Genres

I see that I've finally gotten a few hits on this page, so I'm updating again. Also, someone who came here was complaining about the lack of pictures. I therefore give the following reply: TAKE THIS!

Scared, aren't you? I made that one night when I was very tired. Oh, and yes, that IS the infamous Catsuit Ranma picture with the head of Zio from Phantasy Star 4. My appologies to their respective creators. Oh, and yes, this picture WAS created with the intent of freaking people out.

Now then, as I was saying, I have had hits on this page, and people liked it. One friend of mine (who may or may not be responsible for all those hits, he only claims 3 of them) has decided to make his own page of rantings and I believe asked me to plug it. There you go. I'm also pretty creeped out that 3 people pointed out to me that it's Baal not Bal. I know OK? It's just that on that particular day I was typing really fast and wasn't lifting my finger high enough for it to count as hitting A twice, and as a personal rule, once I finish a rant I refuse to go fix stuff in it.

OK, now that I have all that introductory stuff out of the way, on with the rant. I just saw Wild Wild West last night, it was great. If you've seen the original show (and you probably haven't) you should enjoy it despite the REALLY messed up casting (in the original show, the badguy was a midget, the good guy was caucasian, and I don't recall him having a sidekick). Still, I suppose using Will Smith, adding a sidekick, and making the badguy a cyborg played by Keneth Branagh (not that it shows) wasn't the WORST think they could do. I mean, they could've used Brendan Fraser. Anyway, the point is, that an 80 foot tall fire breathing steam powered hydrolic spider mech in the 1800s is easily one of the 3 coolest giant things I've ever seen. The other two before you ask are Unicron from the great Transformers: The Movie, and something I can't say because it's a big Xenogears spoiler. This would be the perfect place to stick my picture of Sailor Unicron (Again, freaky tired) but for some reason it won't upload, therefore, I give you Borg Smurf:

I'd love to take credit for that, but I actually found it at The Comic Universe Battles! which is a pretty darn funny site.

Anyway, a lot of people probably think that Will Smith fighting a mech in the 1800s is some silly concept a hack writer pulled out of thin air, well, you're totally wrong then. Wild Wild West is a perfect example of a sci-fi genre called Steampunk, it never gets used, which is a shame. Oh, and just to justify my title today, here's a list of the basic Sci-Fi settings:

• Near Future: You know the drill, it's just like it is now except 1 new thing is around that changes stuff. This is what we call Soft Sci-Fi and it usually sucks, examples include Alien Nation, Sliders, Independence Day, etc.
• Utopia: It's the future so there's no crime, no hunger, no money, and everyone's happy! Yuck. Examples include well, Star Trek I guess, and Issac Asimov stuff.
• Distopia: The opposite of a Utopia, everyone's miserable, the world is always ruled by some jerk or a computer, it's all dingy, people are probably starving, and there's some other bad stuff going down. Examples include Fahrenheit 451, 1984, you know, english teacher stuff.
• Cyberpunk: Skyscrapers computers and cyborgs everywhere, everyone either seems to be a gang member living in the streets, or a big evil beaurocrat. Also, Cyberpunk seems to be almost inseperably connected to Cyberspace, which I am pretty sure I've expressed my great dislike of before. Examples include Blade Runner (not the original book Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep though, they really screwed it up), The Clockwork Orange, Jonny Mneumonic (I'm told), Cyberpunk (a paper RPG I've never played), Shadowrun (a very cool RPG, cyberpunk with fantasy races and magic), and The Matrix. I hate most of those, but Shadowrun's cool, The Matrix is cool, and I hear Jonny M is pretty good.
• Steampunk: Like I said, I really like this concept. Basically, you start with the 1800s, then, with the available level of technology, you make sci-fi. Like I said, Wild Wild West is a perfect example. Steam-powered Giant Robots, Cowboy's, Trains, 1800's style clothing, and no electricity. Examples inlcude Wild Wild West (obviously), Final Fantasy 6 (FF3 here), and I know there's more, but I can't think of any.
• Space Opera: Star Wars. Also the Lensman series which Star Wars seriously ripped off.
• Fantasy: If you need this explained to you, that's sick.