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Message: <blockquote data-quote="(un)reason" data-source="post: 8587246" data-attributes="member: 27780">Well, we've made it to the second anniversary of the thread. Decently over halfway through Polyhedron, but still a long way to go through Dungeon, it looks like I'll still be chugging along for several more years yet. Let's see if I can continue a reliable schedule of daily posting without anything going wrong, and hope that someone out there is getting anything useful from me doing this.Polyhedron Issue 96: June 1994part 4/5Into The Dark: Another issue where there's no particular theme, and James deigns to accept the recommendations of others, this time his fellow convention-goers at Winter Fantasy. He may not agree with all of them, but he'll do his best to give them all a fair showing at least. Beauty & the Beast (1946) gets a solid 5 stars. The disney version may have replaced it in most people's minds as the adaption everyone thinks of when you mention it, but James thinks this is considerably superior. Don't let the mouse bowdlerise everything you consume. Infra-Man is a bit of Hong Kong cheese clearly based on the Japanese Ultraman. Man gets enhanced with super science gadgetry and fights rubber suit monsters, with cheesy sound effects accompanying every strike. Don't expect particularly deep or consistent writing, but it's still an entertaining watch. The Hunger also gets a mixed result. It's certainly got plenty of style, and David Bowie is excellent as ever, but underneath all the visual effects the story is a bit insubstantial. What works in music videos gets a bit tiresome stretched out to full feature length.The Devil Doll is another ancient movie, this time from 1936, that James finds is still well worth watching. People being turned into tiny assassins by a mad scientist would be laughable in lesser hands, but this manages some genuine scares and decent human level subplots as well. The completely static camerawork might be a bit odd to people used to modern stabilised handhelds and fast cuts, but you'll soon get used to it. Fist of the North Star is another one that gets a middling review. Yes, the martial arts fights are impressive, but the characterisations are stiff and shallow, and the episodic nature of the manga doesn't really suit being boiled down to a single movie. There are better formats to experience this story in.The Living Galaxy: Roger takes us back down to earth again, to look at the possibility of playing nonhumans from earth, a la the works of Larry Niven or David Brin. What possibilities and potential hitches does adding an uplifted dolphin, elephant or dog to your party offer? You can go places a human can't, employ senses that would require expensive equipment for us to replicate and things like superhuman strength or flight are well within the bounds of possibility. On the negative side, the lack of hands makes things we take for granted inaccessible without expensive cybernetic enhancements, and even basic amenities may be more expensive, depending on how common creatures of that type are, their earning power and citizenship status. There's definitely a lot of room for this kind of story to get dystopian, with questions of what really counts as legally human tempering your enthusiasm at the cool things very different creatures can achieve working together. As usual there's plenty of references, with a particular emphasis on the nonfiction ones about studying the animals as they are and the quirks of their personalities and social orders. Making them smarter and hopefully less aggressive isn't going to change those natural tendencies and they can make for fun roleplaying so you wouldn't want to remove them completely anyway. Another competent bit of work that looks like it would combine well with the Amazing Engine stuff earlier as well. When you're up against giant bugs, bringing an elephant along could be very helpful indeed, particularly if they're carrying an elephant sized flamethrower and firing it with their trunk.</blockquote>

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