#so here’s the dealio: I’ve got Job 1 and Job 2 that I’m trying to get

[candypop-snowdrop]

Oh boy, paralyzed with fear rn bc job stuff

[yakumtsaki]

There’s no easy way to say this so I’m just gonna come right out with it: welcome to the most morbid post in Union history. Half the family is getting wiped out in a single update and I don’t mean to point fingers, but it’s 100% Wyatt’s fault. I really need someone to blame so don’t dare try to take this away from me.

Back to the present and not the corpse-filled near future, we actually have some money to spend on our spawn for the first time ever, so Shajar gets a non-completely-depressing room. No more eating from the cat bowl for our kids!

..spoke too soon.

-Is it still there, is it still there??

-YES omg it just looked right at me! Vic! I’m scared!

-Don’t make eye contact with it you fool! Don’t you have any idea about how children work??

After not getting promoted for an eon, Jojo is suddenly killing it, two promotions in a row!

-I know, I was starting to fear I’d be one of those geniuses who are only recognized after death- UGH, what is that obnoxious sound?

That’s your infant child screaming because it was abandoned on the cold hard floor the entire night.

-Oh ok, so standard parenting. For a minute I thought something was wrong.

-There, there, you’re alright. Ok.. OK seriously, stop. God, have some dignity for once in your 12-hour life. Crying in public is so embarrassing.

-NEEEEEEO NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Yup. I’ve been so focused on feeding Victor and Alegra’s ancient asses from the bowl of life that I forgot Neo was an elder too, so he’s the first to go even though he’s way younger than them, great job @ me. Goodbye Neo 💔 You were such a good boy, our cat heir, and an integral part in achieving Komei’s life-ruining LTW. You will be sorely missed.

..Apparently by your archenemy Victor most of all. Vicky casually walked off the lot the minute Neo died with no notifications about running away, only to return on his own shortly after. Wtf is going on in this house.

-I had to contemplate the futility of hate.. All this time wasted trying to kill each other and for what.. It's a sunrise and a sunset from a cradle to a casket.

Yea or this lot is already glitched as fuck and it’s only generation 2. Good times.

I was very bummed out by Neo’s premature demise and not in the mood for another kid, but one peek at Jojo and Wyatt’s life bars convinced me to drop the mourning period and circle-of-life this bitch. They are extremely not getting any younger and who tf do I think I am? Someone who knows better than Mufasa?However since a) Jojo is nowhere near his 100k LTW and can’t be taking days off and b) and more importantly, I hate Wyatt, guess who’s carrying this time around!

OH COME ON

GODFUCKINGDAMMIT WYATT

-Huhu!

How the hell did this happen I DEMAND TO KNOW

-Check how your mods work in le futur, idiόt!

..well you got me there.

Jo you are ON FIRE, 3/3! Maybe we can actually complete this 100k bullshit before you’re on death’s doorstep. It’s gonna be close tho, but you know, you just HAD to get knocked up again, so that’s on you.

-No, it’s on YOU.

No, it’s ON WYATT. Let’s just not point fingers and move on, ok? Everyone is equally to blame.

-NO THEY’RE NOT

I’VE MOVED ON I CAN’T HEAR YOU

And now a section I like to call: What the entire fuck is happening. VICTORIA WHAT ARE YOU DOING

-What?? I love babies :)

I legit went back and checked, can you guess how many times Victoria autonomously interacted with any of her kids when they were babies/toddlers? If you had EXACTLY ONE TIME you win..nothing. There are no winners here.

Oh. my. god. 

-Stop hogging her already, I wanna feed her too!

-WELL WAIT YOUR TURN DICK. No, not you, baby bobo booboo.. 

We’ve had our fair share of plot twists around here but this is truly some fucked up shit. In case you don’t get what the big deal is, enjoy this little trip down memory lane aka the Victoria-Komei-parenting-hall-of-fame. Either the ‘age mellows people out’ thing applies to sims too or they got personality transplants when I wasn’t looking. Disturbing.

Of course SOME THINGS never change, no matter how life-ruining for all involved.

-Is this about my LTW, STILL? It’s been like 20 years, GET OVER IT

NEVER

Whachu doing Vic?

-Updating my will to include Komei now that I suddenly love him. Of course someone has to get cut to make that happen..

Well goodbye Daniel I guess!

-..Who the fuck is Daniel?

-I too am making preparations for when I leave this cruel world.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and assume they’re cat-related.

-NO, not everything is about cats! I have plenty of other interests and concerns. 

Name one.

-My beloved son! I’m making sure he takes care of my cats.

Finally, this family’s excellence is starting to be recognized. It’s about time.

-Yea no, this is a recognition that you trainwrecks need all the help you can get.

UGH typical jealous hater bullshit, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.

Ok, I’ve some idea what you’re talking about. Honestly what else has to happen for me to just. stop fucking throwing kid’s birthday parties? I’m pretty sure we’ve had..one that wasn’t a straight up disaster? God knows those glory days aren’t returning any time soon.

-I don’t know what you’re talking about, I’m having a blast :D

Of course you are Gunther, you haven’t been sober since the third year of college.

AND SOME PEOPLE ARE TAKING ADVANTAGE OF THAT. ABSOLUTELY NOT. HALF ALIEN PROF ISTFG

-I’m legit fine with this :)

I legit don’t care, it’s not happening in our sacred home. Also BRIT IS RIGHT THERE JFC you’ve gotten stupid as shit.

You guys seriously, what sins am I paying for, why can’t we have ONE NORMAL NON-INCESTUOUS PARTY. JUST ONE. Daniel heartfarting over his ex, ok, not that weird. Komei heartfarting over his daughter-in-law..getting weird. Gunther heartfarting over Half Alien Prof..reaching for the chlorine to bleach my eyes and then immediately drink.

Nice, get in on that action Wyatt! We almost forgot about your long standing boner for your brother-in-law.

Happy birthday, Shajar! You’re welcome for this amazing party, pay me back by not being ugly.

..yea ok. You did your best with the tools you were given. And I mean the literal giant tools that are your parents. Hopefully Wyatt came through with his somewhat balanced personality???

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. OH MAN. 10 playful, 9 active and 1 nice? Literally sporting Jigsaw’s personality. I mean darling Jojo has 3 nice points and is..how he is, can’t even imagine what Shajar is gonna grow up to be like, but it’s good to know we’re moving in the exact opposite direction than intended.

-Enjoyed your kid’s birthday party, you cheating bastard? WELL PARTY’S OVER

-I may be a cheating bâtard-

-SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH YOUR SELECTIVE FRENCH ACCENT

AW Neo’s ghost making its first appearance and trying to kill Wyatt, what a sweetheart. Welcome to the party!

It was one for the history books! 

-How on earth did this party suck, I had an exceptional time.

Yea that’s because you weren’t there, it’s easy to have an exceptional time away from this family. Of course I have never personally experienced it but the mind does race.

-AH at last, my article is published! Oh, editor’s pick too, ha, of course. No, wait, editor’s warning.. As requested by the legal department? Drama queens. “Horrifying views expressed.. Widely discredited.. Not endorsed in any way by this publication.. DERIVATIVE??!!” Well, I know what I’m doing this weekend.

Is it.. rewriting your article?

-Oh, I’ll rewrite it alright. IN BLOOD

Great. Speaking of blood-

-Victor’s thirst for it is back with a vengeance. We went an entire 4 days without a cat fight and I was all like ‘woo new record’ but one thing has become clear since then:

Victor didn’t go away to contemplate shit. He was waiting..plotting..training..and now the time has come for Victor 2: Reign of Blood.

-WHERE’S YOUR GOD NOW??

Seems about right. Honestly Sophie is the wisest one among us because she got tfo just in time to miss THIS:

Yea, unsurprisingly fucking Damien here is one vicious screamer. WHAT DO YOU WANT

-YOUR SOULS

Good luck finding any in this house.

-Who’s my cute little spawn of satan? Who is? Come to grandma baby.

-ONE SMALL STEP FOR ME, ONE GIANT LEAP TOWARDS THE ANNIHILATION OF MANKIND

Wyatt continues to do nothing of use all day and is not even getting promoted anymore due to his tragic lack of skill points. Somehow that led me to deciding he should be the one to get the genie wishes, I honestly dk wtf my problem is.

-Greetings, mortal etc etc. I’m gonna skip over the intro, you know the deal with the dealio, 3 wishes, let’s hit it.

-I was expectànt more of an Aladdin flair but c’est bien I guess..

-DON’T DARE MENTION THAT MOVIE TO ME YOU FRENCH ASSHOLE

-Um, oui, your désir c’est my command..Huhu! 

-Is one of your wishes the return of your brain, because you should throw that in there.

-Non, non. C’est but one wish in mon coeur, Genié. To nevér, evér have to interact with my bébés but still have beaucoup of them.. In case you can’t tell, I am sim de famille!

-Ugh yea, that much is obvious.

-Well, your wish is granted, mortal! Let me just flick your nose as hard as I can and we’re done here..

-Pourquoi?

-Oh no reason, just for my own pleasure. Buh-bye!

-And with that, he turned into la fumée, mon cheri! Incrediblé!

-I hate my life.

That makes two of us. As in I hate your life too, my life is pretty good.

KOMEI DO YOU MIND WITH YOUR DANGEROUS CURVES, Jojo has a grueling skilling schedule to keep up with.

-So this is it. Rock bottom. 

I mean, you wanted to be heir boo, you got it. It’s a dirty job.

Finally one of the Mortal Kombat cats lives up to its name! GET FUCKED VICTOR

-K.O

Well, we all saw that coming. Victor seriously, you’re like 50yo, don’t do this.

-I’m outta here for the fourth time bitches, and this time I’m not coming back! No man is an island but this cat is.

Ok, see you soon.

Wyatt’s wish is definitely coming true, he has not touched Shajar a single time yet, autonomously or otherwise! What a guy.

-I HAVE NO USE FOR EARTHLY FATHERS, THE ONE I NEED AWAITS US ALL IN HELL

It’s gonna be a long fucking generation.

-WYATT. WYATT YOU DAMN MORON WAKE UP

-Ugh Jojό, I told you, my magique protects me from all bébé interactiόn.

-DOES IT PROTECT YOUR TORSO FROM MULTIPLE STAB WOUNDS

It’s a girl! I’m like why stray from a proven formula, so I name her Cyneswith after another Crusader Kings character, who did not exist irl like Shajar but was still a fire emoji empress of Britannia. Welcome to the shitshow Cyneswith! No offense, it was great to meet you, but we have some important shit to do so..have fun on the floor?

FUCKING FINALLY. It’s promotions only from now on boo! 

..Which is more than I can say for some people. Wyatt seriously, can you move your useless ass up the ladder already so we can avoid having this freak in our house EVERY SINGLE DAY.

-The boy’s just following his heart ;)

Half Alien Prof you are by far the biggest pervert I’ve ever had in this game and Jojo spent his entire teenagehood trying to start a bdsm relationship with Stephen Tinker.

Well, Victor predictably died off lot, which is so on brand for him I’m not even mad. An insufferable dick to the very end, he lived to eat and to start fights with every animal he ever came in contact with. He only ever really loved Victoria. I’m gonna miss him so much.

Victor may have died, but that’s not going to stop the police department from trying to return him to us. Just remember that that place is under Wyatt’s supervision and it all makes sense.

Can hardly wait, Professional Make-Up Cop.

-I want to play a game, Alegra.

Man is someone gunning to be put up for adoption!

-Papa’s birthday présent to you, Shajar, is us finally meeting! Breathe it in, mon favori, I’ll be seeing you again on your next anniversaire!

-Wyatt I swear to fucking god, I will stab you.

Can we get this going please, I’m in NO MOOD.

Not bad at all! A pretty even mix of Wyatt/Jojo and I see you def did not get the Komei jaw, which is pretty much angels singing.

-Angels singing makes my eyes roll in the back of my skull. 

You make my eyes roll in the back of my skull.

-What?

What. I didn’t say anything. Love you Shaj!

-One more for the road babe? After 50 years?

Yea. Just pretend everything that follows has a broken heart emoji before and after each word.

I dress Vic up and have her wait for Death in the living room like a lady, none of those ‘dying in the bathroom in my underwear’ deaths, befitting people like Wyatt. However ideal the circumstances as far as death goes, my heart still broke in more pieces than cats Komei has petted.

-VICTORIA UNION

-Marisa? Is that you?

-NO, IT’S-wow cool armchair, where did you get-no, sorry, you’re dying and all, let me start over..

-VICTORIA UNION, YOUR TIME HAS COME. I’M HERE TO COLLECT YOUR WRETCHED SOUL

-What? My soul is not wretched jerkoff, the fuck you talking about?

-THAT’S JUST A THING WE SAY BECAUSE IT SOUNDS COOL, PLEASE DON’T RUIN IT

-HERE’S YOUR COMPLIMENTARY VIRGIN MARGARITA

-Virgin??? Oh god, I’m going to hell aren’t I?

-YOU WERE, BUT YOUR GRANDDAUGHTER MADE SOME CALLS ON YOUR BEHALF. WELCOME TO HEAVEN

-Yes, I can taste the alcohol in this! GOING GONE, BITCHES. LATES

The stacks of simoleons DID NOT EASE MY PAIN. I do love that Daniel got the most final version of ‘and none for Gretchen Weiners, bye’ possible.

Jojo is fucking devastated and immediately rolls the want to resurrect Vic. It’s bummy af, I’m not even gonna go for the obvious oedipal jokes, he was just crying for days and days and days..

Komei, on the other hand, WAS NOT.

-Eh, I’ll be seeing her soon enough, why waste the tears.

Now that I think about it Komei has never cried about any of the cats either, I think he’s just the type of person who deals with grief by suppressing it. Whatever works.

Jojo and Wyatt are always having these fashion talks whenever they’re eating which are hilarious because I can see Wyatt being into it, I mean he’s french, but in what world is fucking nerd Jojo interested in clothing. Not even that can cheer him up now 💔

Fucking Florence, bringer of doom, returns Sophie to us and the moment she does:

Tell me how am supposed to live without you, now that I've been loving you so long, how am I supposed to live without you, how am I supposed to carry on, when all that I've been living for.. is gone 💔

FUCK YOU FLORENCE

Jfc the blows just won’t stop coming. LEAVE US ALONE WE’RE IN MOURNING

Time for Cyneswith’s depressing ass birthday which I can’t give less of a fuck about, and apparently neither can Wyatt but then again he wouldn’t even if we weren’t ~back to black.

Loving the hairstyle but it does look ridic on a toddler. Good for you for committing to your british aristocracy character tho, very Downton Abbey.

Well the Komei jaw always knocks twice and apparently we let it in this time. Are you beautiful on the inside Cyneswith?

OH. MY. FUCK. BYE. CYNESWITH YOU FUCKING FREAK

-Huhu! 

NO SHE GOT THE HUHU. GOD HELP US

Cyneswith dramatically enters the toddler stage by immediately going into aspiration failure.. You can all guess where this is going.

-KOMEI UNION YOUR TIME HAS COME. I’M HERE TO COLLECT YOUR-

-Yea yea whatever, are my cats waiting for me? If you say no I will literally kill myself.

-I DON’T THINK YOU’RE GRASPING THE CORE CONCEPT OF DEATH, BUT YES THEY ARE WAITING.

-I’M OUT. TELL THE WOLF I LOVED HIM

KOMEI 💔 I’m sorry but we will not be delivering that message.

Apparently Jojo and Komei legit bonded at some point?? I was expecting like a half-hearted sigh but instead we got sobbing-

-and this sum that does not imply ‘least favorite kid’ AT ALL.

Well you know how the old saying goes: nothing will ever replace your parents but a helicopter will come close. 

Also in mourning: this breakdancer npc that randomly appeared on our lot and stayed stuck there for 2 days before I finally batboxed her into oblivion. This lot is fuuuucked y’all.

And generation 1 is officially over. Rest in peace Komei and Victoria, legacy founders, horrible spouses and somehow even worse parents. You stuck it out and were fun to play till the very end. I’ll really miss you guys 💔

[movienotesbyzawmer]

Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

December 8: Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace

Source: Blu-ray release, the box set with all six Lucas-era movies (2D)

Surely the most eagerly awaited movie ever, right? We were all absolutely bonkers in anticipation of this. I was a movie theater manager at the time, and although my theater didn't play the movie, we all got invitations to advance screenings. That was a fairly normal occurrence but it was a big deal to see this movie before it came out. I think I saw it about a week and a half before the big release. And although my initial reaction was actually largely positive, I did observe at the time that the best thing about it was that I got to see it before everyone else…

…but I also observed that the second best thing about it is that the visual effects were a monumental achievement. CGI had never been done to that level. It's normal for movies to look like this now, but it wasn't in 1999, and I’m sad that that fact is lost on modern audiences. Okay, pressing play now.

I kinda get chills at the intro. So classic. This music. Before it actually opened we weren't even sure the same music would be in it.

Opening crawl is like "well there is a dispute about trade route taxation so they send some Jedi to sort it out". The idea is kinda like, "at the beginning of this story things were not as dramatic as they would eventually get". Okay fine.

Very quick "I have a bad feeling about this" fan service in the first couple of minutes.

The Asian-talking bad guy aliens on the blockade ship are all CGI and by modern standards they look a teeny bit dated. BUSTED!!

0:05:45 - quickly we get to the first action scene. No dawdling. But the robot chatter is a little childish-seeming.

The rolling droids! Those are a cool idea.

The first establishing shot of Naboo - very beautiful! Give 'em some credit, yo.

So we've seen holo-calls of Darth Sidious and of Senator Palpatine, and of course it's the same guy. Were we not supposed to figure that out? Seems like it would be super obvious to everyone.

Battle droid army rollout on Naboo, more impressive visuals, but some of it doesn't hold up to modern standards. And yet, so what.

Ugh. Jar Jar. He says "exqueeze me". Neat CGI effect for 1999, and probably not as awful as people say, but it feels like a forced character. "We gotta have a comic relief character that will be kid friendly and will make for a cool toy."

Then they go underwater with neat breather devices, and the underwater city looks plenty neat.

"Yoosa in big doo-doo dis time". I feel like I'm not the intended audience for this dialogue.

The quirks of the boss leader dude in the underwater city always struck me as more creative than some of the other character design dealios. That mouth thing he does.

The planet core is all underwater ocean world. Neat idea, though I suspect physics wouldn't work in the way we're seeing. If you care so much, maybe just go read about physics instead of watching a space adventure.

Less than 20 minutes in and there's another exciting action sequence with the underwater monsters. I suspect George Lucas was pretty proud of getting down to business like that.

Modern day CGI sea monsters would look better than this, but try comparing 2019 CGI to this, and then compare this to 1979 effects. Yeah. Uh huh. See? That's what I'M saying.

The queen and her minions… I don't remember exactly what the deal is. They're all, or mostly, played by Natalie Portman… is there a switcheroo happening?

Whatever the case, there's a missed opportunity here to get us to like the Queen. At this point in Star Wars, we had been effectively seduced by multiple charming characters. But instead this Queen has all the soul of a neatly folded napkin.

"how wude", ugh. GL was very pleased with this "catchphrase". The rest of us not so much.

0:27:45 - Darth Maul emerges onto the holo-call! Good bad-guy reveal.

So "Padme" is a different character, the story is clear on that. Just saying.

The salvage shop dude with wings, he just hovers, I like that.

And then we are introduced to Anakin Skywalker. It is very, very wooden acting. I know it's hard to get good kid acting, but it SUPER SUPER SUPER drags this movie down. Most of his lines sound like he's parroting a grownup who said "say this line just like this…"

The big city planet, Coruscant! Quick look at it, but it's impressive.

Buncha story development about "well we need a plan to get off the planet, blah blah blah flimsy excuse for everything to hinge on a pod race". Fine, but feels like corporate storytelling.

"There was no father". Kid is totally Jesus. Wait, do Christians hate this movie for being kind of flip about immaculate conceptions?

Actually, Anakin's mother is managing to convey some emotion. A shot of her face as she realizes her kid is going to do the dangerous race does a lot with some subtlety.

0:55:35 - Pod race sequence starts. The arena looks very cool, a lot of cool alien and ship designs too. The two-headed announcer effect looks a little poorly integrated.

This pod race sequence… there is seriously TONS to like about it! Hard to take notes during it because it is so fun to watch.

And some of the humor edited in that breaks up the intense racing action… actually works! The whole thing, with its super energetic editing, cool ship design stuff, and even the overt references to Ben-Hur, it's all plenty satisfying.

Ewan McGregor is all "why do I sense we've picked up another pathetic life form?" It feels like a super-uninspired, unsuccessful attempt to give a little personality to at least one character. EG tries to grin a teeny tiny bit and just can't even quite manage it.

1:16:55 - Whoa, just like that Darth Maul shows up and it's a light saber duel! Doesn't last long but it's fun that that happened.

Sometimes Jake Lloyd's performance kind of works when he doesn't have to talk. Like when he looks flummoxed by not being on a hot desert planet any more.

The shot with Terrence Stamp at a strange angle, with the sky traffic of Coruscant in the background, I like it. Just all the shots of Coruscant, totally lovely and you gotta appreciate how advanced this was for 1999.

1:24:40 - First scene of the Jedi Council, so first appearances of Yoda and Samuel L. Jackson. Was Yoda still a muppet when this was first released, and then made CGI in this Blu-ray release? Looks like solid CGI at least.

The Senate. Super neat design for how that chamber looks & works.

I should note that during this viewing I'm starting to suspect for the first time that Amidala, or whoever is in Amidala garb, is played by Keira Knightley but with Natalie Portman's voice dubbed over. The makeup job is disguising who it is. Am I right about this? Did everyone else know that all this time? I've always thought NP just played both parts. But the deeper I get into the movie, the less "Amidala" looks like NP.

Anyway, we're now at the part where "Padme" steps forward and is like, actually I AM QUEEN AMIDALA, doesn't that BLOW your MIND, I am in PLAIN ROBES and my DECOY is in NICE CLOTHES AND MAKEUP, HOW you LIKE me NOW. If the decoy was pretending to be Amidala this whole time, it's worth noting that she seems to have Queen skills down. She should apply for Queen jobs.

1:45:45 - Imagery now recalling Spartacus. I've always liked how the setup for this Naboo land battle looks.

What's happening now is suddenly lots and lots of battles. The Jamaican-talking Naboo water city people fighting the robots (which just unfurled rather elegantly from the big nose ships), the protagonists fighting in the palace/city, and the space fighter battle stuff. Still the droid army stuff is the most fun to watch.

Oh! Scratch that, Darth Maul is here and now we are about to get this super excellent light saber fight! It is awesome, and it's accompanied by the only memorable musical theme that originated in this movie. It's got a choral part!

But there's all this dumb, infantile comic relief shit with Jar Jar accidentally bumbling into being helpful and Anakin accidentally bumbling into being an awesome fighter pilot. The mixed tones in the pod race sequence worked… but it's too dumb for this ending sequence. Lucas was clearly like "cutting between four different fights will be so intense that I can diffuse it with some really shitty humor and the audience will be like ‘oh thank you I needed that’".

1:56:40 - I love this tense break in the light saber fight while they're separated by energy field things.

Jar Jar running from bomb sphere things, that's a reference to Buster Keaton in The General, right? If so… Cocky, GL. Real cocky.

Obi-Wan can't catch up because of the energy barriers, so he just has to watch Qui-Gon get stabbed to death, that's all very nicely done.

2:01:00 - Okay now they're saying the decoy wasn't a decoy, except no that was just a trick, oh mercy this movie is just too smart for me

The light saber fight continues minus Mister Dead, and it's still exciting and intense.

In the course of just screwing around, Anakin blew up that bad guy ship which made the droid army stop working. Okay fine… but wait, was that the actual climax of the movie? Because dude, that does not compare well to the destruction of the Death Star.

But then Darth Maul gets bisected so there's that.

Ends with that funeral, followed by an obligatory parade. Pretty to look at, but doesn't feel as merited as the throne room stuff after the death star blowing up. It's totally trying to be that.

You know what it feels like? A PILOT EPISODE. It's got those qualities that are like, "here are the basic elements that we're making really obvious so you'll decide to produce more episodes, just trust us we'll elaborate on some of it and it will be better, come on just give us the money".

(next: Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones)