One Year Anniversary

One year ago I started this blog. I had one movie blog before this, but it didn't live past first few posts. This is first that got going. One reason is that Netflix finally came to Finland and now I have enough movies to write about. Before I only had my movie collection and rented movies. Before starting this, I started writing reviews to Netflix and IMDB. Then one of my colleagues told about her blog and I got idea to start blog, where I don't have to worry about spoiling. I try not to spoil too much. Sometime I succeed in that. Sometimes I spoil too much without giving new point of view or anything else. Sometimes I just have to spoil the whole movie to make my point. I try to leave something unspoiled, if I can say what I wanted without telling everything.

One reason, why this blog is this way, is that I miss Finnish Babylon 5 community. There was Finnish Babylon 5 community containing message board and few web sites living on schedule Babylon 5 was shown in Finnish television. After episodes, they were analysed episodes and community members speculated, what will happen in future episodes. There was policy of not talking about  episodes not yet shown in Finland. Episodes shown in Finland were totally spoiled in community. This community is one reason, why I think Babylon 5 is the best tv series ever. I have watched it few times without community and it is still works.

I try to balance analyzing and not spoiling too much. Obviously, I can't go as much analyzing as Babylon 5 community did. Those using the sites and message board knew what the deal was. Someone coming to this blog is may want spoiler free material or at least doesn't want to be totally spoiled. With Doctor Who's 50th anniversary, I got some of that Babylon 5 community feeling again. I could follow international discussions without spoiling. I won't be able to see chirstmas special when it is aired first time. So that was only for that one time.

My HBO Nordic rants have been most popular posts of this blog. Last week I saw news, how it is getting only fraction of subscribers and daily users of that of Netflix or ViaPlay in Sweden. I assume situation is similar in Finland. I think we have same streaming services in Finland as they have in Sweden. HBO Nordic messed they launch and they still haven't catched others. HBO Nordic have their advantage that they show their episodes same time all around the world, but that doesn't seem to matter to customers. Or they gave so bad first impression that customers doesn't want to give them second change.

I have more than enough to watch in Netflix and ViaPlay. I checked HBO Nordic site for this this post. Selection of movies is quite limited. Series selection is much better. But for me there were only few series that I want to watch and few that I may want to watch, if I gave them change. HBO Nordic feels like good additional streaming service, when you could do fine with only Netfilx or ViaPlay. From this perspective it is strange that HBO Nordic is most expencive of the three. I might give HBO Nordic change in future. If their movie selection doesn't change much, one or two months could be enough to watch everything interesting and then you can cancel your subscription.

After HBO Nordic rants comes my Ninth Legion posts. For those posts I had to do some studies, because movies were based on real history. Roman army had ninth legion, that just disappeared from historical references. First it was there, then it wasn't and there was never ninth legion again. Historians today don't know what happened to them. I think my ninth legion posts get people, who are interested in history, rather than people, who are interested in movies. I didn't start to do other movies based on history, because I am not into that kind of movies. I might do other similar posts, if I find correct movies. The 300 Spartans and 300 could be suitable movies. No promises yet. Those kind of post take more time than my regular posts, but they tend to get more hits too.

Some people celebrate number of posts or episodes. I chose to celebrate years for two reasons. This is blog that have regular schedule and I don't want to count trailers as posts. This post is 188th post. This blog has gone past 100 posts even, if you take trailers out of that number. Counting years is easier and better in this situation.

I have no big plans for future. There will be themes. Even theme months, if I got enough material. Around christmas there will be few christmas themed movies. No other themes are planned at the moment. I try to do Star Trek episodes I promised some time in future. Now that I ended Doctor Who Thursdays, I may start Star Trek Thursdays. Before that I want to do some movies.

On my Green Lantern post, I told, how movie made me want to check the comics. I did check them. I started from first issue of New 52. New 52 is relaunch of every DC comics, that happened two years ago. Now I have read every Green Lantern comic of New 52. Until latest issue, those have been best DC material I have read excluding special releases like Dark Knight returns and Red Son. Latest issue is first one after Lights Out event and may suffer from start of new story lines. I bought the Spider-man comic, which have that Gwen Stacy story. I had to buy physical copy, because I couldn't buy electronic version. When Amazing Spider-Man sequels come, I can check how faithful they are to original story.

I talked earlier how I wanted to watch Stargate. I got to half way of first season and then it started to feel like work. I didn't like the politics of Stargate unit and rest of the army. The world of Stargate is interesting enough. I don't want to watch, how people on earth argue, who will control the stargate. I may give it a second try and try to watch it on slower pace until it feels interesting again.

Doctor Who's 50th anniversary episode was first tv program in years, I watched, when it was aired. Live sport programs excluded. I also recorded it and have seen it three times already. I still think it is best Doctor Who story. It had so much little presents for whovians, that it is amazing how good the story was. There were dozens of little things, like lines of dialog from older episodes, but it all worked in a way, it didn't feel forced.

I think that was all for this post. Thanks for reading my blog and I hope you continue to enjoy it in future too.