The Phantom Menace was on my mind last week because the video game based on the movie got rereleased and I decided to see how the game felt over twenty years later. I played The Phantom Menace sometime around when it first came out in 1999 and my father bought it for my brother and… Continue reading Corridors, Again
Author: Joshua Tong
In Defense of The Phantom Menace’s Opening Crawl
The opening crawl to The Phantom Menace is decidedly dull. Where the crawls to the original trilogy spoke of civil war, the dreaded Imperial Fleet, and a second Death Star, The Phantom Menace opens with a discussion of the taxation of trade routes. Maybe the crawl gets interesting later on? Nah. There’s no evil Galactic… Continue reading In Defense of The Phantom Menace’s Opening Crawl
Game Movie
My first interaction with Final Fantasy VII was through the movie Advent Children. It’s not a great introduction to the game (and its many spin-offs); it needs you to be super familiar with the story of the game and makes no attempt to ease you into the world at all. But it looked cool, with… Continue reading Game Movie
Desert After Dinner
It’s a long weekend and I’m finally making good on a long-delayed plan to check out Death Valley and go on some hikes (I bought a compass). So today’s been a day of driving and getting our bearings, tomorrow will be a day of adventures and not getting lost (again, I am the owner of… Continue reading Desert After Dinner
Combat Evolved Evolved
I’m continuing my playthrough of the Halo games, picking up with Halo 2 after finishing Combat Evolved about a year ago. I’m not as familiar with Halo 2 as I am with CE, 3, or Reach, having only played its campaign once back in the day to catch up with the story before diving deep… Continue reading Combat Evolved Evolved
Legends and Legends
I’ve started reading The Silmarillion. Well, re-reading, since I read it for the first time twenty-odd years ago, not long after finishing The Lord of The Rings but before reading The Hobbit (I’m not sure if there’s a wrong way to read Tolkien’s books, but that order doesn’t feel like the right one). The Silmarillion,… Continue reading Legends and Legends
Not Just A Monster (Movie)
One of science fiction’s great abilities is to use its fantastical nature to dig into something deeper (its other great ability is to conjure great worlds for fun stories). Godzilla, as a character, is able to quite deftly do both, sometimes he’s the avatar of some terror on the edges of the collective psyche, other… Continue reading Not Just A Monster (Movie)
Rocked On
This week I read an article saying Harmonix, the folks who made Rock Band and the original Guitar Hero, would stop putting out new material for Rock Band 4 next week. My first response was surprise that there were still new songs being put out for a Rock Band. My second response was, wow, I… Continue reading Rocked On
Another Non-Post
I’ll admit, when I quipped last week about it being a throwaway post, I didn’t expect this Saturday’s to be as well. Yet here I am, once again, with a post that’s barely a post. It’s been another week, one where life happens, enough so that writing a post here becomes the farthest thing from… Continue reading Another Non-Post
The First Cop-Out of 2024
Y’know, when I sat down to write today’s blog post I had a couple starts that, though both had potential, I realized I hadn’t really the time to tease either out to be where they needed to be. Instead l, today I went on a four-and-a-half mile hike, today I called my mom, today I… Continue reading The First Cop-Out of 2024
Essays, Not Rants! 