I cannot figure out what the hell is going on in this video.

I am talking, of course, about the opening cutscene from Tron: Evolution. Granted, this IS the Tron franchise we’re talking about here, and moments of lolwut plot and continuity derp are to be expected, but there’s something…special going on when your opening scene barely makes sense in context.

Before I start rambling too much, let’s first take a moment to appreciate what’s really important about this scene: Tron kicking ass.  A lot of it.  These Sentries (???) do not know who they are fucking with, and they’re taken out in short order as Tron artfully pings off every available surface like the cyber death ninja he is.   Appreciate it while it lasts, players, because you’ll not be seeing it again.

However, this brings me to my first point.  Who the fuck are these guys?  They’re wearing Sentry uniforms, and they have a Recognizer…but this is supposedly before Red Sentries were a thing.  Red-lit Programs have a particular significance in this universe, and by all other evidence Clu is still trying to keep his plans on the down-low at this point…so why would he have active red-lit Sentries already letting loose with the shenanigans?

Second of all, the implications of what’s going on here are pretty eyebrow-raising. The red-lit Sentries and their Recognizer are clearly headed for the open Portal, where Anon is about to rez in for the first time.  When Tron actually gets there, we see that there’s a Red Sentry already there and waiting, as well…which basically means Clu was planning on having his guys shank Anon before he could so much as take his first steps.  I actually don’t have a problem with this idea: I’m sure Captain Oblivious told Clu all about the new System Monitor he just cooked up, and Clu sure as hell wouldn’t want extra Security eyeballs hanging around right as he was about to initiate his Operation Zombie Apocalypse false-flag front.  What gets me is how unsubtle this cutscene seems to be indicating he’s being about it: again, Red Sentries in uniform, Recognizer, etc.  You’d think he’d have just quietly sent a couple of Blackguards still wearing blue so nobody (read: Tron) would suspect.

One wonders just what the hell Tron made of this whole incident.  It’s not brought up at all during the game, naturally, and Tron only gets to show up for approximately ten minutes before zombies start happening and Clu shanks him.  It is sort of implied that Tron’s got his suspicions re: Clu, so I wonder if this thwarted (poorly-executed) attempt at murder might not have forced Clu to kick things into gear before Mr. Badass Gridcop and his new deputy could start really looking into everything…

…or maybe it was just an excuse for a really cool cutscene and matters of sense and context and plot significance didn’t particularly enter the developers’ heads.

Tron Fandom: We reject your reality and substitute our own, because clearly you guys cannot be arsed.

On Homesickness and the Wonders of the Internet

I’ve been really, really homesick for the Bay Area lately, and I don’t know why.

I grew up in Auburn, CA, a smallish town in the Sierra Foothills north of Sacramento.  I’m epileptic and never learned to drive, and there was shit all for public transportation in Placer County.  I was basically totally dependent on the whims of the limited bus routes, my family, and the very few friends I had if I wanted to go anywhere I couldn’t walk to, and I hated it.  There were also only a very few places in town I wanted to spend any time in: our little library, Auburn’s single movie theater, and the couple of used bookstores in Old Town.  Anything more than that, I had to somehow finagle my way down to Roseville or Sacramento for. 

As a kid, I’d gone on trips to San Francisco with my family, and every time we went, something about the city called to me.  When I reached my last couple years of HS, I knew I wanted to be a film student, but I also knew I didn’t want to go to Southern California.  Naturally, when I found out SFSU had a good Cinema program, I was thrilled.  I started college there in 2001, and it changed my life forever.

For the first time in my life, I experienced true independence.  The Bay Area has the best public transit system on the West Coast—MUNI, BART, SamTrans, CalTrain, all of it—and suddenly I could go anywhere I wanted without having to bother anyone for a ride.  The Bay Area is also an incredibly welcoming mecca for those in creative or technical fields, and for people who don’t quite fit conventional norms.  I met whole communities of people who shared my passions, where growing up I’d been isolated and lonely.  The Bay Area was where I had my first real job, my first apartment.  I worked AV staff at Fanime in San Jose and made friends I still have to this day.  And then there’s the sheer beauty of the place.  For the first time in my life, I felt like I was home.

I lived in San Francisco and Daly City for seven years.  Unfortunately, in 2007, my health imploded, and I ended up unable to work.  The one big downside to living in the Bay Area, as any denizen will tell you, is that it’s really fucking expensive.  So I ended up moving up north to Seattle with a friend, and I’ve missed my beloved homeland ever since.

Which is why I’ve spent the last two hours wandering my old SF haunts on Google Maps Street View.  I’m sort of floored by this application.  I can virtually walk up to the front doors of my old apartment complexes, the theater I worked projection at for 5 years (boarded up now, I’m really sad), stroll through Japantown and all the other little spots I used to frequent…

The internet is fucking amazing.  And so is the Bay Area.

We Must Not Look at Goblin Men…

I love Doctor Who, I love nightmare fuel, and I love this episode.

Steven Moffat, of course, is generally recognized to be the show’s reigning champion Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant, and it’s his fantastic, Hugo award-winning Blink that usually gets the credit for “scariest episode of the new series”.  I love Blink, and I absolutely think it’s one of the best episodes of the show to date…but when it comes to “scariest episode”, Midnight is the one that does it for me.

The claustrophobic setting.  The perfect Hitchcockian execution.  The acting this woman does with hardly anything more than her eyes:

The “Midnight Entity” is one of the most terrifying monsters in the show’s 45-year history, partly because we are given next to no information about it.  We never see it (does it even have any kind of physical form out on the planet’s surface?).  We don’t know if there are more of them.  We don’t know what it truly wants.  All we’re given glimpses of is an ice-cold, chillingly alien intelligence as it learns from the people on the ship in one of the creepiest manners possible.

The tension that builds as the entity slowly finds its footing within its host, first repeating the Doctor’s words, then speaking simultaneously with him, while in the background the other passengers grow more and more paranoid and hostile…

And then.  And then…

It mind-rapes the Doctor.

Our hero, a 9XX year-old Time Lord who is (among other things) an incredibly powerful telepath, can do nothing as this thing snaps the trap shut on his mind and then forces him to egg the mob on into tossing him out an airlock. (David Tennant does plenty of academy-award level acting with his eyes in this scene, too.  The look on his face while he’s being dragged toward the airlock while being forced to repeat the words “Do it, do it now, faster…” oh my god.)

Bottom line, ladies, gentlemen, and variations thereupon: this is a brilliant little episode, easily one of my Top Ten favorites, and it doesn’t get nearly the love it deserves.  Watch it.

Oh, and by the way?

Astronomers discover planet made of diamond

(Reuters) - Astronomers have spotted an exotic planet that seems to be made of diamond racing around a tiny star in our galactic backyard.

The new planet is far denser than any other known so far and consists largely of carbon. Because it is so dense, scientists calculate the carbon must be crystalline, so a large part of this strange world will effectively be diamond.

You’re welcome.

My Two Cents on Tron: The Clone Wars

…sorry, Uprising.

Seriously.  I don’t know how to feel about this show, and it’s not even out yet.

I mean, on the one hand, yay, more Tron!  On the other hand…augh.  Tron: The Clone Wars.  (Now if it were actually written by Genndy Tartakovsky like the original, amazing Clone Wars animated shorts…can you imagine, guys?)

First of all, I am not looking forward to dealing with yet another case of Tron Continuity Plague and having to sort out whether I want to call it canon or keep some bits and leave the rest or just scrap the whole fucking thing while saying “LA LA LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU DISNEY”.  I mean, obviously I’m reserving most of my judgment until I actually see it, but ergh, I can feel the headache coming on already.

Second of all, and this is really the big one for me: the entire concept behind the show’s storyline is giving me hives.  I am…really really not cool with the whole “Tron somehow escaped after being de-faced by Clu and is now secretly training up a replacement” thing.  I find it really hard to swallow.  If it had been something to the effect of “Tron had been suspicious of/bothered by Clu’s bullshit for some time (fits with Betrayal) and had already been in the process of training up Beck and forming Tronbledore’s Army, but then the Betrayal happened and he got ganked by Clu so now Beck has to step up to the plate”, see, I would be all over that shit.  Double extra bonus points if every few episodes we got to see nasty little glimpses of Rinzler’s creation while Beck and his Uprising are out fighting the good fight.  Buuuuuut I’m pretty 100% sure that’s not what we’re getting.  Sigh.

Thirdly, I think I’d be a much happier camper if Beck-as-rebel-leader were more of his own character, rather than being picked out and groomed to be “the next Tron” to the point that he’s wearing Tron’s insignia.  Though maybe they’re pulling a Samurai Sentai Shinkenger and Beck’s acting as a literal body double/distraction…IDK.  I just don’t like the idea of someone straight-up replacing Tron, OK? :(  Dude gets a shit deal as it is.

Finally, it all boils down to the Clone Wars thing.  No matter what, we know how this story’s gonna end.  It’s gonna be Evolution all over again…which means the writers are going to have to really work to make the characters compelling and get us invested in this story, even though we know rocks are gonna fall and everyone’s going to die.  Will they succeed?  Guess we’ll find out in April (provided it doesn’t get pushed back again…)

Anyway, now that I’ve written a novel skewering a show that doesn’t even exist yet…thoughts, Tron fandom?