the characters seem out of character and all of the extra goriness on the claw slashing didn’t really add a lot to the plot.

It all also felt a bit out of place as the movie progressed and more and more of Laura and her backstory, the young girl tagging along with Wolverine, became the focus of the film. It’s like hey, here’s a bunch of kids going completely psycho in the movie violent way possible because “Edgy cool”.

The whole film also does a pretty effective job of being a bit of an emotional roller coaster, as everyone around poor Logan seems to get harmed or killed by the people following them. Not to mention Logan himself, who is not anywhere near peak form as the poisoning in his body from his Adamantium skeleton is finally getting the best of him. He’s feeling a lot of pain, his claws don’t always work, and he isn’t quite healing as well as he used to. It certainly helps give some urgency to the character. The regular X-men movies usually managed to write off Wolverine when Magneto was around, since Wolverine can’t do anything to Magneto, The Wolverine had Logan under the influence of some poison that suppressed his abilities, I guess something needs to be done to make a guy who can’t be harmed interesting (see also The Hulk).

The core of the movie is about the interaction between Logan, Laura and Xavier as they run from a band of pretty bland bad guys. They are involved in Laura’s past, but they are essentially just an extension, spin off or figure version of Alkali and Stryker’s band, that same old repeating thread. There is also Weapon 24, who is the main baddie for Wolverine to battle. It’s not super clear what makes this guy so special other than “He’s like Wolverine only extra feral” and ultimately is pretty much a throw away nobody who only exists as someone who can stand toe to toe with Wolverine and not get killed in 1 claw swipe.

Laura manages to be an interesting character, despite being mute for much of the film. The aged Charles Xavier is also incredibly likable in this movie, though his purpose and point isn’t super clear to the big picture. He’s basically become a super powered senile old mutant, he has some mysterious vaguely explained crisis from the past, and serves as a father figure to Logan who in turn serves as a father figure to Laura, which makes a fun dynamic, but also felt like there were some pieces missing to help explain, at the very least, why Logan hadn’t just put him out of his misery already. I mean I get that they are old friends, but he really feels like he is suffering with no possible recovery, if Logan really cared he could have saved both of them a lot of trouble a long time ago by giving him a quiet quick send off. I know that sounds cruel but in the context of the film world presented, it honestly isn’t.

But alas, now I’m getting off on a tangent, and running a bit long. Logan really is a good film, it’s definitely the best of the Wolverine trilogy, though I’m not sure that it’s quite the best X-men film. It’s also a nice send off to Wolverine while also serving as an origin story for X-23, Wolverine’s replacement.