Avengers: Endgame – Spoiler-free mini-review

• Visuals and special effects: 4.5. It’s extremely well done, but I’m docking it half a point for borrowing the dour DC palette too often. Give it back, Marvel, you don’t want to play with someone else’s dirty cast-offs.
• Soundtrack: 4.5. Lots of good use and reuse of both orchestral and pop music. Alan Silvestri’s work is solid, and there are little musical jokes in the soundtrack.
• Writing: 4. Unlike Avengers: Infinity War, which I thought was a jumble of good scenes tied by a weak excuse for a plot, Endgame actually has a plot that hangs together, at least in a comic book way. Also lots of good lines.
• Casting and acting: 4. Not a whole lot of new faces, but nearly all of the old ones are there, even minor ones. Solid acting, with some actors once again showing more range than they often get credit for; made me cry a few times (that’s an easy feat right now, though.)
• Direction: 4. Smoothly moves back and forth between moments of drama, humour, and action. The character development moments felt like they received special attention. Directors Joe and Anthony Russo’s vision seemed much clearer, much like it was in Captain America: Civil War.
• Editing: 4.5. Tight. There is a lot of material packed in there, and segments that could get mired for a long while are resolved briskly; yet poignant moments are given the time they need to unfold. Good sense of comedic tempo as well.
• Superheroics: 5. Although my favourite superhero group action scene remains the fight at Leipzig-Halle Airport in Civil War, there are a lot of quintessential superhero moments in Endgame, so many that it may take repeated viewings to catch them all.
• Diversity and feminism: 3.9. Characters of many different origins, orientations, genders, etc. appear, but the lion’s share of the focus is still on white (straight, cis) men. There are even some scenes that deliberately highlight this, I’m not quite sure what the message was. However, three of the female characters in particular do have serious moments of deep self-realisation, and that was cool. Also, thank you Wakanda for putting up with white people’s messes.
• The Sean Bean Award for character I will most miss in future Marvel movies goes to Stan Lee.

Like most other Marvel movies, Endgame offers a lot of cool little touches for fans, whether they are the long-time comic book fans or the newer fans who have followed the movie franchise. I enjoyed the many call-backs to scenes from previous episodes and the way they were spun, some times in parallel and sometimes in contrast.

As others have said, this really felt like the end of a season and the ushering in of the next one. I enjoyed, will likely see it again, would recommend.

Black Panther: Spoiler-Free Mini-Review

We saw Black Panther and it was even better than I had hoped. It’s now a strong contender for best Marvel movie ever, and therefore, for best superhero movie ever.

• Visuals and special effects: 5. The most gorgeous eye-candy delight Marvel Studios have ever brought us. In scale and poise it holds its own against Asgard, and is much more joyous and colourful. Every visual choice was very carefully made. The tribes of Wakanda feel very different yet true and (mostly) unified.
• Soundtrack: 4. Good mix of pop, traditional, and orchestral music.
• Writing: 4.5. I have very few quibbles; the main one is that some characters I would really have liked to see again appear to have died the Final Death. But the dialogue is fun and smart, and the pace is good. Also, reflections on insular and and nationalist attitudes well-suited for our times, by a film-maker who cut his teeth on current events.
• Casting: 5. There was not one actor I didn’t love, the choices were excellent all around. The characters’ personalities shone brightly and the lines were well delivered.
• Direction: 4.5. Superb attention to detail and sense of an overarching vision. Ryan Coogler assembles the funny, dramatic, sad, tense, and absurd moments into a lifelike tapestry. I really enjoy the glances that characters exchange, the little non-verbal moments. Some exposition, but really not that much considering the amount of material the movie brings in, and well handled.
• Editing: 4.5. Tight. Even the slower or more solemn moments did not feel like self-indulgence.
• Superheroics: 4.5. The only problem is that the Black Panther suit is, well, black and can be a little hard to follow in the action. But the fights were definitely larger than life.
• Diversity: 4.9. As the meme says, they even had two Tolkien white guys (Andy “Gollum” Serkis as Ulyses Klaue/Klaw, and Martin “Bilbo” Freeman as Agent Everett Ross.) Gender, orientation, and ability diversity not really showcased.
• Feminism: 5. It passes the Bechdel test as well as the Strong Female Protagonist benchmark. Female characters have their own agendas and goals, their own opnions and methods. You can’t swing a dead panther in this movie without hitting a cool female character doing cool stuff.
• The Edward S. Curtis Award for Anthropological Detail goes to Ryan Coogler and the set design team for the futuristic Wakandan buildings in the style of the Songhai and Aksum empires.

My take on it: who says intersectional social justice is dour? This is the bomb!

 

 

Approaching Fate Accelerated: More Crunchy Bits

Edit, Oct. 16, 2013: Rob Donohue discusses how approaches and skills differ, and why you need to look at them in a different light.  

In my recent review of Fate Core and Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE), the standard and streamlined versions of the Fate role-playing system, I discussed how FAE’s use of Approaches differs from the use of Skills in Fate Core.  I even argued that this made FAE a more faithful adaptation of the Fate “pillars”, Competence, Proactivity and Drama.

The latest post in my current series showing step-by-step how I use FAE to adapt a literary setting discussed using the FAE (and Fate) mechanics to model specific features of the Budayeen setting from George Alec Effinger’s Marĩd Audran series, a Middle Eastern cyberpunk version of New Orleans’ French Quarter.  This post attracted a number of questions on the use of Approaches, as well as on the role of Aspects; many gamers are still left somewhat confused on how Approaches fit in adapting specific settings to FAE, and exactly what they represent.

Here are some more thoughts to help clarify the issue.  While this post fits in with the Budayeen adaptation series, it addresses a more general context applicable to any game you plan using FAE — and, I think, Fate Core.

The Golden Rule

You may have heard the Fate system described as “fractal” because you can use the same methods at different scales.  People usually refer to more specific rules mechanics, and we’ll discuss them further when we talk about the “Bronze Rule”; but in fact, Fate’s fractal or scalable nature applies throughout.

Fate Core’s Golden Rule (p. 185): Decide what you’re trying to accomplish first, then consult the rules to help you do it.  While this rule is first brought up when discussing the Game Master’s job during play sessions, it actually describes most of a GM’s job right from the moment you decide you’ll run a game.

Specifically in setting creation, adaptation, or conversion, you need to set clearly what you’re trying to accomplish in order to use the rules effectively to do it.

In my Budayeen example, my goal is to create a game setting that will provide the feel of Effinger’s Budayeen stories in a game powered by the FAE system.  Maybe I should call it Step 0: Goal, since in started my example with Step 1: Inspirations.  Most of the time when I work on a game setting that borrows from literary fiction, comics, movies or television, this fidelity to the setting is going to be part of the goal.

However, there are occasions where a GM may try to model other features; in particular, sometimes a GM wants to replicate the feel of another game system.  For example, maybe you’ve been running a campaign in another system and you’d now like to port it over to Fate.  Or maybe you’re creating a whole new campaign, but your players are die-hard fans of another system and you’d like to make this look as familiar as possible.

These are all fine and achievable goals, but unless we make them explicit, articulate them clearly right at the beginning (Golden Rule), it will be very hard for two people to have a clear discussion if their implicit goals are different.