Movies Then and Now

I just saw the new trailer for the new Terminator movie, and it was hitting all the points a new Terminator movie trailer should hit. Then, out of the blue a giant kaiju-sized Terminator emerged and crushed a building. It was practically Monsterpocalypse, Terminator style! Okay, so maybe Warner Brothers didn’t include a giant Terminator in the new film because of Monsterpocalypse—but clearly, oversized monsters and robots are a sign of the times. Technological advancements in special effects have moved the giant-monster genre out of the realm of big rubber suits and cartoons and toward a realism that could make a first-time moviegoer wet himself.

Did you know movie trailers are not allowed to have a gun pointed at the audience? Apparently, in 1903 a trailer for The Great Train Robbery included a scene where a character unloaded his gun into the camera. The movie patrons who first saw this were so freaked out they ran out of the theater thinking they were under attack. Can you imagine what those people would have done if they had seen the giant Terminator rising out of the building and coming right at them? Movie making is at a point where anything we can imagine, we can make appear to be real.

This doesn’t mean the classic kaiju film has been displaced; those rubber-suited combat scenes will always hold a special place of awesomeness in our hearts. But there is something especially great about seeing one genre being incorporated into another. The kaiju films of yesteryear needed a lot of resources to give Godzilla or Ultraman an environment they could exist in: sets had to be built, costumes made, and tiny flying saucers hung from strings on a pole. These days, if you want a big monster in your movie you just call up ILM and presto! Giant Terminator emerges from a building! That’s pretty cool in my book. While new films like Cloverfield will still be created, many others will be incorporating more and more giant monster-sized creations into their films because the technology is so much more readily available. Heck, for the past six months I’ve been seeing a commercial for an online car shopping site that features a kaiju-sized car shopper picking up cars and walking over buildings. If a simple commercial can work in those special effects, there’s no stopping a movie with its monstrous budget (pun intended). It’s a good time to love big monsters!

In Other News

Monsterpocalypse Series 2: I Chomp NY is currently being printed and produced. The final proofs for the stat cards were sent back this week and the figures are being shot, assembled, and painted right now, so they should be ready for your consumption sometime in mid-March. The third Monsterpocalypse set is winding down its design cycle and preparing to be sent off to China for preproduction. The fourth is in the queue and being playtested.

We have heard a lot of good things out there about Monsterpocalypse rocking the tables at the game stores. We at Privateer are taking that feedback seriously. We have plans for new sets stretching into 2011 and beyond. One could say that making monsters is our business, and business is good!

As we move into the holiday season, remember there is no better gift that you can give your friends and family than a Monsterpocalypse Starter Set, and there is no activity more important than participating in a Monsterpocalypse Organized Play event. (Some might say that love and community service, respectively, fill those roles, but that mushy stuff is yesterday’s news—today’s headlines are all about Monsterpocalypse!) More Starter Sets have been printed and are being sent out to distributors and stores as we speak. More OP kits have also been produced and will be appearing at a store near you in the coming weeks.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, people!

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