Thor 2 – The Dark World
I really enjoyed the first Thor movie; it was my favourite of the Marvel phase 1 movies. Unsurprisingly my expectations were high going into the movie and I did come away little disappointing. There is nothing wrong with the movie, it hits the correct story notes and has some good comedy and action beats as you would expect from a Marvel movie now.
Where the movie let me down was the motivation of the “main” villains. I believe that in superhero movies it is very important to have a strong villain with good motivations. The Dark Elves felt like a bland force of evil, the diet coke of evil if you will. The main motivation seemed to be that they did not like that the property market of the universe had changed leading some checky Asgardians had moved in down the road and refusing to keep their property in a suitable state.
Marvel paid Christopher Eccleston to wear heavy prosthetics and in the course of the movie spoke approximately 10 lines of dialogue in English. It felt very hard to feel that these where the bad guys who I should hate with such little information. Its little surprise that Loki stole the show with very little else to focus on in the movie.
The chemistry between Chris Hemsworth (Thor) and Natalie Portman (Jane) while a highlight of the first movie really was lacking in this movie reducing Jane to being a character in need of saving by Thor diminished how smart the first movie was.
Still a good film but not a great film.
Dreadnought by Cherie Priest
Taking place in a steampunk alternative time line of Civil War America a lone woman attempts to travel across the frontier to reach her father. Expect steampunk engines, 19th centuary gentry and a few zombies for good messure.
At a brisk 400 pages the story moved along a brisk pace. The first 150 pages are essentially designed to set up the later plot points. These initial pages did drag for a while and it took me a bit of time to get used to the character p.o.v during action scenes (she’s a nurse rather than a fighter so a lot of her perspective is as an observer and someone that has to clean up the mess after all the fighting).
It helps to have read the first book, Boneshaker, but not essential. You’ll miss a few nods to previous characters and may not fully understand the nature of the “sap” and what happened in Seattle prior to the start of the book. However all this would add is mystery rather than taking away from the plot.
One of the things I enjoyed most about it was having a central female charter throughout the book who came across as realistic. She doesn’t get sucked into a romance with a male character as soon as he came along and also does not suddenly turn into an action heroine without reason. Also the zombies, it seems you can never go wrong with zombies.
Kickstarter
Shadows of Brimstone
This game looks to really hit a sweet spot for me. My main play group is focused around board games and in particular my wife loves co-op games. The theme for me is excellent, as you can probably already tell I do like me a little bit of the wyrd west. Finally Flying Frog Productions are a well-known company to me. There are some lovely stretch goals and other bit to add into the pool of toys as well.
Backing – backing to the hilt!
Battle Systems™ Sci-fi Modular Terrain
I have actually seen this stuff in real life and it looks lovely. However I can’t think of many reasons to use it right now, I’m playing very little 40k and my Dead Zone stuff is already coming with a lot of terrain and has yet to be played. Backing it not would fell like buying it because it would be a good deal rather than because I want it. However if they launch a fantasy set I might well change…
Backing – hand on the hilt
Alien vs Predator The Miniatures Game
So I love the Aliens and Predator licences - both the movies (though obviously not AvP) and the comics. The kickstarter is backed by Cool Mini or Not who have a history of running some really good kickstarts. However the purchase point is very high considering the number of models in the game and it looks like a commercial realise might be available in the future. Not for me at this time.
Backing – staying in the sheath
On honourable mention should also go to Undead Regiment by Dark Hammer Miniatures. I really like the sculpts that have been previously put out by the company but have yet to see them in person. As you can see from the page it’s a Chinese company who are new to the scene. I’ve loved the idea of getting some of these as “conuts as” models for my Malifaux Yan Low crew. I won’t be backing this as I would like to understand if this company has delivered in products before and also due to other financial commitments at this time but I hope they are successful.
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