The Death Cultists behind the slow motion train wreck that is The Last of Us Part II tried plying outraged fans with the stick. Now they try the carrot.
That’s ubiquitous voice actor Troy Baker getting trotted out to shill this hate letter sold to fans as a game. Such obvious gaslighting is proof of LoU2 developer Neil Druckmann getting desperate.
The game journos deployed for the first round of damage control already called the series’ fans entitled babies and “predictable bastards”. Since vinegar failed to stem fans’ burning anger over the studio’s probably internal leaks, they’re now scrambling to douse the flames in honey.
But you know it’s a desperation play when even Naughty Dog’s coat holders in the games media admit the chosen shill’s financial interest.
Baker obviously has a lot of investment in the success of the game, but his words should make fans feel a bit better about the spoilers currently floating around. The Last of Us was a massive critical and commercial success, so everyone involved wants the final product to live-up to its predecessor.
How suddenly ethical!
The attempt to paper over Baker’s crass mercenary motive in that last sentence gives the game away. For starters, it’s a non sequitur that leads with a true statement to distract from the BS that follows.
No one is denying that the first game was a success. That’s exactly why its fans are duly upset that Neil Druckmann has ruined the sequel. That song and dance about everyone involved wanting the sequel to live up to its predecessor is gratuitous noise contradicted by the leaked evidence.
In his hamfisted bit of Twitter deflection above, Baker asserts that he IS Joel. Let’s take him at his word. A man who can be beaten by a tranny with a golf club and go crawling back while making excuses displays a severe case of battered spouse syndrome, among other things.
Druckmann’s desperate damage control does provide us with one useful service: an infallible test for thralls of the Pop Cult. Anybody who falls for Baker’s carnival barking should have all access to his bank accounts and car keys revoked for his own good.
Because it’s pathetic giving money to people who hate you.
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I predict we'll be getting LOU3 teasers of Joel's return to boost LOU2 sales.
The joke is going around that you can almost see a gun-barrel indent on Troy's temple.
"4-alarm fire sweeps through downtown Moscow to make way for glorious new tractor factory."
"Neil Druckmann (Hebrew: ניל דרוקמן; born December 5, 1978) is an Israeli-American writer, creative director, and programmer, and Vice President of Naughty Dog, known for his work in the video games The Last of Us and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End."
Lord, have mercy on the Hebrews. I have tested Your patience more than they.
There were Bob Kane, Bill Finger, Joe Shuster, Jerry Siegel, Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, and a bunch of others back in the day. Sadly, times have changed.
Actors (voice and otherwise) have this rather annoying habit of confusing themselves with the roles they play. No you are not Joel, dumbass. Joel is a fictional character that you get to read lines (written by other people) for. You have no control over Joel's fate, actions, or even look. You are paid to agree with the folks who sign your check.
Yeah, I haven't seen any sure signs that Baker is a true believer. He comes off more as an unwitting paid stooge.
Role identification is an occupational hazard of Method acting. All the work we put into getting into the character's head can result in the converse also happening. It's certainly silly to mistake oneself for the character after the curtain has closed and the house lights have come up, but an actor who's done his work should be able to speak for a character, even if he's not playing that character at the moment. It can be very annoying, though, if an actor is dropping into character without warning, or an audience, or his cast-mates.
I once heard on Ancient Faith Radio that very early Christian canons forbade Christians from becoming actors–which was ridiculous, if you ask me. Who doesn't love how people who play pretend for a living can toy with our emotions and influence public opinion?
I can understand why the early Christians forbade involvement in the theatre, as well as why the Puritans closed them during the Commonwealth period. Greek theatre evolved from their pagan religious observances. In the frew few centuries after Pentecost, I would venture to say that all forms of theatre were fundamentally idolatrous. St. Augustine of Hippo references Greco-Roman theatre in The City of God and points out that the plays supposedly put on in honor of their gods actually illustrate how scandalous their behavior is and how unworthy of worship they were. Even those plays were that were not explicitly idolatrous were unlikely to pass the Philippians 4:8 test. Long after Christendom developed new theatrical traditions and left everything but the technical jargon of the old pagan theatre behind, plays and performances which weren't explicitly Christian were probably better left unread and unheard. Shakespeare is replete with dirty jokes and double entendres, for example, because that's what kept the groundlings coughing up their pennies.
An actor can only speak for his personal interpretation of the character. The people who own the character still determine who the character is, how the character behaves, and what eventually happens to him. The actor is the character's mouthpiece, but the writer is the character's mind.
"Shakespeare is replete with dirty jokes and double entendres, for example, because that's what kept the groundlings coughing up their pennies"
So Shakespeare wrote joke's that regular people found funny. Making a work the common person wants to see is simply good practice.
Which is why THE FORCE AWAKENS, James Cameron's AVATAR, and a movie about men in capes are among the top four grossing films of all time; I can hear gangsta rap on every street; and the adage "sex sells" exists. Because appealing to the lowest common denominator is good practice for making good art.
I know what you're trying to say, Bellomy, but it doesn't take much to earn the money of common people. If you care about more than making money, then you can't rely on people's baser desires or senses of humor as a cruch.
But the thing is Shakespeare wrote dirty jokes and still made great art that uplifts the spirits and morality of the masses. Shakespeare's work is totally in keeping with Christian morality and to compare it to the force awakens is like comparing the dog to dog shit.
Which makes it good that I didn't actually compare his plays to THE FORCE AWAKENS.
My opinions of Shakespeare are certainly colored by the botched introductions to him that I received in high school English, but I feel like people make themselves learn about him because he's old and difficult to understand (to modern English-speakers). That is not to say that I did not enjoy his comedy A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.
@Bellomy –
I agree: writing and producing plays people want to see is simply good business. That being said, they weren't all of the same quality, or even all good. For example, when was the last time you saw, or even heard of, a production of Titus Andronicus? Shakespeare's dirty jokes were certainly a part of his appeal, but they're not the parts we quote as great poetry five hundred years later. Do we remember Juliet's Nurse and her bawdy advice, or Juliet and her balcony speech? Do we remember the Porter from The Scottish Play, or the titular character's "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow" speech?
Unclever Hans,
Tell you what, if TFA and Avatar is performed as much and is as beloved as Shakespeare in a hundred years you can get back to me. Give me a call in the afterlife.
If you weren't comparing Shakespeare to them what was your point?
A Reader,
No, not every play was good, but on the flip side I don't think you can isolate individual good sections of his plays like that separate from the whole. The humor isn't just glibly inserted to appeal to dumb people, it plays a role in lightening the narrative at particular points, and many of his humorous characters worked as meta-jokes that commented on the play as well. I can't remember every line or scene of TLotR either.
Hans, you say this:
I"you care about more than making money, then you can't rely on people's baser desires or senses of humor as a cruch."
To act like Shakespeare used sense of humor as a crutch to draw in the unwashed masses because he had nothing higher or better to say is simply absurd.
Untrigger yourself, Bellomy, and shoot me a message via my site if your question isn't rhetorical.
The lone poem that you find may also be amateurish when compared against the sonnets of Shakespeare, but that's not why I'm inviting you. I would rather resume our discussion off of Mr. Niemeier's comment section.
Hans, if you think I am "triggered" you're right. We have nothing to discuss.
What they told us in English class was that Shakespeare appealed across classes, and put in the flowery speeches we read in English class for the royalty and intellectuals, and jokes about maidenheads and orchids for the groundlings. (There are also puns we don't get anymore because the pronounciation of words has changed–'ripe' sounded 'rape' and 'hour' like 'whore', for example.)
Basically, he straddled high and low. As for Christian morality–well, undoubtedly he was a Christian given the time period he was in. Whether his *plays* inculcate that is another story–certainly we see bad people prosper, as in real life, and a lot of his greatest works are tragedies. Probably the man wrote for a living, put in dirty jokes to fill the seats, and when he had a chance to use his once-in-a-millennium gift for elevated poetic language, did.
"Because appealing to the lowest common denominator is good practice for making good art." I wouldn't consider TFA or Avatar good art. Making lots of money doesn't equal great. I know it does to the bean counters for these companies, but these aren't examples of high art.
"Probably the man wrote for a living, put in dirty jokes to fill the seats, and when he had a chance to use his once-in-a-millennium gift for elevated poetic language, did."
Again though, I think this trivializes things. No, not everything Shakespeare wrote was brilliant – Titus Andronicus is a good example of an exception, as is Pericles. But there is a skill in writing joke's the common man finds funny, and the skill is greater still when it involves clever use of wordplay.
I'm not saying these dirty joke's are just as brilliant as Hamlet's soliloquies, but I am saying that acting as if they don't exist as part of the same great works as those soliloquies is overly reductive. As is dismissing the humor entirely as "dirty joke's".
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In a bit of schadenfruede news, the hard Leftist gatekeeper at Kickstarter has been let go:
https://youtu.be/iG3EvY10FDA
Brian
Fascinating (in Spock's voice)
But.i.just.don't.care.
I'm spending my money elsewhere.
xavier