The general consensus among my friends is that 2016 was one of the worst years in recent memory, marred by a seemingly endless string of celebrity deaths and characterized by a viciously divisive election that was more personal than political. For me, 2016 was an emotional rollercoaster that served as an unlikely getaway vehicle from 2015, AKA the worst year of my life.

The highs and lows of 2016 were so drastic and unevenly spaced that the whole year feels almost surreal in retrospect. There were incredible highs, including Star Trek: The Ultimate Voyage, seeing my name in the credits of not one but three new Mega Man games, and starting work on a Mega Man game of my own. I made one of the biggest decisions of my adult life, walking away from a stable (but undesirable) situation in order to take a risk on a new job and a new home in a different state (or, as I prefer to say, finally moving back to Earth after five years of exile on the moon). I confronted a few personal demons, not exorcising them completely but making invaluable progress. I celebrated a milestone anniversary with my wife, and we helped each other weather one physical or emotional storm after another. I had the weirdest Christmas of my life, filled with twists and turns that had me cycling through the entire range of human emotions for the better part of a week. I actually paid attention to world news for several months, attempting to keep myself informed about topics, such as the Presidential election, that were oppressively unavoidable and that demanded I have an opinion about them. I became an active part of the Mega Man fan community at Sprites INC, and I received their Spike Award for my sporadic gaming livestreams. I informally said farewell to GameCola after 8 years on staff. My mother and I went on a memorable road trip to attend the National Storytelling Festival in Jonesborough, TN. A brief trial of EnChroma glasses gave me a taste of what it's like to see color the way the rest of the world does. I (mostly) stopped picking tomatoes off my sandwiches. It's been quite a year.

Importantly, I made an effort to follow through on my 2016 resolutions (or, as I prefer to think of them, goals). Here's how I did:

Goal #1: Start and finish a YouTube playthrough of Mega Man 8.
Hah! I had every intention of this being the one goal I would definitely achieve, but I ended up spending almost the entire year working on designing Mega Man levels instead. Having spent too many years working on multiple projects and finishing none of them in a reasonable amount of time, I made a conscious decision not to split my focus between projects, and so MM8 remains on hold (but partially recorded) until people stop giving me excuses to make more Mega Man levels.

Goal #2: Make serious headway on the video game my wife and I are planning.
See above. I've at least made serious headway on OH JOES! (A Proto Man Adventure), which hadn't been conceived when I came up with these goals, so I'd call that at least a partial success.

Goal #3: Run at least one D&D campaign, then learn a new tabletop RPG system and run another campaign.
Failure! I played in a number of Pathfinder sessions, but I didn't run any games of my own or learn any new systems. I did at least jot down some ideas for a D&D one-shot that I've been wanting to try for several years. Once again, my creative energies were directed almost entirely toward making Mega Man levels.

Goal #4: Read 12 books.
Failure! Probably. I lost track toward the end. However, I got pretty darn close. My conservative Christian friend sent me a care package of books early in the year, relevant to some conversations we'd had, and they constituted a good portion of my reading list. I have a terrible habit of letting his gifts gather dust for several years before putting them to use, so it was good to delve into these books right away. I may write a separate post discussing everything I read in some kind of detail, but for now, here's what I read in 2016 in the order I read them:
1. Every Good Endeavor by Timothy Keller
2. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson
3. The Ultimates, Vol. 2 by whoever wrote, drew, and inked it; the book's in the other room and I'm too lazy right now
4. And the Good News Is... by Dana Perino
5. William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, a New Hope by Ian Doerscher
6. Firsthand: Ditching Secondhand Religion for a Faith of Your Own by Ryan and Josh Shook
7. Memories of the Future, Volume 1 by Wil Wheaton
8. Spock, Messiah! by Theodore R. Cogswell and Charles A. Spano, Jr.
9. Some Ultimate Spider-Man graphic novel, I think; once again, too lazy to check
10. Star Trek: The Next Generation: Indistinguishable From Magic by David A. McIntee
11. Things That Matter by Charles Krauthammer (about 3/4 read by the end of 2016)

Goal #5: Get my Backloggery progress index into positive double digits.
Success! Even with so much of my leisure time spent reading instead of gaming, I managed to achieve not only double but triple digits—a progress index of +200, to be exact. That means I played or removed from my collection way more games than I added. Granted, there was that Backloggery revolution halfway through the year, so my real progress index is probably more like +2 than +200, but who's counting? Wait, I am.

Goal #6: Write like I used to.
Partial success! My criteria for this one were to write regularly, write positively, and write for myself. I've obviously failed to meet the first criterion, but the second and third are well in hand. Articles like this one and posts like this one capture my passion for blogging and critical analysis, and even if they're not all sunshine and puppycats, they don't come across as the "general bitterness commentary" that characterized my writing for too long a period. I'm writing the way I want to write—the way I used to write—and it feels wonderful.


Now, then. Let's see if I can't come up with some goals I might have a better shot at achieving in 2017:

Goal #1: Spend more weekends at home.
For the last decade or so, I have done an out-of-state road trip at least once every month. Often at least twice a month. Usually at least three times a month. With so many friends and family members living close enough to visit regularly, but far enough away that a day trip is out of the question, I find myself giving up as many as 10 hours every weekend just to get where I'm going and back. Departing on a Friday evening or first thing Saturday morning, and not coming back until Sunday afternoon or evening, leaves me with insufficient time to work on my creative projects and keep on top of the housework and kick around and relax. It also leaves me with insufficient funds to live as freely as I'd like to—road trips are expensive. For the sake of my sanity and my wallet, I intend to set aside at least one weekend a month for going nowhere.

Goal #2: Finish OH JOES! (A Proto Man Adventure).
Everything is on track for the game to be released in early 2017, so I really hope there aren't any awful surprises here.

Goal #3: Finish a YouTube playthrough of Mega Man 8.
As long as I'm not designing Mega Man levels the entire year, this should be doable.

Goal #4: Read 12 books.
I was very close to accomplishing this in 2016, and I only fell short because of how Christmas vacation turned out. I'd like this goal to become a staple, because it's good to be reading again.

Goal #5: Maintain a positive Backloggery progress index.
Likewise, I'd like to make this goal a staple. My video game wishlist has shrunk dramatically in the last year, and I'm quicker than ever to identify when it's time to stop playing the game I'm working on.

Goal #6: Get involved in my community.
It has been eating as me for several years that I'm not involved in church and volunteer activities like I used to be. I want to join a choir or a small group or something, and I want to find ways to live where I'm living. Hopefully, spending more weekends at home will allow me the time to do so.


I've got a good feeling about these goals. I'll let you know in a year how things go.

Every good hero has an origin story. Often, the stories are rooted in tragedy; family members of heroes-to-be have an alarmingly high mortality rate. Accidents, coincidences, even destiny itself have been known to set a hero on the path to adventure. No matter the details, origin stories all have one thing in common: they bore me to tears.

When Frodo Baggins finally leaves the Shire, or when Harry Potter finally arrives at Hogwarts, then things get interesting to me. I outright refused to see the reboots of Fantastic Four and Spider-Man; I don't need to spend at least half a movie waiting for these mundane characters to turn into superheroes again, having just watched it happen a mere decade ago. Heroes are like meals at a restaurant: I don't mind learning about how they're made, but I don't need to see the whole process every single time. More often than not, origin stories aren't even appetizers; they're the waiter standing there with a tray of food, talking about where it came from instead of serving it to you.

If I want an origin story, I want an origin story. Batman: Year One is one of my favorite graphic novels, despite being nothing but an origin story, because it spends all 96 pages telling a compelling, self-contained tale that just happens to take place earlier in Bruce Wayne's life than we're used to seeing. The path to becoming a hero is the story, not just the first third or half of the story that takes away from the time I could be spending watching Batman be Batman.

That's why I like the first Iron Man movie as much as I do: Tony Stark is Iron Man, and there's no waiting involved to see the character you signed up for. The only difference is that he gets cooler tech as the story progresses. As the movies go on, Tony's origin story continues to play an instrumental role in his development. This is not some one-and-done explanation of how he became a superhero; the shrapnel in his chest and his fixation on building a legacy before he dies are persistent reminders of his origin story. The origin and the story are too intertwined for the former to feel like a roadblock to the latter.

That's why I also like Captain America: The First Avenger, despite it being yet another origin story (set during a time period that's been overdone in film, no less). At first, Steve Rogers is hardly the shield-slinging super soldier he goes on to become, but he's still a hero in his own right. Cap's roots as a scrawny, straight-laced, diehard patriot are essential to appreciating who this character is and what he stands for, and we don't need to wait for him to power up before he starts growing a personality or dealing with conflicts of any real consequence.

Compare this with Star Wars. (Yes, I'm about to criticize Star Wars.) Luke Skywalker lives on a boring moisture farm on a boring rock called Tatooine doing boring jobs for his boring uncle. It's abundantly clear that Luke (and the audience, if the audience is me) desperately wants something—anything—interesting to happen. When adventure finally finds him, there's a transition period where Luke is still a naive, excitable farm boy seeing the galaxy for the first time...and then he's suddenly a confident action hero, with little or no trace of his previous character traits. By the start of the next movie, nothing that happened before meeting Ben Kenobi really matters anymore. It's origin stories like this that drive me mad. Yes, it's important to Luke's character arc to show his progression from an average teenager to the savior of the galaxy, but we don't need to spend so much time with his old friends, adopted parents, and drudgerous life on a moisture farm to understand what he's leaving behind, particularly if the story never refers back to them after a certain point.

A narrative doesn't always need to develop a full backstory for the heroes, nor does it need to present all the backstory in chronological order. Super Mario Bros. for the NES drops you right into the action; there's no time wasted on playing as Mario in the real world for the first few levels so you can appreciate his humble origins as a plumber. Firefly is selective about how its characters' origin stories are conveyed, leaving much of the past shrouded in mystery until it's narratively rewarding to reveal more. In the case of origin stories, I believe that less is generally more; you can always shed more light on a character's past as a story progresses, but you can never give back time spent setting up the story people came to see.

I think the solution may be to drop the "origin story" designation altogether. Just tell one good story, instead of two separate stories that need to be told together. If we learn something about the hero's background in the process, so much the better.

One of my favorite blogging traditions with Exfanding Your Horizons was making up New Year's resolutions with my blogging buddy and then reflecting on them a year later. The blog went on permanent hiatus on the day we'd normally do our writing and reflecting, and I somehow never reinstated the tradition on this blog.

That's because, originally, this blog was little more than a place to get my writing fix until Exfanding came back from hiatus. Something temporary. I wasn't planning on setting down roots here and carrying on with traditions. This was the same thing I said about moving to the moon, and I've been living here since 2011. Somewhere along the line, this blog and my moon base became my home, and it's only recently that I've been treating them as such. I'd been waiting for the day where I'd resume business as usual, but this is business as usual. Time to stop looking to the past like it's the future. Time to look at the present and do something about it if it's not to my liking. What a good time to start making resolutions again.

"Resolutions" isn't the right word, though. Resolutions are promises you feel guilty for breaking. I prefer to set goals; goals are things you feel good about achieving. I've learned to set reasonable goals for myself that are general enough to accomplish, but specific enough to be meaningful. Here's what I have in mind for 2016:

Goal #1: Start and finish a YouTube playthrough of Mega Man 8.
Anyone familiar with the saga of Mega Man 7 knows how much of a stretch this one is. Each Mega Man video series I've done has taken longer than the last, so smart money says I won't accomplish this goal until 2020 at the very earliest. Smart money is inanimate and highly flammable, however, so you shouldn't listen to it. I've streamlined my recording process and am livestreaming on a regular basis, which keeps me in the recording spirit, so I believe I can make this happen if I keep at it.

Goal #2: Make serious headway on the video game my wife and I are planning.
We don't talk about it much because we want to keep the particulars a secret, but my wife and I are working on a video game. It's still in the planning stages, but I'd like to have at least a partially playable beta ready before the end of the year.

Goal #3: Run at least one D&D campaign, then learn a new tabletop RPG system and run another campaign.
Since I started playing in college, Dungeons & Dragons has been an endless source of stories and one of my favorite ways to spend time with people. Moving to the moon has put me out of touch with a regular group of players, but nothing says I can't host the occasional one-shot campaign for friends and family who are willing to hop on a rocketship and drop in for a weekend. I'm also looking to diversify beyond D&D, as my other tabletop RPG experience is quite limited, and there's a copy of the Serenity Roleplaying Game rulebook on my shelf that's been gathering dust for too gorram long.

Goal #4: Read 12 books.
I was an avid reader up until late middle school or early high school, at which point I started associating reading with work, rather than with leisure. I've since warmed back up to reading as a pastime, and I casually follow a number of blogs, but I'd like to get back in the habit of reading as an alternative to the electronic entertainment that dominates my life. One book a month doesn't seem unreasonable, especially if I include graphic novels, which totally count.

Goal #5: Get my Backloggery progress index into positive double digits.
It's only since 2014 that I've been finishing more video games a year than I add to my collection, but just barely. Net progress in 2014 was +5, and 2015 was a measly +2 (technically +3, if you count the game I sold in December but forgot to remove from my list until New Year's Day). Lest you think this is a "play more video games" goal, my intention here is to be more discerning with how I spend my time and money, trimming my collection down to only the games I truly want to be there.

Goal #6: Write like I used to.
There are three meanings here: write regularly, write positively, and write for myself. Writing is cathartic, and I want to look back on a year's worth of posts that I would want to read, even if I hadn't written them. I want to unearth the bright-eyed, happy little kid inside me who's been buried under the layers of anger, frustration, disappointment, and anxiety that have accumulated over the last few years of resisting the present instead of reshaping it. With GameCola on hiatus, it's more important than ever that I make this website feel like home, and writing like I used to may be the best way to do it.


Ta-dah! A half-dozen goals, and those are just the ones I'm writing down (I'll spare you the one about eating less fried dough this time). Ambitious? Yes, but not unreachable. These aren't only goals; they're lifestyle changes, or at least catalysts for such—and after the 2015 I had, I have never been so ready for change. See you back here in a year to assess my success!

Judging by my enthusiasm for Dungeons & Dragons, the variety of fantasy novels on my bookshelf, the number of fantasy-themed RPGs on my Backloggery, and the fact that I've back-to-back marathoned both The Lord of the Rings extended edition trilogy and all eight Harry Potter films (at separate times, of course), you'd think I was a fan of the fantasy genre. In truth, I merely appreciate a well-told story. More often than not, I like these works of entertainment despite their genre, not because of it.

I'm an escapist. The less my fiction resembles reality, the more I tend to enjoy it, at least as a general matter of principle. That's why I'm such a big fan of sci-fi: when was the last time you terraformed a planet or took a spaceship to work? Sci-fi is often futuristic. I know where we've been, and I know where we are, but I'm most excited to see where we'll go. Dystopian fiction? Forget it. I want to believe we have a bright future ahead of us, or at least a future where our prosperity and advancement have introduced a whole new set of conflicts unlike any we've previously dealt with.

Fantasy? Fantasy lives in the past. Medieval England. Old folklore. Rehashes of Tolkien. Fantasy is hung up on that which cannot be explained. Magic. Ancient curses. Elements that do not hold writers accountable to any standards of logic or continuity. Fantasy is gimmicky; something familiar with something unfamiliar slapped on top of it. ("These aren't any horses! They're magical horses.") Fantasy has the potential to be a realm of pure imagination that bears only a passing resemblance to reality. What I want out of the genre is the whimsical creativity of Roald Dahl, the built-from-scratch feel of the Golden Sun universe, and the utterly foreign lifestyle and culture of Conan the Barbarian. What I most often see and think of is, "WHOA! Dirty peasants, filthy hovels...and a dragon!!!"

And elves. Always with the elves.

Anybody got any suggestions that might win me over?

August was a very good month for me, personally and...electronically? Whatever it is I report on the first post of each month. The book The Happiness Project made a big impact, as did getting to spend so much time with family and friends I haven't seen in forever. Even at my most exhausted, I was more at ease and rejuvenated than I've been for some time.

This Blog:

If you're particularly observant, you may have noticed a pattern this past month. In an effort to write more and about more, I launched a personal initiative to write a blog post concerning each of the category tags I'd used for previous posts, in order (so, Anime, Books, Collecting and Collectables, etc.). My original plan was to write a post every day or almost every day, timing it so that this post (tagged as Retrospective) would appear in order after a post on Politics and a post on Religion. Given my travel schedule for the month, it didn't take long to realize the strain that would impose. We'll pretend "R" for "Retrospective" falls squarely between "E" for "Exfanding Your Horizons" and "F" for "Fantasy". A B C D E R F...

- Retrospective: July 2014
- Anime Write About It After All
- The Happiness Project
- Married to Someone Else's Work
- Conventional Wisdom
- Indefinite Hiatus

GameCola:

One of the more amusing Q&AmeCola responses I've contributed, and probably my favorite thing I've written for GameCola all year. I also spent a fair amount of time behind the scenes, editing old articles to bring them up to code. That's an ongoing project you can assume I'll be working on for the foreseeable future, given that the videogame-humor-turned-gaming-outside-the-mainstream website has articles dating back to 2002, and I'm only halfway through 2005 for the review category alone.

- Q&AmeCola: World Leader Appearances
- Castlevania: Rondo of Blood (Wii-VC)

The Backloggery:

Well, this is a first. I don't think I've ever had a gaming month so slow that I had to remove games to make a dent in my backlog. A bit of cleanup that I thought I'd already done, clearing out Flash games I no longer intend to attempt to beat from Homestar Runner and my Flash Flood columns. I continued to slog through Tomb Raider III and Mega Man Battle Network 3 White, though I did add an old favorite, EarthBound, into the rotation—but because my first attempt at playing the game was years and years ago, Started status has long since come and gone, hence its absence from the list.

Removed:
- Awexome Cross  (Brwsr)
- Trogdor  (Brwsr)
- Zombie Attack  (Brwsr)
- Zombie Survival Special Mission  (Brwsr)

Between my blog post project, my GameCola archive project, a bit of revamping and updating of my Series Opinions feature on this site, the games I have going, and the next Mega Man 7 video that's already in the works, I've got plenty to keep me busy for the next month, and hopefully plenty to report on next time around.

I was an avid reader when I was younger—I had a fifth-grade reading level in first grade, as I recall, and I grew up with a mother who was only ever seen without a book in hand when gardening, cooking, or giving me a hug—but middle school gradually changed reading from a pleasure activity into a draining, focus-intensive task. Video games filled the leisure void where reading used to be, and it wasn't until I was tapped to play Gilderoy Lockhart at the local library's midnight release of the latest Harry Potter book that I got back into reading. Getting up to speed on the world I was about to enter was more fun than I anticipated, and I continued to devour the series well after my wizarding engagement had ended. In college, I managed to swing Religion as a second major with minimal extra strain on my schedule, and I discovered that reading for class could also be reading for pleasure if the course matter and literature selection aligned with my interests. It took years, but I'm reading again. Mostly just sci-fi, humor, and religion, with the occasional graphic novel, but reading is reading, right?

Some time ago, I was given a book by my long-suffering friend, who has a history of thoughtfully and carefully selecting gifts for me that I inevitably complain about when I finally get around to taking them off the shelf a few years later. While that sounds terrible (and it is), the bigger picture is that his gifts always get a strong response from me, positive or negative—it's a testament to how well he knows me that the best gifts are awesome, and the ones I complain about are video games that would have been awesome if it weren't for one or two major problems that aren't apparent until you're playing the game for yourself. Keeping things on the shelf for years isn't a sign of disrespect or a lack of interest; with an entire lifetime hopefully still ahead of me to pick things up off the shelf, I like to keep things in reserve until I'm in the right time and place to get the most out of them. Such was the case with this book—Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project—which reentered my life at exactly the right time.

Life circumstances were stressing me out, and equally importantly, I was recently disappointed by Michael Dorn's Time Blender and needed a new book that preferably wouldn't turn out to be only half a story because the first hundred pages were mostly drawn-out introduction for a sequel. I reasoned that good fiction hinges on too many variables, but nonfiction can get away with less if the topic is sufficiently educational and thought-provoking on its own. What nonfiction did I have on my shelf?

The Happiness Project: Or, Why I Spent a Year Trying to Sing in the Morning, Clean My Closets, Fight Right, Read Aristotle, and Generally Have More Fun had always looked like an interesting read, yet it kept slipping out of sight every time I went digging through my collection. I wouldn't be surprised if a little bit of divine intervention kept me distracted with other books the last several years; I wanted--needed—something to lift my spirits, and if something called The Happiness Project can't, then I'm moving to another universe.

In short, the book is the story of one woman's year-long effort to focus on improving her own happiness in various aspects of her life. The tales she relays about her own successes, the quotes she produces from famous thinkers, and the way she analyzes everything from energy to parenting to friendship have inspired me to reexamine my own situation, apply some of the techniques she's found beneficial, and consider a Happiness Project of my own. In fact, this post is part of a mini-project to write more often, because writing makes me happy. So as to have time to properly digest each chapter, I've only been reading one chapter every day or few days; it's been barely a week, and already I'm seeing a result from applying what I've read.

There's more I could say, but I'd like a little more time for my thoughts to simmer before launching into a full overview of the book (which I'm sure you can find elsewhere) and how it's been moving me to change my approach to my own happiness (which I'm sure I'll write about if I move forward with a formal Happiness Project in the future). The important part is that I'm happy to be reading, and reading is making me happy. For now, I'll leave it at that.

It occurs to me that, after my last post, it might be beneficial to establish that I'm not altogether opposed to everything new and modern. It's true that I tend to live in the past, watching television shows that've been off the air for a decade and reading books well after they've been moved off the New Releases shelf, but that's not to say I have an aversion to everything new—after all, everything old was new at some point.

To help illustrate my lack of ill will toward all forms of modernity, I've compiled a list of my top five favorite films from the last five years. It's too early to have a Top Five list for video games (I haven't played half the ones in my library), I think I've only read four books from the last five years, and my other big passions (namely, food and music) would require more time than I'd like to spend researching. Off the top of my head, Mere Churchianity, The Gastronomy of Marriage, All the President's Pastries, Mega Man 9, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, cherry-flavored Tic Tacs, and Foster the People have been welcome additions to my life. Unless Wikipedia's correct and the Tic Tacs are from 2007, in which case I should probably throw out the package I have in the car.

Clever segue...

Nathaniel's Top Five Favorite Films of 2008-2013:

How to Train Your Dragon (2010) - Funny, likable characters, an appealing animation style, and seriously one of the coolest climactic battle sequences I've seen in a movie. My wife and I saw Iron Man 2 afterwards, and we both agreed that, for as explosive as the film was, this children's movie had a better final boss. It's that good.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009) - This was a surprise; I'm normally not into gritty crime thrillers and dramas that don't involve spaceships and sentient computers, but the original Swedish adaptation of the book series everyone else was reading left a big impression on me (the extended version in particular). In addition to being one of the most shockingly "adult" movies I've ever seen (remember, this is the guy who just put How to Train Your Dragon in his top five), it's not often that I've seen such a unique, complex, and compelling female lead as Lisbeth Salander (and such an incredible performance, at that). Between her, the storytelling style, the twists and turns of the plot, and the novelty of being the first Swedish film I think I've ever seen, everything came together to make Dragon Tattoo such a fascinating experience that even I couldn't help but get sucked into it.

Inception (2010) - The most satisfyingly cerebral action flick I'd seen in a long time. Interesting concept, great execution, and very pretty. Also nice to see Tom Hardy and a grown-up Joseph Gordon-Levitt doing something completely different from their respective roles in Star Trek: Nemesis and 3rd Rock from the Sun, which is all I'd known them from previously.

Oblivion (2013) - Similar to Inception, Oblivion was the most satisfying science fiction flick I'd seen in a long time. I'd been sorely missing the kind of escapist sci-fi that, in the first five minutes, establishes a sense that this is a universe unlike our own. Decent sci-fi throws hovercars and funny-looking aliens at the viewer; good sci-fi develops settings and situations unlike anything we've ever encountered in real life, but with enough traces of reality that the viewer can still relate. Despite any of the film's shortcomings, Oblivion sticks with me because of the thought-provoking world it created—and great sci-fi keeps you thinking about it long after the credits roll. Plus, the film's got a killer soundtrack by M83, so you can guess what would be on my Top Five list for music, if I had one.

The Avengers (2012) - Ah, the one movie on my list that doesn't end in -ion or have the word "dragon" in it. While I think I might like Iron Man (2008) just a smidge more, The Avengers represents the culmination of film collaboration the likes of which Hollywood has never seen, unless there's another five movies out there with independent storylines that were subtly woven together to form the groundwork for a single film starring all of the other films' characters. The Avengers isn't just an engagingly comedic and action-packed spectacle in its own right; it's proof that movies can be so much more than a string of sequels, remakes, and reboots. The shared continuity of a cinematic universe has been long overdue—television's been at it forever, from Eureka and Warehouse 13 to Frasier, Wings, and Cheers—and you can tell the people involved have actually picked up a comic book before. I think Hollywood is finally realizing that the source material is what makes the source material popular; radically changing it to appeal to a moviegoing audience defeats the purpose.

Honorable Mentions:
2008 - Horton Hears a Who!, Kung Fu Panda
2009 - Watchmen, District 9
2010 - Despicable Me, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, The King's Speech
2011 - The Smurfs (Kidding! Kidding. Everything I've seen has been decent or pretty good, but not honorable-mentiony.)
2012 - Les Misérables
2013 - I didn't see it in 3D, but does Jurassic Park count?

I just (literally, just a few minutes ago) finished reading Lee Strobel's book The Case for Christ, which takes a journalistic approach to examining the evidence for Jesus Christ as historical figure, God incarnate, and resurrected Lord. Strobel, a former atheist, interviews a series of high-profile scholars who discuss everything from the authenticity of the gospels to the psychological profile of Jesus. In part, the book is a recreation of Strobel's journey to faith, addressing the questions that had previously left him skeptical; in part, it's a beginner's handbook for anyone investigating the topic for themselves.

For me—raised Christian, studied religions in college, searching to solidify exactly what I believe--The Case for Christ was exactly what I had been looking for: a reinforcement of some things I knew or felt were true, and a starting point for an exploration of the points still in doubt or question. Strobel himself says it on page 270, in the conclusion of the book:

"Perhaps after reading expert after expert, listening to argument after argument, seeing the answers to question after question, and testing the evidence with your logic and common sense, you've found, as I have, that the case for Christ is conclusive....On the other hand, maybe questions still linger for you. Perhaps I didn't address the objection that's uppermost in your mind. Fair enough. No single book can deal with every nuance. However, I trust that the amount of information reported in these pages will at least have convinced you that it's reasonable—in fact, imperative—to continue your investigation."

That last part is crucial, and it's something I've believed for as long as I can remember: if there's even the possibility that any of the world's religions are true, then it's of chief importance that you figure out what to believe...and even once you've settled on something, to continue challenging and testing your beliefs for the rest of your life. Truth (capital T) should stand up to any scrutiny; even if your truth (lowercase t) should fall to devastating criticism, that doesn't automatically make your truth false—or that criticism Truth.

In other words, we're doomed to argue about religion until the Flying Spaghetti Monster comes to claim us all.

Religion, like politics, is a subject we humans don't seem to know how to discuss rationally. We can calmly disagree about TV shows, parenting styles, and fashion, but scuffles over religion ironically bring out the worst in us. Too often I've seen atheists categorically dismiss Christians as mentally deficient for believing in something they can't directly measure. Too often I've seen Christians hand out vicious judgment before hearing the other side of the story, as though Romans chapter 14 is just there for decoration. Instead of sharing our beliefs, understanding each other, and helpfully showing the other person the folly of their ways, we too often spit on the visitors to our ivory towers.

Having borrowed The Case for Christ, I went online to find a copy for myself and a copy to give to other people—given how helpful it was to me, and how accessible it is (complete with discussion questions at the end of each chapter), I figured it would be nice to have a spare that I could lend out to any religious searchers, or anyone who contends that you need to shut off your brain to believe in Christianity. Strobel makes it clear that men have been sentenced to death with less evidence than there is for the Biblical identity of Jesus; I think that's a compelling notion that makes for meaningful conversation, regardless of how much Strobel only skims the surface of the subject.

I was shocked to read the reviews of the book on Amazon. The recurring theme was, "Don't give this to an atheist, because they'll hate you." People blasted the book, some going so far as to say that, if this book reflects Strobel's journey to faith, then he wasn't much of an atheist to begin with to be converted so easily—that's not just a criticism of the book; it's a personal attack, and one that I would find offensive if it were leveled at me. While there are hundreds of positive reviews of the book, it's clear that the naysayers—at least, the ones whose comments I read—seem to object to the fact that this is The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus, and not Lee Strobel Interviews Everybody in the World with an Opinion About Jesus and Concludes Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt that We Can't Agree on Anything.

I also found a book by Robert M. Price that's a direct response to this one, The Case Against The Case for Christ: A New Testament Scholar Refutes the Reverend Lee Strobel. The cover of the book is the same one Strobel uses, with the impression of a hand with the crucifixion nail hole in it, except it's giving a thumbs-down—so you can tell already this is going to be a polite, respectful disagreement. The book description reads as follows:

"Leading New Testament scholar Robert M. Price has taken umbrage at the cavalier manner in which Rev. Lee Strobel has misrepresented the field of Bible scholarship in his book The Case for Christ. Price exposes and refutes Strobel's arguments chapter-by-chapter. In doing so he has occasion to wipe out the entire field of Christian apologetics as summarized by Strobel. This book is a must-read for anyone bewildered by the various books published by Rev. Strobel."

Bear in mind that, as I was reading this description, I was still in that euphoric "I just read a very enjoyable, thought-provoking book that has helped open the door for me to start thinking seriously about my spiritual life again" mindset. Which promptly disappeared as soon as I got to the reviews, if not by the end of that description. I think one of the reviewers puts it best:

"Unfortunately, those who can most profit from exposure to this book are the ones least likely to read it."

Ooh! Ooh! I can tell you exactly why: Because, even before the reviewers start lambasting Strobel and praising Price, that book description is specifically targeting all those atheists I was warned not to buy The Case for Christ for. I might've been persuaded to read the book if it had read something like this:

"Millions of readers worldwide have seen the evidence presented by Rev. Lee Strobel in his book The Case for Christ, but how many have put that evidence to the test? Leading New Testament scholar Robert M. Price examines Rev. Strobel's arguments chapter-by-chapter, exposing dangerously flawed logic and inaccurate facts that misrepresent the field of Bible scholarship. This book is a must-read for anyone who has taken Rev. Strobel at his word, or who is bewildered by the various books he has published."

See, that would've gotten me interested. Instead, I'm looking at a book that sounds like a fair reexamination of Strobel's book, poisoned by raging personal bias. There's nothing wrong with writing a scathing rebuttal every now and again—and I'll reiterate that I haven't read this book, so I'm only going off of the description and the reviews—but I'm struggling to think of any work refuting Christianity or Christian literature that isn't laced with some sort of venom or smugness. The vibe I get from most counter-Christian arguments is not, "Hey, you're wrong, I'll show you why"; rather, it's more like, "FOOL! You know nothing of reality!" I don't know if pro-Christian arguments sound that way to other people (they probably do), but it seems counterproductive to craft a very intelligent, persuasive argument and completely ignore the sensibilities of the people you're trying to convince.

You know where I'm going from here? Other religions. I'm at the point in my study of Christianity where the questions I have yet to answer are the really complicated or contentious ones; before I spend any more time investigating the faith I grew up with, I want to apply the same critical eye to the rest of the world's religions (well, maybe not all of them, but you know what I mean).

If I call myself a Christian, I want it to be not just because I believe the evidence and arguments and it all feels right, but because I've looked at the evidence and arguments for other belief systems and found them unconvincing. I'd like to think I'm open-minded enough to give other religions, even atheism a fair chance—to give Truth a chance, wherever it may be found—and my next step is to take Strobel's approach to other beliefs. What do we know about Muhammad from historical records? How well have the sayings of the Buddha been preserved? How would a psychoanalyst describe L. Ron Hubbard? I'll do some investigative journalism of my own, and see where that takes me.

Whether Strobel's right on the money, woefully mistaken in every regard, or somewhere in-between, The Case for Christ is precisely what I needed to jump-start my stalled personal faith journey, and to spark my interest again in what is probably my favorite academic subject. Praise Zenithar, may I walk with the Prophets, thanks be to Pelor, and hallowed are the Ori.