The question wasn’t “film that uses no digital effects”, it was “film that uses a lot of practical effects”. I called this movie out because it’s basically all about practical effects.

Be Kind, Rewind

Kind of a joke answer because if you don’t know it, the entire premise is some guys remaking classic movies based on their memory and just a bunch of whatever junk they can find. It’s adorable, clever, inventive, and bewilderingly creative. It’s by the director of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, several White Stripes videos, the Daft Punk video for Around the World, and so much other brilliant stuff.

Not all heroes wear capes. Good on you, friend.

Ah, no, not that. Never worked there. But I did leave a fintech job on principle. Making rich people richer made me wonder if I should go in and do my job worse every day.

I quit Google in as many ways as I could many years ago.

I’m doing my part!

Let’s say you’re a producer of goods. Now let’s say the production costs of goods go up, because of something like increased Fed interest rates or, say, reckless tariffs. The cost you charge for your goods goes up because Profit is God. But now all your employees have to pay more for their food and other goods, so they aren’t as happy with their wages. The buying power of their dollar has gone down. So now in order to retain employees, your labor costs go up. So the cost of goods goes up. Lather, rinse, repeat.

And then pretty soon the whole Council is just Smiths.

It’s so hard to see Hugo Weaving as anything but Agent Smith. Elrond just looks like he’s gone undercover.

🫶

I have two. The first one I can’t even believe it happened because it feels like bad writing to contrive the perfect circumstances.

I was in a tiny local comedy thing and we did these Weekend Update-style reworkings of local news. Someone was working out a skit that involved a bear and asked if anybody had a bear suit they could borrow. Turns out, they were pretty sure someone else at the comedy theater, a guy named Juan, had one. Someone asked, “Would it fit me?”

I had to say it.

“Guys, Juan size fits all!”

—-

The other was waaaay back, watching The Matrix at the student center in college. It had been out for a while and everybody had already seen it, but getting to rewatch it for a couple bucks on a big screen was worth it even for a poor college student. It comes to the scene where Agent Smith has Morpheus chained up and is interrogating him, then he describes the way humans consume and spread and destroy everything around them. Smith says, “Do you know what else does that?”

I call out from the crowd…

I’m not the kind to talk in movies, but again, I had to say it.

That emulation engine just runs Windows games, not Xbox games.

I think you’re right in that they highly prioritize cloud data and subscriptions, but that’s where the Game Pass road leads. Native apps on a subscription service now, bets all hedged for a possible all-cloud semi-distant future.

You’re all good! You didn’t come across as condescending, just rightly pessimistic about Xbox’s brand. My friends and I have been diehard Xbox players for decades at this point, and now we’re all starting to feel like Microsoft is dropping every ball they can get their hands on. It’s depressing.

That’s a marketing campaign, not a strategy. To be clear, I’m saying native Xbox games will run on Windows and vice versa, which is a lot more than a marketing campaign based on what devices can stream cloud games.

Edit: autocorrect sucks

It’s possible you’re right, but strategically, I think the Xbox brand is a lost cause on its own. PlayStation is just beating it up and stealing its lunch money at this point. On the PC side, Steam rules the roost and makes money hand over fist running other people’s games on other people’s operating systems. So it looks to me like the only valid move is to see if the combined PC/Xbox ecosystem can compete with either of them or, optimistically, both.

The catch will be that they need to position it properly and we all know how awesome they are at that coughxboxonecough. If they sell it as “buy an Xbox like you always have and it’ll play tens of thousands of PC games too OR buy a Windows PC and it can play Xbox games natively or with backwards compatibility now” then I think they have a shot.

I mean, imagine being able to play every Steam Deck-compatible game on your Xbox console OR your Xbox handheld by default, even if you bought it from Steam. That’s a goddamn value proposition if I ever saw one. Then they just need to try and win market share from Steam through distribution and ecosystem, which would be their next big battle.

Of course, I say all this as though they aren’t going to epically deuce the futon like they always do.

I don’t think they’ll scuttle the brand, I think they’ll make Xbox a standard for compatibility backed up by custom hardware targets. Like the generation after next might be System X and System S, but you could have a custom PC build that certifies as “exceeds System S” and thus any app can reliably run at that level of quality as a guaranteed minimum. You could still buy an Xbox, but it would be more like a Steam Machine. And a handheld would simply be “any System S certified handheld, including the Xbox first party device”.

Actually I think this is the only way to save Xbox, at least as a very first baby step. I’d bet you dollars to donuts that in ten years, there will be no functional distinction between Xbox and Windows gaming, and Xbox games will be running on PCs.

Just imagine what they’ll have to name the sequel.

It’ll be like Street Fighter games in the 2000s. Get ready for Super ROG Xbox Ally X Turbo HD Remix Plus Alpha Double Upper.

This makes the Bad Religion song even more awesome.