Stanley Kubrick, The Shining, Room 237, “Jupiter and Beyond the Infinite"

Or, How I came to realize that I did not even know why my favorite films by Kubrick were my favorites.

Is it possible to have a favorite film director, a group of favorite films, and think you know why you love them, only to realize you really had no idea why you enjoyed them? It happened to me, and it started with The Shining.

Years ago, while writing my own drivel fiction and continually watching movies, I remember watching The Shining for the umpteenth time and wondering to myself why, exactly, it was that I enjoyed the film so much. As far as films go it’s pretty slow, talky, and, mostly, uneventful. As a favorite horror film that I always considered to be in good company among my top five favorites, it shared little in common with the other four. The Exorcist, The Thing (1982), The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) have little in common with The Shining, at least on the surface. The question as to why such a seemingly uneventful and mundane horror film would continue to gnaw at me over the years while other horror films that seemed just as competently assembled would not stick to me and gnaw at my mind was a mystery that eventually had me digging on the Internet. Thank God for the Internet. For if I did not have good Wi-Fi and laptop that night in my man-cave, it might have been Room 237 itself that first clued me in.

The first thing I stumbled across was the great article by Bill Blakemeore, “The Family of Man.” That was the first time I read anything that theorized that The Shining is not just about the surface story, but actually about something else. Genocide. The destruction of the American Indians. Once I read his article, it seemed completely obvious. The gnawing on my brain ceased some and I was filled with awe! How had I missed that? I mean, on the surface I had not missed it. It was there all along. They even mention it in the dialogue. Still, once pointed out, it’s easy to take that leap. But did Kubrick intend that, or at the very least try to allude to that? I wanted the answer to be yes.

More digging online had me discovering more and more. Some ideas were clearly just theory, other things were very obviously intentional, and verifiable, by anyone who cares to look at the film to test it out. I did some testing of my own and did confirm many things that are not entirely obvious when watching the film, even over 100 times, which I easily have over the years.

I always knew that the ball that rolls into Danny’s circle of cars rolls over a different section of carpet than it appears after a cut takes place. Everyone who has studied Kubrick even a small bit knows he was a perfectionist. He was meticulous in nature, and would repeat many takes of a scene, often an insane amount, to get a shot exactly the way he wanted. He took a very long time to cut together The Shining, too—around a year, if memory serves. He was not the type of filmmaker who just threw takes together with breaks in continuity and did not care. If a break in continuity was there, it was for a reason. Even in 2001, when the bone becomes a satellite—arguably one of the most profound jump cuts in cinema history—the bone and the satellite do not line up and overlap in the obvious alignment everyone would imagine they should. He could have done it that way. It would seem obvious to do it that way, but he did not do it that way. And you can bet your ass there was a reason behind the bone and satellite not aligning perfectly, even if the reason was as simple as just to not do it the obvious way. There was still intent behind his decision, not sloppiness. So when the ball and the carpet patterns misalign over a cut, he did that too, for a reason. Why? Why? Why?

The more I dug, the more wacky stuff I found about The Shining. Stuff you can see by just carefully putting the film on and watching, slowly, bit by bit.

Rather than go into the exhaustive list of very real and verifiable things Kubrick intentionally did with the editing, continuity, and sets within The Shining, I will simply point you to two very well researched and complied sites on this.

Physical Cosmologies: The Shining

"MAZES, MIRRORS, DECEPTION AND DENIAL" an in-depth analysis of Stanley Kubrick's THE SHINING

Much of what is listed on these two sites is also theory as to what The Shining means. Much too, are actual facts, things that can be verified by carefully going through the film and checking for yourself. If you are a fan here reading this, I encourage you to do so.

One crazy theory I even feel I disproved all by myself. Something falls out of the blood from the elevator. It’s there to see on the floor when the doors open. I had to know. What the hell comes out of the blood when the door opens? One theory floated around is that it’s Tony, Danny’s imaginary friend. I put the Blu-ray on my big TV and watched. There is something there. Something long and grey and curved and something brown on the floor. What I concluded, based on how the blood erupts onto the wall so insanely, is that those are guides, likely metal, differently-colored so as to mask them as ambient room lighting reflections in the blood. But they are also guides used pragmatically to direct the liquid flow, to get it to splatter on the walls, ever so dazzlingly, on the left and right of the screen. That’s my conclusion. I even took pictures and passed them along. I could be wrong but not everything has hidden meaning. Sure in this film a lot might, but not every single thing. This was before CGI, and if guides were needed they could not be masked after the fact, they’d need to be hidden in plain sight as reflections. See for yourself and conclude for yourself.

Onward… When you conclude further though, that Kubrick was in fact editing the film in a wacky way, screwing with continuity, adding subliminal breaks in continuity, messing with the layout of the sets, causing stickers to vanish, chairs and ash-trays to move and reappear, the maze to change, carpet patterns to change, and intentionally adding odd disconcerting elements to the film, one must conclude that there was a reason for this, beyond just doing it for the fun of it. It could simply have been that he just wanted The Shining, a supernatural horror film, to be subliminally uncomfortable and off-putting. However, once I realized he was doing this likely also with A Clockwork Orange, 2001, Full Metal Jacket, and Eyes Wide Shut, then that explanation alone, that he wanted The Shining to be subliminally creepy, cannot alone account for it all.

He rarely explained what he meant with his films. He was even quoted in an article once where he himself re-quoted H. P. Lovecraft saying: ‘In all things mysterious – never explain.’

He likely wanted the hidden stuff in his films to spur imagination and eventually decades later it did. First and foremost, beyond Kubrick’s obvious genius, I am thoroughly impressed with the many people who have dug out so much, and on their own found so much more in the film than I ever could have. I was just spurred to dig, but only with the aid of other minds, and the information connectivity of the Internet, was I able to find anything. On my own I only knew something about the film gnawed at me. After reading the websites listed above, my mind was continually blown. Whether or not you buy into any theory about what The Shining might mean beyond the surface story or not, you must admit that there is still information intentionally hidden in the film. These are things within the film I had never consciously noticed, that I now plainly see. The film was blown wide open for me, as was Kubrick the director, someone I already considered a favorite. After all this, I arrived at the conclusion that I likely did not even know, completely, why some of the films from my all time favorite director were my favorites. Maybe others have been playing around like this too? Kubrick was operating multiple levels above and beyond what I even considered to be top tier master filmmaking.

Then came Room 237, Directed by Rodney Ascher.

Room 237 objectively takes several theories about the film and presents them. Much of it I already knew from digging online before I even saw the film. Still, I was thrilled that others had found the fact that The Shining is way more than the surface story, and that they were driven to work on much of this information and present it. Then it was all compiled together as a documentary.

I was first able to see Room 237 for the first on my Apple TV when it became available for rent. I loved it. I was so happy to see the clever visual pointing out of things I had read about, like the sticker and chair disappearing, the carpet, the maze, etc. The theories too were fascinating for me to watch and consider.

I was surprised at how quickly many people scoffed at the film, the theories, and just summarily dismissed it all as whack-job conspiracy hogwash. Many people hate the idea that they are not in the know, or loath idea they are somehow outside the scope of what’s going on. Many of these people just saw faked moon landing and went, “Bla bla bla crazy faked moon landing nonsense!” Even if you think every theory is complete nuts, the information that Kubrick still intentionally cut the film oddly is there. Why discard that rather important revelation just because you may not agree with a theory or two? The moon landing stuff seemed to irk people the most. This film did a poor job of explaining the theory, too. The way I thought I understood it before seeing Room 237 was not that Kubrick faked the moon landing and man has never been to the moon, but rather that the government concerned that we might fuck up getting to the moon, look like jack asses, possibly with dead astronauts, wanted back up footage to show the public and the Russians, just in case. That seems entirely plausible, especially now with all the crazy NSA stuff that has come to light in the news. Turns out the paranoids were, perhaps, onto something. And we all know the government is capable of quite a lot of wacky stuff. Still, I consider the moon idea the wackiest of the bunch. The crazy uncle.

As much as I enjoyed the film I still felt it could have put in just a bit more information. There are a few shots—like when the twins first see Danny and there is a cut and furniture moves slightly—that I would have enjoyed seeing in the film. I read reviews that promised more would be included with the DVD/Blu-ray. As soon as it became available, I ordered it. I watched the deleted scenes and although there were some more, it was not as exhaustive as the few websites I linked to above.

The one thing about the DVD/Blu-ray of Room 237 that I was thoroughly impressed with, beyond my initial enjoyment of seeing the film for the first time, was the commentary by Mstrmnd. He declined to be interviewed for the film itself. In the commentary he explains that he did not want his ideas to be lumped in with conspiracy theories and for them to get lost in the mix. After hearing his commentary, I see why. His commentary over Room 237—already a film about a film—is even better than Room 237 itself. He takes it to a whole other level. His website is even better. I think it’s been updated since I found it years ago, but I have no way to confirm that.

Mstrmnd’s commentary goes beyond the many theories and gets down to the WHY. Why did Kubrick construct his films like this? The short answer is that Kubrick was likely inventing a new form of filmmaking and/or language. Mstrmnd also points out that many films today are just jumbled remakes of earlier films. He even mentions Oblivion, a film I enjoyed, some, and reviewed on this blog. I mentioned in my review here that Oblivion feels a lot like other films that came before it. Mstrmnd says, basically, the same thing about Oblivion and many films today in general. He also alludes to a sort of filmmaking regurgitation going on out there with blockbusters and the desire, the need, the will for something new to come along—a new way of making films. A new way of communicating. Films that work on multiple levels. Films that engage our brains not entirely on the surface, but interact with them based on the way a human brain might root-process information, in clumps. A new visual pictorial language. I likely am not even explaining what he did properly. Watch Room 237 with his commentary. I do know that Mstrmnd, finally, got to the ‘root’ of what was gnawing at me about The Shining. He mentioned Star Wars too, another life-long favorite of mine, the first one from 1977, before Lucas lost his shit. Mstrmnd points out the similarity between the shape of the escape pod and the restraining bolt in Star Wars. Escape and restraint. Opposites shown with a similar shape, one small, and one large, both dealing with the two droids. This is Carl Jung stuff. This is collective unconscious archetype, Joseph Campbell stuff. This is a whole other level. Lucas may or may not have known what he was doing with these opposites when he made Star Wars. My guess is that he did on some level. Mstrmnd explains that some filmmakers may just be more in touch with their inner brain, and as well, these subliminal concepts, and as a result produce better films, (subconsciously?) that resonate with us, gnaw at us, and we love them so very much but we don’t know, truly, exactly why. We just know we love them. The new more recent Star Wars films don’t do to us what the very first one did to us. We point to Jar Jar Binks. We point to how Lucas screwed with the originals. We point to the force being explained and no longer mysterious. Someone point out all this stuff in this clever video. All valid and pretty obvious observations in that video. Mstrmnd was the first to point to the escape pod and restraining bolt shape similarity, for me, likely just one of many things he’s noticed that I have not, as perhaps adding subconsciously to why we continue to love some films, while others fade into non-Kubrickian Oblivion.

If you have not done so already I highly recommend you go buy a good wide-screen TV, a Blu-ray player, The Shining Blu-ray, Room 237Blu-ray, and saddle up for the ride of your cinema-viewing life. Grab Kubrick’sother films too while you are at it. It’s also claimed that 2001 and The Shining might be loosely connected. Watch ‘em all back-to-back! Then in reverse! Then stand on your head. There is always a new way to see, new way to experience, new way to watch, and much more to learn!

My God, It’s full of stars!

—A

***Addition after seeing a panel discussion from the first annual Stanley Film Festival on the Blu-ray***

 Leon Vitali, Kubrick’s personal assistant on The Shining is the biggest skeptic so far, insisting that any and all possibility that Stanley Kubrick had any subtext in any of his films is just not true. That they sat him next to the moon nut only helps his impossible case. Vitali too, a bit of a character himself, seemed the least grounded out of the four in the group, unkempt and even wackier than the moon guy. Vitali even did not hold his microphone the entire time and seemed hell bent on denying that there was anything in the film aside from what is there on the surface. Personally, I don’t buy this one man’s opinion. I don’t even care if he was right there “holding Kubrik’s hand” through the entire production. He is not Kubrick and therefore had no real influence on what, in the end, went into the film. Kubrick had the final say. Sure, loads of people helped Kubrick, brought material to him, etc. Kubrick did not work alone, but Kubrick had the final say. Apollo sweater…up for debate for sure. Consecutive intercuts with disappearing or moving furniture with a jump cut in between, well, in my humble opinion, with all we know about how Kubrick worked, how long he took to edit, there is no freaking way those jump cuts with crap disappearing or moving are an accident. Do I want to believe? You bet your ass I do. One guy, a close Kubrick assistant, saying otherwise does not negate the very contrived obvious photographic and editing evidence. When Dick Halloran opens the freezer door and the direction it opens switches right as the cut happens. I’m supposed to believe that is a mistake? A mistake Kubrick made in editing? Right as the fucking cut happens? In the only supernatural horror film of his career? No fucking way. Zero chance that’s a mistake. The furniture and ash tray moving between when we first see the twins in the game room and when it cuts to Danny and then back to the twins. That, too, can only be seen if you first frame-grab the two shots and overlap them, or if you use a tripod to take two shots and compare by flicking back and forth on your digital camera. The stuff moves imperceptibly. That’s no accident. That’s intentional. Kubrick may have misdirected numbskulls on the set and said “Oh I hate that chair. Get that friggin thing outa my sight!” after getting a zillion shots with it, and then taken another zillion without. He carefully used one of each when editing. For sure he did. Don’t for a second doubt that, no matter what Leon Vitali says. Kubrick’s wife could agree with him and I’d still not believe them. I’m an artist myself. I know filmmakers and have made short films myself too. Even crap films get TLC from the people involved. Sure, mistakes happen, but this is Kubrick and The Shining we are talking about, not Leprechaun 4. For all we know Kubrick may have gotten some of these people sworn to secrecy, or just, and more likely, simply kept them in the dark right up close. “Oh some lady sewed this Apollo sweater. No biggie. Just throw it on the kid.” Please! While the moon landing stuff is the hardest for me to swallow, the evidence there is still uncanny. Even if that is 100% BS, the fact that it even has enough information to make it worth mentioning is crazy.

There is another, very slow, poorly edited online documentary, but it’s chock full of, basically, number 11s and other such number details about just the moon landing stuff. Here is the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0hOiasRsrA Remember, this is a horribly slow and poorly edited film, not even close to being as good as Room 237, but the information is there. It could all be nuts. I don’t buy it myself, but still, there is a lot of freaky moon coincidence in here. It’s worth a look-see at least once before you take a giant shit on it!

The genocide of the American Indians, the Holocaust, freaky jump cuts, and more I am almightily convinced are intentionally there, obvious, or alluded to, and intentional by Kubrick himself. The Playgirl with the incest article. The bear pillow in Danny’s room and then the blowjob bear at the end. Catcher in the Rye. Disappearing art in the bedroom. Impossible hallways. The never-consistent maze. Moving carpet. Impossible window. TV with no cord. Manifest destiny, westward expansion dialogue. German typewriter that changes color. And on and on and on. At the bare minimum, he put the film together to fuck with our subconscious. Kubrick was never a bear minimum type of guy. His famous reclusiveness and reluctance to talk about his films or explain them speaks volumes about what he hid in them. He knew this was coming eventually. He probably thought we’d catch on sooner. Only Bluray and DVD helped in the end. It was as if he was insulating himself from it in advance. Eventually, I suspect, when his wife dies, we might hear more. Maybe not. Dark secrets kept close to the chest can travel far, unknown by anyone.  

—A

Blog Down for the Warm Months

The blog is down for the summer/warm 

months. 

Once I am forced back into sub-zero

hibernation I'll return. 

Remember to get outside and enjoy yourselves 

too. 

Give up your inquiries which are completely
useless, and consider these words a second
warning.

We hope, for your own good, that this will be
sufficient.


—A

Oblivion Review

Sometimes, the fact that I have seen so many movies lessens the experience of watching certain films. Oblivion, staring Tome Cruise, is one such film. There are spoilers throughout this review, so just be aware. 

Oblivion has many facets that feel like bits and pieces taken from other science fiction films that came before it. 2001, The Matrix, Terminator, Wall.E, Moon, Star Trek/Borg and even the 1980s cartoon, Thundarr the Barbarian. Having aspects or elements in any story that are reminiscent, gleaned, borrowed, homaged, or otherwise ripped off from someplace else is nothing new. All of the aforementioned obvious sources were themselves borrowing from earlier stories. Even the great Stanley Kubrick himself never wrote original work, but would always use source material as the jumping-off point for a fresh, new take on an already seemingly overdone topic; ie, war, horror, sci-fi, etc. So yes, Oblivion is not entirely original. The film did suffer from feeling too cobbled together form various sources. But more importantly, was it any good? From my perspective as a science fiction loving geek/nerd...yes. It certainly could have been better. It was not perfection, but it did have aspects of it I enjoyed greatly and it lacked some of the more typical and often overused elements in science fiction films—which is a good thing. First, there were no slimy aliens running around trying to eat humans. Second, there were no giant space battles. Third, there were no crazed, dark antagonists hell bent on chaos and destruction. Sci-fi films are overrun by those elements, and I was happy to see none of them present in this movie.

The film was often quiet and took its time. I liked that too. Many science fiction films never sit still and just feel panic-stricken. There were a few too many chases and action scenes tossed in that I could have done without, but not too many that it caused the film to drag. Even the film’s end, with the flashback/climax, managed to steer clear of the typical Michael Bay SFX computer-generated fructose tsunami that usually ends many a sci-fi film. 

The trailer is partially to blame, leaving some of the spontaneity missing from the film. I knew that there were no flesh and blood aliens and that is was a group of humans led by Morgan Freeman. I also knew there was a robot/AI/whatever behind what was going on. The trailer could have helped this some by not showing the underground humans at all. Too much was revealed, to me, before I even saw the film. The reveal in science fiction has become more important than the film itself. Oblivion definitely contains a substantial reveal, it does not rely too heavily on it.

Ultimately, I came away having enjoyed the film. It has rewatchability, and that is more than many films these days can say. I'd never sit through Looper again. It was also stunningly beautiful, and cinematography is a category in cinema that is often overlooked. Just being able to sit back and gorge one’s eyes and mind on beautiful photography, accompanied by a great score, seems absent from what is expected from films these days. I think Terrence Malick's Tree of Life woke up many filmmakers, and I am beginning to see traces of it in other films. Oblivion, Prometheus, and even the upcoming After Earth seem to take note of the importance of great cinematography in a film. SFX junk is just a tool, and all the explosions and space battles in the world will not make a film any better. But something that is gorgeous in and of itself, even if you were deaf or did not know English, still has vast merit. Oblivion scores high here. The music was great too. I noticed it, which is more than I can say for 98% of what I see these days. Years ago I used to fall in love with so many films scores. Today film music is rarely even worth a one-sentence blurb. Music is very important in a film. Great music can aid a film tremendously. Why this is overlooked more and more and just slapped on is a mystery to me. Films take humanity’s great artistic achievements and incorporate them all together. When done well, the end is greater than the sum of the parts. Blade Runner is a prime example of great music accompaniment. Without the Vangelis music, Blade Runner would not be the same. The music in Oblivion fit the film and had me considering picking up the score—a rarity these days. 

There were aspects of the film I did not like and/or was also unclear about. The clone thing was not needed, and was already done recently in Moon. The opening voiceover was not needed. It felt added on. Show me, don't tell me. It just felt a bit like misguided filmmaking to me.

The iconic New York locations were lame. It looked cool, but seriously, what are the odds that the film’s protagonist, a diamond-in-the-rough of clones, would also be located near the most famous city ever? Sci-fi needs to steer clear of big cities from now on. 

Couldn't the drones have other drones to fix themselves? 

Sally/Tet was revealed as so powerful that the number of drones seemed inadequate compared to amount it could have produced. 

I was unclear why an army of M/F clones were needed. An army of drones to kill all the humans would seem to me to be more efficient. Maybe this was unanswered on purpose. 

Was Sally/Tet an alien originated AI, or was it of human origin? I guess it's OK that this is unanswered, or if it is answered I missed it the first time around. The sucking up water thing was lame. Water is made of two relatively common elements, hydrogen being especially common. No advanced anything would need it, nor travel here for it. A more real, well-thought-out purpose was needed for the Borg/AI in this film. If the AI was of human origin, then the water thing needed more explanation. The idea of having the AI of human origin and created for a goal humanity set out is interesting. It carrying out some earlier order to collect water to be taken elsewhere by humans is interesting. If the AI went nuts and killed humanity, and continued blindly drying out earth for an old standing directive, well, that is cool too. Either I missed something, or perhaps—and I hope this is the case—that the film was intentionally left open-ended enough for my theory to find a home. When everything is explained perfectly, then only that explanation is what you will come away with. When a film is slightly open-ended, then the sky’s the limit. 

For me, Oblivion was a strong 6 out of 10. The SFX, music, acting, and photography were strong and helped the film become something beautiful that need not be enjoyed or disliked on the strength of the writing alone. And that’s a good thing, because the writing was lacking. A slightly better screenplay could have aided this film a lot. I do want to see it again, so it’s possible that some of my questions might be answered. It was still one of the stronger non-comic book science fiction films to come along in a while. 

Repo Man (Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray] Review

Outer cover

So it turns out the fringe cult film that helped define my 14+ onward youth is now getting the recognition it deserves. I can't help but think, too, of A Clockwork Orange, which I also discovered as a kid and worshipped as well. As I grew older and acquired some semblance of a brain, I realized that there was more going on in both films than just apathetic youth stumbling around causing truble.

Repo Man was, first and foremost, completely hilarious. Its irreverence for everything and everyone, particularly authority, was what drew me to it in the first place. When I watch the film I am reminded of going out skating in the parking lot of a dry cleaners after hours, as well as aimlessly roaming around with my friends. Aimlessly. That pretty much sums it up. I may not have been able to put my finger on what it was about the film back then that made it great, but complex, pseudo-intellectual explanations were not high on my list as a kid. It was just a "great film" or "funny as hell" and above all, extremely quotable. Quoting films has pretty much caught on as a sort of sub-language now within our culture. Back then, well, spouting off quotes from a film my parents had no idea existed was almost like speaking a secret code.

Many of the films from back when I was a teen faded. Crap like Commando and Die Hard, that I thought were "the best films ever made," kinda seem like dog shit now, and aside from the nostalgia factor, hold little substance. Not so with Repo Man. It's not even bad-good—like some of my youthful sinful pleasure films are. Films I still personally enjoy, like Time Rider (also produced by Michale Nesmith) and Vision Quest (dont judge me), dont stand out as particularly important in the history of cinema. I doubt they'll even garner a blurb in future film books. Not so with Repo Man. The film has stood the test of time, and exposes—kinda—sociological trends of the time in a not-so-obvious way. It's wacky, zany, science fiction sub-story seems utterly ridiculous, but it turns out we have become an extremely ultra, consumer-driven, paranoid society today. Looking back, Repo Man is clearly shedding a light from out of a Chevy Malibu trunk on this. Miller's rant about UFOs, time machines, Myans, plates of shrimp, and more, holds some possible truths about coincidences—perhaps being more than random—as well as the significance of contemporary paranoia, and wraps it all up in one well-acted, poetic verse. Turns out, after watching the commentary, Cox just wrote that monologue up to have something for auditioning actors to read. It seems even more important after hearing that. Yes, it's true! Everything brilliant is not always mulled over and rewritten 1,000 times. Sometimes, great stuff just pours out of people.

The Blu-ray Criterion has just released, is pretty much the finest work they have done to date. The phone pole neon green & ink flier art is exquisite, and nails the punk rock aesthetic from the film and the 80s. I only wish it came with a few posters of the art for me to hang on my bedroom wall just like when I was a kid.

complete

Aside from a beautiful transfer of the film, there is also a crazy trove of information. A wacky commentary with Cox and others, as well as interviews with Iggy Pop, Micheal Nesmith, and even Sam Cohen, the actual inventor of the neutron bomb! Cox sits and shows him some deleted scenes from the film and asks him what he thinks. Classic! Also trailers and the complete version of the edited for-TV-cut of the film.

Inside cover

Spine Art

Even the sides of this Blu-ray are amazing. Every square inch. Grab this off Amazon now. Call your friends over and stop acting like you've got something better to do than watch T.V. and have a couple of brews.

Blade Runner Miniatures Part 2

Miniatures, minis, and more minis! Minis minis everywhere! Wow. OK. So I have spent so much time painting mini figures lately that I injured a tendon in my left hand. I'm right-handed, so all I can figure is that holding the minis in the same position in my left had for so long cramped, stretched, or somehow injured my left thumb. No joke, this kills. It hurts mostly at night. Enough bitching and moaning. I'm fine. Onward.

So I have been at the Blade Runner mini game for a while now. Arkham Horror minis are the best series so far for buying cheap minifigs that can be used right out of the box. Or you can just paint 'em a little and they are ready to go. In addition to the main film characters, I want to populate this homebrewed game with new Balde Runner universe-style players and bad guys.

Here are a few of the figures I've custom painted to create new playable characters for this game. Knox is another playable Blade Runner similar to Deckard. This was just an Arkham Horror figure ever so slightly repainted. The next new character I came up with was Rocket. I was trying to think of a friend Deckard might have, and when I spotted one of my son's Heroclix minis I came up with this teen or 20-something tech nicknamed Rocket. No one knows his real name. He lives on the street, has some friends who also exist on the streets, but he's close to Deckard. Maybe they have a pseudo father-son thing going. This is still a work in progress. I wanted some playable badass female characters and after searching online I found two Star Wars minis that fit what I had in mind perfectly. Xoe (pronounced Oh-E) and Vala are a two-person female Balde Runner unit. I came up with the characters as a pair but there's no reason a PC could not play one alone in an adventure. I snapped the Star Wars minis they came from to show how I altered them. They're all black with a red line indicating their BR status. I'm not sure I'll ever be running a home game with more then about five or six people playing, so beyond these four and Deckard I think for now I have enough playable characters. I might make a few more just to give players a choice.

Invented Blade Runner miniature RPG figures. 

So after making a few PC minis I'm going to need some decent bad guys. I'm thinking thugs, a replicant who hunts Blade Runners for sport, a neutral bounty hunter, bad police, etc. Over at Hasslefree Miniatures I found a few good figures that might be painted nicely to help populate this game.

In my search I came across a great Rick Deckard figure. By this time I'd already made two custom ones, but this one was such a dead-on copy I had to get it. The figure is from Aberrant Games Rezolution series. The figures come listed as two CSO Rangers. One is a dead-on Rick Deckard. The other is a not so dead-on, rather R. Crumb-looking Rachel. They come together, so if you want one you get 'em both. I ordered two sets in case I screwed up one. I did fine, but I'll probably paint the extra eventually. I need to go through the site more to see if I can find any more possible Blade Runner copies or ones I might use as add-ons to the game.

The next great miniatures site I found was Hasslefree Minis. Here you will find quite a few "unofficial official" minifigures. The Scooby Doo crew, Snake Plissken, Terminator, a stubby looking Mad Max, John McClane from Die Hard, and more are all there. None of them are listed with their actual name because they're "unofficial." You just need to search and discover what they have.

Here are a few of the minis I found on the web and in stores. The first image is of the two Rezolution figures, Deckard and Rachel. The second image shows the unpainted metal Deckard figure. The third figure is Deckard after I painted him. The next row shows a stylish-looking woman in a dress. I ordered her from Hasslefree Minis because I felt she was another perfect female figure in the style of Rachel. She could be a playable or non-playable character. The next mini is a tough guy with his hands in his pockets. He also was from Hasslefree Minis. He will likely be a bad guy. The next mini also from Hasslefree Minis is some kid with a funny hat and a gun. I wanted some thugs, and a group of future kid punks is perfect. I ordered all these and another kid with a gas mask on. Perfect for the smoggy future of Blade Runner.

Found, unpainted, and altered Blade Runner RPG miniatures.

The last row are a few Heroclix I bought and altered and painted. The first is Gordon from Batman. He became a Deckard. Getting off the glasses and face hair did not go perfectly. To the naked eye, the minis look better then in the photos. The flaws are not as easily seen in-hand as in a blown-up photo. The next cowboy from Jonah Hex became Roy with a trench coat. After cutting off quite a bit on him it came out decent. See picture below for the finals on some of these. The last one is going to be Zorah. I still need to paint her and add her to a base.

Once all the mini creation is over, I'll get back to making prefab character cards for the playable characters. Then I'll be making stat cards for all the non-playable characters and bad guys. After that I'll need to write up an adventure to run friends through. This project has been very fun and as I search I find others who have searched as I am for Blade Runner minis and/or games. There are a few BR-style games out there, but I'm just going to use basic D20 rules and make my own. It's not going to be a super-complex game, but getting there is half the fun.

Blade Runner Miniatures of main characters from the film. 

Guest Review Bioshock Infinite by Ben

BIOSHOCK INFINITE REVIEW

SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS! SPOILERS!

Since the beginning, the Bioshock games have risen above the typical Halo/Call of Duty first-person shooter game to be something special, something extraordinary. In addition, the original Bioshock had an insane twist. “Would you Kindly” was the most surprising twist in any game I’d ever played. This game has a twist that rivals that to the extreme. Infinite takes you out of the underwater, claustrophobic city of Rapture, to the boundless, skyward, floating Colombia. Bioshock’s are known for having incredible stories, addictive gameplay, and great graphics. Bioshock Infinite rises above all expectations to become one of the most beautiful, fun, and breathtaking games of this generation—with an ending that will leave you thinking for hours, maybe days afterward.

Bioshock Infinite’s graphics are, technically, nothing special. Textures get blurry, things far away are cloudy (although that could be because of the clouds), and characters other than Elizabeth don’t move all too fluidly. This barely matters though. The game is beautiful, has the most amazing architecture, and the enemies are extremely creative looking (especially the Boys of Silence.) The graphics, while not the most technically superior, are some of the best I’ve seen in a long time.

The gameplay in Infinite is the same as in Bioshock and Bioshock 2, but Plasmids, Eve and Adam, etc., have been replaced. You’ll understand why when you finish the game. Plasmids are now called Vigors. Eve is now Salts. Money pretty much doubles as Adam now. Return to Sender and Murder of Crows are new Vigors that are insanely awesome, but boring Vigors such as Undertow and Charge make me think of omissions such as Insect Swarm and Winter Blast that should have been included. Big Daddies have physically been replaced with Handymen, but spiritually live on in the Songbird. All of this reasoning will be explained soon. Elizabeth’s powers open tears, which at first glance, I thought were stupidly used in combat, but after playing through several battles utilizing them, I realized that they are actually genius. There are static items littered all over battlefields, ranging from everything from cover to health packs to freight hooks for your skyhook. The catch, though, is that no two things can exist at once. While you may see a shadow of a weapon, you cannot access it without signaling to Elizabeth first, who will open up a tear, making the things accessible, but simultaneously taking away whatever is available at the time. Weapons though, will not leave your hands, and health will not be re-lost, but things like freight hooks and cover will disappear. Elizabeth will also toss you health, salts, or ammo in the middle of battle, and will also toss you coins at random times. For points in the game when Elizabeth leaves you (she is kidnapped by Songbird multiple times, and also runs away often), the game felt like it lost depth, and you don’t have her help, or her company. The skyhook is a great melee weapon, and has more uses than the wrench or drill did. The skyline is very fluid, and not clunky at all. The gameplay is overall similar to Bioshock 1 and 2, if you take away Elizabeth, but that is NO problem. I’d rather have a game that plays like Bioshock than Call of Duty.

The story, at first, is very straightforward. Find the girl, bring her to New York, repay your debt, game over. It gets much more complicated. You’re just about to leave for New York, when Elizabeth realizes where you’re taking her, and she knocks you out with a wrench. You wake up and the Vox Populi (a cult that is quickly established against the main villain, Comstock), have taken your airship. They agree to give it back when you bring them guns. When you go to get the guns, the man who will give them to you is gone, and you go to get him, but he’s dead, and this is when it gets confusing. Robert and Rosalind, the same people who said, “Bring us the girl and wipe away the debt,” arrive. They say that he is only dead from one perspective, and this is when you go through portals to different Colombias. This includes a Colombia where one family worships Comstock instead of Buddha, a Colombia where Booker died for the Vox Populi—all different worlds. OK, fast forward to the end now. Booker and Elizabeth meet up with Comstock. Comstock tells Booker to tell Elizabeth about what happened to her finger. Booker doesn’t know, and is fed up with this man who lies, locks up his daughter for 20 years, and everyone else is too blind to see it. Booker doesn’t understand how this man can be considered a god and be such a villain at the same time, so he bashes Comstock’s head into a fountain, and holds his head under the water, drowning him. They continue on, to find the Vox Populi destroying the generator that keeps the airship afloat. On top of all that, Songbird arrives, ready to take Elizabeth back. She convinces him to help them just this once, and he agrees. The Vox are killed, and Elizabeth realizes that the only way to understand her true powers is to destroy the machine holding her back. Songbird does it, then tries to attack Booker. At the last second, Elizabeth transports the three of them to Rapture’s Welcome Center. Except, the Songbird is outside in the ocean. He is killed because of the pressure. It is then revealed that Elizabeth can see every reality that ever was, or could be. For every choice made, one more reality is created. For example; if you decided to stay home, the reality would keep going as it was, but a new reality would ALSO be created where you did go to work, and those two realities would exist at the same time, eventually creating billions of realities for every person, all of which are accessed via lighthouses. There is always a man (Booker/Jack), a lighthouse (the one with the rocket and the one that leads to the Welcome Center), and a city (Rapture/Columbia).

The ending and the multiple realities confused the heck out of me, so forgive me if this isn’t too clear. Also, Elizabeth was born as Anna, Booker’s child. Lutece took the child, in exchange for Booker’s debt, because Comstock wanted a child, but was infertile. Booker has a change of heart at the last moment, when Anna is being taken through the closing portal, and tries to take her back, resulting in Anna’s finger being chopped off by the closing portal. And, get ready for this, Booker is Comstock in a different reality where he accepted a baptism that was given after the battle of Wounded Knee. Comstock builds Columbia, and wants a child. Anna has never been born, as this is an alternate reality, so he sends Lutece to get her. Booker realizes that the only way to kill Comstock completely, so he’d be dead in all realities, is to kill him before he’s born, at which point, he accepts the baptism, and is drowned, by Elizabeths from all realities. Booker dies, killing Comstock, meaning Anna was never kidnapped from the other reality, meaning she never became Elizabeth. So basically, Booker, Elizabeth, Songbird, and Comstock all die in the end.

This story, is genius. It is the greatest story to ever exist in any video game. Everything ties in together at the end, still leaving, INFINITE, (yes I did) questions left unanswered. In every world, there is an equal to every character, as the Big Daddies are replaced by Songbird and Little Sisters are replaced by Elizabeth. I could go on forever, but I have to wrap this up. My only complaint is that the Vox riots have a lot of missed potential. They don’t just feel as epic as the tower escape with Elizabeth, and they just didn’t have as much tension as the scene where you are fired up to Columbia in a rocket in the beginning. But, well, too bad. I don’t care, and that is a small price to pay for one of the best games ever made. The soundtrack, also is phenomenal.

Bioshock Infinite is, hands down, the greatest game ever made. Period. 5/5. 10/10. 100000/100000.  ∞/ ∞. Stop reading this and go play this game. Buy the soundtrack too. This game is well worth it.

–B