This had the potential to be one of the better DBZ movies (allowing for the fact that DBZ movies avoid deep material to begin with). The Z-team, after being visited by mysterious aliens, travels with them to another world, where they encounter Paragus and his quiet-seeming son Broly. (Broly, Buroli, derived from Broccoli, and Paragus from Asparagus; Saiyajin names are all associated with vegetables. Yes, that's Toriyama-sensei's normal approach) However, it turns out that Buroli has a psychotic side -- a Super-Saiyajin side who was apparently driven nuts by the ceaseless crying of the baby in the creche next to him when he was young: Kakkaroto, who is known on Earth as Son Goku. Buroli is monstrously powerful and whips all of the Z-team without effort, really.

Some of the sequences -- particularly the grand finale -- are clearly homages to the Saint Seiya movies. Unfortunately, it has picked up some glacial pacing (compared to most DBZ movies) and has some HIDEOUS character violations and really terrible inappropriate humor at times. Thus it just manages to be average.

Yoroiden Samurai Troopers (AKA Ronin Warriors) was originally intended to end after one season, in a rather gloomy fashion, with the destruction of the Troopers. However, towards the end of the season the creators of the show were told "hey, this show's doing well, we'd like another season!".

In what turned out to be one of the most inspired improvisations ever animated, they redid the last two episodes in a matter of weeks, having only to rerun one episode for extra time, and in the process creating the main driving force for the next season: the "white armor" called Keikoutei.

These episodes are some of the best of the series, which I consider to be the best of the "God-Warrior" subgenre. Arago, the lord of his own part of Hell, gains back the power of his old armor, which had been split into the nine Yoroi (mystic armor) by the Shugendo mage/priest/warrior Kaos. Only Rekka no Ryo ("Ryo of the Wildfire") remains to oppose him, and even he finally falls to Arago, to be absorbed by the demonlord. But even in failure there is one last chance, and in taking that last chance Ryo, and the Troopers, are changed forever.

Oh, it's true -- DBZ has its formula. But as anyone following series knows, you can have good formula and bad formula.

This is good formula. "Return of Cooler" (oddly, he's just called "Coola" in the subtitles) really should be watched with the preceding movie as a double-header, since Cooler makes his first appearance in that one. He's one of a very, VERY small number of villains to ever manage to fight Goku after having lost one to him.

In this one, Cooler's come back as a cyborg, having fused with a Borg-like supermachine called "Big Gete Star" (I prefer the spellings of Gheti or Geti, but c'est la vie) that among other annoying traits allows his now-robotic body to repair itself at lightning speed. Cooler attacks New Namek, the planet the Namek-seijin went to after their original planet was destroyed in the battle between Goku and Freezer.

(for the uninitiated, yes, the names are that silly. Toriyama-sensei is very fond of puns and in-jokes, and most names in Dragonball/DBZ refer to food, clothing, or appliances in some way)

The Namek-seijin get help when their planet is attacked, in the form of Goku and his friends. This is just fine with Cooler, who was planning on hitting Earth next.

What makes this one better than some of the others is that its battles do not follow the pure formula. There IS one DBZ movie that follows the formula to the letter and remains fun to watch (the next one -- Three Super Saiyajin), but on the whole it's better when there's unexpected twists. In this one Goku simply CANNOT win it alone and does need help, and their enemy is something beyond merely another Badass Warrior.

The movie also gives us a bit more action from the other characters, giving even Kuririn, comic relief though he usually is, a few moments to kick some. Piccolo gets several cool moments, including one that really gives one an appreciation for why he's still sometimes considered to be on the top level of power.

If you're a DBZ fan, this is one of the movies you really should own.

Negative points:

I've seen this one in letterbox format at least once; why that isn't on the DVD, I don't know.

The translation in subtitles is... iffy. There aren't very many places where it's flat-out WRONG, but a number where the translated version doesn't get the right spirit or phrasing for what the original meant. (one subtle point which they and other fan-translators muck up is that when Goku first becomes Super-Saiyajin and Cooler comments on it, Cooler HESITATES. His voice makes clear that he's NOT quite as confident as he makes himself out to be, and that should be reflected in the subtitles.)

It seems rather unfair that the English version gets a super-Dolby and we get Japanese Mono -- I believe this was released in theaters, which makes it hard to believe that there IS no stereo version of the Japanese. I suppose it's possible, of course, in which case there's nothing to be done -- you can't bring back the Japanese cast and re-record it (and even if you wanted to, at least one of the original VA's is dead now).

After revising the rules (and doing it well), WotC had to then re-do all the monsters to suit the new rules.

Had they done nothing else, this book would rate highly because, at last, the Dragons have the majesty they deserve. Even very young Dragons are now fearsome creatures, and the OLD ones... monstrously frightening.

The design and layout is well done, and all the unusual terms and divisions are explained up-front in an easy reference section so that if a monster description confuses you, you can flip back to look up the details.

Some of our old friends are missing, but I'll concede that those which went missing were for the most part the least-used (the Brownie, for instance). The "templates" at the end are also useful, as they show how you can apply a concept to an already extant monster (vampire dragons, anyone?) and, of course, since everything is now on the same basic scale, you can really use the monsters as characters -- either player or NPC -- in a way that was much more difficult in the earlier editions.

Well worth the money.

1632 was compared by many (including myself) to S.M. Stirling's "Island in the Sea of Time". They certainly share some similarities -- small part of the USA dropped mysteriously back in time and has to find a way to deal with the problems caused thereby -- but other than that and the "rebuild civilization" general idea that follows from the premise, they're not much alike.

1632, and now 1633, are FUN books. "Island" hammered away at you with the tough details, but Eric Flint instead gives us a more engaging cast of characters overall and less vicious villains.
In fact, even the villains are painted in such a way as to give one sympathy for them on occasion.

One major complaint about 1632 was the character Simpson, a former CEO, who was a foil for the main character and appeared only in two chapters. Eric Flint has told me (and others) that Simpson was a convenience to get things moving, nothing more, and that's why he ended up looking like cardboard. The book was not intended to be a series originally, but it did so well that it would have been foolish to NOT make it a series.

Simpson-the-foil is gone, replaced by a still-obstreperous and uptight, but no-longer-cardboard character who has invaluable skills to the new "United States" that's trying to survive in the war-riddled Europe of 1633. Simpson can still be more annoying than many of the villains, which I actually count as a good thing; it's nice to make the point that someone can be on your side and still not be as nice a PERSON as some of the people who oppose you.

The characterization of Richelieu, the Cardinal who was the true Power in France at the time, is frightening. He is that (thankfully) rare sort, a man of great intellect and wide education who has charisma, empathy, warmth... and an unswervable, Machiavellian determination to achieve his goals. He regrets the loss, yet will order an execution in a heartbeat. While there are certainly other opponents, Richelieu is by far the most formidable single enemy the Americans of Grantville and their allies face.

It's true that a great deal of time is spent with the various factions' reaction to the "other" histories, but I find this more interesting than boring, overall. What's interesting about it is that the various people are reacting TO the histories as PROPHECY -- "Lo, and this shall come to pass if..." -- and trying to "fight the future" (to borrow a quote) by taking preemptive action against it. One has to wonder, though, when they'll realize that the very EXISTENCE of Grantville already changed dynamics sufficiently that their history books were pretty much useless. After this book, they might as well chuck the history books except for whatever strategic and so on material they contain -- there won't be much left to worry about in them.

I won't give many spoilers here -- this is a brand-new book -- but I will say that I find the writing easy and engaging, the main characters fun to follow, and the action enjoyable, while the logic of the reconstruction doesn't overly strain my suspension of disbelief. Buy this one, it's well worth the price.

I was there pretty much from the beginning. Twice.

Way back in the mid-70s, I started playing this new game called "Dungeons and Dragons", by a tiny company called TSR. It was the first of what would become an entire genre of games, the Role-Playing Games or RPGs -- sort of "Let's Pretend" with rules to codify the action and prevent arguments.

While I never stopped playing RPGs, there were times I did stop playing D&D, or its successor variants, AD&D ("Advanced" D&D), BD&D ("Basic"), or AD&D2 ("second edition"). At the least, when I did play them I tended to change major parts of the game because ... well, there were so many clumsy and nonsensical pieces to the game rules.

Then, in the very early '90s, I was contacted by a new company called "Wizards of the Coast" to review and assist them in tweaking a new product called "The Primal Order" into its final form. Those familiar with the game industry know that WotC struggled on, publishing high-quality RPG materials but not making much money, until it released as almost a side venture a card game... a card game called "Magic: The Gathering". This catapulted them from struggling to embarrassingly wealthy. Having shed RPG materials temporarily while riding the unleashed Magic tiger, WotC decided to get back into RPGs once the situation stabilized. It so happened that at this time TSR was itself almost bankrupt, so WotC bought the company that was once the 500 pound gorilla of the RPG world, and whose property, *D&D, was still the single best-known brand name. Having done so, they decided it was time to do a revision -- a third edition -- of D&D, and among many others I was invited to be a playtester.

Unlike the prior rehashers, WotC's people were determined to fix many of the original's flaws and nonsensical rules, while trying to keep the flavor of D&D that made it different from most of its competitors. This was an ambitious task, one that I wasn't even sure could be done.

Not only could it be done; it WAS done. Brilliantly. The game retains the core mechanics and overall feel that made it what it was -- leveled advancement, memorizable spells, strongly increasing power at higher ranks and so on -- but many of the things that made it very hard to comprehend are no longer. Gone are nonsensical racial limitations, preventing dwarves from deciding to be wizards or elves to champion their gods as Paladins; gone are arbitrary stat caps which prevented an effective description of strength and toughness beyond average human levels (as one would need for a Dragon). All creatures are now described in the same terms, so you can comprehend where they all stand with respect to each other. Magic makes more sense now in the D&D3 world. Where do magic items come from? Well, now you can even make them yourself and learn about it! Feats -- special abilities -- allow far greater customization of characters and permit you to play character concepts effectively that used to be just roleplaying ideas in the old editions (roleplaying ideas which seriously cost the player in terms of effectiveness of their character, even if that didn't make any sense).

Are there still flaws in this edition? Sure, of course, it's impossible to make something this large and complex perfect. Some of the artwork drives me up a wall, there are character classes I wish they hadn't eliminated, and so on, but these gripes are trivial compared to the magnificent overall job they've done on this one. If you're an RPG player who hasn't gotten this yet, get it. If you've been curious about playing, now's the time. There are other RPGs out there, but the oldest of them all now has a new lease on life.

First, the bad. Then the good.

When the DVD was announced, much was made in the advertisements of the Extra Scenes Not Seen in the Theater. This is of course one of the Cool Things (TM) about DVDs, they often have neat additional material. So my son and I were eagerly looking forward to seeing this. I hoped at first that some extra would be added to the movie itself, but it appears not. No problem, says I, we'll just go to the extras menu and go to the deleted scenes.

There is no such selection.

In fact, there is no selection which would TAKE you to such a selection.

The extra material is there, of course. But to get to it you need to play through what amounts to an incredibly lame short semi-RPG game of puzzles and so on. And since the DVD can't remember such things, you have to play through this stupid sequence of actions *EVERY* *SINGLE* *TIME* you want to view the footage, unless you tape them to a VHS -- which, of course, removes a lot of the utility of a DVD.

Take those responsible for the marketing out in the back, and shoot them. This is quite probably the most boneheaded design decision I've ever seen in corporate America, and that's saying quite a bit. One whole star off the rating for this moronic design flaw.

Now, as to the movie itself...

Most adaptations of books to the movies or television depart from their source material; sometimes it's a matter of a few liberties, but in many cases it's more a matter of systematic abuse and torture, often leaving the viewer wondering what the heck the point was of using the title if you weren't intending on filming the story CONNECTED with that title.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, however, hews very close indeed to the book from which it's derived; not surprising, since J.K. Rowling was given an unprecedented amount of control over the entire project. The major changes are cuts and compressions, something which is inevitable; even a relatively short book contains more material than can be put onscreen even in a long movie.

Unfortunately, this does slightly damage the story. The original novel is a rather interesting fusion of three subgenres: the English Boarding-School adventure, the "child with mysterious background/powers" story[related to the Cinderella trope], and a classic mystery novel.

The movie severely damages the mystery-novel aspect of the story, eliminating or downplaying important clues and rushing us along in the final solution. Reading the book permitted a clever reader to figure out what was going on before it was all revealed at the end of the book -- it was a "fair" mystery, one that did give you the chance to solve the problem without hiding crucial information. The movie, unfortunately, does leave out or severely understate some important clues. It also severely compresses several sequences, most notably Harry's time with his "evil step-family" the Dursleys.

However, the rest of the book is kept virtually intact, with much of the dialogue taken verbatim and the scenes precisely as described. The casting ranges from "good" to "inspired"; I can't think of a single bad casting choice, and all the acting (which in a production with this many child actors is a major concern) is at worst workmanlike and at best is excellent. Alan Rickman as Snape and Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid put in stellar performances, making the book characters spring to life perfectly.

The edits -- especially the compression mentioned earlier and removal of the fiendish logic puzzle that protected the way to the Sorcerer's Stone -- do, in the end, rob this movie of its potential for perfection, but it remains an excellent, fun, and wonder-filled diversion, perfect for any age.

Immediately after WWII, young Thor Heyerdahl tried to submit a paper to academia outlining his idea that the Polynesian islands were not settled from India and Asia, as was the current wisdom, but rather by people from South America. The problem with this idea, pointed out by a number of people, was that the only boats available to the natives of that area were balsa-wood rafts. It was almost impossible to imagine that such a raft could possibly travel 3,600 miles across open ocean to arrive at the Polynesian Islands intact and with living crew. Some people laughed outright at the idea. Many of them thought the idea was crazy.

So, in true mad-scientist form, Heyerdahl said to himself "I'll show them. I'll show them ALL!". Rather than building a mad-scientist deathray, which would not only be cliche but also out of his field (anthropology), he decided to literally show them. He, himself, would build a balsa-wood raft, adhering precisely to the old designs, and he would personally sail that raft from the coast of South America to one of the Polynesian islands a quarter of the world away.

The saga of his quest to first find someone to back him on the journey, someone to crew his raft, a way to BUILD the raft, and finally the incredible adventure of actually taking the _Kon Tiki_ across the greatest ocean on Earth, makes fascinating reading. Such a voyage was something of an effort even for modern machines of its era; had Heyerdahl not done it, no one would have believed it. Instead he set sail and brought the future with him.

This did not end Heyerdahl's adventures, but instead began them. Later he developed a theory that the Americas themselves were, at least in part, visited by or settled from ancient Egypt. Since the only boats THEY used to cross oceans were made of reeds, no one would believe it was possible...

This is one of the few books in my elite "bounce" category -- it bounced off the wall when I finished it. I am aware of all the praise that has been heaped upon this book. This is one of the times at which I must find myself unable to really even comprehend the reasoning (if any) that goes on in the minds of those who have handed out the awards.

_Lord of the Flies_ is, we are told, a novel about human beings and their nature. It's a shame we see so few human beings in the book. Golding seems to see savagery as the natural and instinctive state of humanity, a position that's logically untenable (if this was the "natural" way, exactly how did we acquire civilization at all, let alone keep it long enough to develop the printing press necessary to spread such [negativity]?)

Ignoring the stated literary intent, the book is on the surface the story of shipwrecked children trying to survive, a la Robinson Crusoe and Mysterious Island. However, in this aspect it also fails miserably, with characters not even covering the gamut of behavior one would suspect from children (at least some would have tried making a boat, one would think; while the exact time Lord of the Flies takes place is indeterminate, Kon-Tiki had sailed from Peru to Polynesia in 1947, something the character Piggy, at least, would probably have known), and with one of the most important parts of a survival story -- the survival science -- being gotten dismally wrong. This is most notable in having the NEARSIGHTED Piggy's glasses be used to start a fire, and it's one of the least excusable; even if Golding himself wasn't nearsighted, one would think he'd have one or two acquaintances whose glasses he could borrow for a second to test the idea.

Admittedly, Golding has an excellent grasp of the language and uses it well. The book is well-written in a technical sense. Yet it fails utterly on both its major levels, failing to convince me of its major thesis on human behavior, and wrecking the suspension of disbelief in its overt plotline.

I was personally quite aware of the potential savage nature of young people -- I was one of the bullied types -- yet the level of cynicism necessary to accept Lord of the Flies' ideas never came to me. I think Golding misses an essential streak of optimism that exists in young people, a willingness to try things and a dedication to survive that explains the fact that we're still a civilized species instead of a scattered group of savages barely above the flint-chipping level.

Gainax Studios is something of a legend in anime circles, and deservedly so. Started when a couple of fanboys decided to go beyond being mere fans, it first created a couple videos for the large convention "Daicon", and then shifted into high gear, producing four works that are generally considered classics of the anime world: Wings of Honneamise, a startlingly realistic depiction of an alternative space program on an Earth that COULD have happened; Gunbuster:Aim For The Top!, a mecha-space opera which reaches scales of conflict beyond anything before or since; Otaku no Video, a self-parody and incisive look at the fanboy world; and Nadia: Secret of Blue Water (actual title would translate more as "Nadia of the Mysterious Sea").

Based on the world of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and using an outline created by Hayao Miyazaki (known for his magnificent works like Totoro, Laputa, Princess Mononoke, and Kiki's Delivery Service), it takes place in 1899, at the World's Expo in Paris. Young Jean, a genius inventor obsessed with flight, is present to compete in the heavier-than-air flight challenge. He is, however, smitten when a mysterious, dark-skinned girl goes by, and he chases after her. The girl, Nadia, knows nothing of her own past, not even sure of where she comes from originally; the only remainder of her past life is a huge jewel called the Blue Water. Unfortunately, the Blue Water is being sought out by a number of forces, and pursue Jean and Nadia from Paris to the open sea to hidden fortresses. Their adventures feature gadgetry ranging from simple gliders to a multi-formed Victorian steam-tech transforming gadget called the Gratan, and weapons from normal bullets to the mighty Tower of Babel, a super-weapon capable of wiping cities from the earth. Captain Nemo and his Nautilus play a large part, though their origin is different from that of Verne's original.

The music is first-rate, and most of the episodes are wonderful as well, with some being pure character interaction and others slam-bang action second to none. The only flaw in the series is the infamous "island sequence" which not only doesn't advance the plot but features second-rate animation and truly stupid plot (if it can be called that); this was apparently due to Gainax realizing they were running short of money and needed to save some for a while in order to be able to make the finale of the series live up to the beginning.

Nonetheless, this is a top-notch anime series, good for any age range, and worth viewing whether you're 9 or 90.