Who is my Favorite Spider-Man?

        Note here at the beginning: These things I'm discussing aren't specifically the actors, although their acting does of course play a role. These things are the writing, directing, acting etc. etc. When I'm comparing their Spider-Mans, I'm not saying "Which actor did the best job in their portrayal?", it's much more broad than that.

        I remember reading online many moons ago that Tobey Maguire has the best Peter Parker, Andrew Garfield has the best Spider-Man, and Tom Holland is solid in both categories. Now, after finally watching the Tobey Maguire films, I can say that I would generally agree with this take.
        The way Andrew's Spider-Man uses his webs for movement is just next level. It is so cool. Tobey Maguire's emotional conflicts in his relationships of his Peter Parker life are so so good. And, yeah, Tom's Spider-Man is solid in both categories.

        Granted, I say all this, and WE'RE ABOUT TO GET ANOTHER SPIDER-MAN FILM. I am so excited. And obviously that film will have its effects on this entire conversation, but I wanted to write my pre-Brand New Day thoughts. These thoughts aren't in any real order.

        I think the Tobey Maguire's version of Uncle Ben dying was miles better than Andrew's. Andrew's just felt like a water-downed version of the same thing. Even with the "the last thing Peter said to his Uncle was mean" didn't feel as much of a gut-punch in The Amazing Spider-Man because it kind of felt like a valid crash-out on Peter's side. Versus in Tobey's, Peter's words were simply uncalled for, which made the regret of them being the last words hurt a lot more.
        Of course, to be fair to Andrew's, it's not like they could just copy paste the events over, which makes it a little awkward. I think this is one of the reasons Homecoming decided to just skip over the origin story altogether. That being said, I did miss it a little in the Homecoming film; I'm curious to see how they would have done it, but, that being said, I don't necessarily think they made the wrong choice skipping it.
        Now, that being said, I do prefer Andrew Garfield's version of learning about his powers compared to Tobey Maguire's. Not by a huge margin, though.

        I think Peter Parker is a little too cool in The Amazing Spider-Man films for me. But at the same time, I appreciate the fresh take on it.

        I think the writing in Tobey's films is probably overall the strongest, even if I currently have Spider-Man 3 as my least favorite Spider-Man film. Spider-Man 1 and 2 just carry, I think the stories there are really really good. And I think Spider-Man 3 ultimately sticks the landing by the end of the film, which is important.

        I think the actors themselves all did a great job. Even though I think Andrew's Peter is a little too cool, he absolutely killed it in the acting department. For me personally, I felt that Tobey's acting was a step below the other two.

        

        The final thing I wanted to talk about, which ultimately is the main motivating factor for my final answer, is the question of which Peter Parker do I care about the most as a character. Which one do I suffer the most when they suffer?

        And, for me personally, that would be Tom Holland's Spider-Man by a landslide. Is this perhaps because he's part of a bigger universe and thus has appeared in other movies? Almost assuredly. Is this perhaps because he was my first Spider-Man. Probably yes as well. But I care so much more for his Peter Parker + supporting cast than I do for either Andrew or Tobey.

        And that's why, ultimately, my answer to who's my favorite Spider-Man is Tom Holland. I'm not saying his movies are the best or that he's the best actor out of the three, but he is my favorite Spider-Man.

25 Minutes of Me Talking about Project Hail Mary Book/Movie

Recorded myself giving many thoughts which you can watch here:

https://youtu.be/YTCHEW1COcE

I also wrote a couple additional thoughts I had this morning in the description of the video.

Bonus Feature (it's one minute long and worth watching imo. Note: Spoilers):

https://youtu.be/5SUkTviXvt4?si=2KVuwQM5nk9RT5Q1

The Melancholy After Finishing a Book

         So I just finished a book (more musings on that in a sec), but I wanted to talk the feeling I got after finishing it. A feeling which I get frequently when I finish any series.
        It's this feeling of almost melancholy. A feeling that's a mix of peace and sadness and longing. I think the core of it is the fact that I won't hear from those characters again. That those characters' time in my life are at a close.
        I don't know how to describe it precisely. Melancholy is definitely a good word for it.

        

        More musings about the book itself:

        I just finished the last book in the Healing Wars trilogy by Janice Hardy; a trilogy which I first read many moons ago (sometime during middle school probably, don't remember exactly when).

        It was fun to revisit the world, fun to have random memories pop into my brain of potential events, fun to see what details of those memories were true/false.

        Getting to revisit the magic system was particularly interesting.

        Being able to experience all these things with the lenses of my adult self was interesting.

Why Hogwarts Legacy Fell Flat For Me

        So I recently played through Hogwarts Legacy, a game I've been looking forward to playing through ever since I saw one of the original trailers. And, sadly, the game really fell flat for me. I wanted to take this post to explain why.

        I wanted to caveat here that I can easily see why others might have a phenomenal time with it. I'm just here to explain why the game didn't work for me (and by extension, why the game might not work for you).

1. Too Much Dialogue (for a guy like me)

Message from my cousin Joseph

        

        Yes, yes, to be perfectly fair to Hogwarts Legacy, I'm very much a certified story-hater in video games. This isn't to say it's the case with every game. Celeste hit perfectly for me. I'm 15 hours into Clair Expedition 33 and the story/writing has been phenomenal so far. How Hades story fit into the gameplay loop was peak. There's some good stuff out there for sure. Buuuut, overall I often find dialogue cumbersome and the story disinteresting. Gameplay is by far and away more important to me.         But, even with that in mind, this game has SO much dialogue. I thought it was going to calm down after the first initial story, but nope. I watched a vast majority of the cutscenes, but ahhhh so much time with textboxes, just let me play the game! It didn't take me terribly long to start skipping every textbox imaginable, which did improve my experience. But that didn't even let me skip all the dialogue! Because many quests began with you just following another character as y'all walk and talk. It was not fun.

  

2. Overall Too Easy (and this fed into many of my other problems)

        There's more I could write here, but it felt like opening a can of worms, so I'm going to attempt the path of not writing anything at all (besides this sentence, of course).

3. Combat (and spells) Quickly Felt Samey

        Initially I enjoyed combat and thought the different spells were cool. However, and I think definitely in part because of the lack of difficulty, combat became very spell spammy. I was literally just pressing whatever spell whenever. And spamming roll.
        The different enemies had different weakness and stuff, but I just rarely felt the need to exploit them. You could just mash spells and it would be fine.

4. The Bosses were Uninspiring

        They frequently just felt like normal enemies with larger health pools. Which meant it wasn't any more fun and instead just felt more annoying if you died.

5. Didn't Feel an Incentive to Explore

        Because the game was too easy, I felt no real desire to go out of my way to level up. And because the combat became disinteresting to me, that core gameplay loop wasn't appealing either. This meant I never cared to do any Exploration Challenges in the Field Guide.

Conclusion

        I feel like I could dig into those five reasons more alongside a couple others, but the more I tried to dig, the more incredibly subjective it felt. The way I have it currently written feels somewhat objective, though, which I want. Because, like, fundamentally I can tell there's a lot of good stuff in this game (it's simply fun to be in the wizarding world, flying is just cool, the storyline is solid, you have other cool wizarding things besides spells like potions and beasts, big skill tree to explore, the Field Guide is plump with things to accomplish), so I can see why someone else might love it. 

        And there was enough for me, even with my gripes, to finish it. I rather enjoyed my first ~10 hours. Next 10 it was okaaay. Next 10 I was honestly dragging my feet just to finish it. So, sadly, I walk away from the game with a generally negative view of it, or, at least, my time with it.

Two Thoughts About Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra

        Okay, so I'm sure I could talk a whole lot more about Avatar/Korra, but here are the couple thoughts that I wrote out:

Difference in Character Quality

        The biggest difference for me in the shows (and a prime reason I think I preferred The Last Airbender so much) was the quality of characters/how I feel about the characters. 

        In The Last Airbender, I adore a vast majority of the cast. There are so many stellar characters imo. Like, seriously. Katara, Sokka, Toph, Zuko, Iroh, Azula: All incredible. Even more minor characters like May, Ty Lee, and Suki are awesome. Aang himself was great as well, of course, but honestly was not my favorite.

        See, I can't say I felt the same about Korra's cast. In fact, in several cases, the opposite. It wasn't uncommon for me to find characters grating/annoying throughout the show. 

        A couple examples:

        Korra. Korra was often frustrating to watch. Why are you so demanding? Why are you so quick to frustration/why do you get defensive so easily? Why are you so quickly getting upset with Mako and keep saying he's picking sides?
        And, like, I get that characters don't have to be perfect and it's good for them to be flawed and whatever, but golly, she in particular was just annoying. I felt like the characters in Last Airbender had emotions, but their reactions made more sense to me. Idk, I'm not sure exactly how to articulate the difference but it's there.

        Tenzin. When I was first introduced to Tenzin in the show, I got the impression that, because he was Aang's and Katara's son and seemed to follow in Aang's desires in many ways, that he was going to be a wise and reliable character to trust. And then it became apparent that he's actually extremely stubborn and has difficulty seeing any viewpoint but his own. (Examples: 1. All his door-approaches trying to get the new airbenders to help rebuild the Air Nation. 2. His methods of teaching after getting a group of airbenders for the Air Nation)
        Even when it looked like he was learning and was going to change his teaching ways, it swapped back again real quick and it was back to his stubborn ways. It was just frustrating to watch.

        Honestly, now that I'm looking through the cast, Korra and Tenzin were the main straight-up annoyances. But even these other characters like Bolin, Asami, and Mako (which in general I do like) don't reach nearly the height that practically every character in the original does for me.

Annoying Relationship Stuff in Korra

        Now, another major annoyance for me throughout the entirety of Korra. What is going on with all the relationship stuff?? It's a reoccurring thing that just bugged me.

        Mako's relationship stuff in Season 1

        I didn't personally enjoy the love triangle thing in Season 1, but I think that was just because of my personal preference. What I don't like is specific Mako actions and how the rest of the characters in the end just pretty much go along with it with what feel like fleeting consequences.
        As referenced, I generally like Mako as a character, but I didn't like this part: You can't get with Asami, but then bail on her because Korra likes you, but then go back to Asami because the Korra thing didn't work out, but then go back to Korra when she loses parts of her memory. Like, c'mon.
        I don't know, something about how he handled it and then the rest of the characters reacted. It just felt wrong/they treated things as if they were no big deal, and it was just frustrating and not fun to watch. Idk.

        Bolin and Eska

        Okay, most of this relationship makes sense. Bolin, not knowing better, approaches Eska and accidentally falls into an awful relationship. He's unsure how to get out because of how controlling and manipulative Eska is. All that checks out.
        What I don't understand is how Bolin in the end decides he actually does love her?? And everyone (specifically Mako I think is the one who is there) is just okay with it/not surprised/whatever?? Like, no Bolin. She's an incredibly demanding, controlling, and manipulative girlfriend, and she deserves no love from you. What are you doing? It just made no sense. And even if you want to reference stockholm syndrome (which isn't really a thing in the first place) or whatever to have it make sense from Bolin's end, it still doesn't make sense why Mako would just go along with it, gah.

        Varrick and Zhu-Li

        Okay, and then pretty much the exact same thing happened with Varrick and Zhu-Li?? Like, Zhu-Li, Varrick treats you horribly. Like, actually horribly -- ex. making you walk 20 miles with him on your back after you had sprained your ankle. The entire series I was thinking, "Man, Zhu-Li better being making a ton of money to put up with Varrick's treatment of her." Now, to be fair, it seems that Varrick genuinely changes before their marriage and will treat Zhu-Li as his equal in their marriage, so I guess in the end it worked out. But golly, why did 'falling for the person who treats you like a slave' happen twice this show?

        The Recap Episode

        Okay, this is not fully related, but still is connected. Half-way through season 4, they have a recap episode. A lot of the season 1 recap, at least for Mako, was focused on all the stupid relationship stuff I talked about in point 1. Aka, the worst parts of Season 1. And then the rest of season 4 doesn't even do anything with it. All those relationship drama plotlines went nowhere and was also recapped for no apparent reason.

Conclusion

        Like I referenced, there's a lot more I could unpack and talk about in both of these shows, but those are the thoughts I ended up writing. Love love Avatar: The Last Airbender. Not a fan of The Legend of Korra.
        That being said, I definitely didn't hate everything in Korra. I thought parts of the world building/magic system were cool, there were some good climatic moments, some cool characters. But for me, it pales in comparison to the original. Which isn't an original take, of course, but is one I now personally have now that I've seen all of both series.