"It's a Video Game!" - Control

Imagine you’re a redhead with telekinetic abilities who has to stop an evil entity from entering our world. No, I’m not talking about Jean Grey, nor am I talking about Liz whenever “Frankie, The Annoying Dog” wants to act like a cat. I’m talking about Jesse Faden, the protagonist of Control, a 2019 game developed by Remedy. This was a game I saw some press for back in 2019 since it looked pretty unique. Of course, I end up waiting until 2021 to check it out. Thanks, Playstation Plus! I knew there was another reason to keep it around. It was also released on the Xbox One, the Nintendo Switch, and PC.

The game is about Jesse Faden, a young woman who has telekinetic abilities. In the story, Jesse heads to the Federal Bureau of Control, a government branch that deals with paranormal or supernatural incidents. When she gets to their main headquarters (The Oldest House) in New York, she finds that the building is constantly shifting and morphing. It’s revealed that it is a doorway to another dimension and that something on the other side is causing it to morph. The entity, The Hiss, is also possessing the building’s agents. Jesse gets the shock of her life as she’s made the Director of the FBC, and she’s forced to deal with the coming threat. She also has to find out what the FBC did with her brother, Dylan.

Movie Talk - Zack Snyder's Justice League

Man, we got hit with some comic book goodness a while back. The revamped Justice League as well as “Captain Falcon and The Mark Hammill-Look-Alike” hit right around the same time. I even got around to finishing WandaVision, aka “Grief Personified into Sitcoms” too. It’s goodness all around when you include Godzilla vs. Kong and Mortal Kombat! Yeah, I usually start these Snyder posts with a bit of a joke, but not this time. There’s not anything out in theatres for me to joke about, but I could probably make fun of something. Let me just get on with this one.

Zack Snyder’s Justice League was something I wasn’t clamoring for for a couple of reasons. I’ve got my fair share of Justice League-ness, and the fandom surrounding it is a lot. I didn’t say “toxic” because that gets thrown around a too much, and it’s not like any fandom has no toxicity in it. Some folk I do follow seem pretty chill. Heck, anti-Snyder fans are about as annoying as some pro-Snyder fans. Yes, I said it and I’m not even that big a fan of Snyder. Even though the original theater version wasn’t that satisfying, I still enjoyed it for what it was. Then, we heard what happened behind-the-scenes with the reshoots, and… eegh. That’s not even including what got cut out of Snyder’s original cut.

When the WB announced that it was coming, I was “whelmed, traught, and feeling the ‘aster…” whatever that means.  As more of the trailers came, I started to get a bit more excited. I ended up watching it all in bits and pieces the day it was released. I’ll save the pretty spoilerish bits for below, but I thought it was pretty good. The tone is pretty consistent throughout with some good bits of humor and pretty heartfelt moments. The League is all on top form here and even Stepphenwolf comes off better. It’s not perfect (a bit overlong in places and a couple of weird plot points), but this blew out the theatrical cut by a mile.

TV Talk - Roswell (the original WB series)

One pro of getting rid of themed months is that I can talk about anything I want to now. I usually threw anything sci-fi related into the month of May, and this would have been thrown in there. Just recently, Liz and I went through the entirety of the original Roswell show. I gotta make that distinction because there’s a reboot on the CW called Roswell: New Mexico, and I haven’t gotten to that one yet. I just had to revisit the original, ya know?

Roswell debuted in 1999 on the WB. It was helmed by Jason Katims, who’s also known for shows like Friday Night Lights and Parenthood. Johnathan Frakes was even an executive producer and directed a few episodes. It was loosely based on a YA book series called Roswell High, and the writers of that series even helped out here. It lasted for three seasons total and ended in 2002. The show ended up getting cancelled after the 2nd season, but it got revived for one last season on the UPN network. It basically went through what Buffy: The Vampire Slayer went through in its later years. At least Buffy got two extra seasons when compared to just one.

Movie Talk - Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins

After over a decade and a small webseries, we’re finally getting a new Mortal Kombat movie. This is one I’ve been curious about for some time now. I almost forgot it was being released until I started to see promos for it. The trailer for the movie looked pretty cool, but I am noticing the lack of Cage, man. Maybe this Cole Young character will liven things up, I’m not sure. One thing the new movie brought to mind was a previous “gem” from the past. It would be Mortal Kombat: The Journey Begins, an animated unofficial tie-in to the live-action movie that was also released in 1995. As YouTuber Phelous called it, “It’s the worst of 2D and 3D animation.”

I actually owned this thing back in the day. I talked my mom into getting it. She didn’t mind since I had already played some of the games at the time. You can thank my uncle for that. I vaguely remember seeing the video a few times. I also remember the trailer to the live action movie being included as well as a 20-minute behind-the-scenes look at the movie. Since then, I’ve seen the feature online as well as some hilarious reviews of it. I remember Phelous looked at it, and another reviewer from the old Channel Awesome days (Benzai?) reviewed it.

Favorites - 15 Favorite Black Characters in Sci-Fi

The science fiction genre has given us a crapton of characters to follow and root for. When it comes Black folk, it gets a little tough. You may see one or even two of us running around or being a side piece somewhere. Even when you see one of us playing a character, they’re sometimes playing an alien. Just guess why you won’t see someone like Guinan, Worf, and Tuvok from Star Trek or Gamora from Guardians of the Galaxy. I could make a case for Teal’C from Stargate: SG-1 since he is technically human, but I’ll leave him off this one. It gives me a chance to look for other characters outside of these big sci-fi franchises.

So, here are my favorite black characters in the genre. One limitation I gave myself was that I wouldn’t include any superheroes on this list, so no Storm or John Stewart. I actually made a list similar to this years ago, and I wanted to look in other places where there are some cool characters. I might break that rule for a couple, but I’ll only go so far. As usual, it’s a bit of a random list, but I’ll put my favorites up top. You only can guess who’ll be first.