Chernobyl (2019)

Chernobyl is a five episode mini series based upon the true events of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and its cleanup efforts. Each episode is around an hour long. It has a slow start and the show main follows an ensemble cast, dropping in and out when needed. It starts off at the point in time where the explosion of the nuclear reactor happened and the events that flowed on from that. Thus, it would first show off the nuclear plant’s engineers and management as they grappled with what is happening. A key theme to the show is how the higher management are in denial. They are always playing events down and saying that everything is okay. They do not dare to even entertain the possibility that something serious has happened.

Next, the show then deals with the initial aftermath where the first responders arrive to provide aid. It is unfortunate because we see these people unknowingly arrive to their deaths. When the radiation sickness hits and they get burns or starts to vomit, it’s touch to watch how they had wandered into a death sentence. It hits home what a horrible event and disaster that this was. The show then moves onto the containment and disaster resolution aspect. Given that this disaster took place when the Soviet Union still existed, it honed in on the weaknesses of that regime that made the events even worse. There are layers and layers of bureaucracy, with each layer having that same tendency of denial as no one wants to take any blame. They spend more time stating things are in control than they do acknowledging that there even is a situation, which can make it quite frustrating.

Despite most characters being hard to get behind, there are a few that stand out as being more honorable and humane. Legasov is the one that comes to mind, being the one that stands up and reveals the true extent of the disaster. He’s the closest the show has to a main character, and he was the one to kickstart the containment and recovery efforts. He seemed like a genuine character rather than another bureaucrat. The show creates opportunities to explain some of the concepts of nuclear power. It explains and provides context to viewers without making it too obvious or cringy. One thing to note is that we have the benefit of hindsight, so it can be a tad unfair to judge some of the decisions that the characters made, given how things worked back in the day.

By the time the third episode comes around, the situation and repercussions are so bleak and the atmosphere so heavy, that it can be stifling. You feel the despair and cannot see the situation ever improving as the gravity of the events come to light. Legasov is a beacon of hope and he is carrying such a heavy burden on his shoulders. Every decision he makes, he makes with a heavy heart knowing the amount of deaths or sickness that it may cause. Despite the negativity, there are some moments of hope and characters who take admirable action. There are the workers that while usually have no choice, but still knowingly with gusto and courage, to go in to do what is right. They pretty much guarantee themselves a slow and painful death, but their decision gives you faith back in humanity.

Another neat aspect of the show is how it also depicts what happened after the initial disaster was averted. Normally, you’d only think about the fire, the collapsed core, and the radiation that was rapidly pouring out. However, the show gives us glimpses of the long term recovery efforts that took place weeks after the explosion. We see the toll it takes on the people, the sacrifices that they have to make, and the difficulties that they encountered. It opens up your eyes to just how many normal everyday people were affected, and how just overnight, they will leave and never see their homes again.

If you had wondered why the first episode only quickly went through the lead up to the disaster, it was because it made the decision to go through the aftermath first. Once all the horrible consequences had been shown, the lead up and cause of the disaster was explained in detail. This was definitely worth the wait as it was riveting. It broek down the science into something easily understandable, giving it a lot of impact as it recounted each mistake that built upon the previous one, until the disaster was inevitable. It ended the mini series on a high note and gave us a rare glimpse of hope in an otherwise despair dominating season.

Overall, Chernobyl is a fantastic mini series that yes, while it does dramatize the events, it stuck to a lot of the facts as well. It perfectly communicated the gravity and serious consequences of the situation by showing us that not only the most immediate people surrounding the nuclear reactor were affected, but also a lot of other innocent bystanders. While the mini series has a slow pacing, this also allowed the viewer to soak it all in. It can be overly heavy, bleak and full of hopelessness, but the disaster wasn’t a light thing, so this tone was appropriate.

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Unpacking (PC)

Unpacking is a light puzzle game where the gameplay revolves around unpacking boxes and putting the items away. This sounds boring, and in a way… it is, but it is also quite relaxing and the game has a soothing comfort feel to it. It helps with the chill music and the colorful pixel art. The camera angle is fixed, presented in an isometric view, but you can zoom in and out, as well as scroll up and down to check out the rooms.

In each level, you play as someone who has moved into a new place and need to unpack the boxes. In the earlier levels, you unpack from scratch, although all the furniture is there. While in later levels, there will already be other items, which is on purpose and has a meaning to it. While playable with a controller, the mouse is definitely the better of the two to use as it’s much more intuitive.

You use the mouse to click on a box, which will unpack the next item. You then find a place to put it. Depending on the item, this can be on the shelf, or in a cabinet, underneath the bed, on a table etc, there are many options. To aid this aspect, you can click to easily open up drawers or doors. There are also various rooms in the houses or apartments, from the kitchen to the bedroom to the lounge room. Traversing between these different rooms are easy, you can either pull up the map or use the quick access buttons on either side. You’ll need to do this given you’ll unpack items that goes to another room.

You cannot just randomly put stuff anywhere you like. While there are places that you know the items cannot be placed upon, given it doesn’t automatically snap into place, once you’ve unpacked all the boxes, some items will be highlighted red. This means that the items are not supposed to go there and you need to pick it up and find where it needs to go. This can be frustrating as you cannot finish the level without doing this. It’s annoying in that there are sometimes items which you don’t actually know what it is, and so it can be trial and error as you find a place for it. Plus, in later levels there’ll be a lack of space, so you’re forced to shuffle things around.

There isn’t an involved story, and it takes a backseat in its storytelling. However, it’s one of those where it tells more by not being too involved in telling it. You effectively play a character as they progress in life, moving to a new house, which signifies a new chapter in their life. You get to see them growing up, change in their tastes and interests, or moving in with their partner, and all this is based on the items you’re unpacking.

While you can spend a long time making everything perfect, just the way you like it, if you aren’t that picky, each level isn’t too long. They take around 10 to 20 mins each for the shorter ones. There are eight levels in total, and the final one is the longest one, which also means it is the most annoying one once you’ve finally unpacked everything and need to figure out why some items are highlighted red, being incompatible with where you’ve put them. However, finishing the game and watching the ending is worthwhile, since it’ll put a smile on your face as you definitely feel that despite there being no dialogue in the game, nor have you ever seen the characters or interacted with them in anyway, you still feel that you know them really well.

Overall, Unpacking is a chill and relaxing game. The pixel art coupled with bright colors and an easy gameplay loop means that it’s the perfect game to play to unwind. Taking items out of boxes and putting them away may sound boring, and in actuality, there will be times where it will be in the game given the monotony of that being all that you are doing; there is still a weird sense of self-satisfaction once you’ve completed the task. The game is short, taking only three to four hours but any longer and it would have start to outstay its welcome.

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Fairy Tail - Season 4 (2011-12)

The fourth season of Fairy Tail is 25 episodes long. Given that the last few episodes of the third season started a brand new arc, it is only natural that this season continued straight after it. Most of the main characters within Fairy Tail are on the island as they are participating in the trial to become S-Class members of the guild. Unfortunately, they are gate crashed with an opposing guild whose aim seems to be at first to just crush them. They practically came to invade the island, having planned this earlier. There was some slight foreshadowing given some characters had shown up earlier before.

The attacking guild has powerful members. This is expected given that the story needs to give the protagonists at least some sort of challenge. The whole season is pretty much just filled with combat. The Fairy Guild members are effectively separated into teams to fight against the opposing guild. Given that are so many characters, there’s not much time to showcase each of the clashes and that’s why the pacing can feel too fast as it rushes through each pairing. That’s in addition to the standard low quality fight choreography where characters yelling and scenes with minimal movement makes up most of the “action”.

The core motivation behind the opposing team invading is quite simple. Rather, it is too simple. Granted, it is nice to see that their motivation, the legendary wizard Zeref, is a character who had been mentioned many times already in the past so that there is some sort of continuity. On the other hand, it’s a shallow reason that has been done many times before also in the past. The anime relies too heavily on flashbacks. Due to its large cast, it is still trying to show off the backstory of nearly every single guild member. Yes, it does make some of the uninteresting ones more interesting but this also means a lot of characters lose focus or that they only have small roles going forward. It doesn’t help that every single character seemingly has some significant role or history, which feels too contrived.

Unfortunately, as is the usual for the anime, there are characters introduced with a seemingly deep seated hatred or a really strong reason as their motivation. Yet after one battle, it is completely resolved, whether it is because they have realized that it was a misunderstanding, or that they’ve now seen the light and changed their mind. This means that no matter how hard the anime tries, the characters remain shallow and the resolutions being anti-climactic.

Even in the most serious of scenes, this isn’t an anime that takes itself too seriously. There are a lot of attempts at humor with most of it being childish and predictable. This is understandable given the target demographic. From time to time, there are some funnier gags. One thing that the anime does do much better than before are those moments where it showcases Fairy Tail as one team and one guild. There’s nothing better than when the characters are in unison and perfectly in sync with each other, whether that is when they’re fighting, or in their ideals.

The continuous fighting drags down the season, leaving little room for good storytelling. As mentioned already, the fights are not amazing, especially when you know the results. There’s just nothing interesting happening in those fights so each of them blends into each other, lacking identity and uniqueness. The exposition of the story is not great. The worst thing is that there is some potential because the anime has quite a bit of foreshadowing at times, but it is let down by the poor quality of absolutely everything else in this adaptation.

The end of the arc had a huge surprise. After having the whole season being predictable and cliched, there was one moment where the plot went in a direction that was completely left field. Yes, this type of plot development and surprise has been done before but it was still something completely expected. It definitely has a lot of potential and it’s up to the next season to see if it is used properly, or just yet another blimp of things that had happened and will be forgotten. Although the twist was ruined and degraded given it was resolved the very next episode with little repercussions.

Overall, the fourth season of Fairy Tail is basically more of the same. If you liked it before, you will like it now. If you didn’t, then there is nothing here that will change your mind. There are some serious storytelling and pacing issues, as the season was dominated by boring fight scenes and a heavy reliance on flashbacks. The low budget nature of the animation hurts it a lot and is the sole reason why this adaptation can be so poor at times.

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Toy Review: Transformers Generations Studio Series Scourge (ROTB) (Leader)

Review:  #770

Name:  Scourge

Brand:  Transformers

Allegiance:  Decepticon

Line:  Generations - Studio Series

Year of Release:  2023

Size Class:  Leader (Wave 11)

Mold Status:  new

VEHICLE MODE:

Scourge, based upon his appearance in the Rise of the Beasts movie, transforms into a truck.

This isn't your normal truck, there are details all around that suit the demonic theme that the figure has going for it.

Unfortunately, Scourge is on the much smaller side in regards to Leaders, he feels very small for the price point, and while he is definitely above a Voyager, it's not to the point of justifying the additional expense.

The other thing that makes this disappointing as a Leader sized figure is the laziness in hiding the robot pieces.  The arms are fully visible from the back, including gaps in the cab.  The smokestacks are just on panels.  There was no effort in trying to make it better.

It doesn't end there because there is a gap on either side of the hood where you can see through to the other side, it's just very disappointing in this aspect.

On the flipside, there are some really nice details including the most impressive of all, the grill.  If you look closely, there are molded insignias on it.

The robot weapon also unfolds so that it can tab on the back, which can help hide the robot arms and fill in some of the gaps.

This is a good truck mode at first glance, but it's far from what it could have been.  There were a lot of small improvements that the designer could have made, and it's disappointing that this is what we got for a Leader figure in 2023.

TRANSFORMATION:

The transformation doesn't justify the higher price point either.  On the whole, the back splits into two to form the legs, while the arms also unfold from the back.  Most of the cab flattens to form a backpack, while the front of the hood forms the shoulder pads.  There are some neat elements here and there, particularly the truck hood becoming the shoulder pads, or the way the arms peg into the back of the truck.

ROBOT MODE:

The robot mode is definitely where all the focus was and Scourge looks really good, considering what the design was going for.

As a byproduct of having a poorer truck mode, he doesn't have much kibble in robot mode, with only the cab folding into a flat piece on his back.

The head sculpt is unique but the long neck isn't a great choice as it makes the head articulation harder than it should be.

Size-wise, he's also between a Voyager and Leader in height.

As part of the Studio Series line, he comes with a cardboard stand depicting a scene from the movie.

There are a few gimmicks in this mode, but first off, the right arm has a sword slung underneath, which is only one of his weapons.

Your eyes will naturally be drawn to his other arm, which is a huge claw.  It's a striking design but one that grows on you, and each claw is individually jointed.

Scourge has excellent articulation, with joints for his head, shoulders, elbows, waist, hips, knees and ankles.

The sword on his left arm is on a hinge that can flip up so that he can hold it in his hand, it's a neat integrated weapon.  At the same time, being non-removable kind of sucks too.

He comes with a blaster.

The blaster can store on his back when not in use.

However, this isn't your typical blaster that he holds in his hands, no, you remove the claw arm and then plug the blaster as a replacement.

The claw can then peg onto his back as well.

The recent trend of having more figures with removable arms and weapons is not great since it feels like you get a spare piece that you can't use.

Ignoring that, Scourge has a demonic theme going for him and he is one of the most unique Transformers designs that we have had for years.

Scourge has a striking and strong robot mode.

OVERALL:

Despite the poorer truck mode, and despite being such a small figure without complexity and parts count to make up for the difference, Scourge is still a good figure.  The robot mode is clearly the better mode of the two and he looks amazing.  Being so striking and unique is what sets this figure apart.

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