There’s a movie theater near me that has fifty-cent movies on Tuesday. They never really run anything amazingly good, of course, but every once in a while they’ll have something decent. It’s the best place ever to watch the most awful movies because you get to see them on the big screen for almost no money.
I saw Doom there about a month ago, and—let me tell you—the idea of having extended first-person action scenes in a movie is awesome! Think of how sweet something like Rocky would be if the fight scenes were in first-person? Or what about, like, Tombstone? That would be so FPS Doug it wouldn’t be funny, except that it really would be.
Anyway, last night my apartment-mate Arnie and I went to the Fitty Cent to see King Kong on the big screen. I have to admit it was better than I thought it would be. That might be because all I heard about it was that it was really long and some of the scenes were uncomfortably protracted because Peter Jackson can’t direct something shorter than two hours and thirty minutes.
Can you imagine a romantic-comedy directed by Peter Jackson? It would be two parts of two hours each, and by the end you’d know every detail about each person involved in the relationship. Imagine High Fidelity only excruciating instead of fun.
Really, they should have done King Kong as two separate movies too. There’s a clear division between the sections on Skull Island and those in New York, and I’m sure both halves could be filled with enough interesting detail to make them both viable.
So this has what to do with Magic now? Well, nothing so far, but I’ve got a couple of theme decks that will knock your socks off, to paraphrase Jack Black not from King Kong.
We’ll start with the humans first, since, well, we meet them first. This is the Anti-Kong deck if you will, and I think you might.
(I think I should point out first of all that, as with most theme decks, these aren’t very good. I will liken them to a time when all decks were casual and terrible because we had no freaking clue what we were doing.)
Venture: the Deck
1x Atalya, Samite Master – this is Naomi Watts’s character, Ann Darrow. At 2/3 she’s got a fittingly nice body and can protect Kong (or more likely your own creatures) from harm while also rejuvenating you.
1x Barrin, Master Wizard – this is Adrian Brody’s character, Jack Driscoll. He’s the most useful and determined of the humans, so he can either stop Kong or save one of his fellow humans. He’s also a 1/1 because Adrian Brody looks more like an accountant than an action movie star.
1x Hakim Loreweaver – filling out the list of stars with Jack Black’s character, Carl Denham. He’s got a four-butt and can bring wonder to people by making himself look better with enchantments. Of course he’s also selfish, so he doesn’t share enchantments.
1x Gerrard Capashen – Captain Engelhorn as played by Thomas Kretschmann. He’s a good guy except for his penchant for knocking animals out to take them home and sell them. Besides, don’t soldiery people always get Gerrard as their cardboard representative?
1x Sakashima the Imposter – Bruce Baxter the actor, played by Kyle Chandler the actor. He may not be getting the newspaper a day early anymore, but at least he always knows what’s in style. (Did anyone get that? Tell me if you did.) In the movie, he usually manages to do whatever’s necessary to survive.
1x Tobias Andrion, 1x Gosta Dirk – These will be the hardest to find, so feel free to replace them. Anyway, these are two of the Venture’s sailors, the cook and Hayes respectively. They’re interesting characters, but in the end they don’t really do anything, so they’re big creatures that don’t really do anything.
1x Kitsune Mystic – Jimmy, the deckhand. Jimmy eventually proves himself useful, just like in this deck, when eventually he’ll get more enchantments back.
1x Pirate Ship – The Venture. It can’t really do anything to Kong in the game or in the movie, but the humans do need a place to live.
3x Stormscape Apprentice – Carl Denham’s film crew: Mike the sound guy, Herb the camera guy, and Preston the other guy (as played by Tom Hanks’s son). They’re good for cannon fodder and slowing the other team down.
4x Merfolk Traders – The faithful crew of the Venture. Also cool to throw in monsters’ ways.
4x Sleeping Potion, 3x Mystic Restraints, 3x Parapet, 4x Archery Training – Well, you have to capture Kong somehow, right? Sounds like chloroform, some good rope, a wall and some guns to me!
2x Buoyancy – The Venture. It floats.
2x Ward of Lights – That part where Barrin…I mean Adrian…I mean Jack throws the flare to keep the giant bugs away. For the record, I don’t know why they survived that part, or any other part for that matter.
2x Alexei’s Cloak – Most of the people wear clothes.
2x Indomitable Will – Carl’s sense of determination to get Kong, everyone else’s sense of determination to get the heck out of there.
2x Guardian’s Magemark – Jack playing Ann’s protector. Captain Englehorn playing everyone’s protector.
10x Island, 10x Plains – Well, every deck needs some lands, right? It’s plain that they’re on an island.
Good, eh?
There’s some slick stuff you can do with enchantments, and most of them are playable as instants, which is cool because you’ll have some combat tricks of some kind. Archery Training could end up being an all-star, just like real guns.
Hopefully the mana-curve isn’t so wonky that it just won’t play. If it is, feel free to adjust it as you see fit. I mean, it’s not like I’m going to know, right? Unless you tell me, and I really don’t care, so don’t bother. Yeah.
For now, you can pretend that our faithful crew and their passengers are setting sail on the Venture for Skull Island. I’ll put that deck up tomorrow and suggest some rules you could use for playing one deck against the other.
In closing, let me just say that Jack Black is still not a serious actor because he looks and talks like Jack Black.
Until next time, remember, “’Twas beauty killed the beast.”
Worst ending ever.
No comments:
Post a Comment