Tag Archives: Nerd-Week

Re-Wri-Day: Webcomics

As fifth part of the Nerd-Week you get another Re-Wri-Day, because as I recently did with my Supernatural Summaries, did I put my first post for THE EXTREMIS REVIEW about Webcomics directly on my Blog as well.

ReWriDayWhat is the Re-Wri-Day?

Inspired by EdMooneyPhotography’s Re-Work-Wednesday and based on the fact that my writing style for this Blog has changed over the past years, I kind of created my own version of this.

But why the strange name and what does it mean?

I’m awful when it comes to puns and I couldn’t help myself but to turn re-write and Friday into one strange word: Re-Wri-Day. Sorry…
But in conclusion: These posts are supposed to be always published on a Friday, but not necessarily on every Friday, just the Fridays when I feel like editing an old post beforehand.

And what am I doing with this?

I am taking my old posts from the beginnings of writing this Blog or just former posts and read them again to see what things I can change or add. They wont necessarily be actually re-written, but some changes will be made.
In the Re-Wri-Day post I’ll also give you a couple of thoughts on why I had chosen the topic and stuff you might be interested in.

So, let’s have a look at the page I changed: Webcomics

I really enjoyed writing this post, as it is one of my favourite topics to talk about. As I discovered more and more Webcomics throughout the year(s) I’ve decided that I want to pick this up as another series to introduce people to stuff I read.

For that I changed the original post a bit like giving it a different name and changing some of the lines.
I would have liked to include one of my favourite Nichtlustig-Comics as well, but I didn’t hear back from the Copyright-person, so I won’t include it here and only link to it. If anyone is interested: Nichtlustig just finished a successful Kickstarter campaign to animate the Comics as a Cartoon series. Congratulations for that!

Anyway, I still have to figure out how I want to present the upcoming Webcomics, but I guess we’ll see what I come up with, when I get around to put some more thought into it. 😉

PoiSonPaiNter

Knights of Badassdom

As fourth part of the Nerd-Week I present to you a review for Knights of Badassdom. You can’t compare it to Mara, but it’s nerdy, so it fits the theme. 😉

I first heard about this movie when we watched the Wacken 3D movie in the cinema and they showed the quite epic trailer. Still, our local cinema did not even play it, so we couldn’t watch it on the big screen.

Last year, when I was in Cologne with Unmei for our visit to the Harry Potter Exhibition we had some time to kill and spent that – amongst other places – in an electronic retailer where my eyes fell upon the DVD and I couldn’t resist taking it with me.

What is it about?

The official poster

Joe just broke up with his girlfriend so his friends Eric and Hung decide to kidnap him and bring him to the LARP-battle Fields of Evermore. The newbie LARPer is at first utterly unable to cope, but upon seeing female LARPer Gwen and hearing what would be in store for him, he at least decides to give it a try. When Eric tries a ritual on Joe in his attempt to finally level up his character and uses a real spell book, instead of the in-game ones, he ends up summoning a Succubus from hell.

Now they have to find a way to get rid of it before it kills every participant …

The watching experience

While watching I was torn between laughing, trying not to think too much into what was happening and wondering what the hell was going on…
Fast cuts make it hard to follow the Demons‘ activities at times, jumps between rarely introduced characters don’t really help either.

This movie plays a lot with stereotypes, but in a fun and not insulting way and that’s refreshing. It also comes along with a pretty cool soundtrack – if you like Rock/Metal – and a quite epic boss battle …

Still, I feel the need to mention: Watch with care if you’re not a fan of splatter, as a lot of people get torn to shreds throughout the movie.
I don’t mind that kind of stuff (heck, I went for Pizza after District 9 …), but some things were quite disgusting.

The characters

As it is common with Horror movies there is not much time spent on actual character development. They are introduced and someone rises up to the challenge of defeating the big bad. In the context of this movie that’s not a bad thing, as it does focus more on the jokes and action.

Seeing as this is a movie about LARPer/LARPing you also get a look at different types of characters within the game, but the focus soon diverts from that and you rarely get any nods to their in-game characters.

Though it still felt as if every character had something unique about them. Everyone is enthusiastic about the world of Evermore in their own way. Though describing them more would take away the fun of getting to know them through the movie.

General Opinion

Please don’t take this movie serious, I’m not sure it even does so itself.

It’s fun to watch and has some quite good gags and as I said the soundtrack is pretty cool, but that’s about it.

The storyline, while different and probably innovative, isn’t really followed through as it is buried in crude jokes, splatter and male fantasies.

Don’t get me wrong, I did enjoy the movie as a whole and it’s a great way to shine some much needed light onto a much disregarded sub-culture, but you simply shouldn’t focus on the little things, because then it gets pretty frustrating.
And to be honest: Supernatural’s Larp and the Real Girl did a pretty good job at portraying a similar storyline without those things mentioned above…
(Or if you are more a fan of Pen&Paper make sure to check out Zombie Orpheus Entertainment/Dead Gentlemen Production’s The Gamers movies, where the whole „stay-in-character“-thing is used way more often and in quite hilarious ways)

Stuff I’d like to add

Apparently the version that got released was not the one the director Joe Lynch created, but a re-cut from Wade Bradley, after internal differences. So maybe that’s why it had those issues I mentioned. Unfortunately can I only give an opinion for this version and don’t know what the difference between them is…
So, simply see for yourself if you like or dislike this version.

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the poster belongs to its rightful owner.

What'cha Watching Wednesday #9

As part of the Nerd-Week I present to you the ninth instalment of the What’cha Watching Wednesday, which again obviously covers more than one week.

WWWWhat is this about?

Every other Wednesday evening I will publish a post in which I collected the thoughts I had throughout the week(s) while watching the latest or any episode of a series or maybe even a movie.
Depending on how my time allows it, the comment will also be for those that I watched that day.
You’re warned: There will be Spoilers.

Let’s start

Supernatural – different episodes

Since the last time I guess I watched a few episodes, but I can’t really find them in my chronic…what I do remember is watching Tall Tales and The Monster at the end of this Book in German with Unmei. Both episodes are amongst my favourites, but it’s still weird to hear Sam and Deans German voices…(Chuck’s, Gabriel’s and Cas‘ aren’t that strange, but those two definitely are…)
A couple of weeks ago, Wren and I discussed me watching a couple of episodes in German and to pay closer attention to the translation. I didn’t manage to do much in that regard, as I was far too busy with my Advent Calendar, but I did find a few interesting changes in those two episodes above, but I’m nowhere near completing anything. When I do, it’ll probably be part of the Lost in Translation-series.

Doctor Who – Season 9, Episode 4-13 + Christmas Special

I don’t really want to go into too much details regarding the different episodes. In a way they were all incredible and I partly discussed this over at Geekritique, so to quote myself:

[T]hroughout the whole series I was torn between enjoying the episode and wondering what was going on, so the final[e] was both satisfying and utterly frustrating. 😀

Why was I frustrated by the finale?
Well…I for one enjoyed Clara’s death in Face the Raven. It was great closure. She finally overdid it, all her yearning for adventure and not caring for the consequence had finally brought her into a situation that was out of her hands.
And then The Doctor had to go spoiled child on the whole thing, go back and save her. As that was one of the topics of this Season, we more than once learned that that too has consequences. E.g. saving Caecilius – the one that frowned him his face – caused mayhem in Torchwood, saving Ashildr created another immortal (seemingly even a more powerful one than Jack Harkness) and now, through saving Clara he nearly caused the end of the universe.
So in a way I’m frustrated that he was so obsessed with her to even go down that road, but relieved that he now shares Donna’s fate regarding his memories.
Personally I do not want to see a Spin-Off with Clara and Ashildr.
The Husbands of River Song on the other hand was quite a great Christmas Special. It had a lot of laughs, a lot of emotions and was a great closure to Rivers storyline (like Last Christmas and Face the Raven could have been for Clara). The interaction between River and The Doctor was great and I wouldn’t have minded to see more of it, but that is probably quite unlikely.
All in all did I enjoy the Season. The topics were darker (and there was quite a high death-count) and it was a bit annoying that pretty much every episode had a life-or-death-situation, but it was still interesting. Now I’m curious what the next Season will bring.

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – Season 3, Episodes 2-10

I’m not entirely sure what to think of the Season so far. It was thrilling, exciting and a lot more, but it still left a bitter taste.
Why? Because after finally killing off Ward he is brought back as new vessel for Hive (if I read that correctly). I really hope that thing didn’t take up his attitude, as that would be really frustrating…
It was great to see some character development for Coulson, though it is a drastic change, but a welcome one. Every character – except Ward, who simply walks in circles – has had some development this Season and that’s great. I’m just afraid that the story line with the Inhumans and everything goes too fast before the actual MCU movie will air in 2019(?)…

Deadbeat – Season 2, Episode 7-13

Sooo…I’m caught up with this show now and I have to say the ending was kind of surprising. Though it seems that he will have a new ghost that will be following – tormenting – him next Season…
I’m still not sure what to make of it, but I liked how there at least was a bit of character development in the last few episodes.

Undateable – Season 3

A Season full of Live-Shows, there is only one thing I can say about this: Justin credible, I mean just incredible – sorry couldn’t resist the pun. 😉
But seriously a bunch of comedians and actors performing live in front of an audience is just a lot of fun to watch. The jokes and the story might not be the best, but the whole package is what makes this show enjoyable.
And there are a few gems in the jokes, especially when they mock each others projects. Or when they mess up and try to work their way out of a fiasko of sentence. 😀
One of my favourites from A Box of Puppies walks into a bar is definitely:

Summer, Fall, Winter, Spring. I just hope we get to do this for a few more Seasons.

From what I know they get the storyline and a few additions the others don’t know, but everything else is improvised. I think that is a great concept that very well should go on for another few Seasons. 😉
Though it does remind me a little of the Schillerstraße a German comedy-show that put different comedians into a situation before a live audience and while they played out the rough plot (there was no script and they all had to improvise) a game-master gave them instructions that they had to include into their play like „hug that person without warning“, „imagine there is something in your shoe“ and lot of way more ridiculous stuff. Ah, I miss that show… had to watch an episode after writing this back in December, but I wont go into more detail.

Reaper – Season 1/2

For quite some time now I wanted to finally watch this show that I enjoyed watching when it first aired in Germany. Well, after finishing Deadbead, I just went for it.
It has a lot of ups and downs, open story lines (whatever happened to Cady? Did she really just went to New Mexico and never returned?) and quite misogynistic plot lines, even if a lot of it was used as obvious clichés that was disappointing.
The show walks on the thin line of being utterly ridiculous – over the top acting and plots – and being incredibly dark, while dabbling more into the former than the later, but those dark moments are what make this show special. I can’t really describe it, but the characters grow on you, even the minor ones like Gladys and Tony – who are pretty cool.
In the two Seasons Sam had the most character development and part of that was quite, well, scary the more the Devil tried to pursue him and drive him towards the dark side. Though I really didn’t like the Sam is the son of Satan storyline – see Cady – and am glad to read that the producers had something else in mind. Check out this interview from 2010 if you don’t know yet: How Reaper would have ended.
I certainly wouldn’t have minded a continuation.

Jessica Jones – Season 1

Describing what it was like watching Jessica Jones seems difficult. I do get why people call it feminist or even go as far as to claim that it’s sexist towards men, but it’s so much more than those labels put onto it. It deals with many important topics in incredible ways, has many great characters and their interactions are natural and understandable, though for me personally a few things went too fast, but I guess that’s life. I also couldn’t care less about the different sex-scenes, but I always consider those to be annoying as they don’t really get the story forward, even if they – as they do in this case – advance the characterization.
(VERY) Unusual for me is that I like the main character, especially because she reacts so understandable and normal. She’s not over the top, she’s not able to solve stuff because she’s the main character, no, it’s because she’s determined and willing to do whatever is necessary so other people don’t have to suffer like she did. And that is awesome.
If more series and movies followed the example of the storytelling done in this Season we’d have an incredible change in the industry, though I guess that’s more or less wishful thinking.
I enjoyed the nods towards the larger MCU and Daredevil and I’m curious how it all will continue.

Galavant – Season 1

As you know have I joined Twitter recently and there I saw stuff regarding this show that I hadn’t even heard about before. So I watched the trailer, couldn’t stop grinning and had to check it out. What can I say? Who could resist Timothy Omundson as singing King Richard in a ridiculous „comedy extravaganza“? 😀
No seriously, about half of an ~20 minute episode is taken up by musical numbers, but they’re not always light-hearted numbers. Oh, no, no, no… I think my personal highlights were two peasants (Chef Vincenzo and handmaiden Gwynne) singing about their horrible lives and short life expectancy and deciding to spent the rest of it together and squires singing about their masters, but the guest-songs by Ricky Gervais‘ and Anthony Stuart Head’s characters were also quite fun. Or other really fun numbers where the characters tell each other what they actually think.
I guess the weirdest thing is that everyone is so okay with people randomly starting into songs – though some complains are made. 😀
The characters might not be the most creative ones, but they’re fun and not always entirely what they seem to be and that’s enough for a serial like this.  They’re enjoyable and dorky and fun, so what else do you want? So far the Chef, Gareth and of course Richard (it’s in the name, really) are pretty much my favourites and Galavant himself and especially Madalena quite on the other side, though I’m not so sure where to put Sid and Isabella… We’ll see if that’ll change with the new Season….

Once Upon a Time – Season 5, Episode 1: Dark Swan

At some point I tried catching up with OUAT again, but I kind of didn’t get past the first episode. I liked the twist that the Dark Ones dagger is the tip of Excalibur, but it is also a bit disappointing that they included yet another connection. Just as they re-used the whole „we get back to Storybrook and don’t know what happened“ – though I enjoyed that even the characters commented on that. Still, I’m curious how Dark-Emma actually came to be and stuff, but I still haven’t gotten around to watch it.

Psych – different episodes

I really felt like watching Psych again, especially after watching Galavant and reading about the connection from one of the movies I’ve watched.
Psych is simply one of those shows that you can watch time and again and it remains funny. The characters and the interaction between them, the stories, basically everything. It’s a pity the show is over, but it was an incredible ending. Besides not many shows can pull of a Musical Episode like that (even though that was a Season prior to the series finale). 😀

Sherlock – The Abominable Bride

This was an incredible special, especially as from all the promos you’re made to think that it solely takes place in 19th century London, but no, we get titbits that actually move along the current day story line and that is just amazing.
I enjoyed it greatly – even though I should probably re-watch it due to the lags in the stream – and it was great seeing all those characters again and this time in a new, but still similar setting and way.
I really liked the underlying storyline with the women of the show and Molly Hooper posing as man was a really interesting addition that nearly had me fooled as I wasn’t sure if it was her or not. And of course Moriarty and the whole explanation of how he survived ingrained into the old case.
I just really liked this special…

Different movies

I’m not sure I’ve watched that many movies these past few months. If at all.
I know I re-watched Mara, but I’ve told you about that one on Monday.
After the last HGWAnime we watched About a Boy and were quite fascinated by the fact that Nicholas Hoult’s face didn’t really change that much during the last 10+ years. 😀 It’s a fun movie, a bit weird at times, but still quite fun, but that’s British humour for you I guess.
Well there also were the Christmas movies – I tried finally watching The Grinch in English, after only knowing the German version, but simply didn’t feel like it -, but I don’t really want to got into details here, as there were too many. When I’m at my Dad’s place I watch WAY more TV then when I’m in my own flat (like 90% more, as I rarely even turn it on).
Aside from that did I check out Lars and the Real Girl after reading that the titles of Supernatural’s LARP and the Real Girl and Psych’s Shawn and the Real Girl derived from it. It’s quite an interesting piece, calm and slow, but a good pace for the topic. After Coming Down the Mountain it’s another piece that deals with mental illness in a sensitive way. It’s well-played and one can only hope that in real life people would react like the family and friends of the titular character in helping him overcome his delusion instead of condemning him.
For some reason I also decided to watch Revenge of the Nerds Quadrology with Curtis Armstrong, but I guess that was mostly due to the title, this is Nerd-Week after all…
The whole thing kind of left me with mixed feelings. Though that might be due to the fact that being a Nerd has changed over the decades since those four were created. The portrayed characters were awful (embarrassing) stereotypes and each movie followed the same pattern and frustratingly one of the main characters (Lewis) always goes back to his mindset from the beginning of part 1 – except for the last movie – and denies what he actually is. Some of the character concepts were quite advanced for that time, but still not fully fledged and that’s quite unfortunate.
Somehow I believe that you couldn’t make movies like that these days, but I guess that’s what makes them so unmistakably retro – or whatever you want to call it.
Still, I’m not entirely sure, but I might have seen one of the movies before – especially the second one seemed familiar at times – as I’m not entirely sure if they aired in German television. Though from the titles you wouldn’t even be able to recognize them as sequels (<translated> German titles: Die Rache der Eierköpfe/<The Revenge of the Eggheads>; Die Supertrottel/<The Supermorons (?)>; Operation Kleinhirn/<Operation Cerebellum>; Chaos Kings). From what imdb tells me they went straight to VHS and the first was released in 1986 in Western Germany – which means I didn’t have a chance to watch that one back then, because even if I had been born, I would have lived in the GDR. But one can never be sure what some channels dig up…

What were you watching?

What episodes (or movies) did you enjoy/dislike throughout the week/month?
Anything you’d recommend checking out?
Let me know in the comments below!

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed this little look into the different stuff I watched throughout the last months. Maybe I’ll get around doing this more frequently this year, who knows.
See you tomorrow,
PoiSonPaiNter

Felicia Day: You’re never weird on the Internet (almost)

As second part of the Nerd-Week I want to present to you a review for Felicia Days‘ memoir You’re never weird on the Internet (almost). This book has a little tale of my own attached to it, so bear with me for a moment, before I get to the interesting part. 😉

When I first read that this book existed – or was going to be published at the time – I was curious and excited as it sounded really fun. Then I was frustrated and sad when I realized it would take me ages to even get my hands on it as I generally don’t like buying stuff over the internet in a different currency as that usually includes having access to a credit card that I do not own right now – too lazy to get a new one after mums expired. So I put it on my to-buy list for when I get the chance.

Fast forward to September 25th 2015:

SaJaehwa and I were on a stroll through Old Town Stockholm (Gamla Stan) and we had just decided to visit at least ONE book store when my eyes fell on a dragon, then on the rocket beside it and then finally on the sign „Science Fiction Bokhandeln„. Needless to say we knew what book store we wanted to visit …(I’ll tell you a bit more about this store on Saturday).

Looking through the many, many wonderful shelves I found The Guild Companion and had to ask if they have this book as well and of course they did. So without second thought I took it with me.

But what is it about anyway?

4 of 5 stars

From home-schooled weirdo to successful creator of the web series The Guild and producer of Geek and Sundry, this book tells the story of one Felicia Day and her endeavours to become the person she is today.

The reading experience

As soon as we got back to our Hostel I read the Foreword and the Introduction, if we hadn’t been in the middle of exploring Stockholm I probably would have finished the book way earlier as it was hard to put it down, but Stockholm was the priority that weekend, so the book had to wait.
Exhausted from all the running around we decided to take a break on our last evening and found ourselves in a secluded place beside one of Stockholm’s many river-arms to read. Though as the sun didn’t really reach that place and the wind made us shrink into our sweaters, we soon got back to Hostel.

As I said was I barely able to put the book down, so it’s probably not surprising that I finished the last pages before our ferry even reached the German shore again … (I also wrote the first draft of this post afterwards on a very confusing piece of paper, but that’s a different story).

The format of the book is a bit unusual. It’s quite large with large letters, but it’s still easy to read and full of funny pictures. Though quite often I had to take a pause from reading, laugh and tell SaJaehwa about what I just read – fortunately without having to translate it first.

The read was a bit jumpy at times, as it felt like the narration followed thoughts instead of time line and therefore the tale went from childhood to adulthood and got back to childhood again for another topic.
Still, that seems to be Felicia’s way of telling stuff, at least from what I can gather from what I read here and saw of her in other places.

The characters

Usually I talk about the books characters in this section, but as this is a memoir I’d be judging a real person and I’m not going to do that.

I’ll just say that I can relate to a lot of stuff she talked about.
Like always being the weird one out until I found amazing people that enjoyed similar things as I do with the help of the Internet. Knowing them makes you realize that you’re not alone and reading that a successful (business-)woman like Felicia experienced similar things and rose from them makes you want to overcome your own insecurities and strive to accomplish great things as well.

So basically the „character“ of this book is a very incredible, relateable person.

General Opinion

With the funny, entertaining and witty way Felicia tells her story you soon forget that those are things that actually happened to someone.

I really enjoyed this book for many reasons, some of which I’ve already mentioned, others I feel like I shouldn’t as those would be too personal and you simply have to read the book yourself to figure them out. 😉

This book is not just a memoir, that tells you things about an Internet Celebrity you know and like, it’s also inspiring and motivating if you yourself have projects that you would love to see recognized and loved by others.
While reading this book my perspective for certain things shifted. I knew it wouldn’t be easy to create something others like, but reading about the creation of The Guild made it even more clear to me that I had a bumpy road ahead. But at the same time it showed me that conquering that road is worth it and that giving up along the way might seem like the easy route, but that you shouldn’t take it and instead reward yourself with finishing your projects.
At least that’s what I got out of it. >_<

Long story short: I laughed a lot, could relate to several things, thought about others and took a lot from it for my own projects and endeavours.

Stuff I’d like to add

I’ll probably read it a few more times and recommend it to people who come from a nerdy background as well. Though I probably have to translate the good stuff for the people not so fluent in English, as it so far doesn’t seem like there will be a German version.

If you ever read this, Felicia: Thanks for sharing your experiences with us!

See you tomorrow,

PoiSonPaiNter

© For the cover belongs to its rightful owner.

Mara und der Feuerbringer

As start into the new year I decided to make another special week of posts. You might remember the Book-Week, now you get the Nerd-Week with seven nerdy posts ahead!

As first part of the Nerd-Week I’d like to introduce you to this gem of a movie: Mara und der Feuerbringer or in English: Mara and the Firebringer. Based on the first part of the book trilogy of the same name by Tommy Krappweis this movie is one of the few German Fantasy movies and I simply want to give it a bit more – much deserved – spotlight.

What is it about?

The official poster

15 year old Mara Lorbeer only wants to be a normal teenager, but with a weird Wiccan mum and the fact that a twig told her that she was a Nordic-Germanic Seer (Spákona), chosen to stop Anorak, uhm, Ragnarök that is not an easy feat.

Burdened with visions of the Norse half-god Loki breaking free from his bonds she soon realises that it’s not just her imagination when she actually stands right in front of him and is tasked with the rescue of his wife Sigyn.

Still, she struggles with her fate and takes up the help of Norse Mythology expert Professor Weisinger, as she doesn’t have a clue about Anoraks, Norse gods or the whole having-to-save-the-world-business.

The watching experience

I told you a bit about this movie already here: What’cha Watching Wednesday, so I’m lazy and just quote it:

At first I thought I wouldn’t manage to see Mara und der Feuerbringer (Mara and the Firebringer), due to some scheduling issues in the marketing, but then I found out that it was screened in Greifswald and I took Schmusi and Anna from the HGWAnime with me to see it and we had a lot of fun. Finally a German Fantasy movie that isn’t as stoic and flat as German movies tend to be, has interesting characters, an interesting plot and funny dialogues. With songs like Echter wahrer Held/True Genuine Hero by Schandmaul it also has a nice soundtrack. Schmusi first thought it was [actor] Jan Josef Liefers doing the singing until I told her it was the singer of one of the bands that first got me hooked on Metal. 😀

That is a pretty good summary of what I like about this movie, but let me expand on that a little.

The marketing for this movie was pretty screwed up as the German cinema wants to put things into a category, but Mara can’t be put into the existing ones, so the one that was chosen turned out to be the wrong one (if your German is good enough, you can check out this comment by Tommy Krappweis for more information). Barely any cinemas even played the movie, others played it once or twice, then dropped it (like the one in Neubrandenburg) and a few ones kept it a bit longer (like Greifswald). So when I first saw the times it would air, I didn’t think I’d be able to see it in the cinema, but then I found the viewing mentioned above and simply wanted to use that chance to see it.

Schmusi, Anna and I had the cinema for ourselves, so I could tell them a bit about the pre-story and the fact that I personally met one of the extras.
Short version: The books were read and even beta-read with a few selected users from The Forum and one of those users (Simon the Sorcerer) managed to participate in the filming. So when his scene was shown I was a bit side tracked from the actual story line, ups… 😀
But as soon as I got the DVD I re-watched it and figured out what a certain Hobbit-extra had to say about wanting to got to the Oktoberfest. 😉

Basically: It’s a lot of fun to watch, even during a re-watch. 🙂
(Unless you’re like my Dad, who has no connection to stuff like this at all…)

The characters

Mara isn’t your typical main character, far from it. She struggles with her destiny and the powers Loki gives her to save Sigyn. At some point she basically gives up, because she’s afraid to become someone like Darth Vader or Voldemort and thinks through this in a very funny way. Still, she overcomes this fear and gets back to saving the world in a witty and clever way.

As the movie is only an adaptation of the books, you only get to see glimpses of the other characters. Professor Weissinger is a man in his mid-forties(?) ready to jump at the chance to experiences all the stuff he’d studied and so far only encountered in books and relics, but he is also a great support for Mara, as it is his knowledge that helps her understand the mess she was dragged into. With his curiosity and awkwardness he creates a few very funny scenes.

Speaking of awkwardness: Mara’s mum, she’s wonderfully awkward and it doesn’t seem overblown, but very natural. She’s one of those Wiccan’s that take themselves far too serious and it’s great.

Loki, Sigyn and the others rarely get any screen time, but they make the few times count. E.g. do I really like the way those two talk – especially Loki’s way of thanking Mara… 😀 Though it is slightly irritating that they use the „Loki is Thor’s brother“-narration for the movie. It’s either because they decided to make it more relateable for the audiences due to the success of the Marvel-approach or they found something that actually makes them brothers in the myths as well, as everything else is in the movie is well researched.

[Edit: Tommy actually answered this question in a Tweet around the time of the TV-premier of the movie. He wrote (translation): According to the Edda one could also proclaim: Odin is the Father of Gods and therefore also Loki’s father.]

Special about all these characters is that they don’t talk the way that is usually used in German movies and television and that is really refreshing and great. 🙂
But not just that is a realistic display:

  • Mara falls asleep at some point from exhaustion
  • You can see wounds, water, dirt, sweat and ashes on the characters clothes and bodies, not everything is magically clean
  • A lot of attention was paid to historical correctness, like the clothes and settings for the Norse characters
  • …

General Opinion

I really enjoy the eye for details, the languages used, the way the characters interact so normally. It’s a refreshing way of storytelling.

Or to quote myself again:

If you get the chance: Definitely check this one out!

Stuff I’d like to add

Interesting for English readers: The DVD/Blu-Ray comes with English subtitles, I don’t know if there will be an English version – and I didn’t dare to ask Tommy, even though he seems to be someone who wouldn’t mind answering questions from his viewers…

Why did I chose this movie as opener for my Nerd-Week?

Short answer: Because I can. 😀

Long answer:
Apart from the Fandom-references mentioned above there is a lot that went on behind the scenes, starting from Reeanctors/LARPer participating as extras in both the movie and the music video, over Cosplayers providing costumes and the song being based on a version from an old webseries about dimensional jumps through sneezing, up to the fact that a lot of fans from all kinds of Fandoms promoted the movie.
As I said did a lot go wrong with the marketing, but fans wouldn’t back down and organized additional screenings in cinemas or at conventions and attended them in full periodic outfits.
Then there is the fact that it was planned to be played only a couple of times at the RPC (Roleplay Convention), but ended up being played in a loop (and also received an award as Best German Fantasy Movie in the last 30 Years).
As soon as someone got wind of the project and its failing success due to the horrible screening times, those who liked it passed it on in their respective Fandoms and I believe that’s what being a Nerd is about: Enjoying something and sharing it with your friends and in this case even helping out a great project that would otherwise go completely unnoticed [Edit: (a German documentary about all this and more can be found at Rocket Beans TV) [/Edit].

So here I am continuing that and sharing it with you. 🙂

PoiSonPaiNter

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