Now for my incredible update,
I’ve basically just been working on this series nonstop. Pretty cool. Otherwise I’ve been working on work, and spending the leftover time trying to consume exclusively topical, relevant content so that I could metabolise it and shit out a filler video. Which did eventually pay off.
CyberGunk – The Series Pitch
If you’ve not seen it, the pitch for the beast.
CyberGunk Update – Reconsidering Everything
Things start sliding off plan and off-schedule.
CyberGunk Update – Atonement and Netflix
I decide I need to put out some filler, and also start really thinking about that streaming business model again…
Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga
One of my attempts to consume topical content was this new Lego game that they have now. And it’s fine. I wasn’t fully sold on it, I think the big budget maximalism loses the chill simplicity that used to be the real selling point of the Lego games. But, I suspect if I were a child, this would be the most incredible game of all time to me. So it’s not really worth talking about.
That being said… They’re trying to truncate the Star Wars movies as much as possible, which is interesting. It’s mostly just about condensing the scenes, hitting a few key lines, getting some jokes off, without too much regard for the actual narrative. Which is fine, that’s all it needs to be. But I actually thought the way that Attack of the Clones was condensed was often quite good. Like, for example, there’s that bit early on, where Obi-Wan and Anakin are assigned to be Padme’s bodyguards, and you have that exposition scene where they sit on the couches in her apartment. For gameplay purposes, and interest, it’s been moved to take place as you escort Padme from the senate back to her apartment. Which is so much more dynamic, it adds an urgency to the whole thing, and is actually just a genuinely better way of doing it.
That’s kind of it though, that’s really the extent of worthwhile observations I had about a kids game for children. Incredible stuff.
The Batman Review
In topical content that did pay off, as promised, a “The Batman” review. Pretty good I think.
Guardians of the Galaxy Game Review
In non-topical content that is entirely unnecessary, the Guardians of the Galaxy game.
Moon Knight
I started watching Moon Knight basically as soon as it was “available” in the hopes that I might get some content out of it. And week after week I checked in, only to be repeatedly let down by how unnotable it was. And while I could make a video about that, I wasn’t inspired to. This continued, every week, until the penultimate episode, where they try to do some good and interesting storytelling, but are just so obviously constrained by budget and time and being a Marvel product.
“It’s Marvel’s answer to the psychological thriller.” Just as Thor 3 is Marvel’s answer to the road-trip comedy, or Dr. Strange 2 is Marvel’s answer to horror. So it’s not a psychological thriller. But Marvel increasingly offer these watered down versions of genre, as the actual genre movies themselves are dying out. Streaming has eaten a lot of this stuff and Disney is trying to eat streaming. So one thought process led to another and now before going to bed every morning I was looking at earning reports and making spreadsheets, just to see where the money’s going.
And at this point the phrase “Moon Knight is an Antitrust Problem” came into my head, and I thought– that’ll do. And within a couple of days I had a video out.
It’s not traditionally “good analysis” to hyperfocus on how something was made. But I guess I overvalue that. And if you’re looking at how something was made, the budget becomes important, the profit margin becomes important, so then labour costs and tax credits and market power become important, and if you’re talking about that how can you ignore deregulation and antitrust issues. And now you’re talking about the inherent flaws in neoliberal capitalism, the “features” of the free-market and antitrust doesn’t seem like enough…
Now I didn’t put in the time to perfect my point, or really do any polishing at all, but I hope I’ve made a case which basically everyone agrees with, that points towards the need for action, and likely more radical action than I’m suggesting. But I think that’s about all I can offer. Talking about production I’m very confident about, I know what I’m doing. Talking about *politics* and *the economy* is not my thing at all, but I just think sometimes you have to do more gymnastics to ignore it.
So I don’t know, I’ve maybe made a gauche, bloated, undercooked, YouTube politics video. But I didn’t have the time to make it not any of those adjectives, due to uh *market forces*. And once you start pulling that thread of material analysis it’s too late, you’re doing politics, and that is largely my fault actually.
Anyway, I think it’s a decent bit of filler that I crapped out, but also a shame that I didn’t spend more time on it, actually thinking it through. So… don’t think of it as a standalone piece of content, think of it as the loss of three possible, future, better pieces of content.
Uh and also there was this.
Up Next
Now, my priority is launching CyberGunk. By the end of the month having that pitch public and a couple episodes out. I have some weird little bits of bonus content planned, a revamped version of backdrops and a semi-pitch for a semi-idea for a semi-series. But that is honestly it.
I am so sick of
— Caleb Gamman