Wednesday 31 October 2012

George and the Mouse

You may or may not have heard that George Lucas sold Lucasfilm to Disney for $4.05b.  A deal which includes all of the Lucasfilm franchises and subsidiaries, which means that Disney now owns Star Wars.  Not ones to waste time, Disney have already announced a release schedule for future films in the franchise starting with Episode VII in 2015 then followed by one new movie every two or three years.

There seems to be a great many fans who have some concerns about the direction in which Disney will take the franchise.  To them I say, 'It couldn't be worse than The Phantom Menace'.

Disney aren't bad at this sort of thing.  They don't buy up franchises just to fill them with mice and ducks.  Recently they have let them run pretty much as they did before, except giving them the benefit of having one of the world's most prolific and successful branding machines behind them.  They bought Pixar in '06 and Marvel in '09, and no one seems to have been complaining about the quality of those franchises in the meantime.

It is also worth mentioning that with the purchase of Lucasfilm, Disney also now owns Indiana Jones, Monkey Island (through LucasArts) and Willow.  WILLOW!  I want Willow 2: The Peck Returns.  Madmartigan could also have his own series of spinoffs where he just gets into trouble and then fights some guys then gets the girl.  That is the bigger picture here.  In the same way that they opted to get behind the film adaptation of an obscure Marvel property like Guardians of the Galaxy (yes, that is a space raccoon with a blaster), Disney has the resources and the man power to milk all of the Lucasfilm properties, not just focus on George's personal need to justify the entire prequel trilogy debacle to the fan base.

Monkey Island/Pirates of the Caribbean crossover!  I'm done here.

Wednesday 3 October 2012

In hub we trust

Dear Blizzard Entertainment,

I'm on to you. You're really serving some sort of vowelless Lovecraftian elder god aren't you? Which one is it? Kth'Kchtjk, devourer of the willing? I bet it is.

You used to be cool.  Once upon a time you would allow the undernourished to gather together in a sort of communal appreciation of your products.  There we were huddled around the hub for digital warmth and reduced lag.  Hours and occasionally days would disappear as we fought back the Alliance or the Federation, or battled shoulder to shoulder through the conveniently layered depths of hell.  Did you know that you can play Diablo with one hand, leaving you free to eat pizza with the other?  Was that deliberate?  Time would evaporate leaving only the smell of takeout and the sweat of panic.  Only to emerge upon noticing the glistening sunlight reflected in the grease slicked forehead of the player sitting opposite us.

Apparently you would rather we did all of this from our own little suburban isolation tanks.  Kept far away from each other in case we accidentally bust out some d20 and pen and paper that shit, or even play us some Scattergories.  Imagine all those minutes of real human interaction that might happen, weakening your overlord until his tentacled maw can no longer reach across the abyss of space and feed on those of us who play female characters but are actually not female at all.  Not at all.

Surely there is someone still working for you who can figure out how to have LAN support while you big brother our fun with your persistant internet connections.

Yours sincerely,

Jacob "Katpanic" Henwood



P.S.
I bet your mum is at someone else's house on a reasonably priced rig for some tea and Torchlight II right now.