Halfway 2 Halloween~Tonight we Scream

fatsAlien Nation was a science fiction/crime drama hybrid that delt with lots of social themes. It was also pretty dang good. Of course we're here for Halloween and hey, this pretty good show had a Halloween episode! It's the spooky season as as the Newcomers are adapting to life on earth they're of course learning about our cultures and holidays. Halloween is pretty weird for people that don't celebrate it as is, but imagine being from another planet. It's a pretty big culture shock, not to mention dealing with jerks. Emily is looking forward to her first Halloween, but some of the kids are of course not to friendly towards somebody different. Did I mention the social themes? Yeah, they go pretty hard. The Francisco's are having an interesting spooky season.

It doesn't help that George is tracking a serial killer. Oh hey, a serial killer at Halloween! This episode hits all the major notes! The killer however is targeting Newcomers in a very specific way. In their old culture, there was Overseers and slaves. Now on Earth, they're all equals... but the former Overseers still think they're better than others... sound familiar? It gets pretty heavy. Well the killer is specifically targeting the former Overseers in the manner of a scary folk legend the Overseers would use to scare the slaves into obedience. Needless to say, this isn't your average show or Halloween special.

Originally Posted: 09/01/2023

Tonight we Scream

Alien Nation was a science fiction/crime drama hybrid that delt with lots of social themes. It was also pretty dang good. Of course we're here for Halloween and hey, this pretty good show had a Halloween episode! It's the spooky season as as the Newcomers are adapting to life on earth they're of course learning about our cultures and holidays. Halloween is pretty weird for people that don't celebrate it as is, but imagine being from another planet. It's a pretty big culture shock, not to mention dealing with jerks. Emily is looking forward to her first Halloween, but some of the kids are of course not to friendly towards somebody different. Did I mention the social themes? Yeah, they go pretty hard. The Francisco's are having an interesting spooky season.

It doesn't help that George is tracking a serial killer. Oh hey, a serial killer at Halloween! This episode hits all the major notes! The killer however is targeting Newcomers in a very specific way. In their old culture, there was Overseers and slaves. Now on Earth, they're all equals... but the former Overseers still think they're better than others... sound familiar? It gets pretty heavy. Well the killer is specifically targeting the former Overseers in the manner of a scary folk legend the Overseers would use to scare the slaves into obedience. Needless to say, this isn't your average show or Halloween special.

TokuSHOUTsu Starts Now!

It's midnight here in Georgia as I'm posting this, I'm not sure about where you're at, but work with me here. Shout Factory and Pluto TV's brand new all Tokusatsu channel (681) launches at 12am Tuesday March 17th! Following up on Shout Factory making Kamen Rider available for streaming on Tubi (after last weeks early launch), now fans can enjoy crazy monsters and super heroes fight it out as easy as looking at their phones to pass the time. It's pretty awesome. I hope to see more crazy cool shows and movies join the line up in the future, but for now, I'm pretty happy with the launch line up.

Cyborg Station CX1

Henshin Cyborg commercials sure are a fever dream.

Diaclone: Decisive Battle on the Moon

Godzilla: City on the Edge of Battle

Despite my best intentions to watch the newest installment of the Godzilla animated trilogy on it's Netflix release last weekend, I was just too busy and had to wait until this weekend. Bummer, but that's life. I had already read some brief spoilers from it Japanese release a few months earlier, but still was looking forward to seeing it for myself. Like with the first part, I enjoyed myself quite a bit.

The animated movies are a real slow burn and  heavy on the science fiction of the scenario, so don't expect a ton of action or a mindless explosion factory. Themes of humanity surviving an apocalyptic situation are still present here as well as the ever present technology vs humanity theme that's a mainstay of science fiction. I don't plan to spoil anything, so I'm purposely being vague about details.

I definitely dug the military scenes and equipment. Just like before, I felt as though I was watching a Diaclone adaption. The mech suits get an impressive upgrade and dammit I want Godzilla anime toys. There's Mecha Godzilla amd Godzilla stuff from the series, but a nice micro playset would be boss.

If you liked the first one, watch this one. Don't miss the post credits scene. Trust me.

Blockman rocks, man

Blockman was one of those lines that passed me right on by until I was in college. One of Takara's cool robot lines of the 80's, Blockman did see life in the US as part of the Robotech toy line and even bootlegs of the figures did appear in gumball machines. While I vaguely recall seeing the Robotech versions at Kaybee, I did have some of the gumball machine bootlegs. I don't know the specifics of distribution (the machine owner probably just ordered machine robot toys from a catalog), but I very strongly remember the Kroger we'd get groceries at had an awesome selection of gumball machine toys for awhile. Including one with a generic space robots art taped to the front and random robot toys inside.

Mostly I'd get various Mospeada (which I knew as the third season of Robotech) figure kits (probably were bootlegs of some candy kit) in a variety of colors from it. Occasionally I'd get some of these neat square robot dudes in that machine without any clue to who they were other than a neat robot. That machine rocked, though eventually it gave way to little rubber figures of various bootlegged characters, which too was awesome, just for different reasons.

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Well, that sure was a blast. A real fun, just thrill ride of a Star Wars movie. I've been hearing the usual amount of naysaying doing the usual naysaying, but I thought Solo was perfectly fine. Honestly, I was very surprised as going in as I was expecting a mess. What I got was a fun adventure with a young Han Solo and a bit of set up to how he became who we knew him to be later on.

I'm trying my best to not spoil anything, so the best I can tell you is that Solo, like Rogue One, isn't your standard Star Wars movie. That's probably got alot to do with why I enjoy these Star Wars Stories films so much. By exploring the expanded universe (sans novels) they can afford to be different than the saga movies that dwell more on Jedi, the force, and the overall major points. Here we get to see things that were mentioned in the Saga fleshed out in grandiose ways.

Solo is a great heist film set in a space opera setting that takes place in one of the most famous film series in the world. I'm very happy with what I just watched and look forward to getting that Blue Ray.

Godzilla forever mofo

 Last week the news that Toho plans to start a new Godzilla series after 2020 hit and the kaiju fans went nuts. I've been waiting to talk about it here as I wanted to see if anymore news would come before I started talking about it. Some were upset that it was outright said there wasn't going to be a Shin Godzilla sequel. Personally, I liked Shin Godzilla, but don't want a sequel. I'd much rather have a return to traditional Toho Godzilla movies. As Monsterverse rages on, the 2020 time frame is the same as when talks of Shin Godzilla 2 were going around. I believe it's part of Toho's deal with Legendary as so the movies don't compete with one another (which would really be self defeating, all it takes is a look at the time frame between current Toho Godzilla movies and Legendary's time frame to get the idea). With Legendary's Godzilla 2 and King Kong vs Godzilla coming in 2019 and 2020 respectively, it's clear as to why the 2 year wait. Allegedly there will be a span of 1-2 years in between Toho releases, which is standard Godzilla series timing. Realistically, they're probably going to be filming the first movie during this time.

I'm very, very, very excited. It's no secret how much I love Legendary Pictures offerings in the genre, but Toho is king of the giant monster movies and a new series from them is super exciting for a life long fan. Fortunately this new era is during the modern age where watching a foreign movie isn't that much of a challenge anymore. Gone are the days of finding bootleg dub jobs on VHS while waiting for an American release that's often limited in release. As the US releases of Shin and the animated movies show, the turn around for a US release is pretty quick.

The prospect of these being on Netflix in the US like the animated movies just made me scream in excitement out loud.

It's Beast Morphin Time!

The Las Vegas Licensing Expo is currently going on and this is something that always catches my eye. I'm a sucker for licensed good and tie in products. Being the amount of action figures I go over here, that should come as no surprise. This expo is where a lot of the magic that goes into the stuff we buy and watch happens. It's super neat. While lots and lots of brands are out on display, of particular note so far to me has been the Power Rangers Beast Morphers display featuring a trailer of the show. The trailer is a cobbled together bunch of action scenes from Go-Busters! (the source material for Beast Morphers) set to music (which the video has no audio as it's probably just some current popular songs and being hosted on YouTube the poster obviously doesn't want to get flagged) to sell the idea next to some displays featuring the Rangers and logo with some descriptions of the series.

What I find morphenominal is how the overall vibe of the series is presented here. It's not too far removed from Go-Busters!, so here's hoping the PR version will stay pretty close. It's just plain slick and I think in today's world of everything having a forced gritty vibe (as edgy as a 14 year old in an ICP t-shirt), slick sci fi with bright colors is a most welcome change of pace.

Godzilla: The City Mechanized for Battle

Man this one looks like the action gets dialed up a few levels, but as much as I dig the new Mecha Godzilla, I feel like this one should be Zone Fighter or something else. Either way I'm looking forward to this one popping up on Netflix.

Waruders ready, Waruder ready

Takara uploaded a new video about the upcoming Waruder suits for the current Diaclone line. Man... man... mmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. I want these, at least one. These are awesome. I was wondering how they'd go about Waruders in current Diaclone as they've stayed away from the Transformers stuff and it's hard to do robot insects without instant Insecticon comparisons, so this new twist on the mech suits is just great. You know, I really need to get both Diaclone and Waruder pilots. Just a bunch. I got all sorts of crap that could use a driver.

I'm still snowed in so I watched Godzilla

I watched the new awesome Godzilla anime on Netflix last night and boy are my arms tired. This was a great film. I really like the visual presentation, the overall darkness. A giant monster destroying your planet is going to be dark and grim. It has a similar vibe to Attack on Titan, the entire hopeless world ending all around you and trying to stand up to impossible odds. You can't fight a storm, you can just take cover and try to stay alive. You can try to fight and kill a monster that's destroying everything. And that's really well sold in this, 'we've got to stop this'. All while dealing with various issues like governing entities and emotions.

There's great science fiction to it too. Aliens, cool weapons, mech suits, space ships. I almost felt like I was watching one of those Diaclone commercials watching the military forces pull into action and mobilize. I would love a video game set in this world.

Godzilla isn't some cute monster dancing around, he's a big dark destroyer that's taking over and there's nothing you can do about it. Adding to everything is a background mystery with an overall sinister vibe. You feel like there is more going on more and more while watching and I'm sure that's going to be more prevalent as the series continues. Not to mention little hints (some more obvious than others) of things to come.

I'm very happy with this presentation of Godzilla, much more than the last two films (that I did enjoy, but not as much as this). I really hope the series continues this level of greatness going forward or even builds on it. If you like kaiju, anime, science fiction, or even just a good story, I recommend it.