Speed Over Distance

When I was in my teens, a PSA would sometimes run on tv around 10:00, asking parents, "Do you know where your children are?"

Thanks to technological advances and a global communications network, I can answer that question about my eldest daughter better than ever: she is 9,750 metres over eastern Russia, moving at close to 90% the speed of sound.

It is also tomorrow where she is already.

I drove Fenya to the airport early this morning, where she met some classmates who will be joining her in Harbin, China, for a month of fairly intensive language studies.

I should stress that she is not a language major; she took Introductory Chinese in her freshman year at UAlberta simply because she needed a language credit and Mandarin looked and sounded interesting. It ended up being her favourite class, thanks largely to the excellence of her professor.

Early in the second semester, the class was told of a program that could see them earning two semesters of language credits in a single month, with plenty of opportunities to practice in everyday life. The flight notwithstanding, the associated bursaries and grants made the course comparable in cost to taking Chinese 201 and 202 here in Edmonton, so after a little deliberation, she leapt at the opportunity.

There are 7 friends from her class going as well, and she had them over for a games night earlier this year, which somehow then turned into an impromptu pot luck. They all seem like delightful people, and wonderful travelling companions.

For myself, I'm now dining on the familiar parental smorgasborg of mixed emotions: a hefty serving of pride, tinged with not insignificant concern for her physical and emotional wellbeing, garnished with a dash of jealousy. Not at the fortuity of the trip itself, but at her having the courage to take it. I strongly doubt I would have had the guts when I was in my first year of university.

China is Google-free as a rule, necessitating the arrangement of a Yahoo email account and a Sino-friendly messaging app called WeChat that we have all dutifully downloaded. Audrey and I texted with her via SSM in the Vancouver airport, wishing her luck and telling her how anxious we are to hear from her on the other side of the world.

Her flight left late, but the crew of China Air 992 are pushing their 777 above their filed speed in an effort to make up the time. After 10 hours in the air to Beijing, there is yet another two-hour leg to Harbin, a city in the north of China that happens to be Edmonton's sister city.

It is fairly distant from Beijing, being north of even North Korea and due east of Mongolia. Audrey observed tonight that Fenya is actually closer to Vladivostok than the Chinese capital.

WIth a 14 hour time difference, it really does feel like she is a world away. Communication will no doubt be a challenge, but at least we won't have to wait for a postcard to know she's arrived safely.

No doubt the month will pass more quickly for her than it will for us at home, which I would be far more comfortable with if there was another tracker that would simply reassure me that she is safe and enjoying herself at any given time. In the meantime, knowing she is doing something like Mach 0.87  with a group of friends on her way to a learning experience in a distant land is more than enough to bring a smile to my face.

More of the Same, and Thank You! - Incredibles 2, Reviewed

(One Night, Three Reviews! Part 3)

Fenya really wanted to see the long-awaited Incredibles sequel before she leaves for China on Wednesday, and we've seen most of the Pixar movies as a family so I was happy oblige when an opportunity arose this afternoon.

In terms of context, it is good to remember that there was a longer gap between that first film and Incredibles 2 than there was between the last season of the Star Trek television show and Star Trek: The Motion Picture. And the Incredibles is a hard act to follow that, for over a decade, we were told never even needed a sequel. The big question going in then, has to be whether this is a shameless and opportunistic money grab or a worthy extension of the story.

My money was on the latter, and I feel justified.

Picking up mere minutes after the ending of The Incredibles, the opening battle with The Underminer results in the sort of property damage that a decade of super-battles have led us to expect. Our family of heroes once again find themselves on the outs with both their now-folded government concealment program as well as the public at large.

Thankfully a wealthy industrialist and his sister are fans and have constructed a plan to win back both the adoration of the crowd and eventual re-legalization of their lifestyle, if they can only overcome the villainous and hypnotic Screenslaver.

After the betrayal of Buddy/Syndrome in the first movie, I was delighted that the fanboy in this instance was not the villain, as I had first surmised. Listening to Winston Deavour croon the theme songs  of both Frozone and Mr. Incredible was not only a whimsical delight, but also helped re-establish the groovy sci-fi alt-60s art deco style of the first film.

Other supers are enlisted as well, with names like The Void, Krushauer (Phil Lamarr!), Reflux, and Screech, but the focus is all on ElastiGirl at the start, while Bob, Dash, Violet and Jack-Jack are left to sort out bigger problems at home. Challenges like new math, a memory-compromised potential boyfriend, and the manifestation of multiple powers in a capricious infant.

Thematically, the movie is less about adaptation than it is about the manner in which we adapt, whether it is to a new job, new family challenges or a changing world. But the characters we know and love manage to muddle their way through in a manner consistent with what we remember from over a decade ago.

Most importantly though, the addition of a handful of new powered characters (and the return of Mr. Incredible's amazing ride, the Incredibile) means that there are even more opportunities for superhero set pieces than even the first Incredibles, which not only set the gold standard for power depiction and related gags, but did so in such a way that forced the Fantastic Four movie to do a bunch of reshoots in an attempt to step up their game.

Brad Bird already has some legendary animated features under his belt, including the long-neglected Iron Giant. He brings all his power (so to speak) as a writer and director to bear on this film, and the result is a deftly paced, heartfelt and electrifyingly imaginative depiction of powers in a world just enough like ours to be familiar.

You could argue that, like Solo, this is a movie that did not really need to be made. On the other hand though, Incredibles 2 carries its characters through new challenges and shows the world changing around them, from the reluctance to accept supers, to a breadwinner moving into a caregiver role and vice versa.

Despite my love of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Incredibles is probably my favourite superhero movie, and certainly my favourite team flick. Incredibles 2 doesn't displace it, but can take its place within that rare pantheon of sequels that are at least as good as the films which spawned them. The action is, well, incredible, but the relationships which tie the various characters together give this film a foundation even firmer than that of The Avengers, which had 4 feature films to establish its characters.

In fact, my sole quibble with the film is that despite stressing the importance of secret identities to their children (another nod to classic comic lore and differentiation from the MCU), Mr. Incredible never bother to give super-names to their offspring, Dash and Violet. Well, maybe it's because their names work so well as -is, that there is just no point. Still feels like a missed opportunity in my books, but if it is, there aren't a lot of other ones to keep it company.

Dino-Sore - Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom, Reviewed

(One Night, Three Reviews! Part 2)

My review of the previous Jurassic World movie was very similar to that of other people I spoke to about it: not original, but hey, how about those dinosaurs, right?!?

So when first trailer for Jurassic World: The Fallen Kingdom came out, I expressed some skepticism about the premise, but my family assured me (in no uncertain terms) that we would indeed be seeing this movie on the big screen because: dinosaurs.

When Glory finished up her first year of high school exams on Thursday and asked for a sleepover that night, I was only too happy to agree, but then realized that would take the cool, dark basement out of play for the evening. With no World Cup games until the morning, heading to an air-conditioned theatre seemed like a great idea, and there were still seats available for the 7:00 showing.

In the original JP2, Pete Postlethwaite leads a safari of dino hunters back to Isla Nublar to bag some prehistoric beasts and put them on a boat to the mainland so they can be displayed in a new park in San Diego. In this sequel, Chris Pratt and Bryce Dallas Howard join up with a bunch of dino hunters on Isla Nublar trying to extract as many species as they can before a volcano tears the island apart, and put them on a boat to another island where they can live in a type of preserve, so, yeah, completely different.

Until it isn't. The dino hunters are in fact greedy mercenaries (gasp!) who are not interested in species preservation, but only want to get rich peddling dinos off at auction! This forces our heroes (plus a vet and IT guy from central casting) to make their own way off the island and try to set things right.

Thankfully there are lots of dinosaurs to distract us from how derivative this plot is and director J.A. Bayona puts his indie-horror pedigree to good use here, amping up the tension in a number of suspenseful set-pieces. Sadly, he is not as deft as Spielberg in how he stages it, making the lack of blood from the inevitable dinosaur casualties a distraction. (On a side note: given how much I enjoyed Logan, am I the only one who could really get behind an R-rated Jurassic Park movie? Yeah, I didn't think so! Too bad it'll never happen...)

The B-story involves the silent partner of park founder John Hammond, Benjamin Lockwood (the ever-awesome James Cromwell) and his granddaughter Maisie, who inevitably join Pratt's 'raptor-wrangler' and Howard's dino-lobbyist in peril. Dr. Henry Wu also returns, and with the new 2018 model Indo-raptor, which blends all the worst characteristics of the Indominus Rex with the series' terrifying velociraptors (and whose clawed hands appear to have thumbs, but more on that in a bit). Almost everyone else you meet over the course of the story is a reprehensible excuse for a human being, and everyone else comes and goes without ever feeling like they mattered much.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you say: plenty of humans, but what about the other dinosaurs? Well, they are there, for what it's worth, but they are becoming all to familiar. The timing of the beloved T. Rex in grabbing other dinosaurs just in time to get bipedal mammals off the menu before taking a bow roar and then marching off rather than eating their prey, is so well-pronounced as to become suspect. Likewise the stampeding dinosaurs which largely avoid knocking over or trampling our heroes, but who gleefully stomp bad guys, regardless of the level of involvement in torturing them. A pachycephalosaurus gets co-opted into a jailbreak that feels so contrived I was waiting for Chris Pratt to give it a pack of cigarettes or put money on its commissary account.

25 years ago in this franchise, you got to  learn a lot of cutting edge dinosaur theory while experiencing the same sense of wonder as someone visiting the park. When the lap bars dropped onto our heroes then, you felt you were coming along on an amusement park ride. The Fallen Kingdom is the cheap, travelling-carnival ghost-train version of that same experience. Yeah, it's still fun, but not as much.

Kudos to the filmmakers for leaning into this notion about the genetically-engineered genie getting out of the bottle though. The studio clearly has an idea about where they want to take this beloved, quarter-century-old franchise, and that in order to get there, it is not only time to reset the pieces, but maybe flip the board and start over.

Back before they rebooted the property, one of the pitches for Jurassic Park 4 was to feature dinosaur-human hybrids. No, honestly! Looking at the thumbish-claw-hand of the Indoraptor and the still hidden agenda of Dr. Wu hinted at in the previous film, I wonder if they might be building to something similar at some point later on down the line. Maybe this whole trilogy is going to serve as a sort of Lazenby sorbet, cleansing our palates for a trilogy where truly anything goes? It might lack the scientific and naturalist credence of the original films, but the marketing and toy potential is almost unlimited.

In the meantime, though, if you want to scratch that dino itch on a hot summer evening, there aren't a whole lot of other options at the moment, and they look as good as they did last time around. Just be prepared to do a bit more eye-rolling and reinforcement of your suspension of disbelief than you did with Spielberg at the wheel.

Pros & Cons - Ocean's Eight, Reviewed

(One Night, Three Reviews! Part 1)

My love of caper films is well known, so when I first saw the trailer for Ocean's Eight, with an ensemble cast that had no dudes in it, I was pretty intrigued. When I saw it had a summer release date, I became concerned; I know that not everyone is into big-budget superhero and adventure movies, but I really am, and with so many of them crowding the multiplexes this summer (and most summers for the past 5 years) I figured I would end up catching O8 on a movie channel or netflix or some such.

Luckily my union local had a screening last week as a fiscal year-end event, so I got to see it on Wednesday with a bunch of co-workers.

We compared notes on exiting and all felt similarly, it turned out: we had all enjoyed the movie, especially the humor, which was plentiful. The stellar cast (which included Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Anne Hathaway and Helena Bonham Carter) was a delight, and all had the opportunity to step beyond their established accents, including Bullock speaking in German for much of the third act, which it turns out to be a language she spoke around the house thank to her mother).

The ones I was less familiar with (pop star Rihanna, rapper/actress Awkwafina, comedienne Mindy Kaling) were also given multiple chances to shine in different ways, one of the joys of a heist movie.  Suffice to say, many of the characters have surprising developments over the course of the film, even the mark, who, well, pretty much is as shallow as she is depicted to be, but is still not one-dimensional.

Writer/director Gary Ross (moving into directing from writing on flicks like Seabiscuit, Pleasantville and Big) does a great job keeping the caper business relatively clear (although a lot of that credit always needs to go to the editor - Juliette Welfling in this case) and not telegraphing the twists you are actively looking for. In such a scenario being surprised is a double delight, and Ross managed to pull this off on me a couple of times.

For instance, I am used to caper films in general (and certainly the three previous Ocean's movies) ending after the job is successfully pulled (oh, yeah, spoiler alert: they get the necklace-hope you're not shocked). In Ocean's Eight, however, there is an extended coda wherein insurance investigator James Corden (who I am neither her nor there on but does a wonderful job in this film) shows up in an extended coda post-climax to gum up the works after the fact.

In fact, the whole thing in kind of seamless except for one problem: there is very little tension.

Even during the heist, there is only one moment where you feel like uh-oh, maybe things are going to get balled up here, but that gets resolved fairly quickly. A caper film without jeopardy ceases to be a caper film, and even when they throw a complication into the mix regarding the clasp of the Macguffin necklace, they have it sorted out before the heist even goes into operation. As sexist as it may be to say, without a greater sense of risk, you are left with a movie that feels 'cute' instead of daring.

That said, Ocean's Eight is still a flawed but worthwhile entry into the caper movie canon. Besides, a movie about a robbery where nobody gets shot, punched, gassed, tranquilized or choked out is certainly worth your time (if not full ticket price) as counter programming in a summer full of louder, violenter and more explosive offerings.

Bloodbath at Tau Epsilon - A Call to Arms Star Fleet Battle Report

Earl and I have been trying to get in a large-scale game of Call To Arms: Star Fleet Battles for months now, and it finally came to pass. Sadly, although it was a great way to re-familiarise ourselves with the rules, we (honestly, I) overlooked one of the revisions which completely would have changed the tone of the game. Thankfully, our ridiculous commitment to the theme meant that we still had lots of fun!

In anticipation of starting an ongoing campaign very soon where damage to ships carries over from game to game, we arranged a 1500 point game. Although I don't often engage in 'trash talk', I couldn't resist emailing Admiral Woods a picture of my freshly assembled fleet, along with a taunting message:

SUBSPACE COMMUNIQUÉ

TO: FEDERATION COMMANDER "PINE OVERCOAT"

FROM: KLINGON THOUGHT-ADMIRAL "INEVITABLE DOMINATOR"

GAZE IN ALARM AT THE FORCE THAT AWAITS YOU IN THE TAU EPSILON SYSTEM. THE KLINGON EMPIRE AND ITS LOYAL NAVY PROMISE SWIFT AND MERCILESS DESTRUCTION FOR ANY VESSELS ENTERING ANY IMPERIAL DOMINION WITHOUT OUR LEAVE.

HAVE YOUR CREWS MAKE THEIR PEACE WITH THEIR GODS AND BID THEIR LOVED ONES FAREWELL, OR TO ABANDON THEIR POSTS. THE EMPIRE WILL REWARD THISE WHO SEEK OUR MASTERY OF THEIR OWN FREE WILL.

NONE WHO ENTER TAU EPSILON WILL BE SHOWN ANY QUARTER.

TRANSMISSION ENDS
He sent the following response with as much officiousness as he could muster:

TO: Unauthorized Klingon Incursion Force
FROM: United Federation of Planets Task Force Echo

The Federation does not recognize the Klingon Empire's claim to the Tau Epsilon system, which you annexed in contravention of interstellar law only days ago. This task force is responding to a call for aid by our allies, the Sirena Concordat, whose home planet you mercilessly bombarded during your invasion.

You have eight hours to withdraw your forces from the Tau Epsilon system. We urge you to take this opportunity to salvage a peaceful resolution to this outrage. Otherwise, we will free the people of the Sirena Concordat by any means necessary.

We didn't start this war, but we will finish it.

Regards,

Commodore Dinah Wayne, Commanding
USS Entente, Flagship, UFP Task Force Echo
To which I could only respond:

KKRRRRSSSHHHH [Nothing But static]
When he arrived Friday evening we spent a few minutes arranging things for the campaign, including leadership rolls for all our ships, which we decided we would use that evening in our non-campaign game, in hopes of getting acclimatized to them. Thankfully neither of us rolled Cadet crews, and after supper we assembled our fleets on the tabletop.

The scenario we played is called "Rescue", but it might as well have been called "King of the Hill". The centre of the table contained the objective, in this case, a stricken ship (i.e. a tragically trodden upon resin model) which would grant 100 bonus points to the fleet who had a ship within 6" of it at the end of the game.

This objective was sub-optimal for the force I had chosen, so I elected to disregard it in favour of destroying the opposing fleet instead, and wandering over in that direction once I had established control of the quadrant.

My opponent is a sharp cookie, with a deep understanding of the source material, but whose gaming experience tended towards RPGs and boardgames. When I won the initiative roll, he had to deploy his entire force along one table edge, and when he did, he tried to encompass as much area as possible.

Instead of opposing him in a similar formation, resulting in a series of one-on-one fights that would favour him as soon as closed range, I concentrated my force along the left edge of the table, with my Dreadnought, Sword of Kahless, anchoring the end closest to the middle, and my two drone-laden scout vessels anchoring the other.

I wouldn't go so far as to call it an oblique line or anything, but as far as refused flanks went, I figured it would do the job, especially with one of his (many) Constitution class heavy cruisers needing to navigate his way around a density 9 asteroid field he had toyed with using for cover..

My strategy was simple: both of our fleets utilize long range nuclear tipped missiles called drones as weapons, but where the Federation uses them incidentally (a heavy cruiser can shoot one per turn), the Klingons use them more extensively (a battlecruiser can shoot two per turn, and my new drone cruiser could shoot an astonishing six).

If I could concentrate my fire, I might be able to take out a couple of ships before Earl got his fleet into knife fighting range; once where my agility wouldn't make it easy, but his photon torpedo batteries would punish any missteps I made with lethal finality, so the fewer of those I had to face, the better!

Sure enough, he moved pretty much straight ahead, contracting slightly towards the objective, while I inched ahead slightly, leaving my scout ships in the rear. We had started just outside drone range (36"), so once he moved forward at all, I had my shot.

Scout ships are a fascinating later addition to the rules: if you have one and your opponent doesn't, you get a +1 to your initiative rolls to reflect the recon and intelligence they have garnered for your side. More importantly they can serve in an electronic warfare capacity, limiting the effectiveness of the enemies weapons, making a friendly ship harder to hit, etc. If the opposing player has a scout ship, he can limit some of this jamming, but since Earl did not, my 'wild weasels' had pretty much free reign.

After jamming up some of his counter weapons, I threw multiple salvos of drones at his leftmost heavy cruiser, the U.S.S. Potemkin (a model I had lent him due to one of his own needing repair). By the time my drone cruiser the T'Kondroga threw a volley of six at him, his shield were down and defenses spent, and the multiple heavy criticals these devastating weapons wrought were too much for the cruiser to take, and it was soon dead in space, doomed to explode the following turn.

Now, it is important to note that this is unlikely to ever happen again, most importantly because the seeking weapon rules have changed significantly, and they only hit automatically at short range now - more than 18" requires a dice roll now, same as any other weapon.

Secondly, as mentioned, Admiral Woods is nobody's fool and I am unlikely to catch him out this way again! It was fun while it lasted, illegal though it was.

Next turn, he cagily sent his two heaviest vessels, the dreadnought U.S.S. Entente and Kirov-class heavy battlecruiser the U.S.S. Eris to secure the objective. I sent a cruiser and frigate up the left side in hope of overwhelming the endmost war destroyer, the Sargon. The scouts turned in place and the remainder of the line moved back 4" to extend the engagement envelope. My own dreadnought stayed in position as a deterrent and because he lacked the speed and agility to get back into the fight quickly if he withdrew.

Meanwhile at the far end of the table, the U.S.S. Eagle slowly made its way around the treacherous asteroid belt.

Back where the action was, the Sargon and heavy cruiser the Constitution were the only Federation  ships within effective weapons range, and moved to attack.They traded fire with the frigate Argoth and heavy cruiser Ravenous, but jamming from my scout ships blunted their fire and the standard issue reinforced front shields soaked up the remainder. Their own phaser and disruptor fire was more effective, and they had very little in the way of shields left by the time my second wave of drones entered the fray, taking two more ships out of the battle.

Seeking to even the numbers a little bit, Earl concentrated his remaining long distance weapons on the Kukri, a light frigate in the main line of battle. The combined fire of the Entente and Eris soon sent the plucky little ship to the Black Fleet, but I was still up seven to his five, only 4 of which were in effective range.

On turn three, Earl's own frigate, the Encounter, followed the Exeter, yet another Constitution class, in to square off against the Argoth and Ravenous. The heavy battlecruise Eris gallantly moved into effective range of my main line despite being outnumbered, supported by the Entente who took its place on the objective. If we both had ships on there at the end of the game, the tie went to the player whose closest ship was worth  more points, so it was a canny strategy. The Eagle had diverted additional power to its engines and was at last now tantalizingly close to flanking position, albeit still out of range with everything except its drones.

Now that we were at last in knife-fighting range with the majority of the Federation fleet, I really had to watch my step, and once again the scout ships showed their worth. The Revenant's jamming turned four dice worth of photon torpedoes from the Eris into two, meaning the front shields of my own heavy battlecruiser the Fiery Crown only had to deal with 8 points of damage to deal with instead of 16, and her front shields halved that to 4, much to Admiral Woods' frustration.

The Exeter's shields soon withered under the concentrated fire of the Argoth and i, after which the 8 drones from Revenant and T'Kondroga finished her off. The Encounter, being a secondary priority, survived for another turn, the first Star Fleet ship to do so in that part of space.

Meanwhile my heavy line ignored the dreadnought in favour of tackling the Eris, and it too succumbed.

Turn 4 would be the final turn, as Earl decided to practice the better part of valour and get his remaining ships out of there, something that will no doubt be a common occurrence for both of us once we start playing campaign games. He issued the "Maximum Warp Now!" special order to all three vessels and moved them 6" straight ahead in anticipation of taking them off the map next turn.

Unless I did something about it.

While my scouts continued to hang back, the rest of Task Force Karn'j moved in like a pack of interstellar sharks smelling blood in the vacuum.

Unable to maximize his DN's firing arcs due to his attempt to escape, Earl's considerable firepower was not optimally lined up, and bad dice did the rest.The Entente soon lay crippled, unable to make the jump to warp.

The Encounter almost took her attackers down to Hell with her when her dilithium chamber failed, and the resulting explosion damaged both the Argoth and Ravenous, who had closed to point blank range -  a lesson against that kind of behaviour!

Even the hapless Eagle, finally in range to take one spiteful stab at the Klingons, fell under the final volley of 12 drones from three different ships, including 6 from the T'Kondroga.

In the end, the Klingons had dominated,eliminating 3/4 of the Federation ships outright and leaving the remaining two crippled. But who knows how differently things might have gone had we been using the updated drone rules, cutting their effectiveness in half?  (A change, by the way, that would normally enrage me, but having now witnessed their lethality I am quite in line with!). And at least it wouldn't have any effect on our campaign, except for Admiral Woods being far more wary of drones in the future, and probably already prioritizing the T'Kondroga for destruction.

Still and all, we now know the rules better prior to beginning our campaign (ALL the rules!), have become far more familiar with the different weapons systems, and have begun using markers to signify which ships have moved and shot, making our games that much more efficient. Call to Arms still calls for a fair bit of record keeping, especially with regards to defensive fire, where weapons you didn't fire can be used to target drones, something now of critical importance to both of us).

Most importantly however, a couple of allegedly grown-ass men had a whale of a time pushing model starships around a table playing make-believe until well after midnight!

Not So Low, After All - Solo, Reviewed

Let's get one thing out of the way: Solo: A Star Wars Story is not a movie that ever needed to be made.

My re-engagement in this universe as a lapsed fan returned to the fold is tenuous at best, buoyed up by a certain degree of cynicism and a Townsendian desire to not be fooled again. I was drawn back by J.J. Abrams kickoff to the new trilogy, impressed by the storytelling bravery displayed in Rogue One and intrigued by the boldness of The Last Jedi. Following this boldness with a nostalgic backstory movie is honestly the very last place I wanted to go.

But I had a great time anyhow!

Ron Howard is like the king of B+ directors. With three decades of directing behind him, he has a number of very good movies under his belt (Rush, Willow, Frost/Nixon) but only one great movie to his name (Apollo 13). Howard has earned a reputation that is less that of a visionary and more of a journeyman who is adept at getting things done.

This is the kind of person it is good to have answer the call when you fire the writers/directors of a multi-million dollar tentpole movie from a beloved franchise mid-way through principal photography. The on-set reports about frictions between the filmmakers and producers, combined with rumours that an acting coach was brought in for the leading man, Alden Ehrenreich, has led to a lot of uncertainty about this film, both in Hollywood, and in theatre lineups:

Combine this with the number of aggrieved fanboys staying away because they don't agree with that casting, or the movie's placement in the canonical timeline and so on, and it is hardly surprising that in a crowded summer movie marketplace, people are hedging their bets a little regarding a Star Wars movie that was once a guarantee of at least decent entertainment.

And that's a shame.

If you are a fan of Star Wars, or space-fantasy movies in general, you could do a lot worse than see this film. It adroitly borrows from the cinematic lexicon of westerns, juvenile-delinquent flicks, caper films, mob movies and war movies like The Dirty Dozen.

I think Harrison Ford is an almost impossibly hard act to follow, but I think Ehrenreich does a fantastic job capturing the balance of insecure swagger and good-hearted cynicism in a manner that is at least a bit reminiscent of his predecessor. And it is certainly evocative of one of the silver screen's most beloved scoundrels.

There is a fantastic cast of supporting characters, some of whom are left behind while the intrigue is still building, and a brilliant backdrop of interplanetary settings and alien faces, many of which were done with practical effects, which I found delightful. Donald Glover's young, suave Lando Calrissian was especially good, particularly when exploring (or even just suggesting) his relationship with his irascible and principled navigator droid, L3-37.

Sure, I have some quibbles about the film, even beyond its intrinsic lack of necessity. Most egregious to me is the fact that this movie almost completely de-mystifies one of pop-culture's most endearing characters, part of whose charm was his unpredictability and mystery. What was he like as a teenager? Check. Who were his parents? Check. How did he meet Chewbacca? Check. How did he meet Lando? Check. What about that Kessel Run? Check.

Pretty much everything ever hinted at three to four decades ago in snippets of dialogue from the original trilogy has been blown out, dusted off, shined up and presented, which feels a bit contradictory to the nature of the character. The movie itself was probably an inevitability, but the comprehensiveness of his unmasking still feels like gratuitous fan service, or perhaps disservice.

In fairness though, Solo also tries to give us a new perspective on the Star Wars universe, a gritty, street-level view with crimes both petty and larcenous, glimpses of the organizations that profit from them, and is also the first Star Wars movie which does not not mention the Jedi or the Force a single time.

I'm the only real Star Wars fan in my household, lapsed or otherwise, and I had a great time at Solo, as did my wife and youngest daughter. It is a solid space adventure movie with a couple of surprises and a handful of well-earned emotional moments as well. Even in a summer as crowded as this one, Solo is a cinematic salvage job that, based on rumors at least, may not look like much on the outside, but still has it where it counts.

G&G XIII Part 2: Fighting, Monsters, Giants, Chases, Escapes

The second half of G&G began on Friday with a rescheduling - Abandon Planet subbing in for 7 Wonders by dint of newness. I sat this one out to set up the afternoon game, but it looked intriguing and I can't wait to try it for myself!

Before the afternoon game, however, we had an appointment at Time Escape for our second go-round at an escape room. This was a good facility: great production values, not a lot of distractions or meaningless scenery, good puzzles and a variety of them. We did pretty well off the hop in our chosen adventure, Spaceship Mysteries, but got a little stymied in the middle. In the end, some fooferaw with the caps lock on the keyboard we were given prevented us from completing within the time limit. We only needed another minute or two tops, so I am scoring that one as a draw, personally.

After returning home and grabbing a bite to eat, we prepared for our first foray into Battletech since G&G VII - but first, we played a game of Timeline to give everyone time to assemble, which Pete won handily.

We were much better prepared this time around than six years previous, having sorted out a semi-controversial rules change, assigning mechs and teams by random draw, and re-implementing the chess clock on my iPad to move things along with a modicum of alacrity. (Without such constraints, you run the risk of a Delta Tango situation, wherein a player holds up the game while they explore six or seven different options for their move, calculating the odds of hitting or being hit in every permutation.) A big thanks to Scotty for introducing the idea of using coloured markers to keep track of movement as well!

We also went with much lighter tonnage this time around (190 tons per side instead of 350), which suited most of us rusty mech pilots very well. By the end of the game we had reacquainted ourselves significantly with the elegance of the mechanics, and I think a heavier tonnage game might be in the cards for a future G&G.

In the present, however, Island Mike, Earl, Jeff and I endured a savage sack-beating  at the hands of Totty, Rob, Pete and Scott. Mike ended up with the 40 ton Whitworth, a not particularly effective mech with a reputation generously described perhaps as "hapless". He ended up isolated on one of the flanks and outmaneuvered then eventually rammed by the far nimbler 30 ton Spider.

A short while later, Earl willfully overheated his Jenner with an astonishing volley of fire, but then cooked off his short-range missile ammo ("Avoid ammo explosion on 5+... (rolls) whoopsie!") before he could follow through on his plan to leap into a nearby lake and cool off.

With two mechs out of action and the other side with only some armour damage to show for our efforts, and Jeff having continued his remarkably bad spell of dice empathy with a failed charge and missed piloting roll, we conceded once we were outnumbered 2:1. Still fun though, and with luck, we will get a couple of games in before G&G XIV!

After dinner came a game that was new to most of us: Captain Sonar. The game is played without a central board, strangely enough.Each team commands a submarine with four stations to man: Captain, First Officer, Sonar and Engineering.

The Captain determines where to move and plots it on a grid. The First Officer then gets to tick a box signifying preparation of one of the boat's systems, like torpedoes, sonar, silent running, etc. The Engineer then ticks off a resource, restricting what can be used until he fulfills the conditions to erase some of it. Then it is the other sub's turn, and when they state their move, our Sonar officer diligently marks it on an acetate overlay, which he can then maneuver around the map and try to determine where they are, while the other team does the same to you.

Earl's descriptor of 'fancy battleship' is not far off, but I love the notion that everyone on a team has something different to do, so no one feels redundant. The game is also very well paced, and our side won two out of three engagements.

Captain Sonar wrapped up early enough that we re-arranged our schedule yet again in order to accommodate a game of Formula Dé with actual stakes -  a magnificent piece of original artwork by Earl's friend Jeff Shyluk! Our Jeff had mounted a poster-sized version on foamcore and donated it as a prize for the race winner. This had necessitated adding Formula Dé back on the schedule after a proposed absence this year.

I am always up for a game of FD though; I love the mechanics and am still very happy with the tiny models I painted for the game five years ago. Island Mike came out strong and held the lead for most of the race, but I finally managed to pass him in a higher gear on the second lap and eked out a win.

I'm so deliriously happy with the artwork, I don't care that I don't have any wall space for it; I will make something happen! Worth staying up a little late for, by any measure.

The next morning got off to a predictably (and agreeable) slow start, after which we spent an unprecedented two hours arranging our group photos, as posted previously. Despite the immense amount of time committed to this, everyone had something to contribute, and it felt as much a collaborative effort as the escape room, if not more. I will share the final product with my final thoughts in a future post.

Over lunch, Earl and I set up our most ambitious surprise scenario for Star Fleet Battles to date. When everyone had arrived, Earl read a Captain's log he had prepared, wherein the Federation were defending a planet and its moon from Klingons in a pitched battle we joined in progress. This also explained why the ships were all starting with some degree of damage.

Earl's log ended with his flagship, the U.S.S. Excalibur, disappearing in a blinding flash of light as her reactor went critical, and I took over the narrative.

I explained how the Klingons began cheering until their own commander (on my battlecruiser, the Vengeance), told them that humans and Klingons now faced a common enemy, and we revealed (with considerable flourish and glee) the dreaded Planet Killer, from the classic original series episode The Doomsday Machine.

This was greeted with no small degree of shock and/or awe from most of the players, which was wholly gratifying.

I had some good, purple prose after that from the Klingon commander, about how they must now put aside their quarrel with the Federation lapdogs, and sell their lives dearly to prevent this new threat from destroying the next system in line, a Klingon outpost. It was then I removed my ship in the same fashion as Earl's and replaced it with...a SECOND, EVEN LARGER Planet Killer!

Unfortunately for Earl and I, our full marks for presentation (including the dramatic unveiling of the "I Uncloak Now" t-shirt I had drunkenly ordered and forgotten about at last year's festivities) came at the expense of game balance and scenario design.

The carbon units quickly drew their ranks together and attacked Earl's Planet Killer (codenamed Shiva) en masse, and despite his grievously wounding a couple of their ships, they were all still flying when the last of his power was spent.

I made my best speed toward the planet, hoping to at least garner a draw for our apocalyptic weapons, but they fell upon codename: Galactus like a pack of Klingon bloodwolves interbred with Terran... wolf-wolves. (With the exception of Jeff's D7, crippled by his seeming inability to roll a 4+ on three consecutive turns...again.)

Soon, my PK was also a drifting hulk, having neither destroyed a ship nor damaged its target.

Despite this though, a great time was had by all, with the narrative element transcending the tactical by a fair chalk. The reaction to our reveal echoed late into the night, showing itself in one of the Tee K.O. shirts:

After supper, it was time at last for perhaps the most highly contested event of all G&G: Circvs Maximvs!

As defending champion, I didn't make a very good show of it. I tried to play a bit more aggressively for a change, which didn't really pan out for me. I also misread my position at one point and took a corner at a blisteringly fast 9 over, which by all rights should have flipped me, but I came out of the corner butter-side-up and merely jostled, impeding my control and speed marginally.

Which made it even more painful when I flipped my chariot on a subsequent corner I took at a far saner speed.  My driver managed to escape with his life, however, clambering over the wall of the raceway.

Jeff, on the other hand, was once again thwarted by dice. After several missed rolls both to attack and to exert more speed from his nags, he finally caught up to Pete, who had been in the lead since the first corner. Here was his chance to maim one of Pete's horses, giving all of us a chance to narrow the gap, and all he had to do was roll higher than a 4.

As he shook the dice in his hand, Pete cried, without malice, feeling his opponent was truly due, "And none of that regular snake-eyes shit Jeff!"

Upon which Jeff dutifully rolled a two.

You can see Jeff dejectedly down the the hall, but I think our reactions say it all.

There was some cursing, a throwing of dice, and an understandably justified stompy trip down the hallway, but Jeff is a game fish after all, and returned, gamely. Another dice travesty occurred later, effectively excising Jeff's chariot from the game. Pete ended up running away with the victory, followed by Scotty and Totty.

There was just enough time afterwards to play a round of Tee K.O.before Earl finally gave in to the double pneumonia that had dogged him all week, but at least he got to see someone commemorate one element of G&G XIII in t-shirt form to preserve the infamy even longer: