Review: The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes

 

Prequels are a popular genre, especially in Hollywood. They build on an established IP and bring the coveted "brand recognition" and thus a guaranteed audience. Nevertheless, especially critics view these products with great reservations: all too often, they are unable to contribute anything relevant to the original story and suffer under the burden of the original narrative. How exciting can it really be to follow the origin story of the antagonist of the "Hunger Games" series, President Snow? The answer to the question "Why did the antagonist turn evil?" has driven countless more or less successful projects by now but all too often leads to excessively banal results. Did Darth Vader really become a more interesting character since we know he feared the death of his beloved? The subdued reactions to J.K. Rowling's origin story of Dumbledore also speak volumes. Accordingly, I was skeptical about Collins' new work, which - almost immediately with a film deal - sets out to explain why the villain of the series turned evil.

An obituary on Steven Attewell

 My friend Marcus Roberts wrote this obituary, and I wholeheartedly agree with everything he says here. 

My friend Stefan Sasse sent me the news that Steven had died and I just started crying and couldn’t stop.

It’s been 24 hours now and I’m able to think a little about why that is.

For me, his loss to the community of Ice & Fire is obvious - ours is a world founded and defined by GRRM but explored and understood politically, historically and strategically with genius by Steven. And his coup chapters in ‘Race for the Iron Throne’ inspired an insane multi-day, real time, 24 player simulation of Ned vs Cersei that was wild fun!*

Less obvious to the world is the loss his death represents politically. Steven was that most rare of people: a man with fully worked out politics. He knew what he believed and why he believed it and could tell you where the ideas came from and where they could take us.

This manifested in his epic work, ‘People Must Live By Work: Direct Job Creation in America from FDR to Reagan’. I had told him how much I was looking forward to its sequel covering our current era of more activist government involvement in the economy.

That’s a serious point. Because the Left is still too weak on political economy right now and the Right is still too strong. Steven was one of the best minds we had at thinking through a coherent next chapter in the Left’s political economic thinking. I think his intellectual and policy legacy will be greater than even he perhaps realised.

The last reason why his death hit me so hard is a personal one: I can’t think of being in New York without seeing Steven. We’d meet in a West Side dive bar, have a beer than get a cab to ‘Nick’s Pizza’ on 94th and 2nd. All the time I’d be asking him questions, all the time he’d be talking, all the time I’d be learning - and then marvelling at this brain that represented for me the very best of geekery and nerdery alike.

I miss you Steven. I’m so sorry you’re gone. Thank you for your brilliance and friendship.

"Wool" review - The book "Silo" was based on

 

One of the big surprises of the TV year 2023 was the Apple series "Silo". As I discussed in detail with Sean T. Collins on the podcast, the series impresses with great worldbuilding, strong characters, and great acting performances. The structure of the story and its pacing are also great, in short: highly recommended. I only learned after watching the series that it is based on a book (I should have paid more attention to the credits). This book had a similar story to "The Martian": it originally started its career as an online novel, was then discovered by a publisher, and turned into a bestseller. In Howey's case, it was the first chapter, initially intended only as a short story (and which forms the first episode of the series), that was published online and from which the rest of the book was developed. How it compares to the series and whether it can convince as an independent work will be shown in the following review. Warning: I spoil the story and thus also large parts of the series.

Ted Lasso: A complete series review

I finally managed to watch the final season of Ted Lasso. Of course, I would be in dereliction of my duties if I did not tell you what I thought of the series as a whole. Just to give you the tl;dr version of it: Ted Lasso really should have ended after season one. it was lightning in a bottle it couldn't possibly be sustained, especially not with a genre switch and an almost doubling of the runtime of individual episodes. But let's not get ahead of ourselves and start at season one and why it had the impact it had when it came out in 2020.

Not quite there yet: Giants - Citizen Kabuto

The year is 2000. Planet Moon Studios published their first game, "Giants: Citizen Kabuto". It wasn't the first game for the developers. The reason they were allowed to make a game as a brand new studio for four years was that their previous project in 1997 had been "MDK", the visionary third person shooter. They came with a pedigree, is what I'm saying.

Ignoring the black character

The 90s were a weird time for representation in movies. We can pin the start of the trend to include a black side character in big movies to the 1980s, in form of the "heavy weapons nigger", a muscular black character carrying the biggest gun, being cool and stoic, getting one big action scene and being killed off safely before the finale to allow the white hero to shine. 

Episode 3 – Second of His Name

We return to the House of the Dragon after another time jump. More than two years have passed since the last episode and establishing these jumps at the beginning of each episode is starting to develop in a comfortable rhythm, giving each episode the feeling of a deep look into a moment in time, rather than a continuous narrative. It feels a bit like a documentary in that regard. I really like it, and it’s very appropriate.

Lightsaber duels, ranked

I got into a discussion about the quality of lightsaber duels in Star Wars, so naturally I decided to provide a definitive and 100% objective ranking. I haven't seen Clone Wars and can't include those, but Rebels is in. Here goes:

House of the Dragon, season 1, episode 2 review

We’re back in the Red Keep, half a year later. From the beginning, this show is dealing in different time horizons than does “Game of Thrones”. So far, it works…mostly. We’ll get to the problem later. The new status quo is quickly established. Daemon has installed himself as Prince of Dragonstone, and Viserys refuses to act against him. Only when Daemon also steals a dragon egg and proclaims a marriage to his paramour, with whom he claims having a child – the inciting incident of the episode – is he finally willing to act. Otto keeps him from going himself – it’s dangerous, you see – and goes in his stead.

House of the Dragon review, Season 1, Episode 1

Game of Thrones is back! Or, at least its 172 year distant prequel is. House Targaryen is at the height of its power, and as the voiceover in the first episode reminds us, the only thing that can bring down the House of the Dragon is itself. You can see Robert Baratheon protesting a bit, but then, he didn’t have to contend with dragons. And dragons are the centerpiece of this new show, as our very first sequence tells us, when Rhaenyra descends from the clouds on her golden dragon Syrax.

Rewatching "The Americans", season 6

Things have been going slower, but I since I received a diagnosis for Long Covid in the meantime, I guess "The Americans" for me will therefore be forever linked to the global pandemic. Cheery times! But oddly fitting, given the material. I finished the final season, so let's make this a proper send-off, shall we? 

Channingography, part 4 - Jupiter Ascending (2015)

"Jupiter Ascending" is a sad story. Not because of the plot. That one is decidedly dark at its core, but the actual events unfolding are more or less lighthearted action. No, it's a sad story because of what happened. It's a big budget Sci-Fi movie by the Wachowski sisters, unrelated to any existing IP and based solely on their crazyly imaginary minds. Unfortunately, it's not good, and that's a shame. As a mini-tragedy inside this bigger waste, it stars Channing Tatum in its leading role (alongside Mila Kunis), and I'm not quite certain his career survived this hit. If Jupiter Ascending had been a smash, maybe Tatum's career would have profited as well. Who knows? 

Rewatching "The Americans", season 5

Things have been going slower, but I since I received a diagnosis for Long Covid in the meantime, I guess "The Americans" for me will therefore be forever linked to the global pandemic. Cheery times! But oddly fitting, given the material. I now finished the fifth season, and with only one to go, let's take a look back at what was what.

Channingography, part 3: Step Up (2006)

 

After four movies that turned out way, way better than I expected, would Channing Tatum's filmography hold for the one that actually provided his breakthrough as a leading man and spawned a franchise that rivals the "Fast&Furious" series for longevity? Let's do the short version: no, the movie is shit. 

My stance on various ASOIAF conspiracy theories, Part 26

Thursday is theory day.

This is the twenty-seventh article of the series. Since there are a lot of theories floating out there and I'm asked often enough what I think of them, I thought I write it down. You can then laugh about me when I am totally proven wrong by "The Winds of Winter" or something like that. Rules are as follows: you put a question about any theory or plot element (really, let's stress "theory" a bit for the sake of interesting questions) either in the comments of any theory post or by mail (stefan_sasse@gmx.de) and I will answer them in an upcoming post. And if you now ask "Stefan, isn't this a shameless rip-off of Sean T. Collin's "Ask me anything"?", I would tell you to shut up, because you are right.

Prepare for part 27. Spoilers for "A Song of Ice and Fire", obviously.  

Review: George R. R. Martin - The Rogue Prince

In the newest anthology he edited, "Rogues", George R. R. Martin included the aptly named "The Rogue Prince". Like with his previous anthology, "Dangerous Women", which included "The Princess and the Queen", "The Rogue Prince" is a fragment of a much larger text about the Dance of the Dragons and its inception, the shattering Targaryen civil war that happened way over 150 before the events of the novel series proper. This (shorter) issue concerns itself with the history leading up to the death of Viserys I, where "The Princess and the Queen" began, a story that by a benign reader might be read as dominated by the titular Rogue Prince, Daemon Targaryen. Alas, I'm not benign.

The only picture of the Princess and the Rogue Prince I could find.

The problem with biopics

I recently watched "Darkest Hour", the biopic about Winston Churchill in May 1940. I'm usually not a fan of biopics, which are oscar-bait at best and boring distortions at worst. "Darkest Hour" begins really strong, but it falters in the last third, falling victim to the problems it shares with many other biopics.

Rewatching "The Americans", season 4

Having finally moves past the worst of Covid, my pace in rewatching "The Americans" slowed down a bit. I was still on sick leave, so season 4 was done. Season 3 was the first legitimately great season of the show, where it finally found its own MO of a slow-moving tragedy and procedural. 

Rewatching "The Americans": Season 3

Because of my Covid-induced torpor, I was not able to do much but lay back on the couch and binge stuff. There was nothing of interest on, and I had toyed with the idea of rewatching "The Americans" anyhow, so off I went and watched three seasons in five days. Hooray for Covid. I want to talk about the experience, but it comes with a spoiler warning.

Rewatching "The Americans": Season 2

Because of my Covid-induced torpor, I was not able to do much but lay back on the couch and binge stuff. There was nothing of interest on, and I had toyed with the idea of rewatching "The Americans" anyhow, so off I went and watched three seasons in five days. Hooray for Covid. I want to talk about the experience, but it comes with a spoiler warning.

There are some series that experience a marked uptick in quality in their later seasons. It does not happen in cases where the fundamentals are rotten, but when there is promise, it can happen. "Halt and Catch Fire" is my favorite example, but "The Americans" comes in a close second. The first season is a solidly "okay", entertaining spy thriller. It's in the second season where things improve, although we're not yet at the great stuff. My colleague Sean T. Collins made the comparison to "Breaking Bad" or "The Sopranos", which also arrived at their peak only in season 3, and I think it's apt.