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"Box Office: Alice Turns Damon a Sickly Green."

I don't think I want to see either movie.

I'm a huge Dwayne McDuffie fan, and it's a sin and a shame that I've let this blog go on so long without ever having mentioned him.

The Atlantic has a wonderful interview with McDuffie up, covering a lot of his work in the DC Comics animated universe and his career as a writer for both Marvel and DC Comics.

But the highlight of his work for me was his hand in the creation of the Milestone comics universe. Other than Garth Ennis's recent run on The Punisher, the Milestone lineup was the only time I've been truly excited by reading comics in the last two decades. The fact that they're not around anymore is probably the largest reason I really don't read many comics these days. With Milestone gone, they literally don't make them like they used to. You're all the poorer if you haven't had the chance to read those comics. (Especially this one. Dwayne didn't write that, but it's one of the best single issue comics I've ever read.

Let me plug his work on the absolutely awesome Justice League Unlimited show. "Panic in the Sky" and "Divided We Fall" easily rival Star Trek's "Best of Both Worlds" for best sci-fi story to ever cross the TV screen. And that's not hyperbole. It's that good. Buy the whole show though, it's easily worth the money.

Normally, I'd make fun of Star Trek nerds getting worked into a tizzy, but . . . DAMN:

This is a recap of the promotion and the resulting firestorm for those who don't want to read 206+ pages. Please note I'm trying to be objective. Let me know if I missed a major "event".

Friday, February 26th

• Atari/Cryptic offers a $10 discount on all ST:O boxes sold only by Atari until March 3rd. This promotion also comes with an additional 60 free days on top of the included 30 free days, for a total of 90 days of free playtime. This promotion comes less than a month after ST:O "officially" goes live.


• Some existing subscribers, many of them who have been with the game since Closed Beta, feel slighted by the timing of this promotion (and specifically the 60 additional free days) and begin to express their displeasure on the official forums.


• Numerous threads appear on the official forums over the weekend expressing outrage at the promotion, which is viewed by many as a blatant "money-grab". Some posts, by both protesters and supporters of the promotion, are contentious.

Sunday, February 28th

• GM_IndigoFyre, the administrator for the official ST:O forums, stickied the primary protest thread, stating "it wont leave the top of the page until the question gets answered." (See here)

Monday, March 1st

• The thread GM_IndigoFyre stickied is unstickied and closed, along with any other thread relating to subscribers protesting the Atari/Cryptic promotion. All of the closed threads are redirected to a new thread created by Community Rep Phoxe titled "Re: Atari Sale".


• Rumors begin to appear on the forums that Atari/Cryptic are no longer giving refunds on lifetime subscriptions, whereas on Friday Feb. 28th they still were. While the sales agreement at the time of purchase stated clearly that lifetime subscriptions were non-refundable, Atari/Cryptic had been refunding them anyway. Now it seemed that instead of counting the 30-day window for return from when the registration key was entered Atari/Cryptic were now counting from when the purchase was actually made. Since many had purchased early, this change eliminated them from refund consideration. This change in return policy does not occur until the beginning of the workday, US Pacific Time (mid-afternoon UK time).


• Some subscribers, many of whom were very vocal in protesting the Friday promotion, begin to be banned from the official forums. Many of those protesting the Feb. 28th promotion view this as blatant censorship. Some of those who were banned take their protests to other industry-related forums. News of the negative reaction to the promotion spreads to those websites and beyond. (See here)


• The promotion that started it all is altered to remove the 60 free days. The $10 price reduction is left intact.


• Cryptic customer service representatives claim that at no point were 60 free days offered in the promotion, despite an email being sent out to many ST:O players stating otherwise.


• At 3:38pm PST Director of Customer Service GM_Marauder makes an official statement regarding the promotion and the backlash surrounding it. (See here)


• Rumors begin circulating that CSR's have refused to honor the terms of the promotion, specifically the 60 free days. Community Rep Phoxe states unequivocally that the terms of the promotion would be honored. (See here)

Wednesday, March 3rd

• Community Rep Phoxe creates a stickied (and locked) thread titled "I Quit" Threads, and states that they will immediately close any "I Quit" thread due to the negativity surrounding them. (See here)

Current

• General consensus regarding the Feb. 26th promotion is impossible. Opinions range from "a botched marketing plan" to "criminal bait-and-switch". The promotion, which was timed to coincide with the ending of the 30 free days that came with every purchase of ST:O, generated significant negative press for Atari/Cryptic generally, and ST:O specifically. The lasting effect of the promotion and its backlash, if any, remain to be seen.

I'll go with "criminal bait-and-switch."

Liberal blogs to have less Daily Show clips.

It may sound weird to some, but hearing a kid say something like I f*%@ed your grandmother somehow is still surprising despite the fact.

--Asphyxium001

I've fiddled around with Star Trek Online for an hour or so, so it's too early for me to give even a preliminary review, but looking at Rory's review over at Gamespot:

Having reached the rank of Captain, I'm convinced: Star Trek Online's appeal is classically conditioned. Trek fans are meant to salivate at the sights and sounds of their favorite universe made manifest, like a dog hearing the chime of a chow bell. And publisher Atari is banking on the hope that -- like Pavlov's pups -- consumers will be content with the same ol' kibble day after day. The result is a shallow, poorly paced, and repetitive game that, divorced from its storied source material, wouldn't warrant a second look. But hey, at least I'll always have that Defiant.

From this you can gather 2 things:

1. Unless he's lying he's played it a lot (Captain is the second highest rank in the game after Admiral)

2. He's a fan of at least Star Trek Deep Space Nine (which means he also has good taste!), and probably a fan of most Star Trek in general

You'd disagree with these common sense observations if you're a fanboi, however:

In conclusion you give Star Trek Online, which is a OUTSTANDING game, a 2 out of 5 and COD MW2 a 4 out of 5. Gamespy your standing in the industry keeps tanking. As of now I wont bother reading your material, as it lacks anything of substance or sense.

I think the writer is wrong, clearly a star trek hater, and didn't give the game a fair comparison to other games that first come out.

This review is a bunch of biased and uninformed trash. Clearly the reviewer was against the game from the beginning, is doubtfully a fan of the IP, and probably has some bias that existed before even getting into the game.

The moral of this story? When defending your $239 lifetime subscription to what may be a sub-par game, attack the messenger.

The San Francisco Gate has a harsh review up of Shutter Island.

Speaking of Scorsesi, I think The Departed was good but mad over-rated.

I consistently astounded by the shoddy editing at many, many publications. Most of the time it's sloppy fact-checking, but sometimes the rank ignorance gets to me. It's like company policy at many places is "Well this idiot turned this copy in, but it's better to print it than throw it away."

I find it especially sad that the editors (and at least 1 writer) at New Scientist don't know about deflector arrays in a fluff story about Star Trek.

Sheesh.

"Warner Bros makes DC appointments."

I interpret this as DC trying to copy Marvel leapfrogging them in terms of movie exposure. Sure, The Dark Knight kicked everyone's ass, but other than that, DC has been floundering in comparison to Marvel in cinemas and in comic book shops. The Superman "franchise" is anything but, it's been agreed pretty much all around that it needs a Batman Begins style reboot.

While Marvel has scored hits with what are really second string comic characters such as Blade and characters largely unknown to the public like the X-Men, Punisher and Iron Man, the majority of DC's characters haven't even had a shot at the spotlight. Wonder Woman as a movie has been stuck in development hell. DC has done nothing with potential franchise characters such as The Flash or Captain Marvel in ages. Meanwhile Marvel readies the public for the likes of Captain America and Thor, DC isn't doing anything with their equivalent characters like the Martian Manhunter.

We'll have to wait for Green Lantern to see if DC is headed in the right direction.

. . . doesn't get enough press. And the guy is all kinds of awesome.

"Obese Filmmaker Booted From Flight."

"The godfather of rap."

Mel knew that mic was live. That was on purpose.

"Final Season Of 'Lost' Promises To Make Fans More Annoying Than Ever":

I'm finished serving the will of Junta Kinte. I've now officially seen every episode of LOST broadcast. He can't bite at my throat until tonight.

A couple of day ago, I dissed The Daily Show for running with a right-wing talking point and trying to make it funny.

I was more right than I thought when I chided them for not having a germ of truth to work with:

Days before the 2008 election, Jon Stewart jokingly asked Barack Obama whether his "white half" would have trouble making a decision in the voting booth.

"Yeah," the candidate said, "I've been going through therapy to make sure that I vote properly."

That's disgusting. I believe in making fun of people for what they do, and not what they are.

Last week, though, the president was the punch line. After showing video of Obama speaking to schoolkids, the "Daily Show" host said in amazement: "You set up a presidential podium and a teleprompter in a sixth-grade classroom? . . . I'm not a political adviser, campaign strategist, et cetera, but that's not a great photo op in a middle school classroom."

It was inevitable that Obama would become a late-night target, at least when Jay Leno, Conan O'Brien and Dave Letterman have taken time out from sliming one another. But Stewart, who makes no secret of leaning left, is a pop-culture bellwether. And while the White House notes that Obama used the prompter to address journalists, not the students, the details matter little in comedy.

While not yet nearly as serious as the memes that derailed Al Gore's campaign, they do matter, because these smears can snowball, and there are some well paid Republican operatives planting dynamite to start the avalanche.

Stewart's barbs are generating partisan buzz. In a tweet, Americablog's John Aravosis invoked Martha Coakley's Massachusetts loss in trashing the prompter joke: "So is this the new post-coakley Jon Stewart, picking on Dems for insignificant BS to burnish his indie credentials. Third time in 7 days." The conservative Fox Nation site, by contrast, ran the video under the gleeful header "Jon Stewart Mocks Obama's Teleprompter Dependence."

Meaning that, at least in this case, there is less space between Fox News and The Daily Show than there should be.

What happened when Stan Lee tried to ban exclamation points from Marvel Comics?

"Obama Is Katy Perry."

This is another reason why I don't take The Daily Show seriously (relevant bit starts about 0:45 to 1:36):

This isn't just making a mountain out of a molehill, it's running with stupid right wing talking points. Maybe it's just for comedic effect but good comedy needs a kernel of truth rather than trying to parody the insignificant. There's no point to be made here.

And yeah, I didn't laugh.

Remember when video games were "Nintendo Hard"?

I do. And I'm surprised I didn't notice this massive change in game design until now.

Gizomodo previews Star Trek Online, an incoming massively-multiplayer video game:

This is by far the more satisfying part. Who hasn't wanted to sit in Picard, Kirk, Scott Bakula or any of the lesser captain's chairs and order people to fire everything? Who can say that they haven't wanted to smoothly say "make it so" and have something—besides your wife giving you dirty looks—happen? This is that.

There's only been 5 Star Trek captains, and he names the 3 white males as the people we'd want to be. The others? They are the "lesser" Captains. This despite the fact that Avery Brooks's Captain Sisko went 7 seasons as the highest rated show in syndication, having the "highest-rated series premiere in syndication history" and even being the focus of what TV Guide readers once picked as the Best Star Trek episode ever.

Conversely, Scott Bakula's (whom I love!) Captain Archer went 3 seasons on Enterprise and got canceled because of poor ratings.

(I'll forgive Gizmodo for ignoring Janeway - the character and her show were written so horribly she really is forgettable.)

P.S. Why is Picard Picard and Kirk Kirk when Archer is "Bakula"?