I could have sworn Discovery was connected with Bad Robot, but it looks like I was wrong.

It still has a “JJ Abrams sensibility” - frantic space combat, overly emotional characters, a lot of flashy but meaningless tech (the hologram communicators as an easy example) and visuals (the way the bridge was often shot). It was very much trying to be loud and new, while throwing in a lot of surface level references to try and give it some franchise credibility (this USS Discovery is a rejected Phase 2 concept design).

It all came together in a loud, unlikable soup that felt inauthentic to the franchise. There was some course correction later on, but too little, too late. Strange New Worlds went the right direction, while the Section 31 movie tripled down on all the worst aspects of Discovery.

In any case, I agree - the D&D movie was a lot of fun, and while I wouldn’t want a ST movie to strike that tone, I’m interested to see what they cook up.

I don’t want the Trek movie to have the DND movie tone either, but more like when that movie was made they understood the correct tone to match the franchise. It felt authentic to what DND players experience. If the Trek movie has the same care in figuring out what long time fans want, it will be good.

That’s good. The repercussions of the Bad Robot era have really derailed Trek in a way it’s just started healing from.

While Discovery wasn’t in the Kelvinverse, the connection to Bad Robot probably gave it that similar style. The Section 31 movie wasn’t connected directly to Bad Robot as company, but it did share a writer.

Strange New Worlds has been a huge step in the right direction, though it came directly out of Discovery, making it kind of a prototype for modern live action Trek trying to both be “gritty” and classic Trek at the same time. I think it has mostly succeeded, but now that it’s proven there’s an appetite away from Bad Robot era Trek, I hope the new series goes further.

While I hope whatever they make doesn’t share a tone with the new DND movie, I appreciate that the DND movie was obviously well versed in the setting and knew what fans were about. Applying that same mindset to Trek would be great.

Skeletons are a great beginner friendly mini. I like the yellowed tone choice over a brighter white for the bones.

If you want to get a little more ambitious, you can base them in whatever way fits your game to get some basing practice in.i personally feel like a completed base elevates a mini.

TLDR “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.” is a good guideline for aesthetic visual design choices.

Probably stereotypical, but I find well done steaks to be a total waste.

I rarely cook steak, but when I do I go to a butcher and get something quality and fresh. Normally I don’t care how other people enjoy their food, but when I take the effort to get quality steak and someone at a family get together asks me to cook until the steak is grey in the center it just deflates me. Logically I know that if everyone is happy with their food it doesn’t matter, but personally having to mangle a steak so it has the taste of ground beef just goes against every cooking instinct I have.

I’ve learned that when certain people are coming to a holiday cookout to just cook burgers or BBQ instead. Everyone is just as happy with what they get.

You’re not getting your deposit back if those creative juices soak in.

Foundation was so strange because it felt like the writers split into two isolated groups.

The team that was trying and failing to “reimagine” the original story, and the team the totally abandoned the original story and was doing their own thing with the clone emperors story.

Unlike other examples where the show felt like an existing story twisted into the framework of an unrelated franchise, Foundation felt like the clone emperors story came out of the talented writers getting frustrated by the quality of the adaption.

A wrinkle to this case is that Federally marijuana is in the most restricted category. It’s above meth or cocaine.

Obviously a lot of people consider those drugs more harmful than marijuana, but if we are playing the legal game then marijuana is legislated as being more dangerous and that’s what the court has to work with.

SCOTUS I think has to decide if controlled substance use as a whole can prohibit legally buying a gun or not. I’m not sure if they can just make a carveout for marijuana. (Also the person taking the case up had cocaine too, so it can’t not be brought up.)

You’d be surprised how many 2A people, who are across the political spectrum, are fine with removing that category of prohibition entirely. However I wonder if it will make SCOTUS more hesitant to make such an “extreme” ruling.

I wonder if he talks about it in the video…

I think the original trilogy (plus Reach and ODST) work because while there’s a ton of lore, the really convoluted stuff is kind of at the background to the moment to moment feel of the game. The most forward facing content is a pastiche of other easily digestible scifi that’s all mixed together in a fun, interesting way. You’ve got conventional humans who feel like a straight expansion of the colonial marines from Aliens up against a diverse and interesting array of aliens. The Covenant are a refinement from Pathways Into Darkness and then the Marathon games. You’ve got the flood as a space zombie change of pace.

It all mixes together well and the more detailed lore can be built on top of it. There are many intentional gaps and hooks which can suggest things without having to be addressed explicitly, leaving room for some mystery.

After those games, the series kind of imploded under the weight of its own lore since the developers/writers chose to bring all of those mysterious elements to the forefront. It gave less interesting enemies to fight, and less motivation to care. I doubt many people have moments from those games burned into their memories the same way moments from the original trilogy are.

The right arm was missing so I had to cobble it together from a random spare arm and then fit a spare AOS spear on it. Did some shoddy sculpting to cover the gap.

The MCC Halo had a graphical remaster on the original engine, that’s why you could swap between original and remaster visuals on the fly. The upcoming project is a remake on a new engine with changes to gameplay and design.

What’s your favorite movie that uses lots of practical effects?

The Thing has to be up there if the criteria is just an overall great movie heavy on practical effects.

Do you have a favorite practical effect of all time?

The “digital” wireframe view of the city from Snake’s glider in ‘Escape From New York’.

It was accomplished with miniature buildings which is rad.

A pretty mainstream choice, but ‘LA Confidential’. I got really into James Ellroy books for a while.

Or if you don’t want to feel horribly depressed, I guess I’d recommend ‘Guards! Guards!’

Something that is popular (or sells well) despite having no apparent appeal to anyone the commenter can think of.

I don’t enjoy Bloodborne. I think I can figure out why there is a lot of hype for it.

It seems like all of the answers are “I personally didn’t enjoy this game therefore I can not conceive of anyone else enjoying it.”

I find that interesting.

I’m not saying Clancy stuff is always completely grounded, especially the longer it goes on, but I’m trying to use the Clancy comparison to capture the essence of an idea. COD4 while fictional, and with moments that aren’t wholly realistic if you really hold them up to the most intense scrutiny has the overall texture of realism. MW2&3 and Black Ops games all exist as throwing bigger and more insane setpieces out with no regard to any realism.

It’s a the last COD with a real gutpunch moment that says anything about anything. The nuke going off it a moment of realizing you aren’t a special main character and you die like everyone else, and that maybe war isn’t just a big fun adventure. All the shock moments have been trying to top it are so dramatic that they don’t have the same effect that the nuke did.

While (classic, I’m not counting stuff ghostwritten under his brand) Clancy characters have hyper competence, it’s to be expected given that they are turbo ultra elite soldiers or spies. Their motivations and ability to act doesn’t reach the point of self parody.

For a COD4 example: Nikolai, the Russian that the player rescues early on in the game. He is a mole inside the Russian antagonist faction feeding information to the SAS. He got found out. He’s being kept at a house with a handful of regular soldiers watching him. When you rescue you him he is calm or at least puts up a calm front and thanks you. That’s a pretty believable guy who could have been a real person who is doing something realistic and dangerous.

In MW2 that character can materialize with apparently infinite types of military aviation hardware, and he is also a pilot able and willing to do insane maneuvers. And he is personal friends with Captain price rather than just being an SAS asset. And he is in touch with a friendly militia group in the middle of Europe.

There is a distinct jump from COD4 to MW2, where it goes from Tom Clancy to Michael Bay.

MW2 is still fun, but it exists in an entirely separate tonal reality than COD4.

I’m replaying COD4 and taking notes at the moment for a review I’ve wanted to do for years, coincidentally.

Looking at just COD4 without being influenced by knowledge of the sequels, it’s got a decent story and if you look at the edges you can find contemplations of cycles of violence, and while not to the point of being anti-war it does emphasize the waste of it.

The characters are Tom Clancy levels of larger than life, which is significantly more restrained than what came later. Individually the story beats and scenarios have at least a texture of realism, often loosely based in something real and then strung together in a story that isn’t convoluted.

I could see it being a good movie with the right handling. It probably wouldn’t be.

These are being painted for someone else, and he printed them. I know he took existing files and modified them with different poses or alternate weapons so I’m not totally sure what is custom.