Power Rangers Beast Morphers Episode 03 'End of the Road' - TV Review

The third episode of the series is the first real adventure of the week story, where nothing in the status quo really changes, but despite having no consequence on the series as a whole it still manages to be pretty entertaining.

The story centres around Zoey, who's trying to convince the mayor of Coral Harbor not to destroy part of the local forest to build a new road. The mayor tells Zoey that the traffic in the city is a nightmare, so the road is needed to help get rid of congestion. Zoey, however, has an idea that might be able to solve the problem without needing to destroy the woodlands. Morph-X powered bikes.

The major agrees to give Zoey a week to prove that a bike scheme could work, otherwise the forest will be destroyed. Zoey sets out to try to convince the residents of the city that her new bikes are a better way to get around, but no one really seems too interested. Except for the villains, who think that they might be able to steal the Morph-X from the bikes for their own uses.

The team get into a fight with Blaze and one of his monsters, Needletron, and managed to destroy the monster, but Blaze escapes with one of its arms, giving him the ability to siphon Morph-X without the monster. He tries to do this in another location, but the Rangers are able to track him down and destroy the arm, stopping him from getting any Morph-X. With no way to morph Blaze grabs one of the bikes and tries to make an escape. The Rangers jump on bikes of their own and pursue, leading to a chase across the city.

The Rangers manage to chase Blaze down to a warehouse where Roxy and a group of Tronics are stealing more Morph-X. The team fight the evil avatars, but Scrozzle unleashes a giant Needletron on the city, forcing the team to split up. Ravi is dispatched in his Gorilla Zord to fight the giant monster whilst Devon and Zoey continue the fight. When the giant monster starts to drain power from Ravi's Zord Devon goes to assist him.

Zoey faces off against Roxy alone, but manages to get the upper hand, using one of the Morph-X canisters from a bike to cause an explosion that incapacitates the villain. Meanwhile, Devon and his Zord are able to arrive in time to help Ravi, and the two of them destroy the giant monster, saving the city.

The next day Zoey returns to the construction site, ready to plead with the mayor for more time, only to discover that the road has been cancelled because the bikes are a huge hit. It turns out that the Rangers were seen chasing Blaze on the bikes, and thanks to news footage the entire city thinks the bikes are awesome. Zoey has managed to save the forest, and the mayor orders 5,000 bikes for the city.

This episode doesn't do a huge amount, it doesn't move the story forward in any real way, but it does give one of the Rangers the spotlight for the episode; and it's really cool that it's Zoey who gets the chance to shine first.

It's almost a cliche that the Power Rangers are such good people that they champion good causes at every turn; it was almost comical that the Mighty Morphin team took part in so many park clean-ups, awareness campaigns, and charity events that they'd barely of had time to do their school work, let alone be super heroes. We don't have a huge sense of who each Ranger on this team is yet though, so it's not clear if this is something that is specific to Zoey, or if the whole team are going to be into doing good deeds like this every week.

What this episode does show, however, is that Zoey wasn't just talking crap in the previous episodes about having ideas to make the world better, and being desperate to prove that she can do things. This is a young woman who's only a Ranger by chance, and was working at Grid Battleforce laundry a few weeks ago. This is her first real chance to prove that she can walk the walk as well as talk the talk, and she goes at it with zeal.

We also get some small character moments with Nate, who's showing that he's more than just the team's tech guy, and actually gets to go out off the base and do stuff. We learn a little more about his past too, and get a bit of an insight into his family situation and him always wanting a brother.

As with last episode, this week's villain is incredibly forgettable. I'm not sure if this is how the monsters are going to go for Beast Morphers in general, or if we've just had a few dud ones to begin with. Either way, its a good thing for the show that they've got Blaze and Roxy there too to pick up the villain slack. The evil Rangers once again prove to be one of the highlights, and the fight between the two yellow Rangers in the warehouse is the stand out moment for sure.

If this episode proves to be the baseline for the monster of the week style episodes then it's not too bad, and is certainly a lot better than we had in Power Rangers Ninja Steel. However, I do hope that we get better monsters than we've had here, and that the show doesn't come to rely on the evil Rangers to carry it through. But overall, this is a pretty good episode.

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Terminator: Dark Fate - Film Review

It seems like making a good Terminator sequel is harder than it seems. Yes, Terminator 2 Judgement Day was good, but I don't think it's the best of the series like a lot of people make out; that still goes to the first film for me. Terminator 3 Rise of the Machines was pretty poor and best forgotten. Terminator Salvation is one I like because they made the machines scary again, but is far from perfect. And Terminator Genisys took a huge shit on the films that came before it and is probably the worst of the bunch. As such I had little expectations going into Terminator Dark Fate. But, I was really pleasantly surprised by this film.

Terminator Dark Fate follows on from the second film, disregarding much of the muddled mess that came after it. It begins back in the 90's with Sarah Connor and her son John after they defeated the T-1000 and stopped the formation of Skynet. Unfortunately, another terminator had already been sent back in time, and murders John in front of Sarah. Killing John Connor is a bold way to start the movie, and really sets it apart from all the other sequels, which all featured John in some way.

The film then jumps forwards to modern day Mexico, where two time portals open up, one depositing an augmented human named Grace, the other the deadly Rev-9 terminator. Grace has been enhanced using technology to make her faster and stronger than a normal human, capable of standing her ground against a terminator, and her mission is to protect Dani Ramos, a young woman who has been targeted by the Rev-9.

One of the first action sequences in the film, where Grace and the Rev-9 fight in a car factor, might be one of the best action scenes in the movie, and the franchise. Grace and the Rev-9 fight with a speed and agility that the franchise hasn't had before. Both actors, Mackenzie Davis and Gabriel Luna, move with a fluidity that Arnold Schwarzenegger was never able to achieve, and their fight is almost dance like. It also shows how far technology has come, allowing the integration of robot effects into the fight that was simply impossible even for the second film. The fight also shows off why director Tim Miller was a good choice to direct, with his great action directing on Deadpool clearly not a fluke.

The film really shines, however, once Linda Hamilton comes into things. She's angry, tough, and bitter, and is the exact type of person I can see Sarah Connor growing into, especially with the loss of her hope following John's murder. She fights terminators without fear, having gone up against so many now that she's a hardened warrior that even Terminator 2 Judgement Day Sarah wasn't. Despite this, she still has a heart, and one of the best scenes in the movie is where she breaks down and lets her emotions show, when she tells Dani that she doesn't have a photo of John and is slowly forgetting him; a scene that shows the level of grief and trauma the poor woman in living with.

Here scenes with Arnold Schwarzenegger's Carl are also highlights, and their interactions are perfect as a terminator who has learned to grow a conscience and can love (somewhat) and a woman who wants to kill him because he murdered the most important person in her life. The slow evolution of their relationship isn't central to the story, but is there and well played nonetheless. You also get a great moment where Sarah learns that Dani isn't the new her, the mother of the future resistance leader, but that leader. She realises that Dani is essentially John, and that moment means a lot to her, gives her something to fight for again. Dani becomes a stand in for her lost son, and the fact that the two of them stick together at the end of the movie shows that this has given Sarah a new sense of purpose and hope.

The only thing I'd say that the movie didn't do right with Sarah was the moment when she first appears on screen during the modern day segment. She walks out onto the highway with a shotgun and a rocket launcher and takes down the Rev-9 as it's about to kill Grace and Dani, and it's awesome. But, the fact that the iconic Terminator theme didn't start playing when she stepped out the car is a crime. Sarah Connor coming to the rescue with that stand out opening theme music would have elevated it to one of the best moments in the franchise.

I liked the changes that Terminator Dark Fate made to the mythology, especially in regards to the future war. One of the things that didn't quite make sense to me with the other sequels was that John and Sarah just delayed the future war, that Skynet still came into being and John still became the resistance leader. This film takes a different approach. Here Skynet is gone completely, and it's another AI that rose up against humanity. Now, to those saying that's silly and it should have just been Skynet, another AI coming to the same conclusion about humanity is much more believable than the same future playing out just a little later. There are so many factors that would have to come into play to have the same future happen decades later that it just doesn't make sense; this new Legion AI is definitely the way to go.

It also means that a different AI would create different terminators to help wipe out humanity. The brief glimpses we get of the future show this, with the flying Hunter Killer robots being a similar kind of design to those from previous films, and the opening sequence for this movie, but they're actually quite different when you look closely at them. The Rev-9 also shows off a difference in robot design. The Rev-9 combines the robotic endo-skeleton we've seen in other films, with a kind of liquid metal terminator from the second movie. And I say kind of liquid metal, because it never looks like the T-1000 during the movie. The shiny silver of the T-1000 is gone, instead the Rev-9's liquid parts look darker, closer to the black metallic of it's skeletal structure, yet moves less like a liquid and at times looks more like nanobots of some kind.

The Rev-9's makes for one of the more interesting terminators in the series too, thanks to his ability to separate his liquid and skeletal parts, essentially splitting into two machines, giving the heroes two targets to contend with. This feature is used pretty sparingly throughout the movie, but it's always cool when they do it. The scenes during the future flash backs (Flash forwards? Both) really show how cool and interesting these machines are when they attack with tentacle like spikes and blades.

Terminator Dark Fate was able to keep me entertained throughout. It had a story that felt like a good progression from the second movie, but was still able to do new and unexpected things. The new cast were really good, and weren't overshadowed by Hamilton or Schwarzenegger. If this is all that's done with this new timeline then I'm happy with that, but if this is the start of a new series and we get more from these characters then I'm all for that.

Despite going into the film expecting something as bad as Terminator Genisys I left the experience having been thoroughly entertained, and actually wanting to see more. This was something of a strange experience for a Terminator sequel, but one that was nice to have. Terminator Dark Fate might not meet everyone's tastes, but I found it to be one of the better sequels in the franchise.

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Burger King Manager Blames Staff COVID Death On Trans Hormones

Staff at a Santa Monica branch of the fast food chain Burger King, located at 1919 Pico Boulevard, have staged a walk out and filed a complaint with California state and county regulators following the death of a transgender colleague apparently caused by COVID-19 .

Angela Martinez Gómez, aged 41, died on July 6th after displaying COVID symptons.

A silent protest was held in honour of Angela, and to raise awareness of issues the workers faced. According to the complaint made by her colleagues, Angela reported to work with COVID symptoms, coughing, spluttering, needed to take frequent bathroom breaks, and was visibly ill. Instead of being sent home management made her carry on working for a week.

Staff have also said that management did not provide them with protective equipment, and did not allow for social distancing. The complaint also says that a second member of staff fell sick with similar symptoms during this time, but was not allowed to take time off sick. Yolanda Garcia, who filed the complaint, has said that she is the third staff member to display symptoms.

'I feel very worried and I have a bad headache,' Yolanda wrote in the complaint. 'July 8 I woke up coughing with chills, shaking and body aches, my right lung hurts making it difficult to breathe, and I am very tired. I am worried about my health and my family’s health; eight of us live together, and my brother and I both have diabetes. Last week I visited my grandchildren, and now I do not know if I have COVID-19, or if I gave it to them. I am worried.'

Yolanda said that she brought her concerns about this to the manager, but was told Angela had not died of COVID, but rather that her death was a result taking hormones as part of her transition.

'I told (the manager) I was going to get tested for COVID-19, and she said she was going to get tested too,' Yolanda told reporters, 'but she also said she didn’t think Angela died of COVID-19, she said Angela died of injecting hormones. That doesn’t make sense to me.'

Yolanda said that Angela had been taking hormones for a long time, and couldn’t believe that the medication could suddenly cause her death. She has said that she thinks the company was trying to avoid responsibility for the situation.

Yolanda and the rest of the staff are now pleading with state and county regulators to temporarily close the branch until deep cleaning and safety regulations can be put into place to protect staff and customers. She is also pushing for staff to be paid during the closure.

We are saddened to hear of the passing of Angela Martinez Gómez, who had worked at Burger King for more than fifteen years.

A spokesman from the company has responded to these claims and has said the following:

Burger King deeply values diversity, equality and the safety and fair treatment of our team members and guests. We are investigating the report that transphobic comments were made. They do not align with our values and are unacceptable. Creating an inclusive and welcoming environment is a priority for us and we will be sure to take swift action in this case.

Burger King restaurants follow rigorous precautions to keep team members and guests safe at all times. We have not received any news or confirmation that Angela’s tragic death was associated with COVID-19. No symptoms were reported by the team at that location. Our deepest condolences go out to Angela’s family and friends during this devastating time.

 A Go Fund Me has been started to help support Angela's family, with a goal of $20,000. So far $6,000 has been raised.

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5 More TV Shows Based On Books

Originally published on Set The Tape

When I did research for 5 TV Shows Based On Books I was surprised by just how many there were, and really struggled to narrow it down to just five for that list. After much begging and pleading, the Powers That Be have agreed to let me list some more, so here are 5 more TV shows that started life on the written page.

Shadowhunters (2016 – 2019, Freeform)

Based upon the popular Young Adult supernatural adventure series The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare, this is actually the second attempt at an adaptation, with a film release in 2013 that failed to receive a sequel.

The series focuses on Clary Fray (Katherine McNamara), who, on her 18th birthday, discovers a secret world of monsters, angels, and demons, and that her parents were Shadowhunters: humans born with angelic blood who protected the human world from supernatural forces. When her mother is kidnapped she finds herself drawn into a mystery that not only holds secrets to her past, but threatens the entire world.

Shadowhunters proved to be a popular show, and not just with fans of the books. It took the story of the books and told them over the course of the seasons, yet also introduced some new elements and story-lines to provide new material for fans of the book. Despite its popularity the series was cancelled during its third season, leaving many fans petitioning for the show to come back.

M.A.S.H. (1972 – 1983, CBS)

I was genuinely surprised to learn that M.A.S.H. began life as a book. Despite having never seen a single episode I was so aware of the series and its characters because of how big a cultural icon the show became. It was so popular that the show went on longer than the war it was depicting, at nearly four times the length.

The novel the series was based upon, MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors, was written by former military surgeon Dr. H. Richard Hornberger under the pen name Richard Hooker. It featured characters that would later appear in the television adaptation, and was popular enough to spawn 14 sequel books, with each book sending the doctors to new locations, such as MASH Goes To Paris, and MASH Goes To Texas.

Despite all these books M.A.S.H. will always be best remembered as a television series, with few knowing about its book origins.

Roswell (1999 – 2002, The WB)

Set in the famous UFO hot-spot of Roswell, New Mexico, this series followed the lives of a group of high-school students. When one of them is injured in a shooting she’s mysteriously healed by one of her classmates. Investigating this strange event, she discovers that three of her fellow students are actually aliens who’ve been raised by some of the town residents.

The show was based upon the Roswell High series of Young Adult books by Melinda Metz, a ten book series that chronicled the lives of a trio of aliens and their human friends. The show diverged somewhat from the books, and featured both romance-heavy plots, and had sci-fi story arcs over its three seasons.

The series was so well received, and maintained a fan base long after the show ended, that a second adaptation was made in 2018, Roswell, New Mexico.

8 Simple Rules For Dating My Teenage Daughter (2002 – 2005, ABC)

Another series that’s a surprise entry on this list, 8 Simple Rules was a short-lived American sitcom about a middle class couple and their son and two teenage daughters. Whilst not shown too much in the UK it received more attention after its original airing thanks to the popularity of Kaley Cuoco (The Big Bang Theory) who starred in the series.

The show received good ratings and praise in the US, and would probably have lasted more than its three seasons if not for the unexpected death of series star John Ritter in 2003. The show tried to continue on without him, killing his character off and bringing in two new main cast members, but it was ultimately cancelled.

Unusually, the series was based upon a self help book by author W. Bruce Cameron, who would later develop the title into a sitcom pitch. It stands out as an unusual example of a book being made into a series, as the source material is so different from what ended up on screen.

Hemlock Grove (2013 – 2015, Netflix)

The Netflix horror series Hemlock Grove is based on the novel of the same name by Brian McGreevy, which was released only a year before the series debut.  The series explores the bizarre events happening at Hemlock Grove, an old steel mining town in Pennsylvania.

The series featured some very human drama, as well as a number of supernatural creatures and horrific entities, such as a type of vampire called Upir, werewolves, and reptilian Jörmungandr. The show used familiar creatures in new and interesting ways, and thanks to a cast that included some big names such as Famke Janssen and Bill Skarsgård, had many fans. The series lasted for three seasons, and won a number of awards.

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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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