Month: May 2016

Disney Infinity abruptly shuts down.

For real.

By now you may have heard the news that we have made the difficult decision to discontinue production of Disney Infinity. From the beginning, Disney Infinity was built for you—our fans—and I wanted to take a moment to thank you not just for your support over the years, but for creating a community that made Disney Infinity more than just a game.

If you’re wondering why, it’s because Disney didn’t make earnings today. Parks and games were down, movies way up, but the latter didn’t quite make up for the former.  Stock prices took a hit, and I have no capacity to comment on this further but my kids are gonna be ticked.

Some critically important scholarship on the Martian Invasion.

You will be shocked to hear that H.G. Wells did not actually give a good date for the Invasion, but this line of speculation seems sound. It all comes down to basic astronomy and when certain church renovations took place. As usual – and yes, I’m going to make you click through. Ken Hite did the scholarship; he should get the clicks for it.

Interestingly: if you had asked me when the Martian Invasion took place I would have said “1938.” Well, more accurately I would have said “193…8? 1939? Whenever the radio program was… wait, sorry, you mean the original one? I dunno, some time in the 1890s?” It’s really interesting, the way that this particular intellectual property operates. I’ve read the original book more times than I’ve listened to the radio show, but the radio show is what I associate with the concept. And yet the visual image that I get when thinking of “War of the Worlds” is unambiguously from the 1950s flick*.  Guess this demonstrates the power the IP had on popular culture, eh?

Moe Lane

*I actually didn’t mind the Tom Cruise remake, but it was no first-season War of the Worlds TV series. Then again, what was?

Tweet of the Day, They Aren’t REAL Hoverboards, Anyway edition.

REAL hoverboards float.

These are just stripped-down Segways. That apparently can burst into flames. …And how did THAT odd little design quirk make it past the safety inspectors, anyway?

Was… anybody looking for a TV show set on pre-Jor-El Krypton?

I mean, this isn’t necessarily bad:

Syfy today announced it has greenlit a pilot for Krypton, the Superman prequel series set two generations before the destruction of the legendary Man of Steel’s home planet. Krypton will follow Superman’s grandfather — whose House of El was ostracized and shamed — as he fights to redeem his family’s honor and save his beloved world from chaos.

…but I don’t know if anybody was actually looking for something like this, ahead of time.  Certainly it never occurred to me until I saw the article. Which may be a selling point for originality, although I suppose that Gotham is demonstrating that you can get eyeballs for prequels like this. Continue reading Was… anybody looking for a TV show set on pre-Jor-El Krypton?

In the mail: “Children of Earth and Sky.”

Guy Gavriel Kay’s latest, set in his not-quite-Europe just after the fall of the derived-from-Byzantine Empire to the squint-and-they-look-like-Ottomans. Part of the birthday Amazon extravaganza: all praise the glories of pre-ordering, hey? – At any rate, there appear to be analogues to the Holy Roman Empire and the Venetians involved, so hopefully Kay is going to rack up quite the stylish body count in this one. Guess we’ll see…

Weird. I might actually buy Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare now.

I probably wouldn’t have, because I don’t play any of the Call of Duty games; but this entire “give this teaser trailer all the dislikes” thing managed to break through my “don’t care much about Call of Duty” filters. And here’s the thing: if you’ve never played the series before, this looks pretty cool. I mean, I get that people are ticked off about stuff in general, but it still looks pretty cool: Continue reading Weird. I might actually buy Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare now.

This Luthor/Metallo Texts From Superheroes exchange explains it ALL.

This makes perfect sense to me. There’s a reason why Superman’s rogue gallery isn’t as psychopathic as Batman’s is: Lex Luthor probably has all of the really crazy ones quietly killed.  Because what happens if Superman ever decides that this ‘live like a normal human as much as possible’ thing isn’t really working for him? — Actually, you don’t need to answer that one; there are a bunch of comic story lines that explore that, usually with a lot of heat vision going off.  So, yeah, keep the Man of Steel busy cosplaying…

Moe Lane

PS: You do have to wonder: why has nobody ever just shot the Joker in the head a few times?  I mean, I don’t condone violence, but it seems like a fairly obvious, if rather drastic, counter-Joker gambit. I suppose that Batman wouldn’t like it…

This teacher will end up regretting that he messed with JRR Tolkien and TERRY PRATCHETT.

If this Graeme Whiting had just stuck with being generally dismissive of Game of Thrones, he’d have been fine. I mean: the statement “I’m not going to let my nine year old watch GoT” is an absolutely uncontroversial opinion. Virtually nobody reading this is going to go Oh, sure, it’d be a fun bonding experience for the family. And I figure that not letting my kids read the GoT books until puberty teaches them how to successfully hide things from me is likewise a perfectly valid parenting choice.  So this Whiting guy was actually not in a bad rhetorical place, if he had just been smart enough to realize it. Continue reading This teacher will end up regretting that he messed with JRR Tolkien and TERRY PRATCHETT.