Like every other longtime Metroid fan, I've been waiting nearly two decades for a proper sequel to Metroid Fusion. When Metroid Dread became available for preorder, I went to great lengths to secure a copy of the Special Edition, and I began a hunt for the game's ever-elusive amiibo. I steered clear of previews, reviews, and anything else that might influence my opinion or spoil anything before I had a chance to play through the game. Once my copy arrived, I played as long and often as possible. If you didn't know any better, you might think I was excited about Dread.

The thing is, I was dreading Dread. Each new installment in the last 15 years has caused me to question more and more what Metroid is, where it's going, and whether or not I still belong in the fandom. Whereas the original Metroid, Metroid II, Super, Fusion, Zero Mission, Prime, Prime 2, and even Pinball are all games I love, like, or at least respect enough to have played a minimum of three times each—making sure to clear Hard Mode (if available) and get all the items and see all the endings—I haven't bothered beating any of the more recent games more than once. If I haven't truly enjoyed Metroid since the GameCube era, then how much longer can I complain about new installments before giving up on the franchise?

You may have noticed the title of this post.

I can no longer consider myself a Metroid fan.

Get comfortable; this is gonna be a long one.

I've played bad games before, and I've played good games that aren't my style. Dread, somehow, is both. If you strip away everything but the puzzles and upgrades, Dread has the foundation for a solid Metroid experience. However, every other aspect of the game contributes to a Metroid experience that I never want to repeat. I'm not playing Dread again, and based on what it tells me about where the franchise is headed, I'm not playing any future Metroid games, either.

It comes down to four key factors: accessibility, conveyance, difficulty, and storytelling. A fifth factor, which I wasn't expecting to be relevant in a direct sequel to Fusion, exacerbated the problems: not having played Samus Returns first. Until I get to the part where I discuss this fifth factor, I'm going to pretend like Samus Returns doesn't exist, so as not to muddy the waters with information I didn't have when playing Dread.

Major spoilers ahead for Dread, Fusion, and the rest of the Metroid series.

ACCESSIBILITY

There is no excuse for a game released in 2021 to have no customization options whatsoever, save for brightness. I wanted to crank up the music—an essential component of the Metroid experience—which I could barely hear over the sound effects. I wanted to adjust the Free Aim sensitivity so I could actually hit an E.M.M.I. in the face with the Omega Cannon; I had to be extra choosy about where to engage, because my aim kept snapping to odd angles that just missed the target.

I wanted to remap the controls to be logical and comfortable. I can't tell you how many times I got smacked around because I instinctively reached for the wrong button, or because it took me a hair too long to get my finger over to the button I needed. I wanted the option to change the "hold this button" buttons to be toggle switches instead; it's physically tiring to maintain pressure on buttons that aren't where I need them to be, and I had a hard time wrapping my brain around holding and releasing multiple buttons in the right sequence (seriously, taking down an E.M.M.I. was a nightmare).

Adding insult to injury, Dread's control "menu" assumes you're playing with the Switch in your hands, not on a television with a Pro Controller like I did. Having never played a Switch game before, I didn't appreciate the extra effort required to compare my controller against a diagram of a totally different one.

I found myself longing for the ability to toggle upgrades on and off at will, like in Super. When I'm attempting wacky acrobatics involving a series of ledge grabs, I don't want the Morph Ball to automatically roll me into the nooks I'm using as handholds. When I collect Super Missiles, I don't want them to replace my normal missiles entirely; the lower rate of fire forces me to aim every shot carefully, eliminating the option of a wild barrage when there's no time to be accurate. (This, in turn, makes collecting Missile Expansions less exciting—if I can't let loose on the bosses, then I'm never gonna need this much ammo.)

Moreover, I'm colorblind. Dread isn't the first video game to overlook my disability, nor is it the worst offender in the Metroid series (remember the final boss of Hunters?), but it's still disappointing. The map is harder to use than necessary because half the teleporter symbols look the same (why not use colors and shapes?). Unless they're on the same screen together, I can't tell a Charge Beam door from a Power Beam door (which doesn't sound like a big deal until there's an E.M.M.I. closing in and the door isn't opening).

Although I've never been formally diagnosed with OCD, I absolutely have some obsessive-compulsive tendencies. I'm the guy who jumps around the landing site in Super until every block of the map is filled in, including the tiny corners you can barely get into. So you can imagine my horror when discovering how excessively granular the map system is in Dread. Instead of splitting areas into chunks that mirror how much of the map you actually seen on your screen, it uses Samus as a paintbrush to color in the map one pixel at a time. Walk down a hallway that's barely taller than Samus is, and your map of that hallway is incomplete unless you're jumping into the low ceiling while you move. My undiagnosed OCD can't cope with that. It took me ~12.5 hours to reach the final boss, which feels absurd, and filling in my stupid map accounts for too much of that time.

Let me toggle the icons on and off so I can actually see the map. Give me textures instead of bright colors to distinguish water/lava regions from normal regions. Regardless of color-coding, my brain equates "dark vs light" as "unexplored vs explored"; I could never immediately tell what was a room I had fully explored that had water/lava on bottom, and what was a room I had only explored the bottom of. Similarly, I kept mistaking fully explored rooms with lots of platforms for partially explored rooms with shadow regions that just look like platforms. Filling in every inch of the map wasn't just a compulsion; it was necessary to simplify the map enough to make it usable. I've never had this much trouble with a map in a video game.

CONVEYANCE

If you're going to tell me how to play Metroid, give me a dedicated tutorial area that finds a narrative excuse to teach me everything I need to know (eg, Prime). Otherwise, don't pester me with things I could learn from the instruction manual. I don't mind a brief explanation of how to use new abilities as I unlock them (eg, Zero Mission), and I don't mind if gameplay tips are worked into the story somehow (eg, Fusion), as long as the information is communicated in a consistent and minimally intrusive fashion. What I do mind is the kind of scattershot approach taken by Dread.

In lieu of a dedicated tutorial area, the part of Artaria where the game begins is packed with challenges that call on a variety of skills and techniques, with tutorial popups along the way. But the tutorial popups have no rhythm. Dread swings awkwardly between back-to-back tutorial popups and stretches of filler that don't seem to teach anything specific. The path is cluttered with a Charge Beam door and a Morph Ball tunnel that only serve to distract the player. Interrupting the training is a visit to a Network Station, where Adam discusses some game mechanics that aren't immediately relevant. Some abilities (eg, grabbing onto ledges, crouching, wall-jumping) are never explained at all.

The tutorial makes a lot of weird assumptions about what does and doesn't need to be taught. It's not nearly thorough enough to be geared toward brand-new players, yet it provides too much information to be aimed at seasoned Metroid players who just need to know what's new in this installment.

The tutorial popups abruptly cease after defeating the first E.M.M.I. Unlike Super, the Prime games, Other M, and Federation Force, there's no obvious end to the warmup, no cutscene or vast new area making it clear that you're on your own now. (You're never really on your own, though; tutorial popups unexpectedly show up at later points in the game, still with no rhythm or consistency.) This is where I got stuck. Dread had trained me to watch for tutorial popups and not think for myself, so when I found a door I couldn't reach because of a pool of water impeding my movement, I naturally assumed that I wasn't supposed to be here yet—I probably needed the Gravity Suit or something.

Except...I didn't see anywhere else to go. I traveled all the way back to the start in search of another route I'd missed. Nothing. I wandered for what felt like 20 minutes in search of the way forward, until I determined it had to be that door. By complete accident, I blew a hole in the side of the pool, which drained the water and allowed me to proceed.

Here's where my colorblindness came into play again: I physically could not distinguish the destructible rock from the rocks around it. But equally importantly, Dread's messy approach to teaching the player got me thinking the wrong way about the game. When I ran into the same issue with a destructible rock in Burenia, it was because I had started relying on the Pulse Radar to reveal any and all "hidden blocks," which apparently didn't include the one right in front of me. Dread encouraged me to shut off my Metroid instincts and rely on guidance systems that weren't as helpful as they let on.

Perhaps because I had the brightness turned up, or perhaps because of the distracting amount of detail and animation in the backgrounds, I didn't immediately notice that interactive floor panels have a glow around them. Every other Metroid has raised circular platforms that are architecturally distinctive, even before you factor in any special effects; the ones in Dread are square and basically flush with the floor.

It's easy enough to notice a white glow in a dark, empty Network Station; not so much when frantically trying to escape from an E.M.M.I. in a brand-new area I haven't had time to properly explore—one with foggy monochrome backgrounds, a softly pulsating glow that affects the whole screen, glowy white fog rolling off the floor, a white ceiling light faintly illuminating an unassuming machine in the background, and a type of environmental puzzle I haven't been trained to expect. I didn't even spot the suspicious rectangle in the floor below the button—again, too busy looking for an escape route to soak in the scenery.

I also didn't realize until fairly late in the game that a flash of light is the universal signal to use a Melee Counter. The E.M.M.I. survival tutorial says to counter "at the exact moment of the flash," but the regular tutorial only says to counter "at the right moment." Word choice matters. If you're going to bombard me with tutorial popups, don't expect me to look for visual cues that you don't tell me about, especially in a game where basically every special effect is a flash of some sort. I got hurt way too many times trying to counter attacks that, in retrospect, couldn't be countered because they didn't have a flash.

To that end, Melee Counter would really benefit from being presented as an upgrade, not as a basic ability to be taken for granted. Collect it from a Chozo statue early in the game, solve a few puzzles requiring Melee Counter in order to leave the room, make sure the player really understands the mechanic. This would be a perfect place to teach the player that you can shoot and use Melee Counter in cutscenes, too. I, for one, am not accustomed to boss battles with interactive cinematic elements; getting punished for watching instead of playing the cutscenes in the fight with Corpius just made me feel stupid.

DIFFICULTY

Metroid is not a game series I associate with high difficulty. Individual challenges might be tough—Prime 2's infuriating Boost Guardian immediately comes to mind, as do a couple ludicrous item puzzles in Zero Mission—but by and large, the real difficulty is self-inflicted: speedrunning, Hard Mode, 100% completion, even minimalist runs (someday I might resume my 1% run of Fusion that's been stalled for years at the Yakuza boss, a solid two-thirds of the way through the game). As long as I'm simply trying to finish a Metroid game and not being reckless about it, I can usually count on having few or no Game Overs.

I died more times in Dread than I have ever died across every playthrough of every other Metroid game combined.

To be clear, I didn't even finish the game. I gave up on the second form of the final boss, put the Game Card back in the box, and made arrangements to sell it to a friend so I never had to look at it again.

Let's forget for a moment about the accessibility and conveyance issues that made Dread harder for me than it should have been. The gameplay isn't a logical evolution from Fusion; it's a leap toward the likes of Resident Evil, Dark Souls, and other games I have no desire to play. Dread falls outside my gaming comfort zone, and it breaks tradition in unwelcome ways.

Samus starts with three new abilities that weren't in Fusion: Free Aim, Slide, and Melee Counter. The first two are fine—Free Aim offers precision control of an ability that has been expanding since the first game; and Slide is functionally similar to the Morph Ball, almost like an on-demand Boost Ball from the Prime games. Melee Counter, however, is a serious problem for me. I don't play games with quick-time events, and my experience with counter mechanics extends only as far as Timed Hits in Super Mario RPG; our boy Roy in Super Smash Bros. Melee; and the SenseMove, Lethal Strike, and Overblast mechanics in Other M, which I struggled with tremendously and feel are inappropriate for Metroid anyhow.

Melee Counter reduces combat to a series of pass/fail tests: pass, and you do massive damage, earn power-ups, and feel awesome; fail, and you take significant damage, waste a vital opportunity to succeed, and feel like a dunce. Far more often than not, I failed. I wanted to ignore Melee Counter altogether, but that's not really an option; enemies routinely prompt you to use it, boss fights drag on without it, and some bosses require a Melee Counter before they'll die or move on to their next phase. I constantly had to choose between playing how I wanted to play, which usually got me killed, and playing how the game wanted me to play, which usually got me killed.

I cannot tell you how many times I died to random minions—all the self-preservation techniques I've learned over two decades of playing Metroid barely apply when Melee Counter is involved. However, I can tell you that I died to every single boss, repeatedly, often in a matter of seconds. The only exceptions were in two rematches with bosses whose patterns I'd already learned. I could never stay alive long enough to learn a pattern on the first (or second, or third) try; and even once I understood the pattern, the less-than-ideal controls and my ineptitude with Melee Counter usually got the better of me.

Furthermore, I could never tell how close I was to defeating a boss. All the 3D Metroid games give the bosses a health bar, and all the 2D ones since Super have the bosses change color and/or incur visible battle damage as they lose health. Dread does neither. I can't work out a good strategy if I can't gauge the impact of my attacks.

Every time I collected a major upgrade, I backtracked through the whole game in search of any place to use it, in the hopes of finding any advantage to keep me alive longer. This wrecked the pacing, and it also led to frequent disappointment: I kept discovering shortcuts I didn't care about, Missile Expansions I didn't need, Power Bombs I wasn't yet authorized to use, and rooms that suddenly dead-ended in a puzzle immune to sequence-breaking. On the off chance that I might find something useful, I willingly threw myself into lava pits and cold storage rooms without the Gravity Suit. Losing health in awkward increments, rather than continuously like in every other Metroid, usually made these excursions too unpredictable to survive.

It's an unspoken rule that you can only die in Metroid if you run out of energy or, in the case of an escape sequence, time. Nothing short of a planet or space station blowing up around Samus is inherently fatal (except in Hunters, where she can die for something as trivial as falling into an infinite abyss). If Dread were true to its roots, an E.M.M.I. would keep trying to impale Samus at regular intervals, dealing massive damage until the player got the timing right to escape. But no, you have one chance to survive—and the game flat-out tells you that success is virtually impossible (ie, don't even bother; just die).

Needless to say, I died every time I got caught by an E.M.M.I., which was at least once or twice (if not seven or eight times) for every foray into an E.M.M.I. Zone. In contrast with the SA-X encounters in Fusion and the stealth sections in Zero Mission, which are actual puzzles requiring a mix of clever thinking and quick reflexes, the E.M.M.I. Zones in Dread are sandboxes of death, allowing for a wide range of scenarios that aren't necessarily fair or fun. This lack of a curated experience gave the Zones a reverse difficulty curve—the more abilities I unlocked, the less I needed to bother with stealth tactics, so it became progressively easier to bumble through the Zones without demonstrating any real understanding of E.M.M.I. mechanics.

Metroid is all about starting virtually powerless and growing into a nigh-unstoppable juggernaut, with increasingly formidable foes and puzzles challenging your supremacy. The E.M.M.I. don't challenge your supremacy; they make you repeat what is fundamentally the same challenge at various points in the game, but each time, you're a bit less pathetic. You still need the Omega Cannon to win, and all it takes is merely touching an E.M.M.I. to lose, but at least it's gradually easier to keep your distance. And keeping your distance is basically the same challenge in the five E.M.M.I. Zones where it matters, which are all comparable in size and complexity—whatever strategy you use to survive the first one will probably work for the others, and for me, it was mostly trial and error. That's not satisfying, and it's not empowering.

After a while, I became numb to the game's attempts to instill a sense of dread in me. It's hard to feel tense and afraid when I know that whatever's around the next corner will kill me, and that I won't lose any progress because there's a checkpoint at the entrance. The "low health" alarm, which normally inspires panic and lights a fire under me to play better, loses its impact when I hear it all the time (or not at all, because the bosses killed me that quickly). Dread's difficulty interferes with its ability to create the atmosphere I look for in a Metroid game, including a feeling of triumph over adversity. All the power-ups in the galaxy can't save me when practically every boss fight hinges on the pass/fail Melee Counter system I haven't mastered.

For me, Dread was soul-crushing. I can only fail so many Melee Counters before I feel like a failure myself. I can only die so many times before I start dying inside, crushed by my beloved franchise painfully drilling it into me that I'm not good enough to play it anymore. I almost broke down in tears after my fourth or fifth attempt to defeat Experiment No. Z-57, who just wouldn't die. I left each and every play session feeling inadequate, defeated, depressed, and resentful. Dread singlehandedly ruined every day that I played it, and I've continued to live in that negative headspace over the weeks that it's taken me to write this colossal post.

STORYTELLING

Storytelling is more than just dialogue and cutscenes. Everything from music to graphics to level design can help tell a story, evoking an emotional response from the player that makes the game world feel more engaging and believable. Just imagine what the final escape sequence in Super would feel like without the blaring alarm, flashing lights, shaking screen, rampant explosions, and hectic music. Storytelling in Metroid is all about getting the player immersed in the atmosphere. For me, the absolute easiest way to break that immersion is to play fast and loose with story continuity.

Consider the ending of Fusion. Samus knows that the X Parasites are a threat to the entire galaxy and must be destroyed. The Galactic Federation knows that Samus is a threat to their secret plans to control and exploit the X Parasites. Adam, whose duty was to keep Samus locked in a room to prevent her from blowing up the station, is persuaded by Samus to unlock the doors and help her blow up the station, along with a whole planet for good measure. As these two newly minted fugitives escape the destruction, Samus ruminates on what lies ahead: she and Adam will be held responsible; there will be "tribunals and investigations"; and the "beings of the universe" likely won't understand what happened here, despite Adam's optimism that someone will understand.

Consider the beginning of Dread. An indeterminate amount of time after Fusion, but seemingly not long enough for those "tribunals and investigations" to have concluded or for any trust to have been rebuilt among any of the parties involved, Samus is off to find more X Parasites, apparently at the behest of the Federation. By all appearances, it's a perfectly normal mission. Samus is traveling with Adam (and some other AI who seems to be the ship's computer, despite Adam already being the ship's computer) in the same ship that the Federation gave her in Fusion (whose subtle redesign is on the border between "artistic license" and "disregard for visual continuity"). She's getting paid a bounty (which Adam complains is too low, despite knowing full well that Samus would sacrifice her career and herself for any chance to destroy the X Parasites). There are no suspicions, misgivings, or caveats of any kind. Anything about Fusion that might've upset the status quo is never mentioned.

Oh, and this is a small thing, but it says a lot: breaking from the tradition of the previous mainline games, the intro never tells us this is "METROID 5."

To top it off, Samus inexplicably has a brand-new suit that looks radically different from the one she wore in Fusion. I could accept that she acquired a new suit on another adventure between Fusion and Dread. I could also accept that her old suit, which had large pieces surgically removed at the start of Fusion, started to regrow into something new. But I find it hard to accept that enough time has passed for either option to be plausible.

Immediately, the game felt wrong. If you're going to selectively ignore continuity in order to return to business as usual, at least give me a larger time skip than "Just when it all seemed over." I didn't buy it. I couldn't suspend my disbelief.

Then things got worse. Samus is approaching planet ZDR, now she's unconscious, now she's riding an elevator, now she's landing the ship, now the elevator, now the ship, now the elevator, now she's fighting someone, now she's being choked, now she's fine, now let's go shoot stuff. Everything happened so quickly and jarringly that I had to rewatch the intro on YouTube to understand what was going on.

There's no reason to put those events out of order. Showing the outcome of the battle before the battle diminishes the drama. It's extremely confusing to have a series of flashbacks mere seconds into developing what the present looks like, especially when there are flashbacks within flashbacks. All the quick cuts and closeups make things even harder to parse. At one point, a massive blast is fired toward the elevator, but the camera doesn't zoom in or linger long enough to confirm whether our best escape route has been rendered completely unusable—because if it hasn't, then all Samus needs to do is grab the Flash Shift or Speed Booster or Space Jump, cross the broken bridge, and leave.

What's more, Samus's mission is never fully explained. What happens if she encounters the E.M.M.I. or the X? Should she destroy them? Bring them back to the Federation? Report her findings and wait for orders? Obviously it's not important, because once she arrives, her objective quickly changes to, "OK, go home now; this was a mistake." But there's no clear path to the surface—no central tunnel like in Metroid II, no conspicuous statue blocking her path like in Super; nothing that says, "this is the way to victory, but you've gotta do some work before you can pass." The split-second glimpse of Samus landing the ship isn't nearly enough to create a mental picture of where you need to go. All this makes the game feel aimless.

Ostensibly, checking in with Adam at the Network Stations should give the game direction. Except Adam mostly exists to explain game mechanics, reiterate plot details you already know, and tell you what the developers want you to do next. His dialogue is generic, devoid of the bluntness, efficiency, and wisdom that we see in Fusion and (I can't believe I'm acknowledging Other M) Other M. Because Adam never sounds like himself, not even in the intro cutscene, I honestly can't tell where he stopped being Adam and started being Raven Beak—so either their two voices are indistinguishable in the absence of obvious phrases such as "any objections, lady" or "fulfill your destiny," or it was Raven Beak the whole time and he's just the most generic-sounding villain ever, neither of which is indicative of good writing.

What's missing here is any input from Samus. Being attacked by a Chozo is the kind of thing Samus would absolutely have thoughts about. Considering Adam told her to "treat our lost assets with care," Samus should be pressing Adam for a way to disable the E.M.M.I., destroying them only as a last resort. She should definitely be arguing against trying to leave ZDR before determining the truth about the X. For a game that draws so much narrative influence from Fusion, it's striking that there are no exchanges between Samus and Adam or elevator monologues to help develop the characters and conflicts.

Samus's apparent indifference to her mission and circumstances takes away any sense of urgency or character agency. You're fighting bosses and searching for secrets because that's how the game works, not because it seems to matter to Samus. She's not a silent protagonist; she's an absentee protagonist. Compare her elevator rides in Prime, where she's alert and emotive, with her tram rides in Dread, where she's a faceless statue; it never quite feels like Samus is really there.

If Samus isn't there, then I'm not there. Dread kept finding ways to disengage me from the story, disrupt my immersion, and elicit the wrong emotional response from me. Sometimes it didn't even require dialogue and cutscenes to do so.

One of my favorite moments in Metroid II is at the very end of the game, when you finally escape the cramped, deadly labyrinth and return to the peaceful, spacious surface. There's a rush of freedom and relief that comes with seeing the open sky again, Space Jumping into the stratosphere, and knowing you made it out alive. When I reached the surface in Dread (after spending most of the game zig-zagging horizontally instead of really navigating upward like Adam said), I felt...nothing. The surface is just another enclosed area with a ceiling, no different from any other area in the game, and you're there for all of five minutes before being routed back down to Ferenia again.

There is a similar anticlimax before almost every boss fight. I think about my experience with the leadup to Kraid. Gnarly statue at the entrance. Spooky. Ammo refill. Secret path. Save point. Must be something big through this teleporter. Huge excursion that leads to the Varia Suit. Nice! Time for another huge excursion to a bunch of areas I couldn't access before. Is there anywhere I forgot? Lemme try this door. A couple lava pits, destructible walls, and a mix of large and small enemies. Typical stuff. A casual drop down to a door with a worm enemy attached to it. Behind it is...the room I just came from. Well, that was pointless. Oh, wait, there's a tiny shaft I can Morph Ball into. CUTSCENE! TENSION! OH BOY IT'S KRAID!

Compare this with the leadup to Kraid in Super. Gnarly statue at the entrance. Spooky. Weak enemies. A dead end? No, there's a secret path. Strong enemies. Another dead end? No, there's a save point. There must be a secret. Aha! Long hallway with strong enemies, foreboding architecture, a barrage of needles from offscreen, and then it's Kraid, just like in the original game! That wasn't too bad for a first boss. Now there's...another...foreboding room. With an insect-ridden corpse that looks eerily like Samus. And a creepy door guardian who seems to have infested the entire wall. Gulp. On the other side of the door is a dead-end with a pit of thorny spikes. The door locks. I'm trapped. And then...OH NO. BIG Kraid appears.

Dread, I don't care how fancy your graphics are; if you can't build and release tension well, you're not doing Metroid right.

I have several other complaints, but I'll keep them brief. The game starts with an infodump about Metroids and X Parasites, which easily could've been worked into the ensuing cutscene or dialogue elsewhere. I feel weird about the Chozo in this game, who seem less like sci-fi aliens vaguely influenced by the ancient Egyptians and more like stereotypes of Indigenous peoples. After several rewatches, I still don't understand what happened in the last E.M.M.I. cutscene, where Samus's hand starts glowing and the Central Unit just...gives up its power remotely, without a fight? Lastly, I was hoping for a nod to the Metroid project "Dread" referenced in Prime 3, which itself was a reference to an earlier, cancelled iteration of Dread.

Oh, and let's not forget the gigantic plot hole: Raven Beak lures Samus to ZDR to steal her Metroid DNA, right? He defeats her in combat, rendering her unconscious, and then...leaves her to die in any number of ways that might prevent him from extracting her DNA? Like, dude. Carry her to an E.M.M.I. Zone and claim your victory. You are just the worst.

Even the art book that comes with the Special Edition of Dread is deficient in its storytelling. Advertised as "spanning all 5 entries in the 2D Metroid saga" and styling itself as "Mission Logs" on the cover, the art book had me expecting a love letter to the whole series. Except there's no foreword or overarching narrative tying everything together as "Mission Logs." In fact, nothing is even labeled; it's just a collection of images with no context. Dread has a luxurious 128 pages to showcase novel and highly varied art of all kinds; the other four games (plus the two remakes) are crammed into 62 pages and represent a sampling of promotional art only. If you own the North American instruction manuals, you've seen most of this art already. Decent for a casual fan, but disappointing for a diehard. Call it a Dread art book with bonus content; don't get my hopes up.

NOT HAVING PLAYED SAMUS RETURNS FIRST

Normally, when a new Metroid is released, I play it as soon as I can get my hands on it. Samus Returns was the exception. I've been playing fewer platformers in recent years; and I wasn't ready to play another Metroid II remake so soon after playing AM2R (Another Metroid 2 Remake), which reassured me that at least the fans hadn't forgotten what makes Metroid good. By the time I was finally ready to start a new Metroid, preorders had opened for Dread. I opted to keep Samus Returns on the shelf a little while longer, figuring it would be a good palate cleanser if Dread ended up being terrible.

Biggest mistake of my Metroid career.

Given my fondness for the source material, and the fact that there was source material, I assumed Samus Returns would be a return to form—probably not as good as AM2R, but undoubtedly more engaging and Metroid-y than anything since 2006. I still believed that the last several installments were anomalies, despite the same issues cropping up: problematic storytelling (Prime 3, Other M), core elements that don't feel appropriate for Metroid (Hunters, Prime 3, Other M, Federation Force), and uncomfortable control schemes (Hunters, Prime 3, Prime Trilogy, Other M). I held out hope that the next traditional 2D installment would bring balance to the franchise.

What was that line from the Star Wars prequels? "You were supposed to destroy the Sith, not join them"?

Samus Returns isn't a return to form; it's an assertion that Metroid has been evolving this whole time into something I no longer recognize. Prime 3 was the Alpha, Other M was the Gamma, Federation Force was Arachnus, Samus Returns was the Zeta, and Dread was the Omega. I skipped a critical link in the evolutionary chain, one that would've dispelled the notion that Dread should have more in common with Fusion and Super than with the last 15 years of the franchise. When I learned that Samus Returns was made by MercurySteam, the same developer responsible for Dread, I found myself playing it not as a palate cleanser, but as an investigation of how many warning signs I missed.

I missed all of them. Accessibility, conveyance, difficulty, storytelling—every problem I had with Dread and with the last 15 years of the franchise were present in some form or another. If I had realized this sooner, I would've been wary of another Metroid by the same developer. Maybe I wouldn't have played Dread at all, choosing to drift away from the franchise instead of needing to forcibly and painfully cut ties with it. Or, I would've gone in with more accurate expectations, a better handle on Melee Counter, and an understanding that glowy floor panels operate everything. I would've waited to play Dread until tracking down the amiibo—the Reserve Tanks I unlocked in Samus Returns are the only reason I didn't give up on that game, too.

Either way, I'd still be walking away from the franchise. But at least some of the disappointment, confusion, frustration, and outrage that overwhelmed me in Dread would've been shifted to the game that laid the groundwork for it.

MISSION FINAL

In the weeks that it's taken me to write and organize these thoughts, I've been listening to Metroid music that makes me remember why I was ever a fan to begin with. Right now it's the title theme for Prime on 30-minute loop, which I've restarted multiple times now. I've needed to be reminded that Metroid—true Metroid—is a fabulously immersive experience that puts me in the Hi-Jump Boots of an awesome bounty hunter and lets me forget about my world for a while.

Dread, on the other hand, is merely a video game.

Whatever I might like about it—and there are things I like about it—is completely irrelevant in light of its flaws. It's poorly written; sloppily designed; dismissive of tradition; impossible to accept as canon; and inconsiderate, if not downright hostile, toward players like me. I am not the target audience. In fact, I haven't been the target audience for about 11 years, but that's never stopped me from taking a chance on the latest installment. Now I know better. There's only one link left in this evolutionary chain, and that's the Queen Metroid. I don't want to be anywhere near her when she takes the throne.

I'm weary of trying to keep up with a franchise that doesn't want me to be a part of it. I'm content to stick with the dozen Metroid games I still care about, especially the half-dozen of those that inspired me to stay with the franchise for as long as I did. Am I bitter about Dread? Absolutely. But I'm not going to let it ruin my mood or monopolize my time anymore. I've said what I needed to say in order to get the negativity out of my system. I've made peace with the last Metroid I'll ever play.

I am done with Dread, and I am done with this franchise. I won't see you next mission.

[Controls screenshot from the Metroid Dread controls guide by All Gamers. Game Over screenshot from a thread by martian717 on reddit. Metroid Mission Logs photo, Metroid screenshot, and Metroid II screenshot taken by me. All other screenshots taken by me from longplays of Metroid Dread, Metroid Fusion, Metroid: Samus Returns, and Super Metroid by LongplayArchive on YouTube. No Etecoons were harmed in the writing of this post.]

Can I ask you some questions about the COVID vaccine?

Sure! This is definitely something we should be talking about.

Have you gotten vaccinated?

Yes! I've received both shots of Moderna.

You fool! What if they injected you with a microchip?

Nevermind that this rumor has been debunked by ABC, the BBC, Business Insider, c|net, The New York Times, Reuters, Times of India, USA TODAY, and countless other news sources that didn't come up in a cursory Google search on the topic. The government already knows my address, age, marital status, income details, and political affiliation. They've got my fingerprints on file from when I was a student teacher. They can monitor my phone calls, texts, Internet use, and credit card charges. They can watch me through webcams, phone cameras, and security cameras; they can even track where my smartphone is (which, for all intents and purposes, is where I am). They don't need a microchip to keep tabs on me.

We don't know all the risks of the vaccine yet. Aren't you worried about long-term side effects?

Let me tell you what the side effects are of not being vaccinated: I know firsthand what COVID can do to a person, and it's one of the worst things I've experienced in my life. I've spent the last year hiding from my friends, family, and community because getting close to them might kill them. I've given up holiday get-togethers, movie marathons, birthday dinners, conventions, and anniversary trips, not to mention all the day-to-day excursions that keep life fun and interesting. Leaving the house for any reason involves so much more stress, anxiety, preparation, and mindfulness than ever before. I've fallen into unhealthy habits to cope with the fear of being around other people and the loneliness of being isolated from them.

People eagerly embrace new cars, smartphones, shampoos, packaged foods, etc, despite having no information about any consequences or defects that only become apparent with time. Why are we so much more cautious about rigorously tested and carefully regulated vaccines developed by some of the best experts in the world?

This pandemic has taken away so many freedoms that we used to take for granted, and we're not getting those freedoms back until everyday people step up, put aside their fears and excuses, and get vaccinated. I think about my grandfather, who enlisted to fight in World War II—despite knowing full well that he might be injured or killed—in order to protect his country and the people he cared about. Getting vaccinated to protect my country and the people I care about, even in the face of unknown risks, is a small act of patriotism that I hope would have made my grandfather proud.

Doesn't the vaccine make you sick?

If you're asking if the vaccine gives you COVID, the answer is no. It teaches your body how to fight COVID. But if you're asking about whether I felt awful for a little while after getting vaccinated, the answer is yes. After the first dose, I had two days of symptoms that reminded me of when I had COVID, followed by two days of general exhaustion. After the second dose, I experienced lethargy, headaches, and mild chills for one day before feeling totally normal again the next day. I never had any real pain at the injection site; my arm just felt heavy and tender if I tried to move it too much.

Everyone's body behaves differently when their immune system is hard at work, and I understand that people who've already been exposed to COVID have a worse reaction to the first dose, so your mileage may vary. The key is to plan ahead and let your past self take care of your future self. Finish all your errands and housework before getting vaccinated, and clear your schedule as best as possible for 1-2 days after your appointment. Plan to have food available that requires little or no effort to prepare, and try to stock things that are easy to eat—I recommend yogurt, pudding, and instant ramen.

I really hate needles. Can't I wait for them to make a pill or something?

Well, you don't have to have ramen, but—oh, wait; you said needles, not noodles. Fortunately, at least in my experience, injection technique has improved significantly among medical professionals in recent years. Both COVID shots felt like a quick punch to the arm, not unlike the kind of punch you might receive from a friend or family member after saying something embarrassing about them in public. Not that I know what that feels like.

How much does the vaccine cost?

For the recipient? Nothing. Getting vaccinated is absolutely free. There's no place for financial barriers when the goal is to reach herd immunity and ensure everyone can be protected. Even if you don't have medical insurance (or ID, for that matter), you can get the vaccine at no cost here in the United States—the Health & Human Services website has a lot of useful information about that on this page.

Was it difficult to schedule an appointment?

Actually, it was super easy, barely an inconvenience. My wife and I registered through VAMS. We started by submitting our basic contact info, then within 24 hours we received an e-mail to sign up for a vaccination appointment. This required filling out a simple online form (nothing we haven't disclosed to a doctor's office before) and then selecting where and when we wanted to get vaccinated. Each location on the list included the street address, the earliest date for a new appointment, and which specific vaccines (ie, Pfizer, Moderna, J&J) were available. The whole process took only a few minutes to complete, and we had an appointment only a few days later.

What was it like at the vaccination center?

We went to a popup clinic at a senior center. There was clear signage around the building that directed us where to go, and a volunteer was at the entrance to answer any questions. We queued up in the gymnasium, which had vaccination stations set up around the room in the same manner that voting booths would have been set up for an election. We showed our IDs, waited briefly in line, and then proceeded to the first available station. The person administering the shot asked us a few questions (eg, have we ever had an allergic reaction to an injection), gave us the shot on the upper part of whichever arm we preferred, and had us take a vaccine record card to fill out. Then we scheduled a follow-up appointment for a month later.

We were asked to stick around for 15 minutes (or 30 minutes, if we had a history of allergic reactions) just in case any bad reactions developed. We sat, socially distanced, in a waiting room down the hall, where another volunteer gave us the rundown of possible side effects in the next few days and how to handle them. One important tidbit was to use Tylenol (acetaminophen) rather than Advil (ibuprofen) for pain relief, because of some emerging scientific evidence that anti-inflammatories might reduce vaccine efficacy. Another important tidbit was to download our vaccine certificate from VAMS at our earliest convenience, because that documentation is more official than the vaccine card, and because it was unclear how long our VAMS accounts would remain active.

Every single volunteer, without exception, was friendly, patient, and good at the job they were doing. The atmosphere was very relaxed, and I actually felt comfortable being out in public for the first time since the pandemic started. I cannot tell you how refreshing and soul-soothing it was to be surrounded by people actively doing the work that's required to end this pandemic.

I have other concerns about the vaccine. Is there any legitimate reason why I shouldn't get vaccinated right now?

In all honesty, if you've done the research, discussed your concerns with a healthcare professional, gotten second opinions from a varied group of other people you trust, and decided that there is a genuinely compelling reason to remain unvaccinated despite the potentially fatal risk it poses to yourself and others...then yes, that reason is probably legitimate.

However, the onus is on you to keep following the safety procedures that have carried us through the pandemic—masking, social distancing, handwashing. If you truly care about the people around you, you'll be completely transparent with others about your vaccination status and your rationale for delaying or avoiding the shot. Transparency demonstrates that you're thinking about their wellbeing, and any legitimate rationale ought to hold up against criticism and peer pressure.

As strongly as I believe that everyone should get vaccinated, I feel that way because I care deeply about keeping everyone healthy and safe from this virus while we work to eradicate it. Getting vaccinated is a safe, free, easy way to demonstrate a basic respect for human life and a concern for the greater good in a time when breathing on someone might kill them.

I'm doing my part to keep you safe. Will you do the same for me?

When I promised my wife that I would grow my hair out to Thor length if I was ever allowed to work from home full-time, I was not expecting it to become a tangible reminder of how long I've been weathering a global pandemic. It's been over a year since my office made all its employees fully remote due to COVID concerns, and therefore over a year since my wife and I entered a state of voluntary lockdown to help keep the virus from spreading.

For the sake of future historians, anyone curious about my personal life, and anyone interested in comparing and contrasting their own personal experiences during this extraordinary time, here are some stories and observations about what it's been like to live as a shut-in this past year.

Incidentally, I look less like Thor and more like Grizzly Adams. Part of the reason I've opted to maintain the mountain man look, despite how much I truly hate its logistical and hygienic consequences, is that it makes me more physically intimidating to strangers in public. Social distancing is easier when people naturally want to stay at least six feet away from me. Grrr.

I take social distancing seriously because my wife and I got horrifically sick in March 2020. We experienced 10 of the 11 COVID symptoms that are now listed on the CDC website—and given that I've developed a ringing in my ears and that sour cream has started tasting weird to me in the months since then, I have to believe it was COVID.

We were never tested, however. That would have required exposing ourselves to other people for the sake of being told with partial certainty whether we had a virus that nobody actually knew how to treat. Better just to stay home and get the best care we could via telemedicine. And let me tell you, the two doctors I spoke with were fantastic, and I admired their ability to stay energized and attentive when being bombarded with calls like mine.

At the peak of my illness, I couldn't breathe while lying down, so I slept—or at least tried to, between coughing fits—in the reclining chair in the living room. Simply getting in and out of the chair required all the energy I could muster. Yogurt and pudding were about the only foods my throat could handle. I got a headache from looking at screens or basically having my eyes open at all. I'll spare you the gross details about the symptoms that ruined our favorite beach towel. About the only thing I was able to do was exist, and even that was a challenge. I was in pain, I was exhausted...and I was bored.

Fortunately, my mother is a children's librarian. She started reading to me on a regular basis over the phone, and for that I am so very grateful. I could scarcely do anything else, but I could listen to a chapter or two of Mike Rowe's The Way I Heard It every day. I also listened through my first audio book, Break Shot: My First 21 Years by James Taylor, my favorite music artist. Engaging stuff, and tremendously helpful for keeping my mind off being miserable.

It's funny; when I think about being sick, the first thing I remember is the happiness of people reading to me.

My wife and I took care of each other as best we could, but we were both sick, with my wife's symptom progression being about a day or two ahead of mine. The advice I've given to people who have tested positive for COVID or who think they've gotten it is as follows: Let your past self take care of your future self. While you're still feeling healthy, do everything right now that needs to get done—pay bills, write e-mails, whatever. Do all the laundry, dishes, and cooking you can, and try to save some leftovers. Make sure you've got medicine on hand for everything you can think of. Ask someone you know to drop off a care package with any essentials you can't go out and get. Plan to be incapacitated for the next two weeks; be pleasantly surprised if you're not.

Our bout with Pretty Definitely COVID occurred around the same time as the temporary closure of my office and the start of our self-isolation, both of which are still in effect. On the surface, my life hasn't changed dramatically from the Before Times (as my friends like to call it). I was already working from home twice a week, spending most of my free time indoors staring at a screen, and generally not going places or seeing people unless there was a compelling reason to give up my introvert time. Indeed, I've been handling self-isolation a lot better than most other people I know, to the point where I sometimes feel guilty that my worst breakdowns are just a regular day for everyone else.

To be clear, here's exactly what I mean by self-isolation: Staying inside the house at all times except for essential excursions (eg, checking the mailbox every few days, running to the grocery store every 1-3 weeks) or nonessential excursions where the boost to mental health outweighs the physical risk (eg, going for a walk at dusk, visiting a mostly empty park). We frequently order contactless delivery for lunch or dinner, which allows us to support our local businesses, put off the next grocery run for another day or two, and spend time that would be devoted to cooking and dishwashing on self-care instead. Plus, eating out at restaurants is one of life's greatest pleasures for me, so I'm able to reclaim a little slice of happiness by ordering in.

Food is one of my coping mechanisms, too. Want some feelgood fizz to calm the nerves? There's Coca-Cola chilling in the fridge, and there's grenadine and vanilla syrup in the cupboard. Had a rough work week? Treat yourself to some comfort food from the local barbecue joint. Need someone to hold you after an absolutely horrible day? Ben & Jerry are looking forward to some spooning.

Food works as a coping mechanism not just because it tastes good, but because it's reliable. When I order a Son of Baconator from Wendy's, I know exactly how I'm going to feel when I'm done eating. A deli sandwich with lettuce, onion, mustard, and mayo on a good-quality roll, with a side of chips, is guaranteed to cheer me up—even if it ends up being a mediocre sandwich. Living in such uncertain times, I need all the predictability and emotional control I can get. I fully understand that this is an unhealthy coping mechanism with long-term consequences, but after everything that's happened in this country over the last year, I don't have high expectations that my fellow Americans will let me live long enough for my pandemic eating habits to catch up with me. If the possibility of killing anyone you breathe on isn't enough incentive to pull your mask up over your nose, then I can only assume that my life means nothing to you.

I now have a zero-tolerance policy for businesses where the employees don't wear their masks properly. It's been a year; masks are now as much a part of the dress code as any other article of clothing. I've stopped patronizing or walked right out of shops and delis I used to frequent, and I'm not shy about (politely) complaining to the management or calling employees out. Half a dozen of my personal acquaintances have died from COVID, and I know firsthand what it can do to a person—you'll have to forgive me if I expect you to keep your face covered with a mask the same way I expect you to leave a bathroom with all appropriate body parts back inside your pants.

Half of me wants to have absolutely nothing to do with the outside world anymore. I'm content to spend every day at home with my wife—there's plenty to keep us occupied, we support each other, we make each other laugh, and our differing sleep patterns afford us both some time alone on a regular basis. If I can forget that there's a world beyond these four walls, then I won't be depressed about being cut off from all the people, places, and activities I want in my life.

But the other half of me needs the outside world. I'm an entertainer, a critical reviewer, a listening ear, a shoulder to cry on, a helping hand—everything that plays to my strengths and gives me purpose in life requires other people. Being an introvert makes this more difficult, because interacting with and performing for other people is draining, and I need ample time to myself to recharge.

One would think that a year of quarantine would offer plenty of time to recharge, but I've also been worrying about the outside world and trying to fend off all the negative feelings that accompany extended self-isolation. It's taken every coping mechanism I have just to get through certain days, and yet I've pushed myself to be social and keep up with side projects such as writing, recording, and game design. I beat myself up for not doing enough for other people during this time, but my wife is quick to remind me that I'm already doing so much, and that I deserve a break.

So maybe that's my cue to cap this post here and go play video games. I've been gravitating toward construction simulators that let me exercise my creativity, easy shooters and beat-em-ups that let me vent my aggression, low-stress strategy games that offer a blend of construction and destruction, intuitive adventure games that make me feel smart, and visual novels where I decide how the story ends. I can't handle pulse-pounding action unless the stakes are low and my odds of success are high. Life is challenging enough right now; I'm craving things that are calm, predictable, and uplifting—which has also informed my television and movie choices to some degree. Thank you, Japan, for the joy of Laid-Back Camp in this stressful time.

Yeah. I think I'm gonna go play video games.

I'm very big on introspection. Thinking critically about who I am and what I'm doing with my life provides an essential reality check every now and again. I do this by asking tough questions that require mulling over. It's the process of working out an answer, rather than the answer itself, that makes self-reflection worthwhile—not unlike taking apart a car to see how it works, or decompiling a computer game to see how it's coded.

I believe that some of our biggest problems, both as individuals and as a society, are due in part to a lack of introspection. We take things for granted, make unfounded assumptions, and turn a blind eye to issues we don't want to deal with, often without the slightest clue that we're doing it. Switching from autopilot to manual every once in a while allows us to confirm that we are, in fact, on the right course—or else it prompts us to make some necessary course corrections.

Here are ten introspective questions I feel we should ask ourselves periodically:

1. Am I happy?
What brings me joy, what drags me down, and what am I doing to tip the balance in favor of being happy?

2. Am I healthy?
Physically, emotionally, intellectually, and (if applicable) spiritually, are my needs being met?

3. What kind of support network do I have?
In times of need, which people and groups can I rely on for help and encouragement?

4. Who are my role models?
Real or fictional, who inspires me or embodies the kind of life I want to live?

5. Am I a role model or part of a support network for anyone else?
At home, among friends, at school, at work, and in my various online and in-person communities, am I setting a good example and being a reliable ally?

6. What are my goals in life, and am I working toward them?
Does the way I spend my time reflect what I want out of life?

7. What are my strengths and weaknesses?
Am I putting the things I'm good at to good use, and am I either working on or willing to accept my shortcomings?

8. What do I believe most strongly, and why?
What are the arguments I won't back down from, the causes I won't turn my back on, and the beliefs that guide my actions—and what makes me so passionate about them?

9. What if I'm wrong?
If—however or unlikely or impossible this may be—it turns out that the people who oppose or disagree with my strongest beliefs are actually right, and I am wrong, then what kind of a person do I look like to them?

10. How do I want to be remembered when I die?
What kind of legacy am I leaving behind with my words and actions?

I can no longer consider myself a Star Trek fan.

Here's the short-ish version: I'm a diehard fan of The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, and the first ten movies (The Motion Picture through Nemesis). After several years of agonizing over the damage they did to the franchise, I can enjoy 2009's annoyingly titled Star Trek and its sequel Into Darkness as poorly written but well-executed sci-fi popcorn flicks that coincidentally borrow some ideas from The Original Series. By association, I can't accept Beyond as canon, but it's the honorary eleventh Star Trek film of which I'm a diehard fan.

I gave Discovery a generous nine episodes before my outrage and disgust got the better of me. The show was visually, tonally, and narratively incompatible with what I knew as Star Trek; and the gore, infighting, mistrust, incompetence, contrivances, and pessimism in those episodes made the show unpalatable to begin with. Moreover, I felt it was bad form to reboot the franchise in 2009 by returning to Kirk's era, only to re-reboot the franchise in 2017 by returning to Kirk's era in a different timeline. This franchise was boldly going out of its mind.

To wash the taste out of my mouth, I followed every episode of Discovery with an episode of The Orville—which, despite its imperfections, captures everything I love about Star Trek, from the broad strokes (eg, social commentary disguised as sci-fi) to the little details (eg, long, luxurious establishing shots of ships and planets).

I was wary of Picard, because I wanted the franchise to start looking forward rather than backward for inspiration, and because I fully expected to be outraged and disgusted again. The first episode of left me in tears—tears of joy, because for the first time in over a decade, Star Trek actually felt like Star Trek. Different, yes, but unquestionably welcome.

The rest of the season failed to live up to that standard. Despite how much I liked some of the concepts, and despite one truly superb episode ("Nepenthe"), I had so many problems with the planning, pacing, characterizations, gratuitous violence, and wild fluctuations in storytelling quality. I could suspend my disbelief just barely enough to accept it as canon, but I didn't really want to. I also wish I hadn't watched the Short Trek "Children of Mars," which gave me Discovery flashbacks and diminished the impact of Picard's second episode.

I was disheartened by the teaser trailer for Lower Decks, and I was unimpressed and then traumatized by a preview of the first 90 seconds of the first episode. I'm on board with a series featuring a diverse new crew with no apparent ties to any previous series, set sometime after Nemesis, with a unique slant that adds something new to the franchise (in this case, focusing on people other than the bridge crew)—however, this particular brand of humor is a hard sell for me, and I am not on board with sudden, unexpected gore. That makes three series in a row where my squeamishness, which was previously only relevant for a few specific episodes across the entire franchise, is a deterrent to watching Star Trek at all.

What's worse is that there's no end in sight. After Lower Decks, there's Section 31, Strange New Worlds, Prodigy, another season of Discovery, another season of Picard, and at least one yet-to-be-revealed series that I'm aware of, not to mention an R-rated movie originally slated to be directed by Quentin Tarantino. I'm still recovering from the fun but exhausting 11-year journey to Avengers: Endgame; I don't have it in me right now to invest in what is effectively another Marvel Cinematic Universe, let alone one so violent, disorganized, and averse to continuity despite being hung up on nostalgia!

It's reached the point where I physically can't keep up with my favorite franchise, nor do I want to. That is a no-win scenario. My little ship, the USS Fanboy, is in no shape to keep fighting, yet I can't retreat without feeling guilty. So I'm setting the auto-destruct and leaving the battle on my own terms.

Whatever Star Trek is right now, it is not for me. And as difficult as it is for me to admit this, that's okay. I've spent too much of my adult life arguing about what's authentic Star Trek, forcing myself to watch things I knew I wouldn't enjoy, and suffering at the hands of what is supposedly my favorite fandom. I don't need to do that anymore. In fact, I never needed to do that.

There are countless books and comics I haven't read, several games I haven't played, and a few fan-made productions I've been meaning to watch. Even if I ignore everything created from 2009 onward, there is no shortage of new Star Trek for me to experience. I don't have to rely on modern cinematic television, which I often don't enjoy anyhow, to get my fix.

They say all good things come to an end. But perhaps they don't have to. Perhaps what brings you joy is more important than what is canon. Perhaps your vision of a franchise—a vision you believe is in line with that of the person who created it—matters more than the vision of whoever happens to be calling the shots right now. Perhaps, in a universe where absolutely anything can happen, there's still a chance for the undesirable elements to redeem themselves.

I crave optimistic, collaborative, and philosophical stories that are reasonably believable and don't make me want to throw up. I don't mind if stories get dark and serious, as long as those elements serve a greater purpose than just making me depressed. I value the kind of narrative continuity that makes it easy to forgive or explain away the little mistakes and oversights that inevitably occur over the course of several decades. I like cool starships, futuristic gadgets, creative alien civilizations, and relatable characters.

For a good long while, Star Trek was exactly my kind of fiction. Now it isn't. It hasn't been for more than a decade, and I have no reason to believe it ever will be again. That means it's time to move on.

Live fast and prosper, Star Trek.

I am not a diehard Star Wars fan by any stretch of the imagination. Yes, I've marathoned Episodes I-VI in a single sitting, I own several lightsabers, and I can tell a Sullustan from a Selkath, but I didn't grow up on Star Wars the way everyone else did. I was a Star Trek kid; I'd already been exposed to iconic sci-fi characters, weird aliens, cool action sequences, and unforgettable soundtracks by the time I finally watched A New Hope all the way through. For me, Star Wars is just another sci-fi franchise, no different than Firefly/Serenity or Mass Effect. I can geek out about it, but it's not my franchise.

That's why I can tell you with total seriousness that, despite their horrendous flaws, I enjoy the Star Wars prequels at least as much as the original trilogy. That's why I can say with a straight face that I like the Special Editions and don't mind any of the changes that were made—well, except in Return of the Jedi; Prequel Anakin and his creepy smile have no place at that bonfire, and angels somewhere are still weeping about the removal of "Yub Nub." Whether we're talking Clone Wars (the movie, the TV series, or the good TV series), Rogue One, The Force Awakens, or Caravan of Courage, I'm pretty accepting of Star Wars in any format. With no deep personal attachments to this universe, all it really takes to make me happy is stuff blowing up real good.

I think I may need to revise my standards. For years, I've made people wince when I talk positively about the prequels; now I finally have some understanding of the pain they must have endured while watching Phantom Menace for the first time. Never before had I spent nearly two and a half hours wishing a Star Wars movie would either get better or end already. Never before had I seen The Last Jedi.

This is where the spoilers kick in, and where I start running from the angry mob that's starting to form outside.

I went into The Last Jedi more out of fanboy obligation than genuine interest. Entertaining though it was, The Force Awakens failed to get me overly excited about a new trilogy. It isn't a proper sequel to Return of the Jedi, and it isn't a strong foundation for future movies to build off of; it's a nostalgia-drenched reboot that happens to introduce some characters and ideas that could be developed in a sequel. Too many mysteries for the sake of having mysteries; too many important details left unexplained so you'll go buy the book that fills you in on the backstory you're missing. I had no real hopes or expectations for the next episode, because frankly, I had no idea how anyone should follow up on a movie like The Force Awakens.

It should be gratifying, then, that The Last Jedi looks at the plot threads it's been handed and proceeds to tangle or burn every one of them. Luke's first words to Rey? Don't care. Rey's parents? Don't care. Who is Snoke? Don't care. Ben Solo turning to the light side? Let's make it interesting. Captain Phasma? Let's make it a running gag that she's an afterthought who keeps falling down holes. I could go on. This is a movie that revels in subverting expectations, and I respect that—but at the same time, it feels less like an attempt to delight the viewer with surprises, and more like a big middle finger to JJ Abrams for providing a lousy foundation for a new trilogy.

"You are no Vader. You are just a child in a mask." That's not Snoke speaking to Kylo Ren. That's a scathing commentary on The Force Awakens, delivered with a subtlety worthy of Star Trek. As someone who enjoyed the spectacle of The Force Awakens but was disappointed by the derivative story, I find The Last Jedi to be refreshing in its efforts to clear the slate and give this new trilogy a better identity. Unfortunately, that makes it abundantly clear that this was not the direction the trilogy was intended to go. When the plot twists and dialogue so frequently feel like one writer/director trying to undo or criticize the work of another writer/director, it's hard to stay fully immersed in the story. I want to be engrossed in the power struggle between the First Order and the Resistance, not the power struggle between JJ Abrams and Rian Johnson.

Lack of immersion is the single biggest problem I had with The Last Jedi. From the very beginning, the film drives home that it is not to be taken seriously. The first problem is that I misheard "General Hux" as "General Hugs," which instantly gives your villain zero credibility, especially when his superior has a doofy name like "Snoke." The second problem is that Hux is a caricature of a villain—and his interaction with Poe Dameron drives home that not even the heroes take him seriously. "LOOK AT ME, I'M SO EEEEEEVIIIIIIILLLLL! YOU WILL RESPECT MEEEEEE!" Then Snoke's ridiculously large head shows up and eats Hux, further demonstrating that these villains are to be mocked, not feared. NOM NOM DARK SIDE NOM NOM. The first scene of a movie sets the tone for the entire thing, and the beginning of The Last Jedi is outright goofy.

Except...it's weirdly serious, too. Suddenly there are ships exploding and heroes dying in droves. But also Finn lumbering down the corridor leaking fluids everywhere. But also the Resistance getting slaughtered. I found myself having extreme difficulties settling on a mindset for this movie; this was not "serious, with forced comic relief" like Phantom Menace, nor was it "serious, with well-timed organic humor relieving the tension" like Rogue One or Empire Strikes Back. This felt disjointed and inappropriately irreverent, especially following The Force Awakens, which was reverent to a fault. Compare this with Thor: Ragnarok, which expertly uses its opening scene to reset expectations for the series before juxtaposing its newfound sense of humor with anything of weighty consequence.

Another issue with The Last Jedi's opening scene is that it's completely unbelievable. Who flies their bombers so close together that they can all be taken out in a chain reaction because of one stray TIE fighter? Who designs bombers so slow, ungainly, and poorly defended that they can't even reach their target? Who the heck thought it was a good idea to put the bomb deployment button on an easy-to-lose handheld device instead of on a freaking control panel where it belongs!? I'm on board with Poe's poor leadership decision getting the whole Resistance into trouble, but the way it's handled is incredibly contrived. Still struggling to wrap my head around what kind of a movie this was supposed to be, I started to settle on the only answer that made any sense: "poorly written."

For the next two hours, I fought to suspend my disbelief long enough to get immersed in the film. It never happened. I started noticing all the nitpicky holes in the story that you're not supposed to notice on a first viewing—like how our moron heroes never bother to ask Maz Kanata for any personally identifiable information about the codebreaker they're pinning all their hopes on. "The dude is probably wearing a flower" is the kind of clue you settle for in a Carmen Sandiego game. And don't get me started on the whole "let everyone think we're going to run out of fuel and die" plan, which is more about creating drama and setting up a plot twist for the viewer than it is about the characters actually trying to stay alive.

If it wasn't the story taking me out of the moment, it was the visuals. Yoda looked fine at a distance, but strangely terrible and fake close up—a problem I never had with him as a puppet in the original trilogy or as CGI in the prequels. None of the Force-enhanced movement looked natural; when Leia returned from the cold void of space and when Rey got pulled across the throne room, it looked like someone was dragging clipart around a PowerPoint presentation. And for as awesome as that fight sequence in the throne room was, I couldn't get over how the room itself looked more like some planet from the original Star Trek than the inside of a spaceship. Does it look cool to a movie audience? Yes. Is it plausible that Snoke would have chosen to decorate the room that way if a movie audience weren't watching? I'm not so sure.

Time and again, I was reminded that I was watching a movie. After I gave up on trying to get immersed, the movie started looking ridiculous and childish, and it hurt to disengage so brutally from the experience. Sci-fi has always been my favorite form of escapist fiction, and I've never wanted so badly to escape from the fiction. The Last Jedi left such a sour taste in my mouth that I've started skipping Star Wars music when it comes up on one of my playlists. I don't want to be reminded of how uncomfortable and detached I felt watching this film. I don't want to think about what a terrible mess this latest trilogy—and by extension, the whole franchise—is turning into. I'm already bracing myself for Star Wars: Episode IX: Let's Reboot This Trilogy One More Time.

Say what you will about George Lucas. Rian Johnson ruined my childhood, and JJ Abrams made him do it.

I've been lurking around the World Wide Web since the days of dial-up, but it wasn't until my first post with Exfanding Your Horizons in 2008 that I established any kind of online presence. Before then, you'd never find anything of mine by accident—if you had my e-mail address, it was because I knew you in person and gave it to you; if you were on my Angelfire website (about which I remember nothing, other than that it was as much an eyesore as anything else from the Web 1.0 era), it was because I sent you the link. I had a brief flirtation with AOL chat rooms in the '90s, but such a presence is ephemeral at best.

The only public trace of my online existence was a website I created for a high school history project, which was ostensibly about the American Civil War, but which was secretly a playground where the popup text for hovering over Roger B. Taney's portrait was "Would you buy cookies from this man?" and where clicking on the conspicuous blank space at the bottom of the last page would make a picture of Boba Fett appear. It looks like the site has finally been taken down, but I was able to Google and Yahoo! my way back to it for a good many years after I graduated. Other than a stray photo or guestbook signature on someone else's site, you'd never know I was around before 2008.

Or so I thought.

On a whim, I did a web search for "Flashman85," my default handle for general geekery online. Don't ask me what possessed me to do this—I'm not even sure myself. The first several results were no surprise—my profiles on Twitch, YouTube, The Backloggery, Sprites INC, and a few other sites where I felt the urge to comment that one time. But then there was a review of Mega Man for the NES written by a Flashman85. Funny, I thought to myself. I've only ever reviewed that game on GameCola, under my real name. Let's see who this other guy is.

"To paraphrase a friend of mine," the review began, "Capcom's idea for Megaman was 'Mario with a gun.' Indeed, few would suspect how popular a franchise the Blue Bomber would become. The original game was similar to other NES games of the time, but it also had laudable properties that would help it to endure into the next century."

That's an odd coincidence, I thought. I also had a friend who described Mega Man as "Mario with a gun." And I'm definitely the only person on the Internet who uses the words "indeed" and "laudable." Who is this guy?

As it turned out, that guy was me.

Now, I've written a lot during my time with a keyboard in front of me. I may not be able to readily call to mind every post and comment I've virtually penned, but show me something I've written and I'll at least be able to recall a few details about it. Staring at this review—dated 2002, well before I really existed on the Internet—I had no recollection whatsoever of it. I didn't even recognize the website it was on. But there was no mistaking that this was my writing.

The shockingly low word count is what initially threw me the most. The whole review weighs in at a downright economical 231 words, which is barely enough for me to develop an introduction these days. However, it would be totally like me to spend almost 50% of the review complaining about Ice Man's stage. "'If you can beat Ice Man's stage, you can beat any Megaman game' is my motto." A little hint of Dave Barry there. I used to read a lot of Dave Barry. There were signs everywhere that this was me, notwithstanding Past Me's insistence on writing "Mega Man" as one word. Silly Past Me.

I looked around the site for other reviews that I had apparently written, and I found that I had covered all six of the NES Mega Man games. MM3 was no surprise: "My only real qualm is that many of the weapons go unused for most of the game." If I hadn't already caught on by then, my gushing praise for MM4 would have been a complete giveaway that this was me of 14 years ago writing all these reviews: "There is almost nothing for me to complain about in this fantastic game. Buy it. Now."

I've reread enough of my old material to know how far I've come as a writer since 2008, but it's surreal to jump back to 2002. There's little elegance to my old writing, but there's character. You can tell exactly how much I care about each aspect of each game—there's no veneer of objectivity and no time wasted describing anything that doesn't significantly impact my enjoyment of the game, no matter how important it might be for the reader to know. Most of the opinions expressed have remained unchanged in the last 14 years, but the way I express those opinions has evolved dramatically.

I still think MM1 is a classic, I still think people are too quick to label MM2 as easy, and I'm still a bit lukewarm about MM6 in the context of the rest of the series. I had forgotten just how wild about MM5 I used to be; my enthusiasm has cooled somewhat, but it's still one of my favorites. I'm less fanatical about MM4 as well; "Pure Excellence" is not a review title I would ever use anymore, even if the game remains my favorite. It's almost unsettling to hear myself describe MM3 as "one of the best Mega Man games ever." Perhaps you've seen my videos?

It's fascinating and almost a little bittersweet to read my own opinions from an era when I could like or dislike something without putting too much thought into it. Clearly, I was already attuned to certain aspects of game design, but I was capable of both zealotry and indifference without having to provide exhaustive support for my feelings. I've become so analytical that I need to understand why I'm having fun, and I clash so much with the mainstream nowadays that I need to be ready to defend my unpopular opinions at the drop of a hat. I'm too much a champion of separating fact from opinion to be able to share my feelings so unequivocally anymore. I envy Past Me for his ability to play something, enjoy it, write a quick blurb about it, and get back to having fun. He can keep his expository writing style (all the criticism I got from teachers about my essays is starting to make sense), but I wouldn't mind if some of that carefree enthusiasm were to come back.

If you'd like to open this time capsule for yourself, I present to you my old reviews of MM1, MM2, MM3, MM4, MM5, and MM6. Watch for the part where I continue complaining about Ice Man in a game where he doesn't even appear. That's so me.

With no new Mega Man level design contests cropping up, I found myself able to once again devote my free time to...uh...staying late at the office. April was a busy month. However, I managed to accomplish a few things of note, so I'm happy with what I have to show for myself this time.

This Website:

I did a lot of writing in April (at least, by current standards), and there's another Star Trek Series Opinions page and two blog posts already in the works for May. If you ever miss the kind of writing I used to do for Exfanding Your Horizons, the posts from this month should be a treat. Incidentally, I wrote almost the entire post about the NuTrek Enterprise back in February; I just didn't take photos until the trailer for Star Trek Beyond and news of the upcoming Star Trek TV series got me thinking about NuTrek again, which also prompted the 2009 Series Opinions page. I swear I've finally gotten all the complaining about the reboot out of my system. Well, at least until I start reviewing Into Darkness.

- Retrospective: March 2016
- Origin Stories
- A Tall Ship, and a Star Trek to Steer Her By
- Series Opinions: Star Trek (2009)

YouTube:

I simply did not have the time or wherewithal to record as much as I wanted, but I managed to pull off one impromptu livestream, and I recorded the intro stage of Mega Man 8 for my upcoming video playthrough. And, of course, I published the elaborate April Fools video I had originally planned for last year. Happily, it works even better now than it would have then.

Flashman85LIVE:
- One-Shot Live Playthrough: Prince of Persia

GeminiLaser:
- [April Fools'] Mega Man 8 Teaser Trailer

The Backloggery:

I effectively cleared six games from my backlog and only bought two new ones with my tax refund money, but I still only broke even on my progress index for April. Go figure. April was simultaneously one of the most refreshing and one of the most disappointing gaming months I've had in quite a long time.

Appallingly unprofessional PC port issues aside, I had an absolute blast with Ghostbusters, which reminded me why I play video games in the first place. The game was immersive, faithful to the spirit of the movies, thoughtfully designed, possessed of fun mechanics and excellent production values, and very funny (the Spirit Guide descriptions cracked me up). X-Men Legends was a cathartic release of wanton destruction and a throwback to my college days, when people in the house would pop in and out as one of us kept plugging away at the story mode.

Playing a shinier version of Gradius, which I grew up with on the NES, brought back some fond memories, and Gradius Gaiden was awesome. Hopping around from game to game in the Gradius Collection gave me my first real appreciation of what good and bad game design look like in a scrolling shooter. Bad game design looks like this iteration of Gradius III, and to a lesser extent Gradius IV, which derive challenge from all the wrong places.

Although I wasn't as happy with those games as I'd hoped, FEZ was the biggest letdown of the bunch. It could have been a clever puzzle-platformer, or a diabolical puzzle game with platforming elements, but it insisted on being a boring and tedious collectathon with almost everything worthwhile locked away as a poorly explained secret. The game is full of good ideas, but their execution makes the game feel either pretentious or just badly designed—neither of which inspired me to stick with the game any longer than I had to.

Oh, and while the sentiment of gifting me with AVGN Adventures was appreciated, ten minutes with the game reinforced how much I really dislike AVGN. Sorry.

New:
- Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride  (NDS)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius Gaiden  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius II  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius III  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius IV  (PSP)
 
Started:
- Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures  (Steam)
- FEZ  (Steam)
- Ghostbusters: The Video Game  (PC)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius Gaiden  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius II  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius III  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius IV  (PSP)
- Type:Rider  (Steam)
 
Beat:
- FEZ  (Steam)
- Ghostbusters: The Video Game  (PC)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius  (PSP)
- Gradius Collection: Gradius IV  (PSP)
 
Completed:
- X-Men Legends  (GCN)
 
Removed:
- Angry Video Game Nerd Adventures  (Steam)

Hey, this felt like a proper post for a change! It's good to be writing again.

It's no secret that J.J. Abrams' rebooted Star Trek universe has been a source of consternation and displeasure for me since 2009, but while I've discussed the problems with the feel and storytelling of NuTrek rather extensively, there's one element of the reboot that I have yet to thoroughly critique: the Enterprise herself.

And yes, I'm enough of a fan to know that starship names should be italicized. You'll thank me someday when I talk about "the Enterprise of Enterprise" and you can readily identify which one's the TV show. But I digress.

I bring this up because, once a month, I receive two meticulously detailed and screen-accurate model starships from the Star Trek Official Starships Collection, each one accompanied by a magazine filled with neat photos of the featured ship, its fictional history within the Star Trek universe, behind-the-scenes stories about its real-world development, and distracting grammatical errors. (P.S.: Eaglemoss, if you ever need an editor with content area expertise...) The ships come from all corners of Star Trek's 50-year history: icons such as the USS Enterprise-D, the NX-01 (I'll refrain from saying "the Enterprise of Enterprise" so soon), and Deep Space Nine (which is a space station and not a starship, but I'm not complaining); that one cool ship you saw in the background in First Contact; that weird ship that only appeared in one episode of Voyager...really, anything and everything. Short of buying me an actual, functional starship, this is as good as it gets for a geek like me.

Aside from one disappointment (the refit Enterprise from The Motion Picture [TMP], which is perfectly acceptable until you see how much more surface detail went into all the other ships), every new ship has been a joy to unbox and put on display. Once every few months, a special issue becomes available, featuring a larger-than-usual ship for an extra charge. Some months ago, I was given the option to become the proud (?) owner of the Abramsverse Enterprise from the 2009 reboot.

This was a challenging decision. On the one hand, I have so many problems with the design of the ship in question; I cannot readily call to mind any other ship from the entire franchise that I outright dislike. On the other hand, I was looking forward to a future special issue featuring the USS Vengeance from Into Darkness, and it wouldn't do to have the one NuTrek ship I like on a shelf without its rival beside it. Furthermore, there's always the possibility that a future film or TV series set in the Abramsverse will change my opinion about the reboot, and I'd regret missing the opportunity now to collect something I could like later. The completionist in me ultimately won out, and I've been trying to figure out how to feel about it ever since.

On its own, the design of the 2009 Enterprise (sounds like I'm talking about a car) is passable enough. If it were a ship designed by a new alien race or belonging to a different sci-fi franchise altogether, I don't think I'd mind it. It's sleek, it's curvy, it's glowy and full of lens flare. The problem is that it's a reimagining of a classic ship that, like the rest of NuTrek, ignores every precedent that should have informed its design.

The USS Enterprise of the original Star Trek (TOS) is simultaneously very '60s and very forward-thinking. The ship cuts a memorable figure, distinct from the flying saucers and rocket ships that had dominated science fiction up until that point, but the surface details are only slightly more complex than anything you'd see in Buck Rogers or Flash Gordon. It's retro and futuristic at the same time, which makes it difficult to revise for a modern audience without sacrificing some part of its identity. It's also a beloved icon, so someone is bound to complain, no matter what you do. I get that.

I think the refit Enterprise created for TMP is a superb example of a revision done right, though. The ship's proportions and basic shape were left intact, more surface detail was added, and only a few elements (nacelles, deflector dish) were revamped substantially, modernizing the ship by tinkering with the existing blueprints. When you look at the subsequent Enterprises (B, C, D, E, and even J), it's apparent that the same design mentality was still in use; you can imagine each Enterprise being stretched or compressed into the shape of the next one in line, rather than being built from scratch.

Even the NX-01, designed for a TV show filmed decades after TOS but taking place a century before, has several key design elements in common with good ol' NCC-1701 (especially after the refit that was planned to happen if the show had remained on the air). If you can accept that somewhere between Enterprise and Next Generation there is a galaxy-wide revival of 1960s aesthetics that interrupts the otherwise consistent look of Star Trek, then it's not unreasonable to believe that Archer's Enterprise could evolve into Kirk's Enterprise.

Here's the thing: The Abramsverse doesn't reboot all of Star Trek; it only rewrites the timeline starting with the birth of James T. Kirk. This means that Zefram Cochrane still made his first warp flight in the Phoenix we saw in First Contact, and that the NX-01—whose design clearly took some measure of inspiration from the Phoenix—was still out saving the galaxy while Kirk's grandfather was in diapers. We even see models of these ships in Admiral Marcus's office in Into Darkness. So even if every other starship design principle of later Star Trek is thrown out the airlock, the Abramsprise should still look like a descendant of the Phoenix and the NX-01.

It doesn't even look like a distant relative. My wife says it looks like a Fisher-Price toy.

And you can't peg this on Nero disrupting the timeline, either. Starfleet encounters all-powerful beings that destroy starships all the time, yet this one incident where a mystery ship obliterates a single vessel and then disappears for 25 years is enough to spook Starfleet engineers into building a USS Enterprise that's a caricature of the original timeline's ship, and twice as big. Bigger, in fact, than the largest vessels that Picard and Sisko bring into battle against the Borg and the Dominion a century later. I think the following chart speaks volumes about what's wrong with the NuTrek Enterprise:

How would any Star Trek character explain this monstrosity to a fellow Starfleet officer without breaking the fourth wall? In real life, the designers took the original, forward-thinking Enterprise and exaggerated the components for a faux-retro look that's more 1960s than the 1960s. They were going to keep the ship close to the original scale, but then the scene in the shuttle bay didn't look impressive enough, so they doubled the size of the ship to increase the wow factor. No Starfleet engineer says, "This shuttle bay isn't jaw-dropping enough; let's double the effort and resources required for the whole construction."

Part of the reason I like the Vengeance so much is that it at least looks like a plausible product of Starfleet covert ops engineering. It's essentially a mashup of two canonical starship classes (Constitution refit and Sovereign), with creative elements that give the ship a unique look without altering the weight and lines of traditional Starfleet design. Even the Kelvin, lopsided as it is, has a sense of balance in line with that of the Oberth or Constellation classes.

When I look at the Abramsprise, all I can see are the ridiculous nacelles. In contrast with every other vessel in Starfleet history, the nacelles are as thick as the saucer section and even thicker than the stardrive section. They're too long and close together relative to the saucer section, giving the ship the appearance of having been gripped tightly and pulled back like a balloon animal. The pylons that attach the nacelles to the rest of the ship have almost a Romulan-style curve to them; Starfleet pylons are consistently straight, and even Galaxy- and Nebula-class pylons only use curves to round off the sharpness of a right angle. Everything about the nacelles draws the attention to the back of the ship. It's also irritating that the bussard collectors glow blue instead of the usual red. That last point might seem nitpicky even for me, but try changing one of the colors on your country's national flag and see how long it takes to bother you.

Any other elongated class of starship with a sense of movement to its design (e.g., Excelsior, Sovereign) has the look of a graceful bird or a swift predator about it. The Abramsprise has the look of an animal that was injected with whatever absurd vaccine McCoy gave to Kirk that made his hands swell up in the film. The nacelles are oversized jet thrusters hanging onto the back of the ship for dear life, and the saucer section fits onto the secondary hull like a full-sized sombrero on a child. There's no way this ship was designed by the same Starfleet engineers who would've made the Enterprise we know and love if some angry Romulan hadn't killed Kirk's dad.

Here's a comparison shot that helps illustrate how absurdly exaggerated the Abramsprise's features are—note that the engineering hull is basically the same size on both vessels (and also the bridge module, but you can barely tell here):

I think about the thought processes that went into designing the Reliant (immediately recognizable as Starfleet, but with a different shape so as not to confuse it with the Enterprise), the Excelsior (the Enterprise, but with an elegant Japanese aesthetic), and the Defiant (built for war, not exploration), and they all ask, "WWSD?" (What Would Starfleet Design?). The proportions, the contours, they all make sense to me. Nothing makes sense to me about the Abramsprise, and I can barely get a good look at the whole thing because my eyes keep sliding down the ship and falling off the back of it. This is not redesigning a ship for a new generation; this is having a little too much fun with Kai's Power Goo.

NuTrek had an opportunity to craft an Enterprise that made more sense as a successor to the NX-01. And as far as the story is concerned, there's not nearly enough of a rationale for why the new Enterprise looks so drastically different from the one that would have been designed if Nero hadn't shown up for two minutes. Early design sketches of the reboot Enterprise hint at a faithfulness to the source material, but the finished product seems to reflect the personal taste of the director more than the 50 years of Star Trek history that should have played into the design. I could even live with the retro-futuristic design if it leaned more toward TOS in terms of surface detail; ironically, those complex textures make the ship look too close to the Starfleet aesthetic from TMP onward, which only serves to emphasize the differences with the rest of the ship.

Somewhere between the two designs above is the Enterprise that should have carried us into the future.

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.