YouGov Poll Says Majority Of UK Supports Trans Rights

The United Kingdom isn't a great place for trans people right now. It seems that there is an opinion piece or newspaper article demonising trans people every other day, and many of the worlds most outspoken transphobes are British, JK Rowling being a recent and loud addition to these ranks.

Despite the constant media attacks on trans people, which are so bad that trans people have been gaining asylum in other nations and have been considering leaving the UK, a new poll by YouGov has revealed that the majority of those asked support trans rights.

In a poll by YouGov for the LGBTQ+ new publication Pink News, the results showed that 57% of women surveyed said that they agree that trans people should have the right to self-identify as their chosen gender. This might not seem like a huge amount, but this is more than half, and by Brexit standards it's overwhelming and cannot be questioned.

Only 21% of those asked said that they were actively against trans people being able to self-identify. This seems to echo claims that whilst transphobes have extremely loud voices, and are given platforms to spout their hate at an overwhelming weight, they are a minority of people.

The poll also found that 50% of the population were in favour of self-identification, whilst only 27% were against it, with the remaining 23% unsure of how they felt.

This poll comes shortly after thousands of trans people and their supporters took to the streets in major cities across the UK on July 4th to protest against the governments plans to scrap reforms planned for the Gender Recognition Act (GRA) that were revealed in a leaked document reported by the Sunday Times.

Labour MP Dawn Butler has spoken about the results, saying 'It's reassuring to find out that so many women believe the same as I do, that trans women are women, trans men are men, and that trans rights don't and shouldn't come at the expense of anyone else's rights. The fact that so many more women believe in trans people self-identifying as a gender different to that they were assigned at birth shows that often the transphobic rhetoric we constantly hear about trans people being a danger to single-sex spaces is only being spoken by a vocal minority.'

As is often the case with positive trans news stories, these results have yet to be featured in the mainstream press, unlike transphobic articles.

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5 Films That Were Better Than The Book

Originally published on Set The Tape

Film adaptations of popular books are nothing new. Hollywood has been making them for decades, and there’s no indication that it’s something that filmmakers will ever stop doing. You’ve got a ready built fan base as soon as you make a movie adaptation. Unfortunately, adaptations often receive a lot of criticism for cutting content, or changing story. However, there are some adaptations that end up being better than the source material. Here’s a list of five movies that are better than the books that inspired them.

Jaws

1974 saw the release of the novel Jaws, a book that tells the story of a great white shark that preys upon the inhabitants of a small resort town. Thanks to clever marketing the book saw a lot of attention, and ended up on the best seller list for 44 weeks, selling millions of copies. This success saw the film released just a year later.

The film is widely considered one of the best movies ever made, and the first summer blockbuster. A lot of this came from the rewrites and drafts to the script, that saw a lot of the sub-plots from the book removed, including an affair between Hooper and Ellen Brody, and a plot thread involving the mob. The film made the characters more likeable, and focused on the main plot of the shark. Thanks to this the film is way more streamlined than the book, and you become a lot more invested in the central characters.

The Lord of the Rings

Any film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was going to be an uphill struggle. Not only was the book one of the most beloved literary works of all time, but its huge length meant that a lot of content would have to be removed. Despite having three movies in which to play out the story, racking up almost 12 hours across the extended editions, director Peter Jackson still had a tough challenge.

However, Jackson chose to focus his adaptation more on the main quest of the book, removing a lot of early story content such as the journey through the Shire that didn’t add to the main story of the One Ring. This focus extended across much of the rest of the story, and other sub-plots that didn’t move the story forward or develop characters were excised.

Added to this, the removal of a number of songs characters were supposed to sing, and amazing battles, meant that the films often felt much tighter and better paced than the original books.

Jurassic Park

Another entry from Steven Spielberg – he’s pretty good at book adaptations – Jurassic Park became a record breaking film upon release, helped to move film making technology forward, and became one of the most beloved summer blockbusters of all time.

The film saw some big changes from the source material, however. Alan Grant was changed from an older man to a much younger one, played by Sam Neil; Jeff Goldblum’s Ian Malcolm survived instead of being killed; and John Hammond wasn’t eaten by dinosaurs, to name just a few of the changes. The plot was also streamlined a little, with a bigger focus on the characters having to survive the deadly creatures rather than focus being given over to their personal lives and backgrounds.

Whilst the original book is still an exciting adventure story with some great set pieces, the film has a much better pace and more likeable characters. Instead of waiting for certain characters to be killed off because they’re jerks you end up rooting for them. The success of the film would also go on to deliver a series of sequels, with Jurassic Park: The Lost World also being a Spielberg adaptation of Michael Crichton’s novel.

The Silence of the Lambs

Based upon the second novel in the Hannibal Lecter series by Thomas Harris, Silence of the Lambs would become on of the best loved psychological thrillers ever made. Telling the story of a young FBI trainee who has to enlist the help of an imprisoned cannibal killer to stop a serial killer, the film received public and critical acclaim, and would win multiple awards.

Whilst the book that the movie is based upon is an incredibly well written and tight story, and the movie sticks to the narrative very closely, the film is better for two reasons: Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins. Both actors brought a huge amount of presence to their roles that easily overshadowed their book counterparts. Anthony Hopkins was so beloved in the role of Lecter that he would go on to play the role two more times, even starring in the prequel more than a decade later.

The Godfather

Since it was released in 1972 The Godfather has been widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. The film was based upon the Mario Puzo book of the same name, a book that spent 67 weeks on the New York Times best seller list, and sold more than nine million copies in its first two years.

The film adaptation was a monumental undertaking, with Puzo working alongside director Francis Ford Coppola to adapt the lengthy book. Due to the size of the novel there were a number of elements that had be be cut from the film, including extensive flashbacks to the past of the character of Don Corleone. Fortunately, these scenes would end up incorporated into the film’s sequel.

Even with a number of elements from the book being cut The Godfather still came in at close to three hours long, and told a sprawling tale taking place over years. Thankfully, due to a stellar cast and amazing directing the film was able to be exciting and engaging in ways that the book sometimes wasn’t. The Godfather would go on to revolutionise the gangster genre.

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Legend by Marie Lu - Book Review

'What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbours. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic's wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic's highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

'From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June's brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family's survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias's death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets.'

YA books love a good dystopia, something that represents the injustices and hateful ways of our world, usually pushed to an extreme for the heroes to fight against. Whilst Legend by Marie Lu isn't new in giving readers a dystopian regime to rage against, it might be one of the few that takes such a deep look at the inner workings of one.

Set in a future where the US no longer exists, and the Republic now stands where California once was, the story follows two teenage protagonists. Day is a criminal of the state, an enemy to the oppressive government and the military regime they run. June is one of these people, brought up to believe in the Republic, she's been trained to be one of the best operatives the military has to offer.

Normally this kind of book would just focus on the character that's on the outside, fighting against the powers that be, possibly starting off as a regular citizen at the start of the book and learning to rise up against those in charge. But Legend splits its focus, allowing the reader to see not only how the Republic works, but shows how even a very smart person can be suckered into their way of thinking and become one of them.

We see throughout the book that June is a smart young woman, incredibly so. She is able to look at minor details and make quick, clever deductions (she made me think of Sherlock Holmes at times). She's so smart that her education and training are fast tracked, she stands out amongst both her peers and her superiors, yet she buys into the Republic.

As outsiders looking in we can clearly see that the Republic are bad. The poor are treated as less than human, children that are deemed not good enough are sent to work camps, and aesthetically they're very fascist looking. It should be obvious to all involved that they're the bad guys. But, like any real world fascist state there are people who buy into to, who work for them and believe in the system. It's comforting to think that anyone who works for a fascist state must be evil, that some moral failing is the reason why they side with the villains, but Legend shows that this kind of thing is a bit more complex.

Yes, there are some out and out villains in the book, characters that seem good to begin with, but over the course of the book we see that they have a taste for violence and no conscience; but that's not true for everyone. June, and her brother Metias, show readers this. Good, honest people who genuinely believe that they're doing good, and when they learn that they're on the wrong side do something to change that.

The relationship between her and Day is probably the most important one in the book, even more so than the relationship between June and her brother, which sets her on the road to confronting Day. Day is the person that helps to open June's eyes, to show her that there's something rotten in the core of the Republic. The way that June slowly comes around to seeing the truth is one of the more enjoyable parts of the book, and I honestly wasn't sure just how far she'd come within the events of the book. Would she go full renegade, of would she just begin to doubt the system she'd lived inside of her whole life?

The only part of the relationship that I wasn't completely sure about was the love story that developed between them. I know that this is a YA series, and enemies to lovers is a big thing in the genre, but this aspect of their relationship developed much more than I was expecting. I think I was expecting a kind of respect and friendship to begin here, with romance being explored further in the rest of the series. This is just a personal thing though, and the romantic subplot isn't a huge part of the story.

Marie Lu set up a lot of interesting things in this first book, and there are plenty of mysteries left over for loads to be explored in the next book. I'm not sure where June and Day are going in the next book, but I'm interested to find out, and to see what they'll do to take on this powerful enemy.

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Power Rangers Beast Morphers Episode Two 'Evox's Revenge' - TV Review

Episode two of Power Rangers Beast Morphers continues to establish this new world, giving the Rangers new robot sidekicks, powerful Zords, as well as revealing some strange weaknesses in the new team.

The episode starts off by showing us what happened to the evil avatar versions of Blaze and Roxy who were teleported away at the end of the last episode, revealing that they've been transported to the 'cyber dimension'. They're quickly confronted by Scrozzle, a robot with an army of minions called Tronics. However, he's quickly beaten by Evox, and joins the villains as one of their lieutenants. Together the new group of villains forms a plan to steal Morph-X from Earth to free Evox from the Cyber Dimension.

Back at Grid Battleforce Ravi and Zoey argue over which of them should become the team leader, whilst Devon marvels at all of the technology that the place has to offer. The three of them are introduced to their new tactical companions, the Beast Bots; Jax the jackrabbit, Smash the gorilla, and Cruise the cheetah. Still impressed with these new robot sidekicks, the team are also shown their massive Zords, machines designed to combat giant monsters.

When one of the Morph-X distribution centres comes under attack the team head out to fight the threat, discovering Scrozzle and Blaze stealing Morph-X. Blaze summons a group of Tronics and the Rangers have to fight them. Midway through the fight Devon sees a dog and freezes up, Zoey runs out of energy, and Ravi begins to heat up and becomes enraged. The team get rescued by Abraham and the Beast Bots and taken back to Grid Battleforce for testing.

Back in the Cyber Dimension Scrozzle uses the small amount of Morph-X they stole to power up a Robotron, a massive battle robot. When the Robotron attacks the city Devon is dispatched to fight it in his Zord whilst the others recover. During the battle, however, Devon sees a billboard of a dog and freezes up again. This lets Abraham figure out that Evok somehow corrupted the animal DNA when they first morphed, corrupting the rangers and giving them weaknesses. Devon's cat DNA makes him afraid of dogs, Zoey needs to eat carrots to replenish her dwindling energy, and Ravi has to keep calm to stop himself from overheating. The other Rangers head into battle and help Devon to defeat the giant robot. Back at Grid Battleforce Ravi and Zoey nominate Devon to become the leader of the team.

So, straight off the bat I've got to say that this isn't as strong an episode as the first one, however, you could make the argument that whilst it doesn't pick up straight where the last one left off and does feel like a little time has passed for the Rangers at least, it is like a second part as it continues to establish the new status quo.

I kind of like that the bad guys have gone from a lone computer virus and his two minions to getting a whole support network in the form of Scrozzle. He's the one that provides the Tronic's, this seasons new foot soldiers, and there's a throwaway line that he's got hundreds of the giant robots already built and waiting to be used. It does make the bad guys feel a little more like a mirror of the heroes, there are Rangers on both sides, both use Morph-X to power their stuff, both have someone making all their equipment. It's not an exact analogue, but it works.

There's not really an explanation for the Cyber Dimension at this point though, and it's not entirely clear what it is. Is it some kind of digital world inside of cyberspace? But if so, how is it Scrozzle is a physical being and is able to build robots there. I imagine, this being Power Rangers, that we'll never get answers to this, so it's probably best for my sanity to try not to think about it too much.

The design of Scrozzle is pretty good, and is a completely new character created by the American production team and has no Sentai equivalent. His apron and tool belt looking design is reminiscent of Finster from the original Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, and as he fills a similar kind of role I imagine that was intentional.

Speaking of cool designs, this episode introduces the Beast Bots, who are very cool. Whilst Cruise and Smash are pretty cool looking, I do have a soft spot for Jax, who looks a bit like R2D2 cosplaying a rabbit. It's also nice to have Kelson Henerson back for yet another season of Power Rangers, this time voicing cruise.

The episode has some good un-morphed fights too, with series stars Rorrie D. Travis, Jazz Baduwalia, and Jacqueline Scislowski getting to how off their martial arts and gymnastics abilities. Morphed fights might look cool, but it's always great to see the actual actors getting to go out and do some stuff themselves too. Hopefully the team behind this season will continue to show off their abilities like this throughout the season.

My biggest gripes about this episode, however, are the Ranger weaknesses, and Betty and Ben. The idea that Evox corrupted the original morphin sequence and led to the Rangers receiving a flaw isn't itself a bad idea, but the execution is a little shaky. Devon freezing up whenever he sees a dog makes little to no sense, and Zoey instantly goes from semi conscious to fighting fit whilst still chewing her first bite of carrot. Maybe they'll make this a bit smoother as the season goes on, because it's a little bit silly at this point.

Now for Ben and Betty. I don't know why the Power Rangers brand is trying to put a comedy duo into the show. I know that the very first season had Bulk and Skull, and they became beloved by the fandom, but that was over a very long period. The moment that Bulk and Skull stand up to Astronema and her army at the end of Power Rangers in Space is one of the greatest moments in the franchise, but that was earned across 283 episodes that came before it and years of character development. Ben and Betty aren't going to get that, and just feel silly and annoying. The set-up for this season, for it being a special combat unit run by adults with funding and backing isn't the same as kids in high school; high jinks don't really belong in a dangerous workplace.

Despite these small issues, I really liked the episode, and it finishes setting up the new season well.

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Night Train by David Quantick - Book Review

'A woman wakes up, frightened and alone - with no idea where she is. She's in a room but it's shaking and jumping like it's alive. Stumbling through a door, she realises she is in a train carriage. A carriage full of the dead.

'This is the Night Train. A bizarre ride on a terrifying locomotive, heading somewhere into the endless night. How did the woman get here? Who is she? And who are the dead? As she struggles to reach the front of the train, through strange and horrifying creatures with stranger stories, each step takes her closer to finding out the train's hideous secret. Next stop: unknown.'

I have to be honest, when I read the synopsis and saw the cover for David Quantick's Night Train I was expecting something of a horror book. The dark and moody cover and the description of waking up on a train surrounded by dead people definitely gave it more of a horror feel, but after a while it slowly emerged that I'd had the genre completely wrong. Night Train is more of a science fiction dystopia story, though it takes its time in revealing this.

The majority of the story is more concerned with the central characters than the world they inhabit, apart from a few fleeting moments and a handful of flashbacks you never even see this world. The story is about the train and the people inside it.

The lead character is a woman without memory of who she is of how she got inside the train. She finds herself in a carriage surrounded by dead bodies, but can't find any clues that can help her. She even seems to have lost the ability to read, and looking at writing gives her awful headaches, so the small scraps of newspaper that she finds can't even help. Luckily, she soon comes across Banks, a man in a similar jumpsuit to hers, who also woke up on the train without any memory. Luckily, however, he can read the name on her jacket, and tells her she's called Garland.

Together Garland and Banks work their way through the train, moving from one strange carriage to the next, trying to find answers to the mysteries that plague them.

And that's about all that I'm going to say about the plot, and anything else would really be giving too much away, and even now I kind of feel like I might have revealed too much. Night Train is about the sense of mystery that surrounds the characters. They don't know anything, and we're in the exact same boat as them. Occasionally we will get some answers, some background information or clues to the world, but these happen to us as they happen to the characters, and we don't end up knowing more than they do.

The book throws a lot at both readers and the characters, and at one point in the book its stated that each carriage is a clue to what's going on, but I have to be honest, that statement doesn't really help too much. Thinking back on what I saw throughout the book with the knowledge I had at the end I don't see how us, or Garland, were supposed to reach that conclusion with the clues provided. Perhaps more information would have presented itself if the characters had investigated more, but this doesn't really happen. So because of that I'd advise to not try to figure out too much of what's going on. You won't predict everything that happens, and you won't know everything until its spelled out for us.

I have to admit, this did annoy me a little. A good mystery presents you with clues that will help you to figure out what's going on. A big bit of the fun is trying to figure out the answers to the puzzle. When half of the clues that you need to find those answers are held back it becomes almost pointless to try to find those answers, sadly, you're not told that this is the case until the end, and by then you're just being told the solution.

The book is also very light on details. We don't get a lot of insight into the characters or why they're doing what they're doing. I know that they don't have their memories at the start of the book, and that's fine, we don't need to get their entire back story, but some insight into how their mind is working would have been nice. We don't get this, we don't get to see how this situation is affecting them, or what their thought processes are, we just have to see them reacting in sometimes very odd ways. Their are times where the tings that the characters say and do don't quite make much sense, and seem to go against who they've been established as so far, and I can't help but think a little bit of insight into their mind would help with this.

I think this is something of a byproduct of the the fact that the book is written from a very detached third person point of view. I get why Quantick would want to do this. Their are points where the characters split up, or we get flashbacks, so a first person story wouldn't work with this in mind if the narrator was Garland for example. However, a third person perspective can still occasionally delve inside the characters heads.

Their were times that I didn't quite like the story being told here, where I found Quantick's style of writing, where he shifted between characters and locations from sentence to sentence made it a little hard to follow. At times the book felt like something of a dream, and some of the moments seemed to have a disjointed quality to them when it changed from scene to scene. This might not be for everyone, but it certainly gave the book its very own feel.

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Valhalla: Legend of Thor – Film Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

If I told you that 2020 was seeing the release of a new film about Thor, based off a long running and beloved comic series, you’d probably be thinking of Marvel; well you’d be damn fools! Whilst the Marvel comic is probably the best known comic book version of the character, there are others. Valhalla: Legend of Thor is based on the Danish comic series of the same name that has been published since 1979. Ha, and you call yourselves comic fans, I bet you didn’t know that, did you?

Valhalla: Legend of Thor sees god of thunder Thor (Roland Møller), and his brother Loke (Dulfi Al-Jabouri), arrive on Earth, taking shelter for the night with a mortal family. Thor offers them a meal from his immortal goat, killing the animal and cooking it over their fire. He tells them that as long as no one breaks any of the bones he can make the bones and skin reform the next morning, bringing his trusted animal back to life. Unfortunately, Loke, being a trickster god, encourages the young Tjalfe (Saxo Moltke-Leth) to break one of the bones.

The next day Thor is enraged to find that his resurrected goat is now lame thanks to the broken bone. Loke suggests that Tjalfe should be brought back to Valhalla as punishment for his actions, to serve them as a slave. Unbeknown to the gods, however, Tjalfe’s younger sister Røskva (Cecilia Loffredo) sneaks into their wagon and goes with them to the home of the gods. Once in Valhalla they discover that living amongst the gods might not be as amazing as they first thought.

The original comics, and the animated movie from 1986, were something of a slightly comedic take on the characters and the stories; this film, however, is not. If anything it’s one of the most grounded and dour versions of the Viking gods I’ve ever seen. The gods don’t fly around in the sky, their powers are underplayed and sometimes seem a little dull, and they’re dressed like regular folk.  Valhalla looks impressive, but mostly because it’s set in such amazing countryside, not because it’s some huge shining castle in the sky.

Valhalla: Legend of Thor takes a grittier approach to the source material, and this actually makes it much more striking. I don’t want to keep comparing to the Marvel films, but comparing that version of Valhalla and the gods to this one is a stark contrast. One is fantastical, the stuff of myth and legends, the other is a place that looks like it would be pretty miserable to live in. When one of the gods accuses Thor of never being around I understood why he’d be spending his time visiting Midgard, because Valhalla looked pretty shit.

The giants also had a similar approach to them. First of all, they weren’t giant at all. Most of them seemed like regular people. They wore more furs and bones, looking a bit more ‘barbaric’ but were still mostly people. There were hints that they were a little bestial, such as some having tusk-like teeth or growling, but they were still very human looking.

This probably seems like a lot of criticism, but it’s genuinely not. I enjoyed this grittier take on the world. It made it seem like something that could actually exist, and it made the really magical moments like the rainbow bridge or the giant wolf Fenrir pop on the screen and stand out as special. In a few ways the film reminded me of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, a game based on Norse mythology that skirted the line between realism and the surreal.

The film wasn’t what I was expecting, even from the trailer. I thought that this was going to be a high action magical adventure movie, but it was a lot more grounded than that, with a more human story at the centre of it. The gods were less godly, and more like real people, which benefited the film. There were also a number of shots that really showed how amazing the Scandinavian countryside is, and those visuals were amazing. Sadly, I feel like the film might get overshadowed by bigger, flashier versions of Norse mythology, which is a shame, as it’s a very cool movie.

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Homecoming by Kass Morgan - Book Review

'Weeks after landing on Earth, the Hundred have managed to create a sense of order amidst their wild, chaotic surroundings. But their delicate balance comes crashing down with the arrival of new dropships from space.

'These new arrivals are the lucky ones—back on the Colony, the oxygen is almost gone—but after making it safely to Earth, GLASS’s luck seems to be running out. CLARKE leads a rescue party to the crash site, ready to treat the wounded, but she can’t stop thinking about her parents, who may still be alive. Meanwhile, WELLS struggles to maintain his authority despite the presence of the Vice Chancellor and his armed guards, and BELLAMY must decide whether to face or flee the crimes he thought he’d left behind. It’s time for the Hundred to come together and fight for the freedom they’ve found on Earth, or risk losing everything—and everyone—they love. '

Whilst I enjoyed the first two books of The 100 there was always something about them that didn't quite feel right. I wasn't sure what it was until it came time to read this book, and realised that despite the protagonists having to try to survive on a world they knew nothing about, and the threat of the aggressive faction of Earthborn there was actually very little stakes, and no clear antagonist. Homecoming, however, changes this, and gives us a bad guy to hate. And it makes this the best book in the series by far.

With the previous book ending with desperate survivors of the floating colony heading to Earth in their ships Homecoming picks up with the members of the hundred rushing to their aid as they crash to the planet. These opening moments of the book are tense and action packed, and really sell the chaos of the situation. We did have this a little in the very first book, but it's magnified here, as there are multiple ships crashing down, with dozens of wounded and dead to deal with. It also shows how far the teenage delinquents have come in their short time on the planet, forming a competent rescue party and helping to save lives.

We mostly follow Clarke during these scenes, her being the main character with medical experience, and we see that whilst before she was treating minor injuries or the occasional food poisoning in the camp here she's right in the thick of things, dealing with a major disaster with a level of calmness and maturity that even an experienced doctor would be impressed by. We even see this when she discovers an injured doctor amongst the wounded, a man she trained under, and he tells her that she's become a great doctor. This might not seem like much, but it helps to contrast on the young woman who was still unsure of herself and doubting her abilities at the start of the series.

Unfortunately for the one hundred, however, one of those who survives the crash is Vice Chancellor Rhodes, a cruel man who always seems to put himself first. He's the man responsible for the 'deaths' of Clarke's parents, and her being arrested. Despite the hundred coming to their rescue, and displaying how well they've managed to survive on Earth Rhodes doesn't seem to see them as anything more than children, and criminals at that too. He quickly sets himself up as the antagonist for the book, and it creates genuine tension.

It's not clear at first if he's just going to be the kind of adult authority figure who ignores and dismisses the lead characters, resulting in interpersonal conflict, but he eventually reveals himself to be worse than that, becoming actively hostile to the one hundred. He wants Bellamy dead for his actions in the first book, and is willing to make the rest of the one hundred into slave labour to help build his new regime, one that's supported by armed guards he commands.

The rest of the book deals with the fallout of Rhodes decisions, and how the other survivors deal with it. There are a number of confrontations because of this, and more drama in this book than the rest of the series. It's also drama that comes from genuine danger, not just teenagers falling in and out of love with each other, so it feels more natural and less overblown.

The only part of the book that I didn't really like as much was Glass and her sections. In the previous books she was away from the rest of the group, doing her own thing, and this was fine. She was still in space whilst the others were on Earth, so it gave us an insight into what was happening elsewhere. It made sense that she had her own story. But here she and Luke make the decision to run off on their own, and leads to a series of events that almost ends in disaster before they return to the group. As there's no permanent consequence to this, and as they end up back with the group I don't really know why this story line was included. It would have made more sense to have them both join Clarke, Wells, and the others in their stand against Rhodes. As it is, Glass and her story feels completely separate to everything else, and ultimately a little pointless.

I was also glad that Kass Morgan chose not to force in as many flashbacks as in previous books. Whilst these made sense earlier in the series they're becoming less relevant as the story goes on. There were only about three or four in this book, and they were much sorter in length to previous ones, only being about a page or two long, but honestly, they didn't really add anything of note. Did we need to see Glass and Wells hanging out and having fun to prove they used to be good friends? Did we need a flashback to Clarke hearing her parents talk about radio transmissions when she could have just said 'my parents used to talk about radio transmissions'? I think that you could take the flashbacks out of the book and wouldn't lose anything from the experience, and suspect they were only included as the other books featured them.

I'm not sure what the fourth and final book in the series is going to be centred on, as the ending here really does feel like a resolution. The other books left little threads hanging so that you knew roughly what would be part of the narrative for the next book; but that's not the case here. This could have been the end of the series, and it seems to have been written that way. I'm curious if book four will feel like part of a single whole like the first three, or more like a sequel.

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Disclosure: Trans Lives On Screen – Film Review

Originally published on Set The Tape

The subject of representation is an interesting one. For those who don’t understand it, it can seem like a forcing of certain groups or minorities into narratives or roles. I’m sure we’ve all seen arguments made before along the lines of ‘these characters are only included to tick a box’, or ‘why make a character gay if it adds nothing to a story’. It’s easy to jump on the offensive when people say things like this, to condemn those kinds of views as homophobic, or racist, or transphobic. It’s easy to see condemnation of inclusion as hatred of minorities.

What might not immediately come to people’s minds is that to some this inclusion seems forced because they’ve never experienced it before. They’ve never has someone in their shows, films, or comics who wasn’t white, or straight, or cis, or able bodied. But the thing that might make them see inclusiveness as tokenism is that they’ve never had to look for people like themselves in the media before. They’ve never been starved of positive representation, so they don’t understand why it’s important.

Netflix’s new documentary Disclosure: Trans Lives On Screen goes out of its way to show why representation matters, and it makes important points. Most people might not realise that so many representations of trans people in media are as sex workers, murder victims, or killers. They might not realise that there are trans actors and actresses whose entire resume is Hooker #1, Stabbing Victim, and Prostitute #3. And I’m sure that they don’t understand the impact that such representation can have on people.

Disclosure doesn’t just feature trans voices, it centres them. You won’t find a narrator guiding you through the history of trans people in film; you learn about it from trans people themselves. And you learn the effect that had on them. You get to hear how certain examples showed them that those feelings they had weren’t abnormal, that they weren’t alone in the world and could live as themselves, but you also see how they were told time and time again that society would grind them down, would mock and ridicule them, and how all they could expect was fetishisation or murder.

Thankfully, things are changing in the world. Trans people are finally, after decades without, getting positive representation on film. There are documentary series that follow real trans people, and trans narratives are getting centre stage, acted by trans people and not cis actors in drag. Disclosure will show you where progress has been made, but also where so much more still needs to be done.

This is a documentary that will appeal to trans people, and the friends and family of trans people, but I think those aren’t the ones who most need to watch it. It’s cis people who need to see this documentary. It’s people who probably have never thought about representation, or if they have think poorly of it. It’s not just informative, it breaks down a long and complex issue into an understandable thing, and shows you the real human impact that it has.

There’s a moment when Jen Richards talks about a father to a trans child who appeared on a television show, and spoke with joy about his kid. He loved his child, he said that having a trans kid was like being the father to a unicorn, something special, rare, and amazing. Jen, and a lot of trans people, never had that kind of relationship with a parent. Some parents don’t understand when their child is trans. They can hate their child, they can reject them. Even if you eventually get some form of acceptance those moments where you see hatred and disgust in your parents’ eyes will always be burnt into your memories. Jen says that she never knew that a parent could love their trans child the way that man did until she saw it on television, and it made her realise that maybe she never realised she could love herself that much either.

That’s what representation can help do. It can show you that there is a good world out there, that people can find love and acceptance, that they can have some joy. I knew that representation was important before I watched this film, but it never really hit home until I saw that moment; and it broke me too as I realised I was the same as her, that I’d lived through some of that as well.

Disclosure is an important film, especially now. Trans people are one of the most at-risk minorities in the world, and Black trans women especially. The murder rates of trans people are disproportionately high for the population. Trans people are three times more likely to be unemployed, have a suicide rate of close to 50%, and homelessness and rejection are a constant fear. Governments around the world, including here in the UK, are in very real, serious debates to take our rights away.

This documentary isn’t going to stop these awful things happening to the trans community, but it might help people understand some of the struggles we go through. If even one person watches this and understands the importance of representation, and changes how they feel about trans people, it’s worth it.

So please, go and watch this film. Show it to people you know. Recommend it to people who might not understand the subject. It might not change the world, but it could help to save someone’s life if people begin to understand that we’re not monsters, we’re just people like you.

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Sonic The Hedgehog - Film Review

I've never been a huge Sonic The Hedgehog fan. I remember playing it a bit as a kid, but I never had any of the Sega games consoles growing up, so those times were few and fleeting, and not enough to really get me hooked on the character like some of my friends. When it was announced that there would be a live action film I was a little intrigued, I was seeing a lot of good things about the Detective Pikachu movie and thought that maybe we'd get something similar with Sonic. Then that first trailer hit.

I don't know how I feel about what happened behind the scenes in regards to the film. The fact that fans petitioned for the design of Sonic to be drastically changed is both a good thing and a bad thing. On one hand it altered a really, really bad design that would have taken a lot out of the movie into something that looks amazing and is a joy to watch running around on screen, on the other hand it seems to have 'proven' to some people that fan petitions work and has pushed more angry fans to start petitions about all kind of entertainment. The redesign also resulted in a massive crunch for the people working on the movie, with awful hours and work load, and then the company, Moving Picture Company, ended up being shut down.

Despite these last minute changes and troubled production the film looks incredibly good. There were a few times that I remembered scenes from the original trailer when watching the film and it stunned me that the film could be made to look this good in so short a time. Sonic himself is amazing, and is so emotive and engaging throughout. The level of detail in his character model was stunning.

One of the best sequences in the film from a visual standpoint was probably the opening moments of the film, where we see a young Sonic in the Green Hill Zone Stage from the games, or at least the alien world that looks like it. The scenery was amazing, looking real yet capturing the look and feel of the old games. And the echidna's that end up coming after Sonic looked phenomenal.

It was a genius touch to include these characters in so minor a role but making them important to Sonic's back story so as to allow easy access for Knuckles in a later film. It's one of the things that this film did that got me very excited for a sequel. I won't say what the other things are, but they featured during the end credits of the film, so make sure you watch till the end.

The human cast were also very good, and Jim Carrey as Doctor Robotnik is damn near perfect casting. I honestly couldn't picture anyone else in that role now that I've seen him play it. I was, at first, a little surprised as he doesn't fit the classic Eggman look from the source material, but he played the mad scientist so well that it didn't matter. Whether or not he does look like the iconic villain he embodied it so well that his scenes were some of the funniest in the movie; and being able to be more charming and funny than Sonic was not an easy thing by any means.

I liked James Marsden as Tom, the small town cop with dreams of being needed for more than the boring stuff that fills his day to day life and wanting to get the chance to save someone's life. Considering how little him being a cop actually played into the movie I kind of wish he had some other job, however. He could have been moving to San Francisco for any other reason than being a cop, and he could have been beloved by the town for something other than being the sheriff. Town doctor maybe? A beloved teacher?

It seemed like the film wanted to have a nice, 'good' cop in their narrative for some reason, and the cynical part of me suspects that his wife was Black to show he wasn't one of the racist 'bad' cops. I'm sure I'm going to get some kind of complaints about that, and people will be saying I'm reading too much into the film and projecting my own political beliefs, but changing his job would have hardly affected the movie at all.

Overall I really enjoyed Sonic The Hedgehog, there were moments that wowed me, times I laughed out loud, and even bits that got me emotionally. I really hope that this isn't a one-off film, and that we can get a sequel or two, because after not really thinking much about Sonic for most of my life I think I might be a fan now, and I want more.

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Power Rangers Beast Morphers Episode One 'Beasts Unleashed' - TV Review

Power Rangers Beast Morphers is the first series of the long running franchise to be produced by Hasbro, following the acquisition of the series in 2018 for $522 million. Some were a little worried about what would happen to the franchise under Hasbro, some thought that they might scrap the live action series and focus on animated shows instead, whilst others suggested the idea that they might not be able to adapt the brand as well as Saban. Whilst Saban had done some good things with Power Rangers before, and made the brand, I was very disappointed with Power Rangers Ninja Steel and thought that it was one of the worst seasons of Power Rangers to date, and was looking forward to some freshness in the brand.

Having now watched the first episode of Beast Morphers I'm happy with what the show has done. Okay, I know that I've only seen the one episode, but after the cringe-worthy and mostly boring season that was Ninja Steel it felt amazing to actually enjoy an episode of the show again. It was exciting, different, and made some bold choices straight out of the gate.

The episode starts by establishing that a group called Grid Battleforce (a great way of using the Go-Busters branding) is about to switch on a new reactor that will harness the energy of the Morphin Grid to provide the city of Coral Harbor with clean, renewable power.

We're then introduced to a few of the key characters of the series over at the gym, where Blaze is teaching a karate class as his friends Ravi and Roxy look on. One of the students, Devon, isn't really paying attention and a small confrontation breaks out between him and Blaze, resulting in a fight where the two of them are shown to be pretty equally matched. The fight is broken up by Devon's father, the Mayor of Coral Harbor, who needs Devon to come with him.

In the Mayor's car Devon is chastised for going to the gym rather than a job interview that his father set up for him. He reveals to Devon that he's on his way to Grid Battleforce to perform the switching on ceremony, and Devon begs to come along so that he can try out their battle simulator. When his father refuses, Devon takes a photo of his fathers visitor pass.

At Grid Battleforce Devon uses his fathers copied pass to sneak into the facility, whilst his father is held up by two members of security, Betty and Ben. Once away from them, the Mayor is taken to Commander Shaw by Zoe, one of the janitor staff.

Mayor Daniels is then shown around the facility and meets NAte Silver, a brilliant young tech wizard who discovered how to tap into the Morphin Grid, the power source that gives Power Rangers their abilities. When the Mayor expresses his concern that using this power could make the city targets to monsters and madmen such as Rita Repulsa he's shown that Grid Battleforce is creating a team of Rangers of their own to combat any threats.

When the Mayor turns on the reactor outside to a crowd of reporters the process to create the new rangers begins, and we see that Blaze, Roxy, and Ravi are to be these Rangers. However, a sentient computer virus names Evox has entered the system and corrupts the process, turning Blaze and Roxy into digital avatars of themselves, and evil Power Rangers. Fortunately, Devon is able to stop this from happening to Ravi. Joined by Zoe, the three of them fight these new evil Rangers. During the struggle, the three of them enter the transformation machine, and become Power Rangers themselves.

With help from Nate the new heroes manage to transport the evil avatars away. With the day saved the new team learns that to save Blaze and Roxy from the comas they're now in they'll have to defeat their evil counterparts.

Okay, so as far as setup episodes go this is really good. I like that the Rangers in this season are man-made. There's something about Rangers that aren't tied to magic, ancient artefacts, or mysterious mentors that is just really cool. I don't think it's any coincidence that Lightspeed Rescue, SPD, Time Force, and RPM are all considered great series, and all feature teams made by people and organisations. It also means that whilst the Rangers get to have secret identities to the public they also get a base of operations, a support staff, and resources at their command that they'll need in order to protect the city.

I also think that the look of these Rangers fits this model well too. This isn't the standard kind of Power Rangers suits, where the actors are in skintight spandex, this time they look like tactical leather outfits. There's no need to try and explain that it's not spandex, but some kind of nano-tech polymer or anything like that, because these guys look like some thought has been given to practical combat and protection as far as their outfits go.

What I also think is a really cool move is to create evil Rangers so early on, and to make them such an integral part of the set-up. There have been some great evil Rangers in the past, like the Psycho Rangers, and some absolutely awful ones like Zedd's Dark Rangers, but most of the time when there's bad versions of Rangers they're around for one episode, or you'll get multi-part arc if you're really lucky. Including them so early on like this is pretty wild. But, it's integrated into the story well, and gives the Rangers some bigger stakes and long term motivations outside of the traditional 'beat the bad guy'.

I also really like that the Power Rangers team took the Escape robot costume from Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters and gave it a yellow repaint to make it an evil Ranger suit. It's not as obvious a look as Blaze, who still looks like a cat, but you can see her as some kind of twisted version of a rabbit. This feels like the kind of bold creative choice that was lacking in some of the more recent Power Rangers seasons, and one I'm always open to.

I did also enjoy how the show set up another group of heroes to be the Power Rangers, before twisting that expectation out from under you. The only things that take away from this being a real surprise was that the episode included the opening credits that show Devon and Zoe as Rangers, and that the casting had already been announced at Power Morphicon. If the first episode had aired without credits, or fake credits, and Hasbro had tricked people by announcing the Roxy and Blaze actors instead they could have had a real great rug pull moment when they became evil and two other people had to step in to take their place instead. But, I understand that they probably couldn't do a fake casting announcement or a one-off credits sequence just for a bit of storytelling surprise.

Overall I thought that this was one of the stronger single episode openings to a new series of Power Rangers. Some seasons get a double episode to begin with, and really benefit from it, and some single episode premiers can feel a bit rushed, but Beast Morphers managed to walk the line of condensing the story into one episode yet giving the story and characters enough time very well. I hope that this is an indication of how the creators plan to treat the series going forward, and could be the sign of some good writing to come.

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