Its’ not what it looks like… unless that is sand, then it is what it looks like
Want to win some genuine Starwars sand, direct from the Tunisian desert and Lars Homestead itself? Yeah ya do!
But Matt how do we know it isn’t just sand from your garden or a building site? Well good sirs, it would be my pleasure to authenticate this sand by showing you something very special.
I work in the same company as a guy called Mark Cox, who, was part of an international team that went to Tunisia with the sole purpose of restoring Lars homestead back to its movie glory days… still don’t believe me, then check out the interview I did with him a few years back.. and the videos attached
There will be 5 Winners chosen after the 2 week period, this is open to everywhere, I’ll even post it myself)
4 winners will get a small baggy , filled with the Starwars Sand and a Save Lars Homestead card to show authenticity
1 Winner will get the same as above BUT, as Mark was nice enought to actually give me a lump of Lars homestead itself, I have broken off a little bit and added it to the bag… I know, I know.. I’m awesome.
Giveaway ends Midnight (GMT) 30th June
Big thanks to Mark Cox for sorting us out with the Sand and the Card.. a true Geek Hero!
[toggle_simple title=”Disclaimer” width=”Width of toggle box”]This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook. We hereby release Facebook of any liability. Winner(s) will be contacted by email after the giveaway ends. If you have any additional questions – feel free to send us an email![/toggle_simple]
Here’s the newer, slightly longer international trailer for Riddick: Rule the Dark. The film releases on 6 September (UK and US). Let us know what you think in the comments.
Civilization V is probably my favourite strategy game at the moment; I’ve lost count of the hours I’ve spent clicking away on this game and so I was delighted to hear that there’s a second expansion pack, titled Brave New World, due for release on 12th July in the UK/9th July in North America. However, the first expansion, Gods & Kings, was quite disappointing as it didn’t provide enough content to justify it’s £20 price tag. Brave New World is currently available for pre-order at the same price so will this one give us our money’s worth?
Here are the details of the features included in Brave New World, taken from the official Civilization V website:
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New Culture Victory: Spread your culture across the globe, dominate all other cultures. Create masterpieces with Great Artists, Writers and Musicians that are placed in key buildings across your empire like Museums, Opera Houses, and even the Great Library. Use Archaeologists to investigate sites of ancient battles and city ruins for priceless cultural artifacts. Become the first civilization with a majority influence in all other civilizations to achieve a Culture Victory, becoming the envy of the world.
New Policies and Ideologies:Enter the Industrial Age and choose the ideology of your people: Freedom, Order, or Autocracy. Each ideology grants access to increasingly powerful abilities, and serves the different victory conditions in unique ways. The choices you make will impact your relationships with other civilizations for the rest of the game.
World Congress: The importance of diplomacy is intensified and city-state alliances are more important than ever. Change the diplomatic landscape through a new World Congress that votes on critical issues like implementing trade sanctions against rogue nations, limiting resource usage, designating host cities for the World Games, and the use of nuclear weapons. Game-changing resolutions, vote trading, intrigue and a new lead-in to the Diplomatic Victory ensures that the end of the game will be more dynamic than ever before.
International Trade Routes: Build your cities into hubs of international trade by land and sea, creating great wealth and prosperity for your people, while also spreading religion, cultural influence, and science. The number of trade routes increases through the advancement of economics and technologies, the creation of wonders, and the unique abilities of your civilization. Will you connect to a closer city for a lower payoff and a safer route, choose a longer route with more risk for the bigger payoff, or perhaps point your trade route inward, sending vitally important food and production to the far corners of your own empire?
New Civilizations, Units and Buildings:Nine new leaders and civilizations are introduced, including Casimir of Poland, each with their unique traits, units and buildings.
New Wonders: This expansion set introduces eight new Wonders including the Parthenon, Broadway, the Globe Theater, and the Uffizi.
Two New Scenarios:
– American Civil War: Fight the “War Between the States” from either the Union or Confederate side as you focus on the critical Eastern theatre of operations between the capital cities of Richmond and Washington.
– Scramble for Africa:The great colonial powers of the world are scrambling to explore the Dark Continent and extend their reach into its interior. Search for the great natural wonders of the heart of Africa as you explore a dynamically-generated continent each time you play.
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The first 2 features listed, which are described as “new,” are not actually new; victory can already be accomplished by accumulating culture points and the ideologies they list already feature in the core game; the new parts are quite subtle changes to the existing features and so only one sentence from each of these paragraphs is really a new addition to the best of my knowledge, which are; “Use Archaeologists to investigate sites of ancient battles and city ruins for priceless cultural artifacts” for the cultural victory and “The choices you make will impact your relationships with other civilizations for the rest of the game” for the ideologies, although it’s not clear if new policies will be added in addition to the existing ones.
Here’s a video with more details on the cultural features:
As for the world congress and international trade routes, these are existing features but it appears that there will be more depth to them and these could be features that really make a difference as Civ V is quite lacking in the diplomacy area, which is a key part of the game. How much of a difference it will actually make is hard to tell without actually playing it. Gods and Kings added faith and espionage to the game and they really didn’t do that much for the game-play in my opinion, so I’m a little sceptical about how much these features will add to the experience.
New wonders, civilizations and building are all well and good but some they’ve listed have featured in previous Civilization games and so I think they really should have made it in to the core game, rather than part of an expansion pack.
Finally, there’s 2 new scenarios, which don’t really interest me that much; there’s only been a couple in the core game and the first expansion, which did and I didn’t play them more than once.
In Summary:
The first expansion was slammed by both critics and consumers alike, due to the lack of content for the £20 price tag; Brave New World appears to offer even less for the same price and it doesn’t offer new features to the main game, just more depth to existing ones; at least diplomacy is given some attention in this one though as it really needed some. We’ll have to wait for the release to really see if it has value for money but it looks like it won’t as far as I can see. This is not something I’ll buy at the time of release but I’m sure I will once the price drops.
Please let us know if you have any views on the features detailed for this expansion. We would love to hear them.
Assuming he doesn’t pull his punch then you’d die, obviously. But what would be the cause of death? Would your face implode or head fly off? If only there was someone to explain it. Well there is! Luckily Vsauce3 tells all in this very informative video, with just the right amount of science to make it a fun. Yep, should the Man of Steel take a dislike to you, a puny human, there’s going to be collateral damage.
When the news of the latest consoles broke I was one of the happiest people on earth. I consider myself one of the second generation of gamers. I wasn’t there for the Magnavox Odyssey (1972) or the Phillips Odyssey (1976). But I was around for the rest, the Ataris, the Amigas, the Sega Master System and Nintendo Entertainment System (Nes).
Tetris for Gameboy
From the age of four I remember opening a package on Christmas day and seeing the original Gameboy and that was it. I missed the rest of Christmas it passed by in a blur as my head was buried in Tetris and Mario and thus my life began as a gamer.
The Console War
Unfortunately I didn’t count on the entire price of the new consoles, at the moment I can easily be considered poor. I have very little money and it doesn’t look like this will change soon, so the thought of shelling out £429 for the X-Box 1 or even £349 for the Playstation 4 is a big ask. Especially if you consider each game is looking to go for around £54.99.
At first I thought this wouldn’t be a problem, second-hand games become quite cheap after a while, but if developers get their way this will no longer be an option. I then had the notion of renting a game, maybe from Blockbuster whilst it still stays open. But then the same problem arises, it will be impossible to rent games just like it will be difficult/nigh on impossible to get second-hand games.
Shenmue for Dreamcast
So, distraught at the thought of being unable to join in the gaming revolution for the first time in my life, I decided instead to go backwards. I believe a lot more people will do the same thing. Whilst I have the X-Box, the Dreamcast and PS2, there are so many games I haven’t played on them. If you go to Computer Exchange or even eBay you can find an abundance of these games for anywhere from £0.50p to £12 if it’s a good or rare game.
Even at £12 you could still buy 4 great games for PS2 or X-Box for the price of a single game on the next-gen console.
When the first computer was made, it was believed that they would eventually become so big and so powerful, that only the rich and powerful would be able to afford them. And yet, 72 years later they have come down in price and availability. Whereas consoles appear to be rising in price with each generation, as do the games and the controllers.
Game Dev Tycoon
My question has become, why am I spending over £470 or £400 for a console and one game. When, on my laptop I have a plethora of new independent games, Game Dev Tycoon ($7.99*), Amnesia: The Dark Descent (£12.99) or even Bastion (£11.49).
Who are Sony and Microsoft really aiming their new products at? It can’t be the students, the poor or even the casual gamer. It seems to me they are aiming their products at the rich, but I can see parents around Christmas time selling some of their stuff just to make their child happy on Christmas day even though they can’t really afford it. And in todays economy, a double-dip recession with no end in sight, this could be a dangerous situation to be in.
I had very low expectations of this movie, especially since I chose to go in to see it without reading anything about it beforehand. There was just something about it that made me wonder why I even spent money on the ticket. Five seconds into the movie I was glued to my seat, wondering why I had any doubts about it. It has Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman, for crying out loud!
But back to the topic at hand. The movie tells a convoluted story of magic, mystery and plots, keeping you constantly on the edge as you try to solve the puzzle, with little to no success. It seems like the writers have kept up with whatever the viewers might think and did the opposite, just to keep us all on our toes.
Four magicians, with marginally successful acts -some of them as street hustlers- are suddenly summoned by a mysterious man through tarot cards that supposedly represent each of them. One year later they are the most successful magic acts around, their actions seemingly done in order to showcase their magical abilities; but when they involve robbing a bank, and their own employer,, things get heated and the FBI gets involved. Now I don’t know about you, but I love magic. I love believing that what Dynamo is doing is real and not some trick and I loved believing that the characters were more than shams, who happened to be great at tricking people. Like everyone else, I know magic is nothing but misdirection, but this movie reminded me and I think the entire room that it’s also fun and it’s much more entertaining to look at it without trying to expose the trick.
What at first seemed like the tale of a robbery, the best the world has ever seen, turned out to have little to do with their desire to be stealing property, but it had a lot to do with a very important lesson: When you’re not good at something, don’t try to bring down those that are. No one likes that.For those of us unaccustomed to a lot of magic tricks there were little gems here and there that explained how the simplest of illusions are created, but for the most part the secrets revealed did nothing to dispel my love of magic.
Each one of the actors was fantastically well chosen, truthfully few people could portray obfuscating stupidity as well as Mark Ruffalo or play out arrogance with the relaxation of Michael Caine or Morgan Freeman. While they get less screen time than Jesse Eisenberg, Woody Harelson, Isla Fisher or Dave Franco (who is slightly neglected, despite being able to act) they have managed to steal every scene in which they happened to be present, reminding us all just what makes them two of the most beloved and talented actors in the world. Which is not to say the youngsters didn’t hold their own.
While the movie was fast paced and had a lot of fantastic special effects, it would’ve ended up as lame as many hit and miss movies that have graced our screens as of late if it were lacking the talented cast and dare I say it a writer that knows how to keep things from being predictable. If there was one thing I liked about this move it was that I was thwarted from all my attempts to figure out who did it. It was Agatha Christie with magic and flash paper.
Personally, I loved the great reveal at the end (which I’ll tell you nothing about, because you really have to see this movie in order to fully appreciate the information) as I loved the fact that there were no clear villains in this movie. Not in terms of laws, at least. The way we as humans look at the situation faulted, in our eyes, the people that surprisingly had justice on their side- or at least the loopholes in the legal system at their beck and call. The heroes of the story were innocent in our opinion because they were doing the right thing by the many that have been, more than once, cheated out of their goods. It’s probably what made the story so appealing, how many times have we wished for some superhero,without a cape, to show up and make things right in our lives? Now You See Medoes just that, it gives us a defender of the average Joe, and despite their less than honourable reasons, it was hard not to root for them.
All in all? It was worth going through the scorching heat that melted the asphalt to see it and I would go again, just because it’s that good. Don’t miss it, it’s better to watch it on the big screen and, thankfully, it wasn’t in 3D so you won’t leave the place cross-eyed and sporting a headache. Or is that just me? Check out the trailer below and if you do see it, let us know what you thought about it.
8 June 1949 George Orwell’s novel ‘1984’ was first published. Globally accepted to be a ‘must read’ for all it coined the term Big Brother, as the omnipresent government among other things held constant surveillance on its citizens, the book gave us the phrase ‘Big Brother is watching you’. Over the years many people, mostly dubbed conspiracy crackpots, I mean theorists, would spout out that our governments are watching, spying and collecting information on each and every one of us and these people were by the by largely ignored (and for good reason). Of course Governments kept tabs on its citizens and visitors should there be just cause, how else were certain criminals and criminal groups/organisations brought to justice? But as for you and me, well we have nothing to fear, nothing to hide and therefore nothing for our Governments to keep tabs on. With the no just cause the vast populous of countries were ignored to get on with their lives knowing that the Government was tracking and capturing evil doers.
Why a security program needs a logo I do not know
Now fast forward to 6 June 2013; news breaks about the existence of PRISM, leaked by NSA contractor Edward Snowden via The Guardian and The Washington Post newspapers. Damn, if only they held back the headlines for two days, that would have had the conspiracy theorists in overdrive. For those of you who have been living under a rock, or China (and if you are still in China you will still not know what’s going on or be reading this article… so who am I writing this for? Anyway…), PRISM is a clandestine national security electronic surveillance program operated by the United States National Security Agency since 2007. The Programs actual title is US-984XN, I kid you not, 984… as in 1984?
Get your tin foil hats on right now people we are in for a ride. Basically the NSA have been ordering all electronic communication companies (phones and internet providers etc.) to hand over every bit of information that passed through their servers on a daily basis. That’s right our American cousins, your elected Government has (allegedly) for the past 6 years been collecting copies of every email and text message you have ever sent, along with recording every phone call you have made and internet site you have visited… no point in deleting that internet history now or switching to ‘in private’ browsing as they already know and always have. This led to reports that other governments being involved, including the United Kingdom’s Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ); however, William Vague, I mean Hague (the Foreign Secretary) cannot confirm nor deny knowing of, using or having access to PRISM or anything similar for national security reasons (or he just doesn’t know, I wouldn’t put is past him).
This brought a lot of rage on both sides of the Atlantic with regard issues on civil rights and privacy. With the backlash in full flow, many communication companies quickly distanced themselves stating that they have not allowed the United States government access to their servers.
I see gaming people
Then 10 June 2013 during E3 Microsoft unveiled their latest Xbox, the Xbox One, a machine that they claim is more than just a games console and will be the ultimate in living room entertainment devices (don’t worry this is still the same story). However, this did not come without controversy as among all the razzmatazz, Microsoft announced that the Xbox One will come with an all new Kinect. For the majority of people this was great news, with its Real Vision, Real Motion and Real Voice, this is to change how we not only play games but also interact with our televisions. Then the news dropped, the Kinect will be on at all times, even when in standby, it will be on and will be watching us at all times, recording everything we say and do while also recognising who comes and goes in the room. All this information will be uploaded to Microsofts’ servers and stored for God knows what reason or even for how long. That’s right, Big Brother has a Little Brother and we shall call him Microsoft. Enter the Nerd rage, once again with regard civil rights and privacy.
Now don’t get me wrong I understand the need for civil rights and privacy, I want them and I want to have a private life that is…well private. However; can we really jump up and down, banging our drums while screaming blue murder? Well let me give you two sides of the coin so that you can judge yourself. Firstly in today’s world, with terrorist threats and a growing number of plain old psychopaths roaming the streets, with probable cause and a courts or other legislative branches order, certain peoples data has and will always be accessed and this is something we will can all agree with (whether anything is done with this information is another matter).
Improper Books has done it again. After teasing us with Porcelain, A gothic fairy tale for ages, it’s time for them to show us something they’ve been working at for a while – Knight and Dragon. We’ll keep you posted with news about it and, because we’re cool like that, we’ll try to get an interview with the authors. In the meanwhile, check out what they, themselves had to say about it.
Written by Matt Gibbs and illustrated by Bevis Musson, with colours by Nathan Ashworth, KNIGHT & DRAGON playfully subverts the story of a heroic Knight defeating a ferocious Dragon to rescue the fair Maiden, by offering variant paths and multiple outcomes to the classic fairy tale adventure.
Each narrative begins the same, with a beleaguered Knight riding his Horse into a seemingly deserted village, where the majority of the Villagers mistake him for a heroic warrior. Distracted by the beauty of the Maiden, before he really knows what he’s doing, the Knight agrees to fight a Dragon and, much to the Maiden’s evident dismay, the Village Chief offers the Knight her hand in marriage should he succeed. Learning too late from the Villagers that the Dragon is both huge and ferocious, the despondent Knight heads out to meet his fate, and at this point the stories begin to diverge…
From here, the Knight, Dragon and Maiden, along with the Horse, Farmhand and Village Chief, provide different paths through the unfolding narratives before reaching different endings.
‘It began as an idea to create a comic that allowed changes in the sequence and resolution of its scenes, enabling different stories to be told,’ said Matt, about Knight & Dragon. ‘This lends itself seamlessly to digital comics, but in a similar fashion to gamebooks, a print version is just as possible with a bit of additional heavy lifting, or page turning, on the part of the reader.’
‘It has also allowed Bevis and I to explore our mutual love of fairy tales, and I’m delighted that the branching script didn’t put him off. I’m a big fan of his work, especially the excellent Dead Queen Detectives, and it has been brilliant seeing each page come to life in his style, which is being perfectly complimented by Nathan’s colours.’
‘It’s always a pleasure to take things you love and approach them in a new way, so with Knight & Dragon I get to combine my love of fairy tales and comics and do something that is both familiar and surprising,’ said Bevis, about the project. ‘How could I not jump at the chance to draw a story with romance, drama, action, adventure and a whacking great dragon? In the end I even enjoyed drawing the horse, once I worked out he could wear a tablecloth.’
Designed with both print and digital in mind, Knight & Dragon is a picture book comic for all ages, due out in 2013.
Straight to the Point : I enjoyed Man of Steel immensely and will start you off with what I posted on my facebook page:
I’m actually finding it hard to express how immense Man of Steel was. Yeah, it’s another superhero film, yes there are plot holes and it was gratuitous but it it pushed every emotive bone in my body: sadness , apprehension, amazement, awe, happiness and elation. Amazing film, truly amazing. Im still buzzing!
The initial defence
I have yet to read any reviews of MOS but I am aware that some, maybe a lot of people, did not see it the same way I did. In fact one of my contributors, for this very site, is busily writing a review which holds Superman in a not so bright light . A shame, but freedom of speech and all. I therefore will structure the enclosed as a review and a defence (at the same time) for what I feel will be lambasted against it…. wish me luck!
Despite not being an avid comic book collector, Superman was and is my favourite Superhero. Watching the films, cartoons and reading the odd comic book I had as a child really started a proper bromance with me and the boy in blue. Why? Well for numerous reasons. I was a thin, scrawny, thick glasses wearing nerd, I got beaten up quite regularly and the dream of being able to fly, leap tall buildings and be impervious to harm, resonated with me. This was at a time where everything was still possible and maybe just maybe I would be granted these powers, or I’d be in an industrial accent that would provide them for me; sadly not.
Obviously we live in a scientific world now ,where pretty much everything is explained and the chances of super powers… well… nil. So why do I still like him now, why don’t I find him boring like many of my fellow geeks? The answer is simple; I am a goodie two shoes , always have been and always will be. I can’t play bad characters in games, I can’t not give money to that homeless guy on the street, I feel deep sadness when I see wrong doing, and I will always look out for others. Virtues that a lot of super heroes have ( not that I would ever stand amongst them) but ones I feel are epitomised by Superman, the Man of Steel.
Honesty, loyalty, honour, belief, kindness, selflessness and Love. All of these are shown in the Man of Steel, lessons learnt from two fathers who saw the best in humanity and the greatness it could obtain with the right guidance…
The Review
Superman has been on a bit of a down turn of late, with more ‘real’ super heroes like Batman and Ironman, surpassing him in popularity and the boy in Blue being resigned to the shelf as a fossil of our geek heritage . This is partially down to the belief that he is not ‘real’ enough, because the last movie wasn’t great (which it wasnt) and because the new torrent of hero films have been; darker, grittier and more impassioned affairs, breaking away from the cheesier norm and hitting viewers with something, different.
Rumours of the new ‘Man of Steel’ film were taken with a pinch of salt, with a distinct cynicism and the initial lead up to its release was at best lukewarm. It wasn’t until trailers (like the below) started to come out that peoples appetites were wetted and that Superman fans and non superman fans alike started to stand up and show interest.
First of all it was Zack Snyder (300, Sucker Punch, Watchmen) with help from Christopher Nolan (Inception, the Dark Knight) so we knew it was going to hit the darker and grittier button. and secondly we knew it involved some pretty high rate actors; Kevin Costner, Russell Crow and Laurence Fishburne; with the main roles being filled my established but newish faces in the form of Henry Cavill and Michael Shannon. It looked like it was going to turn out to be something special.
And that it was. From the very Start it was a visual feast or CG, explosions and epic fights. percolated with poignant flash backs of the young Clark growing up and getting to grips with his new family and his powers. I won’t go into great detail about the film itself because I don’t want to spoil it for those who haven’t seen it but I was impressed. and I will list why:
I like action films, I know, I know, but I do and MOS delivers and then some. With little time for a rest it hits you like an assault on your eyes and ears and as they say ‘ feels’ Towards the end my heart was racing and I was literally staring a gawp at was unfolding in front of me. This was helped by some emotionally evocative music that kicked home and I am not ashamed to admit, had a tear roll from my eye in a few parts.
There is very little comic relief and I like that. Don’t get me wrong, I like a good comedy, or in like Iron man, a semi – serious, semi comic superhero film but when in like Ironman 3 it takes over, I think it taints the edge slightly and this is something MOS steal has… edge. Yes there are some mildly comic bits throughout but nothing that over powers or up stages the rest of the film.
Clark isn’t a bumbling idiot, he’s just a normal guy who’s getting to grips with his powers and trying to help people. Don’t get me wrong, the old Clarke was endearing but I am glad that they moved away from what had gone before , giving a bit of a nod towards the end.
Louise Lane (Amy Adams) is plain.. and I mean this in a good way. In a lot of films on this level, the heroin would be a photoshopped beauty with big tits, curves and always wearing something revealing. Louise isn’t like this in MOS, she is a beautiful lass but she is not fake looking and I don’t think she ever wears anything that accentuates curves or shows off cleavage. This makes it all the more satisfying to see a superhuman falling for what is in effect average jo public.. a good lesson I think.
Cavill as Superman (Kal El, Clark Kent) and Shannon as Zod. Two home runs (or knocking it for 6 if you play cricket) actors wise. Shannon plays an amazing General Zod, with an understated but growing menace; an elastic band stretched to its full extent and the finally released and Cavill, at the other end, is now on a par if not surpassing Christopher Reeves as Superman for me. He plays the gentle giant so well, bringing character to all of the virtues I listed previously but still with an underlying human edge filled with anguish, uncertainty and dilemma.
Finally what I liked the most about MOS was the fact Zods soldiers had to wear respirators and that it was the krytonian atmosphere that weakened superman. I also like the effects the powers had; like when he used his heat vision it had to be shaken off after and how he didn’t just get these powers and know how to deal with them, he had to learn to train and overcome the paralysing effects.
The only gripes I had, and I am unsure if this is the way it was filmed or just because I was watching it in IMAX 3D but at the start when Jor-El is flying around, dodging Zods forces made me feel slightly sick and I couldn’t really focus on what was going on properly. Also I couldn’t help but wonder how Louise Lane got everywhere she was? and how (later on) how many thousands of people died when zod and Superman crashed through skyscrapers, bringing them to the ground… the human cost of a great action film wouldn’t be complete without a great body count I guess.
Yes it does follow a generic formula, it is gratuitous with regards to explosions, lens flair, big sound and big action; and there are plot holes, if you care to look for them, but is that not what big budget action films are all about? Do you really need to pick holes in them? ‘Yes’ you may say, for it is a geeks prerogative to find fault just as others find fault in us. What I would say to that though is, if you pick something apart, you have to be prepared to defend other similar films that you hold dear, as is the hypocrisy of the overzealous geek.
Other Reason I feel people may dislike MOS:
You don’t like Superman as a character…. fair does
You like your films in another language (preferably Swedish or Korean), with subtitles and in black and white.
You only like films with more twists than my lower colon….. the butler did it, what? Orrrr did he? What.. you mean the butler is but a figment of my imagination, and we are all floating inside a cardboard tube on the precipice of evolutionary enlightenment…. oh wait the butler did do it.
Films are not to be enjoyed for what they are but to be dissected for your enjoyment and to inform others that you have a deeper level and can see through all the superficial bullshit.. being a mindless pleb, I was unaware of the deep value to film and how it is sullied by such cheap crowd pleasers
They suck! ( awww only joking…. no really they do)
I jest of course (remember, goodie two shoes here) but with all due respect to a lot of my learned, piers, I think too much thought is given to what is, in essence, fast food, in film form. It’s not meant to be refined, or deep, or overly meaningful (though I did find some of this in MOS), it’s just meant to be a good old romp, a visual feast for us to enjoy and something easy to digest at a moment’s notice….suuuure I’d love the veil chop, in honey roasted jus with a fine claret but hey I still fucking looooove KFC and so do a lot of people.
It’s like a food critique going into said fast food joint and reviewing the chicken burger; slightly unfair. Or myself (a massive heavy metal fan) going to Cream Fields.. it doesn’t stand a chance!
Anyway, I have no doubt bored to you tears with what is more a defence than a review so I will conclude.
Conclusion
Man of Steel, is in this humble writer and geeks opinion, one of the best superhero films YET, a big statement I know and I loved Avengers, Iron Man and the Dark knight, but I loved if for more than the film, I loved it not only because it has brought back a more emotionally rich superman but also because, damn it, he’s a good guy; he loves his mum, he loves his people, he will do anything in is power to stop the forces of evil. He is a goodie two shoes, just like me :o)
If you like you fast food, don’t read too much into things, enjoy a good story and some epic CG then Man of steel will be for you. If you a norman negative then i’d stay away.
I loved it, all 10 Geek Pride points!
If you would like to see a more tame, middle of the ground review then check out Dans HERE:
In 2002, writer Brian K Vaughan (Lost, Saga, Runaways), alongside artist Pia Guerra (2008 Eisner Award Winner) brought to life a story about a man ‘Yorick Brown’ and his monkey ‘Ampersand’. On July 17th 2002 a virus simultaneously kills every living mammal possessing a Y Chromosome; except for the main character Yorick and his faithful companion Ampersand.
Apocalyptic scenarios thrive in sci-fi stories and as the name suggests, this book will be adding to the trend. With all men now dead, society is plunged into chaos as the surviving women try to cope with the tragic loss of all men on the planet. The wives of the now dead senators and men in government take up their spouses roles in the world, this includes Yorick’s own mother who herself is a US Senator. Whilst some women try their best to rebuild the world, others form an Amazonian cult who believe the virus was a godsend, and react poorly to the knowledge that Yorick has been left alive.
Yorick leaves New York with his capuchin monkey and heads to Washington D.C to meet his mother, mainly to let her know that he is okay, but to tell her that he’s going on a cross-country journey to find his fiancee Beth DeVille, who was in Australia at the time of the apocalyptic event. He doesn’t just have his monkey for company (but it would be giving away too much to say why). The mysterious Agent 355 is sent along as Yoricks bodyguard. A bodyguard that he will need given the danger he faces in his goal to reach his fiance, with gas (petrol) and food becoming scarce and a lack of public transport.
This series is yet another hit from under the Vertigo umbrella and is well worth a read. Of course there are a few questions that remain unanswered or seem foolish to me. For instance, why let the last known man in existence travel on a dangerous cross-country journey instead of test to see if he’s able to produce male babies. However, I believe that Vaughan’s writing is good, the story strong and, unlike some, doesn’t outstay its welcome – with a mere 10 graphic novels, or 5 hardback deluxe editions. My only concern is the actual ending of the entire series, it won’t harm your reading pleasure of the story but has left many, for want of a better word numb. Nobody is quite sure if they like it or not, me I really enjoyed it but that’s just one persons opinion.
However if you’re somebody who needs more than one reviewer’s thumbs up, this series has collected two Eisner awards, one in 2005 for Best Writer and another in 2008 for best continuing series. If you see yourself as a graphic novel fan then I do believe you need to read this series.
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