This is the way? (Part One)

 

I, along with many others, have been watching the decline of modern entertainment for a long time now. Don't get me wrong, the new stuff has its fans and fair play to them for liking the movies/games/comics, or whatever else comes along. For those of us who grew up with some of the stuff I'm about to mention, there have been many a discussion on what to do about the forced and unwelcome changes.

YouTube folks will make their videos on it because that's what they do. Topics like this will always bring in the clicks. I admit to having watched many of them. I admire the passion and the raw honesty of the YouTube personalities, because they speak like most people I know, without a filter. Paul Simon once sang:

"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls and tenement halls, and whispered in the sounds of silence."

To me, I think of YouTubers when I hear that verse. It sounds stupid, sure, but they say what they think and with little care. Those of us with jobs we fear losing if we dare speak out, especially in this modern cancel culture, say our objections privately or in hushed tones.

But, what has brought me to writing this piece? A number of realisations, really. Seeing people from different backgrounds either make videos, write books, or speak publicly about this change in entertainment made me pay attention to it all. I chose to watch from a distance as opposed to getting involved in the whole "Culture War," as the constant fighting grew tiresome at times. But, one day, a friend of mine said something during a conversation that really got me thinking.

"This Culture War. I'm pretty sure it was lost a long time ago."

Was he right? Going through the examples I'm going to list, I became convinced that he was.

When it comes to movies and television, the choices are endless. I could write article after article on what I personally feel, but I'll narrow it down to these examples.

First off is one that is quite close to my heart, and that is Star Trek. I will forever curse Alex Kurtzman's name when someone mentions him. He is one of those hacks who cannot competently write his own material so he has to ruin other people's. I grew up watching The Next Generation and loved it with a passion. Some of the stories told were way ahead of their time, especially the episode called The Drum Head Trial. The Character of Picard was a man with such authority and respect, any man or woman would follow him into battle.

The Picard series turned this once fearless and strong captain into a bumbling old man who was bossed around by every person he came across. I'm told the stories were about "humbling him," but I got four episodes in and couldn't do anymore. This wasn't the Picard I remembered. The writing was piss pour, the acting cheesy, and the show clearly had too many cooks in the kitchen. The last time I checked, there were around eight executive producers on the show, including Stewart himself. If that isn't a massive red flag (or eight,) I don't know what is. I was later told of where the story went, but I didn't care at that point.

If anyone thinks I'm going to give Discovery or Lower Decks any serious attention, don't waste your time. The only thing that makes me laugh with regards to this was when the Lower Decks trailer got bombarded with comments, informing Paramount of the continuity errors and dishing out criticism, they turned the comments off. 

But, I suspect people may be waking up to the wolf in sheep's clothing that is Alex Kurtzman. A review was published on the series he was working on, Clarice, based on characters created by the great Thomas Harris. I invite you to read it because it really did put the boot in. Again, he was working with someone else's characters.

Yeah, you knew I was going to go there.

The Disney trilogy will forever be known as reboots of the original trilogy. The worst offender, Rian Johnson's The Last Jedi, pissed off a lot of people, including myself, to the point we swore off anymore Star Wars movies. For those who doubt me, take a look at the box office takings for The Force Awakens, The Last Jedi, and Rise of Skywalker. Each one took less than the one before it, especially The Last Jedi. The characters were largely forgettable, the stories were poorly written, and they had to rely on the legacy characters to help the trilogy muddle to its eventual, and forgettable, conclusion.

Rogue One, while a pretty good movie, is hardly spoken about anymore, and Solo was a flop. Disney turned the franchise into the cinematic equivalent of Call of Duty, and people got tired of it. 

Note that I'm not including The Mandalorian in all this.

The two series released (at the time of writing this) were really good and had some great moments in it, especially at the end of season two. I won't spoil it for those who haven't seen it, but even though I knew what was going to happen, I still felt the touch of happiness watching it unfold. Nostalgia, too, granted, but happiness nonetheless. It was a shame Disney chose to piss away that goodwill with the fans with the firing of Gina Carano over tweets they deemed offensive. Something other cast and Disney staff have done without a similar fate. This led many people to cancel their Disney Plus subscriptions to protest what the company had done. I had already canceled mine a month prior because it wasn't worth keeping, but I was there in spirit.

The Transformers movies have also annoyed the living shit out of me.

The first was a lovely trip down memory lane and was full of some great moments, and some shite dialogue. Co-written, by the way, by Alex Kurtzman.

I can't seem to get away from that asshole.

I watched the second one and hated it with a passion, especially with what they did to Devastator, Jetfire, and how much of a whiney shit Sam had become. Not to mention, the arguably racist treatment towards Leo and portrayals of Skids and Mudflap. Dark of the Moon redeemed itself a little with the inclusion of Leonard Nimoy, but Age of Extinction shit the bed royally, and The Last Knight shit all over the floor on the way to the toilet. Bumblebee was a good prequel, by all accounts, but the damage was done by then and there hasn't been another movie since.

But, they make money. Lots of money, so I'm sure there'll be another somewhere along the line. I'll stick with my blu-ray of the animated movie, thanks all the same.

Next: Comics and video games.

So Long, Gaming.

 (For now, anyway.)

The discontent with the world of gaming, especially console gaming, had been growing within me for a while now. I think it really started to take shape when the new console releases were announced, the Xbox Series X and the PS5. I was debating on saving up to get a PS5, as I was currently using the PS4 as both a gaming console and a Blu Ray player for my bedroom. But, the information on the console started to trickle through the news, followed by this picture.

The price difference between the model without a disk drive, compared to the one with, really took me back. So, they wanted an extra £90 just for me to have the disk drive as an optional add-on? Thinking back, that was likely the moment I decided I was getting off the train.

It had long been suspected by many gamers that game companies wanted the big console companies to get rid of physical media because of a hatred for the second-hand market. It's not hard to see why, admittedly. Employees of the Game retail chain are trained to offer any customer buying a new copy of a game a pre-owned one, under the guise of saving them money. In reality, Game gets all the money because the copy is pre-owned, and the developer gets nothing.

Now, I'd be happy to support current developers by buying their games digitally. I've done it a few times on the Playstation 4 and not had an issue. The problem is, doing so comes with a massive risk attached to it. Many companies aggressively push digital pre-orders of their games, and you have a job getting a refund if you don't like it, or if the game has bugs upon launch. The recent release of Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 and Xbox One has been something of a disaster for CDPR, potentially tarnishing their reputation for years to come. Then, there's Aliens Colonial Marines. While I never thought of pre-ordering Cyberpunk, I nearly did with Aliens, only to change my mind at the last minute. The fallout from that game was something spectacular. The review from Angry Joe summed up the anger and disappointment for all of us who were waiting for it. 

Yeah. I came real close to pre-ordering The Last of Us Part 2 as well. In terms of dodging a bullet, I think I dodged a 12 gauge shell with this one. I, like many others, was a massive fan of the first game, and really loved the bond between Joel and Ellie. I was inches away from pre-ordering the second, based on what gameplay I'd seen, but then the leaks surfaced. Like many others, I was horrified when I saw what Druckmann had done to the story and characters, especially the brutal and rushed killing of Joel within the first five minutes of the game. The story itself was also seen as emotionally manipulative, doing its best to get the player to like the character of Abi, despite her murder of Joel. Criticisms mounted, the media circled the wagons around the game and Naughty Dog, showering them with praise and awards, shown in the above picture. I was so glad I never went near that game, although my disgust for the story remains.

The subversive storytelling used in TLoFP2, as with the likes of The Last Jedi and Picard, did nothing short of ruin everything the first game gave us. If I was staying with PlayStation, I'd have never bought another Naughty Dog game again. Chris Fox does an excellent video on subversive storytelling. Check it out here.

But, these are games I didn't buy or pre-order digitally, you've probably noticed. There was one I did pre-order, based purely on my enjoyment of the one before it. That was the Resident Evil 3 remake.

Yeah. You're probably cringing right now.

The Resident Evil 2 remake was something of a revelation in modern gaming. It was the first game I had purchased, brand new and shortly after release, for a long time. And, it was fucking awesome to play. It had some minor flaws, don't get me wrong, but it was the first game I had fully enjoyed since I can remember. The standout moment will always be when Mr. X first appeared in my first campaign run-through. Leon's reaction was much calmer than mine was.

So, why was the Resident Evil 3 remake so bad?

A campaign that lasted just over three hours, noticeable cuts from the original story, a shit multiplayer nobody wanted, and Nemesis himself. He was more of an annoyance than anything else. Mr. X had the scare factor because he could follow you almost anywhere in the game, proceeded by his heavy footsteps and creepy music. Nemesis's appearances were limited, scripted, and shit. What the game got right was the appearance of the Hunters in the hospital. They shit me up more than anything in the game itself.

I did another playthrough for trophies and then started a third to get the rest. But, as I played, I felt the enjoyment slip away from me. I ended up deleting it without even bothering with the multiplayer and not giving the game another thought.

I stuck to older games after that, buying them cheap and enjoying them with friends. My final game was with a buddy on the Bulletstorm horde mode. We had a laugh, got a tough trophy, and my final platinum, and that was that. This was after a considerable wait because the Playstation network suffered connection issues, making us wait a week before we could do it.

The sad thing was, as much as I thought would be sad to depart gaming, I really wasn't.

Nothing being released really grabs me anymore. New releases are overpriced for what they offer, riddled with unwelcome microtransactions, and push additional DLC on gamers with season passes. It is a world I will not miss. But, am I gone from it altogether?

For now, maybe. A friend of mine wants me to build a gaming PC, and even sent me a parts list. Right now, I'm not bothered about it and the parts are quite expensive. I don't think I'll start collecting them anytime soon. It means putting more time into my writing and getting more books out, so that's a real win for me. But, like I said, I'm really not sad to be leaving it all behind. That, to me, is the telling part of all this. It will be interesting to see if I even come back to it at all.