Film Review: Optimus Prime: Awakening

'Til All Are One

The decision to kill off Optimus Prime, way back in 1986, to clear young boys’ minds’ mental space for shiny new toys in The Transformers: the Movie was infamously a massive imbroglio for Hasbro. The corporate big shots had succeeded in selling thousands of toys, themselves jerry-rigged into a brand and a story, fronted by a cartoon and a comic, that was cobbled together from multiple Japanese toylines which were discovered at a trade fair by a Holocaust survivor who would go on to invent the type of camera used to televise poker tournaments. They had created brand loyalty through the fiction they viewed as ephemera, through the voice acting talents of the likes of Frank Welker, Chris Latta, and of course the late and great Peter Cullen, who as Optimus Prime was a surrogate father figure for a generation of latchkey kids.

Hasbro did not think that the decision to kill Optimus Prime, and many other Autobots and Decepticons, in the 1986 film would lead to any controversy. Instead, children were devastated, as their father was felled in battle right before their eyes, and flickered out on his deathbed in front of new characters-cum-toys, an audience surrogate, and a single character from the cartoon. Back then, Hasbro was shocked to find out what the death of Optimus Prime meant. Now, after so many reboots of the franchise and so many deaths of so many versions of Optimus Prime, they have finally decided to think long and hard about what the death of Optimus Prime actually means. They do so in the short film Optimus Prime: Awakening, released in 2026 and shown after credits of the fortieth anniversary showings of The Transformers: the Movie.

You start in that operating room, surrounded by other Autobots, as Prime takes his last metaphorical breaths (do Transformers breathe?). He hands the Matrix of Leadership, the physical manifestation of his leadership and noble qualities, to Ultra Magnus, as he did in the movie, and slips away. From there, he wakes up in a Bardo-like realm where he is accosted by an otherworldly being about his choices, his responsibilities, and the wars that he had fought in.

This short film simply could not have been about the passing of Peter Cullen, as it was made before he died. I do, however, strongly believe that it is a rumination about the passage of time, as the brand has become middle aged as has its earliest fans. I am too young to have seen the original cartoon on air; I grew up with the first Robots in Disguise and the subsequent Unicron Trilogy in the early 2000s, and so the Primes of my childhood were either Daniel Riordan or Gary Chalk. Nevertheless, I had a VHS tape of the 1986 film as well as a few Generation 1 episodes, so I also came to know Cullen as Prime. I am now months away from thirty.

One thing that has been noted about that early scene in this short film, that recreates the infamous death scene in the 1986 film, is that a character is missing. Daniel Witwicky, the human child who served as an audience surrogate, is gone, and I think this absence is the skeleton key to understanding the themes of the short film. In the original show and the 1986 movie, the viewer is assumed to be a child, and is invited to view the show and film through the eyes of a child, where the idea that transforming robots having brought their bitter civil war to Earth is an exciting, new thing. Not so in this short film, made forty years later. This new production literally starts with the audience seeing Ultra Magnus, Hot Rod, Arcee, Kup, Springer, and Perceptor through the actual eyes of Optimus Prime. The audience is now assumed not to be a child, but older, having experienced all the wars of Cybertron, and having experienced the suffering and joys of a life long lived.

In this bardo, Optimus Prime is faced with an angry being who makes a terrible accusation: Optimus Prime, through his dedication to the idea that freedom is the right of all sentient beings and his love for his friends, has been the very being that has kept the wars of Cybertron raging for millennia. Furthermore, he argues that Prime has not died only once, but that other forms of him will die several more times for his friends in different realities, likewise keeping these wars raging, the suffering continuing, the death toll ever rising. The One, as it is called, is making the most devastating possible accusation that Optimus Prime has faced: he has fought for nothing, and that his death is meaningless. He is telling Prime to give up his struggle, and Prime cannot help but bristle at the accusation.

Prime is then attacked by old foes: Soundwave, Starscream, the Insecticons. He fights them on a blasted asteroid under the light of a black hole (which is very significant - more on that later), and then seems to meet an ally: Bumblebee, perhaps the friendliest of the earliest Autobots. But this is not the case, as Bumblebee denounces Prime’s role in continuing the Cybertronian wars and shows a Decepticon symbol on him, and joins with Prime’s pursuers before they all combine into a larger, angrier form of Bumblebee.

Those who are fans of the franchise and have been following its recent comics will have noticed something about this scene: that black hole looming above the battlefield is the Sacred Ring from Void Rivals, one of the comic series that shares a universe (the Energon Universe, as it is called) with the ongoing Transformers title, as well as G. I. Joe and M. A. S. K (NOTE - fans of these titles, I am going to spoil the first two or three arcs of Void Rivals, so stop reading here if you are not there yet). The Sacred Ring is a black hole that contains Goliant, an ancient Quintesson weapon locked in the black hole by Zerta Trion, a Transformer fighting the Quintessons’ oppression of her people, and kept in there by a gigantic ring on which live two nations, Agorrians and Zertorians, who each control half of Goliant’s essence, and, having lost the details of their origins, fight each other pitilessly to keep him from emerging. In other words, these two peoples have been condemned to suffering and war because of the wars of the Transformers. An old war, fought by a literal cassette player and an old VW bug, is waged under the light of a new war, now told monthly in comic shops as we speak. From the beginning of the franchise to the present day, there is war between Cybertronians for our entertainment.

Let’s go back to the notion that the short film is inviting us to see ourselves in Optimus Prime. Optimus Prime, at the end of his last battle, is asked to give up fighting, to give up the Matrix of Leadership, and to accept his own culpability in suffering. He is attacked by old enemies in the shadow of a war that is ancient in-universe and very new in our own. This then raises questions: what are we, and by extension old Transformers fans, fighting? What are we being asked to give up? What are we supposed to accept? What are we suffering from?

Old Transformers fans like myself went to 40th anniversary showings of the 1986 movie out of nostalgia. ‘Nostalgia,’ as a word broken down into its Greek roots, is the pain of homecoming. There are two parts of this whole process, and therefore the decision to watch a film we loved as children as adults: a love, and a pain.

Let’s put that in the metaphor invited by the short film. We, through Prime, are being asked to give up fighting, to give up the infliction and the creation of pain and suffering. We are being asked, on some level, to move on. We, like Prime, are being attacked by memories of the past that have been hostile to us, as well as a memory of the past that seemed friendly but is now hostile. Those two have merged into something wearing the accoutrements of the old, the combined Bumblebee and Decepticons, and they are assailing us with grief, under the shadow of the grief we feel to this very day. The forces fighting Prime are the pain of aging, the pain of the loss of innocence, but also the pain of a loss of purpose. Soldiers who return home have sometimes talked of missing the front, as the front gave them an immediate purpose and, in a way, a simple existence. The One is trying to impress upon Prime that his war is over, and from there that our internal struggle between living in the present and looking mournfully at the past must likewise end.

The short film continues, as Prime is sent to battles on Earth and on Cybertron. On Earth, he is helpless to stop Unicron. On Cybertron, he fights valiantly alongside Bumblebee against Megatron, his greatest enemy. It is the brief sequence on Earth that makes the invited metaphor even more obvious; the damages of something he cannot stop begins to strip away the metal on his hand, revealing under that a human hand. If we are Prime, we are fighting aging, something we cannot stop, and having the self-conception we built for ourselves as children ripped away, revealing us humans, weak and vulnerable to the world around us.

Then, on Cybertron, Prime is almost killed by Megatron, but is saved by his ally Bumblebee. He then almost kills Megatron, but relents at the last moment. He gives up the Matrix by throwing it away, and walks into a shining doorway leading to points unknown. Megatron, a Decepticon, is our desire to return to the past, that much is clear. What does Bumblebee represent? He is an ally, a good thing that is nevertheless capable of turning evil. Bumblebee, here, is the love for something in our past that makes us want to undertake a homecoming. He is the attachment that was born in our childhood. He is the good part, the sweet part, of nostalgia, while Megatron is the evil, bitter part. But, ultimately, this is a desire to let childish things be childish, to let things remain in the past. He is the ‘adult’ part of our brains that is telling us to put down our toys and leave the good memories as memories.

But Optimus does not want to kill Megatron, and the film is telling us not merely to give up nostalgia as a whole. The film is telling us to move beyond this struggle between the desire to return to the past, and the desire to simply leave a memory as a memory. What it does not say is where Optimus went. It does let the metaphor walk through that doorway, and leave us in the theater.

We submitted to nostalgia by going to the theater to watch a film from our childhoods. What, according to this film, should we do? Certainly the answer is not to give up on Transformers. Firstly, Hasbro and TakaraTomy would never allow that and never would want that. We are invited to continue engaging with Transformers as a franchise, but how?

I will confess to having gotten back into Transformers only within the past year, and as such have not watched and read every single new piece of fiction in the franchise, let alone stuff from before I was born. There is a lot of Transformers. But I think I can detect what the logical conclusion is here, and will demonstrate it with another beloved franchise of which I am a devotee: Star Wars.

An adult Star Wars fan, nostalgic for their childhood when the franchise was new to them, is caught in a struggle between the desire to leave it in the past, to put away childish things, and to struggle with what the loss of that newness means. You are older, pining for what you felt as a child, while acutely feeling the pain that that child no longer exists. You can give up what you love, or you can rage at our own mortality and thereby try to restore something that never really existed. Or, you can take a third option: to learn to appreciate the old stories with adult eyes. You will see the flaws, the stereotypes and the silly acting and the wooden lines, but you will also appreciate in Star Wars the commentary on imperialism and democracy. The proper resolution of the great conflict of nostalgia is Andor, a respect for the old stories bolstered with a respect for where it fits in the adult world, an appreciation that these stories are of the world, created by humans, rather than falling in our laps out of nowhere.

That resolution of the tension inherent in nostalgia is the resolution of the conflict within us, the resolution of the struggle between Optimus Prime and the One. He has given up his desire to return to his glory days, and his desire to rage against their ending. He has ascended to a higher realm, a higher discourse, and will become part of the One. The Autobot rallying cry is ‘til all our one,’ and that rallying cry is also a cry of mourning. It is a cry of loss, and an exhortation forward. As Optimus Prime joins the One, we are invited to rejoin the world, a world with Transformers in it, but also with ourselves in it, with us and the franchise and the world all inextricably linked. Giving up the struggles of nostalgia does not mean giving up what we loved, or giving up love itself. It is, rather, a higher form of love, a love of reality rather than a construct, a love that can accept that a cartoon thrown together to sell toys, written by freelancers who didn’t think much of it, and containing some hideous anti-Arab racism, can nevertheless bring good things into the world, things worth loving.

In his book Anatomy of Criticism, the great literary critic Northrop Frye argues that a comedy ends with the integration of the protagonist into society, as opposed to tragedy, which ends with the total separation of the protagonist from society. With the themes of moving on, one would be tempted to call this film a tragedy, as there is separation of Prime from what gave him meaning. But the Autobots fight until the day that all are one, and he has joined the One. There is, in a way, a happy ending. He has become what he fought for. We, likewise, can join the world of which our love is part, and create a more durable, more formidable love in the process. We can love what we love for what it is, and not what we believe it to be. We can face the world, having used our love to motivate us to be better people, to be strong enough to be gentle. It is the proper use of love.

--

POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy

TV Review: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season 4

60 Years of Star Trek wraps up with an unusual 4th season of Strange New Worlds

From its first season, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds quickly became one of my favorite Star Trek series. I have loved Star Trek as a franchise from the days when all that existed was The Original Series (and The Animated Series). I later grew to deeply love Star Trek: The Next Generation. And, I have enjoyed (loved, or at least open-mindedly watched) all other iterations of the flawed but always compelling storytelling. Star Trek has benefited from and been burdened by the high moral expectations of its storytelling. From its earliest days, Star Trek has tackled real life social justice issues while still dealing with its own inherent frailty: talking about the future through the limited and imperfect lens of the limited and imperfect present. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds captured that spirit in its opening seasons but did it with a focus on character relationships rather than the external plot. While the plots were intense and engaging, the real exploration was internal or interpersonal. Season three was more of a change with more quirky or humorous storytelling episodes mixed with a majority of intense, high stakes episodes. Season four has been even more of a shift with half of the episodes being quirky or humorous (not always overlapping concepts) counterbalanced with an approximately equal number of intense episodes. Humor has always been an essential part of Star Trek, not only to take an emotional break from the intensity of constant space travel peril, but also to add complexity and authenticity to the characters. 

Some of my all-time favorite episodes of Strange New Worlds have been humorous, including “Those Old Scientists” and “Four and a Half Vulcans.” There is a distinction between sharply humorous versus solely quirky or silly, but this distinction will vary from person to person, and the jokes will land or fail based on the audience's viewing experience and even their personal mood at the time of watching. Widow’s Bay is an example of a show that I found extremely, sharply clever and laugh out loud funny, while others I know found it absurd, grim, or strange and confusing. Several of this season’s episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds didn’t land for me the way I would have hoped, although all of them were reasonably enjoyable, and some were particularly outstanding. Here is a quick episode roster: 

Valles Marineris – The crew is trapped on Earth during the age of dinosaurs and must find there way back and keep from getting eaten, without damaging the timeline by killing anything.

The Griffin Incident – A classic horror episode, where Kirk, Spock, La’An find a long lost starship whose crew died mysteriously and violently, and while exploring the very creepy ghost ship, the away team discover they are not alone and soon find themselves questioning reality and loosing their sanity as they face their own violent horrors. This episode has lots of creepiness and plenty of disturbing violence.

Human Best Friend – Shore leave on an inherently drunk atmosphere planet becomes a problem when a feuding (and inebriated) Ortegas and Scotty have to work together to complete a critical mission. This is a classic drunk vacation episode in the style of The Naked Time or The Naked Now.

A Case of Chiaroscuro – In an undercover mission to a planet, as a case of mistaken identity lands Una in the role of a mob leader secretly working against a Klingon occupation. There are plenty of plot twists as loyalties are tested and betrayed. The episode is an homage to films like Casablanca, even down to the black and white setting, jazz music, and “gin joint” references.

Level-Five Transporter Accident – A seeming transporter malfunction leaves Spock as the only normal person on the ship when the rest of the crew appears to be turned into small puppets and they collectively have to fight off invading pirates. It’s a Muppets style crossover that will test your tolerance for silliness.

Off-Hour – A disaster puts the ship in danger and critically injures M’Benga in a horrifying accident. Trapped with him, Chapel is determined to do the impossible to save him. This is a disaster episode mostly focused on the bond between Chapel and M’Benga, with plenty of intensity and emotions.

Like Chronitons Through the Hourglass – The Squire of Gothos returns to mess with the crew by turning the ship into a soap opera setting in which only Pike is normal and the rest of the crew is entrenched in melodrama. It’s the sort of premise that will be best appreciated by those who watched soap operas instead of (or while) doing their math homework after school. Otherwise, the sweet payoff at the ending may not be worth the initial silliness and the very fun Deidre Hall cameo.

Orders of Magnitude – The revered Admiral Reeger takes emergency control of the Enterprise while Pike and his landing party are trapped on an away mission. Visiting officer James Kirk becomes the ranking officer who must challenge the bitter admiral when his command to destroy a planet creates a moral crisis. This episode is a powerful reminder of why Star Trek storytelling is so enduring.

Once La’an a Time – La’an and the crew find themselves on a planet where doubles of themselves are characters in a traditional fairytale, with forbidden love, a wicked queen, comic side characters, and very elaborate costumes. Carol Kane’s Pelia makes lots of references to The Princess Bride which featured the actress decades ago. The episode is also a call back to the first season episode The Elysian Kingdom in which the crew recreates characters from a storybook adventure. However, without the poignant set up of the prior episode, this season’s adventure feels a bit more arbitrary. On the bright side, there are amazing costumes and the resolution of La’an’s season long angst about managing her inner dark side.

Tomorrow’s Enterprise – An encounter with a space anomaly creates a time rift that only Uhura and a future version of herself can sense. Both versions are motivated to fix it to save the life of a key crewmember. This is a great Uhura celebration and an inspiring reminder about believing in yourself even when you don’t feel fully confident.

Although some of the quirky stories were not my favorite, Season 4 should be celebrated for some top tier episodes. "Orders of Magnitude" managed to be riveting and powerfully acted, while also giving us an inviting character study of the young James Kirk and the loyalty of his brother Sam. The episode does a great job of showing Kirk as morally strong but also morally imperfect. That contrast made me like the character and the episode even more. While the ship’s crew is primarily neutrally obedient and star struck by the famous admiral, they too begin to question authority and consider their own moral positions. The episode is tour de force for Joe Morton whose acting is powerful and hypnotic, as we watch the admiral migrate from charismatic, to smug, to tyrannical, to unhinged. The secondary plot involves an away mission gone wrong where Captain Pike, Uhura, and Uhura’s Vulcan cadet are held hostage by Orion pirates. Uhura has a strong confidence evolution in this side story which sets her up nicely for the final episode of the season where she has to, literally, trust herself, to save the timeline.

The season’s final episode, "Tomorrow’s Enterprise," is a solid ending for Star Trek’s 60th year. Uhura, Scotty, and Ortegas go on a dangerous shuttle mission to explore a rare phenomenon known as a white hole. Things go wrong forcing an evacuation and on the return Scotty has disappeared. Uhura soon finds herself in a time travel crisis where she must work with a future version of herself to bring back their missing comrade while navigating the space anomaly which, as it turns out, is having its own crisis. The plot is a little wonky but the story is a great tribute to one of my favorite characters, giving her center stage and character growth and some much needed encouragement to trust her strength and become more confident. We also have a full time skip to the new Enterprise crew, with Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Lt. Uhura, and Nurse Chapel. It’s not quite all the way to the original series but it is getting closer in a way that builds anticipation for the final season’s potential handoff.

Overall, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, Season Four has very solid episodes along with some significantly quirky departures. These quirky episodes will appeal to some but won’t be everyone’s cup of earl grey tea. As someone who deeply loved Star Trek: The Next Generation, I sat through many episodes which were intentionally (or, in some cases, unintentionally) quirky and silly. Many of these stories were justified by holodeck hijinks or the trouble-making, omnipotent Q messing with the crew. However, we had so many more episodes per season and we had so few other choices of what to watch. Now there are only ten episodes per season while hundreds of other series are poised to grab viewers' attention. As a result, there can be a sense of plotting urgency that may undercut the fun of watching something quirky. This is especially true since Captain Pike’s impending demise is an essential premise of the series. Ironically, and perhaps for this same reason, the story seems to want to veer into whimsical stories while we move closer to the inevitable, grim conclusion.

--

Highlights:

• Lots of quirky episodes
• A mix of powerful adventures
• Plenty of character introspection

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.

TV Review: Avatar the Last Airbender, season 2

 The IS the Avatar you're looking for

Art Director: Crystal Strode

When season one of the live action version of Avatar The Last Airbender arrived on Netflix in 2024 it was to great fanfare, a huge (for Netflix anyway) marketing budget and a big piece of internet culture war. More than that, many ‘fans’ wanted a shot for shot remake of the original as they’d loved it in their heads and given the different constraints on live action television, a sizeable and loud minority simply couldn’t get over themselves long enough to watch this version and judge it based on its own merits. 

As a result it had a very mixed reception and didn’t take off the way perhaps people anticipated. None of this is particularly surprising. The original show was a creeping cult hit, beloved of people who found it by word of mouth, sometimes years after the original show (first aired in 2005) came to screens.

 

Additionally, Netflix generally have no idea how to promote content on their streaming service; it always feels like actually letting people know what they’re making is an afterthought. Given their propensity for cancelling shows rather than sticking with them, it’s hard to see their business model as one which thinks about the shows themselves rather than focussing entirely on how to charge for subscriptions. 

 

Netflix’s basic failure to see that being a television company involves actually making television rather than exclusively looking at how to make more money from content aside, we come to season two of Avatar The Last Airbender. 

 

And I’m delighted to say that it is great. The show, based on the original by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko (who also wrote the original animated show) delivers on the promises they laid down in the first season. What’s especially fantastic about this adaptation is that they manage to capture the beating heart of Aang, Katara and Sokka that made the original so emotionally powerful. Add to that the wonderful addition of Toph, our belovedly fierce Earth bending mentor and inventor of metal bending and it brings to season 2 a fantastic set of stories that build on season one while also developing the story towards its conclusion in the confirmed (yay!) season three.

 

That the show improves in its second season might be a surprise depending on your age. I’m old enough to remember when television shows found their feet in season two (or even three), when they were allowed to have time to breathe long enough that the writers and cast found the heart of what they were making. My children who are both adults now find this astonishing – we watched the show together and they found the idea of season two being better than season one precisely because the characters grew and the story telling matured as shocking as it was puzzling. 

 

What’s remarkable here though is the emotional depth living breathing actors can bring to a role. Look, I love anime and animation but I experienced the exact same thing when I went to watch the stage adaptation of My Neighbour Totoro, the film of which I must have watched thirty times over the years. The stage show reduced me to tears in a way the animation never did despite me loving it with all my heart. The reason being that there’s something about humans expressing emotion that short circuits our brains much more directly than facsimiles of them.

This is also true for the live action version of Avatar. The actors playing Aang, Katara, Sokka and Toph (Gordon Cormier, Kiawentiio, Ian Ousley and Miyako) bring a physicality that carried weight and pathos. Add to that the two-parter of the deeply moving relationship between Uncle Iroh and his nephew, Zuko (played by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and Dallas Liu respectively) and you have a recipe not simply for a coming of age story of a young Avatar but a series of stories about family, abuse, trauma, coming of age, triumph over adversity, the meaning of friendship, hope, survival, the nature of failure, justice, forgiveness and more. 

 

The story itself cleaves close enough to the original that this is very definitely Avatar The Last Airbender but it also knows how to cut and trim for live action. It knows how to pause for emotional beats that land and make a difference. It also knows how to make the audience suffer alongside their struggling heroes.

 

This show is great and it really deserves to be seen both for what it is and as the kind of show that Netflix (and Disney) has entirely walked away from making more of. It is diverse, it is concerned with who we are, it is concerned with how we make community and get along and like all great epics of this kind it also wants to establish how people who’ve chosen harm might just be able to come back from the roads they’ve travelled. 

 

Avatar never takes the easy road emotionally and if there’s one show I wished I could convince all my friends with children hitting double digits to watch it would be this one. Yes, you have the animation and the question is why remake it?

 

The honest truth is many people don’t watch animation. You can argue that Disney remakes of classic animations have, at best, been no worse than the originals (none of them have been better) but that is, honestly, as much a financial decision to extend copyrights as it is one about creativity.

 

For me this adaptation into live action of Avatar lacks that cynicism, caring about its characters and bringing something new to the screen – a deepening of the emotional heart of the animation. It isn’t better – the original series is a masterpiece of creativity and self-awareness – but it is different and in that difference something new is revealed. 

 

Please search it up and give it your time – you will be rewarded.

--

The Math

Highlights:

• Funny and emotional story
• Netflix have committed to finishing the show!

Nerd coefficient: 7/10, a fantasy show with a largely non-white cast that manages to capture and deepen the key elements of the source material. 

Reference: Avatar The Last Airbender [Netflix, 2024-2026].

STEWART HOTSTON is an author of all kinds of science fiction and fantasy. He's also a keen Larper (he owns the UK Fest system, Curious Pastimes). He's a sometime physicist and currently a banker in the City of London. A Subjective Chaos, BSFA and BFA finalist he's also Chair of the British Science Fiction Association and Treasurer for the British Fantasy Society. He is on bluesky at: @stewarthotston.com.

Game Review: Denshattack!

Is there somewhere we can play? Again and again and again...

Look. I’m autistic. As you can imagine, I like trains.

Sure, I’m not the biggest railfan, and trains aren’t a major special interest nowadays, but I do remember loving my Thomas the Tank Engine table with a whole setup when I was a little boy, and I was enchanted by the train setup that one of the museums in DC would have at Christmas (I think it was one of the art museums). There is also something deeply satisfying about an old steam engine that I can’t quite put my finger on. I also am blessed to live in the only part of the US with good high-speed rail. I’ve traipsed through Virginia on it as well as points north.

Denshattack! is a game about trains. It is not about steam trains, or Amtrak, or anything vaguely resembling an actually realistic portrayal of actual rail transit.

And my god it is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen.

My sister sold this game to me with something like “imagine making a game out of the rail grinding sections from a Sonic game,” and that’s still the best description of it I can come up with. Its creators have said they’ve taken influence from games like Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio and the Tony Hawk Pro Skater games but I confess to having played none of those. I am, however, a Sonic fan, so that is how I think of it.

The goal of any given level of Denshattack! is to drive your train through whichever prefecture of Japan you are in, do absolutely wild tricks as you soar through the air, racking up points for the final score, collect the scattered trinkets that unlock you various goodies, and progress to the next level. Sometimes, you are on errands, like delivering ramen. Sometimes, you are vandalizing the megaprojects of the dystopian megacorporation that rules Japan. Sometimes, you are racing another gang of outlaw train drivers, ramming them off the track.

There is something about that previous description, though, that feels almost gutless. There are several moments while playing through this game where I audibly said “holy shit” at the panoply of color, breakneck speed, and pure chaos that the game was displaying for me all at once. You are darting through a technicolor Japan, with torii and forests and mountains and all the beautiful things that country has to offer, but you also get to drive a train up through the innards of the Tokyo Tower. I’m struggling to use words to get the impression of this game across, as it is simply so hectic, so all-consuming, so demanding of the senses and of reflexes. It is, and I mean this in the most complimentary way imaginable, “a lot.” But if you like fast, or if you enjoy the experience of a pastel-colored sensory overload, you will love Denshattack!.

If this game is to be believed, Japanese trains can fly. So much of this game is spent leaping and soaring over rails. After a certain point in the story, you literally get to learn how to harness the winds and soar over great distances. This is one of several ways the game shows off the beautifully drawn environments it has in every level. You go all over Japan, performing wild tricks in the mountains, on the coasts, and in the cities. You grind on rails, like a skateboard, and bounce off of gigantic billboards.

Many commentators have compared this game’s narrative skeleton to that of a shonen anime and I think that’s right. Your protagonist and player character is Emi Araki, a young woman who, by virtue of delivering ramen in her train to the right person, is set on her way to becoming the greatest denshattacker in history, as well as toppling the tyranny of the Miraido corporation, which rules Japan with an iron fist covered by the velvet glove of domed cities claiming to be the last inhabitable places in the archipelago. Outside of the domed cities-cum-fortresses that Miraido rules, the country is essentially Mad Max: Commuter Rail Edition, with roving gangs of trains vying for dominance in lives that are nasty, brutish, and short.

Despite all this, Emi keeps her head held high and has nothing but the utmost confidence in herself, and I found that to be one of her most endearing qualities. Whenever you, the player, send your train careening off the track, you get one of the characters either encouraging you or rebuking your incompetence. As you go through the game, winning duels between your little engine that could on the one hand and souped-up battle trains on the other, winning more and more to your cause, more characters join the carousel of people either reassuring you or mocking you as you die. This means that, in the beginning, you mainly see Emi or Fernando (the aforementioned right person) saying nice things to you. Emi simply says that she (represented by you, the player) will do it right this time. I find it quite sweet, really, that this game finds it right to encourage you after making a mistake, rather than insulting you for getting it wrong. I’m tempted to contrast this with something like the difficulty settings of a Wolfenstein game, for example, with easier difficulties paired with pictures of action hero B. J. Blaskowicz with a baby’s bonnet on his head and pacifier in his mouth. There’s a goodheartedness here, an agape, that I found to be quite joyful, and it was a big part of what propelled me to keep playing to the end.

Players with a frothing hatred of what neoliberal capitalism is doing to the world (which is really the rational response to the state of said world) will find the plot of this game positively cathartic. Miraido, the corporation ruling Japan, is an organization run by the callous, the cruel, and those absolutely willing to tell brazen lies for profit, which makes it a very accurate depiction of corporations. Also like real corporations, it hides all of this, not particularly convincingly, behind a facade of geniality and friendliness. Miraido has this orange mascot in a blue uniform named Molty, a faux-endearing animal who delivers dehumanizing policy in the chipper voice of a mandatory all-staff meeting where the CEO tells you that we’re a family.

I can imagine that last bit made at least a few readers tense up, or breathe more quickly.

Now imagine ramming a train through all of that. That, ultimately, is the story of Denshattack!, and it ends in the most satisfyingly explosive way imaginable. It also ends in a way that is thematically relevant to our current moment, with enough profundity and enough topicality that it goes beyond a simple excuse.

One last thing that stands out: the music. I am not particularly familiar with the artists featured on the soundtrack, but I can vouch that every single stage has its own unique song with so much craft and so much love poured into it. Likewise, as someone whose musical tastes tends towards jazz and blues I wouldn’t be the person to give a proper genre taxonomy of all this, but I will say that my sister showing me this song from the soundtrack is what piqued my interest in the game as a whole. If you want more, I recommend this one and this one and this one and also this one that’s a bonus on the soundtrack. This soundtrack has been a good majority of what I’ve been listening to at work the past few weeks.

Trying to explain Denshattack! in words still feels hollow, unsatisfying. The game is such a sensory experience - the music, the art, the sheer speed and force of your train slamming down on the rail - that trying to convey the sensation of being there with words on a screen just feels woefully insufficient. Suffice to say, it is fun, colorful, and joyfully optimistic, with a swinging soundtrack to boot. But don’t take it from me - take it from the thrill you’ll feel when you start zipping through such a colorful Japan in that refurbished train car. I’ll see you on the rails.

--

POSTED BY: Alex Wallace, alternate history buff who reads more than is healthy

Six Books with Annalee Newitz

Today, Annalee Newitz tells us about their Six Books

Annalee Newitz (they/them) writes science fiction and nonfiction. They are the USA Today best-selling author of the novella Automatic Noodle, the books Four Lost Cities: A Secret History of the Urban Age and Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind, and the novels The Terraformers (a Nebula Award finalist), The Future of Another Timeline (winner of the Sidewise Award), and Autonomous (winner of a Lambda Literary Award). As a science journalist, they are a writer for The New York Times and elsewhere, and have a monthly column in New Scientist. They have published in The Washington Post, Slate, Popular Science, Ars Technica, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic, among others. They are also the co-host of the three-time Hugo Award-winning podcast Our Opinions Are Correct. Previously, they were the founder of io9, and served as the editor-in-chief of Gizmodo.

1. What book are you currently reading?

Sogdian Painting, by Guitty Azarpay. Azarpay was one of the world’s leading experts on Sogdian culture, which once ruled the silk roads and is now mostly forgotten in the west. Her book is an incredible collection of images and sketches of murals found in what remains of Sogdiana in Central Asia, especially Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan. The Sogdians dominated silk road trade in the 5th-8th centuries CE, and their culture reflected the places they traveled; it was a hybrid of Iranian, Chinese, Turkish, and even a little European. You can see that reflected in their art. A painting might include a Zoroastrian story about the warrior Rustan next to a story about the goose who laid the golden egg. Or a Buddha reclining next to a Zoroastrian fire temple.

Sadly a lot of Sogdian cities and art have been lost or are not yet excavated, even though Sogdians were critical to global trade for hundreds of years. I just got back from a trip to Central Asia, where I visited a lot of Sogdian archaeological sites for a nonfiction book I’m writing on the ancient history of parties and celebrations. The Sogdians, being merchants who traveled far and wide, were excellent at throwing parties. Some of their paintings appear to include directions for playing drinking games. Azarpay’s book is basically the definitive guide to Sogdian paintings, with careful explanations of the myths and stories contained in them.

2. What upcoming book are you really excited about?

I can’t stop gushing about Mahmud El Sayed’s novel The Republic of Memory, which is an Arabfuturist story of a generation ship that goes through multiple revolutions—including one that purged all the AI embedded in people’s brains. We see a new revolution brewing through the eyes of several characters: a sweet Arab translator who just wants to marry his Japanese girlfriend, even though his family disapproves; a hotheaded revolutionary who wants to overthrow the ship’s conservative leadership; and a dangerous cyber-soldier who has been ripped out of cryosleep to solve a crime.

While many generations live and die on the ship, they are also carrying a massive number of OG people from Earth in cryosleep—which means that intergenerational rifts are very deep indeed. The characters are nuanced and sympathetic; the worldbuilding is impeccable; and the politics are never simple. El Sayed works as a translator, and he invented an entire multilingual cant for the younger generations on the ship, which is really next level worldbuilding. Best of all, it’s the first in a trilogy. I am definitely going to follow this ship all the way to its destination.

3. Is there a book you’re currently itching to reread?

I love this question, because I always feel so much pressure to read the NEXT thing, and rarely get a chance to go back and reread my faves. I’ve really been wanting to reread Octavia Butler’s Patternist books, because I haven’t read them in at least twenty years, and they made a huge impression on me. They’re all interconnected, though not strictly in a series, and tell the multi-millennia story of how humanity evolves into several different species—thanks in part to alien viruses and powerful, immortal mutants who have been secretly conducting a human-mutant breeding program for thousands of years.

What I love about Butler is that when you summarize her work it sounds like pure adventure, but as soon as you dig into it you realize how deeply political and unapologetically complex it is. Mutants who have been oppressed, living in the streets and committed to insane asylums, rise up to conquer Los Angeles. And then they have to grapple with the ethics of becoming the manipulators and mind-controllers of people who once did the same to them. Humans who pride themselves on their rationality struggle when alien viruses turns them into wolf-like creatures who go into heat and become feral. I hope I’m remembering all that right. This is why I need to reread these books.

4. How about a book you’ve changed your mind about—either positively or negatively?

I’m going to cheat a little bit and talk about a whole genre. So I was in love with science fiction when I was young, and read pretty much every scifi book in our local library. But my parents were both English teachers, and they looked down on scifi as “kid stuff”—when I turned 15 they started worrying aloud that I was somehow stunted because I was still reading Robert Silverberg and John Varley when I should have been reading grown-up literature by William Faulkner and Jane Austen. I’m ashamed to say that their campaign worked, and I gave up scifi for a long time. It wasn’t so bad: I read tons of beautiful literature; I became obsessed with Isaac Singer, Natsume Soseki, E.M. Forster, and Maya Angelou, among many other writers.

But then, once I was in graduate school getting a Ph.D. in English, I stopped feeling anxious about whether I was intellectually “stunted.” I got heavily into Star Trek: The Next Generation. And I started reading science fiction again. It started with Octavia Butler, and then snowballed into William Gibson, Ken MacLeod, Joanna Russ… and pretty much never stopped. I am so glad I found my way back.

5. What’s one book, which you read as a child or a young adult, that holds a special place in your heart?

I think a lot about The Mouse and His Child, by Russell Hoban. I read it when I was about 8 years old, and I’m pretty sure that many of my own novels are still circling around ideas that book implanted in me. It’s about two mechanical dancing mice—a “father” and “child”—who are attached at the hands. When they get thrown away, they go on an existential adventure to figure out who they are. It’s full of metaphors about growing up—the mice eventually pry their hands apart—but also deals with who counts as a person, and what it means to really know yourself. There are some seriously weird, philosophical moments in the book. It was made into an animated movie, but I remember as a kid insisting that I would NOT be seeing it because no movie could possibly match the experience of the book. (On the other hand, his adult novel Turtle Diary was adapted into a movie written by Harold Pinter, and it is devastatingly great.)

6. And speaking of that, what’s your latest book, and why is it awesome?

My latest book is called A Wall Is Also a Road, and it’s awesome because I was able to fulfill two personal dreams: to write accurately about the life of a sex worker in the Roman Empire, and to explore a romance between a human and a giant space amoeba with lots of tentacles. Also, it’s about trying to survive graduate school. Sapphic tentacle academia in ancient Pompeii. That’s a subgenre, right?

POSTED BY: Paul Weimer. Ubiquitous in Shadow, but I'm just this guy, you know? @princejvstin.

Review [Video Game]: Control Ultimate Edition by Remedy Entertainment

Control remedies my faith in its studio

Imagine that all rumors of supernatural/paranormal occurrences were not only real, but that they were processed and intensely researched in a secretive American government agency. Welcome to the Federal Bureau of Control. Unfortunately, an entity has infiltrated the highly elusive agency, possessing anyone it can get its hands on. If only someone could come and help cleanse the infection and seal the festering wound. Enter Jesse Faden, the new director.

Ever wonder what it would be like to walk into a federal agency and receive the best job in the house on your first day and with no qualifications? This is precisely how Control opens. Once Jesse collects the service weapon, she instantly becomes the director, no questions asked. While there are all sorts of weird things going about throughout Control, this odd transition kept me at arm’s length. An extremely secretive official bureau simply accepts whoever picks up the gun? I kept expecting people to question her, to refuse to serve under her, but no. You get the gun, you get the job. Once I pushed that aside, I could dig in more and enjoy the game.

The gun in question, or service weapon as it’s called, is one of the two main offensive options in the game. Throughout a playthrough, the player is able to unlock and upgrade six forms of this weapon (five in the main game, one from add-on content), from an automatic pistol form to a rifle; the service weapon services all weapon needs. The gunplay is fun, smooth, and rewarding, and opens up creative opportunities in combat. I do wish there was some kind of weapon wheel, so that I didn’t have to switch between weapon forms in the menu mid-combat, but for the most part, two guns at a time worked. The gunplay works as you would expect a third-person shooter to, but the game elevates when combined with Jesse’s paranatural abilities.

Jesse’s paranatural abilities come in the form of telekinesis and are a blast to wield. From launching objects around at enemies, to creating a shield from debris, to launching Jesse into the air—combined with the gunplay—Control’s mechanics create some exhilarating moments that are the true bread and butter of this supernatural romp. Blasting a shielded enemy with a telekinetically propelled boulder, leaping in the air, then quickly dodging to the side to avoid incoming fire, then finishing said enemy with a well-placed headshot before the shields could recuperate was so satisfying no matter how many times I’d pulled it off. Control does not just play well, it feels fantastic, too.

Though the gunplay rocks, the crouch/duck cover system is weak, and I sometimes got shot by enemies that shouldn’t have been able to hit me. Once I got the levitate ability (which comes later in the game than I would have liked), I barely used the crouching system, instead opting to shift between taller cover as quickly as possible.

Besides these weapon forms and abilities, the player can upgrade the power and ability of all offensive capabilities as well as modify them. Increase headshot damage for my rifle mod? Yes, please. Do I want to do 75% more launch damage? You know it. Upgrading the weapon forms and finding complementary mods that changed the way the weapon functioned was part of the driving factor for finding more mods. It’s a shame they never had a multiplayer mode; I could see it being a chaotic treat.

Control definitely has a more cohesive story than Alan Wake, despite my initial misgivings about Jesse’s acceptance to the director position. In fact, there is an add-on (AWE) included with the Ultimate Edition that connects the universes of Control and Alan Wake, which helps lend context to what is going on over in Bright Falls. While it didn’t make me want to go back and play Alan Wake Remastered, it piqued my curiosity for the sequel. The supernatural elements of the story loosen the amount of suspension of disbelief necessary to pull through the crazier parts of the narrative. That said, sometimes the game takes risks with something silly or ambiguous, and it doesn’t play well, separating me from the experience. Other times, like the man forced to stare at a refrigerator or die, are hilarious and clever. Control has a mix of these moments. Sometimes Remedy creates vague mumbo jumbo for the sake of it because they figure they could get away with it with all the other stuff going on, and I just don’t like it. It doesn’t happen enough to ruin my experience, but is just enough to remind me why I didn’t like Alan Wake.

Exploration is great, and reminds me of some of my old favorites like Bioshock (structurally, not aesthetically). I read almost every collectible I discovered, though I wish I didn’t have to stand by the audio recordings to listen to them (some of them are quite lengthy). The world looks good and holds up well for a seven-year-old game. Some animations come off with a whiff of the uncanny valley, but nothing too severe. The environments themselves look great, some of the shining instances being those used to exemplify the striking lighting work and contrast Remedy excels at.

One of the few things I remember liking about Alan Wake was its soundtrack, and Control doesn’t push me away here. The sound work in Control is no slouch; from the music to the voice acting to the sound effects, the game does well on all fronts. The sound effects help make the paranatural abilities pop and assist in solidifying the pleasurable combat.

I’ll admit, it took me a while to boot up Control. I’ve had this downloaded on my console for a long time. Years, in fact. My adventures in Bright Falls certainly did their best to deter me, but I’m glad I finally gave in. Control isn’t perfect. There are some monotonous puzzles that remove me from the game occasionally, not to mention some of the story elements that don’t click (another game guilty of making me question whether some events of the game were real or imagined), though thankfully those were kept to a minimum. But on the whole, enjoyable exploration, gratifying gunplay, and a solid story make Control worth playing and even have me looking forward to Alan Wake II. With Control Resonant right around the corner, now is the time to check out this solid effort from Remedy Entertainment. Even if you don’t love the story, it’s hard not to enjoy the frenetic action.

The Math

Objective Assessment: 8/10.

Bonus: +1 for explosive, satisfying gameplay. +1 for quirky story.

Penalties: −1 for odd/vague narrative beats. −0.5 for some boring puzzles. −0.5 for poor cover/crouch mechanics in combat.

Nerd Coefficient: 8/10.

Posted by: Joe DelFranco - Fiction writer and lover of most things video games. On most days you can find him writing at his favorite spot in the little state of Rhode Island.

Anime Review: Sparks of Tomorrow

Intriguing quirky animation and cozy, alternate history vibes

Sparks of Tomorrow is the latest contribution to the cozy/comfort anime genre. But, instead of a magical fantasy setting, the drama is based on conflicting pursuits of mechanical inventions that inspire the dreams and drive the motivations of the various characters. The series is set in an alternate history where electricity was never pursued and the few machines are powered by steam. Based on a series of light novels, the story’s undercurrent is an exploration of science and invention. Despite being inspired by science, the series is mostly a drama with plenty of personal angst, including a lost brother, a forced marriage, an over-the-top antagonist, and plenty of family secrets in a mostly kid-friendly plot. Additionally, the show uses a range of animation styles, inventive costumes, and fun character designs to maintain a semi-fantastical vibe that makes the show shine more on the gorgeous visuals than on the underlying storytelling.

Protagonist Kihachi is the orphaned younger brother of a charismatic inventor, Seiroku, whose genius (in this alternate reality) held the key to creating an age of electricity. The loss of Seiroku leaves young Kihachi alone and bitter, but still searching for a way to fulfill his brother’s dream. Kihachi is taken in by a repair shop’s family and works there while still searching for the lost catalog of his brother’s inventions and instructions. As he vacillates between determination and discouragement, Kihachi meets Inako, an optimistic girl trapped in an arranged marriage to the story’s antagonist, Yosuke. Yosuke is the wealthy and obnoxious heir to a large family business who wants the electric invention catalog for himself. As part of his scheme, Yosuke coerces Inako’s father into an engagement to Inako, hoping to gain access to the catalog that he thinks is hidden at her family’s home or brewery. Despite grieving the loss of her mother and her dire situation with the forced marriage, Inako is intrigued by Kihachi’s goals. Inako’s optimistic faith inspires Kihachi to move past his cranky cynicism and chase his dreams. The pair are surrounded by an eclectic collection of characters who help them on their journey, including Inako’s sensible sister, Noriko, and Noriko’s sturdy, but secretly insecure, fiancé Kengo, who each have unexpected connections to the lost Seiroku. Inako also has a pair of super smart girlfriends, Kate and Suzu, who help in the various schemes and one of whom also has an unexpected connection to Seiroku.

Sparks of Tomorrow is more of a light, background show for episodic, family viewing, rather than intensely binge-worthy. Unlike most new anime, the storytelling feels a bit generic despite the unique premise. And, unlike many slice-of-life anime, the lead characters are not irresistibly appealing. Kihachi’s cynicism and Inako’s earnestness start to feel a little repetitive after a while. But the presentation is bolstered by the side characters who are all interesting, clever, and quirky. In particular, Inako’s calmly smart older sister Noriko hides a host of secrets, while her strong but angsty fiancé Kengo has his own internal turmoil. Rather than being a traditional shonen adventure with a mix of light energy and intense violent encounters, Sparks of Tomorrow is more of a middle-grade steampunk science adventure designed for cozy comfort rather than intense peril (although there are some backstory war scenes with on-screen deaths). While there is an overarching story arc of Kihachi and Yosuke fighting over the electrical catalog, each episode is mostly a self-contained adventure, typically focusing on one particular invention. Similar to Food Wars, where each episode showcases a particular cooking technique, Sparks of Tomorrow focuses on a new device which is then used to address a particular plot element in the episode. Many of the inventions are used in ways that are semi-fantastical, such as an electric guitar for a music competition or a motorized toy rat used to scare someone. The tone is primarily comedic rather than profound. Even when there are serious moments of grief or guilt, they eventually give way to a more humorous element.

However, the major appeal of the show is the animation. The visual style is primarily smooth Ghibli-style character movements which shift, at times, to quirky fantastical, or eerie black and white, or abstract impressionist as the plot evolves. Each time, the change of visual effects (which may only be for a moment) is surprising and adds an artsy element to the presentation. In the war flashbacks, the animation style changes to a more retro, hand-drawn style where scenes of rain and scenes of fire follow each other while one character cries over the death of another. Later there is a switch to an impressionist style of flowers and color in the remembering of the lost person. In another scene a character is shown through the reflection of their face in the liquid inside a teacup. A character’s inner thoughts are portrayed as abstract black with white pencil-style animation of their body. In yet another scene, a character walking in the rain is depicted from high above by the pink circle of an open parasol floating among other colored circles against a neutral surface. In a later episode, Kihachi dresses in a ballgown and makeup to sneak into a private event and, once discovered, engages in an extended elaborate dance with the antagonist Yosuke while still wearing the ballgown and continuing their verbal sparring. These unusual and whimsical visual elements are intermittent and unexpected but keep the story from becoming too flat.

Overall, Sparks of Tomorrow is a unique story that delivers intriguing animation and clever side characters. While the central story arc is not intensely compelling, the overall vibes are cozy, kid-safe and interesting enough to hold your attention if you are in the mood for something with low stakes.

Nerd Coefficient: 7/10.

Highlights:

• Cozy, kid focused content
• Gorgeous animation and character design
• Low-stakes cuteness and tension

POSTED BY: Ann Michelle Harris – Multitasking, fiction writing Trekkie currently dreaming of her next beach vacation.