TarSpartan's page

It likely involves hitchhiking with the 13th Doctor, closing and/or correcting several of the most egregious Moffatisms, punching Chris Claremont + Jim Shooter + Dave Michelinie in their faces (no wait, that was me empunchening their faces), and rescuing one Dottie Underwood. It's not that she is older; it's that you are now accidentally younger.

Relativistically speaking.

It's a wibbily-wobbly-timey-wimey-Jeremy-Bearimy thing.

Edit: Brian Michael Bendis was also punched.

As long as people are being punched, can Rob Liefeld be punched? Or is that just a given?

I think the FF should definitely be introduced in a post-credit spoiler. I have an image of the heroes standing triumphant at the end of Avengers 4 (or whatever movie they decide to use), when a sleek-looking spaceship lands nearby. The hatch opens, and a tall, middle-aged man in a form-fitting navy blue suit with greying temples and a few days' beard scruff walks out. He turns back to the interior of the ship, says "Sue, darling, we're home," and the screen fades to black. I add the beard scruff because first, it implies a long, difficult journey. Second, every time Reed was distracted by a long-term project in the comics, he had beard scruff (especially in the Byrne years).

Oh, and I want Tom Cavanaugh to play Reed Richards.

Watch "The Lego Ninjago Movie." Trust me.

I just finished "The Year Babe Ruth Hit 104 Home Runs." No, he never really hit 104 in a year, but the book gives a fascinating look into the day-to-day life of a 1920s ballplayer, and dispels a number of myths about Babe Ruth.

Vidmaster7 wrote:

Who would you guys choose to play doom?

I’ve been chewing on this one.

How about Jason Isaacs? Either in the suit, or voice only.

He does good accent work, and he can definitely pull off the ‘arrogant aristocrat oozing with malevolence’ bit.

Since we no longer have Alan Rickman, I think I can live with Jason Isaacs. He was pure, over-the-top *evil* in "The Patriot."

Thomas Seitz wrote:

As for how they get him into the Sun? I mean we send stuff to the Sun a good bit. How hard would it be to get him in it?

1. We really don't. A lot of our observations good ol' Sol aren't conducted by going that way. Por ejemplo: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-funded-sounding-rocket-will- take-1500-images-of-sun-in-5-minutes

2. Earth is 149,600,000 kilometers from Sol. Since it's potentially a straight shot rather than a transfer orbit, it's quicker to get to than Mars, but still takes over 100 days with the best speeds on record.

As an aside, I did a good bit of the optical design for that rocket...

We still need a proper Dr. Victor Von Doom.

On a related note, we need a proper Reed Richards as well. I mean, Ioan Gruffudd was OK, but not great. You need someone with a bit of age to project Reed's wisdom. Reed Richards is not a 20-something (and teen Reed never happened). I'm thinking someone like Tom Cavanaugh (from "Ed" and "The Flash") as Reed Richards. He's old enough that he looks mature, but still young enough to handle the demands of a superhero role. Plus, he has a strong physical presence and experience spouting comic-book technobabble. If only CW would let him go...

Anywho, I'm glad we've got Boseman for the Black Panther. Wesley Snipes has just a tad more swagger than I want for the King of Wakanda.

I want the Black Panther to be someone who doesn't always look as dangerous as he is, with a sort of human layer over the scary panther dude underneath. I haven't seen Snipes in a lot (Demolition Man, the Blade movies), but he seems more intense and 'on' 24/7. All scary cat, no friendly façade over it.

Did you see the first "Major League?" (i.e. the one that was actually funny?) Wesley Snipes was great as Willie Mays Hayes, and pretty darn hilarious. I think *that* Wesley Snipes could have played T'Challa. Don't get me wrong -- I think Chadwick Boseman is a great actor (which reminds me, I still need to see "Get On Up"), and I think he is all but perfect for the role. I just think an early 90s Wesley Snipes could have done it well, too. Much like the way Tom Holland is great as Spider-Man, but I can still appreciate Tobey McGuire from the first two Raimi films.

Well, yeah, it is kinda safe option. But it is also powerful storytelling tool, especially if you want to contrast and compare the hero and villain. They do that for a reason. Abomination is Hulk without any morality, just destroying stuff for fun, ie how Thunderbolt Ross and most of the world sees him, and by beating him he proves not to be this. Same for Tony Stark; Warmonger is evil capitalist who exploits people and gets rich on the cost of human life- the thing the reporter accused Tony being at the start of the movie and what Tony struggles with in the movie.

Is it overused? Yeah, definitely. But it also works if done right. And since Killmonger's goal seems to be "Wakanda is not working, time for new ruler and new rules" and T'Challa struggling with being a good king and a good man, making villain a Black Panther-like costume is just visual continuation of that theme.

The other thing to remember is that in comics lore, "Black Panther" is not a superhero name, but a title and duty of the rightful King of Wakanda. If Killmonger is making a grab for the throne, then it is only fitting he is claiming to be the rightful Black Panther as well. In that case, an "evil Black Panther" makes sense.

The thing about reading Priest books is that there is a warm-up period. It usually takes him six months or so to really get going, but once he gets going, he's incredible. For instance, Black Panther was good for the first few issues, but was untouchable until about issue #50 or so when Kasper Cole entered the story.

As for Deathstroke, I confess I bought the first few issues on faith, because again, it takes him a few issues to start drawing the threads together. Once he did, however, I was hooked.

So the Gyllenhall pic is OK, but the PC has some sort of major social disorder - it's not just that he's shy, but people actively dislike being around him.

I'm thinking a less-likable version of Gaston from "Beauty and the Beast," for instance. Or maybe Gaston as the audience sees him, not the village. Good looking but completely obnoxious and self-absorbed.

I'm fine with Tennant as Crowley. The question is will every tape/CD/whatever in the car turn to "Queen's Greatest Hits?"

Fromper wrote:

Kevin Spacey did a great job of playing Luthor the same way Gene Hackman played him in the original movies. Just like Brandon Routh did a great job of playing Christopher Reeve (playing Superman and Clark Kent).

Meanwhile, Eisenburg did a passable job of playing Luthor the same way Ledger played the joker in The Dark Knight.

I just have a problem with a Lex Luthor that sounds like the "Camille" voice from a Prince album.

"Ladies and gentlemen, the dream we all dream, man of steel vs. the bat of Gotham..."

Kind of off-topic, but kind of not: Stephen Amell will be competing on "American Ninja Warrior" this week. No, he does not compete in costume.

4 TJ of energy? OK, let's do the math. Kinetic energy equals 0.5 x mass x velocity squared. Let's say Barry has a mass of 80 kg (a little under 180 lbs, probably about right for Grant Gustin). We have mass, we have energy, we can solve for the speed Barry has to run to generate 4 TJ of energy. v^2 = 2 x (4 TJ) /(80 kg) = 10^11 (m/s)^2. Therefore, Barry has to run at 316,227 m/s, which is approximately 0.1% of the speed of light. That number also converts to ~1,140,000 km/hr, or ~700,000 mph. We'll see if CW Barry can run that fast in an attempt to generate the necessary energy, and if so, what numbers the writers *actually* come up with.

Oh, and the sun produces 4 x 10^26 J/second, or approximately 100 trillion times 4 TJ. Cisco may be a great engineer, but he's a horrible astronomer. ;)

So am I the only one who heard the phrase "designed only for killing" and thought MODOK? Especially since he is really just a head in a jar controlling android bodies.

Based mostly on budget and reception, I don't know that I consider Commando or Last Action Hero "bad".

Now Hercules in New York...

Ah, yes. "Let me show you the proper way to throw the discus." "Attaboy Hoic!" I'm not sure if it is better with or without the dubbing.

Well, they leveled a little faster, and at higher levels, got better bonus hit points. But yeah, thieves were fairly fragile. They mostly existed to bypass otherwise very dangerous obstacles.

That's a good point -- every class advanced at a different rate, so at some extremes two characters with identical XP could be two levels apart. The thief/rogue leveled the most quickly, as I recall, so if you could survive a few encounters you at least had a chance to roll more HP faster.

I don't think there is ANY point in the timeline which explains this version of Snart. He is a fundamentally different / more malevolent character than he was even before meeting Flash and starting down his 'road to redemption'. Maybe they used that mind rewiring gizmo on him like they did to Rip.

I don't know -- his personality is pretty close to Snart's first appearance now that I think about it, where he was a straight-up, cold, calculating, murdering bank robber. Over the course of a season-and-a-half of the Flash and the first season of Legends he transformed into an anti-hero. The "warm and fuzzy" version of Snart is stuck in our heads because it is our most recent reference.

Count me in as a Weasel's Luck fan. Galen Beknighted, too, although I don't actually remember what happened in it.

I recently picked up both books. I have finished the first, but not the second. I enjoyed the first so much I insisted my son read it, and he devoured it in one sitting. Granted, it was the 7-hour ride back to college, but still...

I learned to play in a version of the game where thieves got a d4...

And clerics were a d6. And we liked it! We liked it just fine! ;)

I'm just going to drop this here...

Zardoz

No. Just no. One cannot unsee Sean Connery in a diaper and ponytail.

Oh, you mean you don't pronounce it "Tol-KEEN?"

Also, I thought the team was rather unsympathetic towards Mick. I mean, an earlier episode had Stein performing surgery on him to try to remove the Snart hallucinations, so it's not like they didn't know he had issues.

I just finished Brian Wilson's autobiography. Unlike the 1991 book ghostwritten by his former domineering quack doctor, this one reads like a conversation with Wilson. It was surprisingly entertaining, despite BW re-treading many topics that are familiar to Beach Boys fans, and his stream-of-consciousness narrative style. In particular there's one paragraph where he talks about going to an instrument rental house to get a particular type of organ for a recent solo record. He talks about the family pedigree of the owner (Jan Berry's brother, or something like that), somehow segues to a comment about Neil Young (he's a real nice guy), and then goes back to the story of renting the organ. Which he ended up omitting from the final mix, anyway.

Wait! There's a Dylan Dog movie?

Yes, starring Brandon Routh. It might even still be on Netflix.

I just finished John Fogerty's autobiography "Fortunate Son." It was a surprisingly good read, with lots of commentary on music and the contractual issues that worked against Fogerty and CCR. Saul Zaentz was an evil, evil man.

captain yesterday wrote:

The only way I can watch that Transformers movie is with the volume down completely. Because the soundtrack was soooo bad, and it's going nearly every second of the movie.

*shudder*

What? what? what about The touch or dare to be stupid? we are talking about the original animated one with unicron (voiced by Orsen welles) and Galvatron (voiced by Leonard Nemoy).

If so we are two very different people.

Everything is more awesome with a Stan Bush soundtrack. If I had the time and savvy I would re-cut the airport scene from "Civil War" to start "The Touch" as soon as Ant-Man hits his "reverse" button.

I haven't seen anyone bring up "Gnomeo and Juliet" yet. Besides being an entertaining twist on the Shakespeare tale, and featuring a decent voice cast, it is fun to play "spot the Elton John reference" while watching.

Nintendo made a stupidly low number of these things. My buyer tells me another round might be coming up in Dec., but it will also be stupidly low inventory so get ready to pounce if you want one. More to come.

My list of games:
Maniac Mansion
The Guardian Legend
Cobra Triangle

Double "yes" to Guardian Legend! I loved that game, and wish you could get it on Virtual Console. Am I the only one who misses the old Pro Wrestling, with Fighter Hayabusa, Starman, and the like?

I can relate to Tuf, as I enjoy mushrooms and agree that all cats have a touch of Psi. ;)

If you are only going to do one service, Netflix is best. Between the fantastic marvel shows, and this, Netflix has better original programming than the major networks. I've canceled cable for 8 years and have been steaming only. I don't know your budget, but it's worth it.

I totally agree. I cancelled cable in 2006 and haven't looked back. Even with the most recent price increase Netflix is, what, $10 a month? The convenience and sheer volume of programming is worth that to me. My only minor nitpick is that they lose shows every so often (I miss "Lois & Clark), but I have certainly never run out of things to watch. Then again, I'm old enough to remember when you would pay $3-4 a night in 1985 dollars to rent a videotape, so maybe my economic perspective is different...

Flash Gordon: A Brawler, Bard, and Alchemist. We actually see the bard's inspire courage in action when she cheers "Go, Flash, Go!" in the football fight scene.

Swashbuckler and Barbarian NPCs end up joining the party midway through the campaign.

Good call! Don't forget the immortal "Flash, I love you, but we only have 14 hours to save the Earth" during the fight in Vultan's palace.

That Brawler also certainly did not dump CHA, as he picks up allies throughout the campaign, convinces the BBEG's evil daughter to turn good, and even causes the BBEG to call for a truce and offer the hero a position of power.

robertness wrote:

Star Trek: TOS The party leader is a lawful good fighter who'd be a paladin if it weren't for the whole chastity thing. There's also a half-elf archaeologist (bard archetype) and an engineer who has to be a dwarf with a thyroid condition (has a funny accent, loves strong drink, tinkering with machines, and the occasional brawl). Finally, we have the doctor that refuses to do anything but heal. "Bones, this man is dying." "Damn it Jim, I'm a doctor not a... Oh, right. It's my time in the spotlight."

Didn't Jim constantly break the rules? I say he's more chaotic good.

At the risk of going all fanboy, he didn't break the rules as much as he is given credit. It was usually with reluctance to correct a greater evil. I don't think a CG officer could rise to Captain in Starfleet, so I would argue he is NG. In any case, he is not LG. Spock, on the other hand, is so LG it hurts, at least until TWOK.

Does anyone else have the 3.5 Draconomicon? If not, I highly recommend it, and it may be the best non-core book from 3.0/3.5 aside from the Forgotten Realms campaign guide. Anyway, the Draconomicon gives example dragons for all off the color & metallic types at all ages. It gives advice on when to use a breath weapon versus melee attacks. It also gives rules and advice for how to assign feats to dragons. After all, that 1000-year-old Wyrm must have picked up a few tricks over the years.

With all that in mind, I try to play the dragons according to type. Whites tend to be more brutish and stupid, Blues more talkative and vain, etc. And dragons are *never* to be taken lightly. Even the smallest Wyrmling can TPK a low-level party.

So here we are on Movie Launch weekend!

Hard to believe the thread stayed empty with all the hype about the book and the film...

So - besides me, who's going to see it?

Already seen it, and I give it thumbs up. In the interest of full disclosure, I build stuff for NASA contracts, so I know a little "inside baseball." Aside from a few minor quibbles (dust storms on Mars aren't *quite* that powerful, no one on a flight project would ask for overtime to save a man's life, astronauts never leave the vehicle without an MMU or tether), the movie (and book) get everything right. I think the director made good choices in what to excise from the book while leaving the feeling of danger and getting across the technical challenges to be solved. Finally, I think all of the actors gave good performances.

Circle of 8 fixes a lot of ToEE'd problems, and the combat is the most tabletop accurate I've ever seen.

Thanks DM & knightnday! I remember being excited about this game when it came out, but passed because of the awful reviews. I'm glad to hear it's been fixed up. My son is into NWN, but I am looking for something a bit more turn-based, like the old SSI games. I have Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, but they were too clicky to hold my interest for long.

SmiloDan wrote:

Brust's Agyar and The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars are kind of urban, or at least modern, fantasy. Kind of Charles DeLinty.

Yeah, Agyar for sure -- after Bram Stoker, the only vampire book I ever liked!

Have you ever read GRRM's Fevre Dream? That was pretty good by vampire book standards, with some interesting character twists and a slightly different take on the "mechanics" of vampirism.

Just so you know where I come from, I view vampires in general as abominations for my Clerics and Paladins to take out, and they are NEVER sparkly. ;)

Went rooting around in my attic last night and found my copy of the 1000+ paged The Unabridged Edgar Allan Poe which I've been looking for for over a year now.

Huzzah!

Doyle totally ripped off Sherlock Holmes from the Dupin stories.

I'm wondering this for a campaign I'm going to join soon- What would a level 8 mythic tier 4 wizard have to do to pretend to be a level 2 wizard, even to higher level scrying spells?

Acting scatterbrained all the time worked for Fizban the Fabulous in the Dragonlance books.

BigNorseWolf wrote:

** spoiler omitted **

I was just thinking, Legally, who's the king now?

Robert is dead
Renly is dead
Stannis is dead. His daughter is dead.

... On the show, Gendry's the king now isn't he?

In the books it would be Harry the Heir if they follow events similar to the show.

Book and TV series alike, it would appear that the War of the Five Kings has ended rather conclusively in favor of the extant monarch in King's Landing; then again, they haven't really handled the Iron Isles on TV, have they?

Look, don't ask me, I don't trust genre conventions (or even the previously established plot, for that matter) when it come to Game of Thrones!

While Tommen may have "won" the War of Five Kings by attrition, could one argue that Daenerys is still the rightful ruler of Westeros? If not, then I think the Iron Throne should go to Ser Pounce. ;)

I was okay with Captain America being blasted (at the truck scene, right?). It just made him look more badass, and that's what I want to see out of my superheroes.

I don't get what the big fuss is about, either. I just re-watched "Winter Soldier" with my daughter a few nights ago, and there's a scene in that one where he takes a 15-20 story fall out of an elevator, lands on his shield, and pretty much shrugs it off and runs away. MCU Cap is slightly superhuman.

Has anyone else read any Charles Sheffield? His background was in math and physics, so his stories tend to be fairly "hard." I thought his "Between the Strokes of Night" was a brilliant take on time dilation and surviving World War III. His "Heritage" series started great, but got worse as the series went on (don't even bother reading book 5).

Lord British from Ultima: Exodus. OK, so technically he wasn't an enemy, but you could fight him. You would lose, as he did an absurd amount of damage per hit and never flinched no matter how much damage you did to him. My brother and I always wondered why he needed adventurers when he was so powerful...

IMPETUOUS BOY

Yeah, flash was another awesome one. Once again, with music from Freddie and the rest of queen... Damn, I was born too late.

(Starts to hum "Flash")

"Flash" and "Who Wants to Live Forever" are two of the finest songs ever written for film. Both capture the moods of their films *exactly,* and they work as stand-alone pieces.

FLASH! AAHHH-AAHHH! SAVIOR OF THE UNIVERSE! KING OF THE IMPOSSIBLE!

Do we really need anything else in a theme song?

OK, so the "Conan the Barbarian" theme music is pretty cool too...

Total vanity post, but after 12 years off-and-on (mostly off) playing "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance" for the GameCube I *finally* unlocked Drizzt Do'Urden as a playable character. Yes I'm slow, but persistence pays off!

"Charisma determines a character's physical beauty" doesn't seem so certain anymore, does it?

Two words: Tyrion Lannister.

Am I the only one who noticed the anachronism when the chief mentioned getting flack from the Vice President? There was no VP in 1947, as Truman ascended to the Presidency after FDR's death, and the Constitution at the time did not call for choosing a new VP. Sorry, my brain just works that way...

It's okay. You don't have to watch winter soldier.

Minor spoilery response:

I think I am going to start Stephen King's The Shining as my annual October thriller. I was having a conversation with some friends earlier this year, and the subject of favorite King novel came up. A few agreed upon The Shining, and I have somehow never read it, so I suppose that needs to be rectified.

Just be warned that there are not many similarities between the Kubrick film and the King novel, if you have seen the former. If not, enjoy!

I suppose "Spoon!" and "Not in the face!" would be out of turn?