Mob rule

One of my favourite movie moments. We could all do with taking this sentiment to heart. It's from Warlock (1959) and I'm going to watch it right now. Happy New Year!

Where's Jack?

Last Friday's brilliant scenario notwithstanding, I'm not usually much of a fan of the heist genre, finding most examples of it too slick and formulaic. But maybe James Clavell's movie Where's Jack? doesn't count, as it doesn't much concern itself with the procedural details of thievery. The movie is hard to find these days -- surprising, given that Clavell is still famous for Shogun and the writers, David and Rafe Newhouse, also penned John Boorman's classic Point Blank.

Set in the early 1700s, Where's Jack? dramatizes the story of Jack Sheppard (Georgian London's Billy the Kid) and the thief-taker Jonathan Wild, characters who inspired David Bowie's final work. I think roleplayers will enjoy it. There's smart storytelling, interesting characterization, and it moves along with unflagging pace. (As a bonus for followers of Dirk the Dice on The Grognard Files, there's a cameo appearance by Caroline Munro.)

If something like Where's Jack? were made today it wouldn't be half as good. You want diversity, one way to get it is to look at how the filmmakers of half a century ago saw our shared past. Watch the movie while it's still up there (ad-free) on YouTube.

And the rest you discover...

"We love writing ourselves into a corner. We love it. Because then it activates all of those how-do-we-get-out-of-purgatory juices. And then you get the next bright idea."

That's Mr Robert Downey Jr summing up the creative approach of the Russo brothers. He says a bit about improvisation so there might be some springboard tips there for roleplayers.

Big news tomorrow for Dragon Warriors players. See you then.

Guns in space

I watched Star Trek Beyond last Christmas. It would have been two hours of my life that I’d never get back, but luckily I gave up after twenty-five minutes when it became clear the entire movie was one long videogame cut-scene. All I can say in its defence is that it made Into Darkness seem, in retrospect, not quite so bloody awful.

There was one interesting moment. The Enterprise was attacked by a swarm of little ships. There are spoilers ahoy, by the way, though nothing as dire as actually having to watch the movie itself.

Still here? Okay, those little ships take the Enterprise apart – quickly and completely cut it to ribbons. The shields do nothing to stop them and the phasers seem unable to fire rapid bursts, so that’s that. It would have been more effective if the film makers had done something to set it up. As it was, the scene comes across as the plot development that must happen so that the already-stated theme of the movie (“the major asset of the ship is its crew”) can be slotted into place Ikea-style.

Still, it’s something I’ve wondered about before. Tasked with building a fleet for space combat, would you really build huge battleships? Wouldn’t lots of smaller fighters be more effective?

I’m thinking of Lanchester’s Laws, which establish that when using ranged weapons, the attack strength of a force is proportional to the square of the number of units. Consider two starships against one. Each starship can take two photon torpedo strikes. After one exchange of fire, the solitary vessel is destroyed and the two opponents have lost a quarter of their combined strength.

But it might not be that simple. Maybe the effectiveness of shields goes up non-linearly with the energy put into them. Maybe you can’t build a warp drive or an antimatter containment field smaller than a certain size. We know that the Enterprise’s phasers can cut through a planet’s crust – at least, I think I remember seeing that in one episode. It’s hard to imagine a few hundred TIE fighters pulling that off.

Apparently at the end of the movie the Enterprise gets rebuilt. But why? Having seen that one big vessel is no match for a swarm of smaller ships, does it make sense to revert to the old pattern? That’s reinforcing failure. On the other hand, the scriptwriters will have a hand-wavy plan for getting around it so that sequels can timidly go where Star Wars has gone so many times before.

What a great fantasy movie looks like

Last time I was over at Leo Hartas's he recommended some movies I needed to catch up on. One of them was Kubo and the Two Strings and - wow. Just wow. I don't want to say anything spoilery (even the trailer gives away a little surprise that's waiting in the end credits) so I'll just urge you in the strongest possible terms to watch this asap. It packs in ten times the wit, charm, imagination and originality of the typical blockbuster SF/fantasy movie. Oh, and Blood Sword fans will realize by the end why I especially cherish the story. A real delight.