Yes, I understand that it’s only been four months and some change, but a lot of shows and movies have been watched, song listened to, games played. I haven’t done a media recap since last May, and a “recap” since January. A lot can change in the span of a few months. I have been a lot busier with a full-time job, but I haven’t sacrificed any of my interests. I will openly admit, however, in the past few months I tended to favor comfort games/shows/music over new ones. Instead of trying new games, I often drifted to Wizard101, which provided ample opportunity to watch TV while playing. By playing Wizard101, I didn’t have to focus on dialogue and story in a story-driven video game. My focus could rest on the TV show instead.
I’d like to include another piece of media that should’ve been added long ago: books. Recently at my new job, I’ve found new time to read that I never had before. Depending on the complication and length of the book, I read close to one hundred pages a day. For this post and future posts, I’ll be including books into the list. Let’s hop right into it, shall we?
The Bads
When someone asks me “Do you want to hear the good news or the bad news first?”, I levitate towards the bad. That way, the good news will be the first thing you hear. It lingers until you hear it, even if you want the good news first. For example, you take the good news, but now you still have to hear the bad news. And there’s no telling the severity of the news. The good news might be, “The Celtics won” but the bad news heavily outweighs the good, “My dog died last night”. Anyways, I’m just rambling on so let’s get into the negatives.
Survivor S48
Eileen will catch me watching Survivor and ask me, “Why do you still watch it?” To be completely transparent, I have no clue. Something about it is just so infuriating yet intriguing I come back every Wednesday night/Thursday afternoon to watch. At the time of writing this, this season has been one of the most predictable, boring seasons ever, not just new-age Survivor (S41 and beyond). There’s implementations I could not care less about, but they tend to lie more with the individuals cast. The challenges are boring and repetitive. What used to be the best part of every episode is now a competition of who will fall asleep first: me, watching Survivor, or the cat, who is close to passing out in his bed.
I know I said the cast I don’t mind, but specifically this season has been an obnoxious watch. Everyone is family and there’s no hatred or spite (except for David, thanks David). If we rewind back to the 2000s seasons of Survivor, we had people on the verge of fighting each other, constant twists (not the stupid “twists” new-age Survivor leaves instead of immunity idols), excuses, and betrayals. We had challenge beasts making it to the end whom no one liked. They won based they had to. I have no doubt Joe could lose immunity and still be here to see the next day.
My suggestion for Survivor 50, the fan voted season, is bring back physical challenges. I want to see wrestling, grown-men tussling in the sand, mud, and water. Enough of the puzzle crap. Take away these stupid cursed advantages and only have immunity idols. I’m tired of watching people not vote because of a stupid twist. Survivor has turned into a spite watch for me.
Fortnite’s Star Wars Event
I had to include this because it is so recent, although it’s still very early on. Every year, Fortnite releases a big event regarding Star Wars and May 4th. They’ll add lightsabers (inducing fun melee combat), blasters, and appropriately themed characters and NPCs. I also suspect it’s one of the best days for the item shop, adding plenty of characters from the movies and shows. However, this year’s event is another loop in the rope of horrible events for Star Wars. Last year, we saw a disappointing event and this year somehow got worse.
Yes, yes, I understand it’s premature to say anything before the full event is released. But oh my god, this is a snooze fest. You get killed by the same sweaty skins every game, just with different weapons. Half of the people in the game drop at one of two locations containing boss loot. The most likely scenario is you won’t see the boss, but ten other players competing against you. Add in the fact that they know people will spend money for the event, so they add a separate battle-pass to earn more rewards, such as a never-before-seen character (i.e. this season is General Grievous, I distinctly remember 2023 was Darth Maul).
The events are becoming more and more of a cash grab than an actual event. There’s few unique modes to highlight the event, but instead expensive bundles for pixels on a screen. Did I still buy the pass? No further questions, your honor.
Rebel Moon
With how addicted to Star Wars my friends are, I thought Rebel Moon could be mine to obsess over. However, I took way too long to begin watching it to make it an obsession. It was quite possibly the worst movie I watched this year, and then I made the mistake of watching the second, which quickly took its place on the leaderboard. If you don’t know who Zack Snyder is, you might be living under a rock. He’s a good director, no doubt, but he’s well-known for his liking of slow motion. His “Justice League” film, Snyder cut edition, is over four hours long and ~10% of it is slow motion. He’s the director behind Rebel Moon, which doesn’t utilize as much slow motion, but includes a noticeable amount.
The characters are boring with a stupid motive. Some scenes are almost directly inspired by Star Wars, such as this scene. I guess the setting is okay, but I’m a geek for science-fiction so surely I’m apt to like it. What made Rebel Moon fail I think the most wasn’t the content of the movie; I think with the right audience the movie could’ve been better off. I blame marketing. I saw a quote: “Rebel Moon is Star Wars with guns”. With this depiction in mind, I thought that maybe it would be like Star Wars, but not at all (if that makes sense).
They copied Star Wars yet made it forgettable. Darth Vader and his equivalent have the same story of “dying” and being brought back to life. The First Order is basically the same Nazi-themed regime in Rebel Moon. They copied everything that was horrible with Star Wars and added their own horrible parts to make one of the worst science-fiction movies I’ve watched.
The Goods
Naturally, there are more goods than bads because why would I force myself to watch/play/listen to something I hate? Survivor, for example, is tradition which has turned into a spite watch. It’s my spoil, like some people watch RHWoBH or The Bachelor. Fortnite, well, I spent my hard-earned V-bucks and need to earn them back. Rebel Moon was something I needed to see until the end because I don’t wholly trust professional reviewers. For the goods, I had to cut quite a few things because there were more.
Jojo Rabbit
I saw when this one came out a while back and never really stopped to think about it much. You have a German child during WWII whose best friend is Hitler, an imaginary Hitler. Surely this movie will be a straight comedy, right? Wrong! While this movie was very funny, especially the first twenty minutes, it’s sad, revealing, and frustrating. Not frustrating to watch, but frustrating to watch the main character be a Nazi sympathizer. I won’t spoil much in this section in case I’m so convincing you want to watch it now.
I held back tears at the emotional climax and cheering at the end. After watching the first movie of Rebel Moon, this was a great palate cleanser and reminder that good movies do still exist.
Harry Potter
Eileen did a great deal of convincing to get me to watch Harry Potter. She assumed it would be easier to get me into the movies, which she was right about. I’m much more of a visual learner than by text. Furthermore, I had the movies on my to-watch list for months now and it gave me an easy excuse to bump them up on my watchlist. After we finished the movies, I had to read the books. It was a rite of passage, which is often swapped for books then movies. Anyways, my newest personality is anything to do with Harry Potter. I’m kicking myself in the butt for coming to this realization much too late to have any true effect in my life.
Books
While I read the books second, it’s worth putting them first as they significantly changed the literature world. A couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have picked up a Harry Potter book if my life depended on it. I thought them to be too childish for me now that I’m a full-grown adult. However, what I didn’t realize was the world of whimsy I was missing. While it could be argued the first and second book are the worst based on story content alone, I think they did an exceptional job on setting up the world we’d be entranced by for the following five/six books as well as the eight movies to spring to life because of them. Without these first two books, Harry Potter and the Wizarding World never exists.
The third was quite obviously the turning point in which things take a darker turn. A supposed serial killer is on the loose and they suspect he’s going to target the protagonist, Harry Potter. If you’ve read the books or seen the movies, you know the rest, but it gets darker each and every book. I could talk at length about every book but I’ll just choose one to focus on for the sake of this article.
Let’s talk a little about the “Goblet of Fire”. It was daunting, picking up a book that had over 750 pages (there’s somehow longer books?). They had to cut a lot of what happened in the books when adapting it to the screen which was sad, because it was so perfectly written. They cut out the entire house-elf plot line (this is why we need S.P.E.W.) Ludo Bagman, the entire Quidditch World Cup match, and Harry giving Fred and George the Triwizard Tournament winnings to start their business. All of these had significant effects to the plot or sub-story lines that it was disappointing to see them omitted from the movie.
Movies
Maybe I’m just a nut for nostalgia, but again, I think the Sorcerer’s Stone (or Philosopher’s Stone) is the best movie. The way it enchants viewers, especially those watching for the first time. I couldn’t care less about Harry Potter but I desperately wanted to go to Hogwarts, if not as a student just as a visitor to see the enchanted castle and the magic lying within. Sometimes you need a happy story for all of the characters (except Quirrell and Voldemort, of course). We get introduced to the world, characters, and plot without being babied through it.
I know a lot of the Harry Potter fanbase is in arms about the movies, with them removing important content from the books and all. While I can see their argument, I choose to see the movies as a separate but equal entity to the franchise. The movies helped make Harry Potter so much more. If Harry Potter stayed as a book franchise, they wouldn’t have all they do now. No one would be vying to know their Hogwarts house, the Wizarding World theme parks at Universal Studios would be no more than J.K. Rowling’s imagination. We wouldn’t be getting a spin-off show in the next few years (#recastsnape).
The books started the franchise and the movies revitalized them and made the franchise eternal.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
I normally steer clear of the turn-based games as they’re not my style. I prefer something more action-packed or story-driven when I choose to play something, or relaxed (like Wizard101, Minecraft). The reviews had started trickling in and I couldn’t ignore them much longer; everyone was saying that this game was a must-play. I downloaded it, uninstalling Cyberpunk (for an eventual rerun) and was immediately taken aback on the setting, story, and characters. This game was developed by a small team, ~thirty devs, and is competing against AAA titles for the best game of the year. Some games try to do too much in involving the player into the world, but Expedition 33 grants you just enough knowledge where you’re not popping at the seams but where you know enough to feel engaged with everything.
Let’s be straight: I never looked at reviews or gameplay or anything. I have Xbox Gamepass, which allowed me to download the game through my subscription service. If I was spending my own money to buy it, I would have. I trusted what I heard through word-of-mouth and have had a brilliant time playing. I highly recommend it for new and experienced gamers alike.
Conclusion
It has been an eventful couple of months but even with the distractions of the day, I find time to watch, listen to, and play what I love and what I might not yet love. The next few months will be extremely busy so I would like to preface that blogs may begin to slow down a little bit while I’m involved in reality. Expect June to be a one or two blog month while July may pick back up to four blogs a month.
Is there anything you recommend me to watch/play/listen to/read? Send me any recommendations below in my comments and I’ll be sure to take a glance. Thanks for reading and see you in the next post!