Wall-E, Twin Peaks, and the death of imagination

First off, Wall-E is fantastic. Amazing. Genius. It's a must see for all film lovers. Again, they walk the tight-rope of pleasing children and adults, but this is the first film of theirs that does not retool the story to make sure the kids always have steady footing.

Featuring songs from Hello Dolly, direct mockeries of obese Americans and the culture that fosters them, blatant "green" messaging, homages to science fiction classics, and Fred Willard, there is no pandering in this movie. None. You're either on board or not.

The space dance is one of the most joyful experiences I've ever had in a theater and I'm not ashamed to admit that it brought me to tears with just how beautiful and awe-inspiring it was.

Pixar’s triumph; I dare them to top it.

We've started watching Twin Peaks. I've never seen a full episode of this ground breaking show, and I know little in detail about the plot, so it's coming across as quite fresh to me. That said, about half of the show is pretty yawn inducing and the other half bounces between marginal to sublime interest (much like some of the best shows on T.V. play out now, specifically, Lost). But that sublime level; holy crap. The dream sequences are absolutely mind-blowing. Lynch at his cryptic best. And Kyle MacLachlan is a revelation. I'm about 6 episodes in (not counting the pilot) so there's a lot of the show left, but man, so long as Lynch can hit one out of the park every few episodes, I'm in for the long haul.

I've been reading the rule books for Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition in some depth. And I made a lot of jokes about Gary Gygax rolling (heh) in his grave on the release of 4th, but even pessimistic me didn't think about how close I'd get. 4th Edition is pretty much a compilation for everything that's wrong with kids today and how they take their entertainment.

Dungeons and Dragons has never had a kind eye fixated on it in popular culture. It's always been relegated to the realm of socially inept boys and men-children as an escape for their obvious (and no so obvious) failings in their actual day to day life. The refuge for people who are too weak to participate in more physical forms of activity and too lazy or apathetic to apply their creative energy in more productive forms.

All that might be true, but Dungeons and Dragons always represented what epitimized imagination: possibility. As a game, Dungeons and Dragons was little more than a couple of oddly shaped dice and a lot of erasing, but as an experience it added up to so much more. Gamers of all ages could dream up problems and solutions that exercised as much grounding in reality as the group wanted to. I've played in games where significant research was done as to the velocity and impact of a catapult shot to formulate the possibilities of creating a breach for a full sized army and I've played in games where we pondered the ramifications of teleporting a fireball inside the belly of a dragon.

In all situations, our imaginations powered the "game" resulting in thinking from multiple perspectives, scavenging a solution with materials on hand, and critical analysis of problem solving possibilities. All of which have vast "real-world" applications which equipped us significantly better to deal in a technologically driven workplace than what the football players got by learning shovel-pass plays or the nickel defense (I simplify but that's pretty accurate). This is shown hundreds of times over by looking at all the extremely successful people that did (but rarely still do) play Dungeons and Dragons

Now, here comes the latest iteration of Dungeons and Dragons. DnD (as it's more affectionately known) never was a real bastion of "role-playing"; but the capes and fangs crap that constituted a lot of "serious" RPG tables wasn't really ever up my alley. I was more interested in problem solving than inhabiting a role (probably why drama never appealed to me). So, Dungeons and Dragons always worked a great middle ground for the kind of RPG experience I wanted as a gamer. But this latest version takes most of the imagination out of the game and instead interjects the kind of shit reserved for video games in place of my open ended world.

Now if my blog exhibits anything, it's a love of video games, but the table-top RPG always had (and has) a place in my heart as a unique experience that broadens minds and encourages intelligence. Limiting the game to where everything you can mark on your character sheet eventually adds up to a plus or minus in combat discourages all that made old DnD great. Creative game players can get around this by enforcing (or banning) certain aspects, but it's still incredibly disheartening.

I know DnD has to compete with all of these other self-feeding forms of entertainment for the seemingly endless stream of dollars coming from the 12-21 demographic, but to so blatantly kowtow is sickening.

So let's be happy Mr. Gygax never had to make a saving throw verses disgust with the release of this product, and take a moment to mourn what was.