December 20, 2016
4 More Days
Due to the exigencies of the shipping industry this time of year, we at Brickmuppet Blog remain obliged to substitute seasonal pinup art for actual content.
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December 19, 2016
Well. That Was Not What I Expected.
Star Wars: Rogue One is is not a space opera.
It is not simply a re-hash of previous plots in the franchise.
It is also completely devoid of infuriating Mary Sues who are effortlessly good at everything.
Despite its very different tone and style (It is actually a re-skinned Samurai film....complete with Zatoichi!) this is not a rejection of the franchise, its fans or its conceits, but rather a labor of love in homage to the whole kit and kaboodle, complete with geeky references to the trilogy, the prequels and the TV series of the sort that were cute but awkward in the prequels. Here they are done masterfully.
Likewise the female lead is an action girl done exactly right.
The movie's effects are everything one would expect from a Star Wars film done by Disney...and more. This is a gorgeous film with visuals that even by today's standards are stunning and it breaks new ground in FX as well as necromancy (which, upon reflection, I'm pretty sure is a Sith art).
This is a story about desperate bitter people in a dark time who are not all that nice who are at the end of their rope while those they look to for guidance are giving in to despair.
Rogue One is also a story of honor, redemption, hope and courage that manages to be uplifting and inspiring despite its gritty take on the Star Wars universe. This is a beautiful and awesome film that fits in perfectly to the Star Wars canon without the sense of forcing the issue that permeated the prequels.
My only gripe is that the score is not anywhere near as epic as one expects from a Star Wars film, except where John Williams pieces are dusted off and used. This is not as egregious as it normally would be given that this is a very different sort of story.
The Force is strong with this one.
Rogue One is awesome.
Go see it.
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December 11, 2016
5 Days Till Exams Are Over, 14 Days Till Christmas
Apologies for the content deficit gentle readers.
As partial compensation, here is some seasonally appropriate cheesecake, topped with sundry varieties of fruit.
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December 09, 2016
Dubstep.....Popcorn.....Violin.
Via Dustbury, who has all sorts of popcorn varieties at his place, though most are not as visually engaging.
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Sic Itur Ad Astra
War hero, test pilot, senator and the first American to orbit the Earth; John Glenn has passed away at 95.
95 is a ripe old age and he certainly lived a full life. It is terrible, however, to loose such a storied and august individual.
What is, in some ways, more terrible still, is that, so many years after his pioneering flight, he did not have the option of an off-planet hospice. With Senator Glenn, the last of the Mercury astronauts has passed, and we are rapidly approaching a point where no living person will have walked on the moon; a rather retrograde development.
The total number of people off planet now is six.
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December 08, 2016
It's Snowing Boxes
Posting will continue to be light.
Lizbeth, from Sword Art Online: Code Register. Character design by Shingo Adachi.
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December 07, 2016
More Pearl Harbor Thoughts
J.C. Carlton has a thoughtful and link heavy analysis of the many failures that led to the debacle.
Two brothers, reunited.
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Culture is a Signal
The animated short in the post below sums up the attitude of much of the United States in the early 1940's. It's not an unreasonable point of view. War is an obscene thing. 24 years earlier the country had entered a "War to End All Wars" which had, in the intervening years provided, as a case study in the wretchedness of war, thousands of men in what should have been the prime of their lives, missing limbs, blind or otherwise maimed by bullets, shrapnel, fire, and gas. The intervening years had seen numerous "police actions" in Central America, each of which had looked an awful lot like a war; ie; that thing those men had been maimed in the hopes of ending for all time.
Most Americans with names not ending in Roosevelt wanted nothing to do with war. And so the pacifists, with help from the German American Bund and the communists (well, until 22 June 1941) all loudly proclaimed the disdain the American people had for war. From the papers to the radio to films as seen below and even the pulpits, the cry of "No More War!" was heard throughout the land.
However, when a sincere desire for peace becomes a nationwide cry from the rooftops it can be misinterpreted. Trotsky's quip, "You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you. " is quite true, and war is especially interested in places where pacifism becomes loud virtue signaling, as it can signal, instead of virtue, cowardice, or at the very least a lack of resolve.
And so, those who looked for such signals interpreted them accordingly. The Americans were not going going to sell them oil because Americans did not want to support those who waged war...because Americans hated war....Americans hated war...so this was the time to strike.
And strike they did, 75 years ago today.
U.S.S. California goes down. Note the sailors in the water.
14inch guns of U.S.S. Pennsylvania silhouetted by the explosion of U.S.S. Shaw.
Battleship Row Burns.
Identifying the bodies pulled from the sunken ships.
Within a few years, those men, and far too many of their subjects discovered to their horror that a disdain for war is not a sign of cowardice, or weakness.
Too loudly proclaiming it however, can cary a terrible price for everyone involved.
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December 05, 2016
Yet Another of Those Animated Shows Set in a Post Apocalyptic World
more...
...this one's American and from 1939.
It's also seasonally appropriate.
It gives a good sense of the anti-war mood in the country on the eve of the Second World War.
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December 02, 2016
REPORT: Sarah Hoyt Has Been Hospitalized (Possible Heart Attack)
There is no further info at this time. The info comes via my friend Bob's Facebook feed.
Hopefully, this will end up being nothing more than a reset of the blog's Time Since Last Total Fact Check Casualty counter from 5 years and 67 days to zero.
UPDATE: The report is confirmed. Fortunately, it is confirmed by Mrs. Hoyt. It looks like she may need a pacemaker or something.(Thanks to Rick C. in the comments.)
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