Why Indiana Jones couldn't be made today

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look!

I'm coming back to thinking about Indiana Jones these days. There are two reasons for this. On the hand, I never quite wrapped my head around the reasons for the failures of "Kingdom of the Crystal Skull", and on the other, I'm not entirely sure about the quality of the first three movies in terms of their topical sensibilities. Allow me to explain. 

Musings on Epic: Listbuilding the CR90

After covering the Rebel Transport last time, we're going into their main combat ship this week. The Corvette has two distinct features: it's main weapon is going until Range 4 and is put on side-arcs, and it can Target Lock beyond range 4. This is important, because effects that allow you to lock usually are restricted to range 1-3. I find it harder to maneuver the firing arcs into position with a CR90 than with a Raider; however, the CR90 has an easier time to keep firing once the enemy is past you. Just some things to consider.

Musings on Epic: Listbuilding the GR75

After we established some basics on the mechanics of Epic gaming, I want to finally turn to list building. At first, we'll take a look at a ships available for the Rebel faction (and, by proxy, the Resistance): the GR75 Transport. Be advised that the Resistance has much reduced options in some cases; I will mention this for the categories. For each ship, we shall look at the available upgrades in turn. I will steal a page from the Space Cats Peace Turtles podcast for rating the upgrades and establish tiers, without any specific order within the tiers. We go in descending order from S-Tier to A-Tier over to B-Tier, C-Tier and F-Tier. With all that preliminary stuff out of the way, let's evacuate some bases with the GR75!

A contorted view on "The Rise of Skywalker"

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look!

I'm in a bit of a conundrum, to be honest. It's well documented that I really, really like "The Last Jedi". Therefore, a movie that sets out to ignore the largest possible amount of storytelling from that movie gives me bad aches. I feel that right now, I'm not able to give "The Rise of Skywalker" a really fair shake and that I need to watch it again with perfect knowledge of what happens in the plot and without any hopes and preconceptions attached to it. For now, the phantom pains are contorting the picture.

Musings about Epic: Action stations!

After we covered the basics of how Wings and Huge Ships actually work, it's time to get down to some more detailed stuff. So, what comes after executing a maneuver? Say it with me: taking an action! Unless you're stressed, overlapping an obstacle etc. of course. Duh, you might say, what about it? Nothing in the rules changes what actions I can take. Wait a bit, I reply. As everything Epic, action selection has to cope with the format.

Musings about Epic: Flying huge ships

Back in X-Wing 1.0, Huge Ships were by generally consensus "not good". One of the reasons for their lackluster performance, aside from the clunkyness of the Epic rules in 1.0 in general, was that they were simply to weak, unable to deal enough damage or generally to do what they were designed to do. In 2.0, this problem has been remedied. Huge Ships perform well enough to be used in battle, and in this article, we'll go into the basics of how this works.

Musing about Epic: Flying in wings

This is the first post in an intended series about the Epic game format of Fantasy Flight Games' "X-Wing Miniatures Game". Your feedback will determine what will become of it, so please, chime in and talk about it!

When you try out the new Epic game format for the first time, the biggest change - apart from the new 500 points limit in standard games - is the mechanic of wings. Wings allow you to move several ships while assigning only one dial, therefore cutting down the time needed to play considerably. Apart from making Epic much more playable than in 1.0, however, wings have several repercussions that one needs to be aware of when you're building your lists and flying them.

Locke&Key: A primer

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look!

Netflix has announced that they will show a first season for the adaption of the graphic novel "Locke&Key" starting in February. For those unfamiliar with it, "Locke&Key" is a series of six graphic novels (at least in the edition I own) that tell a full story from beginning to end. It's a mild horror-fantasy story.

A review of "Tiamat's Wrath - Book 8 of The Expanse"

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look!

More nuclear reactors in Westeros

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look!

Revisiting Fire and Blood

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

As already mentioned in my latest podcast with "The Laws of Ice and Fire", Clint, I used October to reread Fire and Blood for the first time since its arrival. I have been lukewarm on all the fake histories of Westeros, as our previous podcasts (Princess and the Queen, Aegon's Conquest, Rogue Prince, Fire and Blood) indicate, and stayed largely away from the discussion in the fandom. Since it's the only new material that came out these past years, that also meant staying away from a lot of the discussion, period. Now I wanted to see if my opinion changed.

Repairing GOT storylines

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look!

A lot of people have signed petitions to re-do Season 8 of the hugely successful TV adaption "Game of Thrones". For reasons I can understand but emphatically do not share, they disliked the last batch of episodes and where the series ended up. However, I think these people are mistaken for another reason. The moment where we need to repair storylines is not seasons 7 and 8, which for me set the show on the right track again. If I could have a do-over, I would remake certain storylines from seasons 5 and 6, which for me are where the show really faltered.

How the story of Star Wars changed over time

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look!

There is this weird thing going on regarding the main plot of Star Wars. And when I say "main plot", I mean the movies, just so we're clear on the whole "Extended Universe" nonsense. Look at the prequels, for example. Buckets full of abuse have been heaped on them for their storylines, some rightfully so ("I hate sand"), some less. Sean and I did a podcast about that back in the day (BLAH 57, to be precise). 

A Dark Season 2 Guide to Germany

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

On recommendation of my illustrious co-host, I watched the second season of Dark, and as with the first one, I'll provide you with a guide of miscellany about Germany as we go along. Given the time-sensitiveness of new shows on Netflix, I'll publish this one right now, so the next BLAP will be out at the beginning of August.

Disney's performative wokeness

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

When "Captain Marvel" hit the cinemas, a debate - no, a fight, really - went into overdrive. The point of contention, it goes thusly: How badly does Disney pander to progressives and liberals in its movies? If you're a right-winger, the answer was clear. Disney is pushing an agenda, trying to brainwash its audiences, and it will not stand. If you're a progressive or liberal, a lot of it is just overblown, as Disney is - finally!  - attempting to represent society as it is.

Don't overinterpret the Behind-the-episode-pieces

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

After every episode of "Game of Thrones" airs, HBO also releases a documentary of sorts, called "Inside the Episode", like you find as bonus material on practically every DVD or BlueRay. In it, the actors are interviewed, we get looks into the production process, people show how the sausage is being made. Prominently featured in all these videos are Benioff and Weiss, the show's creators, who explain the plot.

Once Upon An Insufferable Adaptation

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

 

Back when Deadpool came out, way back when in 2016, it resonated with a lot of people. It made fun of the ubiquitous superhero genre, it was edgy, it was gory, it had a lot of humor. Many people took its self-parody and crowbar-style subtlety in strides and made it into a surprise hit. It was inevitable that it would be followed up by a sequel. 

My Star Wars pitches

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

 

Now that Star Wars is officially on hiatus for...some period of time with...some part of the franchise, I want to take the opportunity and pitch some ideas for Star Wars movies. We know that the background for the decision to take a little break from theatrical releases lay in the disappointing performance of "Solo", a movie that was famously regarded as a bad idea by illustrious hosts of this here show even when it was announced. The other foray into movies independent from the main saga, "Rogue One", fared much better.

Rewatching Spiderman 2

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

I watched a lot of YouTube videos lately analyzing Spiderman 2. Those things tend to be like stock markets and herd on the same topics for some reason, but the videos are good. That's not the point, though. I realized it's been 15 years since I watched the movie, so I decided to rewatch it. And it's been a weird experience.

The god of Black-and-White fallacies

This post comes out of a series of writing I do on ASOIAF meta and other topics of popular culture over at the Patreon of the Boiled Leather Audio Hour. If you like to read stuff like this, chime in just 1$ and you get access to everything I write. If you throw in 2$, you even get access to the audio version. For 5$, you get access to the mini-podcasts I'm doing with illustrious co-hosts answering questions by listeners of the podcast. At 10$, you get exclusive access to the Boiled Leather Audio Conversation bonus podcasts. Give the Patreon a look! 

 

Thor Ragnarok poses a great example for the black-and-white fallacy. You might wonder what I'm talking about. What do logical fallacies and the construction of arguments have to do with that fun romp of a movie? Don't worry, I'll explain.