blast-o-rama. • issue 038 • 2021-01-17
blast-o-rama.
issue 038 • 2021-01-17
New Year, Same as the Old Year
Hello and Happy Sunday to you, dear reader.
I know, it’s been a bit since we talked. I swear, it’s not on purpose. I’ve just really felt that difficulty when it comes to doing outside-of-work-creative-projects. Probably due to, y’know, literally everything going on in the world today.
We did finally rid ourselves of the albatross that was 2020, but man, hasn’t 2021 shown us that it has some spunk? It’s not every day that one of your most secure national sites is ransacked by a bunch of loons in a situation which is best described as the perfect Venn diagram between tragic and absurd.
I mean, on one hand, much of the American political system could’ve been literally murdered or lynched on site. On the other, this was a bunch of goons who cosplayed like it was an anime convention and decided to take on their most clandestine of crimes while…live-streaming their name and location from their cellphone. Smart.
Also, we’re all still stuck at home. Sure, it looks brighter, but I — last weekend — learned that 10 months without any significant in-person interaction is my breaking point. On one hand, I’m pleased to know how strong I am, on the other, it was a real Dark Night of the Soul moment, realizing that even when there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, it really just shows you how much further there is to go.
ANYWAY, we’ve got some fun stuff for you this week, including an original piece by me at the end. Enjoy!
Now, onto the things…
Thing #1: They Gave Us The Witcher 3, What Could Go Wrong?
One of the odd respites of this Groundhog Day-situation we’ve found ourselves in is the world of video games. Games like Animal Crossing, The Jackbox Party Pack, and Among Us have helped us all stay connected, stay distracted, and pass the time as we sorely needed to.
I personally even recently upgraded to a PlayStation 5 (Spider-Man: Miles Morales is dope!), but a weird joy of mine is actually built around a game which came out before the end of 2020 which in so many ways personified 2020…the buggy and down-right ridiculous release of Cyberpunk 2077.
Developed by the Polish team behind The Witcher 3, CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 was meant to deliver all sorts of smiles and delightment when it hit shelves right before Christmas. Instead, 8 years of hype resulted in an incredibly flawed game — heralded more for its hilarious flaws, than its overall qualities. It wasn’t just a laughing matter, however, as the game (which sold 13 Million Copies in its first 10 days) found itself removed from digital stores and the target of a lawsuit for being that bad of a product. What’s worse? The developers were forced in to hundreds of hours of overtime to get it to even this state.
Longtime Kotaku whistleblower Jason Schreier recently jumped over to Bloomberg and has the scoop on where everything went wrong, and where CD Projekt Red heads next.
CD Projekt SA Chief Executive Officer Marcin Iwiński made a public mea culpa this week about the disastrous rollout of the video game Cyberpunk 2077 in December. He took personal responsibility and asked fans not to blame the team.
In a somber five-minute video address and accompanying blog post, Iwiński acknowledged the game “did not meet the quality standard we wanted to meet. I and the entire leadership team are deeply sorry for this.”
Iwiński’s apology, the second within a month, was an attempt to restore the Polish company’s reputation with scores of fans – and investors – who had waited eight years for the game, only to discover it was riddled with bugs and performance issues when it was finally released. Uproar over the botched debut caused a 30% drop in CD Projekt’s shares from Dec. 10 through mid-January.
Interviews with more than 20 current and former CD Projekt staff, most of whom requested anonymity so as not to risk their careers, depict a development process marred by unchecked ambition, poor planning and technical shortcomings. Employees, discussing the game’s creation for the first time, described a company that focused on marketing at the expense of development, and an unrealistic timeline that pressured some into working extensive overtime long before the final push.
Thing 2: The Joy of the Wikipedia Wormhole
This week, Wikipedia, one of the greatest collective contributions to the Internet, turned 20 years young.
To celebrate, The Ringer decided to give the world a Wikipedia Day this week, with a slue of articles about the knowledge sharing site.
My favorite? A piece by The Ringer Staff about the weirdest and strangest Wiki-worm-holes they found themselves going down. What’s your weirdest?
What begins as a romp through America’s most infamous amusement park eventually turns terrifying. There’s a breakdown of the place’s ugly safety record, which notes that minors were allowed to operate rides and that accidents were often not reported. Then, gulp, there’s a chronological list of the six fatalities that occurred at the park.
Unsurprisingly, I’m one of many who’s fallen into the Action Park wormhole. The Wiki page was featured on Longform.org; Johnny Knoxville even starred in a movie called Action Point that’s loosely based on the place, and there have now been documentaries made about the long-shuttered New Jersey destination.
Growing up in New England, I sadly never got to visit the dangerous Action Park. But its Wiki entry is so extensive that I feel like I have.
Thing #3: Wither WandaVision?
July 2, 2019. That’s the last time we heard from the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
23 films in, after the greatest team-up that the silver screen has ever seen in Avengers: Endgame and the revelation of Peter Parker’s identity to the world in Spider-Man: Far From Home, the biggest franchise in Hollywood suddenly went silent, as if Thanos himself snapped his fingers and took it all away once again.
And now, in January 2021, the MCU is back. And it’s very, very different.
After the pandemic related postponements of Black Widow and The Eternalsout of 2020 into later and later dates in 2021, the first signs of life from Marvel Studios come not from a massive CGI throw down with galactic ramifications, but instead…a black and white sitcom, as the first two episodes of the inaugural Marvel Studios TV series, WandaVision arrived on Disney+ on Friday morning.
Taking two of the lesser featured Avengers, the love-locked reality controlling sorceress Wanda Maximoff (known as the Scarlet Witch in the 4-color world, played by Elizabeth Olsen reprising her big screen role), and her gentleman caller, the wall-phasing android named Vision (Paul Bettany). Of course, this is the perfect duo for a Bewitched-homage, right? First idea you think of, yeah?
Turns out? They kind of are. In these initial episodes, we’re thrust into the suburban setting of Westview, as the Superduo, now apparently married, attempt to settle down into a less dramatic lifestyle. Wanda cooks and cleans as a housewife, and Vision makes himself look like a human so he can clock in at a 9-to-5 in a company called Computational Services, Inc., where not even their boss can describe what they do.
It’s got all the elements of a classic sitcom. A laugh track, a noisy neighbor (played pitch perfect Kathryn Hahn, having the most fun of every one here), recognizable plots from sitcoms of yore (the first episode includes a mix up of an anniversary dinner and having the boss over for dinner), and they’ve even got vintage looking and feeling commercial spots here.
Just, something feels…off. How did they get here? How did they become married? What lead them to Westview? Where is Westview? And why is that thing over there suddenly in color? And how did Wanda get pregnant at the end of that episode?
Yep. This one is a mystery. Critics themselves were only given 3 of the 9 episodes which the series run, so something must be to the mystery, but until then, WandaVision is an absolute curveball from a studio whose formula we thought we had down pat. Turns out the best way to change it is to toss it out completely, and their cast is completely game for the turn, as Bettany and Olsen both ham it up in just the right way.
Bettany in particular shines in the second episode, playing the Vision as a drunk, due to ingesting gum, pretty much stealing that episodes third act in the process. Olsen is more of the straight woman, but it’s quite clear that she’ll be showing the dramatic chops she refined in other projects soon enough, with the cracks already starting to show in these early episodes.
I’m not going to lie to you folks, this is not the Mandalorian-esq extension you’re expecting from the first Marvel Studios series to hit Disney+. All indications are, that’ll be March’s The Falcon and Winter Soldier. In the meantime, though, if you give yourself over to WandaVision’s unique charms, you’ll be looking forward to the next episode every Friday, if only to try to figure out the road ahead.
WandaVision is available now on Disney+.
Until next time…
Good to be back folks. Hope to see you next Sunday.
Until then? Please, please, please: wear a mask and wash your hands. We’re so close to beating this.
-Marty