{"id":9038,"date":"2024-11-20T01:00:20","date_gmt":"2024-11-20T08:00:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/blog\/league-of-extraordinary-animation\/"},"modified":"2025-03-20T15:44:29","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T22:44:29","slug":"league-of-extraordinary-animation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/blog\/league-of-extraordinary-animation\/","title":{"rendered":"League of extraordinary animation\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Is the term \u201ckiller app\u201d still in parlance in the tech community? If not, quick rundown: hardware by itself doesn\u2019t sell, or at least doesn\u2019t sell for long. This is particularly true with game consoles and is why they tend to jealously guard their library of IPs. I remember the original release of the Xbox, and my local group and I had next to no interest in shelling out for that thing until we played HALO<\/em> at a friend\u2019s house, and within a few months all of us had an Xbox. Because HALO<\/em>. That one game was arguable what made the Xbox a contender in the console marketplace. It was the \u201ckiller app.\u201d A couple of decades earlier, the consensus was that as far as emerging videocassette technology was concerned, Betamax was the clearly superior format to VHS. And yet VHS won out, because the porn industry chose to make their tapes compatible with it. In the world of entertainment, the tail wags the dog.<\/p>\n

Why do I bring this up? Well, mostly because I love to be oblique and bury the lede. The lede is that during the writer\u2019s strike we canceled our Netflix subscription. The days where Netflix was the only real game in town for streaming were long gone and the prices kept going up while the management was making some very questionable decisions with their \u201csoftware,\u201d i.e. their library both of existing titles and newly minted exclusives. Some of it wasn\u2019t their fault or under their control as major players were getting their own channels into circulation and circling the wagons, calling their IPs home so that you weren\u2019t going to see Disney and such available anymore. Other decisions like canceling the Dark Crystal<\/em> prequel series made me feel like one of those anime protagonists who has to clench their fists with tears streaming from their eyes and declare \u201cI cannot forgive you!\u201d<\/p>\n

But if I\u2019m totally honest it was probably the costs. Some people can afford to buy all the consoles and some can\u2019t, right? And there was nothing particularly compelling keeping me there. After cancelling of course I found out no one else did even though we\u2019d all talked about it, and Netflix apparently got its act back together and was putting out some good apps again, but\u2026 I held out. Even with Dawn poking at me hopefully every so often and pointing to things our friends were raving over like Blue Eyed Samurai<\/em>, I held out.<\/p>\n

So Netflix called in the nuclear option and hit me with their ads for Season 2 of Arcane: League of Legends<\/em>.<\/p>\n

There was no defense. They knew of my love for Season 1 and my figuring they would just cancel it like they canceled all other good and right things in the world, and no, they renewed it and waved it before me and my dumb bull ass ran right into the anvil of resubscription.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s the kicker. It\u2019s good. It may even be better than the first Season, and that\u2019s particularly surprising in a world where sequels and prequels so often don\u2019t measure up to what we loved in the first go \u2019round.<\/p>\n

No, good doesn\u2019t quite capture it. Six episodes in and everything shows the hallmarks of not only a generous budget but the work of a creative team firing on all cylinders with the storytelling, voice acting, and especially the animation. It\u2019s gorgeous. It\u2019s moving. It was worth the wait, and worth my pride in crawling on back to the entertainment ex.<\/p>\n

I still have a lot of worry for Season 2 of Andor,<\/em> although for better or worse my Disney+ subscription just renewed for the year. Now that we can pick and choose there\u2019s a lot more need to keep an eye on what we\u2019re picking and choosing. But for now, I have found a new killer app, and I am content.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is the term \u201ckiller app\u201d still in parlance in the tech community? If not, quick rundown: hardware by itself doesn\u2019t sell, or at least doesn\u2019t sell for long. This is particularly true with game consoles and is why they tend to jealously guard their library of IPs. I remember the original release of the Xbox, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_bluesky_dont_syndicate":"","_bluesky_syndication_accounts":"","_bluesky_syndication_text":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ERFy-2lM","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":9035,"url":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/blog\/host-of-cowpokes-past\/","url_meta":{"origin":9038,"position":0},"title":"Host of cowpokes past\u2026","author":"dawn","date":"December 25, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Hot take nearly half-a-decade past its prime: Red Dead Redemption 2 is turning out to be quite the good video game. I didn\u2019t buy it on its release in 2019 and continued not to buy it all through COVID. Maybe after The Witcher I just wasn\u2019t down with another epic\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2024\/12\/20241224004424_1-Yk9Bwk.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2024\/12\/20241224004424_1-Yk9Bwk.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2024\/12\/20241224004424_1-Yk9Bwk.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2024\/12\/20241224004424_1-Yk9Bwk.jpeg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2024\/12\/20241224004424_1-Yk9Bwk.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2024\/12\/20241224004424_1-Yk9Bwk.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9033,"url":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/blog\/playing-cowpokes-and-aliens\/","url_meta":{"origin":9038,"position":1},"title":"Playing cowpokes and aliens\u2026","author":"dawn","date":"February 26, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"The Eaton Fire was a very near miss on our place and it was good to take a break while we dealt with insurance, cleanup, etc. It could have been a lot worse for us but being on the frontlines of a natural disaster is a heck of a thing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2025\/02\/xcomsuzie-c35ZrT.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2025\/02\/xcomsuzie-c35ZrT.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2025\/02\/xcomsuzie-c35ZrT.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2025\/02\/xcomsuzie-c35ZrT.jpeg?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2025\/02\/xcomsuzie-c35ZrT.jpeg?resize=1050%2C600 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/files\/2025\/02\/xcomsuzie-c35ZrT.jpeg?resize=1400%2C800 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9105,"url":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/blog\/outlook-uncertain-try-again-later\/","url_meta":{"origin":9038,"position":2},"title":"Outlook uncertain, try again later\u2026?","author":"dawn","date":"April 9, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I don\u2019t usually post about current events outside the sphere of pop culture, but in this case the events are broad enough they\u2019re intruding on it. The week before last Dawn and I were at WonderCon and also hearing from friends at another show out of state and the word\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blog"","block_context":{"text":"Blog","link":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/category\/blog\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9052,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9038\/revisions\/9052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.labreject.com\/clint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}