I have to admit, my favorite magic card is called “Disinformation Campaign”. I like it because the real-world counterpart is literally never, absolutely ever, discussed. So, if you want to at least pretend you are in the real world, you can use this card in a game.
Disinformation Campaign goes along with a spell or ability called “surveillance”, which also rocks. So, if you use DC and play it, you can bring it back to you to use it again if you engage in surveillance. How quaint. Conceptually, they go well together. That happens in MTG a lot, actually. There are conceptual continuities based on creature type, item or color.
I got out of work a little early after getting a decent amount done during the week. I figured, why not go catch It Chapter #2 and order a pizza and a beer and see if it is any good. It was not what I expected but it was definitely too long. Maybe they are trying to copy Japanese film editors from the 90s or something. I find that the concept of selling a sequel on parts of the 1st movie really applies to this film. It must have sold well enough for people to ask, how can we pull that off again. They didn’t space it too long after the 1st one and they were able to add footage of younger actors as they have not aged much since the 1st one.
I actually did like the idea of blurring magic and sci-fi. I don’t know Stephen King’s work that well but what I do know is that he wrote both sci-fi and horror. He actually had a cameo in the film. Interesting scene. He wore a Neil Young “Harvest” T-shirt. It is the only Neil Young album I own and it is pretty good. Also, as a side note, Rich, the character played by Bill Haider had a Santa Cruz skate/surf sticker on his T-shirt and that is one of the few stickers I have on my Boosted board.
I feel a sort of pity for Hollywood. This movie isn’t the only one that brings this about. They are so incredibly outdated now. They just keep on going too and squashing all forms of innovation. Youtube is the only saviour at this time. At least there are some seriously talented people on Youtube or I would have a lot of disappointment for passive 2D video media in general. That’s not to say that people should make another Imax or 3D film. Those are getting increasingly embarrassing too.
I can understand the dynamics of the characters and how they could be stretched out to the ages that they are in the sequel, 27 years later. But, the 1st movie did such a good job with quick flashes of childhood experience, I didn’t really want them to rehash it and water it down. But, that is what sold the 1st one so they went balls out doing just that.
Let me just quickly return to my embarrassment with Hollywood. Stadia is coming out this fall and that will up the ante. What Hollywood is lacking is audience participation. This does not have to mean less work for all the people that would be involved in a feature film. But, they are so small minded and paralyzed with fear, they will squash innovation because they think their bigass casts and crews won’t be able to get their pumpkin spices. They can still have their pumpkin spices and innovate. I will give you one example and if I am not lazy, I will paste in the link to the independent effort to add audience participation(got it>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renga_(video_game) ). It involves pointing lasers as a group of watchers at specific points on the screen and having that be a type of group controller(not movie but video game but you get the idea). Anyway, this technology is at minimum about 20 years late. Let’s just postpone it another 10 years or so because we just love the emotional impact of 2D.
