A much too long Fallout 3: Game of the Year review. Because Steam doesn't let me ramble.

Please note that, because I have the Game of the Year edition, I can't write reviews for each of the DLC and the main game separately. Therefore, I will have to write a single, large review, broken into sections. As such, this will probably see a number of updates, I will have to give each section its own rating and there will be placeholder text. Thank you for understanding.

Or you could just call me dumb and give me a clown award. Whatever makes you happy.

–The Main Game–

Let’s skip the whole opening of this game, because it will save my sanity. So, you get out of the vault, you’re in the wasteland… and that’s the best thing you can say about it. The game is over two hundred years after the nukes, and the Capital Wasteland is dead.

This is the first, but not the last, time in which Bethesda shows that it doesn't understand how long two centuries actually is.

Now, I actually find there to be stark beauty in this dead world. The desolation, the decay, the isolation, the brutality in nearly all the things wanting you to be dead. But this is two hundred years after the fact, the world should have recovered, the isolated towns should have connected and formed trading partnerships. The wasteland should be alive and thriving, not looking and feeling like it’s ten years post bombs.

There’s (comparatively) little to be said for the isolated pockets of humanity in the wastes.

Megaton is beyond a joke in terms of, well, everything. The fact that they would not only build a city around a nuclear warhead that hasn't been disarmed is trumped in insanity only by the fact that they've built in and around a crater. You know, where everything flows downhill. And if it rains heavily enough (yes, yes, it never rains in Fallout 3, that would defeat the whole purpose of Project Purity), the entire thing would flood. And if anybody breached the walls and forced the morons of Megaton into a defense, they would have to go down, into a pit, where they lack the high ground.

Megaton is stupid. It's insane. Whoever came up with this should have been flogged.

Tenpenny Tower is a farce. It's full of the rich, who are rich because they're rich. I get that it's supposed to be a joke... I hope... but it still isn't funny, and it's so out of place that it's an insult to my intelligence and ability to have logical thoughts.

Andale is a punchline to a joke nobody told. It's the zany, wacky city with the deep, dark secret.

They eat people, okay? And incest. Lots of incest. But don't worry, it's all framed by them being the best town in America, and have been for years now. They're all happy and chipper and it's funny! Ha ha ha... funny as baby AIDS...

Arefu is the setting for a bad horror film. Spoiler alert: it's about vampires. Yes, really. In Fallout.

The Republic of Dave is… why? It's more zany, wacky nonsense, because FaLlOuT wAs NeVeR sErIoUs. I guess somebody at Bethesda thought that making a vague reference to the Branch Davidians would be perfect for their game.

Paradise Falls is Disney evil, because slavers. An entire town of slavers, who don't actually go out and enslave (they get you to do it instead), much less have any real means of selling slaves. There's no caravans, there's no people coming to check the merch. It's just there to be an ultra basic bad guy option. And even if you do get all the slaves for their quest, nobody shows you any kind of respect, they all just want to still throw you in the slave pen.

Underworld is a ghoul town, but we have no need for a water chip, so they're safe. They also don't really have anything else going for them, so uh, they can live in peace. But they will throw slurs at you and whine about how everybody shoots at them. Best to just let Cerberus, their robot guard, be free to dispose of them all.

Little Lamplight... zany, wacky city full of kids who cuss and have guns. They call you mungo, because oh so hilarious. The Force robs you of your ability to fight here, because how else could they get the game released in Europe?

Big Town is where all the mungos go when they hit sixteen. The idea is that Little Lamplight can't support too big of a population, so they have to have another town where all the older people go. But then, what, does Big Town send their children to Little Lamplight? How does this cycle continue if not? Do all the orphans of The Capital Wasteland magically find their way to Little Lamplight, then grow up and go to Big Town?

Big Town sucks. Super mutants can bully them. And if a super mutant can bully you, you frankly deserve it. They're dumb as rocks. Even kids from Little Lamplight can outsmart them, and Big Town is made up of former children from Little Lamplight. Maybe they lose all their brains at sixteen. Mungos indeed.

Girdershade is another joke town, this time only made up of two people. And also a brahmin, because somebody at Bethesda rubbed two brain cells together long enough to even consider the notion of "what do they eat?" This place exists specifically for a single, stupid quest line, in which Bethesda tried to retcon Nuka-Cola into having the kind of importance and relevance as Coca-Cola once did, and in some places, still does, in the real world.

I swear, if Fallout 6 has them make Tragic: the Garnering as the next big thing in the wasteland of Ohio, I'm going to scream.

Grayditch... well, it's all dead. Because fire ants. As in ants that spew fire, because ha ha funny. They were made by a scientist who does the worst professor Frink impersonation known to man. It also exists to have a kid make a reference to Die Hard. Oh, it also has a terminal of an Enclave survivor from Fallout 2 who managed to make it all the way across the country. This is important for...

OH BOY OASIS. Hey guys, do you 'member Harold? You know, that special mutant? Or maybe ghoul? Or whatever he's meant to be? From Fallout 1 and 2? You remember? Do you? Do you remember him? Do you? Well he's back, in Pog form tree form. Because the tree, Bob, finally managed to take over and root Harold to the ground, but only after going all the way across the country to The Capital Wasteland. And he has a cult of naturephiles who want to make Bob grow more, because it's created an entire forest.

Yeah, I don't get it either. It's just there for the 'member berries and to let you possibly kill Harold. Because I guess that's meant to be a tragic and bittersweet send off to a recurring character. Or something.

The Temple of the Union is the final form of Abraham Lincoln worship. We already have him sitting in a throne in the real world, and in Fallout, that's the same, but the people are even more deluded and see Lincoln as a messiah figure.

So nothing much has changed. You can find Lincoln stuff and sell it to them, and the end game is to retake the Lincoln Memorial from some squatting slavers so they can reattach the head of Jebediah Springfield ol' dictator Abe and make it a beacon for all freed slaves.

Just don't tell them about the actual history of Abe, it'll make them sad. You can sell them out to the slavers, if you're feeling like a bad person. Because negative karma is actually hard to come across, unless you're just stealing everything or took Contract Killer. So it's a nice way to try and get back to neutral karma.

It’s almost offensive that Rivet City is the most believable city in the entire game. It’s a bunch of people living on a broken carrier. That's it. In no other world would this win by default, but this is Bethesda, where logic and reasoning goes to die. Especially since they have Canterbury Commons, a place that should already be a trading hub for all the other towns/cities, but isn't, because they've been waiting all this time for you, the player character, to come along and organize it with caps.

Again, two centuries after the bombs. And basic trading hasn't even been established, even though there's a town whose entire point is to be a place where four roaming traders stop at. The place should be The Hub of the East Coast. It should be the driving force behind a unified currency. It should be the place where goods flow into and out of, to the rest of the towns.

Rivet City has the biggest, and really only, trading market. You can find guns (in the worst condition this side of broken), chems (the greatest achievement in the post war world, being a drug dealer), clothes (we don't have clean water, but damnit, we'll be well dressed as fuck), junk (oh boy, damaged lawn gnomes!) and food (delicious cakes made from bottom feeding horseshoe crabs). There's also a bar. At the very bottom of the ship. Truly, no other game has told you that booze will make you hit rock bottom quite like this.

But that's not all! They have a hotel! With a robot! Fancy! There's also the Capitol Preservation Society, run by Abraham Washington, who's grasp of history sounds like they still have ask.com centuries later. There's also a doctor who... does doctor things. And a church, which is based around a Saint Monica, who was born to ghouls but wasn't a ghoul. Compelling stuff, I know.

The real attraction is, of course, doctor Li and her resting bitch voice. Oh, if only I could shoot her in the face and spare us all the rest of the game... and her showing up in Fallout 4...

Let's talk about something to get my blood pressure down. Something I like about the game.

Now, people seem to look at me funny when I say that my favorite part of the game is the D.C. ruins. While the stark beauty of the waste is inviting, especially if you play with no companions, no radio and any music volume set to off to just take in the sheer isolation,I absolutely love the urban decay.

I don't hate the metros, like so many others. While sure, I'd of liked them to have made the city actually larger and interconnected, I get the limitations of the system, disc space and time. The metros are a great compromise, albeit one that can get a little repetitive at times. Perhaps if the game had some more variety in enemies that you could find there, instead of just ghouls 90% of the time, it would be better.

 But D.C. itself is a thing of glory. I love the notion that you can go from fighting city block to bloc, to sometimes you just having to fight building to building against…

… Bloody buggering Hell, let's talk super mutants. One of the greatest discoveries of man, the Forced Evolutionary Virus, a means of creating super soldiers, those immune to any form of genetic damage or mutation, becoming the apex of the human form and potential, a weapon to surpass even the power armor that could turn a normal soldier into a walking tank, something so secret that the US military was terrified that it could ever leak to the Chinese, who were known to have spies everywhere. This development, which had the real possibility of winning the Resource Wars, along with being THE cure to all disease, especially The New Plague which was ravishing the United States as the world went to Hell... was handed over to Vault-Tec.

Of course, Vault-Tec had to then base an entire vault experiment around it. Which, of course, they lost control of. And so the super mutants have been running around, freely, looking for more people to dip. For. Two. Hundred. Years. The door to Vault 87, by the way, is also the most radioactive spot in the game, which nets nearly 4000 rads a second. Again, after two centuries.

These are all dumb dumb super mutants, because they've been using wastelanders as "breeding" stock. The only super mutants that show any basic thought are Fawkes and Uncle Leo, and both are outcasts to their fellows because they "talk like a stupid human". The Master would kill himself in atomic fire once more if he knew that his grand plans for a new humanity was superseded by over a century of stupid mutants who lack logic, common sense, the ability to think and a purpose beyond being screaming orcs that the player can shoot.

It’s been attempted to try and “explain” why Vault-Tec got the FEV. A lot of it has to do with the Enclave, who also shows up in the game. Because Bethesda made a parody of the thing that was meant to be serious, while trying to take seriously the thing that was parody. But more on them later.

So, the super mutants are one of the big groups in D.C., but who else is there? A bunch of knobs called Talon Company. There’s no actually explained reason as to why these guys exist, much less where they came from. They have a military structure, but nothing comes of it. For a group that operates in D.C. and has a military nature, you'd think they would have a backstory, possibly a connection to the US military, maybe even the Enclave themselves.

But no, they're just better equipped raiders, existing only to be shot by you and looted. If you have good karma, they spawn randomly and attack you, because they've been hired to kill you, specifically. By somebody who is evil, of course, who hates the notion that you're not Super Ultra Mega Hitler. This person is also probably who hired them, as an official guide claims that they've been hired to keep the Capital Wasteland in chaos.

What a lame handwave to who and what they are.

There's also the Brother...hood... of... Steel... oh Christ, why? Oh, I'll talk about them, don't you worry... but they do exist in some places in D.C. to act as a third group that's fighting over things.

... Well, okay, let's just talk about some plot. May as well get to popping the abscess. Or rather, the tumor that has grown so large that it's taken over the face.

I know I said I'd skip it, but I guess I have to talk about the opening, just a little. It covers the first nearly two decades of your life. In it, your father is the only parent you've known, since mommy dearest died in child birth. These two decades are the longest feeling part of the game, even though it's actually very short and you get barely any character out of it for your father.

One day, dad leaves the vault that's supposed to never open. You learn fairly quickly that this is a lie, and well, all your life was a lie. But through plot contrivance, you are forced out of the vault, because otherwise the Overseer will possibly kill you. For the crime of being the son of a man who he let in decades before. Because the experiment for 101 was making an asshole a godlike figure. That and lack of genetic diversity, but uh, that's a whole other issue.

So you get out of the vault, stark beauty, blah blah, find Megaton, the dumbest town on the cesspit they call a planet wedged in Satan's anus, and find the most cliche bad guy saloon owner. If you didn't already figure it out, you find out in no uncertain terms that your whole life was a lie, that you were born outside the vault. A few bullets later (well, you can just do a quest to hunt down a whore to get the info, but fuck this guy), you find a lead on dad from a terminal and have to give chase.

Now, I get why the player character would want to find dad. But why do I want to find him? The game has given me very little to go by when it comes to him. I don't have any connection to the guy, I don't like him, much less hate him. He's just there, a thing to push the story forward. Even if I wanted to role play as this person, I have no reason to care about James.

That's his name, by the way.

But because the story just has to go on, we hike on over to Chevy Chase... no, not him. But frankly, I would prefer if I got to meet an actual legend of comedy like him. Instead, it's a D.C. 'hood where, if you're just following the main plot, is the first time you run into...

The Brotherhood of Steel. No, no, not yet... there will be time for the ranting later...

The BoS lets you tag along with them, because they're... such... nice... folks... and help you kill some... super... mutants... on the way to Galaxy News Radio. And then the dumbest thing to happen since meeting the BoS happens.

See, east coast super mutants can apparently keep growing, into what are called behemoths. Titans of orcness that scream and smash more than the other gits. The game gives you a Fat Man... a device designed to launch mini nukes... yes, small nuclear warheads... at an enemy. So you can easily just kill the behemoth with this unearned new power and get back pats for being THE COOLEST.

 Take that, Tunnel Snakes. I rule now!

You get let in, having done all the work, and meet your new stalker: Three Dog. He's a so called disc jockey who is in the running for most annoying character ever, as all he does is talk about the so called Good Fight... and shit talk you, specifically, if you do bad things in game.

Hence, your own personal stalker who will tell the whole world about how bad you are for not caring about the assholes in the wastes. Or suck your dick if you're nice. How he finds out about any of this is unknown, since he never, ever leaves GNR.

He has info on dad, but it'll cost you; you have to steal a communications dish from a lunar lander (yes really), to boost the signal of GNR so that the whole of the Capital Wasteland can hear this insane person ramble. Or, if you have a decent Speech stat and/or don't mind save scumming, you can skip it and have him tell you where to go.

Sadly, you cannot just shoot him in the face and still find out. You can kill him, but the trail goes cold, leaving you to just wander. The horror, I know, not having a marker to where you have to go next.

If you do kill him, he's actually replaced, sort of, by a tech who just reminds everybody that Three Dog is dead. Frankly, I like this better. She doesn't comment on how mean of a meanie I am for selling an annoying kid into slavery.

Now, assuming you did the quest, talked him into telling you or you've looked at the script, you'll know that the next place is RIVET CITY, the objectively best city, because it had one foot in the race while all the others had bloody stumps. So you go there, get harassed by a Courser (oh God, we're already starting Fallout 4), wander around and find ol' doc Li.

I said she had resting bitch voice, and I mean it. You can hear it in her voice and the way she speaks that she doesn't like you, specifically. And ya know what? I like that. I like that she has contempt for the fact that you were born, maybe even contempt for your mother and that your father picked her over Li. You can hear it in her voice when he shows up later, and how quickly she drops everything when he asks.

Unlike everybody else, Li doesn't have some kind of quest for you to go on for information, or a check to pass. She just tells you to go to Project Purity, because that's where James went off to. Of course, I'm sure she knew what was waiting for you...

Or not, because once you get to Project Purity, there's super mutants all over the place. In fact, just getting there from Rivet City puts you close to one of their camps where you can save a hostage, if you so choose. It also nets you a Minigun, but uh, they suck in Bethesda games, so maybe just pass.

The thing is, James left fresh holotapes that you can find, implying that either he has a hidden 100 Sneak skill, used a Stealth Boy, the super mutants were so dumb they didn't notice him, or they moved in after the fact. But given how James seems to know there are super mutants later...

Whatever, the tapes talk about another vault. So you have to go there.

You gain access, get into a VR pod of the future and either obey the commands of a psychotic little girl who is actually an old German man who is based on a Nazi scientist who has been torturing a bunch of people for centuries in a seemingly ideal version of the 1950s (but actually 2070s) or, if you have the patience, do a sound puzzle to kill everybody in the sim outside of yourself, your dad (who is a dog) and the crazy man-girl.

Normally I would like to just kill 'em all, but that gives you good karma. And we're not about that, because the game is too full of good karma choices. Of course, obeying a man-girl is also kind of lame, even if you do become a child with a knife who stabs people. So uh, your choice on that one.

Now, here's the thing I like about all this. See, if you already know that Vault 112 is where you need to go, you can skip all the nonsense that leads up to 112. Of course, it also makes an already short main plot that much shorter, but if you're looking to keep your psychotic urges in check by not killing named NPCs, well, there you go. But the fact that the option is there is great, because all too often games won't enable plot important NPCs or other things until you activate certain event triggers through following a linear plot.

Here, you can just say fuck it and run right to 112. It's perfect for people who want to replay the game and do things differently. Whoever decided this was to be a thing at Bethesda should be rightly praised for this choice.

The Enclave was a parody, a joke. They were a gotcha take on the government. They didn’t need to come back, especially in the poor form they did. For a bunch of people who see the wastelanders as inferior and have a fear of anything mutated, their armor sure doesn’t block out rads and they sure do eat the same 200 year old packaged food that everybody else does.

Speaking of parody, the Brotherhood of Steel. Look at what they did to my boy. The Outcasts are the only close to true version of the BoS, and even then, they’re not exactly on point. The real shame is, you can’t go back after The Pitt and throw Lyon’s self righteous attempt to save people back in his face, given what’s become of the place since then.

The main story of the game is a song and dance that gets old. You have barely any time to get attached to dear old dad before he leaves you. You are then compelled, through the plot, to find him. You take a grand tour and meet a bunch of insufferable people, especially Three Dog, who becomes your stalker and can’t stop talking about you. You then find dad, become his weapon to clear out a place, he offs himself when the Enclave shows up, and you swear VENGEANCE on them, like this is Daggerfall and you’re an angry ghost. Along the way you find some companions who can handle radiation, especially a friendly Super Mutant who likes to tag along.

You then end up at a place that will kill you with rads. Your friendly Super Mutant WHO IS IMMUE TO RADS says that it’s your destiny to die. Charon, a ghoul who is ALSO IMMUNE TO RADS AND IS UNDER BRAINWASHING TO OBEY YOUR EVERY COMMAND also refuses. You can get a robot, Sergeant RL-3, who also refuses.

So you have to kill yourself. Because destiny. Because the plot stated in the opening that you were born, you will die. You have to die. Like dad. To honor his memory. Because screw what you want.

Fallout 3 makes me angry. It has so much potential, and it was all just squandered on being the greatest hits of Fallout 1 and 2, because of brand recognition. And you know what? I still love the game. It’s irrational, it’s illogical, it’s like I’m on crazy pills, but I love the game. Having come back to it via Tale of Two Wastelands, it hit me hard. I took to the Capital Wasteland and didn’t let go. I had so much fun romping around, and still do.

I can’t hate this game. It makes me angry, it lets me down in so many regards, but I love it, warts and all.

Recommended: Yes, because I’m on crazy pills.

–Broken Steel (AKA Fallout 3.1: The Revenge of the Lone Wanderer)–

What’s that, I hear you say? This review isn’t going in release order? That’s right, Jay! At least, not with this part being moved up, specifically because it is a direct continuation of the main game, and as such, it should be reviewed before any of the other DLC.

So, we rewind a bit. You can have a companion start the Project Purity now, but even if you do, you still end up in the same state; a two week coma. You wake up just in time to be given more running around quests, because that's how your life goes.

The Brotherhood of Steel have taken to organizing caravans to give out fresh, clean water, as per the ending of the original game. Even if you managed to poison it with a sample of FEV, one of the few actually truly evil acts the game lets you do. It's almost funny, watching them happily continue the Enclave plot to wipe out all life.

You run here, you run there, you get to watch a giant robot be nuked from orbit. You get to go to Old Olney, now actually plot important, to get a Tesla Coil. No, not so they can replace your brain, this ain't unpossible SCIENCE!, it's just to make a Tesla Cannon. Which, to be honest, isn't that great of a weapon. 

It does more damage to robots and power armor. Robots don't show up that often, and frankly, aren't that hard. How, power armor, on the other hand, should be a useful boost in attack against, because Broke Steel places dozens of new locations where Enclave troops are either stationed or get dropped off by vertibird. The issue is... power armor sucks in Fallout 3.

In previous Fallout games, power armor was a big deal. It was some of the best armor in the game, allowing you to take far more of a beating than you could ever dream of with anything else. Even Fallout 4 ended up making it better, what with it being a tank that you can pilot, Iron Man style. But here, in 3, power armor... just sucks.

It's too heavy. It's not worth all that much. The only reason you would want it is for increased strength, some of which give +2, but if you're so low strength that you need it, the weight will only be an even bigger burden on you.

Plus, it just doesn't look good, be it the new T-45D (because we needed a new suit for the box) to the... garbage that the Enclave tries to pass off as "advanced".

So anyway, the Tesla Cannon kind of gets its time to shine, because you have to find Adams Air Force Base to stop an Enclave plot. Those cunning fools have themselves a satellite weapon that can destroy whole cities. And when you get there, you do indeed find that you can nuke targets. Like Rivet City. And Megaton. And also The Citadel, which is the Pentagon, where the BoS hang out. There's also Project Purity, where the water comes from.

Now, you may ask if they can target The Citadel, why haven't they blown it up yet? After all, the Enclave and BoS are at war, and have been all the while your character was in a coma.

The answer is... stop asking questions. The whole reason why they have a target lock isn't for them to win the day, no, it's for you to be evil and blow up the BoS. That's really it, honestly; because they wanted to give you an evil option.

Many, really. You could blow up Megaton in the original base game, so this is another shot to do it if you didn't. You can destroy Rivet City, Project Purity and The Citadel all to return things back to the way they were; a dead world, with no hope. The way that Tim Cain, Todd Howard and so many others who have touched Fallout want it to remain. No progress, no hope, just misery.

But hey, you get wacky, zany side content, so that's fine and dandy. Don't take it too seriously, bro, Fallout was never serious.

... Bleck...

Well, okay, I'm being slightly hyperbolic here, since you actually can't take out Megaton, Rivet City or Project Purity. It's just funny how the Enclave has enough ammo left to actually reset all the progress made in under a month, yet choose not to. And also, ya know, having themselves be a viable target as well.

It's really like they never wanted to win.

Broken Steel also started the ghoul problem that Fallout 4 would make worse. In 4, they danced back and forth between ghouls needing water and food to live. It had feral ghouls laying face down in river beds for hours, just waiting to be able to ambush you. Fallout 4 leaned pretty hard into they're just zombies.

Broken Steel added in the Apostles of the Eternal Light, which are lead by Mother Curie III. She uses water that has been tainted by radiation to make people "achieve Enlightenment", she claims will make them not age, not feel hunger, etc. Save for one, her entire following are ghouls. So already, Broken Steel is telling us that ghouls don't need to eat. But it gets worse, because when you're in the Presidential Metro, the Metro Authority Rapid Governmental Transit System (M.A.R.Go.T.) informs the player that there's been a security breach. The system cannot identify any body heat... and when you go to find out the problem, IT'S GHOULS. So, according to Broken Steel, ghouls do not need to eat and they have no body heat. No wonder come Fallout 4, they can lay face down in river beds for however long they want, and don't need any sustenance. They're literally zombies, and have been since 3, despite what the game says about how they're just humans, albeit ones who have survived and mutated from massive radiation exposure.

Recommended: Yes, because screw destiny (and also maybe Destiny, the streamer. And Destiny, the game.)

–Operation: Anchorage (AKA Fallout 3.25: Call of Future Warfare)--

Nanomachines, son! Er, I mean, biometric seals, son!

Recommended: No, because power armor is lame in FO3.

–The Pitt (AKA Fallout 3.5: Legend of the Eastern Gun Runners)--

Steal a child or don’t. Everybody is still a jerk.

Recommended: Yes, because it shows moral ambiguity and people trying to rebuild.

–Point Lookout (AKA Fallout 3.75: You Become the Scarecrow)--

“The Great Game” was added just to make it seem like there’s more to this whole nonsense than there really is.

Recommended: No

–Mothership Zeta (AKA Fallout 3.99: To Infinity and Beyond!)--

Giddyup Buttercups with FRICKING LASER BEAMS!

Recommended: No, because it started the whole Zetan nonsense.

Tokusatsu shows I've seen so far.

Completed

Power Rangers

Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers season 1
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers season 2
Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers season 3
Mighty Morphin' Alien Rangers
Power Rangers Zeo
Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie
Power Rangers Turbo
Power Rangers In Space
Power Rangers: Lost Galaxy
Power Rangers: Lightspeed Rescue
Power Rangers: Time Force
Power Rangers Samurai
Power Rangers Samurai: Clash of the Red Rangers

Super Sentai

Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan
Taiyo Sentai Sun Vulcan: The Movie
Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger
Gosei Sentai Dairanger
Gosei Sentai Dairanger: The Movie
Ninja Sentai Kakuranger
Ninja Sentai Kakuranger: The Movie
Super Sentai World 
Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger
Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger vs. Super Sentai
Hyakujuu Sentai Gaoranger: The Fire Mountain Roars
Samurai Sentai Shinkenger 
Samurai Sentai Shinkenger The Movie: The Fateful War
Return of Samurai Sentai Shinkenger: Special Act
Tensou Sentai Goseiger vs. Shinkenger: Epic on Ginmaku
Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters 
Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters The Movie: Protect the Tokyo Enetower! (director cut) 
Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters Returns vs. Dōbutsu Sentai Go-Busters 
Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters vs. Beet Buster vs. J
Gokaiger Goseiger Super Sentai 199 Hero Great Battle
Ressha Sentai ToQger
Ressha Sentai ToQger the Movie: Galaxy Line SOS
Ressha Sentai ToQger Returns: Super ToQ 7gou of Dreams

Kamen Rider

Kame Rider ZX
Kamen Rider ZO 
Kamen Rider J
Kamen Rider World 
Kamen Rider Kuuga
Kamen Rider Kuuga: First Dream of the new Year
Kamen Rider Kuuga: Good Job
Kamen Rider Kuuga: Special Chapter 
Kamen Rider Kuuga vs. the Strong Monster Go-Jiino-Da
Kamen Rider ΑGITΩ
Kamen Rider ΑGITΩ: A New Transformation
Kamen Rider ΑGITΩ The Movie: Project G4
Kamen Rider ΑGITΩ: Three Great Riders 
Kamen Rider Ryuki: Ryuki vs Kamen Rider ΑGITΩ 
Kamen Rider Decade
Cho Kamen Rider Den-O & Decade Neo Generations: The Onigashima Warship
Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker
Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider W & Decade: Movie War 2010
Kamen Rider G

Metal Heroes

Uchuu Keiji Gavan: The Movie

Crossover Films  

Kamen Rider × Super Sentai: Super Hero Taisen 
Kamen Rider × Super Sentai × Space Sheriff: Super Hero Taisen Z

SeiShin

ChouSeiShin GranSazer

Other

N/A

Currently Watching

Power Rangers

Power Rangers Dino Thunder 27/38
Power Rangers Super Samurai 2/20
Power Rangers Megaforce 8/20

Super Sentai

Choujin Sentai Jetman 19/51
Chouriki Sentai Ohranger 0/48 
Denji Sentai Megaranger 0/51 
Tokusō Sentai Dekaranger 8/50
Tensou Sentai Goseiger 3/50
Shuriken Sentai Ninninger 11/47

Kamen Rider

Masked Rider 12/40
Kamen Rider Amazon 1/24
Kamen Rider Drive 1/48

Metal Heroes

Chojinki Metalder 0/39
V.R. Troopers 39/92

ChouSeiShin

GenSeiShin Justirisers 0/51
Chousei Kantai Sazer-X 0/38

Other

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon 7/49
Shougeki Gouraigan 1/13

Several films that involve Kamen Rider Decade.

Cho Kamen Rider Den-O & Decade NEO Generations The Movie: The Onigashima Battleship

A movie with Decade in the title where he does basically nothing at all in the film other than to remind you that you're not watching something better. Decade shows up for about five minutes, fights the bad guys, then leaves without having done much of anything, which is better than Diend, who shows up for exactly one minute just to summon some Riders for the express purpose of being a massive jackass. No really, that was his whole purpose in the film; he didn't do it as a ruse to steal treasure, he just appeared to make things harder for the heroes for no given reason other than to be a massive ass and then left.

In true Japanese form, this movie is in love with their folklore, the same old tired Oni were real and then exterminated stuff that we've all seen about a billion times. It's also another go at the whole country folk and big city folk differences thing, because we'll never get tired of that little gem either. The only difference in all of this is that we didn't get what was explicitly a bow armed miko, just some girl in a skirt too short for any time but the modern era with a bow who may or may not have been a character ancestor. And a gem of importance. Except this time around she didn't have it burned with her body and there's no time well. Just a time train. Because that's what Den-O is about, a time train.

Sadly it's not the same thing Doc Brown made in Back to the Future Part III, it's just a standard bullet train that travels through time. Controlled by a motorcycle. So maybe not standard. And like everything time travel, things get stupid because NOBODY can do time travel right.

So the plot is that Oni were real, got shot full of arrows, humanity took over and will one day blow up the sun. Well, the sun bit isn't true... yet, but the Oni bit was. Except there was an earthquake and this somehow tore open a time hole, because that's how that works, and now we have little brother Oni who looks like the most generic Oni ever trying to find the magic rock to bring out their trump card so they can not all die horribly. Meanwhile big brother Oni who has the longest hair outside of anime is just hanging out in a cave waiting for little brother while drinking sake. Except this time his sake does drop because he throws the jub. Yuugi this guy ain't.

This is basically the plot for the entire movie, all while the heroes job to the Oni because they're Oni and so are powerful. And can become Kamen Riders because why not.

So this stupid plot goes on for nearly an hour until finally the Oni get their trump card... a giant battleship that looks like it's a mix of 1940s big guns and 1800s steam ship. It also flies in the sky and can time travel because, you know, Oni are known to be masters of time manipulation. Then Decade and Diend show for their whole six minutes of whatever, one Oni is killed making the other go crazy because that's how all brother stuff goes in Japan... and then the next 20 minutes are mostly CG of, and this is amazing for how stupid it is, a massive time battleship fighting a time train. Complete with huge bombs riding the rails of the time train to blow it up. Then there's the big fight where the hero does alone in a minute what like half a dozen couldn't do together in about five, then the end.

All in all, another yawn inducing way too Japanese for its own good film. The whole ship vs. train bit was kind of neat, though way over the top, and cannot save the film at all. It's an hour and twenty minutes of my life I would like back... but sadly I don't have a time train to do so.

If only Doc Brown would return my calls...


Kamen Rider Decade: All Riders vs. Dai-Shocker

Basically the point of this movie was to once again make sure we all know that Decade is the most super awesomest Rider ever. Except for W, who appears, kicks the crap out of the bad guy with ease, then leaves after two minutes. Then it's back to Decade being the most awesome.

Oh, and I guess to give more plot to a character who, as the series says, has no story of his own. Except this was a story about him. And his past. And also makes him look, and forgive me if this offends you, a raging homosexual when he's revealed to be the Great Leader of Great Shocker. I know that Japan is different when it comes to what is manly to them, I mean, just look at things from Final Fantasy in the last nearly 20 years, but his hair, his outfit, the tight material... come on.


Kamen Rider × Kamen Rider W & Decade: Movie War 2010

So once again we have a movie where part of it is basically to remind us once again that Decade is the bestest there ever was. If he were in Pokemon, he would be THE Pokemon Master. He could have caught them all and they would all have been shiny, plus somehow figured out a way to make legendaries breed. No, scratch that, he would have just said fuck it to egg groups and made a Gardevoir and an Umbreon somehow produce a Mewtwo egg.

So because the series couldn't somehow do it in 31 episodes, this is billed as the proper end of the story of Decade... a character who in the show AND the movie is said to have no story. Except for those several episodes where everybody is sure he's the devil, Narutaki wants him dead and movies all about him. And more than half of this movie all about him.

So the Decade part proper has him being awesome and killing all the old Riders, because they're old and he's new, plus this is his movie so screw them. He even got a female groupie, because I guess he can't go more than a few minutes without a girl being all clingy and saying his name over and over. Everybody wants him dead because he's the main character, so really he has the excuse of self defense; I mean, the guy said he's wreck anybody who gets in his way, so the best thing to do is get in the way. But then the worlds are all collapsing... still... so it's gotta be that way.

The show says it's all happening because he had to kill all the Riders, but since he made friends... which is a hard thing to accept when it comes to Tsukasa, given how much of an ass he is and likes to make speeches that Archer from Star Trek: Enterprise wouldn't even make, the worlds are all screwed.

Such a fine lesson for the children; never make friends, kids, or else your world might end.

But even after Decade making a habit of kicking people in the face whose job description is kicking people in the face until they explode, the worlds are still screwed, so it's really all about killing Decade. So crap Yuusuke, who has been useless in the series and the movies finally eats it which makes Natsumi all mad, then she becomes a Rider. Because you know, that's how that works. Then she kills him, and by that I mean he uses her for suicide, because I guess that was his MASTER PLAN all along. He dies, the worlds are saved, then SUPER SHOCKER appears.

So is this a case of an entire fist in the pink?

Then, in a means to cheapen any kind of sacrifice, they bring Tsukasa back through a photo and THE POWER OF FRIENDSHIP. Because even though now all the Riders have returned from the dead, it seems we need Decade to fight off the big bads. Because you know, HE'S THE VERY BEST, LIKE NO ONE EVER WAS. So after the special effects, this thing called Doras shows up and Narutaki goes on his usual about Decade being the cause of all bad things like cancer, even though he himself was a Super Shocker general and was going to cause chaos. But his was better than the chaos caused by Decade, so it's clearly all his fault.

In an effort to make Doras look cool, all the Riders from the last nine worlds pop up and then it's a bunch of guys in robot suits fighting a guy in a robot suit, only for Decade to make them all turn into their best forms and do final attacks, to let him do the SUPER FINAL ATTACK, because he's the bestest. But then a giant mammoth robot appears to kick the crap out of everybody... and that's where the W portion starts.

And to be honest, I don't care about W at this point; maybe at some future time I will, but for now I am skipping their part.

So now W is chasing a thing and being chased while Decade is being chased by mammoth robo and the ship from Masked Rider that did nothing in the stock footage except fly from some planet all the time and shoot beams. W and Decade meet, and all three decide that they should kick that mammoth in the face... too bad it vanishes and is replaced by other Riders.

So then Decade proves he's still the most awesome by making them all go into Final Form to gang bang the fortress of doom. Meanwhile mammoth appears to the left this time and the thing chasing W turns out to be a hover cycle platform, because he's so awesome he gets to fly. Then he takes over the mammoth and uses it to destroy the fortress because since he's the latest Rider, he gets to do this sort of thing... and the other Riders failed at their one job. THEIR ONE JOB.

So then the true final boss shows up, some guy taken over by an energy life form that sounds like a kid... because that goes just so well in any fiction. But Decade and W get beaten up, so Decade pulls out yet another uber card that makes W into two guys, because I guess that's their Final Form. They RIDER KICK him and that's the end of that threat.

The other Riders walk back into the dimensional rift thingy, knowing they dun goofed, except Diend; he gets to sulk up on a cliff. Decade leaves, then the film ends with some more credits nonsense about them all going on with their journey, which has become their world... you know, instead of giving closure to what happened to Natsumi's original world, which the last time we saw it WAS ON FIRE. But fuck that, we gotta give an opening for more movies involving a character who has no supposed story.

Chronicle

This is going to be one massive spoiler thing, so you know, don't read. Even though I don't feel like I owe you this warning, given that I already said spoilers in the description of the blog. I'm just being a nice guy, I guess.

I remember back in 2012, when I still bothered to watch TV, I saw commercials for this movie. I was actually excited; it had been a long time that there was a movie that I wanted to watch. I figured I would get it after it came out on DVD and see it then... course, I only just now watched it today, over two years later. I don't recall them ever saying the film was PG-13, nor did they ever mention the fact that this damn movie was a friggin' FOUND FOOTAGE FILM.

So now that my expectations are shot to all Hell, let's dive into it. And as a first, I'm going to write down everything as I watch the movie, this way it all comes out raw and unfiltered. Except when I force myself to not curse like some kind of man of the oceans, because that makes me look more professional. On the Internet. Internet professional? Well gee whiz, maybe now I should join some lame review site where I too can make cameos in other peoples videos and come up with unfunny memes to hopefully amass a legion of fans who will take my word as law and keyboard warrior against all who do not find me to be the most amazing guy ever.

First thing we get is a drunk father, the camera pointing at a mirror and the first hint that yes, this is a found footage movie. Then we get a mother who is on oxygen. Good to know this film doesn't start out bleak or anything... but then, maybe this will set the tone for the entire film, right? I mean, just because it's PG-13 doesn't mean it can't be depressing... or rather, trying to force depression. Nah, then it jumps to horrible forced humor with bad music and crap philosophy before going to school. You know, that thing that everybody hates but has to be shown to give the audience who are teenagers, a fact that is now thoroughly pounded into my brain, something to connect to. There is then the amazing section of watching the back of his head as he eats lunch and whiny cheerleaders. I think this is the movies attempt to tell me to get away, because I am way too old for any of this.

And let me make special mention of the bully section. Now, this guy knows he's being filmed slapping this kid while having him in a headlock. He knows he's being filmed kicking the camera. Why did this guy not show this to the principal and get this kid suspended? Better yet, why not have him arrested for damaging his property? Actually, let's turn this into the section in which everything caught on film that should be reported to some authorities is put, because there's a section where he gets smacked around by his drunk father with the camera recording.

Oh look, he said "let me give you a protip". Because isn't using Internet terms in real life just SUPER AMAZING LOL ^_^. Oh, and a mention of blogging too; well now, aren't we a super cool and hip movie. Except for when they go to a rave. You know, that thing which was cool in the 90s. But then maybe it's coming back in an ironic way. Oh dear, I think I just found a hipster connection! Actually, the whole hipster thing is valid since there's a cousin who keeps spouting on about philosophy to make himself sound smarter than he really is.

But you know, I don't understand why they put in these lame party scenes into things. This is exactly the kind of thing that made me groan when they put it into Battlestar Galactica, Caprica and Stargate Universe. It does nothing at all except remind me that I wish something would happen that didn't involve horrible music and white people dancing to it. And like all nerds, he left the party crying. Then he gets led into the woods... this is either going to be the proper start of the movie or this is going to turn into a snuff film. Oh, who am I kidding this is a PG-13; there's not going to be any real hardcore violence.

It then suddenly turns into Prometheus, complete with the black goo. But instead of the bloody nose, I was expecting the thing to grab heads like in SG-1, or at least do some kind of Guyver thing... not just have a crystal glow and them fall down.

Now the movie turns into... Jackass? I guess this is where it's supposed to really kick off with their powers, and yet it's literally just two guys hurting one another and laughing like morons. Actually, saying this is Jackass is an insult to those guys, because they actually hurt themselves in a more creative and sometimes actually funny ways. This is just two guys lobbing things at one another. I'm starting to think the only reason why this even has this kind of rating is for language, because they say shit a whole lot.

Oh no, look at that; I cussed... except I already did when I used the word ass before. Oh dear me, now I will ever be a member of That ScrewAttack Guy With The Reviewtopia or whatever is the cool place to be these days.

AND THEN SUDDENLY LEGO! Because the best way to stay relevant these days for Lego is to appear in this movie and not actually get rid of those stupid licenses that force their sets to be stupidly expensive to the point where only really spoiled little brats with rich parents can buy them. Or really stupid adults with too much money, like with that Death Star II set. But then, fanboys, so...

Oh look, they're trying to make the drunk father into an actual sympathetic character. I wonder how long that's going to last. And now we have the sick mother out, trying to force her son into saying he's "stronger than this". What 'this' is, I don't know. Maybe she means the whole camera thing. Or his raging introversion. I know what that's like, and this lady is trying too hard for something that won't change.

I'm actually starting to like the moments the three main characters are together and just talking about the progression of their powers. It reminds me as to why I wanted to see this film in the first place, rather than be bogged down with all the side crap of this one kids horrible little life.

HOLY SHIT SUDDENLY BAKUGAN. When the Hell was this movie even made? I didn't think Bakugan was even still a thing in most of the world in 2012. Actually, it seems it was; the last series in America ran until very early 2011, so I suppose the toy line was still in stores when they were filming this movie. And that was actually about the only interesting bit of the whole toy story bit.

The small bit in the diner and talking about imagination it making me think of Ressha Sentai ToQger, which shows how much of a Sentai nerd I am. But it does make me wonder if that's really the whole point behind it; is the nerd kid, who is obviously the strongest, simply that because as a nerd with a bad life, he can more easily fall into escapism? Or am I looking too deep into this?

I have to admit, I got a small smirk out of the line "Yes, this time it was the black guy!" and I did laugh at "Ignore us, we're just... Mormons."

And now we have the first real signs that the main character with the shit life is going to abuse the Hell out of his powers. I would make a Dark Side reference, but I'm sure everybody and their mother who has seen this movie already has. Actually, this is really starting to sound like The Force and the Jedi Code in the film, so I guess that's where they were going with this. Especially with the hand motions. Now I'm expecting lightsaber fights every ten minutes...

I also have to admit that the flying bit was pretty cool; I think the CG was better than most films I've seen in a while. Maybe my inner DBZ nerd is showing, but seeing people fly in the skies is always cool, plus their playing catch with a football was neat. As was the near hit with the airliner. Honestly, when it's just them and their powers this film seems to become amazing, a point I made before, but it's just turning out to being more right in my mind with every scene like this. Also, during the sleep over, when they all claimed that the day was the "best ever", I was waiting for somebody, ANYBODY to say "except that part where the plane nearly killed one of us."

So is blog girl now a secondary character in the film? Is she going to keep popping up, or is this going to be a sub plot that's dropped?

Oh hey, we finally see drunk dad and he seems to be on to the whole powers thing. Or maybe he's just assuming something else. Either way he's more bald than I imagined. But he still has a face you just want to punch.

Okay, blog girl now seems to be a recurring character. Seems this whole thing between her and the wannabe philosophy guy is now a proper sub plot. One can only imagine how this will end. More blog girl after a talent show, in which those rules seem to have been thrown out the window. By now I was expecting this film to get real dark with, I guess his name is Andrew, going crazy from his power, yet everything seems to be going decently well. I wonder what, exactly is going to change that makes him go nutty, like the trailers all suggested.

Okay, now it is going down that path. And what a shock, the cause is his father being an abusive prick, ranting about not having any money because of the sick mother and sending him to school... you know, when he's going to a public school. I know taxes pay for that, but it's not like he's going to a private school. The thing I find funny is he says that, yet he seems to have enough money to get hammered all the time. If this were an R rated film, I'm sure he would have killed his father... but since this is a lame ass PG-13, he just rolls around in pain when Andrew rightfully shows him what pain is.

Well, one of the main characters died via Force Lightning. Going back to Star Wars, because this film seems to want to go there and because I watched the Clone Wars "film" last night, I honestly think this is a better story of the rise and fall of Anakin than the prequels ever were. He gains access to these amazing powers and slowly falls to the darkness within as he grows in control, yet cannot control his feelings.

Now the fun stuff starts, where he starts just using his powers more like anybody really would, rather than in some lame, noble "rules" bound way. Ripping out teeth and talking about how he did it on camera, while not normally a smart idea, is both interesting and to be expected from him. It's not like anybody who finds out could stop him; at this point he is basically the single most powerful being on the planet. Well, okay, singularly he is, but I assume he couldn't fight off an army or a bunch of cops for very long. This isn't DBZ... yet.

Now, I could go on a long, blathering rant right here about how FUCKING WRONG this kid is for thinking that "it means something" that he can do this and comparing it to a lion "not feeling guilty" about eating a gazelle, or a human killing a fly, but I won't. Because anybody with a brain would realize how full of shit he is. I sure hope the writers didn't think seriously about what he was saying... because if they were, and this was serious, then I'm sad. But at least it ended with him crushing a car, so that was saved from stupid with awesome.

Oh look, the "rules" are back. You know, those things that they broke at a talent show and at a party and everybody thought it was cool. And his cousin is making threats, how cute. He always seemed to be the least powerful of them... unless this turns out to be a thing where suddenly he's the most powerful. Is this going to be a Goku thing, where he starts out weaker than the "bad guy" and gets powerful enough to win in the end? Star Wars and DBZ... this movie is making me think weird things.

So what was the point of him putting on the whole firefighter outfit? To hide his identity? Because he's doing a poor job, what with having his backpacking on and not wearing any gloves. I know he's not technically in the system, but if somebody can ID him and they bring him in, they'll take his prints, match it against those he left and have a match. Or he could just use his powers to not leave prints... except he did when he kicked the crap out of those "neighborhood douchebags".

Being a dumbass, Andrew blows up a gun and ends up in the hospital, while drunk dad starts crying. I guess this is another attempt at making him a sympathetic character. Or not, because now he's whining about how he was "always there" for the now dead mother while Andrew was out "screwing around". Because having a life is totally screwing around, right? And he's demanding an apology. And goes on a rant how it's Andrew's fault his mother is dead.

I hope he killed him, I really do. I think so, since his cousin has a nose bleed, the same kind when the other main character was killed by Andrew. Blog girl is also there going on about said nose bleed, too. Ah fuck, he's not dead... I think. He was going to drop the drunk, but his cousin saved him, putting their powers out in public, so this may get real good. Except not because a helicopter just crashed off screen; that's gonna be the level of violence, huh. And it's getting all shaky cam now.

Oh, so that's how it ends, his cousin impales him on a huge lance. Which isn't as cool as it sounds, because they weren't fighting; Andrew was just standing there, screaming and powering up, so his cousin used a statue's spear to stab him. Then he flew to CGI Tibet and the movie ended.

Well then... this was basically a high school power fantasy that turned into a mix of DBZ and Star Wars. It made for a better downfall of Anakin Skywalker movie than the prequels ever could have been, but at the end of the day it was held back by its rating. It could have been an amazing film if it were given the freedom an R rating could have given. Too bogged down by teenage nonsense with a bad ending, the film is decent... but not what I was hoping for.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

You know, that 2008 "movie" which was just four episodes of the show slapped together to get more money out of the people who somehow enjoyed the prequels. I've never seen the series, nor do I really plan to, so this is gonna be all kinds of not fun for fans of the show. And the "movie". And the prequels. And maybe anything Star Wars related that isn't Empire Strikes Back, because that was the only film I actually really liked. But now I'm way off topic...

I'll be honest, back in A New Hope when I heard about the Clone Wars I thought it was going to be something awesome like the Republic being invaded by clone hordes, not what it became; clones against robots in a war for which side could make me care the least because they're both made of disposable things. This "movie" tries to give personality to the clones, but it fails to get any reaction out of me... because, well, the prequel films don't mesh with this. If you jump from this to Episode 3, you don't get any of that; they're back to just being disposable. Also that one bit where Anakin goes back to help some, in what I can only assume, was an attempt to make us think he's not such a bad guy, a bit which moot because of EVERYTHING ELSE we see of him in the prequel films that isn't him as a kid.

There's also a special place in my colon for the people who still thought having the droids talk amongst themselves and try to have some kind of personality was a good idea. I don't know why they decided to keep the droids talking to one another in there when having a personality is so against the point of war droids. They're meant to just take orders and shoot, not converse about deflector shields. But hey, I guess they need something to do between being useless and even more useless because Jedi can just deflect their shots and cut them down faster than I'm sure somebody who likes the prequels will type a response trying to defend the savior, Lord Lucas, the one true messiah while also threatening me with The Force because Jedi is their religion.


Which is actually a thing, sadly enough.

So I have to ask; what exactly is the point of Ahsoka? I mean, other than being a fanservice character that gives people who do fan art and fanfics new fodder for their various uses, most of which I'm sure are focused on her over use of the term master. Is she there to try and make Anakin more likable by taking his place as the brash, overly confident, always rushing into things by not thinking character who you just want to punch? Is she an attempt to humanize Anakin, and make him seem less like a jackass by giving him something to care about? That's kind of too late and pointless, since he was written so poorly and came off so horrible in the actual films that there's simply no way to salvage his character. I mean, if you jump from this film to Episode 3, he's back to being the worst in the film.

Is she there just to make me angry by being a snippy little brat who I have a hard time believing made it in the Jedi Order to this point with her attitude? But then again, Anakin made it and his response to everything was to whine, cry and lament that if only he were more power while still thinking Obi-Wan is jealous of his ability. Maybe that's the key; show us that he's more mature now by hitting us with a character who may as well have been Anakin in the other prequel films, only with a tube top. And breasts. And is orange. Actually, that just sounds like a modified version of second question, yet it may be the best answer. It would be a reason why he's so quick to accept her; makes him look better in front of the others... when he's not treating the war as a game.

As I said before, the Clone Wars were basically fought by two groups of disposable things. The prequels didn't give any sense of them having any real effect on the galaxy at large and this "film" follows suit. Anakin treats an assault on a monetary that will give them a supposed advantage as a game with the new Mary Sue character. The droids are idiots when talking to one another and cannot ever hope to be competent despite being machines built for large scale military conflicts. They're simply a vague threat to everything not a Jedi, and even when taking part in something serious like battle they break into comic relief for no real reason. It's nowhere near as bad as in the opening minutes of Episode 3 in terms of tone whiplash, but then I don't think anything could equal that.

But back to Anakin, this "film" tries its hardest to keep away from the brooding, dark tool that he was in Episodes 2 and 3, to the point where he's actually out of character with them. Perhaps if this were his character all along I, and so many others might have liked him more. He almost sort of feels like what he should have been from the start, and his interactions with Obi-Wan are nowhere near as painful and forced as they were in the other films. Perhaps the people who wrote this actually paid attention to what Obi-Wan said in Episode 4 and tried to write them properly, unlike Lucas who only took stuff from the original trilogy as a means to sell merchandise through nostalgia and thinly connect things through cosmetic ties and references that only NERDS would get.

Nerds like me.

There's also a Sith that seems to have a thing against Anakin, but for what reason I haven't a clue. Obi-Wan seems to know her as well and makes it sound like they've had numerous run ins, yet there was never any mention of her at all in the prequels proper, nor in this "film". At least with the orange girl they bothered to introduce her, rather than simply throw her in there and then act as though she always was there. But then again, the same could be said for clones like Rex and this other one named Oddball for some reason. Maybe she, like them, were characters from that other Clone Wars cartoon that I also never watched.

But instead of trying to give some kind of proper back story, or at least mention what her problem is, they just push in yet another lightsaber duel for the people who can only reach sexual release by watching people slap shiny energy beams together in highly choreographed dances. Then they have another one with no tension or impact because we know both characters are going to be fine. That's the major problem with this "film", there is no tension. We know Obi-Wan, Anakin and Dooku are going to survive to go on to Episode 3. We know that no matter what happens, things will end the way they do in Episode 3... and we know that as the new character, the Mary Sue in a tube top is going to live. No named character is really in danger of anything at all. It's nearly 100 minutes of pointless filler in a story that has been torn apart and riffed on by people far more qualified and funny than me. It's fleshing out a story that, at the end of the day, will have no major impact on anything because we know how poorly it ends, and given that nothing of this is ever mentioned in Episode 3, has a canon status that is equal to the expanded universe. A status which has been destroyed by Disney to make way for their own trilogy.

At the end of the day, I cannot say I outright hated this film like I can the prequel trilogy. They seemed to try and make Anakin and Obi-Wan right, which is something that Lucas gave up on and wrote them so out of character that it seemed like even he didn't bother watching the original trilogy at all, or at the very least since their original release. Every other time he released new versions, I'm sure he fast forwarded over the parts where the characters talked to get to where he could shove more CGI nonsense in. At least when characters talked, it wasn't done in shot, reverse shot while Lucas sat in a chair with his coffee, it was more dynamic, characters seemed to have some emotion on their faces, there was action, movement. Things happened beyond sitting on couches or walking against a green screen talking instead of taking action. But it was also just like the prequels in that it was dumbed down, dumb action in a war between things nobody cared about, needless comic relief and so much use of a lightsaber that the whole awesomeness behind it has been utterly ruined.

I'm not sure if I should laugh or cry that they managed to make Anakin more in character to what he originally should have been, had more dynamic everything and had more emotional range with full CGI and not being the original creators than Lucas ever could with real actors and being the man who penned six films of full, proper canon.

Maybe I'll laugh while I cry.

Starship Troopers 2 and 3

Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation

Started out looking like some horribly low budget Blip.tv show, then settled into a horrible low budget SyFy Original. Until they showed nipples, then it suddenly became bloody and crazy, to the point of cutting off a head with a meat cleaver, then sticking said head into a microwave.

The concept of the plot was sound, and even interesting. The whole thing about the bugs taking over humans could have been great if it were written in any competent way. However, they either found the worst writers they could, or simply had one of the terrible actors take a crack at it; either way, the plot was wasted.

Terribly acted, terrible special effects, terrible practical effects, terrible plot... I should have known not to watch it the moment I saw that LEDs on the guns were the actual effect they used to show weapons fire.

Whoever watched this travesty and greenlit it to be pressed to DVDs or uploaded to the Internet should be shot in the ass with a crossbow.


Starship Troopers 3: Marauder

Right off the bat, I want to say that the CGI in this film looks somehow cheaper than that in the second film, which had a 7 million dollar budget compared to this ones 20 million. But at the same time, they had multiple times more special effects than the second film, so I suppose it was a case of stretching it as far as they could. Plus they had many more physical sets. And guns that didn't use LEDs to show shooting effects. Though the guns in this film were comically large and obviously made of plastic.

Anyway, I've read several reviews of this film and many give it flak for not being "as good" as the first film and not being faithful to the book. Which is hilarious when you think about it, as the first film was heavily criticized for not being at all faithful to the book. So how is it that people can now praise the first film and call this bad because it did exactly what the first film did? I haven't seen Invasion yet, nor have I read anything about it but I wonder, will people be giving this film praise and calling that one out on not being faithful to the book as well?

But enough of that, on to the movie itself... and, well, it's meh. It's better than the second film to be sure, but I'll let you in on a secret; I haven't seen the first film completely, and it's been years since I last saw any of it. I know the ending and bits, but I cannot say with all proper due if this is better or worse than the first. But I can say that it's not an amazing film. It's nowhere near as painful as the second film, a point I'm sure I'll belabor a few more times before this is done.

The return of Rico is a big selling point of the movie, but again didn't see the first one completely, so maybe I'm missing out on something here. Not that it matters much; he's barely in the film for more than maybe 20 minutes all told in what's about 96 minutes without credits. His performance isn't anything to write home about, a fact I'm confused by because so many say his acting is one of the few good points in the film. But he's one of the many average, not very noteworthy performances in the film; in a film ripe for scene stealing nobody could deliver. Instead we get generic tougher soldier woman, a woman with a thick accent trying real hard to speak English, the paper pusher who is by the numbers and doesn't understand the real nature of war and people you wish would die... but to say if they do or not would ruin all the fun of sitting through this.

The action, what little there is, is much better than the second film, but it's separated by long, boring stretches of... get ready for it... walking in the desert. Congratulations, you were doing in 2008 what they had been doing in Stargate for years, only much worse because that show actually was interesting. And you know, that show had a much better play on religion as well.

Yeah, the elephant in the room that is religion. Now, I'm not sure if they were mocking it or not. I'm pretty sure they were, and in the end they were making a statement about using it to control the masses. But at the same time, several characters seemed to be genuinely convinced of their faith and conversion (as well as the acting allowed, anyway). I'm not quite sure if that was an under the table stab at those with faith or their attempt at trying to not be as offensive.

So, as an action movie it's not very action heavy. As a sequel it's better than 2, but I cannot say anything about 1. As an effects movie... ha ha ha no. As a movie overall, it's poor; the action is little and far between, the effects are horrible, the guns are made of plastic and something you would seem in slight miniature, packaged with cheap action figures from the Dollar Store/Tree/whatever or Poundland or any other super cheap store that sells them. The acting isn't anything special, the plot is generic and, while not painful to sit through, it's just an overall not enjoyable experience.

Guess I gotta watch Starship Troopers now to see where I stand with that. And Invasion. Though, being Japanese... well... let's just leave it at that.

Robin Hood: Men In Tights

My first time actually seeing this movie in a not cut down for TV version... but being PG-13 to begin with, it was amazing that they even needed to cut anything to begin with. Other than the very few dirty, filthy words. And somehow the term pansies. And saying that they're bunched when it came to their tights. Those censors always confused me, especially since I have seen different edits that don't mute them... or mute one but not the other. On the same station.

... Anyway... standard Mel Brooks stuff, this film. Singing pushed into something that normally wouldn't get a musical number, Mel Brooks cameos, some humor elements that make you question why it's a thing to begin with because it falls flat. Sadly, instead of JEWS IN SPACE... or the forests, we instead get a bunch of white guys pretending to be British and Dave Chappelle being not nearly offensive enough to really be funny; but again PG-13. But then, thankfully this film was made in 1993 instead of now, because I assure you the Arabs in this film would have been about a dozen times more offensive than... erm... well, the whole portrayal wasn't offensive at all. Actually I thought the guy who welcomed Robin to the dungeon was likely one of the most humorous characters in the film for how long he appeared. But you know it would have been now.

And Isaac Hayes wouldn't have been in it because of the death thing. Though, considering he was in the film for all of five minutes and wasn't anything special, it wouldn't have been a deal. Kind of the same for Patrick Stewart, except he's not dead. But he didn't do much in the film. At all. Except be an excuse to make a History of the World, Part 1 reference that I'm sure none of the teenagers who saw this movie in theaters at the time would get. Or today, really. Which should be a criminal act.

Where was I going with this? Oh, right, JEWS IN SPACE! No, wait, absurdest Robin Hood. It's one of those difficult things to describe, in all honestly, why I didn't find this film as funny as some other of his earlier works, but then it's hard to really describe any kind of humor that works for you as well. To me, the film simply wasn't up to snuff when compared to Spaceballs or HotWP1, but that's all subjective. There are genuinely funny moments of course, and I honestly think some of the moments I enjoyed the most were ad-libbed. But other moments fell flat, like the constant word mixing of the Sheriff of Rottingham; call me crazy but I simply didn't find that funny after the first time, or the boy who ran home screaming once he was saved in a seemingly obvious Home Alone parody, or the 12th Century Fox who made the Flipper noise when running, or really anything with Blinkin.

Not because I can't laugh at comedy with the disabled, but rather because it simply wasn't funny. I'm not sure what they were thinking with his character, but all attempts at humor involving him fell flat. There was also the fat nanny who was more annoying than some kind of comic relief. If anything, she reminded me too much of Nanny from Voltron, whom I have always hated. I'm sure she was better in Go-Lion though... wait, getting off topic again.

The film has its problems, yes. Many pieces of comedy fall flat, the musical numbers are in no real way as memorable as HotWP1, the inclusion of the rappers at the start and end were not needed at all... but the movie does have strengths as well, and those are worth watching the film for. I don't want to say them because that would be ruining half the fun; let's be honest, the worst thing you can do is recommend a comedy and then tell somebody all the A material. And hey, maybe you'll find some of the stuff to be funny that I didn't.

As a Mel Brooks film, it's no Spaceballs or History of the World, Part 1... but hey, not everything can be gold. It's still a mostly enjoyable film, and that's what counts.