Housekeeping...

I've changed around some of the links in the menus on the right side of the page and added a couple of categories.  I might be moving a few other items around, or changing the template of the entire blog to something else.  I'd like a template that is a little more tidy and shows more of the links without a lot of scrolling.  Any comments, stick them here.

Solomon Kane RPG art preview

The folks at Great White Games just posted a three-page PDF preview of art from the forthcoming Savage World of Solomon Kane RPG due next year. It's difficult to judge these without context; most are so-so but a couple are really great. The first bit of art that was seen at Gen Con '06 -- Kane blasting at ghouls on page one of this preview -- is still the best so far.

Heavy Metal Fantasy D & D

At the last goober pizza night, I spent some time talking to Derek about present and possible future campaigns, and somehow we got on this topic. He mentioned how he'd want to run a campaign like this, and we discovered that we had both read the same thread on Rpg.net.

What am I talking about? Read a bit of that thread linked to above for more, but basically it would be a outlandish, gonzo, heavy metal rock fantasy game -- much more over-the-top than the wildest Conan comic or pastiche, more like Wagner's Kane stories or Lin Carter's Thongor. Imagine having adventures in the worlds depicted on rock album covers by artists like Roger Dean or even Frazetta -- shaking the pillars of Heaven and knocking down the very gates of Hell itself. The kind of campaign you wanted to play in when you were 12. Now you understand...

Update: Rodney Matthews' art, too!

And on a related note, for Derek (and the rest of you dear readers), I present The Ronnie James Dio Lyric Generator (scroll past the server errors).

Trek Remastered -- "The Corbomite Maneuver"

Saturday night's episode was "The Corbomite Maneuver". This was the first regular episode filmed for the series after the pilots ("The Cage" and "Where No Man Has Gone Before"), and a frequently-cited fan favorite. As usual, the review can explain it all much better than I can -- dialogue, lighting and camera angle choices, and much more. It's been years, literally, since I've seen this one, so I had forgotten some of the dialogue and situations, especially between Kirk and McCoy. Even with some slight differences you can already see the interplay between the characters is strong.

I haven't even mentioned the updated effects! CBS Digital just keeps getting better and better. It's also nice that, with the original interiors being so well done for the time, the new effects blend easily into the overall look of the show. "Corbomite" is an outstanding entry in the series.

Pour yourself some tranya and take a look at the screenshots and FX video.

Trek Remastered -- "The Menagerie, Parts 1 and 2"

The new episodes from last weekend and this past weekend were "The Menagerie, Parts 1 and 2". These are a couple of great eps that use footage from "The Cage", the original unaired Trek pilot. Just taken on their own, these are wonderful self-contained sci-fi stories, but they really add depth and history to the Trek universe. I have to agree with one comment on Trekmovie.com which said that The Cage and Forbidden Planet are a perfect double-feature. I can see many similarities in the style and the look of them.

Part 1 had more updated effects shots than Part 2, including the fantastic backgrounds for Starbase 11, the shuttlecraft, and the fly-through transition from outside onto the bridge of Pike's Enterprise.

• Screenshots from Part 1 and 2
• Reviews of Part 1 and 2

Next week, "The Corbomite Maneuver"! The rest of December will be reruns of previous eps, but all of them are good.

Dungeon Tile Mapper

WotC is producing sets of 2-D dungeon tiles for D&D. These are really nice full-color images on thick glossy cardboard. A fan created a drag-and-drop dungeon tile mapper that WotC is now hosting on the official site. More details here at The Miniatures Page.

Trek Remastered -- "Mirror, Mirror" and "Space Seed"

I'm running behind on posts again... two weekends ago saw the premiere of "Mirror, Mirror" and a rerun of "...Tribbles", and last weekend was "Space Seed" and a rerun of "Mirror...". The effects were fantastic, especially the new shots in "Space Seed" of the Botany Bay and the Enterprise. The new model of the Enterprise that CBS Digital is using (first seen in "...Tribbles") looks great, and the low-angle view of the Enterprise gave an impressive illusion of the size of the ship. Very well done!

• "Space Seed" screenshots and FX reel
• "Mirror, Mirror" screenshots and FX reel
• "Space Seed" review
• "Mirror, Mirror" review

This weekend's new ep is "The Menagerie, Part 1". This is the one with Captain Christopher Pike and clips from the original pilot, "The Cage".

Is R'lyeh rising from the Pacific?

Mariners report new island in South Pacific

"WELLINGTON, New Zealand (AP) -- A new volcanic island has risen from the South Pacific near Tonga, according to reports from two vessels that passed the area."

The rest at CNN.

More Trek YouTube Videos

To go along with my earlier post, I thought I would pass along these links to other interesting videos:

Deep Space 9 - Trials and Tribble-ations VFX reel (compare the new remastered "Tribbles" to the fx done for this time-travel DS9 ep.)

Battle Montage - several minutes of the best starship battles from later episodes of TNG, DS9, and Voyager.

Star Trek Tribute - I think this guy stole the footage from the one linked above.

Trek Remastered -- "The Trouble with Tribbles"

Saturday night's episode was a rerun of last week's "Catspaw", and the new version of "The Trouble with Tribbles" was on early Monday morning. "Tribbles" has a large amount of exterior shots, which all have been redone. I really like the changes and updates. The remastered print looks great, at least on a regular TV.

From those fine folks at Trekmovie.com, here's a review, several comparison screenshots, and a link to a 2 min. 25 sec. YouTube video of all the new FX. The video's creator promises to post a visual FX reel for each new episode going forward, so if he does I wil post links here. It's a wonderful way to preview and review all the changes.

We are at the start of a great run of episodes: "Tribbles" this past weekend, then next week is the outstanding fan-favorite "Mirror, Mirror", followed "Space Seed" ("Khaaaaaannnn!"), "The Menagerie, Parts 1 and 2", "The Corbomite Maneuver"... Good times.

"By this axe, I rule!!"

Yesterday was the official street date of the latest Robert E. Howard trade paperback volume from Del Rey and Wandering Star, Kull: Exile of Atlantis. It collects all of the Kull stories, poems and fragments without any editorial changes or story completions, and illustrated by Justin Sweet. If you're looking for brooding Pre-Cataclysmic sword-and-sorcery action, pick up a copy!

Trek Remastered -- "Catspaw"

"Catspaw", the Halloween Trek episode, was the Remastered ep this past weekend. The local Fox station had it in the Saturday night timeslot which had been a rerun of the previous weekend's show. I tried to stay up and watch the late Sunday night showing but I fell asleep, so I don't know what ep they had at that time.

The major revision in this episode was the new matte of the castle. You can see a screenshot here or read a review here.

Next week is another highly-anticipated episode: "The Trouble With Tribbles". There's a great preview on the official Star Trek site showing a before-and-after view of Deep Space Station K-7. They say that the ep will not re-use any of the CGI FX shots created for the DS9 ep "Trials and Tribble-ations."

Trek Remastered -- "Arena"

This isn't turning into "The Trek Blog", honest. I'll have other things to comment on soon, I'm sure.

"Arena" is the Trek episode that aired late last Sunday night. That night's ep has typically been rerun on the following Saturday, so you can check it out later if you miss it. I had forgotten some of the events that happened when the crew was attacked at the outpost, including the mortar they use against the Gorn. Check out screenshots and video here.

This weekend's show is the Halloween episode, "Catspaw". Sneak peek here and video preview here. It's another favorite of mine, so I can't wait!

Incident at Blood Pass (1970)

Last night I went over to DVO's house to watch Incident at Blood Pass (1970). We hadn't seen it before, and we were very happy to finally have the chance to view it. It's a excellent samurai film with plenty of twists and double-crosses, starring the great actors Toshiro Mifune and Shintaro Katsu. There's a not-so-subtle insinuation that Mifune's nameless samurai in this movie is the same character from Yojimbo and Sanjuro. The other product of Mifune and Katsu's 1970 collaboration is Zatoichi meets Yojimbo.

I love Katsu's Zatoichi movies, but Toshiro Mifune is The Man.

Trek Remastered -- "City on the Edge of Forever"

Last weekend's ep was "City on the Edge of Forever", one of the best of The Original Series. Updates on this episode included a beautiful panning flyby shot of the Enterprise in orbit. Maybe if the studio wasn't under such a time crunch, they could have included more establishing shots of the planet. It might not even be something they were looking at, but I hoped that they would have added in some of the scenes that were in Harlan Ellison's original script showing the epic grandeur of the ruins on the planet. Maybe I'll talk about that in another post.

This past weekend's episode should have been "I, Mudd", but there wasn't an ep on Saturday night (baseball playoffs), and in the Sunday night/Monday morning slot was a rerun of "City...". That's disappointing. We'll see what's on the lineup for next weekend, as the newspaper TV guide says that there should be a Saturday ep then. According to the schedule, it should be "Arena", the one with the Gorn and Kirk's makeshift gunpowder cannon.

Christie's Auction of Trek Memorabilia

You may have heard on the news that there is currently an huge auction of Trek props and costumes from CBS/Paramount's storage, including items across its 40 year lifespan. Unfortunately, the only thing I could afford is the auction catalog (Woo-hoo! It's discounted down to 60 bucks now!).

The news coverage of the event has triggered one of my pet peeves. Every reporter who ends a Star Trek news segment by "beaming up" owes me a dollar.

More Trek Remastered -- "The Naked Time"

Last weekend's episode were a repeat of "The Devil in the Dark" on Saturday night and "The Naked Time" on Sunday night/Monday morning. The only real updates to "The Naked Time" were a new establishing shot of the planet and new viewscreen effects.

I'm not sure what the schedule will be this weekend. The Major League Baseball playoffs begin this week and one of the games is on Fox during the Saturday night Star Trek slot. This weekend's scheduled episode is the great Harlan Ellison-penned "The City on the Edge of Forever". I assume (and you know what that means) that "City..." will air early Monday morning.

'Til then, go easy on the cordrazine.

Test

testing, testing.

Edit: Hey, that worked.

The (many) Rules of the Game

I mentioned here before that I have been looking at Green Ronin's True20 RPG rules. In addition to True20, I'm reading the rules for Pinnacle's Savage Worlds (which will also power their upcoming Solomon Kane RPG) and Politically Incorrect Games' Iron Gauntlets. Each of these have huge followings of fans on the internets. I'm trying to get the gist of each and determine if they might be a good fit for the playing styles of our groups. Have a look at the sample rules here and here (haven't found a free sample for IG). Sometime soon, when I get my basement cleaned up, I'd like to playtest these rules and put them through some goober stress testing.

Edit: Forgot to mention Mongoose Publishing's RuneQuest 4th Ed. The SRD and Developer's Kit is available here.

Thoughts on Trek Remastered

This past weekend, Fox showed "Balance of Terror" in the 6pm Saturday slot and "The Devil in the Dark" in the 1am Sunday night/Monday morning slot. I don't know if "Miri" was shown at all. Our local Fox station was behind one week, then, but now seems to have caught up -- unless the Saturday night showing is a re-run of the previous week.

If you haven't seen it yet, I recommend that you check it out.

***

Fandom has a way of often jumping the gun on things, especially now in the age of instant Internet communication. There are plenty of reviews that went up right away after just the first episode. I agree somewhat that there are some missed opportunities, but I'll reserve final judgment until they get some more episodes in the can. From what I've read, the studio seems to be on a tight schedule cranking the Hi-def episodes out as fast as they can. I hope, with more practice, that they get better and better at it. Since I don't have a HDTV, the episodes look good but not astounding. I would guess on a better TV there would be more of a difference.

The point of contention with the reviewers is the updated FX. I agree that the CBS/Paramount seems to be "too respectful" to the original material. Many of the new visual effects are duplicates of the original shots, including camera angles and model movement that was a result of effects technology of the time. The new inserted effects could be so much more dynamic and interesting. There are hints, like the three-quarters view over the top of the Warbird in "Balance...", or the emergence of the Horta from the cave wall in "Devil...", that really show what the new CGI can do. The closing flyby of the Enterprise in "Devil.." is particularly nice. I think there will be more of this as time and the episodes go on.

In my opinion, the best thing about Trek Remastered is that it has people talking and excited about Trek again. Especially, for me, because the Original Series has always been my favorite.