ANYway...it had been awhile since I'd even checked out Fenway's Far Trek blog, so I'd missed his great link to Glenn Greenburg's blog, in which Greenburg writes about re-watching all 79 original Star Trek episodes with his eight-year old daughter, including their comments and critiques of the better shows. It's a great (and quick) read, and brought back more than a few memories for me...so much so that I ended up re-watching a couple-three of the old shows on Netflix (the entire original series is available for streaming). One of my personal favorites was the Mirror, Mirror episode from the second season, when Kirk and buddies get thrown into an alternate universe with "evil twins" of the Enterprise crew members. It's a lot of fun to watch (as I'm sure it was fun for the actors) while the cast members ham up their sleazy, bloodthirsty villainy. Plus, the re-worked costumes, Spock's beard, Sulu's nasty-ass scar (Takei really does get a juicy role in this one)...it's a classic.
The "Dagger-Thru-Earth" symbol is awesome! |
I throw the idea out for someone else to develop, however. It's cool to knock-off other folks' games (and other folks' knock-offs) in this way, when inspiration strikes, but lark projects can really be distracting (even though the exercise can be worthwhile, fun, and educational). Case in point: I've spent entirely too much time fretting over the mechanics of Lord Gwydion's Flying Swordsmen RPG...so much so that I spent the last day-and-a-half writing a sprawling, rambling preamble post about Asians, Caucasians, and Hong Kong Action Theater. It was pretty ridiculous, actually, and probably offensive on a number of levels...so I deleted it in its entirety. I've already offered to provide some feedback to LG (which he accepted), but that's all stuff I can submit to him privately, rather than hashing it out on a blog with a bunch of random personal history stuff.
[just FYI: Flying Swordsmen is Dennis Laffey's own streamlined knock-off of Chris Prama's Dragon Fist supplement written for 2nd Edition AD&D. Despite being a fairly impressive looking book (available as a free download) Lord Gyd has expressed some disappointment with how the system works "in-play" and is currently looking to retool it. I've never seen Prama's game (it's no longer available on the web), but I think Flying Swordsmen has a lot of potential if it can be tightened up a little, both conceptually and rule-wise. However, like I said, I'll give the specifics to LG privately...fans of wuxia with even the slightest interest should at least take a gander at the current version of the book]
The Animated Series is also great to watch with kid(s) & they can start on it even younger. With all the original actors voicing it, it's almost like a lost 4th season, well worth watching if you've never seen it.
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