What a week….

This week kicked off with a visit to the cinema. H and I decided to watch Maleficent The retelling or re-imagining of the Disney version of Sleeping Beauty. I am going to pre-face this by saying that there have been many years since I last saw Sleeping Beauty and I don´t think I have actually read the original tale. So I sat down with a somewhat spotty recollection of how the story flowed. In this story we follow Maleficent, for the most part elegantly played by Angelina Jolie as a fey creature that get a very harsh lesson in the cruelty of men. After what is probably the most elegant rape-analogy I have seen in a very long time, and this is actually saying something as Hollywood have a bad habit of treating rape as something minor and at best inconvenient. A vengeful Maleficent come calling on Steffan in a scene that is as chilling as it is magnificent. Well we all know the curse and the following burning of housewares and here is where the story kind of turns of the beaten path. First of the fairies here are about as useful as nipples on a bat suit, they are in fact down right obnoxious and I am surprised that they can get dressed in the morning without perishing. After this the story turns rather standard for a villain redemption story. I am not going to spoil any more is I very much recommend it. It is a gorgeous movie and the story is not bad at all. A tad bit predictable at times to such a degree that H was having fun figuring out the “plot twists” before they happen. But it does not matter because it is still a very good movie and a nice take on a classic tale. If you did not have time to catch it in the cinema I would absolutely tell you to put it on the list for when it is released on disk or stream.

Then we had BioWare and the wonderful world of marketing. You see BW decided to announce that with DA:I they are going full out, all in… And I actually could not bring myself to make a further joke on that. Any way Love is in the air and it is true blue man on man love. With the companion Dorian Dragon Age get it first homosexual companion that you can romance up all you like… If you are a guy of course. This news had barley hit the internet before there was a lot of shit flipped and gaskets blown. Now I can just see in front of me how the marketing department over at EA sit there, a bottle of fine wine ready… Then as social media and it´s older cousins explode they give up a wild war chant and smash the bottle open. Passing it around all night. I am not being cynical and I am not the only one to point this out. I think it is very good that they have Dorian but I can just pray that his writing is good and he becomes a character who just happen to be homosexual rather than his sexuality taken up all the space. But why do it like this… To be very specific about it, having it being the core of what they market about the character. That is marketing cold and simple. I know a few people online who feel that they are being taken advantage of for quick goodwill and a ratings boost. It is also free marketing as everybody is talking about it… he said on his blog…. Hey I did not say it was not working. But I have decided to keep a cautiously optimistic view on this, especially as EA have won several awards for their work on work place equality and to support employees in same sex relationships. So maybe this is a turning point for the monolith, and if EA can change others will soon have to follow suite.

On the lighter side of things, Steam Summer sale ended and the world returned to normal rather than being divided in to 8 hour chunks. Think what you want about it, and I am pretty sure that if you are an indie dev there is no love lost but as a consumer it is a very good time to pick up some slightly older games or that DLC you wanted but could not really justify. Personally I picked up the “new” Tomb Raider and Mortal Kombat 9, a game I would never pay full price for but it is fun to mess around in form time to time. I never really understood this years “competition” and actually did never finish any badges. But hey there is always next year.

I am going to round this up with a short tip of my hat to Russia and Ukraine… the later for actually training spy dolphins… The former for having the brassballs to just steal them. Yes, that was the headline… Russia stole Ukraine’s spy dolphins and they want them back, the haul also included demolition seals, some ninja sea lions and at one point the compound held a killer Beluga whale. There are still no confirmation if the penguins from the Madagascar movies trained at the base but it would make sense. So I guess this is Putins first bid to become a Bond villain. We all get nostalgic from time to time.

Any way that was the insanity for this week…

/Tomas W