Recent content by Willie the Duck

This is the big problem, in my mind. Firefly was a moment in time, lightning in a bottle. There wasn't something ridiculously engaging about the world in which it was set, nor were the ship and crew fascinating new character archetypes. It was the chemistry of the actors, combined with engaging...

Would you, could you, with a knife? Would you, could you, end Caesar's life?

As I pointed out two years ago, Big Mac already provided the relevant context that the OP (rage bait) article did not. WizKids was making a deliberate (and stated) new interpretation. No claim was made to what Elmore originally intended (and how relevant that is to what the original 'is' becomes...

It's an implied one. There are a number of attributes where a score of 5 or lower constrains you to a specific class (5 or less in Strength must be a magic user, 5 or less in Intelligence must be a fighter, and so on). Having two 5s creates the paradoxical situation where you can be nothing but...

I don't think I have, but it's possible I may have forgotten something. I feel like the breeding experiment couldn't work simply by having two powerful Lensmen having children, without Clarissa being the first female Lensman. I think X-Men have mined the same premise 2-3 times with Scott Summers...

The point stands that Burroughs' Barsoom series was a foundational inspiration to space epics like Star Wars but it being the earlier work not mattering to people introduced to SW first. However, there were many reasons that movie failed. Foremost in my mind was that it was actually called...

Smith's Lensmen has the same issue that H. Rider Haggard's Allan Quatermain has* -- they would be mistaken as imitations of their descendants (Indiana Jones for Quatermain, every OP space-cop since for Lensmen). Yes, I'm sure if a movie/series came out, it would rapidly spread around the...

While obviously I cannot say how representative they are, I do know (at least tangentially) vast numbers of people in the hobby who fit the category of non-forum-dwellers. My general takeaway on 'the pulse of the hobby' is that purity in all forms, especially fidelity to any particular grand...

With SNL, there's additional qualifiers: The actors have to be able to switch into the costume during a commercial break (and out for their next scene). They are performing live (have one take) They --both the SNL performers and guest stars -- are likely not experienced with performing blind...

I kinda burned out on 'but realism!' in the 2e days of studded leather and smaller-than-bastard-sword longswords (and are-katanas-any-good) days of Usenet. Mind you, individual asides pointing out realistic medievalisms are wonderful (say, the monastery is buying copperas to make iron gall ink...

I'm extending the thinking -- and they would do so, and it would be good. Do I have that right? Because the only thing keeping it from happening when Jodorowsky was dreaming it up was sufficient funds and their crypt-bro genius (which would obviously make up for not having Jodorowsky there to...

So here's where I think I stand on this (kind of thing) -- Krull is not a masterpiece. It is, however, not a B-movie. Nothing Roger Corman, no 'Attack of the Killer ______' or 'The ______ from Outer Space.' In the pre-Peter Jackson LotR world, it was the equivalent of fantasy being taken...

Sometimes it's really their dissertation advisor that cares strongly.

Perhaps this would help -- Whether you like them/use them or not, you're familiar with the wandering monster checks in TSR-era A/D&D, right? Now, those aren't very meta (like HP, they represent something in the fiction of the game, even if they are an abstraction of an overall population of...

Depends on what Grandma's into, I guess.