Weekly Geekly Rundown for May 10th, 2024
Random Musings on Pop Culture and Geekdom in General
"Like Tears in Rain"? Hakon Soreide Has Recreated Famous Blade Runner Scene Using Only PETSCII Text
The chase scene between Roy Batty and Rick Deckard has become one of the most iconic scenes in Science Fiction filmic history. It transforms what had been a narrative of two predators hunting one another into something more, a narrative of redemption. Roy Batty's actions at the end of the scene, and his monologue, change the dynamic of the entire film. It's a moment of great meaning, meaning that is diluted if one is in the "Deckard is a Replicant" camp. In this scene a replicant gives up its life for "the other." It's a moment that completely subverts the conflict of the book that inspired Blade Runner, but this moment also manages to take that subversion to become a perfect conduit for the moral message of the novel. It is the moment when the replicant truly becomes “more human than human” and it is a thing of beauty.
You can watch Hakon Soreide's full adaptation of this scene into PETSCII characters in the embedded video below. PETSCII, for those who don't know, is the particular expression of text characters (and some specialized graphic icons) for the Commodore 64 and other Commodore computers. Soreide's painstaking recreation of the scene is the product of hard work and it generates a kind of dual nostalgia; nostalgia for the movie and nostalgia for the Commodore 64. Very cool.
Computer Roleplaying Game Vaporware
While Dungeons & Dragons is the biggest brand in the tabletop roleplaying game space, it isn’t the only brand to have inspired video games. In 1990, New World Computing made a video game version of the Tunnels & Trolls game. The game was designed by Liz Danforth, who has illustrated many editions of Tunnels & Trolls and was the editor on the classic 5th Edition of the game. While subsequent editions are excellent, the 5th Edition was where Tunnels & Trolls shifted from a semi-amateur product to a professional looking and playing game. Danforth’s editing was a big reason why.
It’s interesting to me that even though Tunnels & Trolls is a much smaller game in terms of market share than Dungeons & Dragons that more of its original creators worked directly in the video game field than Dungeons & Dragons. Ken St. Andre and Mike Stackpole went on to work on the Wasteland video game for Interplay, a game that “heavily influenced” Fallout. Though primarily known as an illustrator/painter, Liz Danforth worked on Wasteland, Star Trek: 25th Anniversary, and Star Trek Judgement Rights in addition to her work on the Tunnels & Trolls game for New World Computing.
Jennell Jaquays, who worked for pretty much all of the early RPG companies from Chaosium to TSR, created some premium products for Flying Buffalo including books in the Citybook line. Her Central Casting books were supposed to be published by Flying Buffalo, but were published by Task Force Games instead.
Jennell’s connection to Mike Stackpole got her a job at Coleco where she and Stackpole worked on what was intended to be a ColecoVision Tunnels & Trolls game. The game was advertised and a title screen was designed, but sadly a full game was never released. I often wonder at what could have been.
Weekly Film Article Cavalcade
The Lamentations of Luke Y. Thompson
Luke gives a very positive review to the latest film in the Planet of the Apes franchise, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, over at SuperHeroHype. I’ve long given up on the franchise due to a kind of never ending sameness. There hasn’t been any narrative movement in the series for some time. Looks like this one might be a little different in this regard, so I’ll eventually check it out.
Courtney Howard’s View from the Center Seat
Courtney Howard’s review of Mother of the Bride ends with a commentary very similar to the one I make below about modern pop culture not being brave or taking real risks. It might be too much to expect from a film that is essentially a remake/mashup, but it can be done. In this case though, it seems to suffer from the same kind of mid-tier meaninglessness of the Cheaper by the Dozen remakes. The original Cheaper by the Dozen hits hard emotionally and ends in triumph, even as it contains commentary on the role of women in society. The newer film attempts to be mere pleasant comedy. It succeeds to a degree, but fails to be meaningful. From Courtney’s review of Mother, I’m sensing a bit of the same kind of failure here. She highlights the elements of the film that hint at a deeper and better film, but notes that those elements are suppressed by the need to be inoffensive.
Glimpses from the Substackosphere and Bloggerverse
I’ve got two entries from
this week. The first is one that’s near and dear to my heart. I’ve always been angered by the Satanic Panic and its attacks on popular culture that were both ignorant and misguided. I’ve also often been impressed with the thoughtful responses to those critics. In this first piece share’s Dave A Trampier’s response to a 60 minutes story about D&D and suicide.
Dave Trampier (aka DAT and Tramp) is THE quintessential AD&D artist. His illustrations for the Players Handbook and Dungeon Masters Guide are both beautiful artwork and set the tone of play. There are no heroic warriors on those covers, but there are dire threats. The world depicted in Tramp’s art isn’t the high adventure and heroism suggested by a lot of Basic and Expert D&D Art, or the art of Dragonlance, instead it is a world of thieves and cutthroats, a world of murderhobos. It perfectly captures D&D.
Tramp was more than a talented fantasy painter though, he was also one of the great cartoonists of his generation. His Wormy comic strip starts out rough around the edges, but by the end of the series is as high quality as that of the best cartoonists. That the comic strip ended on a random moment in the middle of a storyline has frustrated fans for decades.
That abrupt ending hints at a kind of irony to Tramp’s defense of D&D. He completely abandoned fantasy gaming and art after the final panel above. He stopped taking his royalty checks and some thought he was dead, until he was “discovered” one day when a college student wrote a story about an interesting cab driver they met. You can read the context of that story over at the Skyland Games blog and you can read the original news story here.
The second piece by
is a link to the most recent Retroist podcase in which they talk about The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, a show that got a lot more right about the tone and feel of Indiana Jones than the more recent films.The podcast episode reminded me of how much I missed my own podcast and that’s why I finished uploading The Big Bang Theory interview I did back in the day. In case you were wondering why you got an email alert for a 15 year old podcast recording, that’s why. I’m in the process of republishing the old podcast episodes as I plan on relaunching the show.
Episode 53 -- Big Bang Theory's David Goetsch Joins the Geeks
David Goetsch was a Co-executive Producer on the CBS comedy The Big Bang Theory. David has also written for 3rd Rock from the Sun and Game Over. Back in May of 2008 he joined the geeks to discuss the…
I’ve been enjoying
’s discussions of Irish folklore of late and it was really interesting reading about his personal journey in learning Scottish Gaelic. His story reminded me of when I read Iron and Silk by Mark Salzman. The pure will involved in learning a language on your own and without too many institutional supports is an inspiring one. That it’s a language beyond my own comprehension, especially when it comes to the way it is transliterated, makes it all the more impressive.
Role Playing Game Recommendation
Richard Iorio II has long been one of my favorite independent game designers. He formed Rogue Games in 2007, which was the first company to publish James Maliszewski’s science fiction roleplaying game Thousand Suns. Richard was a co-author on the first edition of that game and followed up his work on that game with work on the Sword & Sorcery roleplaying game Shadow, Sword, and Spell and Colonial Gothic, an excellent game that combines the American Horror tradition with tales of the American Revolution. Richard worked with other designers to do a Zweihander influenced version of Colonial Gothic called Flames of Freedom, but now he’s back with a new Kickstarter to bring back the original title in a new edition.
You can read about the Kickstarter below and I recommend backing the game when it comes out. Until then though, I HIGHLY recommend buying the 3rd Edition of the game and giving it a run on your table.
From the Fire Comes Freedom
In print since 2007, Colonial Gothic has grown into something unique. His uniqueness is in the setting. The world is one that history many do not know because it is a hidden history.
Colonial Gothic uncovers the hidden truths and malevolent enemies lurking in the shadows, influencing events and conspiring against the world as we know it.
But beware, in this world, Magic is real. Creatures of the occult and supernatural exist, and they will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. As a player, you experience the thrill of the unknown, the terror of the unseen, and the satisfaction of defeating the forces of darkness. As a Gamemaster, you have many ideas and resources to craft unforgettable adventures and campaigns. So, join us in the world of Colonial Gothic, and let the darkness consume you.
The great nations of Europe struggled to control the New World. Native Americans struggle for their land and their lives. Many struggle for wealth and position. A new nation is about to be born.
But look beneath the surface.
Monsters stalk the woods. Angry ghosts and spiteful witches plague the villagers.
Explorers search for lost cities and fabled treasures. Ancient evils are awakened. There is a secret history, and this history deals with events taking place in the shadows.
These events play a role in the history of the American colonies and soon. The truth is hidden, and plots are afoot. Events are moving behind the scenes, and lurking in the shadows are agents with agendas. These events will offer will soon ask you to choose a side.
Suddenly, the sounds of musket fire can be heard. Its sound is heard from the colonies in England. This sounds like one thing: war is coming.
Revised, rewritten, and redesigned Colonial Gothic 4the Edition Rises from the Flames carries on the tradition, providing players and Gamemasters with what they need to run adventures during the American Revolution.
Everything you need to run a historical supernatural horror game is found in this book: rules covering the use of Magic and alchemy, in-depth information on the life and times of the colonies, and a bestiary of monsters pulled straight from the period.
Using a fast and simple mechanic, setting up and running a game of Colonial Gothic has never been easier. Because of this, to help you fully understand the period, the book includes what the many like setting.
This 4th Edition Rulebook is compatible with all previous Colonial Gothic adventures and sourcebooks.
Now, the time has come.
War is here.
Choose your side.
A Wes Anderson Interlude
Wes Anderson is a unique film maker. Sure, that could be said about a lot of directors, JJ Abrams does love his lens flare for example, but Anderson’s films have a particular aesthetic. Unlike most film makers, well except for film students who don’t know any better, Anderson uses a tremendous amount of flat space. His work often looks more like panel artwork than film with depth. What separates him from less experienced film makers who use flat space without intention is that in his use of flat space, he adds depth by placing objects and people at different places in the field of vision. Instead of using angles to provide depth, he uses these objects and actors. You can see this effect in the capture for his new commercial for Montblanc pens. I often joke that indie films have too many shots of flat space with a couch. Anderson is playing with that trope here, but adding depth. His color palette and framing give the additional effect that you are looking at a series of panel illustrations, or maybe even drifting from one dollhouse room to another. Whatever the actual intention, it is intentional and it’s effective.
It’s so effective that it makes Wes Anderson one of the easiest directors to spoof and I still think that this “What if Wes Anderson Directed the X-Men” video is one of the things that keeps the internet great even as it fills with the toxicity of outrage merchants. It’s just sheer perfection.
Music Recommendation
There’s a theme this week to the song selections, other than that I think all of these songs are worth your time.
Mad Season was one of the grunge scene “super groups” that came out in the mid-90s. One of the key takeaways I have from watching these different scrambled up variations of the scene is just how tight knit the community was and how much great art they made together.
James Taylor is one of the great singer song writers ever and this is one of his best songs. I love listening to his older live recording because you see not only his natural talent, but his humility.
Gary Numan may be famous for his song Cars, but I’ve always preferred Are Friends Electric from Tubeway Army. I think both have a lot to say about modern society, even though they were both written in the 70s, and the isolation we feel as the world becomes more virtual. In this case, it’s about the challenge of telling the difference between a real person and a replica.
I don’t care what you say, RATT is a highly underappreciated band. They came out with a couple of true classic hard rock songs and Wanted Man is my favorite. It’s miles better than Bon Jovi’s similarly themed Wanted Dead or Alive. I like Bon Jovi’s song, but I’ll always crank it up when RATT comes on.
Miles Davis. Does anything else need to be said? Well, yes. When I was younger I didn’t think that I liked jazz. Sure, I liked Steely Dan and jazz influenced Progressive Rock bands, but I thought “Jazz is just that meandering meaningless crap that keeps repeating a through line and going nowhere.” Then I learned that I had been listening to some bad Jazz Fusion, there is good Jazz Fusion, and I had in fact been a huge fan of jazz for a long time. I’ve always liked Big Band jazz and I discovered I loved the standards too. It’s just pretentious jazz I dislike and well I’m pretentiously anti-pretense in all genres. In this particular case Miles Davis is playing the Irving Berlin standard How Deep is the Ocean?. Irving Berlin is one of the great composers of the American Tradition. From Blue Skies and God Bless America to White Christmas and Puttin’ on the Ritz, he’s a large part of the American Songbook. I mean, how could I ever think I didn’t like jazz?
Classic Film Recommendation
I recently saw a post on Twitter (X) that annoyed me and made me think of two paradoxically polar opposite criticisms of the author within microseconds of seeing it. In the post, the author implies that the reason pop culture seems better in the distant past is survivor bias, at least that’s the argument being made based on the image. That is not in fact a description of why pop culture in the distant past seems better.
Why do I say this? Because for the above post to be true, that we only remember the good stuff from the past and not the bad stuff (aka survivor bias), the things being remembered fondly would have to be only the top tier stuff that survived. People saying older pop culture was better would be having to say things like, “They don’t make films like Jaws, Star Wars, Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Quantum Leap, etc. any more.” Sure, some people say that. They are idiots because stuff like that is made all the time and those actually saying pop culture was better in the past are saying things like “They don’t make things like Manimal, Hawk the Slayer, Beastmaster, or Showgirls anymore.” They are usually highlighting how the crappy failed stuff from the past was better than a lot of stuff today. That’s the inverse of survivor bias.
It does contain a bias, that of the rose colored lens of youthful nostalgia. They do say that the Golden Age of Science Fiction is 12 for a reason, though only pretentious people actually say that, people who want to belittle the Golden Age of Science Fiction (the 20s to 50s) by claiming that it was only good because people read it when they were 12. It’s like when my daughter came up to me and said, “Dad, the writing in the early Marvel Comics isn’t as good as I expected based on the praise it gets.” I asked her if she was reading comics from the 60s or comics from the 70s to 90s. It was the 60s and she was right. The writing wasn’t very good then. It hit a sweet spot in the balance between classic comic and literature in the 80s to 90s with things like the Giffen/DeMatteis Justice League, Micheline’s Iron Man, Claremont’s X-men run. and Louise Simonson’s Superman. Comic writing suffers when it becomes to serious (as it often is recently) or too child oriented. The balance is hard, but there are still writers who hit it out of the park.
The second critique I had was that the author was also kind of right about survivor bias, but not in the way she thought. Modern pop culture is worse than older pop culture because it is trying to build new product based on survivor bias. That’s why we keep seeing legacy sequels and reboots that either try to mine nostalgia or “do the same thing better.” Creators are trying to imitate what was great in the past when what was great in the past was that they were trying new things or remixing the old with new. The creators of Manimal weren’t thinking, “what we need is a new Gunsmoke.” The creators of The Incredible Hulk combined The Fugitive with new ideas and new conflicts. In other words, they asked “what if there was something actually threatening about the fugitive? What if he wasn’t merely innocent? What if he was his own one-armed man?” That’s a new twist. It’s also what is lacking in some new pop culture. You can only mine the old so long before you have to create something on your own. The other option is to understand that trying to “improve” a thing doesn’t always improve it.
The thing is, there is a lot of good stuff out there. Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, Elantris, and Stormlight Archive are great. A lot of modern comic books are great, even if the big two are fumbling. The latest Conan comic is fantastic because Jim Zub is staying true to the tone of Howard’s Conan stories while adding spice from other fiction that Howard wrote. He’s remixing a bit, but not trying to reinvent or copy. It’s why his is superior to many prior pastiches. Yep, prior pastiches.
The thing creators are doing wrong today is the same thing creators did wrong in the past. The main difference now is that they are spending more money doing it. If you spend the modern equivalent of $35 million relaunching something, that’s different than if you spend $250 million and another $200 million on marketing. You are much less likely to take risks. A lot of modern pop culture is playing it “too safe” and that hinders it.
“But,” you might say, “look at how much they are pushing boundary x or y!” To which I’ll say, that’s not actually boundary pushing, it’s just giving the feel of being boundary pushing in an area where the boundary was pushed a long time ago. The Overton Window on that was broken a long time ago and it’s actually a safe choice. It’s safe choice #27 because they presented their boundary pushing trope within the category or manner currently acceptable to the Development Management Team based on Market Research. That’s about as punk as a boy band being recruited to sell a line of counter culture fashion to young people, but enough about The Sex Pistols let’s move on to this week’s recommendation.
This week’s selection is the greatest of all time in its film category. It is the best gymnastics martial arts espionage film ever produced. That’s right, it’s time for Gymkata and no they aren’t making stuff like this anymore. This is just straight up “we’ve got 9 weeks to leverage the fame of an Olympic Gymnast, what they hell can we make in that time frame” creativity.
It’s terrible. It’s beautiful, but not as beautiful as Cool as Ice. It’s just pure fun.
May there always be a pommel horse available for your use when you get in a fight with berserk villagers.
I feel the same way - I LOVE "Are 'Friends' Electric." And Warren DeMartini is a great guitarist.